Spring, Year 3, Month 4

After the chime came a yell from upstairs.

"OLI! CAN YOU GET THAT?"

Reeve made a mental note to give Anton his own set of keys as she maneuvered her way through the maze of boxes still yet to be unpacked to answer the door.

Reeve let in gallons of brisk night air standing frozen in her doorway, surprised by who was waiting on the other side. Noah gave a half-smile and lifted his hand a centimeter, the two pizza boxes perched on top of his palm raising with it.

"I brought pizza."

"Hi. Noah. Um. What are you-"

"Noah! Hey, man! Come on it!"

Reeve hadn't heard Dani come bounding the stairs behind her and jumped when her sister appeared beside her. Reeve didn't have time to have a silent exchange of pointed looks with her sister as Dani gently pushed Reeve out of the way and welcomed Noah in. To Reeve's house.

"I'm glad you could make it!"

"Thanks for inviting me. Am I the first one here?"

Reeve had shut the door behind him to keep the cold night out and joined Dani and Noah in the small free open floor area there was available. Reeve was masking her confusion with cool indifference. She wasn't a perfect host but she knew yelling at her younger sister in front of a guest was bad etiquette.

Noah glanced around, the rest of the party he was expecting absent from view. Dani grabbed the two pizzas from his hand and took them into the kitchen.

"Actually, Anton and Kelly couldn't make it. Kelly agreed to go on that second date and Anton wanted to make that happen before she could change her mind again."

"So Anton and Kelly aren't coming for dinner?"

This was news to Reeve. Dani shook her head, her lips pressed tight to keep her smile too broad. But Reeve knew the glint in her eyes and her stomach plummeted.

"No. And turns out I have a class tonight that I totally forgot so it'll just be you two for movie night. Okay. You kids have fun! Oli, don't wait up, I'll be home later. Bye!"

Dani's farewells floated up into the air as she deftly avoided Reeve's outstretched hand, grabbed her waiting backpack from the bottom of the stairs, and slammed the front door shut behind her, all within a quick ten seconds.

Her disappear echoed through the stillness that she had left behind, Reeve and Noah finding themselves suddenly all alone. It wasn't the first time. On second thought, when Reeve analyzed that times she had been alone with Noah in the past few weeks, it had been because someone had invited him somewhere and then promptly left. It spoke volumes of her current obsession with her work that it took her this long to notice the pattern as Dani and Anton were the least subtle people in the world.

"I'm guessing you weren't let in on the whole 'movie night' thing."

Reeve shook her head, grateful that one of them had spoken at last.

"No. No, I was not."

"I could just-"

Noah pointed over his shoulder in the direction Dani had just disappear, his voice polite and understanding.

"No!"

The word came out before Reeve's brain had a chance to catch it.

"Um. I mean, I guess-" Reeve's throat tighten around her words.

The thought of the house empty, just her and her all her possessions, with nowhere to go and no one to talk to, felt suffocating. An evening spent in awkward company with Noah was a better night than having to spend it alone.

"Good."

"What?"

"It's just... Dani, and Anton for that matter, have both threaten bodily harm if I ever left you alone somewhere. Like, at the studio. Or here at the house. I didn't want to intrude on your night but I also didn't want to risk losing a finger or worse."

Reeve couldn't help the laugh that escaped. There was real trepidation in Noah's voice. She knew Dani and Anton were serious about their tendency to overprotect but she hadn't seen anyone take them seriously until then.

"I think they've been taking their job too seriously," Noah said. "Like, what if you just wanted a night alone? What if you already had plans for tonight and now you're stuck here with me, someone you don't really know. That kind of sucks."

"I guess. I mean, it's not the worst. I've had worst nights."

Noah let out a mock sigh of relief.

"Phew! That makes me feel better."

Reeve found she was laughing again and stopped herself as soon as she was aware. She nodded over her shoulder to the kitchen and the waiting pizzas.

"Do you want anything to drink?"

"Sure. Those pizzas are probably getting cold. Do you mind?"

Reeve shook her head and grabbed two paper plates from the stack on the counter. Plates, silverware, and napkins were on the list of things she still needed to buy. She had been living off of paper plates and towels for too long.

Noah grabbed a slice from the top box and leaned against the counter to eat. Bar stools were another thing on the list.

"Okay. We have water and um..."

Reeve stood in front of her empty fridge, the shelves filled nothing but a pack of eggs, a loaf of bread, one-half stick of butter, and a random jar of Dijon mustard.

"And water."

"Water it is."

Reeve slid a paper cup over to him.

"I'm guessing you just moved in?"

Reeve nodded around a mouthful of pizza.

"Well, sort of. Like two months ago."

"Two months. Really?"

Reeve's face reddened at Noah's widening eyes.

"It's been a busy two months."

"Hey. No judgment from me. When I moved into my current apartment, it took me three years to finally unpack all my boxes. There was just this single box full of random stuff I had nothing to do with that just sat in my closet for ages."

"I've got everything from my house in LA to pack and then my mom took it upon herself to pack up all my stuff from her house as well. I've got my whole life sitting in those boxes."

They had bought a couch. Well, Kelly had bought a couch she thought would look nice, so the living room wasn't completely devoid of furniture. There were a few standing lamps that had been purchased because overhead lighting hadn't been installed when the house was originally built over a hundred years ago and the previous owners hadn't thought to add that into their renovations. The place was far from a home but it was coming along. There was a long list of to-dos keeping it from completion and Reeve found herself adding more every day.

"Do you need help?"

Reeve swallowed her food so she wouldn't talk around her food again.

"I mean, you don't have to."

"I got the night off. It's my first free night in a while and I don't have anything else planned. Dani got me here because she promised a movie night but by the looks of it, you guys don't even own a TV."

Reeve shook her head.

"So. Like I said. Don't have much else to do."

"Um, okay then."

Reeve grabbed another slice and her cup of water, placing them where she would eventually like to put a coffee table. Noah followed suit and they both sat cross-legged on the floor of her living room.

"Honestly, I don't even know where to start."

Noah leaned forward, looking over his shoulder at her as he drew the nearest cardboard box between them.

"Do you mind?"

Reeve nodded.

"I don't know what we'll find but I don't remember there being anything too embarrassing."

Noah opened the flaps and the cardboard box to give Reeve a view of what was inside.

"When I moved in, I created piles of 'find a home', 'donate', 'maybe', and 'trash'. That helped. We could start there."

"Sure. Let's try that."

Noah reached in and grabbed the first thing his hand touched. He pulled out a golden record award and let out a low whistle when he realized what he had grabbed.

"Find a home?"

Reeve glanced at the inscription to see which of her golden records it was.

"Trash."

Noah's eyebrows shot up but he didn't say a word. He simply started the trash pile.

They worked for a while, their conversation focused solely on whatever was in front of them. Reeve could see Noah's eyes light up with a million questions that he slowly put away to focus on the next item in the box.

They reached the end of her LA boxes when Reeve called for a break.

"Where are your trash bags?"

"I have those!"

Noah laughed at Reeve's spike of enthusiasm. She jumped from her seat and hobbled to the kitchen sink with one foot still sound asleep. She returned triumphant and they bagged up what had been designated trash. When they got to that first golden record, Reeve hesitated. It bore her name and signified something she had accomplished, whether or not she was proud of it. Without a word, she placed it in the Maybe pile. She caught Noah's eye when she straightened but he quickly looked away, tying tight the strings on their last garbage bag.

"Thanks. for helping me. I appreciate it. And you know, this being your night off, I-"

"You're welcome. Happy to do it."

His face was honest and sincere and yet it's openness felt daunting to Reeve. She tried looking for a second agenda or game but those didn't seem to exist in Noah's world.

They wound their way through the now smaller pile of packing boxes, heading for the front door on an unspoken agreement that the night was over. Reeve spoke before Noah reached for the door-handle, to keep him there just a minute longer, to put off being alone in her house at night for just a second more.

"Is it obvious to you? What my friends keep trying to do?"

"You mean the whole 'let's invite Noah over and then suddenly disappear' act? Yeah. I picked up on that a while ago. They're not the most subtle people."

"No. No, they are not. Why do you think they keep doing it?"

"I don't know. You know them better than I do. Longer, too."

"Anton never said anything to you."

Noah's lips lipped in a half-smile.

"Anton says a lot of things to me. Sometimes I listen but not often. The guy likes to talk."

"That he does."

"He talks about you a lot but I usually tune those monologues out."

Reeve stood up straighter.

"Really? Why?"

Noah shrugged.

"I figure you've had enough people talking about you. I didn't want something second-hand to influence my impression of you. I figured you deserved the chance to show who you are yourself."

"Oh."

Reeve found herself speechless.

"And Anton keeps dropping hints and suggestions, like he's trying to tell me something in code, about you, something that happened I'm guessing and the truth is, I don't want to know. Unless you need someone to talk to about stuff like that, it's not my place to know. Like I said, you don't really know me."

"No. I guess I don't."

Noah's hand reached out for the big brass door-handle, Reeve's words freezing his movements.

"But I'd like to."

He turned back two inches, his body now in between facing the front door and her, his lips turned up in a full smile for the first time all night.

"Me too."

A/N:

I feel like I might be repeating myself but this can not be said enough.

Noah = babe.