Page 30 of Backslide
This is not his usual mode. Nellie has thrown him for a loop.
“I’m in,” he repeats anyway.
“Into what?” comes a husky voice from beside him. Noah turns to find that redhead—Lydia, maybe?—standing too close to him with a hand on her hip. “Into me?”
She laughs, like she might be kidding or she might not, depending on his response.
“Oh, um.” He is at a loss. Because no. Not into her. So, he pops a Cheerio into his mouth instead of answering. It tastes like a better time. In the kitchen. With that girl Nell. Just minutes before.
Why had he pretended he didn’t know who she was when she said that they’d met before?
He knows who she is. He does. Heknows. He’s known since that night at the club, when he first spotted her looking at him from across the room through the flashing lights and ambient shadows. He’s known for sure since he watched her disappear into her art class weeks back, better places to be.
So why had he lied?
He shouldn’t have. He should have said he knew. He should have kept her talking, taken advantage of the moment. Because what were the chances of him going into Ben’s kitchen to grab a glass of juice and finding her—this girl who keeps popping up in his mind—there alone, in Technicolor? Just waiting for him. Smelling like orange trees. Her straight thick copper hair falling in her face as she covered her eyes and tried to right herself. Her wolf-gray eyes, like none he’d ever seen before, flooded with panic. In need of help he was actually able to offer?
Regret settles in, dark and heavy.
“Hey, didn’t you just leave with Sabrina?” he asks Lydia now.
“Yeah, but I came back. They were being so wack! They were just going to chill on a stoop on West End.” She looks him up and down in a way that feels both clumsy and deeply suggestive. It makes him want to put on and zip up his hoodie. “Things are more interesting here.”
But they aren’t. Not for Noah. And suddenly he realizes he has no interest in staying. He’d rather be sitting on a stoop. He’d rather be wack. With Nell.
“I’m out!” he calls into the room, throwing a peace sign to Damien and anyone else who cares.
“Out? What?! But we’re next! Dude, what the fuck?”
But he is already slamming the apartment door behind him as he pushes the elevator button—one, two, three times—like that might actually speed things up.
When the elevator finally comes, it’s packed with people—an elderly woman, a middle-aged bald man, a girl around his age inpajamas with a basket full of dirty clothes. And it stops at what feels likeeveryfloor, including the mezzanine laundry room, as he taps his foot impatiently and does his best to smile and look friendly and not too tall and intimidating.
Finally, he bolts out of the building like it’s on fire, realizing only then that he doesn’t know which way to go. Uptown? Downtown? He has no clue where Nell lives or in what direction the girls may have headed.
He arrives on the corner, breathless, looks up and down the manicured avenue toward rows of prewar buildings for any sign of them. No luck.
Shit, he curses. Wipes his forehead with the back of his hand.
And that’s when he spots a small figure, alone, about a block away, receding into the distance.Nell. Apparently, she and Sabrina had abandoned their stoop hang. He can’t say why he feels like this is his one and only chance, like if he doesn’t speak now, he will forever have to hold his peace. But he does.
Call it lack of impulse control. Call it instinct. Call it teenage hormones run amok. But he jogs across the street, slowing to a speed walk as he nears her.
Sensing his presence, Nellie stops, swivels, and looks up in surprise, her eyes still a bit glassy.
A nearby doorman standing under a pristine awning eyes the scene, assessing if Noah is friend or foe.
“Hey,” Nellie says, squinting like she is trying to see Noah through a haze. “What areyoudoing here?”
“Well,” Noah says, a little winded. “I realized you forgot something.”
His first instinct had been relief at spotting her, at not having lost her, but now, as he stares into her beautiful, confused face, he realizes he’s a man without a plan.
No planat all.
“I forgot something?” She slips a hand into her jean shorts pocket, pulling out her gum and keys and exhaling to find them there. “What did I forget?”
“Cheerios,” he offers, holding out his palm, where only seven or soos still sit. “They lower cholesterol—and make you less high, so. I wouldn’t want you to be without them.”
