“I’m not your honey,” I say weakly, leaning heavily on the counter for support.
He smirks. “But you’re dripping all over my kitchen.”
I blink slowly, somehow scandalized by the Science Olympiad Captain of our class.
Nico navigates the kitchen with the same sort of confidence he just looked down my shirt with. “We have about a three-hour drive to Durham. There are some really nice… forests we’ll pass on the drive that we can… take little walks in.”
I frown. “You can just call it a hike, you know.”
“For some weird reason, I get the impression that you equate hiking to getting a root canal.”
He’s not wrong. I don’t tell him. “Fine. Let’s go on the flattest little forest walk, then.”
He grins. “Then we got an entire free afternoon in Durham. Wanna go check out my old stomping grounds? We can go see some more beautifully sad nature shit in Duke Forest.”
I stifle a laugh at the “beautifully sad nature shit” comment, then realize it’s the first time I haven’t had the urge to massacre him for the Brooklyn in his voice.
It might (read: definitely) have everything to do with the beautifully sad nature shit he showed me on the Blue Ridge Parkway, when he mostly kept his mouth shut and drove me through the most wondrous of mountain views, blues and greens and purples and pinks pervasive through the car window. Nico, a sentry with his eyes roaming around the landscape, flicking over towards me to gauge my reaction. Then, at the overlook, so unfortunately handsome in the fading sun and encroaching moonlight. So calm and solid and strong it made me feel like giving him a piece of myself. A realization that popped up just sitting there with him, like it felt safe enough to come out and show itself. All of this while surrounded by the smells of cool wind and smoke and damp and earth before being enveloped by the distinctly safe and warm smell of Nico’s sweatshirt.
How strange it’s felt, to be wrapped up in Nico, my worst enemy. Arms, clothes, body. I don’t feel the need to disappear.
“There’s a library I wanna show you that’s also kinda tragically beautiful. Rubenstein,” he goes on. “It’s for rare books and all that shit, and in it there’s the Gothic Reading Room.”
“A room where goths can read?” I ask.
“Gothics, actually.”
I hum.
“And Duke Forest has some more nice little walks in it. We can wander around for a while.”
“More beautifully sad nature shit,” I say with a smile at my coffee.
He stops what he’s doing and takes in my face. His gets soft for a moment before shifting into a smirk. “You really are so beautiful when you smile, Annie.”
I make a big production of scowling and rolling my eyes to distract from the warmth spreading through my arms and legs.
He tilts his head back and laughs. “Anyway, all that sound good?”
He slides a plate over to where I stand at the counter. Bacon and eggs could be considered boring, I suppose, but this bacon and these eggs look like nectar from the gods, like they belong on a table of decadent delights. Golden breads, jewel-bright fruits, overflowing cream, and Nico’s bacon and eggs all in a row.
All of a sudden, Sister Annie makes herself known and shakes me by the shoulders. My heart sinks as she forces me to remember. “I don’t want to put you out.”
His eyebrows furrow.
Go on, Sister Annie presses. “And I’m sorry for last night. For making you leave. I know you wanted to hang and I feel bad for making you drive me home.”
Nico tilts his head, looking at me in that way that says he’s trying to figure me out. “It wasn’t a problem until you made it one, Annie,” he says slowly. “And even then, it wasn’t a problem for me at all.” He peruses the length of my body again, and justlike that we’re both remembering the press of our bodies against the car. In the bed, under the blankets at the murder motel.
I push that out of my head. “And I’m sorry for making you drag me around everywhere. Entertaining me. I can go off on my own?—”
“I want to, Annie,” he says simply.
“Why?” I whisper.
He shrugs. “I wanna hang out with my worst fuckin’ nightmare. Turns out she’s more of a fun dream.”
It’s there again, that feeling of warmth and existing, of being enveloped by Nico Giannuzzi.
