Chapter 83 The Call
Chapter 83 The Call
Elias POV
Noah's phone rings at eleven that night, after the championship, after the walk home, after we have both showered off the day and settled into the particular quiet of his room.
He looks at the screen.
"It's my dad."
"Answer it," I say.
He hesitates.
"He never calls this late."
"Maybe he heard about the match."
"Maybe," Noah says, but his thumb is already moving toward decline before he catches himself and answers instead.
"Dad?"
I watch his face while he listens. It does something I have not seen it do before, a kind of careful stillness, like he is bracing without knowing for what.
"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, we won. Two one."
A pause.
"Thanks, Dad."
Another pause, longer this time. Whatever his father is saying on the other end is taking longer than a congratulations should take.
"Okay," Noah says slowly. "Okay. Yeah. I'll call you tomorrow."
He hangs up.
He sits very still for a moment.
"What was that?" I ask.
"He wants to talk tomorrow," Noah says. "Properly. He said it like it was important."
"About what?"
Noah looks at me.
"I don't know," he says. "But he sounded different. Not bad different. Just... different."
\---
We do not talk about it much more that night. There is not much to say about a thing neither of us understands yet, and the day has been enormous enough without adding speculation to it.
I stay over. We do not discuss this either. It has simply become a thing that happens on nights that matter, my toothbrush living permanently in the cup by his sink now, a fact neither of us has formally announced but which Ivy noted approvingly three weeks ago.
In the morning he is quieter than usual.
"You're thinking about the call," I say over breakfast.
"A little."
"Want to guess what it's about?"
"No," he says. "Guessing makes it worse. I'd rather just find out."
I respect this. I am not built the same way. I would have already constructed four different scenarios by now, but I respect it.
\---
He calls his dad back at noon while I am in the kitchen pretending not to listen, which is a courtesy I extend without much success because his voice carries.
"Hey, Dad."
A pause.
Then his father's voice, too quiet for me to make out words, just tone, even and measured.
"Okay," Noah says.
"Yeah."
"I'm listening."
Another long pause.
I stop pretending to do anything in the kitchen and just stand there.
Then Noah says something that makes my chest go tight.
"Wait."
"Say that again."
I cannot hear what his father says next.
But I watch Noah's face change, slowly, from careful to something I do not have a name for yet, and the phone stays pressed to his ear for a long time after that.
Finally Noah says,
"Yeah."
"I will."
He hangs up.
He sets the phone down on the counter very carefully, like it might do something unexpected if handled roughly.
I lean against the counter across from him.
"Everything okay?"
He looks up.
"Sorry," he says. "I'm here."
"Noah."
He exhales softly.
"He wants to come to training," he says finally.
"Not the match."
"The actual session."
"He's never asked that before."
"Not once in three years."
I stay quiet.
"How do you feel about that?" I ask.
He opens his mouth.
Closes it.
Tries again.
"I don't know yet," he admits.
"I think I need to actually let it land before I know what I feel."
"Do you want me to ask questions?"
"No."
"Then I won't."
"I'll just be here while you let it land."
He studies me.
"You're not going to ask me twelve follow-up questions?"
"That would be difficult," I say.
"I've already prepared at least eight."
A small laugh escapes him.
"That's fair."
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah," he says, and there is something settled in his voice now that was not there a few hours ago.
"I think I actually am."
\---
He is quiet for the rest of the evening in a way that is not closed off, just thoughtful, the particular stillness of someone turning something over carefully before deciding what to do with it.
We do not talk about it again.
We watch part of a film neither of us is fully paying attention to.
We go to bed early.
In the dark, just before he falls asleep, he says very quietly, almost to himself,
"I think I want him to come."
I turn toward him.
"Then tell him that tomorrow."
He nods.
"I will."
\---
I fall asleep before he does, which rarely happens, and when I wake briefly sometime past midnight he is still awake beside me, eyes open, looking at the ceiling with the particular stillness of someone doing careful, unhurried thinking rather than anxious circling.
That is not a small change.
That might be the entire change.
This version of Noah does not know how he feels yet and trusts that to be enough.
I think, lying there in the dark beside him, about how much has changed since September.
About a captain who used to manage every piece of information that came near him, deciding in advance what he could handle and what needed softening first.
Now he lets uncertainty exist.
Now he waits.
Now he trusts himself to arrive at his own feelings.
\---
In the morning I wake before him, the early light coming through the curtains in thin grey lines, and I lie there for a while just watching him sleep, the particular stillness of someone who has finally set something down.
When he wakes, he finds me already watching.
"Morning," I say.
"You look lighter."
He smiles, voice rough with sleep.
"Morning."
"I feel lighter," he admits.
"I think I actually slept properly for the first time since the call."
"Good," I say.
"You have a phone call to make today."