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I felt like I didn’t wake up this morning and I was having this amazing and wondrous dream that the impossible was finally happening. Although I annoyingly repeat the same statement, I will say it once again. It felt foreign and unusual, like the feeling everyone would get if Taylor Lautner’s abs somehow turned into flabs.
However, it was also merely impossible to be discontented when you were getting exactly what you wanted in the first place.
Noah Callaway was actually participating in our project discussion!
Somehow, someway, somewhere in that confused and obstinate head of his, a flip had switch. Well, not completely of course. Since rollerblading last night, he’s been a little bit nicer, a little more civil, and a little more patient. Nonetheless, he still has a few tantrums and was obviously still impolite.
Right now, for example.
“I can’t do this,” Noah groaned, banging on the piano keys in frustration. “This is stupid!”
“It is not stupid! You’re just giving up so easily,” I defended, crossing my arms over my chest. “That was very, very offensive.”
We sat behind a piano in the Callaway’s music room that I wasn’t aware of until today. Because I was a music junkie and wanted so badly to be on Broadway in the future, this room was absolutely breathtaking. Guitars, a baby piano, a drum set, and a violin all in one room. It was gorgeous.
Noah got up from the piano bench and paced around, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is just not my thing!”
“It’s not that hard,” I reassured. I moved my fingers easily across the keys and let the tune float around us. Then I began to sing. “Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow.”
“I don’t sing!”
I resisted the urge to groan. “Noah, the objective of this project was to learn something your partner enjoys. Mary had a Little Lamb is possibly the easiest and most simple thing to play on the piano.”
“I freaking don’t sing, Emmy. Nobody is as musically talented as you are, all right?”
“Can you please try at least one more time?”
“We’ve been working for almost two hours now. Let’s face the truth. I’m never going to get it.”
“I believe in you – “
“No!” Noah snapped.
I was shocked by his outburst. My eyebrows hitched upwards as I stared at him with wide eyes. I was beyond confused as to why he didn’t try as hard as he should have and why he was too stubborn to sing the simple lyrics of Mary had a Little Lamb.
Noah sighed after a couple of silent seconds. “Can we just do something different? I’m kind of tired of doing the same thing over and over again. I promise I will work on it later when I’m more focused.”
Although my first instinct is to argue about the injustice of not having enough time to rehearse a number for show-and-tell, I simply pushed aside my thoughts for now. Despite the fact that he promised to work on it later, I was completely positive that he wasn’t going to carry out with that plan. After all, there were so many broken promises between the both of us.
Noah wasn’t going to escape this easily at all. I wanted to pass Ms. Brayer’s class. But more than that, I wanted to go to New York University of the Arts where I could have a better opportunity at being on Broadway. I put in every fiber of my being into my music – my performance and singing.
Broadway was everything to me. In my eyes, it was much more than a Hollywood movie. It was old fashioned, sincere, genuinely beautiful, and captured the true essence of singing and acting both at the same time.
However, I didn’t have the money to go to such a prestigious college. The only way I could get there was a scholarship and applying for a Fine Art’s school required a lot of recommendations from your high school teachers. If I could show my teachers the potential I have, their recommendations may blow the minds of the recruiters of my dream college.
“Okay fine,” I finally agreed with my shoulders slumped. “But we’re working on it later. Why don’t I try out what you enjoy? What do you enjoy?”
“Did you seriously ask me that?” Noah asked, his eyebrows drawn together as he shook his head. “Baseball.”
Before the accusations that he killed his brother, Noah was adored by everyone because he was the best pitcher on the baseball team. He and Callum were the only two team members that carried their team to State Champions for two consecutive years. Noah was known for his fast curve balls and fast pitches. Not only was he the respected delinquent, but he was also East Carteret’s baseball team’s MVP. Then his brother died and you know how that story went.
We headed outside to their enormous yard. The sun was going down, casting an orange and pink color across the sky. Noah brought a bag of baseball equipment out of the shed and handed me a wooden baseball bat.
“Well, the bat is lighter than I thought it was going to be,” I commented, weighing the stick in my hands.
The corners of Noah’s lips twitched upwards. “You never played baseball?”
“Nope. Every time we played baseball for gym, I’d pretend I ate the Cafeteria’s food for lunch and caught a stomach virus. Really, I was just afraid that the pitcher was going to purposely throw the ball right in my face. I used to be the hated freshmen because I was forced to snitch on everyone who cheated on their laps,” I admitted and laughed in embarrassment.
I really didn’t understand why I shared that piece of information with him, but I was growing anxious by the minute. I really didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of someone who was clearly an expert at playing baseball.
Noah smiled down at me in amusement, causing my heart to skip – not one – but several beats in the process. He shook his head, obviously trying not laugh. He bent down to pick up a red helmet from the bag of equipment and situated a helmet over my head. I nervously bit on my bottom lip when his fingers lightly brushed my skin as he adjusted the chin strap cautiously over my bandaged injury.
“It’s a football helmet,” Noah said, patting the top of it with the palm of his hand. “But it’ll lessen your chance of getting hit in the face with a baseball.”
I laughed, focusing on the bars in front of my face. “Oh gosh, I’m so embarrassing. I have to wear a football helmet to play baseball. I’m a humiliation to both sports right now.”
“I think it’s brilliant,” Noah teased, tossing a baseball up and down with one hand. He stepped back until he was at a decent distant. “Okay, so it’s not that hard. It’s all about the timing. I think you’ll pick up on it pretty quickly.
I swung the bat over my head and awkwardly stood stiffly in my spot. “Yeah, I could do this,” I lied, nodding my head. I gulped nervously as I tightened my grip around the bat. “Just hit me – not literally because I bruise easily and I’m pretty scared of balls. Well, balls as in sports equipment. Not male gen – “
“Relax, Emmy,” Noah interjected in the middle of my babble. “I’m going to throw the ball now so … be prepared.”
“Alright. I’m ready! I so could do this! Woo! This will be a piece of cake.” I frowned when I missed Noah’s pitch. I jumped up and down in place to prepare myself for the next pitch. “Okay, that was just a test run! I’m just testing how fast you pitch! I’ll get it this time!”
“Don’t worry about it. It was your first time swinging a bat,” Noah reassured and returned to his makeshift pitching mound when the ball was back in his hand. “Just focus and relax.”
When I missed ten of Noah’s pitches because I either swung too late or swung too early, I groaned in frustration.. There was nothing easy about this. Knowing I couldn’t even tap the ball after so many attempts was both humiliating and maddening.
“Just relax. You’re too stiff,” Noah said.
I missed another pitch and aggravatingly removed the helmet from my head and threw it to the side. “The helmet was blocking my view. Let’s try again. Just promise you won’t hit me in the face.”
“I promise.” Noah smirked. “But, you’re really stiff. Just relax. Swing your hips. All your tension is messing with your head.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I snapped.
Now I knew how Noah felt in the music room. It was frustrating when you couldn’t accomplish something after so many attempts and tips. It was also humiliating to fail in front of someone who was great at the task you were failing so miserably at.
Noah shrugged. “Okay then. Here we go again.”
“You’re pitching too fast.”
“No, I’m not. That’s the slowest a pitch could get!”
“Your pitches are too high for me to hit! Did you see that? That was practically above my head.”
“Emma, that was at perfect level. Just calm down, okay?”
“This is a really stupid game!”
“Now you know I felt in the choir room.”
“They need to make baseballs bigger so it’s easier to hit. This is a pathetic and irrational size for a ball you are hypothetically supposed to hit with a big stick.”
“It’s a decent sized ball. If the ball was any bigger, it’d be too heavy to sail through the air fast.”
“I am relaxed! I’m swinging my arms easily, my hips are swinging too – my whole body is relaxed.”
“You’re not relaxed enough! Just focus on your posture before you focus on hitting the ball.”
“Why do we have to hit it with a bat?”
“That’s the whole point of the game.”
I wanted nothing more than to snap this bat in half and cry when I missed Noah’s perfect pitches. I stomped my feet on the ground childishly and groaned for the thousandth time today.
“This is pointless,” I whined. “It’s already dark and I haven’t even tapped a ball at all. I’m not going to get this.”
“Yes, you will,” Noah said confidently. He came to stand in front of me with his arms crossed over his chest. “I keep telling you that you need to relax your body. Here, I’ll show you.”
Noah grabbed another baseball bat from the equipment bag and stood in front of me. He went into position and I quickly followed suit. “You want to swing the bat like you were at ease the whole entire time – like it’s second nature to you.” He swung the bat perfectly, looking as if he’s perfected it since he was in the womb of his mother. “Your turn.”
I swung the bat the same exact way he instructed, but it was kind of hard to be calm when someone like Noah walked around you in a circle and had their pretty eyes study you. “Good,” he commented. He picked up my elbow a bit higher, leaving a warm sensation on the skin that he touched. “Bend those knees and loosen up your hips a little bit more. A little more.”
Noah sighed, his patience obviously thinning out the longer it took for me to learn the simple task at hand.
“Noah, I’m sorry I’m so incompetent when it comes to – “
My words were cut short when Noah placed his strong hands on my hips as he came up behind me. Aware that he was really close to me and he was touching me, my breath hitched in my throat. His body heat wrapped around me in the cold of the night and his amazing cologne surrounded me. Blood rushed up to my cheeks as a fire licked in my belly.
“What were you saying?” Noah asked as if this was an everyday type of thing.
I tried to rack my brain for what sentence I wasn’t able to complete earlier, but came up short because all I could process was how close he was to me. Lamely, I said, “Oh, uh, f-forget it. It isn’t important. Please carry on with your lesson because - I should stop talking now. Sorry, I’m very talkative. I tend to babble when I get nerv – let’s just continue.”
“All right. So, bend your knees a little. Yup, that’s perfect. Now, you have to loosen up your hips when you swing. So go ahead and swing. I want you to swing your hips in the direction of the swing,” Noah commented with his hands still planted on my hips. He guided my hips as I swung the bat over and over again, but it took me a while to focus on the task at hand rather than the hands on my hips. “Okay, so try it by yourself. I’ll pitch the ball, okay?”
When Noah stepped back and took his hands off my hips, I felt both relief and disappointment. I, however, had no time to dwell on those feelings because I clumsily swung the bat back due to my jitteriness and hit Noah right in the face – actually, right in the eye.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” I gasped while Noah groaned in pain, clutching his eye with his hand. I let the bat drop to the ground as my hands came up to cover my open mouth.
“Fuck,” Noah groaned with a hiss.
“Oh my gosh, Noah, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean it! It was an accident, I swear! I was just really jumpy and nervous and my hand jerked back because – “
“Why the hell were you nervous?” Noah interjected, covering his right eye with one hand and staring down at me with the other, safe eye.
Blushing a deeper shade of red, I started to play with my fingers. “Well, uh, because tomorrow is the Father-Daughter dance at the pier and my brother is taking me, but I don’t know how to dance because as you can see, I’m very clumsy.”
Noah nodded slowly. “I think we should wrap up for today, don’t you think?”
“I couldn’t agree with you more.”
▼▲ ▼ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▼
“Noah, I’m really sorry I gave you a black eye. I feel horrible,” I said genuinely, feeling guiltier every minute his eye worsened.
He sat on his bed, applying an ice pack on his swollen eye. I nervously fidgeted with my hands as I sat on the computer chair by his messy desk.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m still confused as to why you got me right in the eye, but you couldn’t hit a single baseball,” He noted.
I winced, wringing my fingers together even more. “I’m really sorry.”
“I was kidding.” His eyes drop to the restless hands on my lap. He got up with a sigh and set the ice pack on his desk. He ignored the gasp I released when I saw the swollen, purplish bruise on his right eye. He held out a hand to me. “I’ll teach you how to dance.”
“What?” I asked in puzzlement.
“You have a father-daughter dance tomorrow and you didn’t know how to dance right?” Noah’s eyebrows drew together as recognition flooded my brain. “I’ll teach you.”
I shook my head furiously. “No, it’s okay, really. Usually, we just stand there and sway slowly left to right as the other fathers and daughters dance skillfully beside us.”
The corners of his lips twitched up, but he still held out his hand. “C’mon, it’s easy.”
“Fine,” I finally sighed, placing my hand into his own and standing up.
It felt almost natural when I brought myself closer to him and placed my other hand on his broad shoulder. His other hand slid behind me until it rested on the small of my back. I tried to control my breathing and focus at the proximity between the both of us.
Well, today was a very, very, very weird day. Never in a million years had I thought that Noah Callaway would stand this close to me – twice in one day actually. I couldn’t even believe that we were making physical contact.
“So, why is your brother taking you to the Father-Daughter dance?” Noah asked curiously as we slowly swayed side to side in silence.
I refused to look up at Noah, afraid that he was going to see the embarrassing blush on my cheeks and the hurt that flashed through my eyes when he asked me that question.
“It’s a long story,” I simply said in a quiet voice, not wanting to elaborate any further.
“So, I’m going to teach you how to waltz,” Noah suddenly announced. I was thankful he changed the subject. “Just follow my lead.”
I nodded my head as I concentrated on his feet instead of the way he smelled so good or the way his hand felt right wrapped around mine. He stepped back with his left foot and my right foot stepped forward. We moved around in a box and I laughed in triumph when I actually didn’t step on his shoe or trip over my own feet.
However, that didn’t last too long because I stumbled over my feet and fell forward. Noah was caught off guard, not knowing this was going to happen because we were pretty steady for five minutes. Therefore, he fell too.
“Oof,” Noah blew out when his back hit the ground and my body fell on top of his.
My eyes widened when I realized our current position. I was on top of Noah, my front pressed against his front side. Our faces were barely an inch apart, breaths mingling together as we stared wide eyed at each other. Because I was wearing shorts, I completely felt the heat of his hand as it was splayed on my bare thigh. However, I couldn’t move. His steel blue eyes held me captive as it locked eyes with mine and all I could think was one thing: Noah. Noah. Noah.
It was in that moment that I realized that I had an unexplainable and completely dangerous liking for Noah Callaway. I didn’t know whether to like it and grasp it or fear it and toss it. Oh lord, this was a total disaster.
“- bought me the ultimate makeup set of all the time, Noah! I can’t believe - ,” Maia yelled in excitement as she barged into Noah’s room. As she let his door bang against the wall, I jumped from the sudden noise. I scrambled off of Noah and stood up, sure my cheeks were a bright red. Maia stared at the both of us with wide eyes before she shut it tightly closed. “Ewe! Ewe! Ewe!”
She walked out of the room slowly, clutching the makeup set to her chest. “I’m going to have nightmares tonight.”