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Noah, Cody quickly notices, doesn’t ever laugh. He let out a derisive half-snort one time Cody cracked a stupid joke about Tyler and his lack of hygiene standards over breakfast, expecting no reply, but that little ghost of a laugh had him blankly staring at the upper bunk come nightfall, something fluttery and light and awful and so, so warm nestling in his sternum. It wasn’t until dawn just barely started to peek through the slats of the eroded louvered shutters that he remembers shifting himself uselessly onto the left side of his bed, Noah’s face imprinted on the forefront of his tired mind like an afterimage when the television’s been on too long—bright white, retina-searing, inviting, and haunting.
Noah doesn’t smile much either save for when he’s poring over his infinite collection of books and Cody catches himself thinking in moments of desperation, that could be me. I want to make you smile. His teeth are ivory, kind of crooked, and he doesn’t try to conceal his joy behind a clenched fist like Cody does. He hums to himself when he believes he’s alone, always some quaint tune that doesn’t sound like it belongs to any decade. He’s all sharp wit and sharper elbows, wiry and thin, and Cody hasn’t craved anyone’s attention like this in a long while, like he’s been starved for weeks with a buffet table a mile wide in front of him. He doesn’t bite. He doesn’t do much of anything save for pine after Gwen to fit in with the other guys on this island, longing gaze glued to Noah, always just out of reach.
When Noah leaves, Cody is shocked. It’s a direct bolt of lightning to his chest. He huddles behind the rest of his teammates as they laugh at and berate Noah, bitterness welling up in the back of his throat, feeling like he’s been stuffed with cotton. The jeers fade out as he looks up to watch Noah stride off to the boat, not a single glance back to the rest of them, and Cody thinks, this is it. This is what torture is, what Dante wrote about all those years ago, what it feels like to return to a cabin one person emptier with a hollow mess of pulp where his heart should be. He puts his head in his shaky hands on top of his ratty bedspread, chest twinging with every slow breath he inhales, and swallows the sour notes of familiar resignation and even more familiar loneliness. Thrice; Cody had seen Noah smile three times and he’s addicted like Noah’s smile is his favorite brand of candy.
Noah drops by the infirmary a week into Cody’s arrival, mouth twisting into a sympathetic grimace upon spotting his disheveled appearance and Cody hates that that’s directed to him. He has an insane urge to apologize but his throat is parched. It hurts worse to even keep his eyes open but he barely blinks, afraid that if he closes them, Noah will disappear for the second time in his life.
“I heard you fought a bear,” says Noah. He drags a chair over to Cody’s bedside while Cody tries to communicate to his broken, immobile legs that they need to move to accommodate Noah but it doesn’t work. Lots of things aren’t working out for him lately.
“I lost,” replies Cody, each word feeling like sandpaper grated against his throat. Noah smiles at that, a full one that crinkles his dark eyes at the corners, radiant in the buzzing, fluorescent overhead lights. Cody will speak endlessly if it means keeping that expression solely on him, reserved and beautiful. Cody would take a picture of him if he had his phone on him, carve out a permanent reminder; he wonders how no one else could want to see him happy like that, how no one else could look at Noah and not think that they want to take him apart piece by piece, analyze every microexpression that crosses his face.
“Clearly,” says Noah, still grinning. “It was a commendable effort, I’ll admit.”
Cody’s cheeks are beginning to sting from beaming so hard. He manages a few more back-and-forth sentences with Noah about resort life and what Noah had missed after being voted off but he’s too sore to talk for an extended period of time. He requests for Noah to read out loud, opting to lean his pounding head against the icy metal frame of the headboard as Noah surprisingly complies.
His voice grows deeper the longer he reads, a baritone, rich inflection that Cody wants to curl up and live in. He unconsciously pulls funny little faces for each character’s dialogue: snooty for Dorian Gray: prim and delicate for Basil: haughty and highbrow for Lord Henry. Cody traces the slope of his pointed nose, savors the permanent little crease on his forehead that Noah’s always trying to conceal beneath his bangs, filing every minuscule detail away for a rainy day.
“The moment I met you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really are, what you really might be. There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted. For there is such a little time that your youth will last—such a little time…” recites Noah as Cody falls victim to slumber.
Cody’s self-granted title of Video Game Master is fading with every loss he takes against Noah. They’re playing Super Smash Bros, one of the only tolerable games available at Playa Des Losers. It’s systematic, the way his character careens off the platform because Cody had gotten distracted by the soft tufts of Noah’s unbrushed hair, or the pink tongue poking out between his lips in unbridled concentration, or the dark, fine hairs on his forearms.
Kirby is once again fatally de-platformed by Noah’s character, Lucina. Noah turns to look at him, smugness painting his every feature, and it’s amazing how he can start a flood in Cody’s sternum in the blink of an eye. If Noah’s a tornado, Cody’s a reckless storm chaser, pressing closer and closer to the precipice of his own ruin. Noah’s an avalanche and Cody’s already falling, wind in his ears and heart threatening to beat out of tune.
“You sure are happy about getting your ass handed to you,” remarks Noah and Cody thinks, I have seen Noah smile fourteen times. He keeps a mental log, or tries to, because he becomes an amnesiac when Noah flashes him one of those genuine smiles he rarely ever wears, and it’s hard to estimate a good tally count when he constantly finds himself vying for more. He will take everything Noah offers him, even if it’s only amicable quietude when Noah’s reading and camaraderie among larger groups of people.
“Maybe I’m just happy in general,” says Cody, twisting the hem of his shirt between his nervous fingers to prevent doing something stupid like trapping Noah’s hand with his. “You make me happy,” he ventures, cheeks flushed and stomach rolling in anxiety.
“No one’s ever said that to me before,” Noah finally says after a couple of beats of charged silence. He worries his bottom lip with his teeth and Cody never thought he’d be jealous of an inanimate object but here he is. The upbeat music accompanying the victory screen is muted before Noah settles back into a cushion, looping a hesitant arm around his shoulders. It feels safe, like a home Cody’s never had before, and Cody aches down to his bones, veins thrumming with wantwantwant. “You really mean that?”
“Yeah.” Sometimes, I think my life had no meaning before I met you. I think about your cologne when I shower. I dream about you, Cody contemplates in a dizzying rush. “I’m really glad I got to be friends with you here. I wanted to talk to you more back on the island but, you know, I guess I waited too long.”
“Hm, well, better late than never, right?”
Bridgette is the most recent contestant to join the loser squad when Cody awakens with a jolt, a spark of pain in his lower back, and indentations from rough carpet fibers dotting the right side of his face. He forgets where he is momentarily, disoriented and beyond confused as to why he’d passed out beside the foot of a stranger’s bed.
“Sleeping Beauty awakens,” says Noah with a snicker; Cody snaps his eyes to him, dressed neatly and showered, perched criss-crossed atop his duvet. The book Noah had read him months ago crosses his mind; he thinks he’d paint a thousand portraits of Noah if he would allow him to and if Cody actually possessed any artistic talent.
“You made me crash on the floor?” Cody questions as he yawns. He picks his sore body up and splays himself across Noah, relishing in the hand that winds itself in his hair not a moment later. “Super not cool, dude.”
“I tried to invite you up here; your drunk ass was the one who insisted on sleeping down there.”
Cody tries to rack his hammering head for any memories past his seventh or so beer but he doesn’t recall leaving the pool area, much less wandering up here with Noah. “Did I do anything embarrassing?” He asks with an acute sense of dread.
“Besides destroy my bathroom sink? Not in particular.”
“Aw, sorry, I’ll clean that up.”
“Nah, I already did. I didn’t know you could drink like that.”
“I obviously can’t if I blacked out,” says Cody sheepishly. He doesn’t drink at all really, once on a dare and occasional sneaky sips of his mom’s bottom-shelf wine when he’s particularly down. Noah would tell him the truth about his behavior last night though, at least Cody likes to hope he would. He’s safe, he tries to rationalize, for now, if Noah’s not withholding any affection. “How’d we get here?”
“How much do you remember?” Noah questions; Cody doesn’t have to be looking at him to know he’s got that little confused knit between his eyebrows, the one Cody periodically ruminates about smoothing over with his thumb when he’s in the throes of yet another sleepless night.
“It’s all pretty hazy after Trent dared me to chug that beer,” admits Cody, further smushing his face into Noah’s thigh. “So not much.”
“Want the rundown?”
Cody sighs, nodding his head in a guilty affirmative. He doesn’t particularly want to know about the fool he definitely had to have made of himself but he needs to ensure that Noah doesn’t, like, hate him or something. Who knows with some of the thoughts running in his mind?
“You tried to drink Owen’s drink but before you could, you got distracted by I think Beth for a while? I don’t know, I was talking to Owen and Harold for a long time—I don’t recommend trapping yourself with those two, by the way, Harold is a menace. You came over after Owen turned in for the night and saved me from Harold’s god-awful Chewbacca impersonation, and then you asked if we could go so I agreed. I tried to walk you back to your room at first but you got a bit… sad. You were crying about someone who doesn’t like you back.” Noah pauses to pat him on the back, almost reassuring if not for the sheer amount of mortification he’s experiencing currently. “Gwen doesn’t know what she’s missing, buddy.”
Cody clears his throat. “Jesus.”
“Anyway, you wouldn’t let me leave so I decided to bring you back to my room. I don’t think you puked or anything but you did spend an hour in there knocking my shit all over the place. Then, you stumbled out and told me to protect you from the bear a couple of times before I tried to get you in bed. You didn’t listen and it’s not like I was completely sober either so I just let you roll off. And now we’re here.”
“I thought you said I didn’t do anything embarrassing,” mumbles Cody. His face is on fire, anxiety a vicious snake in the pit of his stomach. He pencils in a mental note to never again make the mistake of even looking at a bottle of liquor. “Did I say who I liked?”
“No, it was all a bunch of whining about missed chances and the friend zone,” affirms Noah. “Which doesn’t exist, man.”
“Fair enough. You’re being honest though, right?”
“Don’t you like Gwen? I don’t know why this is turning into a big deal.”
“No, not her. I—well, okay. I was worried mostly because I, uh, like someone else.”
Noah is silent for a moment of pure dread; just when Cody is about to conclude that he has successfully escaped the line of questioning he’d set himself up for, Noah asks for the identity of the mystery person.
“It’s a guy,” says Cody quietly, wondering if he should remove himself from Noah’s lap now. “Don’t freak out,” he adds in a last-minute attempt to save his own skin.
“Oh,” says Noah and nothing else. “Couldn’t resist Justin’s allure, lover boy? Or is it Tyler?”
“They’re not my type,” Cody rushes out. “So, uh, you hungry? Want to go get brunch?”
“I’m onto you,” says Noah. “But fine, let’s go.”
The sunscreen Cody applied half an hour ago is doing him zero favors; he studies his pinkened arm with a heightened sense of dissatisfaction before slipping his shades off, rubbing them clean on his board shorts. There aren’t a ton of people out on the pool deck today and Cody had initially dragged Noah out here under the pretense of working on his non-existent tan, but he’d really just wanted to appreciate the existence of a shirtless Noah.
He’d appreciate it much more if Katie could quit monopolizing Noah. First, she’d heckled Noah at the bar alongside Sadie, engaged in a conversation involving a lot of flailing arms and high-pitched screeches and Cody had been resigned to his lounge chair, glaring daggers at her beneath the safety of his sunglasses. Then, he watched her tug Noah into a game of chicken against DJ and Sadie, and another round, and another round, and another round, and Cody is inclined to drown himself if he has to watch Katie cling onto Noah for dear life one more time.
He’s tempted to barge into their activities; DJ and Sadie are too nice to turn anyone away but the serene contentment on Noah’s face is enough to have him leaning back into his chair, scowling at a tree lightly swaying in the airy summer breeze. That should be him. He locks onto Katie’s hand propped on Noah’s shoulder, guts coiling and uncoiling like he’d eaten something expired. The sensation is so painfully familiar, licking wounds he inflicts upon himself, wondering why he ever decided to leave his room today.
Twenty minutes come and pass—Cody spots his opening when Noah breaks apart to lazily swim laps around the deep end and cannonballs in, much to the detriment of Lindsay who’d been sunbathing not too far from the pool’s ladder.
“Hey,” says Cody as soon as he resurfaces. He receives a wave of chlorinated water to the face and splutters in shock while Noah cackles. “Party foul!”
“You are a walking party foul,” retorts Noah, already swimming away. Cody’s quick to catch up, trying to engage him in a pool fight; really, he’s searching for an excuse to stand in Katie’s place, make him forget all about her and her pretty pink bikini top and stupid, perfect body, and her insistent touches. Well, she does have the major advantage of simply being a woman, but Cody hasn’t let facts like that stop him before.
“You’re killing me,” says Noah dryly, raising a limp arm up to brush Cody’s hands off of his collarbone. “Oh no, I think you’re winning.”
“Come on, man, you’re not even trying,” says Cody, reaching up through Noah’s surprisingly silky hair to give him a noogie. Water hasn’t stopped dripping off of his long eyelashes and Cody swears Noah has a golden gleam to his skin, like some sort of god. He can perhaps see why Katie can’t keep her hands to herself because neither can he but it’s unfair. Noah laughs, sharp and wheezy like a rusted instrument, a sound that Cody wants to pluck from the air and cage in his brain to revisit on lonely nights. I have made Noah laugh twenty-seven times.
“I’m not huge on physical activity if you haven’t noticed by now,” he states as he stops by a wall to float against it.
“You were playing chicken earlier!” Cody’s voice embarrassingly cracks. He anchors himself in front of Noah, sunlight glinting off his brown irises, and he thinks he might actually explode if he doesn’t get to touch him, even for a fleeting moment.
“You try saying no to Katie and Sadie. They won’t give you the option.”
“What if I’m not giving you an option?” He aims a weak punch at Noah’s bicep, keeps his fist lingering there until Noah gently places Cody’s arm back by his side.
“Are you saying you want to beat me up? Real classy of you, Cody.”
“I’m not saying that, I just—I just…” He hangs his head with a defeated exhale, knowing there’s no way he can ever finish that sentence. There’s no easy way to tell him that he wants nothing more than to orbit him, wants to be the one atop Noah’s shoulders, wants to wake up in his bed instead of on his floor, that he wants and wants and wants and never gets.
“Find someone else to wrestle,” says Noah. His eyes twinkle with mischief. “Get your crush in here, really lay one on him.”
“I’m trying to,” says Cody before his brain can fully catch up. He flushes harder than he ever has in his life, praying to any deity out there that Noah hasn’t registered the slip-up for what it is. He can physically feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears, swallowing a thick gob of spit down as he darts his nervous gaze anywhere but Noah’s blank expression.
“Um,” says Noah in an uncharacteristic loss for words. It’s like a knife to the sternum. “You—what?”
“What?” Cody mirrors in desperation. He hopes the bear tracks him down again and finishes the job. He hopes Noah will stop scrutinizing him like he’s an alien life form.
Noah blinks then gives him a smile he’s never seen before, soft around the edges. It makes him look like an approachable teenager for once and ignites a dizzying warmth deep in the cavity of Cody’s chest. “How long?”
“How long what?” Cody asks, unconsciously leaning in a bit closer.
“How long have you liked me?”
“Oh,” says Cody. His entire body is jittery like he’s shoveled down ten pounds of candy, eaten a heaping pile of shame for dessert. “Since, like, the first week.”
“Of being here?”
“Of being on the island,” confesses Cody. He can’t help but feel distantly like he’s shoved their friendship into a garbage disposal. All this simply because he’s incapable of keeping his fat mouth shut? Cody should’ve stayed on the lounge chair and choked to death on his own bitterness.
“Right,” says Noah, doing a quick head check of their surroundings before he leans in, a wet press of lips to lips, over as quickly as it started. Cody stares at him in wide-eyed shock for a couple of seconds before pouncing on him with all the grace of a starved animal, uncaring of any judgmental glances sent their way. Someone wolf-whistles somewhere behind them but it’s all drowned out by the indescribable sensation of Noah’s lips on his, smelling faintly of chlorine and sunblock. He greedily swallows the tiny noises Noah makes, tangles an eager hand in his hair, intent on taking everything Noah has to offer if this is his one shot.
Kissing Noah is an incendiary thing. Cody doesn’t think he can ever stop. He thinks, I have kissed Noah once and I will never let anyone else be able to count kisses from him like I can.