The party was at the home of Mike, one of my friends from the neighborhood. He was a good guy; I knew him from college, and he almost always let us use his lake house when we needed to go big. Anna had taken care of the décor, including black and red helium balloons and all sorts of other stupid shit. The important stuff was in Lion’s and the guys’ hands: alcohol, food, and more alcohol. When I walked through the door, people shouted Happy birthday in unison. I greeted everyone, and five minutes later, they were all dancing, acting silly, taking off for the lake, and drinking anything they could get their hands on.
The good thing about these parties was there were always plenty of girls for me. I grabbed a drink and sidled up to the two dancers they’d hired for me. A part of me kept thinking about when Noah would get there, but another part said it was time to cut loose.
One of the dancers—I forgot her name—wouldn’t keep her hands off me. The other, a pretty young redhead, vanished as soon as she was done with her number. Nobody with a Y chromosome would have been indifferent to the chick who kept trying to drag me off to the bathroom. But one of my unbreakable rules was no sleeping with strippers or prostitutes or anyone similar, so I ditched her as politely as I could and walked to the back of the house. From there, I could see Toluca Lake and the reflection of the full moon in the water. My friends were all fooling around, splashing each other and dragging girls down to the shoreline.
Just then, Lion came over, leaned on the wooden railing, and looked at me. I remembered the first time I’d ever seen him. He had been way bigger and scarier, but at least I had been tall enough to look him in the eye before he’d split my face open. I hadn’t even known what he was pissed off about—I think I’d hooked up with his girl or something at this party I’d been taken to—but the funny thing was, thanks to my reflexes, I had been able to get away, and he’d wound up hitting the wall behind me.
It had been so ridiculous, I’d burst into laughter while he’d clutched his fist in pain and started sweating. I guess he’d thought it was funny, too, though, and we’d been best friends ever since.
“Thanks for inviting me on the trip, dude. I can never go anywhere with Jenna, and finally we’ll be able to get that alone time we’ve been needing.” He was beaming. I took a sip of my beer. That trip… I couldn’t think of it without thinking of Noah.
“I know she’s your stepsister and all, man, but why’d you invite her?” he asked a second later, intrigued, and I felt like he was reading my thoughts.
I weighed my response before answering. I wasn’t sure myself, but I just knew the idea of spending two whole days without her made me unbearably anxious.
“I don’t want her to stay here while Ronnie’s still mad about the race. He threatened her. I can’t let anything happen to her.” I left out the detail that if he even looked at her wrong, I’d kill him with my bare hands.
Lion turned his back to the lake and looked at me sternly.
“I don’t know what you’re really about, bro, but I’ve seen how you look at her. You can’t hook up with her. She’s your stepsister. I’ve been talking with Jenna, and Nicholas, Noah isn’t like other girls. You’re going to scare her.”
I tried to calm down, to keep from telling him to go to hell. He wasn’t wrong. Noah was different: you could see it in her eyes, in the way she was, in how she didn’t even understand the effect she had on people. She was naive and innocent, and I could corrupt her so easily.
“I know what you mean, but nothing’s up,” I said, while my mind shouted back to me LIAR in capital letters. “We’re just friends. We need to be—we live together, our parents are married. It would be impossible if we hated each other, so I’ve decided to try to get along.”
Lion seemed to buy the story.
“You know what you’re doing,” he said, and then stripped off his shirt and ran over to where everyone was swimming.
I wouldn’t have minded going with him, but I couldn’t help keeping my eyes on the door, waiting for Noah to return from her stupid date. That was when I saw her come in with Jenna. Their arms were locked, and Noah smiled when she saw me. She was radiant when she smiled that way, and I wanted to grab her and kiss that dimple that had appeared in her left cheek.
“Happy birthday again!” she shouted. Jenna observed us for a moment before turning to the lake, where Lion was shouting for her to come in.
“What about you guys?” he asked, and Noah looked down at her black dress.
“I didn’t bring a swimsuit,” she said, shrugging.
“Don’t be a prude. Just wear your underwear. It’s the same thing,” Jenna said, dragging her off.
Just imagining her in her underwear made me nervous, not to mention the idea of her stripping in front of all those drunk assholes at my party.
I could tell she was uncomfortable.
“No way,” I said, pulling her back toward me until she almost fell into my side.
“Damn, Nicholas!” she complained. But then she smiled back at Jenna. “I’m not in the mood. You go, though, and we’ll see each other afterward.” Jenna took off.
I couldn’t help but smile. Jenna was crazy, but I cared about her too much to be mad at her for trying to convince Noah to strip in front of God and everyone else. I looked down at those freckles I could barely see in the shadows.
“Enjoy your date?” I asked, unable to suppress my sarcasm.
“It was great, but who cares. I brought you a present.”
I leaned against the railing and looked at her—at those lips I wished I could bite—and a good mood immediately overtook me.
“For real?” I asked, wanting to know what was lurking under that cheerfulness, so unlike Noah’s usual attitude. “I’m scared to ask.”
Her expression changed. Was she getting nervous? Now I was even more curious.
“It’s dumb, but with everything that’s happened, and especially with last night…here. I bought it in a little shop. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, but it’s my way of saying sorry.”
Saying sorry?
I grabbed the box and tore off the cream-colored wrapping. It was a tiny black Ferrari, exactly like mine.
“There’s a note,” she said, pointing to the car’s chassis.
In teeny letters, I read:
I’m sorry about your car, for real. Someday, I’ll buy you a new one. Happy birthday. Noah.
It was so silly, I couldn’t help but laugh. Standing there next to me, she did the same.
“I did owe you one, right?” she said.
“I ought to throw you in the lake for this,” I threatened, picking her up and swinging her around.
“No, Nick!” she screamed. “I’m sorry, I swear!”
“You’re sorry?” I said, lowering her slowly and squeezing her tightly, just as I’d wanted to do ever since she’d left with Mario.
I looked around. There was nobody there. Everyone was either in the lake or inside the house. I pushed her over to a tree and trapped her with my body.
“You could have caused me big, big problems. Luckily I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since you walked through my front door.”
I remembered then what Lion had told me: Noah wasn’t like the others.
I rested a hand on her cheek and caressed those freckles I liked so much. Her skin was tense, alabaster, and it was impossible not to lean down and kiss it, feel its smooth texture on my lips. I kissed her cheek, then the place where her dimple showed up when she smiled, then her throat, coming in close and savoring her sweet skin. She moaned almost inaudibly, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Our lips joined, and a thousand different feelings took hold of me: uncertainty, heat, a deep, dark desire. Between my body and the tree, I felt her melting into me.