the beach | noel miller

viii

January
10:30 am

Awakening at the sensation of pain in her neck Rose forces her eyes to open. Groaning as she snaps her hand to her neck, she quickly puts together where she is. In Noel's living room. Checking to see if he's awake she finds him still in the same position from last night except this time, he looks a little dead. Realising she doesn't know what the time is she attempts to find her phone by picking the blanket up and shaking it, hoping that her phone doesn't go flying across the room she hears it hit the couch. Turning it on her eyes go a little wide when she realises she slept past 7 am, hell 6 am even. She notices the texts from the friends that seem a little concerned for her safety, scrolling down she sees she has a missed call from Cody. Letting out a quiet shit, she sneaks away into Noel's bedroom so she doesn't wake him. Being considerate feels weird to Rose. Clicking on her brothers caller ID she runs through her "at a friend house" excuse trying to avoid telling her brother she slept at this best friends place for multiple reasons. The number one being she will have to explain its not what it sounded like which will end up with the siblings going in circles.

Hearing the line click she says a quick hey, not expecting her voice to betray her since it sounds like she just woke up. Which she did but that isn't the point. Hearing Cody chuckle he asks the million dollar question "did you just wake up?" to which Rose replies with a generic excuse that "they were up late" expecting Cody's next question she tells him that she was with Nadia. Nadia is Rose's best friend since their first year at school, and she's really the only person who was never intimidated by Rose. It's funny how opposites attract, Nadia was typical sunshine and rainbows, cutesy LA girl while Rose was.. Rose. That didn't stop her from loving Nadia though, it never would. Cody "ah's" in understanding, telling her that Marcus shot him a text asking if she got home safe. Rose smiled at the thought of Marcus being worried about her, and told Cody she'd be home soon. She asked him how his date went, of course he proceeded to talk about Kelsey in adoration for the next 5 minutes. With Rose realising how serious he was about her offered a second meeting liking the idea of meeting his sort of girlfriend when she was mentally beating herself up. She could  hear the smile when he agreed. Feeling like her nice deed of the year was done, she exchanged goodbyes and ended the call.

Opening Noel's door she sees that her task of not waking up Noel has failed. Offering a "I'd apologise for waking you up but I don't give a shit" she hears him say "fuck you" joined by his laughter. Joining him on the couch she voices her thoughts of needing a coffee and advil to which Noel agrees, explaining how his back was fucking killing him. He walks into the kitchen getting advil, thinking of the brilliant idea of going to Starbucks for coffee and tells Rose, until they realise his car was at Cody's still. Rose slightly panics at the thought of how is he gonna explain why he left his car there, until Noel reassures her that it's parked across the street. Both agreeing on the fact they wanna keep whatever last night was on the low specifying that they didn't do anything wrong, it was more Cody probably thinking it was weird. Conjuring a plan of ubering a street over, walking to Noel's car and then heading to Starbucks, they both laugh at how stupid this whole plan was but neverless enjoying it. Telling Rose he's just gonna get changed he walks away, small smile on his lips at the fact that they were hanging out. Again.

Rose sends Cody a quick text letting him know that her and "Nadia" were just getting brunch. Feeling a little flustered at the idea of how this whole thing looks, she pushed it aside as Noel walks out his door. Uber already on its way, he tells her that he has this car ride covered. The "can you afford it" just slips out of Rose's mouth. She didn't even mean it in the way it sounded, she gave him a knowing look and added "I didn't mean it like that." Noel found it a little amusing that she cares enough to attempt to apologise which pushes him to voice his thoughts, he smirks "that sounded like you cared" waiting for the shove or eye roll he never got it. Only agreement through her silence.

Arriving at the street across from her brothers, Rose feels like a little kid again which is rare since she grew up so fast. She enjoys this feeling of giddiness, if only she wasn't so oblivious to the fact that it is because of the guy who spilt his drink over her. Noel notices how carefree she seems, her eyebrows aren't knitted like they normally are, and her shoulders look relaxed as they can be because of her incredible posture. Reaching his car as quickly as possible, quietly giggling she subconsciously looks at Noel taking in his features. "So Starbucks?" he speaks up and Rose nods in head in agreement. Getting bored she flicks through the radio, until she lands on sweet disposition by the temper trap, softly smiling she turns it up. Noel looks at her seeing her tap her fingers to the beat, seeing how her sunglasses frame her face, long hair blowing wildly in the wind he thinks how truly fucking beautiful she is. Rose has never really felt comfortable with anyone this quickly before, its funny. It took her forever to warm up to her roommates, friends, peers whoever really but with Noel its sort of like magnets.

Parking and going in she skims the menu, Noel does the same. Ordering her usual blonde americano Noel cant help to comment "I'm pretty sure a line of coke will do the same thing" she looks at him and says "already tried" faking a frown all in front of the the cashier who looks mortified. Noel orders his usual which reminds her of clip in one of her brothers vlogs, smirking she mocks Cody "you want your birth control with that?" attempting to get a reaction out of Noel. He laughs, he kind of hates how much he's laughed around her- more so because of her. Before they could even make small talk two teenage girls walk over look at the pair and shyly say "hi we're big fans" and how they didn't realise we were friends. Rose and Noel just laugh in return, before the older looking one out of the two ask for a photo. Agreeing they stand up, Rose silently prays they want separate photos to which her prayers were answered. She forces a smile that looks incredibly real, making the girls day. She likes this, sometimes the "fans" could be irritating but she knew they mean no harm. Most times Rose didn't even process the fact that some people actually like watching her in the vlogs.

Watching the girls walk away Noel exclaims how cool that was to which Rose just replies with "I didn't even knew people liked me." "Psh I didn't even know people knew me" trying to make her laugh, which worked. They finish their drinks, Rose that finally got the energy she much needed to start the day noticed her leg bouncing up and down. Classic side effect of coffee but it wasn't just that, normally after strong coffee's like these her mind starts racing a million miles a minute. Rose is not a stranger to panic attacks but normally would rather have energy than not be able to breathe for a few minutes, it was simply the price of her schedule. Noel took noticed of how fidgety she got, thinking it was something more until he realised she did just drink crack in a cup.

Hearing her phone buzz she saw a message from her brother,

                                   Cody
Cody: Sick surf atm wanna come? Dev is coming with.
delivered 11:37 am

             Rose: Be there in 5 wait for me.

Honestly she'd much rather stay in Noel's company but the water sounds a little too good right now. Putting her phone down she tells Noel that Cody just said they were going surfing he knew right away what she meant. A slightly disappointed Noel picked their cups up tossing them in the bin, Rose right behind him. On the way back to her brothers she asks Noel if he knows how to surf, getting a "No I've never learnt" she fakes shock rambling on about how "hes lives in LA all his life and never learnt how to surf!" he just chuckles and tells her "I'm actually from Canda" the surprise is real this time "what?" "Yeah I was born in Toronto but we moved here not long after" she still looks surprised "who would of thought." Beating that LA traffic they get to Cody's pretty quickly.

Not knowing if she should thank him for the night or not they just sit there, not awkward silence more, I don't really wanna leave silence. She speaks up "give me your number" Noel raises his eyebrows in surprise relying with his only thought that entered his mind, "why you wanna go on a date?" Smirking at the over dramatic disgusted look on her face, she replies "No im still waiting for the dry cleaning confirmation" chucking her phone towards Noel. Entering his number he can't help but have a few not so platonic thoughts cross his mind. Giving her phone back to her Rose hops out of the car learning against the door ready to say something. "I'll see you around" is all he gets as he watches her walk away, muttering something inappropriate she gives two middle fingers in return. Smiling as if he just won the lottery he drives off, with the thoughts of the complicated equation that just made him genuinely smile.