I admit there’s a part of me that wants to clean up this mess. To sort it out between bins for recycling or composting. I hold Nico’s hand tighter to stop myself.
Next to us, a girl dumps a bag of peanut M&M’s into an empty bowl. Nico flinches. Peanuts. She leaves.
“Do you drink?” Nico asks.
I shrug. “I haven’t. But I can. I guess?”
“No pressure, okay?”
I nod. “None felt.”
We get in line for beer. Everyone pushes forward until my knee bangs into the side of the metal keg with a clang. I quickly regain my balance so Nico can let go of my hand to grab cups for us. I have no idea how to work the faucet thing, but Nico handles it like he does it all the time.
“Maybe just halfway?” he says to me, and I nod.
He fills my cup first, hands it to me, then knocks his own full cup against mine. Some beer burps up over the rim and gets my thumb wet.
“Cheers,” he says.
“Cheers.”
He takes a sip.
I take a sip.
The beer is bitter and bubbly and foamy. It’s gross like black coffee in a different way. I want to spit it out, but I swallow it down instead. I’m pretty sure I wince, because Nico slants his head to the side. Softens his gaze on me.
“You cool?” he asks.
“If you mean am I cool with the beer, yes. If you’re asking if I’m cool in general, not even close.”
He smiles. Points at himself. “Dork with the bike lock, remember?”
“How could I forget?” I tap my elbow to his. “But your winning film knowledge makes me swoon, so…”
“Does it now?” He leans against the counter, his brown eyes locked on mine. “What else makes you swoon?”
“I don’t know.” Everything. “What makes you swoon?”
He grins. “Oh, Juniper, where do I start?”
“Wherever you want.”
“Well…” He leans forward just as some guy pushes into me, spinning me out of the way so he can get to the keg. My hip bone digs into the edge of the counter. “Dude,” Nico says to him as he grabs my elbow to steady me.
“My bad,” the guy says, stumbling away and bumping into everyone else in his way like a bowling ball knocking down pins.
Nico presses his hand to my hip where it hit the counter. “You okay?” he asks. His fingers skim the space between the top of my jeans and the bottom of my sweatshirt. I can feel the heat of his fingers through the cotton. I want to feel his fingers against my skin instead.
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, I’ll be lucky to leave here without bruises.” I squint at the crowd. “This place is more packed than the football game. Do you know all these people?”
He looks around. “Pretty much. I’ve probably hung out with everyone here at one time or another.”
“So whose house is this?”
“Mason and Mercy Miller’s.”
“That’s a lot of M’s.”
He takes a long chug of beer. “Mmm.”
“So they’re married?” I say, emphasizing the M.
“Clever.” He knocks his cup against mine in cheers. “They’re twins.”
“Do you know them more than sort of?”
“Mason and I were on the same Tee Ball team in first grade. Mercy and I did cotillion together in sixth.”
“So it’s been a while.”
“You could say that, yeah.” He takes another sip. “But this town is so small that everyone still knows each other, you know?”
“I don’t. So far I know you. And Jared, I guess.”
“Well, that’s about as good as it gets, so…”
A roar goes up over Nico’s shoulder as a Ping-Pong ball lands in a cup of beer. Everyone around the table chants, “Drink! Drink!” and the guy drains his cup without coming up for air.
Someone else at the table holds a ball up to Nico. “Noble! You in?”
He shakes his head no.
I turn toward him. “I love how your last name is Noble. Like a noble fir Christmas tree. You’re so festive. I want to drape you in tinsel.”
“Do you now?”
My face flushes red. Oh jeez. What am I saying? “I mean…”
He smiles. “Forget the tinsel. My name’s all about being tall and sturdy and shit.” He pounds his chest.
I look him up and down. “But you’re not that tall.”
“Ah, but I’m sturdy.” He raises an eyebrow at me.
“Wow.”
“I aim to wow.”
“You’re pretty good at it, honestly.”
“Yeah?” He takes a sip of beer. Smiles over the edge of his cup.
I take a sip, too. Smile back. “Yeah.”
“Good to know.”
A sloshy, wobbly girl leans against the counter next to us. She points at me as approximately twenty metal bracelets as thin as pencil points slide up her wrist toward her elbow.
“I know you,” she slurs. “You’re that girl my mom showed me. The one from the video at the pumpkin patch.”
I shake my head in a mixture of trying to clear it and also faking a nope, not me.
“You are. Oh my god. Your family is totally evil.” She pulls on the collar of an enormous guy, all muscle and brawn and clearly a football player, standing behind her. “Teddy, this is her! The girl from that family that got the measles.”
“Whoa,” Teddy says. “Did you have ’em, too?”
The girl slaps him on the shoulder. “Dude. That’s literally what I said.”
“Actually, it isn’t,” Nico mutters.
“Sorry.” Teddy holds up his cup to the girl. “I’m kinda…” He makes a face that I assume is supposed to indicate that he’s out of it.
“You’re such an idiot sometimes,” she says.
They fall into each other, laughing sloppily.
Nico angles in sideways, creating a shield between all of us.
“Seriously, though.” The girl looks at me and shudders. “Are you still contagious?”
“Dude, she wouldn’t be here,” Teddy says. “Unless she wants to kill us all.”
“Not us. We’ve all had the measles shot. She just wants to kill babies.”
I drop my cup on the counter with a thump. Take a step back.
“That’s enough,” Nico says. “Leave her alone, Avery.”
I know I should say something. I want to say something. The right thing. The same way Nico wanted to say the right thing on Halloween. But I don’t know what that right thing is.
“You should go home,” Teddy says to me. “For real.”
Avery throws her head back and laughs. “You’re so brutal, Teddy.”
Teddy snorts obnoxiously. Pumps his fist in the air. “Go home! Go home!” he chants the same way the group at the table behind us chanted, “Drink! Drink!”
I don’t even think before I do it. I just push on his chest with my hands. And Teddy goes tumbling to the floor in a tangled mess of limbs and muscles. Laughter erupts all around him. He rights himself, lifts up on his elbows, and looks at me with rage in his eyes.
“What’s your problem?” he says.
“You deserved it,” says Nico.
“You little…” He scrambles back to his feet, lunges for Nico. “You’re dead, dude.”
We both duck and Teddy stumbles into the breakfast nook, his head hitting the light dangling above it. He falls into one of the built-in benches almost like it’s on purpose. Like he’s going to sit up and eat scrambled eggs now. But he doesn’t. That last hit sobered him up, and he grunts his way to standing and hulks out in front of us.
“Teddy,” Nico says, putting his hands up. “Let’s not do this.”
Teddy’s nostrils flare. “Oh, we’re doing it.” He balls his hands into fists. Releases. Balls them again.
A bunch of girls scream, which alerts five huge, scary guys to rush in from the other room. Great. The football team. They look left and right and up and do
wn, clearly trying to find someone more intimidating than Nico from the film club.
“Stop,” I say, blocking Nico.
Teddy stands in front of us, breathing hard through clenched teeth.
“Look, I don’t know who you are,” one of the other football guys says to me. “But you better get out of the way while these two work this out.”
Teddy sways from side to side. Grunts like a bull in the ring.
The kitchen is chaos. Filled with people. Screams. Empty cups flying. And why is the music so loud? The guns from the video game are still shooting. All the noise hurts my head and my brain. I hold my hands to my ears.
“Stop!” I yell. It comes out long and screechy, filled with O’s. “We’re leaving.”
I grab Nico by the elbow and pull him through the sliding glass door to the backyard.
Teddy pushes toward us, but a couple of guys pull him back.
“Let him go,” one of them says. “It’s not worth it. Playoffs, Teddy Bear. Remember?”
Laughter swells up behind us.
“How do we get out of here?” I say, fumbling with the latch on the side gate that will lead us to the front yard. My hands are shaking and I can’t grip it. I look over my shoulder to see if anyone’s coming. Nico stands there silently.
I finally unhook the latch and pull us into the front yard as the gate slams shut behind us. I stride toward his bike. Loosen my skateboard from underneath the metal tether. I yank my helmet over my head.
“I should’ve taken care of that better,” Nico says.
“No. I don’t need saving. I don’t need you swooping in like some superhero every time I mess up.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I turn to him. “You couldn’t have taken care of that even if you wanted to. It was six against one, Nico. Did you see those guys? They were drunk and irrational and they would’ve killed you.”
“But you didn’t even let me try.”
I turn to face him, my helmet slipping. “Try? Are you kidding me right now?”
He shrugs.
“Look, I’m not into all that fighting stuff. If that’s your thing, if you’re the kind of person who goes to parties to get into a fight, we shouldn’t hang out anymore. As much as my parents annoy me, they taught me to be a pacifist. I don’t like what I just did back there. I’m down with the peace and love thing.”
“I’m not that guy. I’ve never even been in a fight before.” He shakes his head. “But maybe I could’ve talked to them.”
“Yeah? And what would’ve happened when they didn’t want to listen?”
“I guess they’d kick my ass.”
“Exactly.”
He angrily wraps his lock around the handlebars of his bike. Then he shoves his helmet onto his head and fastens it. He turns to face me, frustration still biting at the corners of his eyes.
I can’t help it. I burst out laughing.
“What?” he says.
“If you could see yourself right now, you’d know why I dragged you out of there. You do not look like someone who should attempt to take on six football players.”
He leans against his bike. It teeters. “You’re really saying I couldn’t take them?” He flexes his biceps.
“Not even close.” I lean closer to him. My mouth is practically touching his. “But that’s why I like you.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Yep.”
He wraps his hands around my waist, his fingertips pressing into the space between the bottom of my sweatshirt and the top of my jeans again. He grabs at the edge of my shirt underneath. Lifts it up just enough to let his fingers skim my skin. “So you like me.”
“I do. When you’re being you.”
“Good. I like you, too.”
He leans in closer.
Closer still.
My eyes flutter shut.
Because I’m pretty sure Nico’s going to kiss me again.
But now that I have time to think about it, a million things go through my mind at once. Do I tilt my head? Do I hold my breath? How do I start? How do I stop?
He presses against me.
I sigh happily.
And then, as it’s about to happen, the tops of our helmets bang against each other, preventing our lips from meeting.
We both bounce back in shock.
“Oh, come on,” Nico says, yanking off his helmet and throwing it to the ground.
He bends his knees so he can get up and underneath my helmet, and then his lips touch mine. Soft and sweet, like the Nico I know. Not like the Nico who wanted to punch Teddy five minutes ago in the kitchen. And even though I’ve never kissed anyone until tonight, my mouth somehow knows what to do. Maybe it’s because Nico’s guiding me in his own gentle way. A nudge. A swoop. I stop thinking and melt into him. Our hip bones pressing together. His hands still pushing into the small of my back, urging me closer.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I pull back from Nico because I suddenly remember Teddy and the rest of the football team. I told them we were leaving.
“We should go before anyone realizes we’re still here,” I say.
Nico kisses me again—one more quick peck—and climbs onto his bike.
“Yeah. Let’s go,” he says.
I admit getting on my skateboard instead of standing in the yard and kissing Nico all night long is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I sigh in frustration.
“We could go to my house,” he says.
I smile so wide it threatens to break my face. “Okay. I just have to tell my parents first.”
“No problem.”
We stop at my house to make sure it’s okay if I go to Nico’s for a couple of hours. Since it’s only nine o’clock, I’m hoping my parents will still be okay with the eleven p.m. curfew I had before we moved here. It takes a little convincing, and Nico promising he’ll drive me home, but they say yes.
Nico’s house is at the end of a cul-de-sac. It’s two stories high, with a perfectly manicured front yard and a basketball hoop hanging above the garage door at the end of a long driveway.
“My brother’s.” He nods up at the hoop. “It sits sad and lonely while he’s at college.”
“That’s kind of depressing.”
“Yeah.” He gestures to the side of the house. “This way.” We go through the gate, which Nico leaves open as he parks his bike against the wall.
I prop my board up next to it. “Safe and sound.”
“Now excuse me while I go earn the big bucks.” He dashes back through the open gate and to the curb to wheel in a trash can, then does the same with the big blue recycling bin. “Okay. Now we can go inside.”
A few feet up, along the same wall where Nico propped up his bike, there’s a door that leads us into the kitchen. I follow Nico inside and he goes straight to the farmhouse-style sink to wash his hands.
“Nico, honey? Is that you?” a woman’s voice calls from a nearby room.
“My mom,” he tells me.
“I figured.”
“Yeah,” he calls back to her. He fills a glass of water from the sink and drains it in one take.
His mom rounds the corner into the kitchen. “Oh, good. I’m glad you’re home. I kept hearing sirens, and I get nervous when you’re out there on your bike.”
He pats himself down. “I’m here. In one piece. All good.”
Mrs. Noble reaches her hand out, pushes his floppy hair back from his forehead. “Did something happen? You look disheveled.” She tugs at the front of his sweatshirt. “Your pocket is ripped.”
“I fell off my bike. But I’m fine.” He turns to me. “Mom, this is Juniper.”
She turns to me, looking so much like Nico. The same dark eyes and hair. Hers falls in loose waves over her shoulders. “It’s lovely to meet you, Juniper.”
“You too.”
Nico’s mom turns to him. “Who won the game?”
“We did.”
“Hooray! Go, Condors!” She pretends she’s waving a
pom-pom in the air.
Nico cringes, looking embarrassed. “Mom, you’re gonna weird out Juniper.”
“I was a cheerleader,” she whispers to me, and waves her pretend pom-pom. She turns to Nico. “You should just be glad I’m not doing the kicks and the tumbles.”
I can’t help but smile. My mom would probably tell me some story about how the cheerleaders were mean to her in high school, but Nico’s mom seems nice. And genuine.
Nico refills his water cup. Asks me if I want one too by raising his eyebrows at me, then the faucet. I nod.
“So we’re just gonna hang and watch a movie or something,” Nico tells his mom. There’s the slightest undercurrent to his tone that says it’s okay for her to leave now.
“Oh. Right. Okay. I’ve got some work to go over anyway.”
“It was nice to meet you,” I say, taking a seat on one of the stools at the kitchen island.
“Likewise.”
“Sirens.” Nico shakes his head as she leaves. “She is such a worrier.” He pulls off his hoodie, and it takes half the T-shirt underneath with it. I sit there watching, trying to figure out how someone who says he sucks at sports manages to look that good without a shirt on. After his T-shirt falls back over his stomach, he empties his jeans pockets onto the island. Student ID. Some crumpled-up dollar bills. An EpiPen. Cell phone. He turns his attention toward the fridge. “You want some food? We have leftover lasagna.”
“Nah, I’m good. I ate dinner early. Before the game.”
“My mom makes the best lasagna. You’ll be missing out,” he taunts as he walks back to me, peeling the tinfoil off the top of a half-empty casserole dish. He sets it down between us. Then he opens a nearby drawer, grabs two forks, and hands me one. “In case you change your mind.”
“Have you ever had to use that?” I ask, pointing my fork at the EpiPen.
“Nope. And hopefully never will.” He takes a bite of lasagna. Chews.
“Do you know how to use it?”
He grabs the capped EpiPen and holds it a few inches from his outer thigh. “Pop the top off and jam it in.” He quickly swings his arm toward his thigh like he’s pitching a softball. “No hesitation.”
“That seems scary.”
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