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He’s never been one for parties.
This is actually the first party he’s ever been to, he thinks, watching everyone in the living room through the window. He’s been sitting outside at one of the tables by the pool for a while now, nursing a cup of spiked punch—well, maybe more than one. He doesn’t belong here and, despite this being his so-called friends' party idea, he’s on edge.
They shouldn’t even be here. Not when Redfield could strike at any moment. He—
“Noah! There you are.”
Jaxson.
Jax is grinning when he glances up at her, faded pink hair pulled up in a messy updo. The short skirt of her black dress barely hits her mid-thigh, and she shivers a little as a breeze picks up.
“What are you doing over here by yourself?”
He snorts. “And who would I be hanging out with, exactly? Cody and Jocelyn?”
Jax just rolls her eyes, sitting at the other wrought iron chair at his little table. Hugging herself, she leans forward to watch the windows, and the glow from the lights catches her eyes, lighting them up so that he can see the full scope of the warm brown in her irises. She bounces her knee as she smirks at him and says, “Well, you could always be hanging out with me.”
Noah raises an eyebrow. “Are we not hanging out right now?”
She grins, leaning forward a little more to bury her face in his jacket sleeve where he’s got his arms resting on the table. “No. No, because I haven’t seen you all night.”
“Were you looking for me all night?”
She peeks up at him, and he admires the sharp point of her eyeliner and the delicate spattering of freckles across her nose. “Would you believe me if I said yes?”
“No.”
“Too bad. I actually have been looking for you.”
He actually laughs at that. “Why? Literally anyone else would be better company at a party.”
“Is it so hard to accept the fact that I like you, Noah Marshall?” she says, sitting up and resting her arms on the table in a mirror of his position. She fixes him with a very confident stare that makes his ears burn. “Because I do like you. You’re my friend.”
He can’t quite fight the grin from spreading across his face. When he speaks, his voice is at a strange, new register—low and almost rasping as he leans toward her. “You’ve got weird taste in friends, Jaxson Kim.”
Her smile is fiery, eyes blazing like he’s never seen them before. “So I’ve been told.”
Then, like someone flipped a switch, whatever had started to burn in her eyes calms right back down to the normal shine he’s used to. She laughs and sits back, sighing contentedly even with the chilly air making her shiver again. “Are you having fun, even if you’re just sitting back here by yourself?”
He snorts, looking away to glance at the blue glow of the pool. “You know? I actually am. I mean, don’t get me wrong—it could be better, but it beats being at home.”
Under the table, her knee bumps into his, and she doesn’t move it. “Yeah?”
He shrugs, and she grins, bumping her leg against his once, twice, under the table.
“I’m glad. Though, I am surprised you even came, if I’m being honest,” she says lightly. She tilts her head curiously. “Why’d you decide to come?”
Noah’s eyes drop to his hands on the table, shaking his head. “It’s dumb.”
Jaxson just scoffs in response to that, and she’s shifting to lean toward him again. “I doubt it.” When he does nothing but raise an eyebrow at her, she laughs and says, “Tell you what—I’ll tell you something actually dumb if you tell me why you came.”
His eyes dart back and forth between hers, looking for the joke or the punchline, but he finds nothing but something that glitters soft and warm like the embers of a dying fire. Smirking, he says, “Depends on what you got.”
She laughs at that, nodding as her gaze drifts off toward the pool. “Fair enough.” Quiet settles over them for a moment as she thinks about her answer. Muffled music floats out from the party and into the night air as he watches her, waiting to hear what she has to say.
Eventually, she takes a deep breath as if steeling herself for a blow, and says, “I’ve been trying to work up my courage to talk to you for, like, 7 or 8 months now. Maybe more.”
That… isn’t what he thought she was going to say.
“And I do mean you,” she adds, smiling a little, “not everyone else. I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to approach it, to ask you to be in my life again without it sounding stupid or pathetic. I was terrified to take that final step because I… well, I thought you might hate me. I kept going back and forth between the fact that you seemed lonely and the idea that maybe it was too late to get you back.”
Her eyes come back to his, and the affection there makes his breath hitch.
“So, while all this shit that’s happening sucks, I’m weirdly glad for the icebreaker it was. Because I missed you.”
Well, damn.
Now his reason sounds really dumb.
Though he tries desperately to keep the smile off of his lips, he can tell by the way her face lights up that he is unsuccessful. Shifting nervously in his seat he shakes his head with a laugh and says, “God, you win. That is dumb.”
She nudges his foot with hers under the table. “Told you.”
“I just,” he starts, and then sighs, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “I figure it’s better to be somewhere you hate with friends than to be alone, you know?”
When he glances at her again, she’s grinning. “I was right—that wasn’t stupid at all.”
He rolls his eyes, pushing away from the table to walk over to the fancy grill Britney’s family has. He can feel Jax watching him as he runs a hand over the cold metal lid. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing other than trying to get away from that penetrating gaze of hers. Sometimes it really feels like she’s seeing him at a level he doesn’t even know, and it’s strange.
Her voice distracts him from his thoughts.
“Gonna grill us up something?” she asks from behind him, voice playful. “I could go for something to eat.”
Noah can feel himself smiling as he turns to look at her again. “I mean, I could,” he says, shrugging as he turns to lean against the grill. “I make a pretty mean Philly cheesesteak with hot peppers.”
Jax raises her eyebrows, a smile still playing on her lips. “That sounds amazing.”
“With some of my special au jus?” he continues, shooting her a sly look. “Yeah. Bet you couldn’t find a better sandwich.”
Her smile is soft as she props her head up on her hand. “I didn’t know you were so into cooking.”
“You don’t actually know much about me anymore,” he says, and immediately he regrets it. The bitterness that had snuck into his voice makes him grimace, especially with how her face falls in response. “Sorry, that—”
“I know,” she interrupts. When he looks at her, she just looks sad. “You’re right. I’d like to know you, though. Like we used to know each other.”
For a moment, he doesn’t know what to say. He hadn’t been expecting that, but he’s not sure what he was expecting.
He doesn’t really know her all that well anymore either.
“Yeah?” is all he can think to say.
Her lips twitch. “I know Jane was my best friend, but you were my second best friend back then. I… I’m just sorry that 10-year-old me decided the best action was to pull away instead of cling harder to what I still had.”
“...me, too,” he mumbles.
He looks away then, biting into his cheek as he thinks about what to say. Eventually, he sighs and says, “When we were kids, our parents didn’t have a lot of time to make us dinner. Jane and I were starting to get sick of frozen meals, so I made us some grilled cheeses one day. It wasn’t anything fancy, but Jane said it tasted like happiness. After that I just sort of started to love it, I guess. I would love to open my own diner one day.”
“Really?”
Her voice surprises him a little, and when he glances at her, he finds her eyes shining with interest. He smiles a little, looking away, and says, “Yeah. I’d… I’d call it Baby Jane’s.”
“That’s… a really good name.”
Jaxson’s voice sounds sad, and her face mirrors this when he looks back at her. For a moment, he doesn't know what to say—but then he shrugs, forcing himself to remember who he is and where he is.
“It would be. Doesn’t matter, though—it’s never going to happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s not going to happen. It’s a pipe dream. It… There’s too much stuff I would need to do, to learn. I’ll be lucky if I get into Westchester Community College, let alone somewhere that would actually have something like I would need to open my own restaurant. I’d need to go to culinary school, and then there’s business school and marketing classes. It…” he pauses, sighing heavily as he shrugs, “it’s just not plausible. My family is too broke, even if my mom wanted to support me, she couldn’t. I’d never make it.”
“Well, maybe not with that attitude,” Jax scoffs. “You’re looking at it the wrong way. Your mom not having much money makes you the perfect candidate for financial aid.”
He hums. “I guess.”
“Oh, come on,” she laughs, and he can feel himself smile a little. “You can do better than that.”
“That’s as good as I’ve got, I’m afraid.”
“You’re going to culinary school,” she says flatly, and his face flushes as he looks over at her. “Say it.”
He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, but indulges her with a mumble.
“What? I couldn’t hear you.”
He snorts, but the grin on his face feels… good.
“I said: I’m going to culinary school.”
“Hell yeah!” she laughs, standing up and rushing over to throw her arms around him. He stiffens for the briefest moment, unsure of what to do before he hugs her back. “That’s the spirit. Now,” she adds, pulling back to offer him her hands. “Come on. Let’s go be rebellious teenagers and load up on snacks and extremely spiked punch.”
That actually makes him laugh, though he does slide his hands into hers, letting her lead him back toward the house. “Trying to get me drunk, Kim?”
“Pfft. You wish.”
He loses her in the crowd at some point. They’ve both had a fair bit to drink, and Britney’s house is dark now, only lit with cool party lights as the music pounds. He finds himself wandering through a sea of vaguely familiar faces, scanning the crowd for a familiar shock of pastel pink hair. He probably should have known that something was amiss, not being able to find her, but his head is spinning, and he retreats up the stairs to a dark hallway, hoping that he’ll be able to think a little more clearly.
As he’s checking his phone to see if he’s missed any texts from Jaxson—who had insisted that he spend the rest of the night with her, whether he wanted to dance or not—he realizes his mistake.
Two strong hands grasp his shoulders out of the darkness and, though he starts to scream, another hand clamps over his mouth.
A warm hand.
Through the blur of intoxication, he recognizes the foxlike grin on the face of the person standing in front of him.
Jocelyn.
And, if the overwhelming smell of Axe body spray is anything to go by, Cody has him, too.
“Hey, loser,” Jocelyn greets. “We have a surprise for you.”
Cody starts to drag him bodily down the hall, though Noah stumbles a bit over the rug beneath his feet. He doesn’t really know where they’re taking him, but it can’t be good if it’s these two. Cody laughs gleefully in his ear as he says, “Yeah, we wrapped it up and everything. It’s in the—”
“—what the fuck?”
Noah blinks as a door opens in front of him.
Jaxson blinks back at him.
“How did you get out of that zip-tie?” Jocelyn demands, distracting both of them. Jaxson opens her mouth to respond, but Jocelyn just shoves her back into the apparent closet she’d been locked in. “Whatever. Cody, throw the other one in. We’ll just lock the door this time.”
“Gotcha.”
And then Noah is stumbling head first into the dark, hissing when his head bumps into a shelf around the top of the small, dark room. His phone gets ripped out of his hand while he’s dazed, and though he rounds on them to grab it back, the door slams in his face before he gets the chance, blanketing both of them in complete darkness. From the other side of the door, Cody and Jocelyn laugh.
One of them bangs on the door a few times.
“Enjoy the party! Britney will let you out when it’s over. Probably.”
More laughter, and then it fades as they presumably wander back down the stairs.
Hm.
“Well,” Jaxson’s voice says somewhere near his right shoulder after a beat, “this is fun.”
Noah stands there for a moment, processing what has just happened, before he snorts, groaning as he reaches up to rub at his face. He slouches so that his head isn’t touching the bottom of the shelf and leans back against the wall.
“So,” he says, crossing his arms, “I found you, I guess.”
His eyes haven’t adjusted quite yet, but she laughs softly.
“Yep. Good old high school bullies,” she says, and her arm brushes against his as she leans against the wall beside him.
“What are we going to do?”
“I dunno. No one can hear us with the music like it is.”
She’s not wrong—the music is so loud that, even through the closed door and being on a separate floor, the walls are vibrating with the bass. Even if they started banging on the door and screaming, it would probably take a while for someone to notice.
He is suddenly very, very tired.
“Do you want to… find something to do in here?”
Noah snorts, looking over at her to try and see what kind of face she’s making, but it’s too dark to really tell beyond the fact that she doesn’t seem to be looking at him. He can hear her foot scuff against the floor as if she’s kicking at it.
“Literally what is there to do when we’re locked in a closet?”
“Well…”
Her voice is high-pitched, and her hair is light enough that he can make out that she’s tilted her head. He blinks, trying to figure out what she means, but the only thing his mind is going to is that stupid Seven Minutes in Heaven game that people play at parties sometimes, and surely she doesn’t mean she wants to…
“Jaxson.”
“Hmm?”
“I… I think I’m jumping to conclusions.”
“Isss the conclusion… that I’m asking if you wanna make out?”
“It… yeah?”
“Then you are jumping to the correct conclusion.”
… what.
“What.”
“It’s fine if you don’t want to,” she says in a rush, still refusing to look at him, “honest, it’s just—well, you’re hot, and we’re stuck in here with nothing else to do, and it’s dark and, I mean, we are teenagers, and this is the kind of situation that—”
The words ‘you’re hot ’ are echoing around in his head as she starts to ramble, clearly panicking that she’s upset him somehow. He’s pretty sure something in his head has short-circuited because he’s having trouble piecing together a single coherent thought. Every train of thought just comes back to, She thinks I’m hot. Jaxson Kim thinks I’m hot.
It takes him a minute before he realizes that she’s calling his name, and then he’s blinking at her stupidly. “...huh?”
From what he can see of her face, she looks upset. “Are you mad? I’m sorry. It was just an idea. I don’t—”
“I’m not mad, Jax,” he says, laughing a little. “Why would I be mad?”
She fiddles with her rings as she looks up at him, frowning in the dark. “I… I don’t know. Why didn’t you answer me?”
“I, uh, I didn’t hear you.”
“Didn’t hear me?”
“Yeah, I was—distracted.” He coughs, looking away and crossing his arms tighter over his chest. “I got distracted.”
Noah squirms under her questioning gaze which, while he can’t really see it, he can feel like static on his skin. His face is hot and his heart is beating so fast in his chest that he’s pretty sure she could probably hear it if she listened hard enough and—
“...Noah?”
He starts a little when she touches his arm, and she pulls her hand away as if she’d been burned, stepping back a bit to give him space. The air feels cooler with the distance, and worry starts to twist in his chest as her gaze drops to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” she breathes, hugging her arms and looking very much like she wishes she could sink through the floor.
“Jax,” he murmurs, startling himself with the raspiness of his own voice. He shuffles closer, reaching up to brush a stray piece of hair away from her face. “You don’t need to be sorry.”
Jaxson reaches up and catches his hand before he can pull it away, pressing it to the side of her face. His heart skips in his chest, breath hitching as he lets his thumb idly follow the curve of her cheekbone. Her hands are soft against his skin, and he can feel her breath hitching too when he steps even closer, a warm, shaky puff of air against his face.
This close, he can see her biting at her lower lip, trying unsuccessfully to fight off a grin.
There’s just one thing left on his mind now. One thing…
“...Is this a joke?” he whispers, eyes wandering across her face.
Immediately, she frowns, brows furrowing. “What?”
“Is this a joke,” he repeats flatly, voice still low and quiet. His heart is pounding in his eardrums as he speaks, fear sending adrenaline coursing through his veins like fire. “A prank. Are you going to pull away the second I actually try to kiss you and start laughing at me?”
Jax is shaking her head before he’s even finished his sentence. “No…? Why would I ever do that to you?”
“I…” he starts, but trails off with a shrug when he realizes that he doesn’t really have an answer, turning his gaze to the wall instead of her face. “I don’t know. Just making sure, I guess.”
Jaxson hums softly in response, and then she closes the gap between them. Her hands slip away from his wrist, sliding up his chest until she can lock them together behind his neck. Her fingers slip through the hair at his nape as she smiles a little, pressing even closer, and breathes, “Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me. Please.”
Well, shit. How is he supposed to say no to that?
Noah swallows thickly, mouth suddenly dry as his eyes drop to her lips, curled into a soft, alluring smile. He sighs shakily, hands coming to rest hesitantly on her hips as he bends his neck until his forehead bumps against hers. Nose brushing nose, breath mingling—it’s all so terrifyingly, overwhelmingly real. His mind is a roar of white noise, a cacophony with the thought of I don’t know how to kiss people, I’ve never learned, I don’t know what I’m doing, blaring above it all.
He’s terrified of embarrassing himself in front of her, so he resolves to go slow and follow her lead as best he can.
Hesitantly, gently, he closes the distance between them, eyes slipping shut when he feels the first tickle of her skin on his lips. Her own fall parted at the touch, and he lets his do the same, and for a moment she just nuzzles her mouth against his, exhaling into him just as he breathes in. It’s humid and intimate, and his head is already spinning when—
Jaxson kisses him.
Slotting his lower lip between hers, she presses forward gently. It’s a strange sensation, sending little sparks of electricity skating across his skin, running down his spine until he shivers in her arms. He can feel her lips quirk upwards as she grins, stroking the hair on his neck before pressing another kiss to his lips.
Again.
And again.
And again.
They set up an easy rhythm, and there’s something mindless about the dance of her lips with his that has him sighing into her. Open, slide, press. Open, slide, press. His arms wind around her waist almost without any conscious thought from him, and he tilts his head as he does to kiss her a little harder. She hums and bites at his lower lip, holding it like that for a moment before letting go and kissing him again to soothe the sting.
His breath leaves him in a shuddering sigh, something that makes her giggle, and he finds himself grinning into her mouth in return. The butterfly swarm in his stomach does a set of flips as he presses her backward, one hand out to catch them so he doesn’t bump her head. As he presses her back into the wall, her mouth opens under his, and something hot and wet slips ever so slightly between his lips. It pulls a sound from his throat—something needy and desperate that makes his ears burn with embarrassment—but all it seems to do is spur her on. Apparently encouraged, her fingers dig into his shoulders as she pulls him closer, and his brows furrow as he matches her intensity.
When her mouth opens again, he tries to follow her lead and do what she did, flicking his tongue out to meet hers halfway—and she makes a noise this time, a quiet little whimper as his tongue slides against hers that sends heat coiling low in his gut. His fingers are digging into the back of her dress now, breath coming harder, one of his hands coming up to press at the back of her head to encourage her to deepen the kiss even more.
As his tongue twists with hers, something in his mind distantly recognizes why, exactly, other teenagers seem to do this so much. The sensation of her tongue in his mouth, hot and wet and flexible, is enough to drive him insane. He’s pressing against her desperately now, mouth open and hungry as he begs for more without words, one leg slipping between hers as he presses even closer. She’s panting into his mouth now, nails digging into his denim jacket, and the final bit of space between them is entirely eradicated with one final swoop as he tilts his head the other way and bites at her lip.
“Noah—”
A gasp that he swallows greedily falls from her lips, and something in the back of his mind feels very smug about the way her words trail off with a muffled moan. He can feel his own hands shaking as he runs them down her sides, fingers following every curve like an artist sculpting clay. Her dress is made of something synthetic and soft, and he is fascinated by the warmth of her as she gasps into his mouth.
“You’re shaking,” Jaxson mumbles, and for some reason, that makes him laugh a little.
“I am,” he agrees, chuckling a little.
She pulls away, but she doesn’t go far, instead sliding one of her hands into the hair at the back of his head. Her hand tightens and she uses her grip on his hair to pull his head to the side a bit, baring his throat as she plants a trail of kisses up his jawline and then down the column of his neck.
Into the hollow beneath his jaw, her voice buzzes against his skin as she asks, “ Do you want to stop?”
“Hell no,” he says immediately before he can even think about it. His eyes are closed, hands against the wall now to keep himself upright and steady as she lets her teeth drag against the sensitive skin over his jugular. “I… I never want to stop.”
The words make her laugh, and he can feel her smile on his skin.
“I mean,” she says lightly, kissing his throat a few times, “that can be arranged.”
He opens his mouth to say something—he thinks it was about to be something snarky and suave, but he’s not really sure—but she cuts him off before he can by sinking her teeth into his neck.
Noah’s breath leaves him in a hiss, and for the smallest moment, he’s afraid his knees might give out from under him. His arms shake with the effort of keeping him standing as he nearly goes limp in her arms, mind blank but for the feeling of her mouth on his throat. She bites him again, a little below the last spot, kissing at the marks to soothe the surprisingly pleasant pain. He groans softly, letting his head fall farther to the side, and she giggles into his skin.
“You like that, huh?”
“Jaxson, please, I—”
The door opens.
Noah gasps, trying to jump away from Jaxson as much as he can in such a cramped space, but her immediate reaction of clutching him tighter in shock prevents it. In fact, all he manages to do is bump his head on the shelf again as his face burns with humiliation.
“EW, OH MY GOD!”
Ah. The hostess herself.
He can’t even look out into the hallway with Jax still clutching him, so he just stares at the wall and tries not to give in to the urge to drop dead.
“Uh, Brit, maybe we should—” comes Lily’s quiet voice a moment later, but Britney cuts her off.
“What the hell are you doing having sex in my parents’ linen closet? ” Britney nearly shrieks.
Noah’s immediate mortification is somehow overridden by the indignant urge to correct her, and he finally unfreezes just long enough to shoot her a glare and say, “We are not —”
But Jaxson beats him to the punch. She does pull away, but the feeling of her sliding her hands into his has him cutting off and looking down at her with confusion. Her hair is messy, and her lipstick is smudged, her dress hiked up on her thigh—and she’s smirking as she delicately wipes the corner of her mouth with her finger.
“Why don’t you ask Jocelyn and Cody about that?” she asks smoothly, leading him out of the closet as she does. “I’m sure they have a great explanation for why they locked us in here. Thanks for letting us out, though.”
And, without waiting for either of the girls to answer, she just turns and walks off down the stairs to head back into the fray, holding his hand tight all the while.
They push through the crowd of teens, clinging tight to each other until they step back out into the backyard, and they both sigh as the cool night air hits their skin. For a second, all they do is stand there, staring at the pool and holding hands…
…and then she lets go.
Noah tries not to flinch. He’s not sure if he succeeds.
“Sorry if that was embarrassing,” Jaxson says, coughing a bit and clutching at her elbow with the hand she’d been using to hold his. She avoids looking at him, but he can tell she’s blushing even in the bad outdoor lighting. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…”
“Jax,” he says softly. She looks up at him finally, eyes wide and—hopeful? He smiles at her. “I already told you that you don’t need to be sorry.”
She smiles a little, though she still looks afraid that he’s going to yell at her or something. “Yeah?”
… fuck it.
They could all die tomorrow because of Mr. Red. He doesn’t have time to be a chicken anymore.
Stepping closer, Noah reaches up to brush some of the hair that had fallen loose from the bun behind her ear. When her hesitant smile turns into a grin, he brushes his fingers against her cheek and leans in to press a slow, soft kiss to her lips.
It’s different, kissing her in the light. He’s very aware of the people chatting quietly somewhere nearby, and of the window right beside them. He’s also aware of the way she presses up on her toes to kiss him back, of her hand coming up to hold his hand to her cheek.
He’s very, very aware of the fact that she isn’t shying away from being seen kissing him. That she lingers, and that one kiss turns into two, three, four more before she breaks the kiss with a laugh, dropping back down to the flats of her feet.
When he opens his eyes, she’s grinning up at him, biting her lip with a pretty pink flush on her face.
Oh, how he wishes that that was what he’d done.
No, that isn’t how it goes.
After she says, “Yeah? ” all he does in response is shove his hands into his pockets and grin, shrugging.
“Yeah,” he says, scuffing one of his sneakers against the concrete under his feet. “That was fun. I had—a much better time than I expected to have.”
Her smile is warm, though it doesn’t quite meet her eyes like it usually does as her gaze trails down to his neck. “I’m glad. You, uh, you might want to find a scarf or something to wear the next few days, though.”
Noah remembers frowning, tilting his head with a puzzled look on his face.
Jaxson grimaces and gestures to his neck. “You… bruise easily, apparently.”
Oh.
Oh.
“Oh.”
She laughs, looking away and biting at her lip again. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Again,” he says, feeling two inches to the left of his body. “No need to apologize. It takes two to tango or something, right?”
Another laugh. “Right.”
“Well…” Fuck, this is awkward now. “I think I’m about partied out,” he says, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “Think I’m gonna head out.”
“Oh,” she says, and when he glances at her, she looks a little disappointed. “Okay. I’m glad you had fun.”
A grin pulls at his lips. “Tons of fun. I’ll see you Monday?”
She nods, smiling a little. “See you.”
It’s hard to lie to himself later that night when he lays awake for hours with the phantom touch of her kiss on his lips that all of that hadn’t meant anything to either of them.
It’ll be even harder to lie to himself later, but he doesn’t know that yet.
Not yet.