“Excuse you,” Noah says, a smile in his voice. “Playing video games does not automatically make you a dork.”
“Please. It absolutely does.” I pause, then glance at him. “Wait. How do you know I play video games?”
He lifts a brow, grinning. “Did you forget our walls are basically made of tissue paper?”
“Sorry about that.”
“I don’t mind. What are you playing?”
“A little bit of everything. Lately it’s mostlyDead by Daylight.”
“Oh, cool. You like horror games?”
“Not really. Just that one. Have you played it?”
“No, but I’ve heard it’s very gay,” Noah says, clearly entertained. “Apparently there’s something about sprinting away from masked murderers that really speaks to queer people.”
“Probably just feels familiar,” I say mildly.
Noah giggles.
I glance at him. “Do you play anything?”
“Yeah,” he says—then immediately hesitates.
“What?”
He stares straight ahead for a second, visibly weighing something, before blurting, “You know farm simulators?”
I nod slowly.
“I’m obsessed with stuff likeStardew ValleyandFields of Mistria.” He says it like he’s confessing to a crime.
“The ones where you grow crops and date the villagers?”
He nods again, looking faintly scandalized by himself.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” I say. “I used to playDinkum. Put, like, two hundred hours into digging in those mines before I realized my sleep schedule was beyond saving and had to delete it.”
Noah’s face lights up. “Oh my God, I loveDinkum. Thank God you’re not judging me.”
“I would never.”
“I also loveThe Sims,” he says after a moment.
“Alright—that’s where I draw the line,” I say, and Noah bursts into laughter—real, unguarded laughter that crinkles the corners of his eyes and changes his whole face. I end up laughing with him, the sound filling the car.
After a while, we drift back into silence, but it’s different now. Noah doesn’t seem tight or awkward anymore. He slips off his other shoe and pulls both knees up to his chest, curling into the seat.
“Wake me if I doze off,” he says, resting his head against the window.
“You’ll be out in, like, five minutes,” I say, because he’s already blinking slower.
“I won’t.”
He does. A minute later, his eyes are closed, his breathing even as the highway stretches out in front of us.
CHAPTER 3. Noah
