"No one?" Rick asked.
"Kareem Jones and I played together in college," Noah answered, "but we're not close. Normally, I wouldn't ask a teammate to help me pick out a house."
Rick tapped his pencil thoughtfully, and I chewed on my lip as I flipped through a mental Rolodex.
"Can't I just … do it by myself?" Noah continued. "No offense, but it's not like anyone else's opinion matters when it comes to what kind of house I live in."
At that, I smiled.
"What?" he asked me. He sounded like a grumpy teenager.
"Nothing." I shrugged. "You're just so certain. Usually people like having another person to bounce ideas off. Help them figure out what they want to do."
Noah looked genuinely perplexed. "Why would I need someone else to figure out what I want to do? I told you what kind of house I want, right? So if I was someone else, would I have asked you, how many bedrooms do you think I should have?"
It was probably the worst thing I could have done, and I tried desperately to keep the wide smile hidden. His entire countenance—the set of his jaw, the line of his lips, the downward slash of his eyebrows—was mystified at the idea that some people invited guidance or could possibly want someone else's opinion.
The battle was officially lost when he narrowed his eyes at my trembling mouth.
My chin tipped up, and I laughed helplessly.
"It's not funny, Molly."
Rick wiped a hand over his mouth, hiding a smile of his own.
"It's a little funny," I said between peals of laughter. "You look like I suggested you walk naked through Pike Place."
"Glad my decisiveness is so entertaining," he mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.
I breathed out slowly, finally getting control of myself. "I'm sorry."
He lifted his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "It's fine. As long as you guys aren't going to make me pretend I'm friends with someone, we'll be okay."
"You can absolutely film by yourself." Rick kept tapping his pencil, now that the moment was over. "We can do some voiceover stuff. We'll have to do that anyway. As long as we're getting your thoughts, whether it's through dialogue with someone else or through interviews, we'll be good to go."
I was flipping through the printouts of the houses I'd found for Noah when something occurred to me.
"Doesn't your dad still live in town?" I asked before I thought better of it. "I thought he loved it here."
Every eye in the room swiveled in my direction, and my throat turned to sticky sand.
Well, shit.
Rick's pencil was frozen, hovering over the surface of the paper. "You know his dad?"
I shifted slightly, refusing to meet Noah's steady, unrelenting gaze. "I know he has a dad. Doesn’t everyone?"
What a blatant non-answer, and Rick knew it. He wasn't good at his job for nothing.
When I felt Noah's eyes boring into my profile, I turned and met them head-on.
Sorry, I mouthed. Those eyes closed briefly as he sighed, and that was as good as permission in my book.
"Noah and his dad used to be our next-door neighbors," I told Rick and Marty, who suddenly looked very interested in what I had to say.
"How long ago was this?"
"I was in high school when they moved somewhere else," I said.
Oh, and how complicated that explanation was. For months, I hadn't caught a single glimpse of Noah or his father, and then one day, a For Sale sign popped up in their front yard. At sixteen, it all felt very dramatic. It made me feel like a horrible person; that what I’d done was so bad that they’d moved away. In retrospect, I couldn't really blame his dad even though it had caused more than a few dramatic tears when I thought I'd never see him again.
"Didn't like the neighbors?" Rick asked Noah with a smile.
He was saying it innocently, but it caused my neck to go hot regardless. Noah, to his credit, kept his face completely impassive when he answered. "Neighbors were just fine. The house was too big for us."
I pointed at Rick and Marty. "It's not a big deal, so don't make it one."
Rick held up his hands. "I'd never."
I gave him a look. "Okay, so I'll schedule with a few of these listing agents and make sure Marty is available to film. Do you need to be there, Rick?"
He shook his head. "I'll only be around about half the time. Marty is fine on his own for most of it, and you'll pick up fast what works and what doesn't in my absence. I'll be going back and forth between here and Tampa. We've got a rookie down there that we're filming right now too."