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“She’s a good kisser,” Noah said, and Gansey jumped half a foot in the air.
“Christ, Noah,” he said, settling his hand over his pounding heart. It was pounding before Noah’s sudden appearance, but now it felt like it might actually burst. “We really need to put a bell on you.”
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding very sorry as he plopped down on Gansey’s bed, making himself comfortable like he belonged there. Gansey resumed his previous task of harvesting mint leaves from his plant and trying not to think about what it was like to kiss Blue – a task that increased in difficulty with each passing day.
His heartrate settled into its previous quickened beat as he placed a mint leaf on his tongue – an action that was once calming and grounding but now only reminded him of Blue. In fact, everything seemed to remind him of Blue. And it was hard to think of Blue without wanting to kiss her, and it was hard wanting to kiss her without thinking of his impending death.
He’d really rather not think of his impending death.
“She’s a good kisser,” Noah repeated, and this time, Gansey heard not just the surprise of Noah’s voice in a previously empty room, but also the words he said.
“What?” Gansey asked, righting his posture without realizing it.
“Blue – she’s a good kisser,” Noah repeated for a third time, sitting up only to flop backwards into Gansey’s bed again. The sparse, springy mattress bounced him up once when he hit it, encouraging him to do it again, so he did.
The mint leaves and his looming confrontation with morality suddenly seemed less important. “And how did you come to that conclusion?” Gansey asked, voice tight, standing by the side of his bed.
Noah buried his face in Gansey’s pillows before responding. “Because we kissed,” he said.
Gansey thought he must’ve heard incorrectly due to the fact that Noah was speaking directly into the pillow. “What?” he asked again.
Noah unburied his face, flipped on to his back, and blinked at Gansey. “We kissed,” he said breezily, reaching up to prod at Gansey’s nearest ear. With some genuine concern, he continued, “Do you need to get your hearing checked?”
“I assure you, my hearing is fine,” he said, doing nothing to stop Noah from poking at his earlobe. “You kissed Blue?” He hadn’t meant to sound pathetic and disappointed and jealous, but disguising things from Noah was fruitless, anyway. Noah always seemed to know.
“Yeah, and she kissed me – kissing, it’s like, a two-way street kind of thing,” Noah said, waving a hand.
Gansey gave a huff. If it were anyone but Noah, he’d think he was being condescended. “I know how kissing is,” he said.
“But you don’t know how kissing Blue is,” Noah pointed out, and Gansey deflated with the truth of it. He laid back on the bed, too, tossing an arm over his eyes.
“Is there a purpose to this conversation other than to remind me of everything I can’t have and rub it in my face?” he asked.
He felt Noah shrug against the mattress to his side, but he didn’t buy it. Noah didn’t do things without having a reason, but he wasn’t sure what reason he could have other than to plant a gnawing seed of dissatisfaction in Gansey’s mind.
He told himself not to ask. He tried not to. But, despite himself, he pried his arm from his face and asked the ceiling, “What was it like?”
“It was awkward, because she was pretending I was you,” he said, and Gansey somehow felt both better and worse. He continued and Gansey could hear Noah’s smile although he pointedly didn’t look at it, “But it was… Nice. Made my stomach kinda, like, gooey.”
“Gooey?” Gansey echoed, unsure of how that equated to ‘nice.’
“Yeah, gooey. Like, in the good way.”
Gooey in the good way. This description baffled him. He felt even less sure what kissing Blue would be like than he did before he’d asked. “That’s very… Abstract.”
“How would you describe a kiss!” Noah said, exasperated, tossing his hands into the air.
Gansey sighed and rolled onto his side, realizing that not looking at Noah in no way made this conversation easier. He thought about the kisses he’d had in the past – chaste middle school spin-the-bottle kisses, a parting peck shared with a traveling companion when he’d first gone to Wales, a handful of memories of kissing an incredibly temporary girlfriend. He wouldn’t describe any of them as making him feel ‘gooey in a good way,’ but he wasn’t sure how else he’d describe them, either. He was beginning to see Noah’s point. “I don’t know,” he finally allowed.
“See!” Noah said, swatting as his shoulder. “You can’t describe it.”
Gansey let out a long sigh, ready to end this conversation before it got any more disappointing when Noah opened his mouth and then shut it again.
“What is it?” Gansey prompted.
Was Noah… Blushing?
“I can’t describe it, but I can show you,” he said, smile blooming on his mouth at his own ingenuity.
“Oh,” Gansey said, unable to hide his shock as his cheeks pinkened too. He thought he must be misunderstanding, that maybe there was some supernatural way for Noah to share memories with him, or maybe take in back in time. He couldn’t possibly be suggesting—
“Okay, so,” Noah said, shooting upright in his excitement, “We were – we were just like this, actually, Blue was right where you are and I was right where I am. And we were talking about how it’s a bummer that she can’t kiss anyone because she’s worried she’s gonna kill them, and I’m like, ‘I know someone you can kiss,’ because, like… She doesn’t have to worry about killing me.”
Gansey was trying to appreciate the details of the scene Noah was trying to paint him, but he felt like he’d short-circuited. His brain, previously fixated on thoughts of kissing Blue and carefully skirting the moments that would immediately follow kissing Blue, was now entirely occupied with the idea of kissing Noah. Or, rather, Noah kissing him.
Was Noah actually going to kiss him?
“So she was like ‘Okay’ and I was like ‘What?’ – like you – and she was like ‘I said okay’ and then I kissed her, and it was, like…” He fluttered his hands in a vague way that instructed Gansey to sit up a bit.
Gansey’s heart was beating very hard again. “Pause, um, wait a second,” he said, and only after Noah had stalled his enthusiastic retelling did Gansey chance sitting up. He cleared his throat and looked at Noah. “Are you… Going to…?”
“Am I going to…?” Noah repeated back, eyes big and expectant.
Gansey cleared his throat once more, because it suddenly seemed very tight, like it wouldn’t allow any words through. “Kiss… Me?”
“Well, yeah,” Noah said, seeming confused about Gansey’s confusion, “If you… Want to? Like, that was the point, I thought? I’m getting to the gooey part.”
“Oh,” Gansey said again, and he gave a slow nod, blood rushing to his head again. “It’s just,” he said, “I’ve never kissed a—“
“Ghost?” Noah said with an impish grin that made Gansey’s heart beat even harder.
“Well, um, yes, that’s true, but also I’ve never kissed a, uh, boy.”
“Oh!” Noah said, seeming both surprised and suddenly comprehending. He eased back down on to the bed, blinking up at him. “Well, do you want to?”
It wasn’t that Gansey had never considered if he’d like to kiss a boy – it was just that he’d never considered having to answer the question out loud, if posed to him exactly like that. Nor had he considered if he’d like to kiss this particular boy.
But, looking down at Noah, eyes shining and hair ruffled from rolling around and cheeks as pink as they ever got, he wondered why he hadn’t. Noah was quite cute.
Very slowly, the absurdity of this entire situation hitting him as he spoke, he said, “I think I wouldn’t mind it.”
Noah broke into a grin that reaffirmed to Gansey the truthfulness of what he’d just admitted. “Nice,” Noah said, popping upright again, “I mean, boy lips aren’t really different from girl lips, so it’s not that different.”
“Right,” Gansey said. He felt almost like he should be taking notes. “So… You have?”
“Kissed boys?” Noah said, “Yeah, of course. Anyway, Blue.”
Gansey nodded. Right. Blue. This wasn’t about kissing Noah – it was about kissing Blue by proxy. He reminded his heart of that, but his heart wasn’t really in the mood to listen.
“So, she said ‘I said okay’ and it was like… Gansey, act like, tense and nervous.”
He didn’t have to do much acting. When Noah leaned toward him, his heart performed the same kind of frantic maneuver as when Noah had startled him initially, and he shut his eyes, because that was what one did when they were about to be kissed.
And then he received the most unpleasant kiss of his life. It was like Noah was just pushing their mouths together.
“I thought you said she was a good kisser!” Gansey said, eyes flying open just in time to see Noah dissolve into giggles. Despite the absolutely horrendous kiss Noah had just given him, the sight of him holding his stomach as he laughed made Gansey’s heart flip again.
“She was! Eventually! But the first try was terrible,” Noah said through hiccuped breaths.
“Noah!” Gansey said, nose wrinkling as he wiped off his mouth, but Noah’s laugh was contagious, and a laugh slipped out of him too.
“Okay, okay,” Noah said, struggling to reign in his grin, “So we tried again and it was still super terrible, right, but then I told her to imagine the movies. I think she just imagined you, but, you know, alright – this is the gooey part.”
Gansey’s heart attack resumed as Noah squinted at him and then carefully readjusted him – shifting the angle of his shoulders, tipping his chin. Goosebumps prickled on his skin from more than just the temperature of Noah’s hands.
“Okay, so, imagine Blue, or the movies, or whatever,” Noah instructed, and then he leaned over Gansey, elbow by the opposite side of his head, and he kissed him again.
Gansey tried to imagine Blue or the movies, but with Noah’s lips parted gently against his, with Noah’s hand sliding around the back of his neck, with his stomach turning gooey in the good way, he could think of no one but Noah. A boy, a ghost, but also more than that – his friend, the one who had died in his place, someone who understood him in a way no one else could.
He thought of insomnia-ridden nights in the companionable quiet of someone else who knew what it was like to have died. Of Noah telling him elaborate stories to distract him from memories that nightmares had dug up. Of constructing mini Henrietta side-by-side, knee-to-knee. Of terribly-played games of pool, and of terribly-sung renditions of out-of-date music, and of every terribly happy moment he’d spent with Noah.
And then Noah sat back a little – not far, since Gansey could still feel his breath. “So, it was like that,” he said. Gansey’s heart continued to hammer away as he reopened his eyes.
Noah was smiling, and Gansey’s overworked heart ached. It was a shame, he thought. A shame that he couldn’t kiss Blue himself, of course, but also a shame that Noah had to be dead. He’d be a good boyfriend – not necessarily for himself, but also not necessarily not for himself.
“How do you feel?” Noah prompted.
“Gooey in the good way,” Gansey confirmed, smiling back at him. “How do you feel?”
Sadness tinged the edges of Noah’s broad smile. “Alive,” he said, and Gansey’s heart hurt again in a sharp pang; he felt the same. Noah continued, “And you didn’t mind it?”
“What?” Gansey asked, and Noah laughed lightly, flicking at Gansey’s ear again.
“You didn’t mind it – kissing a boy?”
“No,” Gansey confirmed, smile softening, “I quite liked it.”
“Yeah?” Noah asked, smile broadening.
“Yeah.”
“Cool,” he said. “I mean, I already knew I liked kissing boys, but it’s cool that you do, too.”
Gansey wanted to tell Noah that it wasn’t just that he liked kissing boys, but that he liked kissing him specifically, but he wasn’t sure how. He wrestled with the words for a moment, watching as Noah contently shut his eyes. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Noah was going to sleep.
Sleeping next to Noah was a pleasant idea. A little chilly, maybe, but Gansey figured that, with enough blankets, it’d be fine.
“’I’d ask you out, if I were alive,’” Noah said, and Gansey’s heart skipped once more. “That’s what I said to Blue.”
Very carefully, Gansey asked, “And what did she say?”
“She said she’d say okay.”
Relief flooded through Gansey, giving him the strength he needed to say, “I’d say okay, too. For the record.”
Noah opened his eyes and smiled again. “Thanks,” he said, voice soft.
“What happened next?” Gansey asked.
“She was shivering, ‘cause I used up all the energy,” he said, “I disappeared.”
“Are you going to disappear now?” Gansey hoped very much that he wouldn’t.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“If you hadn’t disappeared, would you have kissed her again?” Gansey asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said, “because she was very sad.”
“And if she wasn’t very sad?” Gansey asked.
“Then… Maybe.”
“I’m not very sad,” Gansey said.
“No?”
“A little sad, but not very.”
“You can just ask,” Noah said, smile working its way back on to his face. “I’d say okay.”
“Fine,” he said, smiling back, “Would you show me again?”
“Okay,” Noah said, and leaned in to kiss him once more.