by Amelia Stone
Tonight, the hotel’s ornate stone edifice and formal front gardens were twinkling like a Christmas tree, with the setting sun adding to the ambience. Music was thumping through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the ballroom, and The Shins filtered through the warm early-summer air as I stepped out of my car. I took a deep breath, trying to let the music steady me. It didn’t seem to work, since I still wobbled on my four-inch designer heels.
“So glad I practiced this,” I muttered as I made my unsteady way to the hotel’s grandiose main entrance. “Worked like a charm.”
Step after mincing step, and finally I had reached the courtyard that fronted the hotel. I stopped for a moment, rolling my ankles one at a time and deciding I’d blame my difficulties not on my lack of experience wearing heels, or my almost paralyzing nerves. Nope, it was the uneven terrain. I’d only walked in these shoes on the smooth parquet floors in my West Village apartment, after all. Cobblestones were another game altogether.
Busy as I was lying to myself, I almost missed Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine,” which was blaring from my phone. When I’d finished digging it out of my clutch, I picked up without even checking the caller ID – Ellie had her own ringtone, one befitting her personality.
“Hey, Ell.”
“Hey yourself! You look gorgeous! I’m so glad you went with the red lipstick.”
“How would you know that?” I looked around, confused and more than a little creeped out. I half expected her to jump out from behind the rose bush to my right.
“Facebook,” she replied, the ‘duh’ coming through loud and clear.
I sighed. Of course Ellie and my mother were Facebook friends. My mother had only had an account for a few days, and according to Lindsay, she already had almost as many Facebook friends as Mark Zuckerberg.
“The caption was hilarious, too. Though I wish Louise could have taken a photo of you when you weren’t making a face,” she continued.
I let out a long-suffering sigh. “My mother has a knack for humiliating me.”
She laughed. “It’s what family is for. Did you see the one of your uncle yesterday?”
“No, and I’m sure I don’t need to. I’ve had enough front row seats to him digging for gold over the years.” I loved that man, but he was a serial nose picker.
“So true.” She laughed again. “Well, I’ll let you go. I just wanted to wish you luck.”
I closed my eyes. “Is it bad that I wanted to leave the keys in the ignition?”
“Sounds like a good way to drain the battery.” She laughed again. “But you don’t need the quick getaway anyway, because you can do this. Just breathe deeply, stand up straight, and swing those scrumptious hips!”
I let out a weird chuckle that sounded a bit like a donkey braying. “I’ll do my best.”
“Okay, have as much fun as possible. Love you, kiddo!”
“Love you too, kiddo.”
I was smiling by the time I hung up, despite my overwhelming sense of doom for the night ahead. A dose of Ellie was just the mood boost I needed.
“I can do this,” I whispered to myself as a uniformed porter pulled open the huge, intricately carved oak doors that welcomed event guests and wealthy tourists alike to the LeGrand.
I could totally do this.
Possibly.
Probably not.
I drew a deep, fortifying breath, filling my lungs with salty sea air.
I needed to do this.
“Hey.” Krista’s voice floated softly over the music pumping from her computer’s speakers, almost too soft to hear. “Come here, I want to show you something.”
“In a second,” I muttered, tapping my pencil against my notebook. I had no idea what I was doing with tonight’s algebra homework, as usual. I would probably need her help again, actually, or it would be summer school for me.
“Seth.” Something in her tone made me look up, finally. She pushed the bridge of her glasses up with the heel of her palm, and her cheeks were flushed, which meant she was uncomfortable. “Please just come here.”
I frowned. “But we have six problems to solve tonight,” I reminded her, holding up our math textbook. “And this first one looks impossible.”
She waved a hand like it didn’t matter. “I did that already.”
I huffed. “What do you mean you did it already?” I flipped my hair out of my eyes, reminding myself that I really needed a cut. I did not have the swagger to walk around my middle school looking like Ben Gibbard, that guy from Death Cab for Cutie. “I’m pretty sure I just established it’s freaking impossible.”
She tapped her nails on the desk like she was impatient, and I noticed they were painted lime green today. “I’ll show you later. It’s easy, you just have to solve for the unknown variable.”
I raised my eyebrows, because she and I clearly had very different definitions of ‘easy’ when it came to math.
“I know that,” I said slowly. “That’s why I said it’s impossible.”
She shook her head like she was frustrated. “I’ll show you,” she repeated. “It’s just, I want you to see this.”
I watched as she bit her lip, and I wondered why I’d never noticed before how pink her lips were.
They were actually the same shade as that starfish we’d found at North Beach when we were maybe seven or eight. I’d pulled it from one of the rocks that had long ago tumbled from the cliff face, and I remembered running to my dad to show off my new treasure, Krista tagging along behind me. I collected all kinds of stuff from the beach: shells, sand dollars, driftwood, jars of sand. Once I even found a shark tooth. But that starfish would have been the centerpiece of my collection.
My dad had made me put it back, because it was still alive, and taking it home would have been cruel. But I still thought about it now and then. And it was uncanny, really, how similar the starfish’s unique shade of pink was to the lips I was currently staring at.
Huh.
“Please?”
She looked almost scared of my response, and I felt like a turd for not even paying attention. I shook my head to clear my weird thoughts as I set my books down and got up. My knee throbbed when I bent it, and I swallowed a groan. I’d been lounging on the floor of her room, leaning up against the side of her bed. It was probably not the best idea, considering I’d just torn my MCL during our home opener last month. The sprain was healing okay, but there was still the possibility of re-injuring it.
And I really didn’t want to go through all that crap again. I’d already missed qualifications for the all-county team. I would also miss the rest of the season, which was the first time in my whole baseball career that had ever happened. If I got hurt again, I’d fall behind on training for next season, too.
I was aiming to make the varsity team next year, even though I would only be a freshman. It should be easy money, considering how small a school St. Erasmus was. There were only about eight hundred kids in the whole high school, so there wasn’t a whole lot of competition. I was good, but if I wasn’t careful with my knee, there was a very real chance I wouldn’t even make the JV team.
Basically, being injured sucked.
But it didn’t suck as much as the look in Krista’s eyes as I limped over to her desk, like she pitied me. I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me, least of all her.
“What did you want to show me?” I grunted.
She watched me for a beat, like she wanted to say something, but didn’t want to upset me.
“I’m fine,” I said, a little too harshly.
She winced. “I know that.” She bit her lip again, and my eyes tracked the movement before I even realized it was happening.
What the heck was going on with me? Why was I looking at Krista’s mouth all the time? I realized now, as I stared at her, that I’d been doing it for weeks. Months, probably.
She did it again, and I had to look away. I had no idea what this sudden obsession was about, but it needed to stop. To keep myself busy, I grabbed
the chair I sat in when we played PC games and sank into it. I propped my foot on top of her monitor, trying not to sigh too loudly at the instant reduction in pain.
“It’s just…” I glanced back at her when she spoke again, and now that I was sitting closer, I could see that she looked nervous, for some reason. Her eyes were enormous behind her glasses, and her fingers gripped the arms of her chair like she was trying to steady herself.
“Just spit it out,” I said in a softer voice. “I’m not gonna make fun of you.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I know you wouldn’t do that.”
I nudged her elbow with mine. “Then show me.”
She nodded, biting her freaking lip again, and I turned away before I did something stupid. My gaze landed on her computer monitor, and I watched as she pulled up a program.
I frowned as the opening screen loaded, not sure what I was looking at.
“Is this a game?” I saw her nod from the corner of my eye. “Which one?”
I glanced back at her, but she wasn’t even looking at the screen; those big blue eyes were trained on me, like she was waiting for my reaction.
She took a deep breath. “It’s called The Golden Goddess.”
I’d never heard of that one – not that I was anywhere near as into video games as she was. But I still knew the popular ones, because she and I played together a lot. I turned to the screen again just as a woman wearing a toga and a helmet rode onto the screen in a chariot. The animation was kind of crude, like someone had done it on a budget.
My gaze flicked back to Krista, and I narrowed my eyes as I took in her expression. She looked like she wanted to throw up and pass out, all at the same time.
“Who made this again?”
She was the biggest gamer I’d ever met, and she knew all the studios. In the past, she’d spent hours monologuing to me about which ones were the best, which were crap, and which ones she thought were about to hit the big time. She had been talking about working for a video game maker for as long as I could remember, so I was sure she’d be able to tell me which one was responsible for this game.
“Um.” She reached up to run her hands through her wild hair. “Um. I did?”
I froze, not sure what she was saying. “Wait, what?”
She bit that stupid lip again, and I had to close my eyes as she spoke again.
“I made it,” she whispered.
My eyes popped open. She was cringing, her shoulders hunched like I was about to laugh.
She had good reason for that, I guess. Most people laughed at her, which I totally did not understand. She was amazing. She was the smartest person I knew, and she was like, sneaky funny. She had this deadpan way of saying stuff, so it sometimes took me a minute to realize she’d just made a joke. And she always shared whatever she had for lunch with me if I asked – unless it was pickles. But otherwise she was really generous, and she never judged me when I failed a chem test or forgot my calculator.
And apparently, she’d made a video game.
See? Amazing.
“No shit?”
She flapped her hands in panic at my language. “Dude. My mom is right downstairs.”
I rolled my eyes. “She can’t hear me from there.” Krista’s house was three stories tall, and her room was on the top floor. I could probably scream at the top of my lungs, and Mrs. Summers would just keep doing whatever it was she was doing, oblivious to the knuckleheads in the attic.
“Yes she can,” she hissed. “You know she has ears in the back of her head.”
Ears in the back of her head? “That’s not a thing.”
“Whatever. You know what I mean. And she said she might bring us a snack, anyway, and you know she definitely has this weird superpower where she interrupts at exactly the wrong moment, so if she hears you curse, she’ll tell your dad, and then he might not let you come over anymore, and-”
I don’t know what made me do it. Maybe I just wanted her to stop babbling about stuff that wasn’t important when she’d made a freaking video game. Maybe I was feeling a little light-headed because it had only been like, an hour since I’d last eaten.
Or maybe, after months and months of staring at her mouth without even consciously knowing I was doing it, I had gone insane.
Whatever the reason, it felt like the most natural, obvious thing in the world when I reached a hand up and put my fingers on her lips.
She immediately froze, like touching her mouth had activated some secret kill switch. Slowly, I pulled my hand back, my eyes locked on her lips. They were trembling, which was weird. Maybe because that was the only part of her that was moving at all.
And weirdly, in that moment, everything seemed more vivid, sharper, clearer. Her tee shirt was the same color as the summer sky, and I could smell her mom’s homemade cocoa butter soap cooking in the kitchen. From her speakers, a cover of an old Rolling Stones tune was playing, a version I hadn’t heard before. It was like I could feel every single note as the music seeped into me.
“Who is this singing?” I asked, because there was no way I could actually talk about what I’d just done.
I had touched her mouth. I put my fingertips on her lips. My best friend’s lips. I’d just touched my best friend’s lips. I think I might even have caressed them, a little bit. Not much. Just for like, a second.
What. The. Hell?
She blinked slowly. “Um. Harriet Wheeler,” she croaked. She cleared her throat. “Well, The Sundays.”
“It’s pretty,” I murmured.
She let out a soft little sigh. “It’s my favorite song.”
I could see why. The singer’s voice was clear and sweet, but also sad, and it was making me feel all kinds of things I’d never felt before, things I couldn’t name. My heart was racing and my breath was shallow, like I’d just done wind sprints.
“They used it in an episode of Buffy,” she whispered, like that explained everything.
And maybe it did. I definitely didn’t have a better explanation. For the song, for my math homework, for my behavior. For anything, really.
I definitely couldn’t explain why, after a few beats where we did nothing more than listen to the song and stare at each other, we both leaned forward, closing the gap between us. My eyelids felt suddenly, inexplicably heavy, so I closed them. I could feel her breath on my chin, and it made me shiver like I was cold. But I wasn’t cold. I felt hot all over, and achy, like my limbs were too big for my body.
“Snack time!”
Okay, so maybe Mrs. Summers did have a weird superpower or two. Because this was exactly the wrong moment for her voice to come floating in from the hallway.
At least it was a few seconds before she appeared in the open doorway. That was really lucky, because it gave me enough time to pull away and put my hands in my lap to cover the fact that my cargo shorts felt a little too tight right at that moment. By the time Krista’s mom hummed her way into the room with a tray in her hands, I was lounging casually in my chair like I hadn’t just almost – almost – kissed my best friend.
WHAT. THE. HELL?!?
Mrs. Summers came over to the desk, her eyes bouncing back and forth from me to Krista as she set the tray down. I gave her a thumbs up when I saw she’d given us apples and peanut butter, my favorite snack. She’d also included some pretzels and a Gatorade each, because she was the best. Her gigantic dog followed behind her, sniffing the tray, and Mrs. Summers shooed her away.
“Playing video games?” She frowned at us both, though her eyes lingered on her daughter, who was now hunched over the keyboard. “Are you two all done with your homework already?”
I nodded. “Just taking a break, then we’ll get back to solving for the unknown variable.” I did my best to sound like I actually knew what that meant.
Mrs. Summers chuckled. “Good for you. Not that I have any idea what that is, mind you. But I’m sure you’ll do it well.”
I nodded again, because apparently I wasn’t really good for anything else
right at that moment. “We do our best.”
Mrs. Summers patted me on the shoulder, giving me a bright smile. “I know, honey. You’re such a good boy.”
Well, now I felt like a turd. A ‘good boy’ wouldn’t almost kiss her daughter when they were supposed to be studying. A ‘good boy’ wouldn’t try to ruin a friendship almost ten years in the making just because he was going crazy.
I mean, I’d just turned fourteen a couple of weeks ago. I was allowed a little crazy. Actually, according to my health teacher and a very awkward conversation I’d had with my dad on my birthday, it was even normal to be crazy right now. It would certainly explain why I popped a boner every time Melody Reyes wore those sweatpants with ‘juicy’ printed on the butt. I didn’t even like Melody, but Little Seth apparently hadn’t gotten that memo.
I liked Krista, though. She was the best friend I’d ever had, better even than Ward or Ty or any of the other guys from the team.
I closed my eyes for a second. She was my best friend. That would make kissing her a really bad idea. Things would get weird. We might even start dating. I was fourteen freaking years old! I had no idea how to date a girl. I’d never even kissed one! I would probably be a terrible boyfriend, and then what if we broke up? She would never speak to me again.
I couldn’t lose Krista. The idea of not being friends with her anymore sent a spike of panic through my veins. I needed her in my life. She was the one I told all my secrets to, the one who got all my stupid jokes, the one who always listened to me when I needed to vent. She knew me better than anyone.
Plus, she was my lucky charm. I always played better when she was in the stands. If she shut me out, my baseball career would be over before it even started.
Suddenly, something Ward had said like a million years ago popped into my head.