Novelty of Noah - ON HOLD

Three

A week had passed since Adelia was tricked into snooping around Noah's bedroom. This resulted in him strenuously slamming the door in her face.

Since that particular occurrence, no progress was made with breaking Noah out of his shell. In fact, Adelia felt as if she was moving backwards, rather than forwards. She had lost his trust and she was reminded of it every day.

Noah would go above and beyond to avoid Adelia, and she could not quite figure out why. Adelia understood how him finding her snooping around his belongings would frustrate him. However, he held this grudge from the moment he met her.

Mauve insisted that Noah personally had nothing against her, but Adelia couldn't help to disagree. Although he would never smile or laugh, he would still hold out thoughtful gestures to everyone else but her.

Since Adelia had picked up on this, she decided it was time to take action rather than waiting around for him to soften up to her.

Adelia gathered two things from unintentionally snooping around Noah's bedroom. That was his love for tennis and violent video games. Since Adelia was absolutely hopeless at video games, she resorted to the idea of playing tennis.

Adelia found herself dragging a sack full of dirt cheap tennis rackets, tennis balls and a portable tennis net. She let out loud grumbles and groans as she attempted to transport the bag from the entrance to the door leading into the garden.

Adelia stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed a swarm of children running down the hall towards her direction. As they came to a holt, she dropped the bag which weighed an entire elephant and placed her hands on her hips.

"Christ, we thought you were dying," Jess said, which did not come to a surprise to Adelia.

"I thought we could play some tennis." Adelia chirped while beaming a bright smile towards the kids.

Adelia watched as the majority of the children's faces were covered with a smile from ear to ear. All except for two, Jess and Noah. Jess scoffed and rolled her eyes so far back into her head Adelia almost became concerned. As for Noah, he just stood motionless with the same wearisome expression as The Statue of Liberty.

Without saying a word, Jess turned her back to Adelia and walked back in the direction they emerged from. This encouraged Noah to do the same but Adelia stopped him before he could take another step.

"You're joining us, Noah, I'm not giving you a choice on this one," Adelia instructed with a strict yet cheerful tone.

"What about me? Are you going to make me join?" Jess yelled to Adelia from the distance.

"Uh, no. That'll be one too many." Adelia spat back.

Her sassy remark made the kids chuckle and even caused an outburst of "Oooh's". Adelia smiled, feeling proud of herself as she gazed over at Noah. He was gazing back at her but something had changed in his expression. The way his eyes crinkled and the position of his lips were almost unrecognisable to Adelia. It was as if he was holding back a smile or a laugh.

This caused Adelia to panic. She quickly broke the eye contact she had made with Noah and glared down towards the floor.

Adelia felt a wave of relief as the children one by one ran out into the garden. Fortunately for Adelia, they all missed the bright red glow resting on her cheeks.

Once all the kids had made their way outside, a couple of awkward seconds went by between Adelia and Noah. He then decided to rush over to her and pick up the side of the bag which had been dragged along the floor.

Adelia stood frozen for a second, it was almost as if she needed a chance to register what was happening. She struggled to believe that out of nowhere, and after a week of no progress, he was finally coming undone. And by the look on Jess' face, as Adelia locked eyes with her from across the hallway, she could not believe it either.