Romantic Comedy(76)

By this point, Noah was smiling, looking at me with that great affection—with love—and as he leaned forward and kissed me, I was struck by how forgiving he was, how he wasn’t going to make me grovel. “Let’s go home,” he said. “Okay? Since we’re in agreement about how good we are at being naked together—let’s go do that.”

“You make me want to be a better man,” I said. “That’s what I’m trying to say.”

* * *

—

Back at his house, in his bed, we looked into each other’s eyes the most that we ever had, we touched each other the most tenderly, and a few times I wasn’t sure if I could maintain the eye contact, but I did. At one point, he stopped moving while he was still inside me and smiled, his face above and so close to mine. Quietly, I said, “This is the happiest I’ve ever been.”

Then we kissed for a long time, moving together.

After, while I rested my head on his chest, he said, “You know that thing I said about if I saw a picture of the cast and crew of TNO? I feel like it came out wrong, because you are really pretty.” He squeezed my waist. “I love every part of you.”

“When I didn’t think you were smart at the pitch meeting, it was only for ten minutes,” I said. “Ever since then, I’ve thought you are.”

He laughed. “There’s a compliment I’ve wanted to give you, but I’m not sure I’ve figured out how to say it in a way that doesn’t make me sound self-centered.”

“Everyone is self-centered,” I said. “Go for it.”

“Do you remember when we were on the phone and you asked if I’m the type of Airbnb host who leaves my family photos out and my food in the refrigerator, and I said that I would make my house very clean so that you’d give me five stars?”

“Yes.”

“I realize my response wasn’t, like, TNO-quality. But I was proud of myself because, honestly, I’m not usually that quick-witted. You bring out that side of me. You know the advice about how you should always play tennis with people better than you? When I’m talking to you, I’m a funnier and smarter version of myself because you’re funny and smart.”

“Ironically,” I said, “I’ve played tennis about twice, and I’m awful at it.”

But Noah’s voice was serious as he said, “For a long time, I’ve known that the best parts of my life were the public parts. I can’t complain, because those parts have been really great, like touring in another country or being part of a ceremony at the White House. But in my romantic relationships, away from audiences and cameras—I don’t want to insult the women I’ve dated, because it takes two to have mundane conversations, but they were mundane. It was like what you said about you and that guy Gene. Either we were talking about predictable topics or talking about potentially interesting topics in a predictable way. Sometimes I’d tell myself, Well, sure, it’s hard for normal life to measure up after you hang out with the Obamas. But other times, I felt like, behind the scenes, there was this emptiness. At night, when I was going to bed, I was more relaxed when I was by myself, whether I wasn’t dating anyone or was dating someone but they weren’t there that night. I wanted to find a real partner, but I couldn’t picture who the partner would be.” He paused. My ear was over his heart, and I could hear its steady beat. “When I’m with you,” he continued, “the best, most interesting part of my life is behind the scenes. I felt this emailing you, and I even felt it in your TNO office when you were helping with my sketch. Like, no one in the world knows what we’re up to except us and it’s awesome. It’s not for social media, it’s not for a documentary about the making of an album, it’s not an anecdote to tell on a talk show. It’s just because we think it’s fun and we like each other and we like being together.”

Listening to him, it had occurred to me to say, “I’m honored that you find me more interesting than the Obamas,” but what came out of my mouth instead was “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me in my entire life.” I raised my head to look at him. “And I don’t think it’s self-centered.”

“Oh, good.” He grinned.

“Just so you know,” I said, “you weren’t wrong about me being private and hating to have my picture taken, or at least by a random dude jumping out of the bushes.”

“I did know,” he said. “Because you threatened to stay at a hotel when I mentioned there might be paparazzi at that shopping center when you were arriving. If I’m not mistaken, you also once told me you were a goblin who’d never appeared onstage at TNO.”

“Oh, right.” I brought my hand up to my face in embarrassment. “I mean, there wasn’t a second when I actually wanted to stay at a hotel. I always wanted to stay with you. I just got anxious.”

“I like that you’re private. You realize that there are women who dated me in order to get their picture in magazines, don’t you?”

This was an aspect of the situation I hadn’t considered. “I bet that was more of a fringe benefit than the main reason,” I said. “I’m sure you being charming and adorable was the main reason.”

Dryly, he said, “You might be surprised.”