Ineffable; too great to be expressed in words.
C H A P T E R F O U R T Y - E I G H T
I took Noah's arm as we exited the airport, and it didn't take me more than ten seconds to spot Chris because of his height.
"Bet he already has ten jokes ready about me," I mumbled, and Noah chuckled.
"Man, I love that guy," he countered as Chris spotted us and waved.
He came towards us, and I left Noah's hold to hug him, and the two boys completely side-lined me, moving to hug each other, making it seem as if I wasn't even present on the scene and Chris was his sibling, not mine.
"Happy Birthday, bro," Chris wished while hugging him.
"His birthday isn't till midnight, shithead," I asserted, and Chris turned to me, acknowledging my presence.
"I missed you too, Syd," he said, enclosing me in a tight hug, and it didn't take me two seconds to alternate the action.
Having siblings was the best thing ever. It's like no matter how much you annoy them, they've got nowhere to go. In the end, it's you they're going to end up coming to for help about which color football shoes would make them look better on the field. Chris had the ability to piss me off till the ends of the earth within a matter of two minutes, but only he could make me as happy in the same interval of time.
Chris started to walk ahead of us and, after taking two steps or so, halted his movements and turned around. "Also, Syd, zip up your turtleneck. Not the whole LA needs to know just how fun your flight was," Chris said, giving me a tight look.
"Shit," Noah and I both whispered simultaneously; my hand flew up to the spot where the hickey was, I knew it like it was the back of my hand. How did I forget to hide that? Oh, because you were too high from Noah's kisses to realize what the hell was going on.
"Shit, now he hates me," Noah said, audible enough for only me to hear.
And I didn't oppose it. Chris didn't mind all this as long as it stayed in the inside, but I could tell he was reasonably annoyed right now. I knew that Noah wasn't the one he was going to talk to about this; it was going to be me. Chris wasn't the one to resort to violence for times like these; instead, he would tell me that it was my responsibility to make sure something like this didn't happen.
Chris lived in an apartment, and he liked having his own space, and he wasn't fond of roommates, so he didn't have one. There was still time left before the show, so we decided to chill around his apartment since neither I or Noah had the enthusiasm to roam around LA, and I don't think Chris was willing to take up our offer even if we did. He seemed pretty disappointed with me right now. Noah excused himself to go to the restroom.
"Hey," I muttered to Chris, not sure if I was getting a reply.
"Syd--"
I cut him off. "I know. I know what you're going to say, and I'm sorry, I should've been more careful."
"Exactly. I know I shouldn't be the one speaking between y'all because frankly, it's none of my business, but just make sure it's not visible next time. God knows I didn't wake up at seven in the morning to meet my little sister along with that," he cringed.
"Okay, I got your point. But it's just a hickey, not like I got knocked up or something," I said jokingly and laughed, but apparently, Chris wasn't finding any of this funny. I raised my hands in defense and muttered an apology.
"Anyway, whatever, let's just forget it. It's his birthday, and I don't wanna ruin his mood," Chris said, making a lot of hand gestures. "Where is he, by the way, what's he doing in there for so long?"
"Probably crying about how you don't like him anymore and how he should've just slept on the flight instead," I scoffed.
"Thank god, at least one of you has some regrets," Chris replied, and I laughed at him.
"Yeah, don't expect that from me. I don't regret it, it was fun, I would do it again," I said, and Chris glared at me. "But this time, I would not forget to zip-up my jacket," I quickly added, and he gave me a quipped smile.
Right on cue, Noah came into the room and swallowed a lump. "Chris, I just wanna say that--"
"Dude, chill, it's not a big deal. I still like you," Chris patted Noah's shoulder and went into his room. I could see Noah breathing in relief.
"He still likes me, life's good," he smirked as he came to sit next to me.
"Oh, that's why life is good? Not because you're turning twenty or because you're attending an Arctic Monkeys concert?" I asked.
"Well, turning twenty isn't something to be happy about; aging is just a natural phenomenon of life. And as of the concert, I would've found one way or another to attend it, but that shit," he said, pointing towards Chris' room. "That shit is very important."
"Right," I said, folding my lips in. "Remind me to get you my brother's liking for your next birthday and since this is so important, why don't you both bro down over here and find one way or another to attend the concert while I'll go and actually attend the concert," I ridiculed, putting on a smile.
"Yeah, no, that's fine. We've bonded enough," he said, snatching the tickets from my hand.
"Bullshit, you're scared of him shitless," I said as if stating facts.
"No way, I am so not."
"Okay, tell me one thing, do you at all regret whatever happened on the plane?"
"Hell, no," he scoffed.
"Awesome, would you mind admitting the same in front of Chris?" I said sweetly, and Noah's smile turned into a scowl.
"I don't know if you noticed, but I am planning to date you in the long run, so I'm gonna do everything to make sure nothing sabotages that," he said, running his hand through his hair.
I looked at him in profound reverence. Noah didn't even need to do anything special, whatever he did as of usual already had me smitten. He didn't even realize what he said, it was so casual and typical for him but these statements that he uttered, proving how much unruly confidence he had in our relationship, it made it so easy for him to make me like him even more. Both Noah and I quickly used the washroom and got changed.
"Come on, boys, we need to leave, let's go," Chris said, folding the sleeves of his shirt till his elbow.
Noah was wearing the simplest of clothes. His classic black skinny jeans, but this time, it had a chain hanging from the belt loop going sideways and a plain black t-shirt with the black leather lace-up boots that I always envied him for owning. How in the world can he look so hot without barely trying? The boy didn't care about flaunting how much money he had, but when it came to fashion, Noah didn't care how much he spent. He looked like an exemplary model waiting to be discovered.
"Syd, if you're done checking him out shamelessly, I would like to go," Chris told me as he went out of the door, and I didn't bother paying any heed to his comment. These comments would be very regular now that he knew how serious things were between me and Noah.
Noah pulled me to him, hooking his strong arm around my waist, catching me completely off-guard. "For the record, I think you look just as hot," he whispered and gave me a wink, placing a sweet kiss on my cheek and following Chris while he left me standing there bewildered, while I tried my best not to look so affected and flushed as I ran behind them, shutting the door and tossing the keys to my brother.
We reached the venue, and the crowd seemed crazy, and everything else that came along with it. The show started after the painful waiting, and Noah stuck to my side, glaring at each and every guy who dared to smile at me. Once the show began, I turned to look at Noah, and nothing had ever brought me as much joy as looking at him did right then. He didn't care about one damn thing in the world. He seemed so lighthearted, so effortlessly beautiful that for a moment, my heart stopped beating, not being able to accept that I was blessed enough to be dating this guy right here.
I can't believe that I was once turning him down, I'm so glad he convinced me to take a chance on us because if he hadn't, I wouldn't have known what it's like to have someone care for you so much that they would do anything for you, no matter what. I glanced at my watch and saw that the time was 11:59. I pulled Noah and turned him to face me; he just smiled at me endlessly while his hair seemed so messy, his lips looked so plump and irresistible. The moment I cast one look at his eyes I knew I was done for, the green in them glimmered more than an emerald did, when they met mine, his eyes lit up as if a meadow on a summer day, so serene and yet so incidentally wild at the same time.
"Happy Birthday, Noah," I wished, jumping into his arms as he closed around me the next second.
"Thank you, baby," he replied, kissing me fiercely, making the whole physical world disappear and making me feel things that I had only read about in books. "Precious?" he said, as I struggled to hear him amongst all the noise. He brought his lips next to my ear. "I just wanted to let you know that this was the perfect birthday gift ever. I can't believe I get to spend each day right by your side. You're the best and I--" my heart was beating so wildly as he was about to complete that, but he got cut off by Chris screaming behind us.
"Happy Birthday, Noah!" he paused. "Guys, we need to get out of here, y'all have a flight to catch," he yelled, pushing both of us towards the exit. Noah looked very irritated that he got cut off in the middle of his sentence but let it go nevertheless.
Damn you, Chris! Who cares about the flight? Couldn't you have let him complete whatever he was saying?
All of the chaos got over when we boarded our flight after saying goodbye to Chris. Neither of us had even a speck of energy left, so all I did on the plane was entwine was my hand with Noah's and made his shoulder my pillow. We slept throughout the entire flight, not protesting for a second, and it was seven in the morning when we completed all the formalities and finally got out of the airport and headed towards Noah's apartment, which had become my place of residence too for quite some time. Since Noah and I began dating, I barely slept in my dorm room, and I had absolutely no complains.
We kept our bags on the side, and Noah plopped himself on the couch, sighing with relief. "There's no feeling like home," he said, closing his eyes and resting himself.
He was right. There was indeed no feeling like home, but recently, I had come to a recognition that home wasn't a place that you went back to at the end of the day. It wasn't something that could be materially built or something you could design. It was the metaphorical place where all you can find is compassion. It was the person who made it easy for you to be yourself around them, the one who believed in you when you couldn't do the same to yourself, the one who never give up on you. It was the person who suddenly out of nowhere becomes the most significant source of happiness in your life, the one whose smile can triple your joy or turn your shittiest of days into the best one. The one around whom your heart can't stop squealing with joy and the person you can't stand being apart from.
And for me, that person was Noah. I was such a big mess when I met him, albeit I didn't show it and excelled at hiding it in front of people, he managed to breakthrough. He was the one person with who I wasn't scared, the person I felt the most secure with. For the world, he was just captain of the football team, extremely good looking guy, but for me, he was something words couldn't express.
"Where are Scar and Jordan?" he asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
"It's after seven; they must've gone for jogging. I don't think we told them what exact time we'd be here. But didn't they already call you?"
"Yeah, as soon as it was twelve, they did, but I talked to them after we came out of the concert."
"Okay, so, since it's your birthday today," I looked at him, grinning.
"Yes, this is precisely the 67th time you're mentioning it. Everyone has birthdays, not a big deal," he replied, lazily rubbing his eyes.
"Well, it is a big deal for me, so deal with it," I said. "Get up, I wanna give you your gift," I said, smirking and he stood up almost immediately.
"What are you talking about? I thought this was my gift?" he asked, puzzled as his eyebrows rose to a peak.
"It was a part of it," I tried to explain. "But there's something more."
"S, I told you, I really don't want any of this. You've seriously done enough!" he whined, and I ran to his room.
"I'm sure that's not what you're gonna be saying when you see it," I told him, and he caught his chin with his hand, shaking his head at me. "Okay, so I was trying to pull out your favorite hoodie, not snooping your things, seriously I wasn't snooping," I clarified, not wanting him to be mad at me.
"Babe? I believe you, okay? Go on," he chuckled, watching me intently.
"I was trying to get the hoodie, and I found this," I showed him the crumpled piece of paper, and he looked at me perplexed.
"What is that, and why does it have my handwriting?" he said, snatching the paper from my hand.
"It's your bucket list. And I have to ask you this, how old were you when you wrote it?" I asked.
The sole reason I was asking him this question was because he had listed ten goals on this list and they consisted of:
1) Get into NYU
2) Watch porn
3) Go cliff diving more than once
4) Attend an Arctic Monkeys concert
5) Get the poster on the wall and my guitar signed by them
6) Visit Hawaii
7) Become the captain of the football team
8) Go vegan for a month
9) Fall in love
10) Complete this bucket list
"I think I was like ten or eleven years old when I wrote this, wow, I didn't even know I had this," he said in amazement.
I took the paper from his hand and couldn't help but laugh at the messy handwriting because it hadn't changed one bit. "Clearly, because your second goal is to watch porn, and the last one is to complete this bucket list."
"I did watch porn, you know, on the same day I wrote this," he admitted, proudly.
"Jesus, at eleven years old?"
"You gotta do what you gotta do. But man like, these were my life goals. When I wrote this, I was like if I manage to complete this in my life, I'm going to be king of the world," he said reminiscing.
"So, since you didn't take the trouble to check off whatever you achieved, I did it with Jordan's help, and since you attended the concert, the only ones left now are fifth, ninth, and tenth," I said, looking through the list. "And I had a wild thought, why not help you check off one more?" I smirked, running to his room for the second time.
I got his guitar and the extremely old poster that used to stay by his bed, except with a tiny change. "Holy fuckin' shit. It's signed."
"Yeah, I know your bucket list says that you have to get them signed, but we didn't have enough strings to pull and make that happen, and it took a lot of convincing, but thankfully, I did manage to make this happen," I said, handing him both the items.
"I cannot believe you somehow managed to do it, holy crap; this is real," he exclaimed, gushing in excitement. "But, my guitar was never out of my room. It was always there."
"Yes, but look carefully. This isn't the poster and the guitar you have in your room right now; it's the one that was on your wall in your actual room, and this is your first guitar," I told him, and he looked at me like he was about to cry. "So, do you like it? Are you happy?"
"Happy? I'm on cloud nine. You're the best girl I could've ever wished for. You're fuckin' amazing, you beautiful human," he said, kissing me.
"Well, I'm not gonna deny the obvious," I said as if stating facts, and he just stood there, laughing at me and kissed my temple. "Now you only have two things to do, well, technically only one because the last one will automatically be checked off, and then you're the king of the world," I joked, smiling widely.
"Then you might as well check those off because as far as I know, I've managed to accomplish that too," he said, so casually that it was a daily event.
My heart was beating out of my chest right now because the only two things left on the list were Fall in love and Complete this bucket list, which meant that...
"I didn't know you've been in love before," I whispered.
"I haven't because I didn't have you before, but now I do," he said, shrugging lightly.
OKAY, WHAT THE HELL?
"What?" I stammered, not being able to believe what I just heard.
"I love you, Sydney."
Author's Note:
He did it. He really did it. Wow.
What do you think her response is going to be?
So that's how Syd got to know! If you have any dope stories about how you got to know, comment because I would love to know!
I hope you liked this chapter! Be expressive; don't forget to vote&comments your thoughts! Alright, I'm out, see you at the next one!
Fact of the day: Harry Styles' smile can lift up anyone's spirit.
Keep reading this book and every other you can find, F x