Noises

To say that I’d had the best afternoon of my life would be an over-exaggeration, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t up there, especially for what it was. If it had been something complex and extremely exciting, then perhaps it would seem a lot less extraordinarily brilliant, but I’d only spent the afternoon decorating a Christmas tree and taking photos. I looked over to the tree, which in the light of the white sky of Christmas day honestly didn’t look as great as it did last night. There was something a lot more special about Christmas trees in the evening- something more warming. I sat on the arm of the sofa and fell back so that my back was on the seats and my knees were bent over the arm, reaching my left arm over to the coffee table, and picking up the camera that was on my table. I flicked through the photos from yesterday, stopping at the one of me with my eyebrows raised and mouth wide, and Hollie with her mouth twisted to the side, trying her best not to smile. I smiled and chucked the camera to the end of the sofa, and it landed with a soft thud as I twisted in the seat to sit up straight.

I didn’t realise that Christmas could even be so completely and utterly nerve-wracking. I had never experienced such a mixture of excitement and pure fear mixed together in such a short space of time, and to be honest, the result was practically crippling. I was struggling to function properly, all because of one simple afternoon spent with her.

She was very speedily becoming a big part of my life, and although I wasn’t one hundred percent sure if I was entirely comfortable with that fact, I was embracing it with open arms – mainly because a week ago, this girl was the cause for just about every bad thing that was going wrong in my life. It was odd to think that I had only known her for a short time, because for me, it felt like so much longer. Maybe that was because she made everything so difficult and that elongated the time between meeting her and now. Maybe it was because when I was with her, time seemed to go so much slower; even Mother Nature couldn’t deny me time with her.

If I was going to make a New Year’s resolution this year, however, it would probably be to stop talking about her. Max was probably getting sick of hearing her name, because I couldn’t help but bring it up in the majority of conversations that we had. Every time I did, the boys would roll their eyes and nudge one another – that’s the only way I even realise that I’ve started talking about her. I’m not sure I really mind though. They’d probably have to get used to it if I was going to be seeing more of her.

I wondered when it was right to tell her that I liked her. I mean, it was obvious, of course, and there were plenty of tale-tell signs: the fact that I’d kissed her; the fact that I’d asked her to come to the party today; the fact that I’d probably displayed the most shit-eating grin ever when she said that she would come to said party. The fact that I called her every day for a small stint; the fact that I went to the shop to see her even though she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with me; the fact that I was persisting despite the fact that on the first night of meeting her, she told me she didn’t want me. Okay, so maybe sticking to the positive was the best idea: the more I thought about it, the more like a stalker I felt.

Either way, I knew that I wouldn’t tell her how I felt – telling her would only make it more real. Then I might have to do something about it, and I would have literally no idea where to start. It had been so long since I’d had to handle feeling like this about anyone.

A knock on my door dragged me out of my thoughts. I looked through the peephole to see Max standing there, his face pushed up the peephole that he knew I always checked, and a wide grin taking over his cheeks. I laughed, and unhooked the chain on the door, opening it to allow him into my apartment.

“Oh my god, Josh, you’re not even dressed. I think this is the fifth time in the last two weeks that you’ve answered the door in your boxers. What would you do if you checked the peephole and it had of been your landlady demanding this week’s rent?”

“Then I wouldn’t have answered anyway because I already spent it,” I smiled smugly, “Either that or answered the door like this in the hope that she’d forget all about the rent?”

Max scoffed, “What, because she wants to jump you?” He laughed, shoving me, “She’s got to be at least eighty years old!”

“If it means I can keep spending my rent on booze and ice-cream then she’s welcome to my sexy body,” I laughed, shoving Max as he scoffed once again and raised a harshly questioning eyebrow.

Max flopped onto my sofa in a similar way to how I had been lying down a mere ten minutes ago, “Anyway mate, you need to go get ready. I’m here because Matt said you’d be fretting about what to wear like the little bitch you are, and I don’t want any phone calls like “Oh em gee, Max, the grey or the black skinny jeans?”, okay?”

I paled. I hadn’t even really thought about what to wear. I tried to look calm as I dictated this thought to Max, trying to make it look like I didn’t care.

“Jesus, go get changed now, you bloody girl,” Max mumbled, shoving me through my bedroom door and pulling the door closed behind me. I heard the television flicker to life as Max turned whatever was on up to an unreasonable level that was likely to make my landlady bang on the wall, or worse, come to the door. I quickly went to my chest of drawers to find something; the sooner I was dressed, the sooner we could get out of here.

A quick change of boxers was easy, as were picking out a black pair of skinny jeans (although getting them on was more of a problem than picking them out: I don’t know how effeminate it is to constantly think “I swear these jeans have shrunk in the wash,” but I was certainly guilty of that). The problem came to picking out a shirt.

“Max,” I called out, listening out for a reply. None came, so I walked into the living room, “How cold is it outside today?”

“Oh, I don’t know- it’s the middle of winter, the end of December, and every single news reporter has been on about how this is the coldest winter we’ve had in decades. It ain’t like a Warped Tour summer out there, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I looked at him, completely dumbfounded, “There’s no need to get so bitchy, I was just wondering if I needed a jumper!” I stormed off like a teenager and slammed my door behind me, immediately regretting it as I heard him laugh loudly. The sound coming from the television stopped and he knocked on the door ten seconds after I had slammed it.

“I’m sorry mate, would you like a hand getting ready?”

I pouted slightly and told him to fuck off, but he came in anyway, immediately heading to the pile of clothes that were discarded on my bed. He picked out a black and white check shirt, “What’s wrong with this? You loved this shirt when you bought it a mere three weeks ago.”

“I can’t find anything to go with it,” I chucked another checked shirt over my shoulder to land on my bed.

I heard Max sigh over dramatically, but even I, in my worked up state, could hear the smile in his voice, “I knew this would happen. Lucky for you, your fairy godmother is here.”

“If you tell me that I shall go to the ball, I won’t think twice about flooring you,” I laughed pulling on the shirt that Max was holding out to me. I did up the buttons just as he walked into the hall way to pick up the bag that I hadn’t even noticed him bring in into my room. He pulled out a carrier bag from the rack-sack and passed it to me. I pulled out a grey sweater from the bag, and held it out at arm’s length to look at it.

“Consider it an unwrapped Christmas present. Now, put it on and let’s get going,” He smiled. I pulled the jumper over my head and tugged it over my stomach, eyeing the Atticus logo on the left. I smiled back at Max and he nodded, “Ready?” I nodded in reply, and walked ahead of him.

“Bloody hell, Josh, you could have at least taken the label of the bloody jumper.” He laughed, but I sighed, and prayed to god that the rest of my day wasn’t going to be like this as I pulled my coat from the hook by the door.



Max drove us to Hollie’s place to pick her up. The whole way there, I was rubbing my palms against my legs to try and stop my legs from jolting up and down like they did when I was nervous and to stop my palms collecting sweat. I knew that Max had noticed but he said nothing, which I was certainly grateful for. He just turned up the radio and tried to ignore the fact that I was a quivering wreck.

It was when he pulled up outside her apartment block that I really started shaking. I turned to him, my lip between my teeth in a nervous attempt at a smile that really didn’t quite make it. He shook his head and turned the radio down.

“Look mate, I know you’re nervous now, but there really is no need. You said that it’s been going well, and you know that as soon as you see her you’ll forget the nerves and be your normal stupid self anyway, so stop worrying. Plus, you look super fit,” Max winked at me and shoved my shoulder to get me to get out of the car and collect Hollie. I opened the door and got out, closing the door behind me and sticking my finger up to the glass with a smile on my face.

“That’s not very nice,” I heard a familiar voice say, and swivelled almost immediately. I heard Max laugh through the thin car windows and stuck my finger up behind my back once more in an attempt to get him to be quiet. It didn’t work.

Hollie had the cheekiest smile on her face, probably due to the fact that she had made me jump about ten feet into the air, “I saw you guys pull up from my window and decided I’d save you the effort of walking all the way to my door,” she smiled. My knees went weak for a second before my stomach settled into the usual low buzz that I had become accustomed to since knowing Hollie. She leaned forward and gave me a small peck on the cheek, wrapping an arm around my neck and whispering in my ear, “Merry Christmas, Joshua.”
Normally I hated how she used my full name, because it usually meant she was either annoyed at me or trying to be patronising – something that she did with a very well developed skill. This time, however, it made me want to wrap my arms around her and never let go. I instead settled for a short but bone-crushing hug that made her laugh and flash her beautiful smile my way.

She hopped into the backseat before I could protest that she took the front. I slid into the front seat and turned to face her, smiling at her, “You look amazing,” I grinned.

“Ever the charmer, Josh,” Max mumbled, looking at Hollie in the mirror and rolling his eyes. They both smiled at me nonetheless, as Hollie gave Max rough directions to where Megan and Tom were getting picked up. I tried to keep my eyes on the road rather than permanently swivelling in my seat to smile at Hollie, but couldn’t help doing so occasionally. She always just smiled back and nothing was said. It was enough to know that she was there with me. That she had said yes.

“I wish you’d sit still, Josh, you’re like a hyperactive teenager,” Max blurted, causing Hollie to splutter a laugh from the backseat. I grinned, but tried to calm down, not wanting to annoy Max; not only was it his party we were heading to after the dinner, but I had been constantly annoying him recently anyway, and I’m sure he’d seriously considered the pros and cons of being friends with me more than a couple of times in recent lights. I didn’t want him kicking my ass to the kerb friendship wise. Then I wouldn’t have anyone to complain to, or to give me new clothes just to impress girls.

I sighed quietly, although the smile was still present on my face. I was getting in way over my head. In fact, I was pretty sure that the water had bypassed the top of my head at least a month ago – the fact that I was still grinning whilst thinking this was just a sign of how deep the water was.



It was about one o’clock in the morning before I got to properly sit down and talk to Hollie. We were at Max’s place, and there were too many people everywhere. There was barely any room to sit, but I finally found somewhere to nurse my bottle of Corona and take a breather. The dinner had mainly consisted of everyone getting to know each other – and by each other, I mean Hollie. The poor girl had had to endure endless questions from the boys, who felt that they didn’t know enough about her seeing as she was “all I talked about”. Their quote, not mine, and it had made us both blush; me a violent red, and her a simmering but perfectly collected peachy-pink.

Hollie came and sat next to me, her hip pressed against mine due to the lack of space on the seat – Dan was sprawled across the other end in a sleepy and drunken state, and there was no hope of moving him. She smiled at me and put her arm around my waist, as I slipped my arm around her shoulder. Her head fell onto my shoulder, and I felt her cheeks stiffen into a grin. I looked down and blew her nags out of her eyes, trying to get a sneak peak at the smile on her face, but she immediately shook her head lightly so that her hair covered her face again. I couldn’t help but smile the entire time, and the fact that her small hand was pressed tightly against my side did nothing to stop that.

She looked up at me, her smile soft and her eyes fluttering occasionally, “You make me sleepy,” she mumbled, putting her head back onto my shoulder. I scoffed overdramatically.

“Cheers love,” I mumbled, trying my best to sound annoyed. She squeezed my side slightly, and laughed.

“You know I didn’t mean it in a horrible way.”

I laughed, “I’m not so sure. A couple of weeks ago you would have been shoving me off of you and telling me to go fuck myself or something. I’m not quite sure what happened to change that,” I smiled, pausing to kiss the top of her head, “But I like the change.”

She pulled her head from my shoulder again and looked up at the ceiling, “Me too.”

I ran my hand over her back, not taking my eyes from her for a single second. Her eyes drifted over the chaos around us: the sprawl of bodies that were passed out from the drink, the body of people that were still dancing and trying to hold their alcohol and the fraction of people that were lying around the place making kissy-faces and such at each other. She laughed and rolled her eyes when she saw that Megan and Tom were most definitely in the latter category.

“They make me sick,” she laughed, pointing over at them just in case I was unsure of who she was talking about. I laughed too, but didn’t take my eyes off of her. She looked towards me, “They’re always making out, I swear to god.”

“I’m not one for PDA, to be completely honest,” I mumbled, dragging my eyes away from her to assess the seriousness of the display of affection between Megan and Tom. It was definitely nearing indecent exposure levels, “Especially that kind of PDA.”

Hollie nodded, putting her head onto my shoulder before quickly bringing it up again, “I guess it’s different if you’re doing it yourself though; you probably don’t think of other people much if you like someone like that,” she paused, “I don’t know if that made sense. I’m getting too tired for this kind of deep conversation.”

“We could just… not talk?” I bit my lip, avoiding looking at her. I hadn’t meant it to sound suggestive, but I wasn’t sure if that was clear.

“Oh yeah?” I heard the smirk in Hollie’s voice, “What do you mean by that?”

I shook my head, a smile on my face to cover my embarrassment, “I didn’t mean anything by it,” I paused, “I do have a Christmas present for you though.”

Hollie grinned, an excited squeal escaping her lips before she caught it, “Is it amazing?”

“Not really,” I smirked, rubbing the back of my neck out of habit. She reached around my neck and caught my hand, holding it in hers.

“Don’t be stupid, Franceschi, I bet it’s awesome,” I coughed and nodded, my eyes locked on our interlocked hands. She looked down, but instead of pulling her hand away, she merely squeezed mine tightly, laughing slightly. “I have a confession to make,” she added.

“What’s that?”

“I didn’t really get you a present as such. I mean, I did, but it’s only something small. And I left it at home. Do you want to come over for a sleepover, teenage girl style? We can have a pillow fight or something…” She trailed off, “Anyway, I’m getting carried away in my own thoughts. My confession wasn’t centred around your actual present, more the fact that I decided that this should be your present a little while ago.”

I went to question her, but she simply pressed her lips to mine, smiling slightly as I kissed back almost immediately. She pulled back. It was only a short kiss, but we were both grinning like idiots.

I smirked, “So, about this sleepover?”