“What was he like? In college?”
Dan pauses. “Different,” he says eventually. “You’d think most folk—me included—would’ve had their wildest days back in college. But I think he’s livin’ them right now, what with all of his adventuring and such. Back in school, he spent a good deal of his time keepin’meout of trouble.”
I laugh at the thought as I descend the ladder. Dan trades places with me so that he can install the temporary curtains that will hide my work in progress from view. He’d insisted on keeping the mural a surprise until it’s complete.
I pass up the dark curtains as he needs them. “It must feel great to work on a project like Alchemist together after planning it for so long,” I say.
Something in Dan’s gaze softens. “It’s a dream come true, Sadie,” he admits. “Now I’ve just gotta try and keep him around long enough to really get it off the ground.”
“He seems to love it here, though. You really think he’d take off so soon?”
When Dan shrugs, he does it with his whole body. He tosses his hands upward. “Couldn’t say,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve never known anyone who could slow him down. And who am I to ask him to, anyway?”
Dan’s words burrow uncomfortably into the back of my mind. But Noah interrupts my thoughts as he comes to stand behind me, squeezing my shoulders and taking one last look at the chalk outline before Dan tugs the curtains into place.
“Looking good, Sadie,” Noah says. “Supply run tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” I agree.
The second day of working on the mural leaves me squeezed with Noah in the back of his van, out of breath and soaking wet.
We’re halfway through checkout at the home improvement store when a peal of thunder cracks above us, causing the teenage employee wielding the scanner to cast a worried glance toward the door. With our cart piled high and heavy with an assortment of paint cans, brushes, primers, and more, we head toward the exit and are brought to an abrupt halt by the mess outside. From where we cower under the awning, Noah’s van is nothing more than a distant smudge of blue through the near-horizontal sheets of rain that pour from the sky.
“We could wait it out,” I suggest.
Five minutes pass, and—somehow—it only gets worse. The cart shivers in a gust of wind.
“Fuck it,” Noah huffs, tightening his grip on the cart. He looks to me, raises his eyebrows. “Fuck it?”
Feeling reckless, I laugh. “Fuck it.”
We sprint across the concrete. Noah plows through puddles and potholes, bracing the cart as a battering ram before him while I run ahead to throw open the back doors of the van. It has tons more space than my little Civic, which had been the whole reason we’d brought it at all. But I don’t have the keys—ofcourseI don’t have the keys—so I just stand there, laughing my ass off in the rain until Noah arrives to jam the key into the lock, his slick fingers fumbling the whole way through. “Shit, Sadie!” I can’t tell if he’s breathless from running or from laughing. “Terrible idea. Worst idea!”
Finally he swings the doors open, and we shove the bags and cans in as quickly as we can. Although Noah’s mattress frame takes up the width of the van’s interior, he’d cleared out tons of storage space underneath. When the cart is empty, I quickly look to Noah—and then to the lightning that illuminates the clouds above us fromwithin. A clap of thunder follows soon after, and Noah snorts. “Like hell I’m driving in this. Just get in, Sadie.”
“What?”
“Get in!”
There’s really nowhere else for me to go but right on top of the blankets, so I scramble inside, and Noah slams the doors behind me and runs to return the cart.
On the way here when we’d ridden in the front, the interior was shielded from view by a curtain. Now I sit with my knees pulled to my chest, my drenched clothes soaking a folded quilt, a shocked loop ofOh god, I’m in his bedrunning on repeat in my head until Noah swings the doors back open and clambers in next to me. He doesn’t bother to try to minimize the damage of his wet clothes. He just flops back onto his pillow, panting, and laces his hands behind his head.
We share one long, silent stare before dissolving into rib-cracking laughter.
As another rumble of thunder joins in, we stop to catch our breath, and I take off my glasses and wipe the lenses dry with the corner of his blanket. He reaches for something under the bed. There’s a click, and dozens of tiny bulbs light up above us.
As I take my first real look around, I can’t help but inhale a surprised gasp.
I didn’t expect it to be socozy,especially when the van’s faded blue exterior looked so worn. It looks like a tree house—or, better yet, a hobbit hole. Handmade shelves full of books and tools and supplies dot the walls, with mismatched multicolored fabric drapes weaving in between each, covering the two windows and separating the cabin from the interior. A cleared desk with cabinets above is tucked close to the wall on my left, while the bed takes up the remaining middle and right side of the space.
“Lay back,” Noah says gently. “Look.”
I lie down, but even with my hands folded over my stomach, thebed is small enough that it’s impossible not to immediately be shoulder to shoulder with him.
Wooden slats lie across the ceiling, some sporting tiny hooks to hang the string lights on. In the center, the slats are cut to make room for the van’s vent, now shut tight against the rain. Handwritten postcards and pictures are stuck all over the ceiling, pictures of Noah in a dozen different places with a dozen different people. Noah in ski gear, his cheeks flushed and alarmingly clean-shaven. Noah with a group in hiking boots posing with Delicate Arch in the background. Noah with a beer in hand, his face smooshed up against a corgi’s. I recognize Dan in more than a few of the photos, and I’m crestfallen to realize that he’s sported the caterpillar mustache for as long as he’s been able to grow it.
In more ways than one, the space feels…intimate. Like I’m seeing some part of Noah I haven’t before. “It’s beautiful,” I say honestly. And then, more quietly, “This is home for you, isn’t it?”
