And rip it he did. Once Nick started, it was hard to get him to stop, as if every suppressed public-partying impulse erupted out of him. I could swear he was working steps from his beloved dance movies into whatever weird prancing he was doing, and the crowd of forty-and fiftysomething cigarette-puffing locals were so enamored of the mystery bat that they cheered his every move. Four pints later, he’d performed a novelty song about fast food, “Bye Bye Bye” by NSYNC complete with the dance, an exaggeratedly wrenching rendition of an Oasis ballad, and a Shania Twain song that was popular when he was at Eton (for which I served as his air guitarist). By the time we rolled out, to wild cheers, Nick was exhilarated.
“That was the worst best thing I have ever done,” he announced, tipping over slightly before catching himself. “I am very happy sad that everyone did not see it.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “You just passed Teenager 101.”
“I think I lost eight pounds from sweating,” he said. He swiped the Sharpie still hanging from my belt loop and started writing on the back of my shirt. “Where to next?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to head back?” I asked. “It’s one in the morning.”
“Absolutely not!” he said. “Bats are nocturnal, just like Night Nick.”
“Well, I did have one other thought,” I said, patting my purse.
And so it was that we rambled over to South Park, a fifty-acre expanse east of Oxford’s heart. It was big enough for us to hide in plain sight when, after obtaining a cheap cigarette lighter, we lit some Roman candles I’d purloined from Gaz’s party stash. And it was when we were fleeing from burning a very slight hole in the park’s hallowed ground that Nick realized he was way too drunk to get home under his own power.
“You are really heavy. What did you eat while you were in London?” I asked, huffing heavily as I inched the wheelbarrow down a slender side street.
“My feelings,” Nick slurred, his Batman mask now dangling from the tips of his fingers. “And rocks. I love rocks. Rocks rock. Roxford rocks.”
“At this rate your eventual biography is going to come with its own drinking game.”
“And a long chapter on paternity,” he said, bitterness seeping into his voice. “The DNA test came up in my favor, you know. If you could call it that.”
I said nothing. What could I say?
“The esteemed Prince of Wales made me and Freddie take one. Thought it might be ‘useful information,’” he said. “Never mind what he thought he was going to do if it turned up negative. And the pathetic thing is, I caught myself hoping…” He traced the wheelbarrow bin with his finger, without much accuracy. “Because maybe if I weren’t his, it would explain why he never felt…why we never felt…”
He shrugged helplessly. I was glad I was behind him, because I know I looked so sorry that it would have made him feel worse. We traveled the rest of the way in silence, and when I carefully parked the wheelbarrow alongside Pembroke’s back entrance, the college was as quiet as he was. But before I could head up to give PPO Twiggy the Too Drunk for Stairs code knock, Nick’s hand grabbed my wrist.
“Thanks,” he slurred. “For not telling anyone what you saw. With Father. They know, but…they don’t know, you know?”
“It’s in the vault,” I promised, kneeling next to him. “I saw nothing, I heard nothing.”
“No, you did,” he said, giving me a beseeching look. “It’s important to me that you did.”
I reached out and touched his face before I could help it. His head lolled into my palm. It felt so natural that my thumb moved to stroke his cheek.
“Happy birthday, Bex,” he murmured.
And then I remembered myself: He wasn’t single, I was hooking up with his friend, and I had missed midnight with my sister. Lacey and I had developed a tradition of spending the very last minute of our birthday slamming a bolt of liquor we liked to call the Parting Shot. But tonight I had ditched her. And forgotten I’d ditched her.
Yet still I let myself linger one more second, before withdrawing my hand.
“Let me get Twiggy, okay? You need to get some sleep.”
Once Nick was safely in his quarters, I snuck inside my own room and promptly tripped over a body on the floor. It appeared to be Smoking Hot Chemistry Guy, and he was completely naked except for one of Ceres’s leftover throw pillows placed discreetly atop his junk.
Lacey stirred and pushed up her sleep mask.
“Bex?” she whispered. “Where did you go?”
“Long story,” I said, pulling off my costume and putting on my nightshirt, a jersey Dad wore when he coached my Little League team. “I’m so sorry, Lace. I don’t even have a good explanation. It just sort of happened.”
“You missed the Parting Shot,” she said sleepily.
“I know. And I’m so, so sorry. I promise I will make it up to you.”
Lacey snuggled deeper under the covers. “I consoled myself by dancing on the bar and then getting very naughty with Damian on your bedroom floor. It really helped.”
She tugged her mask back into place. “As long as you don’t do it again,” she added.
I hated that I’d disappointed her. I’d just gotten so swept up in the heady feeling of delighting Nick when he needed it most that everything else flew out of my mind. I was still electrified by the residual feel of his skin, and as I lay next to my sister, I felt a creeping awareness that maybe, just maybe, I’d wanted to keep Nick to myself a little bit longer.
Lacey’s breathing regulated as she slipped back asleep. Crawling back to the foot of my bed, I grabbed my crumpled Little White Lie shirt and used the light from my alarm clock to search it. Nick had doodled in various spots all night, but there was one where I knew he’d written something longer. And right where my shoulder blade would have been, I found his lie.
“You are not my favorite,” it read.
And near it, in Clive’s handwriting: “I don’t want strings.”
Chapter Eight
Cilla took the T-shirt and spread it out on her lap.
“That’s Clive’s all right,” she said. “And that’s Nick’s writing for sure.”
Lacey practically swooned into her teacup. “Sexual geometry. That’s so hot, Bex.”
“Only you would call a love triangle ‘sexual geometry,’” I said, taking back the shirt and jamming it into my purse. “But it’s not a love triangle. That shirt isn’t love. It’s a craft project.”
Cilla slammed down her teacup so hard that it rattled both the saucer and the patrons around us. “Is she this difficult at home?” she asked.
“Mmm,” Lacey nodded, scone crumbs tumbling from her lip, which she tried to catch with her napkin.