by Mindi Scott
Alejandra hasn’t responded to even one of Piper’s texts or calls about the Starbucks meeting that we were trying to set up for the other day. Not that it would have mattered anyway, since Mom wouldn’t have let me go.
“You aren’t the one she’s avoiding,” I say. “So don’t take it personally.”
“I’m not,” Piper says, even though it’s obvious by how she keeps bringing it up that she totally is. “The real problem is that Coach isn’t going to put up with it anymore,” she says. “And it’s going to end up hurting you the most. I mean, let’s face it. You and Alejandra are the two best sophomore dancers on the team, but only you are captain material.”
Instantly and unexpectedly, I’m on the defensive. “Why would you say that? She’s a better dancer than most of the seniors even, her choreography’s amazing, and—”
“And she doesn’t have what it takes to be a leader, Coley. You do.” Piper sips from her glass of sparkling punch. “I feel like if you fix things with her, you can turn this around and prove to Coach and the rest of the team that you’re right for the job. By the end of the school year, when it’s time to vote, everyone will have forgotten that they had doubts about you.”
I fall silent and let her words soak in. Alejandra and I used to talk about it so much. How we’d both be captains senior year. How, if we worked hard enough this year, maybe we’d be picked as juniors, too. I want it, with or without Alejandra. I didn’t realize until now that the “with Alejandra” part still mattered to me.
Noah wanders back into the room, playing with his tie. “Is there anything more ridiculous than dressing up to hang out in my own house?” he asks, standing beside me.
“Be quiet,” Piper says, looking around at all the nearby adults, who happen to be drinking, chatting, laughing, and not paying attention to the three teenagers in their midst.
Why Tony and Mr. Crowne think it’s important that we come to this annual event is beyond me. Secretly I envy the triplets, who are spending New Year’s Eve at our house with a babysitter like Bryan, Piper, Noah, and I used to do when we were younger. Of course, back then we always wished we were here so we’d have a better view of the fireworks over the lake.
Noah lowers his voice. “I decided to go commando in secret protest. Now, with the chafing, it’s my dick that’s protesting.”
I giggle.
Piper frowns at both of us. “That’s disgusting. I don’t want to hear about your non-underwear habits.”
“I wouldn’t say that free balling is a habit of mine.” A grin spreads across Noah’s face. “But I could maybe turn it into one. I just have to build up some calluses.”
Piper shakes her head.
I cover my smile with my fingers, and Noah turns his attention to me. “Coley, is it the lighting in here, or did someone punch you?”
“I did,” I say, testing out how the words sound.
My bruise is still dark. With this and my big, crusty scab from my curling iron—covered at the moment by the chiffon wrap that I’m refusing to take off—I’m looking somewhat less than awesome from the neck up.
Noah’s eyes widen. “You punched your own face?”
So I sound completely crazy then.
“Like I’m that hardcore,” I say. “It was more of a cheek-meets-chairlift kind of a deal.” I skim my hand down the side of my satin dress. “Too bad purple clashes with red.”
“Yeah, you sure didn’t plan that very well,” Noah says.
Just then Piper stands up straighter and watches the now-open front door. I follow her gaze to where my mother is breezing through in a black, sequined dress. Bryan’s right behind her. He looks halfway decent for a change; he even shaved.
“Sorry, I’m late!” Mom announces.
“Mrs. DeLuca,” Noah says, “if you were on time, you wouldn’t be you.”
He’s teasing her, but it’s the truth, too.
Noah steps forward to take Mom’s wrap and clutch, while my brother rushes past Piper and me to the champagne fountain.
Like Piper, I’m frozen in this spot, watching Bryan’s every move. I used to be good at making myself forget about the things that happened between us. Now I feel like I’m suffocating from having to be in the same room with him.
Noah comes back from putting Mom’s stuff away at the same time that Bryan makes his way over.
“How’s it going?” Bryan asks.
His question doesn’t seem to have been directed at anyone in particular, but he’s looking my way for what might be the first time all week.
“We’re having the time of our fricken lives, of course,” Noah says. “Aren’t we, Coley?”
I put on a smile. “You know it.”
Eight days until Bryan flies back to the East Coast. Eight days until this weird tension disappears with him. Eight days until I can truly put that night at Whistler out of my mind.
Piper takes a step closer to Bryan. “Everything’s been going good for me. It’s my senior year. How are you? How’s UConn?”
“Eh,” Bryan says, shrugging.
“Oh, no! You don’t like it? I applied there too. I mean, because my parents really wanted me to,” she says quickly.
“I’m not sure it’s for me,” Bryan says. “When I graduated, it seemed important to get as far from here as possible. I had the right idea, I think, but the wrong place. I wish I’d taken a gap year. Or maybe two.”
He wanted to get away? To me, he always made it seem like Mom and Tony didn’t give him a choice. I’m not sure if he’s saying this now to sound cool in front of Piper and Noah, or if it’s the truth. Everything about him confuses me lately.
“I’ve been thinking about taking a gap year,” Piper says.
Noah raises an eyebrow, which makes me think that, like me, he suspects that Piper came up with that idea exactly three seconds ago.
“That’s cool.” Bryan runs his hands over his hair. “Have you seen that movie Into the Wild? It’s a true story of this dude who gave up everything, hitchhiked to Alaska, and just lived out in the wild. I’d love to do that. Unplug from the world.”
“Yeah, okay,” Noah says. “But what you seem to be forgetting is that that guy lived in the wild only until he died in it.”
“Um, spoiler alert?” Piper says.
“It’s not a spoiler,” Noah says. “Everyone knows he died. That’s why there’s a movie about him.”
“I’d skip the dying part,” Bryan says. “I want to, like, grow a beard and just, you know, live off the land and find myself.”
“That sounds so amazing,” Piper says.
Noah takes my hand and pulls gently. For a moment, I resist; I know that Bryan doesn’t want to be left with Piper. Then I remember that I’m not interested right now in what Bryan wants, and walk away with Noah.
As soon as we’re out of earshot, Noah says, “Those two. Give me a break. They’d survive ten minutes in the wild.”
My tension eases a little. “You think you’d last longer?”
“Hell, no! But do you hear me talking about wanting to kill my own food and skipping a year of showers?” He leads me into the kitchen where he grabs two coffee cups. “All right. You go in and I’ll cover you.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about until he takes me near the champagne fountain and gives me a nudge toward it. He stands, blocking me as I hold the mugs under the cascade.
“This isn’t going to fool anyone for long,” I say as we slink away, each holding a full cup of champagne disguised as coffee.
“Doesn’t need to.” He ducks into the hallway covert-mission-ops style, and guides me upstairs into his bedroom. After closing the door behind us, he taps his mug against mine and takes a drink. “You know what would go good with this?”
I sip and shake my head.
“Some nice Cuban cigars.”
“Oh, you.” I give his chest a push, and reopen the door. “I think we’d better keep it like this. You know how my mom gets.”
Noah plops onto his
bed. “I definitely do. And now Reece knows too, right?”
I climb up beside him, careful not to flash him or catch my heels in his gray bedspread. We settle together against the pillows and face the huge, wall-mounted TV. “She hasn’t let me see him since he dropped me off that day,” I say. “She hasn’t let me see anyone. I had to sneak around at the mall to get to hang out with Ming for a few minutes today.”
“Harsh,” Noah says.
“I know!”
“Although, with Reece,” Noah says, “you should know by now that your mom is guaranteed to hate anyone she thinks wants to get into your pants. When school starts again, I think I’ll tell him all about the time she found us in her closet in second grade.”
I cover my face and groan. “Why do you live to embarrass me?”
“Embarrass you? According to your mom, I was the eight-year-old perv who wanted to show you my wang. In the dark. Because that makes sense, right?”
“You must have looked like you were up to no good,” I say with a smile.
“Seriously?” Noah shakes his head. “Who automatically assumes if a kid’s fly’s down that it has anything to do with sexy times? I swear, she still looks at me funny all these years later. Reece might find it comforting that he isn’t the only one. Then again, she’s just getting started with him.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Reece told me that he can handle it, that he’ll try to win her over, but I don’t want for him to have to. I want my mom to just be nice to him.
Noah elbows me, playfully. “You’re lucky she never found out about your Latin lover.”
My breath catches and I sit up straighter. “My what?”
“Oh, you know. Last year. You. A wedding reception. Some dude named Pedro? You’d be a lot more than grounded if your mom knew about him.”
“How do you know about him?” I ask.
“How do you think?” Noah gulps down the rest of his cup and reaches across me to set it on his nightstand. “I happen to have a sister who couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. And the details of that night.” He whistles. “Pretty darn graphic, Coley, I have to say.”
Humiliation floods through me.
In the shocking story that I told during Truth or Dare last winter, supersuave nineteen-year-old “Pedro” danced with fourteen-going-on-fifteen-year-old me during every song and then led me back to his room where he took off my dress and did everything to me except actual sex. The fact that Pedro is a figment of my imagination doesn’t make Noah knowing about him any less upsetting.
“I. Cannot. Believe. Piper told you that,” I say.
“You can’t?” Noah asks. “If she’ll spill about Felicia giving a hand job to that bass player and Alejandra being a drama queen about handing over her V-card, of course she’s going to tell me this, too. Why does it matter, though? She said you told your whole fricken team.”
“I had to. It was for Truth or Dare. That doesn’t mean I want everyone knowing that I’m a huge slut!”
“Calm down. You’re the opposite of that, okay?” He takes my hand. “You’re a tiny slut.”
I yank my hand away. “God, Noah.”
“I’m kidding. Kidding, kidding, kidding!”
I take another sip from my cup, staring straight ahead at our reflections on his black TV screen. From what I can see, Noah’s watching me with about 25 percent concern and 75 percent amusement. “Piper told me all of that, like, a year ago,” he says. “I’ve never told anyone, and I never will, okay?”
“What else has she said about me?” I ask, turning toward him again.
His lips twitch. He glances at the ceiling and kind of scratches his cheek. “Um. Nothing?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“There might have been one thing. A little thing. Teeny.” He holds his hand up with his thumb and finger about an inch apart.
“What did she say?”
“That you and I kissed once. Or something wacky like that?”
I chug the rest of my champagne.
“Don’t worry.” Noah pats my shoulder. “I didn’t let on that it was news to me. It’s all good.”
I set my empty mug on his nightstand and sneak a glance his way. Now he’s totally grinning at me.
“This isn’t funny, Noah!”
“It kind of is.”
I wonder if he’d be so amused if he were in my place, if I were to blurt out what I’ve heard about him and Kimber. Something gives me the feeling that he absolutely would not.
“Look,” I say. “The only reason I told them that was because I didn’t want everyone to think I was a freak.”
“Like the kind of freak who’d get naked with the first guy you kissed on the day of that first kiss?”
“Exactly! Anyway, it’s been so long, I almost forgot that the story I told them about you didn’t really happen.”
“Wait. There’s a story?” Noah rubs his hands together. “I want to hear it.”
“No! It’s embarrassing.”
“Oh, come on. It was my fake first kiss too. I deserve to know how it all went down.”
I let out a loud breath. “Fine. It was during freshman year when we were doing our English homework in here and eating microwave s’mores.”
“I remember that.”
“And you said, ‘Hey, there’s something on your lips.’ I kept wiping my mouth and being like, ‘Did I get it all?’ ”
“Yeah. You had chocolate and graham cracker crumbs all over. It was h-o-t-t.”
“So the part that veers from real life is that you kissed me. Then you said, ‘Looks like I was seeing the future.’ ”
Noah wrinkles his nose. “What does that mean?”
“You know, because you’d been saying ‘there’s something on your lips.’ You were making a prediction that your lips would be on them.”
“The hell? Why am I such a tool in your imagination?”
I can’t help cracking a smile at that. “Everyone at the slumber party thought it was funny and sweet.”
“You told them all that I was a really awesome kisser, right? My reputation’s on the line here, you know.”
“Of course I did,” I lie.
“Better than Mr. Wedding Reception Underaged-Girl Seducer?”
“Definitely,” I say, somehow managing to keep my smile from fading.
“What about Reece?” Noah asks. “Was I a better kisser than him?”
My face heats up. “We’re always talking about Reece. I think it’s time for us to talk about who you like.”
Noah’s gaze darts around the room. Outside, a firework goes off with a loud POP!
“Oh, boy.” He gestures toward his window. “Some loser always explodes prematurely. It’s close to midnight. I guess we should get out there and do that thang?”
“Smooth subject change,” I say as he slides off his bed.
He pulls me to my feet. “Hey, I’m always working a few angles in Canada and the Niagara Falls area. You know how it is.”
I watch him intently until he meets my gaze. “Noah, you can tell me anything. You know that, don’t you?”
“All right, all right.” He clears his throat. “But this has to stay between you and me, okay?”
“Of course!”
I hold my breath. I’ve been waiting so long for him to be honest with me.
He drops his voice to a whisper. “So the deal is, I’m starting a harem in my garage. Enjoy this time we have together because I am going to be busy soon.”
I sigh, but I guess I can’t blame him; I definitely know what it’s like to not want to tell the truth.
CHAPTER 20
When Noah and I get downstairs, everyone has pretty much cleared out. Only a few stragglers are refilling drinks or grabbing their coats and wraps. We make our way through the house, out the French doors, and then stand on the porch together, looking down at the backyard. Sparkling white lights lead to the lake’s edge, where everyone else is getting situated on rows of chairs to wat
ch the upcoming fireworks show.
“So let’s see. There’s our moms,” Noah says, pointing. “And Tony. And my dad. All parental units appear to be distracted by hosting duties, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll be right back!”
He rushes inside again. I shiver at the railing and adjust my wrap as I listen to the mix of dozens of voices below and consider whether to go in and borrow a blanket.
The door opens and closes behind me, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a glass of champagne being set on the railing. Gentle hands come to rest on my shoulders.
I don’t have to look to know that it’s my brother. He smells like Bryan. He feels like Bryan. I sink back for a second to steal his warmth, but then I realize what I’m doing and pull away. “Hey!” I say, turning to face him. “You startled me.”
“Sorry.” He takes off his jacket and places it on my shoulders. His heat and cologne are all over it and now they’re all over me, too. “You look really pretty tonight, C,” he says.
I pull the jacket tighter and take a few steps away from him. “Thanks.”
It comes out barely louder than a whisper.
Before Bryan went away for college, I’d wanted him to stay more than I’d ever wanted anything. The little things he’d do like surprising me with Oreo milkshakes and telling me I was the coolest girl in the world would make me nearly explode with happiness. I wonder if his compliments will ever make me feel like that again.
“Have you been hanging out with Piper tonight?” I ask.
He picks up his glass, staring down toward the lawn. “Worse. Tony’s been introducing me to everyone like, ‘Look how great your life can be if you follow in my footsteps.’ All night long, these guys have been taking turns going on and on about their awesome houses and cars and shit.”
“Does that mean you weren’t convinced?” I ask, wrinkling my nose.
“I’m not sure.” He sighs. “I want to be, but I’m still feeling so off. I have tons of time to decide about law school, anyway. What I’m stressed about is going back to the East Coast. You know, seeing her again.”
I nod. I hate the idea of him having to go back to where Heather is, but I also know that I need for it to happen.