Fireworks After Midnight

It was a Saturday.
Not just any Saturday, thought, it was a Saturday in the Summer.
For Cath and her friends, that meant a day in the city, capped with Fireworks at Navy Pier.
However, today was the 4th of July, and the Pier was sure to be crowded.
“It’s going to be packed, Cath, we’ll never find spots. Why can’t we stay around here?” Allie begged.
“Yeah, and I know we do it every week, but we have to,” begged Cath.
“It’s about him, isn’t it?”
“Who?” Cath asked, innocently.
“I don’t know his name, and neither do you!” Allie replied, exasperatedly. “You’ve been stalking this boy pretty much all summer.”
“Stalking is hardly the word for it...” Cath tried to scoff.
“Yes, showing up to the one place you know he’ll be every week, staring at him all night and never talking to him is totally normal.”
“I never said it was normal! I just said it wasn’t stalking!”
“I swear to God, Cath, this is the last time.”
“It is, it is,” she reassured her friend.
So the two girls, Allie’s boyfriend and a few other friends made their way to Navy Pier once again, standing in as close to their usual spot as they could get. And, once again, Cath spent the evening with her eyes flashing back to the spot where he always was, the boy with the slight frame, the too long blondish-brown hair and the tattoos.
Except this time, he wasn’t there. In his place was a Hispanic looking family, with two little boys and a girl.
So, resigned, she looked up at the sky with the rest of her friends.
Allie, usually attached to her boyfriend by the mouth, took a break and poked Cath in the side.
“Go talk to him!”
“Where am I supposed to find him?” she asked. Allie followed her gaze to the boy’s usual spot.
“Well, that sucks. Sorry, Cat,” Allie said, frowning until Cath just shrugged. She had no reason to be upset over a boy she’d never even talked to.
“Hey, can I sit with you,” a voice behind her began, accompanied by a tap on her shoulder.
“Uh,” Cath began, turning, “Yeah, of course.” She couldn’t help her smile. It was the mysterious stranger.
“I’m Noel, by the way,” he told her.
“Catherine, or, if you prefer, Cath. Sometimes even Cat,” she said, still smiling.
“Nice to finally meet you, Catherine.”
“W-w-what do you mean, ‘finally’?” she asked, hoping he couldn’t see her blush in the night.
“God, this sounds so creepy, but when that family took our spot, my friends pushed me to go talk to you. I’ve been kind of watching you for... for forever,” he told her, glancing over his shoulder at his friends, who were all waving and smiling, one was even giving the boy a thumbs up.
“Oh, really?” she said, biting her lip to keep from smiling.
“Yes, but they caught you spending a fair amount of time looking, too, or I wouldn’t be here,” he said, smirking.
She blushed, and openly smiled this time, turning her head back to the fireworks.
They sat like that for a while before he took out his iPod, offering her a headphone.
“I fell in love again,
all things go, all things go,
drove to Chicago,
all things know, all things know”
“Sufjan Stevens?” she asked, stumbling a bit in the pronunciation.
“Well, yeah, it’s part of my Chicago playlist. I’m only in the city for the summer.”
“Why vacation here?” she asked. “It’s hotter than hell.”
“Yeah, but the company’s nice,” he said, smiling.
She shoved him.
He sighed before finally saying, “I’m staying with some friends, trying to make music work as, you know, a career. My parents didn’t want me to, because I’m already away from home during the year, but I’m 19, so...” he trailed off.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Raleigh, North Carolina.”
“No offense, but you barely sound like it. I only noticed once you pointed it out.”
“I think it has something to do with singing.”
That’s right, he was in a band. “Oh,” she said, “do you play an instrument, too, or...?” she trailed off.
“Yeah, bass for the band I was in, but I can play guitar too.”
“That’s cool, where do you go-” she started, but he interrupted.
“Enough about me, what about you? Tell me something, anything,” he said, but before she could open her mouth, “and Lewis and Clark, it’s in Oregon, but go on!” he urged.
She laughed, he seemed so nervous.
“Catherine, 18, 19 in September, currently attending DePaul, or, well, about to, this fall. Not in a band, relatively normal, but I like Sufjan Stevens, a lot. And Chicago music. So, what band are you in?” she asked.
“We’re kind of in between names, and members. I’m just kind of playing around, mostly on my own, sometimes with friends.”
“Oh,” she smiled. “Well, then, I’ve never heard of you, Noel...?” she finished the sentence like it was a question.
“Campbell. And you, Catherine...?”
“DelRossi.”
“Well, Catherine DelRossi, the fireworks are almost over. Where are you headed back to?”
“I’m taking the L back to her house,” she said, turning to Allie, still attached to her boyfriend.
“Sounds like fun, is he coming with?”
“I dunno, yet, honestly. Probably for a little while.”
“Come with me, instead, then.”
“I’m sorry, you seem really nice, but I’m not following a boy I just met back to his... I don’t even know where you live,” she started.
“At least not without her best friends,” Allie put in.
Cat didn’t know if she wanted to thank or strangle her.
“Then it’s settled.”
The display ended, and Noel met up with his friends again, this time holding Cat’s hand to lead her over, and introduced them.
The group walked back to the L, some of Cat’s friend mixing with Noel’s, Cat and Noel never letting go of each other’s hands.
On the L, they shared his iPod again.
“Dear Chicago,
You'll never guess
You know the girl you said I'd meet someday?
Well I got something to confess...”
“You like Ryan Adams?” she asked.
“Yeah, I love him. I have a few of his records back at my place, if you wanna listen to them.”
“Yeah, that sounds great.” And to her, it did. To her, there was nothing more romantic than the idea of being with someone she liked, listening to an album she loved. Well, her ideal situation wouldn’t have included several other people, but she’d get over it.
She rested her head against the window, careful not to pull the headphone out of his ear, and he pointed out the window at his favorite “landmarks” of the way home, in the foreground of the city’s various illegal firework shows. The two were leaving fingerprints on the window, but they looked like fingerprints against the smokey blue sky.
By the time they got to his building, the groups of friends had mixed and it seemed like they’d known each other for years, laughing like they were drunk, stumbling up the stairs, shoving each other.
When Noel put on Ryan Adams, it was not appreciated by the group.
“Noel, man, this is so depressing. Come on!” one of his friends shouted.
“Yeah, Cath, I know you’re into all this sad bullshit, but it’s the 4th of July!” Allie whined.
The pair sighed, and Noel asked if she wanted to go to his room, only to receive catcalls from their friend.
“Yeah,” she shrugged, and he carried the record back to his room, where she lay on his bed, barely touching, looking out the open window into the dark July sky.
He put the record on and laid next to her, a comfortable distance, their arms only lightly grazing each other.
Finally, the album had to be flipped, and when he moved to do it, she got up instead and did it for him. This time, though, as the opening chords of Wonderwall played, she laid her head on his chest, him playing absently with her hair.
Before the song ended, she felt him take a deep breath.
“Cath?” he asked.
She looked up at him and he looked into her eyes briefly before leaning down to kiss her, chaste and closed mouth. She deepened the kiss, a little, and there they lay, kissing slowly and lazily not noticing the second side of the album had finished.
Until there was a crash.
He pulled away and sighed, “I should go see what that is...”
“Yeah, I’ll put on Part II...” she started.
When he left the room, he left the door open. Cath could hear Allie’s giggling, and went to see for herself what had happened.
Allie, as well as pretty much everyone in the apartment, was drunk.
“Don’t worry, it was just a lamp, but it’s fine!” Allie slurred.
“I’m more worried about getting you home,” Cath sighed, before turning to Noel to apologize.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s fine, it’s not even broken.”
“And besides,” Allie cut in, “I told my mom I was staying at your house! One of these fine gentlemen said it was fine if we stayed here!” she exclaimed, slinging an arm around one of Noel’s friends.
Cath back to look at Noel, “Seriously, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she was gonna...”
“It’s fine. They do this, too.”
“Yeah, Cath, go back to... whatever you two were doing!” Allie said, waggling her eyebrows.
Cath flipped her off before the pair returned to Noel’s room, where he started the record and lay back next to her.
She nervously sat up, and began talking.
He seemed confused, but went with it.
They talked for what seemed like hours, past the end of the second side of the second record, past a few more records. They covered everything, from music to exes to family to food to how they liked to fall asleep at night.
“Sorry, but I’m thirsty, wanna go get some water or something?” he asked, standing up.
She followed him out of the room, continuing on like he’d never said anything about water.
“Yeah, I mean, I used to be able to sleep with music on, but lately...”
“Shh,” he said. “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“Exactly.”
The two looked around the living area, bodies spread out and asleep on every available surface.
They tip-toed to the kitchen, careful not to wake anyone.
“Now that they can’t try to follow us, wanna go up to the roof? It’s not, uh, like I wanted to lure you up there alone, but drunk people plus roof seems bad..” he trailed off, awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.
She laughed awkwardly before asking, “We can really go up there?”
“Yeah, why not? Let me just grab a blanket.”
“It just seems, like, out of a movie... or something,” she trailed off as he walked back to his room.
He returned to the kitchen with a blanket and a guitar.
“Can you grab our waters?” he asked.
Her eyes flicked over the guitar and she tried not to smile. It really was like a movie. She simply nodded, picking them up and following him to the back door. There, they climbed a few sets of stairs before reaching the roof, where he put down the blanket and they sat as he played her a few songs, taking requests or playing her things she’d mentioned earlier. Finally, around 2:30, he stopped and they lay there.
“Why’d you get so nervous, earlier?” he asked.
“Can’t we just lay here? The fireworks are almost over... it’s after two.”
He pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head.
A few minutes passed before she said, “I just, I don’t want you to leave.”
“We have the rest of the summer.”