by Mindi Scott
“Literally?” he asks.
“Literally. Knives and carnage are up next on the agenda. Just as soon as, you know, we figure how to get back in.”
“There’s that tiny detail.” He steps close to me and runs his hands briskly up and down my arms. His hands aren’t especially warm, so it doesn’t help, but his touch jumpstarts my heart.
“You’re wishing you were home right about now, aren’t you?” I ask.
It’s a silly and desperate question, but I need to hear him say that he wants to be here, that he wants to be with me.
“I’m going to have to have my feet amputated if this goes on too much longer, but it isn’t so bad that I wish I were at home,” he says.
That wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. “You getting frostbite is not an option.” I gesture down the street. “I’m wearing shoes, so I’m going to run to the main office and see if I can get them to unlock the door for us.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he says. “I’m sure that Jacob will let us back in any second.”
“I’m sure that you don’t know him very well.”
Reece drops his towel on the ground, stands on it, and then folds it over his feet. “There. See? I’m out of the snow so you don’t have to leave.”
“Meanwhile, the rest of you is going to freeze.”
“Or . . . not.” He takes my hands, draws me toward him, and wraps his arms around me. I loosen my towel and hold both ends behind his back so that we’re sharing it. My heart thumps against his ribs and his thumps into my collarbone.
“This might be shaping up to be our best day ever now,” he says as we shiver against each other.
That’s what I wanted to hear. I look up at him. “Really? This is better than giraffes and ice cream?”
“You don’t think so?”
With his face this close to mine, he’s just eyes, a nose and cheeks that are pink from the cold, and upturned lips. I smile back so big, it almost hurts. “I’m going to have to think about that.”
“Sure. Let me know when you decide.”
He slides a section of damp hair off my face, and I float up to my tiptoes so that our noses are nearly touching. Seconds, months, decades pass until finally—finally—Reece bridges the centimeters between us. My eyes fall shut and our lips brush together: once, twice, three times. As we deepen the kiss, his mouth is hot against mine. He tastes spicy, like cinnamon. Our tongues touch. Unlike what I’ve told my friends, I’ve never done this. I hope I’m getting it right, that he feels as warm and tingly inside as I do.
We break away and I’m breathless. Reece watches me, expectantly.
“You’re right,” I say, resting my cheek on his chest. “Totally our best day ever.”
• • •
Seconds later, our moment on the stoop is interrupted by tire chains grinding over the snow and headlights beaming at the town house. I squint as Mom’s minivan comes to a stop next to Bryan’s car. Reece and I let go of each other and I fix my towel again. “We’re rescued,” I say.
I’m too hyped up to stress about the lecture I’m going to get from Mom. Her eyebrows practically lift off her forehead as she climbs out and hands Tony her keycard, but it’s Tony who says, “What in the world are you two doing out here?”
“Well,” I say, “We were going to have a snow-angel-making contest with Jacob and Zach, but they decided to lock us out instead.”
“Oh, jeez.” Tony shakes his head. I can’t tell if he thinks I should have predicted that they would do something like this, but I don’t think that’s what he’s thinking. “How long have you been out here?”
“Not long,” Reece says. “About five minutes.”
“It felt like longer,” I say. “We came from the hot tub to this.”
Tony lifts Emma from the backseat, and she holds on to his neck while her legs hang over his arms. He leans back inside for a moment and pulls out a set of crutches.
“Do you need me to help with anything?” Reece asks.
Tony gestures toward Mom opening the hatch, so Reece rushes across the snow on his poor, frozen feet. Tony makes his way up to me carrying Emma, and I take the crutches from him while he swipes the keycard. When I step inside behind him, it’s already much warmer than outside, but not enough to keep me from continuing to shiver.
I follow Tony upstairs. After he sets Emma on the couch, I help adjust pillows behind her back and under her leg.
“How are you feeling?” I ask her.
Her eyelids look heavy. “Tired. Really . . . tired.”
Tony rubs the top of her head. “They have her on pain killers. She’ll probably be asleep again any minute.”
I’ve never broken anything, so I don’t know whether Emma needs to keep her leg propped up all night or what. I seem to remember that that’s what Bryan had to do when he broke his ankle a couple of years ago. “I can sleep up here in the living room tonight if she needs the bed to herself,” I say.
“We’ll figure something out,” Tony says.
Reece and Mom walk past and set the bags of Chinese food on the counter.
“Where’s Bryan?” Mom asks.
I explain about him asking Reece and me to meet him in the Village for dinner. Mom purses her lips as she pulls a stack of plates from the cupboard.
“Your mom told you that we were bringing food for everyone,” Tony says.
“I know,” I say. “But Bryan wanted something different. And he still needs a ride no matter what.”
Reece says, “Um, if it’s all right, I’d like to go take the hottest shower of my life now.”
Tony chuckles. “You know where it is.”
As Reece runs upstairs, Jacob comes barreling down—fully dressed again—with Zach behind him.
“Oh!” Jacob yelps, jumping aside.
“ ‘Oh!’ is right,” Mom snaps. “Get down here!” She waits with her hands on her hips. When both of my little brothers are standing in front of her, she continues. “It is not ever okay to lock your sister outside. Especially when she’s wearing a wet bathing suit in the middle of winter, for God’s sake. What were you thinking?”
“We didn’t know the door was locked!” Jacob blurts out.
By his expression, I can tell that it was the first excuse that came to his mind and he already knows that it isn’t going to work.
I roll my eyes. “And us ringing the doorbell, like, two hundred times didn’t give you the hint?”
Zach stares silently at the floor, but Jacob never gives up, even when he knows he doesn’t stand a chance. “It was a joke,” he says to Mom. “And I was coming down to let them back in.”
“It wasn’t funny,” I say. “And, obviously, you were too late.”
Mom narrows her eyes. “Nicole, you need to go put some clothes on. Your lips are turning blue right in front of me. And Jacob, sit down. You too, Zach. When you’re finished eating, you can both go to your room for the rest of the night.”
“Mom!” they say in unison.
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. I’m not in the mood for it right now.”
On that note, I run downstairs for my own hot shower.
CHAPTER 12
The lighting inside the restaurant is dark, but instead of feeling moody, the atmosphere is upbeat with a lot of loud talking and laughing going on. The greeter leads us through the crowded dining area to a booth where Bryan is slumped over a half-eaten burger, some scattered fries, an empty pitcher, and an almost-empty glass of beer. “There you are,” he says, barely glancing up.
“You’ve already eaten?” I ask.
“Sorry. Got tired of waiting.”
He doesn’t sound sorry; he sounds, well, drunk.
“We can leave if you’re ready,” I say. “There’s actually lots of food at the house.”
“Who said I was ready?” Bryan sweeps his hand out in front of him. “Have a seat. Stay awhile.”
The greeter lifts the menus she’s holding. “So you need these or . . . ?”
; I look at Reece. He shrugs and nods at the same time like he’s fine either way, so I sit and he slides in beside me. The woman takes our drink orders: I request water with lemon, Reece asks for a Coke, and Bryan taps the side of the pitcher and says, “I could use another of these.”
“Of course,” she says, swiping it from the table and hurrying away.
It’s weird to me that Bryan can legally order alcohol in Canada. It’s weirder that he managed to down an entire pitcher before we got here. I don’t know how many glasses that would amount to, but I’m guessing at least five.
We sit in silence for a few moments while Reece and I look over the menu.
“So what’s up with Emma?” Bryan asks, slouching back. “Did she get the air-cast-and-crutches treatment?”
I nod. “She was conked out on the couch when we left.”
“Sucks,” Bryan says. “She’s going to hate it. I spent half of my senior year on crutches. Got so sick of those things.”
A server comes over to drop off our drinks and try to convince us to get an appetizer. After he walks away, I say to Bryan, “Sorry about today. How was it hanging out with Tony?”
“We split up after a couple of hours because he couldn’t keep my pace.” Bryan pours himself another glass of beer. “What about you guys?” He looks back and forth between us. “Seemed from your text like you were having big problems.”
“Just at first,” I say quickly, wishing he hadn’t mentioned that; I don’t want Reece to be embarrassed. “It got better.”
“A little better,” Reece says, correcting me with a smile. “I was definitely holding her back, though.”
Bryan takes a long swallow. “How is it that we never ran into you all day? Were you even on Blackcomb?”
“Yes,” I say. “But we were taking it easy on Crystal Road and Green Line. We also went to the tube park, which was really fun, but then Tony called and said I had babysitter duty, so that was the end of that.”
“I can’t believe you wasted your last day on bunny hills and inner tubes,” Bryan says, frowning. “You could have gone on some insane trails with me.”
As if I was supposed to just leave Reece alone and go off with Bryan? That isn’t what he would have done to Heather if she were here; it isn’t what anyone would do. “I already went on all the trails that I wanted to. I don’t need nonstop excitement, you know.”
“Clearly,” Bryan says, looking straight at Reece.
I don’t know what to say when he gets like this. He’s looking for an argument and I’m not going to give it to him.
While I’m trying to think of something else to talk about, Reece asks Bryan, “So how did your ankle heal up, anyway? Are you playing basketball in college?”
Confusion flickers across Bryan’s face, and I realize for the first time that Reece must know Bryan, since I’ve never told him about Bryan being on the team.
“I played on JV for one year. Which was when you were a senior,” Reece says, answering the unasked question. “We practiced in the same gym. Well, until you got hurt.”
“Holy shit.” Bryan sets his half-empty glass down hard and leans in to study Reece. “I thought you looked kind of familiar. You were that freshman who was going out with D.T. Johnson, right?”
“Her name is Violet Johnson,” Reece says. “But yeah, that was me.”
“What’s ‘D.T.’ mean?” I ask.
“Deep Throat,” Bryan says with a snicker.
“Oh,” I say.
I shouldn’t have asked. I really didn’t need to know. More importantly, I can tell by the way Reece is staring at his hands folded on the black tablecloth and clenching his jaw that this is a bad subject for him, too.
I glare at Bryan, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. “That chick,” he says. “Whoa. She hooked up with, like, five of my friends. Not all at the same, though. I don’t think so, anyway.” He leans back again. “God, I haven’t thought about Violet in forever. How’s she doing these days? Or should I say, who’s she doing?”
“She’s fine,” Reece says, looking him in the eye. “She graduated last year and she’s going to school in California.”
“Next time you see her, tell her ‘hi’ from me.” Bryan sets his napkin by his plate and stands. “I’m going to take a piss now.”
I watch him amble away and then turn to Reece. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugs. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
I wave my hand in the direction Bryan headed. “I’m the one who brought you here and my brother happens to be in a really bad mood. So there’s that.”
“It isn’t your fault. Guys have been giving me crap about Violet since I was fourteen, so I’m kind of used to it.”
“That’s a long time,” I say lightly.
“It definitely is. Not even half as long as she had to deal with it, though.”
My brother dredged all this up and then walked away. I wish I could too, but I can tell by Reece’s face that he wants to discuss it further.
How do I do this, when all I want is to forget that Violet was important to Reece long before I was?
“Have you . . . heard from her lately?” I ask.
“Not really,” he says, shaking his head. “We’ve sent a few e-mails, but it’s been a while.”
I nod and draw squiggly lines in the condensation on my water glass using my fingertip.
“Is this too weird?” Reece asks. “Talking about my ex-girlfriend?”
“No,” I lie. “It’s fine.”
“Okay, good. Things are different for her now, but when she was at our school, she put up with a lot of people saying a lot of things for a long time. She had this attitude like she didn’t care. I know she did, though.”
Maybe I can do this. “You two broke up when she left for college?”
“No. It was in May. Before she graduated. By then, she’d been pretty much been done for six months already.”
I stop decorating my glass and look at Reece. “Done with you?”
“With me. With everything having to do with Kenburn. She wanted out, you know? And she deserved to get out. I never blamed her for that.”
He’s so calm, unlike Bryan over his breakup. Of course, Reece has also had all of these months to process it.
“It was hard, though, wasn’t it?” I ask. “For you?”
“At first. I’d been with her, literally, since a few weeks after I moved here. The very start of my freshman year. I was a scrawny dork with braces, who never could figure out what she saw in me.” He smiles. “Now, of course, the braces are off so I’m just a scrawny dork.”
“That’s not true.” Smiling back, I poke his bicep through his shirt. “You’ve got guns under those sleeves.”
“BB guns, maybe. And I notice that you didn’t say I’m not a dork.”
“Oh, didn’t I?” I pinch my fingers together and motion like I’m zipping my lips closed.
Reece laughs. “Anyway. It all worked out and I’m glad for her. She doesn’t have any jackasses in her life calling her ‘D.T.’, so that’s good stuff.”
The way he’s talking, I can see that Ming was right about Reece being over Violet. The best part, though—the part that makes me like him even more—is that he doesn’t seem fazed by whatever happened before that got her the nickname “D.T.” He wasn’t upset with her, only with how other people treated her.
“About the jackasses,” I say. “What Bryan said to you just now. I want you to know that he isn’t usually like that.”
Reece lifts his eyebrows.
“He really isn’t,” I insist. “His girlfriend broke up with him a couple of weeks ago on his birthday and he’s not dealing very well. As you can see.”
There’s a long pause before Reece says, “That’s rough, but . . .”
He shrugs and looks away without finishing his sentence. I can tell he’s thinking that I’m making excuses and Bryan’s a jerk. It stings, but I understand why he’d feel that way. I don’t get the impressi
on that Reece lashed out at everyone after things ended with him and Violet. With Bryan, it’s as if it doesn’t even occur to him to not take it out on the whole world.
“I know that he comes across badly sometimes,” I say. “The truth is, he’s really sensitive and gets super depressed.”
“Oh.” Reece nods. “Yeah. My mom has that. She swears by vitamin D.”
“No, it isn’t a vitamin thing.” I pause, wondering whether I should say more. If Reece can share personal things with me, I can tell him this. I will tell him. “It’s because of our real dad.”
“What do you mean?” Reece asks, frowning in confusion.
Now what have I started? I take a deep breath and speak in a rush. “I don’t remember him, actually. I just know that our mom pretty much fled New Zealand with Bryan and me. Bryan remembers what happened and has bad memories and everything.”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Reece doesn’t look weirded out, but I kind of wish I could take my words back anyway. This is too much.
Before he can ask further questions, our server comes back to take our orders. I’ve never appreciated an interruption as much as I do this one. I ask all about salad dressings, soups of the day, and Italian soda flavors. I even change my order twice so that I can put as much time between our last conversation and our next one.
As soon as the server leaves, Reece turns back to me, looking like he wants to pick up where we left off.
“You know what?” I say. “I should”—I point past him—“be right back.”
“Sure.” He scoots aside so that I can step out of the booth, and I hurry through the dining room to find the bathroom.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I shouldn’t have told Reece that stuff. I want him to see my family as normal—not scandalous and dramatic—but because of Bryan, I’m failing big-time.
Standing in front of the mirror, I admire my necklace and try to think of a new topic for when I get back to the table. Maybe I won’t need one, though. Maybe Bryan will be there and in a less jerky mood. Maybe conversation will flow without awkwardness. Maybe the worst of the night has already happened.
I can only hope.