Special Episode: Good Feelings (Part III)
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
After such a long, busy day and night of moving, sinking into bed feels twice as good as usual. Especially here, in this house. Everything feels twice as good as usual here, in Mel’s own beautiful home.
She sits in the bed, finishing up her braid, letting her gaze wander. She keeps swinging back and forth between a haze of stunned delight and bewildered distress.
Raj comes out of the bathroom, glowing and sweet-smelling from his shower, his dark curls in a silky tumble. He collapses into the bed with a sigh of relief, stretching out his aching muscles. Mel is sitting upright, so he folds an arm around her lap, then gently runs his fingers over her stomach to say hello to the baby.
“Do you like it, angel?” he murmurs softly.
Melanie looks slowly around at her brand-new bedroom, in her brand-new house.
“I love it, Raj,” she whispers. “It’s perfect.”
He doesn’t open his tired eyes, but that familiar radiant smile turns up his lips.
“Good,” comes his warm, drowsy voice.
Such a simple answer, but he says it in this tone that makes it sound like if Mel loves the house, then everything, everything is right with the world. He leans up to kiss her, then to softly kiss her rounded-out stomach.
“Hear that, you?” he murmurs, to the baby. “We’ve got a cozy place waiting for you, now.”
That puts a smile on Mel’s face, but it falls away after a moment.
This moment should be perfect, like everything normally is with Raj. But this time there’s something wildly wrong, something Melanie simply can’t get her head around no matter how hard she tries. Even now, after having a day to sit with it.
She glances at the bedroom door. It’s closed, sealing off the hallway. She can’t hear anything from outside.
“Raj…” She takes a second, trying to choose her words carefully. “I - I’m really happy about the house, don’t get me wrong. You’re ridiculous for doing all this, and I love you to bits. But what I still don’t get - I mean, what are you - Noah?”
Raj goes perfectly still, tensing up beside Melanie. His deep brown eyes flutter open to gaze anxiously up at her.
“Are you - having second thoughts about saying he can stay here a little longer?” Raj is making a perceptible effort to keep his voice steady, but she can see the mounting alarm in his eyes. “Because - you’re my top priority, and I’ll do whatever you want, but - please, I - look, I’ll get down on my knees and beg if I have to.”
Mel widens her eyes at him, beyond incredulous. “You’d do that for Noah?”
Raj winces, then nods, completely in earnest.
Melanie exhales a bewildered rush of breath, carefully shifting herself forward until she can fall to lay on her back.
“Stop it, babe. I already said that he could stay, I’m not gonna go back on it.”
“Oh.” Raj’s shoulders sink in relief, his eyes filling up with gratitude. He catches Mel’s fingers in his and presses them softly to his lips. “Thank you for trusting me, angel. Even this time.”
“I trust your intuition with pretty much anything. That’s exactly why I can’t fathom how it is that I’m suddenly finding out you’re friends with Noah, and Aiden, of all people!” Melanie lets out a thin, strained little noise. “For some reason the Noah thing bothers me the most! You tell me you’ve made a new best friend, and somehow he turns out to be Noah Raunier? How? How? There’s no god. This is proof. Everything is just chaos, pure chaos.”
Raj sits up and runs a hand through his curls, a pained expression stealing into his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he begins, placing his gentle, calloused fingers on her baby bump. “The last thing I wanted to do is stress you out, especially right now-”
“Raj,” Mel cuts in, full of affectionate exasperation, “You know how I feel about everyone treating me like I’m all fragile just because I’m pregnant-”
“No, I know, I know,” he cuts in hastily. “I don’t mean to. It’s just - you know how precious you two are to me. Sometimes I’m gonna worry. I can’t help it.”
Melanie reaches up to reassuringly cradle his face, her head spinning with total confusion. How can Raj be so perfect, and then make such an unbelievable blunder as this?
“Look, I know you’ve been looking for your own friends here for a long time,” Mel tells him, hesitating over her words. “I know it’s been hard for you. That’s why I basically didn’t ask any questions when you found someone you wanted to hang out with all the time. Especially because you kept coming home so happy, all smiles. And now I’m finding out it was Noah, all along. My internal compass is going haywire.”
Raj gazes down at her with obvious sadness in his sweet, dark brown eyes.
“He used to be that bad?” he asks softly.
“Used to be? He and Ralph are thoughtless jerks, always getting into fights, ruining things, starting trouble, serious trouble - not to mention I saw them and Aiden be absolutely brutal to Jamie Keane, over and over again! It’s beyond comprehension that Jamie has forgiven Aiden, or Noah, for that matter! How on earth-?”
“Because Jamie knows what I know.” Raj gently catches Melanie’s violently gesturing hand, presses it with his own. “That they’re not the same people they used to be.”
“Let’s really hope that’s true! Because I remember the person Noah used to be. I’ll admit he always made me laugh, but that doesn’t change the - everything else about him!”
Remembering suddenly that he’s here somewhere in the house, Melanie quickly lowers her volume, then falls silent, anxiously twisting her fingers in the bed sheets.
Raj slowly, soothingly strokes his knuckles up and down the side of her cheek.
“I understand how weird this must be for you,” he murmurs apologetically, keeping his voice soft. “But it’s been a long time since you really knew Noah, M. Eight years long. A lot of things can happen in that amount of time, and a lot has clearly happened to Noah. He’s been through it, for real. He had that black eye and the splint on his thumb when I met him, but even if he hadn’t, like - you… could tell. My man looked fragile enough to break.”
Melanie opens her mouth to answer, then stops, her eyes blinking quickly over to Raj’s face.
“Noah can handle himself,” she protests. “He’s tough as hell. Definitely one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met.”
Raj looks sad again. “Then - maybe he had to be for a little too long.”
Melanie spends a moment in startled, silent contemplation. Her eyes drift to the ceiling. Raj watches her nervously, then starts massaging her fingers. It feels nice. Mel closes her eyes, grounding herself with his familiar, gentle touch.
“Ralph is the one who did that to Noah, isn’t he?” she asks eventually, dropping her gaze back to Raj. “The black eye, the thumb?”
“Noah said he did that to his thumb himself.”
“What about his eye?”
“He didn’t say anything about that, but yeah, I’m pretty sure it was Ralph.”
“You’re right,” Mel answers, with perfect certainty. “It was.”
“Not a doubt in your mind, huh? Why’s that?”
“Because of how good Noah is in a fight.”
Raj tilts his head to the side, looking at Mel with interest. “Really?”
“Mhm. You didn’t know him in high school, when he was more likely to show it off, but - no one else could’ve landed a hit on his face like that. No one else would even try. Trust me, you’d have to be either completely out of your mind or a sucker for punishment to throw a punch at Noah. Or, you’d have to be someone who knew that Noah would never really fight back against you. As in, Ralph.”
Raj is listening with rapt attention, his dark, warm eyes full of fascination. Almost to the point it catches Melanie a little off-guard.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” she says, thinking out loud, since it’s obvious that Raj wants to know more. “Ralph has always had some serious rage issues. I just never thought he’d take it out on Noah like that.”
“Well, he’s really put Noah through it,” Raj answers quietly. “Noah is a very different person, now. At least partly because of it.”
Melanie gazes up at Raj with very round eyes, once again startled into silence.
“It’s nice to hear that Noah used to make you laugh, M.” Raj breaks into a sudden smile. “He makes me laugh, too. When you can get him to relax enough.”
“What do you mean, when you can get him to relax enough? I remember him always being way too relaxed about everything. Like, relax, Melanie, I can attempt a backflip into the pool from the roof even though I’ve never tried that before.”
Raj bites his lip, keeping back a laugh.
“Yeah, that sounds like him,” he says, with immense affection in his voice. “But he only gets that way when he’s totally relaxed, and that only happens sometimes. Usually when he’s with me.”
Melanie thinks about that for a good long time. She’s slightly shaken by that piece of information. If that’s true, then Noah really has changed. That would be a huge difference, right off the bat.
“I thought he was more quiet and serious than I remembered him being,” she murmurs.
“A lot of the time, yeah.” Raj twines his fingers around her braid as he talks. “But when it’s all the guys together, and especially when it’s just him and me - it’s like he remembers how he used to be. Without realizing it, but - it’s the best thing, when you can bring it out in him. You just don’t know, because you haven’t done it yet.”
“Yet? You’re thinking I will, for some reason?”
“Yes,” Raj answers firmly.
Mel waits until she realizes that Raj will be providing no further explanation. This happens sometimes with him, because there’s no further explanation at all. Raj just has a feeling, but he’s sure about it in that way only he can be sure.
Mel has never met a man who lives so much by his intuition as Raj does. She understands why, though. She’s yet to see it fail him.
Until now? asks a voice in her head.
She’s very aware of the new question mark at the end. She closes her eyes, trying to organize her jumbled, conflicting thoughts.
“Noah doesn’t care about breaking things. I just hope you know that.”
“Angel,” Raj murmurs softly, “I watched him nearly burst into tears right in front of me because he broke one box of tiles, completely by accident.”
Mel turns her head sharply to look at Raj, blinking hard.
“Okay,” she finally answers, having decided her emotions are too hopelessly tangled to sort out. “I’m not gonna tell you that you can’t have your best friend, babe. I can’t do that to you, and I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t know enough about this whole thing. But I’m letting you know that the only reason I’m okay with this is because I trust you.”
Raj bows his head to kiss the tip of her nose, his dark curls tumbling forward to brush her temple. “You let me know if that feeling doesn’t change soon. You know I wouldn’t do anything I thought would be bad for you, or for our baby.”
Mel knows in her heart that it’s true. So she nods, then curls into him so he can lay down and give her a sleepy kiss.
“Hey, I’m happy to talk about this more,” he yawns, his voice growing slower. “But could we… maybe in the morning… it’s late, and I moved a lot of boxes and furniture today…”
“No, it’s alright.” Mel sits up and slips out of the bed, stretching her arms over her head. “You go to sleep. I’m gonna go get a snack.”
Raj rolls onto his side, slinging one thigh over the blankets. “I can get it for you…”
He trails off with a little snore. Melanie smothers a giggle behind her hand, then stands there gazing at him adoringly for a long moment. Touching her fingertips to her engagement ring. Taking it all in. The rich, dark copper of Raj’s skin on their warm sienna sheets, the low golden light, the scarlet pillows.
Melanie breaks her eyes away from the sight with difficulty, then slips out into the hallway, softly closing the door after herself.
Out here, silvery moonlight paints the walls, dancing with the shadows of the plants beyond the windows. The windy week has given way to a very still night, rich and dark and soft. The air is almost warm, a little cool where the breeze drifts through the windows. Crickets outside are chirping.
Mel drifts slowly through the house with one hand pressed to her baby bump, smiling and smiling.
The place is still foreign and new to her, as if she’s on her second night in a vacation home. The fact that very little has been unpacked from the move adds to that sensation. All the walls are bare, the rooms full of furniture in no order, boxes still sealed with tape. Empty shelves in the walls are waiting to be filled.
Now that night has fallen, the shadows remind Mel how unfamiliar it all is. She wishes they had just one or two more things unpacked. One room with the furniture in the right place, or one set of shelves filled.
But Raj remodeled this house, so of course it already feels like home.
Melanie stops at the top of the stairs. She takes a deep breath, overwhelmed with love for Raj. She can see his hand in everything about this place.
She drifts downstairs, going slowly and carefully, one hand pressed to her baby bump. She steps down onto the beautiful hardwood floors, takes a step towards the kitchen, then hastily pulls up short.
Noah looks up when he hears her. All the lights in the kitchen are off, but he’s standing half in a pool of silvery moonlight. Mel can make out the shape of his tall frame at the kitchen counter, which he’s resting his elbows on as he slowly rolls a blunt. His head was tilted down over it, his dark hair hiding his face.
When he spots Mel he twists the end of the blunt, then slips it into his cigarette pack.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, moving around the kitchen counter without throwing so much as a glance at her. “Didn’t know anyone else would be up at this hour. I’ll get out of your way.”
He heads for the back door of the house in swift strides.
“Hey,” Mel blurts out, right as he reaches the door. “You don’t have to go away just because I’m here, Noah.”
He stops there and looks at her, his face in the shadows, but his many piercings reflecting back the moonlight.
“We can coexist, and we kind of have to, because of Raj,” Mel says stiffly, heading into the kitchen. “So go away if you want to. Not because you feel like you have to.”
Noah tilts his head to the side. He studies Mel with obvious doubt in his eyes as she puts a little saucepan on the stove and gets a flame flickering beneath it.
“Nah,” he begins uncertainly. “It’s fine. Appreciate you letting me stay, but you don’t have to pretend you want me around. Sounds tiring, and I don’t want to put you out in your own place.”
It’s such a strange experience for Mel to hear his voice in her kitchen. It’s a little deeper and rougher than she remembered. Unmistakably a grown man’s voice, now, but she can still hear traces of his younger self within it.
The sound of his voice is surprisingly nostalgic to Melanie, in its familiarity.
“Really, Noah, I mean it. You don’t have to flee the room whenever I walk in.”
“I… alright,” Noah says awkwardly, drifting back over to the counter. He stands there silently for a moment, fidgeting with his lip piercing. In a tentative, gruff voice, he adds - “House to your liking?”
Melanie can’t help a happy little laugh.
“It’s amazing,” she sighs dreamily. “Already my new favorite place in the world.”
Noah’s neutral expression briefly wavers. A spasm of bright emotion glitters in his grey eyes before he drops his head, twisting his mouth to one side.
It strikes Melanie that Noah contributed a lot to the making of this house, according to Raj. She just accidentally paid him a compliment, but - he deserves it, if Raj wasn’t exaggerating. Every little detail here looks like it was done with love. Melanie’s eyes linger on the beautiful kitchen backsplash, the mosaic of broken tiles all fitting together just right.
“I just wish we had a few more things unpacked.” Mel picks up a piece of art she’d left propped up against the wall, then holds it up beside the kitchen window where she wants it to go. “I know we just finished moving, but I’d feel better if there were just one or two things where they’re actually supposed to be…”
She trails off in confusion, hearing Noah move behind her. She turns around to find him taking a hammer and a few hanging hooks from Raj’s toolbox, which is out on the kitchen counter.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that, Noah,” Mel says, flustered and thrown off. “Especially not right now, after you already helped us move all day long. I was just talking, not-”
“I’m not doing anything else,” he murmurs, taking the painting from her and gently nudging her aside. “That where you want it?”
“Oh.” Mel draws back in surprise, then gives her shoulders a slow, concessionary shrug. “Okay. Yeah, right there. Or no - like an inch lower, because I want to hang that little lamp right next to it.”
Noah marks the corners of the frame with a pencil, then marks the place on the wall where Mel said she wanted the lamp. He takes a few quick measurements, lines up a hammer and nail.
“We shouldn’t-” Mel begins, and cuts herself off.
Noah pauses, throwing Mel a quick glance. “What?”
“Nothing.” She waves a forget it hand at him. “I was going to say we shouldn’t do this because it’s going to wake up Raj, but he can sleep through anything.”
Noah surprises her by breathing out an affectionate laugh. “I know. That’s why I wasn’t worried about it.”
“Wake up Raj by accident,” Mel laughs softly. “It’s impossible.”
Noah snickers a little. “Yeah, I was gonna say, if you figure out a way, let me know.”
Mel lets out a surprised laugh, then bites her lip.
She watches Noah as he gets to work. He has his back to her, so she can’t see exactly what he’s doing, but he’s definitely starting with the lamp. Mel thought that would be a complicated thing to install, one of those things they’d probably end up putting off for a while. There are a lot of confusing wires.
But after just a minute or two there’s the soft click of Noah switching it on. Its low, warm light floods the little corner of the kitchen. Melanie blinks in surprise, then smiles in pleased approval when she sees how good it looks. The glow shines beautifully across the tile backsplash, giving it a subtle, iridescent glimmer.
Noah has already turned away to get the hammer again, so he can put up the painting. He straightens up beside Mel to place a hook against the wall. She takes the opportunity to get a closer, undisturbed look at him in the dim light. It’s been a long time since she’s had the chance.
Mel had already noticed the obvious differences - all the elaborate tattoos, the sea of piercings, his inky hair grown out so long. He stands taller than she remembers, and his body and jawline have hardened up, filled out. His rippy clothes reveal that he’s all lean muscle beneath them, more powerfully built than the half-concealed kind of strength he had in high school.
But from here Melanie can perceive some more subtle differences, too.
The hard set of his tensed-up jaw. The sharp, unyielding armor up in his grey eyes, so much more serious than she can ever remember them being before. He looks tired from helping with the move, but more than that, on a deeper level than that… he looks thoroughly worn out, wretched, exhausted. Hurt.
Mel’s heart is reacting in confusing ways. She can already tell that Raj is right, that Noah is a very different person from the high school boy she knew before. The Noah she remembers was always rushing eagerly into things, always trying to make everyone laugh, always laughing himself. Anarchy incarnate, with a smile of pure mischief.
She knows he’s a grown man now, but she didn’t expect to see this kind of change in him.
Mel can’t help but think how strange it is. Once, a very long time ago, she slept one night with her head resting on Noah’s chest, curled up with his arm around her. She’s just now grasping that she doesn’t know at all what’s happened to him since then, what life has been like. It doesn’t look like it’s treated him all too kindly. Things actually must have been kind of brutal for Noah not to bounce back, for that easy warmth in his eyes to have grown cold. What could have broken in him, to put that fire out?
Despite everything, Mel’s heart softens a little. She can still look at Noah and remember him the way he was, but it’s almost difficult when he’s behaving so differently. And yet… he feels so familiar to her, like he stepped right out of her past.
She turns away quickly, casting her eyes around for something easy to unpack. She and Raj only put away the perishable food this morning, so the remaining bags of groceries seem like a good place to start. Mel extracts a few things and opens the fridge, then pauses, her brow crinkling in faint confusion.
“Where’s your food, Noah?”
“Hm?”
“You didn’t come to the grocery store with us this morning. You said you had everything you needed, but there’s nothing in here we didn’t buy, so where’s your food? Like, what are you making for breakfast tomorrow?”
Noah shrugs, glancing at her over his shoulder. “Was probably gonna walk to the gas station, get a Red Bull and some chips or something.”
Melanie twists around to stare at him, her eyes widening. “For breakfast?”
“Why not?”
“What did you have for dinner tonight?”
“Pretty much the same thing?”
“Oh-” Melanie winces deeply. She presses her fingertips to her temple, fighting with herself, but it just can’t stand. “Ugh. Okay. No.”
She takes a pan out of one of the moving boxes and places it on the burner next to the one she’s already using. Noah watches curiously as she melts some butter in it.
“What are you doing?”
“You just need to eat some actual food, Noah. I can’t believe you’ve survived this long on only that kind of meal.”
“Not only that kind of meal,” he protests. “Raj is always bringing me leftover sandwiches and trays of nice little fancy snacks and stuff. They’re real good, way better than anything I could make.”
Mel freezes halfway through reaching for a spatula, then closes her eyes in momentary disbelief. Those are the type of leftovers she usually brings home from her events and hands off to Raj, which means…
She’s been keeping Noah fed this whole time, without knowing it.
Mel starts to sigh in exasperation, but actually - if it means Noah’s had some actual meals, that’s okay. After all, she’s making him one right now, and he didn’t ask her to. He actually still seems confused about what she’s doing. He’s paused in hanging the painting, his baffled grey eyes watching her.
He quickly gets back to work when she turns to meet his gaze. He hangs the painting neatly, adjusts it, then steps back to have a look at his work.
“I think I’ll put that on the counter beneath the painting,” Mel tells him, nodding to the vase poking out of one of the open moving boxes. “The toaster, too. I think the jars of honey with the herbs and flowers in them should be in a row on the windowsill. They’ll look nice there when the sunlight shines through.”
She was just thinking out loud, so she stops and stares at Noah when he silently crosses the kitchen and takes the vase from the box. Her instinct is to snatch it from him before he can do something stupid, but - no, there’s clearly no threat of that. He gingerly sets it down on the kitchen counter, slides it to its correct place with infinite caution, and goes back to get the jars of honey.
“I - oh,” Mel says softly. “Okay.”
Noah hears the change in her voice and pauses, clearly afraid that he’s done something wrong. There’s an uneasy silence.
“This is so weird,” Mel blurts out, unable to stop herself. “Here you are. In my kitchen. Living in my house. After all this time!”
Noah flinches, then hangs his head, letting out a heavy breath. “Shit, I know. I’m sorry-”
“Goddamnit, Noah, why are you always best friends with whichever man I’m dating? Or engaged to, now? I know it’s only been twice, but that still feels like too many times.”
“I had no idea it was you he’s engaged to!” Noah protests desperately, lifting his head to look at her with imploring eyes. “If I’d known, I-”
He stops, like he’s not sure what he was going to say. Maybe he doesn’t know what he would have done, if he’d known.
Melanie lets out a slow, measured breath, torn between conflicting feelings.
“Come here and let me look at you again,” she says.
Noah comes to her timidly. He sets the honey jars down on the counter, then lets her take his face in her hand and tilt it into the glow of the lamp. His long hair tumbles out of the way and spills down over his back, so that he can’t hide behind it anymore.
He’s still handsome, Mel realizes suddenly. For everything else that’s different, that hasn’t changed.
Actually, if he only looked happier, he would look better than he did before. Much better. He wears all of the tattoos and piercings remarkably well. He’s carefully avoiding meeting her eyes, but in this light, his irises have shifted slightly in color. Before they looked like cool, still, grey ocean. In the colorful glow of the lamp, they’re almost a smoky lavender, very pale in contrast to the dark lines of ink on his face and neck, the little geometric shape tattooed by his eye.
His face filled out so nicely, too. Stronger, more mature than it was before. The moonlight slides gently around the side of his profile, casting soft shadows against his graceful bone structure, twinkling on his piercings.
An anxious blush is crawling up his cheeks, so Mel lets him go.
“What happened to you?” she asks.
“What?” Noah flushes even deeper, his eyes growing dark with indignation. “What d’you mean? Nothing!”
“Are you still popping pills all the time?”
He shivers a little, shaking his head. “No. Not anymore.”
Mel pauses in surprise, recovers after a moment. “But you did just roll yourself a blunt.”
“Well - yeah,” he concedes. “Still want that whoa feelin’ sometimes. Just not in a way I can’t control.”
Melanie struggles to process that, then decides she’ll have to do it later. “Are you still getting into trouble?”
“I - nah,” Noah says, both guiltily and unconvincingly. “What kind of, um - what do you mean?”
“That’s a Noah yes,” Mel groans. “And do you still fight people?”
Noah flexes his inky hands, then curls them into fists. “Sure, I’m still good with my fives. Why, someone bothering you?”
This unexpected answer makes Melanie open her eyes very wide.
“What-? You can’t just go beat up anyone who bothers me, Noah!”
Noah looks hopelessly confused for a second, but his expression suddenly clears. “Oh, because of my thumb? It’s fine. Pretty much all better now.”
“No, because-” Melanie breaks off, stares up at Noah, then lets out a helpless sputter of laughter. “Oh, my god. Forget it!”
Noah looks infinitely relieved to see her laughing. The corners of his mouth twitch, making the moonlight on his lip piercing flicker.
Melanie quickly grows serious again, startled to find she has some old fondness in her heart for Noah.
“What happened to you?” she repeats, more softly this time.
“Nothing,” he says firmly. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Ugh, Noah.” Mel closes her eyes in frustration. “I swear, if I were to put a gun to your head and say just tell me about your feelings, or else-”
“Then we’d see what you’re made of, because I’d tell you to fucking do it,” he growls.
“Of course you would!” Mel lets out another helpless laugh, then turns back to the stove, trying unsuccessfully to fight that old fondness away. “That’s you all over.”
She finishes up the grilled cheese she was making, slips it onto a plate, and hands it off to Noah. He takes it in surprise, then stares in bewilderment as she sets her own food down on the counter: a cup of hot milk with a cinnamon stick and some butter melted in it. Also a jar of peanut butter, which she sticks a spoon directly into.
He puts up one pierced eyebrow. “You’re making fun of what I eat, and you’re eating that?”
“I get a free pass on my weird cravings, obviously.”
“Why’s that?”
Mel widens her eyes at him in amazement, then uses the peanut butter spoon to gesture to her baby bump. Noah’s eyes fall to it. He blinks hard and fast, looking very much like somehow he forgot.
“Right,” he murmurs.
And then he lapses into silence, stands suspended in his thoughts for a long moment.
Mel is trying to think if she can remember him staying so quiet for so long, outside of when he would get all sulky after Ralph was mean to him.
Mel’s heart does an unhappy little stutter as she remembers that Ralph blacked out Noah’s eye. However much Aiden, Noah, and Ralph argued in high school, she knows they all meant something to each other. That they cared deeply about each other in some complicated, unspoken way that only they understood.
Sounds like that’s all over now, at least between Noah and Ralph. That must have been really, really hard for Noah. Mel knows he always secretly admired and looked up to Ralph, for reasons she couldn’t begin to guess at.
She steals another glance at his grey eyes. She thinks she can see the pained exhaustion he’s trying to hide away at the back of them.
Suddenly she’s so glad that she didn’t tell Raj to make Noah leave. Raj is Noah’s new best friend, and Mel is just now realizing she doesn’t want to take that away from him. Just like she doesn’t want to take Raj’s best friend away from him.
“I’m looking for my own place,” Noah says suddenly, in a guilty voice. “I know that you got all this big life stuff happening, the new house, the baby… I’m not supposed to be here for all this.”
“It’s okay,” Melanie hears herself answer. “You don’t have to go yet.”
“Nah, really,” Noah murmurs apologetically, in a strangely flat voice. “Everything should be perfect for you and Raj. I shouldn’t stand in the way of that.”
Melanie nibbles her lip as she rinses out the saucepan, shelves the peanut butter, and gathers the little steaming cup of milk into her hands. Noah straightens up like he’s going to follow her upstairs, so she reaches to switch off the kitchen lights.
“Hey,” Noah murmurs, stopping her with her finger on the switch. “Does all that look okay?”
Melanie leans around him to see what he did. The little nook with the painting, the lamp, the rows of honey in the windowsill. The toaster ready to use in the morning. The pretty vase just waiting for some flowers. It looks cozy, welcoming, warm. One place where everything is just right, in all the chaos.
Melanie can’t help but smile.
“Much better,” she says approvingly, and turns off the lights.
She catches another flash of warm gratification in Noah’s grey eyes as he follows her to the stairs.
“You’re not ruining anything by being here, by the way,” she adds, softening her voice as they go up towards the bedrooms. “You really don’t have to rush out. A new place always needs a lot of work, and I can’t help Raj when I’m this pregnant.”
“You sure you want me for that, though?”
“Mhm. Besides, you’re already all settled in here, and - now I know we can dispatch you to go fight anyone who bothers us. That’s a perk. I assume that offer applied to Raj, too? I can see you roused to unwonted violence if anyone wronged him.”
Noah looks confused again. “No, it wouldn’t be unwanted. I’d want the violence, if someone wronged Raj.”
“Wh-? I said unwo- nevermind.” Mel suppresses a giggle, despite herself. “The point is, you should stay here for a little longer. Especially if you need to be someplace safe.”
“Hey, don’t worry about me ‘n my safety,” Noah yawns. “I can handle whatever. Once in high school I had this killer headache, right? I concentrated so hard on trying to get rid of it that I went to a different plane, and a magic pill materialized in my hand, and I took it and it cured my headache, so. I’m pretty sure I can heal myself, if I can just access my wizard mode again.”
“Ooh, it could’ve been that,” Melanie answers delicately. “Or, maybe what actually happened is that you were tripping and you started saying you had a ‘concentrate headache’ over and over again, so I gave you an Advil. And you weren’t on another plane, you were looking at the tapestry in my bedroom.”
“Oh, word?” Noah glances at her in faint surprise as they step out into the hallway. “Hm. Some of my memories from high school must be a lil’ fuzzy, I guess.”
“Is that seriously what you thought happened, this whole time? That you - accessed wizard mode?”
Noah hesitates for just a fraction of a second too long, then answers: “No?”
Melanie holds back her laughter, but this time with serious difficulty.
“Quick question I forgot to ask,” she manages, a little unsteadily. “Do you still drive like a maniac?”
Noah draws back, his eyes widening in indignation.
“Me?” He puts an inky hand to his chest, offended. “When have I ever driven like a maniac?”
Mel blinks at him blankly once, twice, then loses the battle and lets out a burst of laughter. She recovers quickly, though, catching her lip between her teeth. Noah looks bewildered, but he’s kind of smiling, too. Relieved to see her laughing again, that much is obvious.
“Never had a car out of my control in my life,” he tells her loftily.
“You almost drove us into a waterfall once.”
“That wasn’t because I was driving badly, it was because I took a wrong turn.”
“This conversation is going nowhere,” Melanie groans, finding herself struggling to rein in another laugh.
Noah starts to hand her the plate with the grilled cheese, then tilts his head to the side inquiringly when she pushes it back at him.
“It’s for you. I made it for you.”
He draws it back to himself, caught by surprise. “Oh. Thanks.”
“Yeah, and next time just chip in for the groceries and come with us to the store. We’ll just make more food, enough for all of us.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.” Noah hesitates, then slowly adds, “Did you mean what you said about me staying longer, then? Or was that…?”
“Yes, I did,” Melanie answers, before she can think too hard about it. “You being here makes Raj happy, and we really do need some help with the new house, so. Don’t worry about apartment hunting just yet.”
Noah looks a little incredulous. “Even though you got the baby coming, and all that? You two don’t mind me hanging around?”
“Don’t you worry about my baby. My baby is gonna be perfect, and painfully adorable.”
“Shit, I know,” Noah says, startling Melanie all over again.
“What?”
“I mean…” Noah’s eyebrows furrow, like he’s confused by the question. “S’gonna be a combination of you and Raj, right?”
Melanie is momentarily taken aback.
“Correct thing to say, Noah,” she manages, a little flustered. “Now you can definitely stay a bit longer.”
Noah breathes out a laugh, then pauses as it seems to strike him that she’s serious. He peers searchingly into her eyes, then gives her a relieved look as he turns towards his bedroom.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” he murmurs, pushing the door open. “S’okay if you do. I’d understand.”
Mel glances past him into his room. There’s almost nothing in there, and he’s barely unpacked what stuff there is. The only new-looking thing, really one of the only things that go beyond basic necessities, is the blanket on his bed.
Melanie can tell instantly that it must have been a gift from Raj. Noah would never have picked it out for himself, but it looks just right for him, goes perfectly with the stuff in his room. What little stuff there is.
Is this - really all that Noah has left to him?
Mel bites her lip, then says quickly - “I’m glad we can talk without disaster, Noah. Maybe we can get along. Sometimes. Get to know each other a little better, like Raj wants.”
Noah pauses in the doorframe of his room. It casts deep shadows over him, but the moonlight glows on all of his piercings, slides down his tattoos as he stands there silhouetted, looking back at her. His grey eyes rest for a moment on hers, too guarded to reveal what he’s thinking.
“Alright,” comes his soft voice, out of the darkness. “À suivre.”
Melanie stands there uncertainly after Noah closes his door behind himself, fidgeting with her engagement ring. She doesn’t exactly know why she pressed him to stay. He’s much easier to be around now, but - for some reason it makes her terribly sad to think that something killed the wild goofball in him. He was such a rare one, in spite of all the trouble he inevitably caused.
Maybe that’s part of why he and Raj seem to understand each other so completely and perfectly. Maybe Noah recognizes a lost part of himself in Raj. Maybe Raj recognizes it in him, too.
Actually… Raj said that version of Noah is still in there somewhere, that he comes out under the right conditions. That means all hope isn’t lost, and now Noah lives here. For some reason Melanie feels better knowing that whatever Noah has been through since they last knew each other, now he’s with her and Raj, safe and sound.
That doesn’t mean she has to like Noah, or the fact that he’s living here. All she has to do is put up with him well enough that he doesn’t feel any pressure to go. She can manage that. Probably.
She lets herself back into the bedroom, where the lights are still on. Stepping back into the golden and crimson cocoon of warmth, where Raj is sprawled out on the bed. Beautiful, naked - and half-awake. He fixes his dark eyes on her, lifting his head a little bit. His curls are a sweet, silly mess.
He reaches for Mel as she slips back into the bed. She giggles as he feathers playful kisses onto her baby bump.
“You smell like peanut butter,” he murmurs affectionately.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Mel whispers, stroking his dark curls before she settles down to cozy up in his arms.
A warm, sleepy laugh breaks from Raj. “Because I know you were talking to Noah, and I heard you laughing. Felt like a good sign to me.”
Mel falls silent for a minute, lost in thought.
“Raj. Can I ask you something?”
He rests his cheek against her hair. “Anything, angel.”
“Did Noah ask if he could stay here, or did you offer?”
“I offered. Same day I met him.”
Melanie closes her eyes. “Why?”
“I have no idea,” Raj answers drowsily. And then, in a thoughtful voice - “I wonder.”
It was just one of those things Raj did following a feeling he got, then. Melanie lets out a slow breath. If there’s one thing she can always trust, it’s Raj’s instincts. This time it’s particularly difficult, but burning love for him and faith in him sweeps back up like a reassuring hand running through her hair, promising her that everything is alright.
Even if Raj himself isn’t sure what any of this means.
Melanie has no idea, either. She feels like somehow she has fewer answers than she did before. But if Raj has a good feeling about it… everything should be okay.
Raj’s arm grows heavy around her, his breaths growing slower and deeper. Melanie lays still in his sleeping embrace for a long time, then sits up and reaches for her phone. She types à suivre into the translation app.
To be continued, it tells her.
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