Nochelle - Our Stories

D R E A M S

The bathroom door opened and Richelle shut her eyes tight forcing her lungs to take a deep breathe. When she opened them he was walking through the room with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. "What the hell?" She yelled at him, throwing her hands around.

"Sorry I forgot my clothes." Noah said, confusion washing over his face as he started digging through his bag. Richelle watched him as he pulled what he needed before standing back up. The romantic part of her brain wished that he would just drop the towel by accident.

Noah came out of the bathroom a couple of minutes later wearing a pair of dark blue swimming trunks, his hair still wet. "I'm going to go down to the pool with some of the others. You wanna come?"

"Sure." She said throwing her book down on the nightstand. "Give me a second." She got out of the bed digging through her bag until she found the white ribbed bikini she had packed. After changing she left the bathroom and couldn't help but notice the way Noah's eyes darkened for a second as his adam's apple bobbed. "Ready?" She asked and Noah nodded.

Noah walked towards the elevator banks."Uh can we take the stairs?" Richelle asked feeling the panic rise in her stomach.

"Why?" Noah asked. "Oh yeah. Claustrophobic, totally forgot." He said.

"It's fine. The stairs are actually faster."

"You want to bet?"

"Sure. First one in the pool wins."

"Deal." Noah said as he hit the down button. Just as he did Richelle took off running down the stairwell taking the steps two at a time. When she reached the ground floor she sprinted as fast as she could down the hallway. She swiped her key card at the door for the pool and quickly ran across the floor disobeying the signage. The water was freezing but she didn't care. It didn't take long before Noah was frantically unlocking the door. Richelle submerged herself underwater so that he wouldn't see she was already here. She came up when she felt the waves from him jumping in hit her.

"Beat you!" She shouted.

"Damn it!" Noah exclaimed splashing water at her. She turned her back trying to conceal the laugh that escaped from the back of her throat and smile on her face. "You cheated somehow."

"Please explain to me how I cheated running down the stairs?" Richelle counted a smirk growing on her face.

"Could be a second elevator just down the hall. Maybe you didn't run down the stairs, maybe you jumped. Could've been a trap door somewhere and a whole secret network of tunnels leading straight to the pool. You tell me how you did it."

"Damn you got me. I used the hotels secret network of tunnels."

"I knew it!" Noah exclaimed. "We should've done that at TNS so I wasn't late all the time." Richelle honestly couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

"You're so dumb." Richelle said moving to splash more water in face. As she went to move her arm though Noah caught her wrist stopping her. Richelle nearly lost her balance but was stopped from slipping by Noah's arms. His hand held the small of her back to steady her.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah." Richelle responded nearly out of breath for no apparent reason. She did not like Noah. Yet for some reason all she wanted to do was find out how soft his lips were. Her skin was burning where his hands still sat. When he looked down at her she saw everything she was thinking in his expression. Rational thinking quickly went out the window as Richelle stood on her tiptoes to close the distance between them.

Just as their lips were about to touch the pool doors opened and Giselle, James and Max walked in gossiping about someone from the LOD faculty. Richelle quickly put space between Noah and her as if to act like nothing happened.