I don’t know if he’s talking about the people or the city—maybe both. His gaze pans away for a moment as he looks into the fire. He’s so beautiful in this light. The golden glow from the flames makes his hair shine that much redder, the light catching on each individual unbound curl. I’m so glad he grew it out.
When Noah looks at me again, there’s a soft vulnerability in his expression that wasn’t there before. I fix my attention on the way his lips part hesitantly.
“I moved away after a tough breakup,” he says eventually. “When I left, I didn’t know where I wanted to go. All I knew was that I wanted to get out.”
I don’t have time to ask whether he wants to talk about it. He just does.
“We were high school sweethearts, both grew up in a tinysuburb outside of Chicago. I begged her to come with me to Colorado for school, and I was really excited to try something different from what we were used to. She liked it fine, but the plan was always for us to move back home to be close to her family. That was always The Plan.”
He smiles at me like it’s an inside joke, but I’m on the outside of it.
“We went back after we graduated, and I followed all the steps as she laid them out. We’d live together in the city for a few years, her as a nurse at the hospital and me at a firm. We’d adopt a dog, save up as much money as possible, buy a house, I’d get a ring…” He ticks off each step on his fingers as he speaks.
“I loved her enough, I thought, that I was happy to go along with it. I don’t know how she got so sick of everything, when it was all her idea.” He reaches over to pat my thigh consolingly, as if I’m the one experiencing the breakup.
“She cheated on me with a guy from the hospital,” he says finally. “Took the dog and said she couldn’t keep living such a ‘railroaded life.’ ”
“Not the dog.” My voice is small. What else am I supposed to say?
“That part was for the best, at least,” he says with a laugh. It’s an empty echo of humor. “God, he was the most pitiful little thing, Sadie. The tiniest, laziest dachshund. I couldn’t take him on a walk longer than a mile. He was devoted to her anyway.” Noah scratches his beard and clears his throat. “So I decided that if she wasn’t going to live a railroaded life, neither was I. When I first decided to leave, I just wanted a big change, you know? Something that would give me the same open-air adventure feeling that college had.” He exhales sharply, and I can’t tell if it’s another laugh or a frustrated sigh. “I got over her, but I haven’t gotten over the rush of traveling. I haven’t slowed down since. I don’t know if I know how.
“So.” He exhales the word in one great big rush. He reachestoward me and threads his fingers through my hair. “That’s why I left.”
I lean into his palm. “Thanks for telling me. I’m sorry—I’m so sorry it happened like that.”
“It was shitty. But I don’t regret anything I’ve done since.” He caps a stick with a marshmallow as he continues. “She gets the lion’s share of the blame for how things ended, sure, but if I’m honest, I was going through the motions as much as she was. Of course she shouldn’t have cheated on me, but I wasn’t a good partner, either. By that point, we’d both stopped trying. For years.”
“Did she ultimately shake things up, like you did? After it ended?”
Noah snorts. It’s loud enough that I jump. “No, she settled down with the PA. Last I heard from my sister, they’re still in Chicago with their second kid on the way.”
Fucking hell. As soon as Noah sees my sympathetic wince, he musses my hair. “It’s fine, Sadie, really.” He hands me the prepped marshmallow stick before getting to work on his.
“Have you ever been tempted to stay anywhere since then?” I ask.
We both stick our marshmallows into the fire. I let mine roast gently atop the tallest flames and watch it darken to a pretty golden brown.
Noah sticks his marshmallow right where the fire’s hottest. It immediately catches aflame, and he lets it burn. “Not really. Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve always hit a point where it’s made sense to get moving again. When I was a park ranger, I waited until the season was over. In Montana, I left when my landlord started losing her marbles. When I was a camp counselor, I left after the summer ended. Or sometimes my friend groups would start to drift apart, or other people would start leaving, so. Maybe I’m worried about getting stuck—rolling stone and moss and such. I’m afraid to stay in one place long enough for it to get boring.”
“Are you bored of Texas? Of our friends?”Are you bored of me?I don’t say it, but it hangs unspoken between us.
“No, Sadie, of course not. I’m waiting for people to get bored ofme.”
He’s squinting at the stars like the light pains him. My chest clenches. Suddenly, my perspective on his extroverted demeanor and aggressive friendliness shifts. What part does he feel like he has to play to keep people’s interest? I wonder if that’s how his ex made him feel, when their relationship ended. Like betraying his trust was somehow justified because she’d lost interest in the life they’d built—because she’d lost interest inhim.
Just as I’m about to reach for him and draw his face back down to me, Noah jerks suddenly and blows out the flame boiling his marshmallow. It’s completely charred, and it bubbles and drips like white lava. He barely manages to nestle it in between the graham cracker and chocolate piece that I hold out for him before it melts clean off the stick. I eye the obliterated marshmallow with suspicion and a sudden surge of affection.
“No one could ever get bored of you, Noah,” I say gently.You’re impossible to forget, Loren.“Not when you make s’mores like a psychopath.”
He finally turns back to me, and his expression is like sunshine again. “It’s the best way. Try it.”
Hesitantly, I trade the golden-brown perfection of my s’more for his monstrosity. I carefully bite into it. There’s a definite smokiness to it, and I’m alarmed to hear the crunch of the char flaking off. But once I reach the gooey part in the middle—
“Fuck.” Except my mouth’s full when I say it, so it just comes out as a grunt of satisfaction. Melted chocolate dribbles down my chin.
“I told you. I tried to tell you.”
I hold up the s’more. “This one’s mine now.”
