“Oh, that’s good…” I heard myself say, but trailed off. Why hadn’t Charlie told me? I suddenly felt sick from all these secretspiling up.How did we get here?I wondered.And how can we get back to truly being us?
“So I guess we’ll see,” Nick said.
“Yeah,” I echoed. “We’ll see.”
We worked on homework quietly for the next hour, only pausing to nudge each other under the table. I giggled when Nick propped his heels up on my knees and leaned back in his chair. “Stop it,” I said, covering my mouth. “People could see.”
He smiled and shrugged, dimple deepening. I wanted to kiss it, but instead, buried my face in my history book. Not here, not now.
But Nick’s dimple wasn’t the only distraction; his phone kept vibrating. “Okay, who is it?” I asked once he’d unlocked it and was typing a text back.
“Emma,” he said. “With a question about hockey stuff. She’s our manager this season.”
I nodded, but also gritted my teeth. Emma was perfectlynice, and I had no reason to dislike her, but here’s the thing: In life, I think everyone has a person they can’t explain why they don’t like; they just don’t like them. Emma was that person for me. Something about her bothered me, and it wasn’t because she liked Nick.
Well, part of it was.
You have fun?I’d texted Nick after the dance, and he’d replied:Yeah, lots!
Lots?I mean, clearly they’d had fun. Nick and Emma were friends. I’d seen them on the dance floor together, laughing as he tripped over his own two feet. Butlotsof fun? He’d hadlotsof fun with Emma freaking Brisbane?
So when Nick asked howmynight went, I sent back:No complaints!
Even though Charlie had basically dragged me out of the PAC. “Keep moving,” he muttered as Nina asked where Luke was. “We need to leave…”
I risked stretching a hand across the study table for a quick second. Nick put down his pencil to lace our fingers and lift them to his lips. I expected a kiss, but a ripple reverberated when he playfully bit one of my knuckles.
My voice was breathy: “Nicholas Carmichael!”
The dimple appeared again. “What?” he asked, right as I heard footsteps outside in the hall. Someone was coming.
I unlaced my hand from his, and a beat later, Charlie strolled past our room with his arm casually slung over Val’s shoulders, busy whispering something in her ear. Nick cleared his throat once they’d disappeared. “So that’s something,” he commented. “Those two?”
“Uh-huh,” I agreed. Charlie and Val were still going strong, much to Bexley’s surprise. Over a month now. I suspected Charlie was procrastinating dumping her, since his first attempt had failed miserably. “But it’ll end soon,” I added, unable to stop some truth slip out: “Iwantit to end soon.”
Nick’s eyebrows furrowed. “You do?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I hope he realizes it soon, that she isn’t right for him.” I thought again of Charlie and me fleeing the dance, and Nina unable to find Luke. Somethinghadto have happened, since Charlie started avoiding Luke since then. He ate every meal with the hockey guys now.
Nick didn’t respond. I wanted to ask what he thought, if he hadthe same inkling I did, but I didn’t. His eyes had already dropped down to his math notes.
So I reached to take his hand and playfully bit one of his knuckles, like he’d done earlier. When he didn’t react, I did it again. He still didn’t laugh or look at me, but I caught his lips curl into a small smile.
“People could see,” he murmured.
Maybe I want them to, I murmured back.
Just not aloud, because I reminded myself I wasn’t allowed.
It was dark when we slipped out the library’s side door, and I let Nick walk me home. The back way on Darby Road, free of streetlamps. But somehow Nick had night vision. “Watch out!” he’d say every couple of minutes. “Massive pothole!”
Then I laughed as he curved his arm around my waist so he could pick me up and smoothly swing me forward. “Thanks for the warning.”
Nick kissed my forehead. “I do what I can.”
Luke dumped the remainder of our popcorn in the trash as we left the movie theater Saturday. It was only the two of us, the girls hanging out with the guys tonight.The flock, we’d started calling our group. “So what did you think?”
“To be honest,” I said, “I kinda fell asleep. Wes Anderson’s dialogue is too talky for me sometimes.”
