He looked at me without holding my gaze. “Apparently you two know each other.”
“She’s trying to get into my aunt’s class. Did it work?” Removing her cowgirl hat, she tousled her hair, a swift raking motion that made the back of my neck hot.
“Janine’s your aunt?”
“Great-aunt, but basically.”
Jay looked behind him. “Where’d Milan and Ryen go?”
“I haven’t gotten in.” I didn’t mention the email I’d failed to write.
“You will.” When she winked, her lashes looked like butterflies beating back the wind. Her cowgirl hat glittered white in the moonlight. This made me trust her.
There was still a stretch of haunted forest to survive—a ghoulish landscape, costumed monsters groping the dark for us. Nia seized my hand when a masked man leapt from behind a tree, then laughed. I felt her fingers braided through mine even after she pulled away. I flexed my hand like I’d been burned, eventually forcing it into my pocket to kill the sensation.
The chain saw returned. I backed into Tristan, knocking a sharp breath from him, apologizing. Flanked between him and Jay, I waspainfully aware of the competing textures of their clothes, the scents of their colognes (Jay’s crisp button-down, Tristan’s woolly flannel; Jay’s spicy cinnamon scent, Tristan’s mossy rainforest). I felt like any wild thing could happen then, even the three of us.
The trail ended abruptly, the edge of the forest exposed by the town’s artificial light. Everyone seemed self-conscious of how they were in the woods, the pitch of their screams, how they touched each other, and broke apart. Behind me, Tristan’s arm had found Nia’s waist again.
When we joined Milan and Ryen at the cider stand, Jay peeled away to use the porta potty. I said I’d find an empty bench. On my way, I was startled when I passed a group of women in MAGA hats. It wasn’t really something you saw in DC.
The bench shook when Nia straddled it. I stared at her, unable to stop. She reminded me of a graceful llama the way her head tilted to eat her cotton candy. She had full cheekbones, a dot of a nose. As she rotated the stick, I thought of her fingers weaving through mine. The memory was visceral, like she hadn’t let go.
“You didn’t want anything?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Not even an Oreo fighting for its life in a hot vat of oil? Shame.”
I laughed. “I’d rather not spend all night on the toilet.”
Her smile was too big for her face, her features shrinking to accommodate it—half-moon eyes, crinkled nose. There was something cartoonishly pretty about her.
Hoping to sound disinterested, I asked, “So, how do you know Tristan?”
“We were at Howard together before he left.”
I didn’t know he’d left.
“How do you know him?” she asked.
“Through Jay.”
“Oh, right! He talks about him all the time. It’s sweet. So, what do you think about the writing program? I’ve heard Milken is awful. Have you taken him?”
Talking to her then felt like I was one of a thousand toys glinting in an overcrowded trinket shop that she was running through. I didn’t particularly enjoy Milken’s workshop, but a strange defensiveness rose in me. “He’s actually a really great instructor.”
She twirled the pink cloud in her hand. “If he’s so great, why are you so desperate to get into Ford’s class?”
This cut deeper than it should have. I didn’t say anything. She seemed comfortable in the silence, surveying me with the placid eyes of someone taking inventory.
“You should let me paint you.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” She said it like it’d been my idea and she was only entertaining it. “Aren’t you curious to see what I’d do with you?” Cleaning her cotton candy stick, she left a wet mark where her mouth had been and flashed that big dazzling smile. It fell on me like a spotlight.
Jay and Tristan came over then. Milan and Ryen were in the car, ready to go.
