Nico steps back quickly, and I linger in my bliss, oblivious until he speaks.
“She’s coming, Mr. Vernon. Her bag slipped, and we were just picking up her equipment,” Nico says. I blink once, then glance to my left where my ancient civilization teacher is hanging from the doorway, a clipboard propped against his stomach with one hand.
“All right then,” he says. “I figured it must be something like that. I’ll write you a note, Nico, for helping.”
I chortle a laugh to myself, and Nico nudges his foot against mine.
“You liar,” I whisper.
“I believe you mean dickhead,” Nico says, leaning into me. I flush and wince all at once, but regardless of my crush being out in the open, I’m never letting Nico Medina completely get the best of me.
“That, too,” I say in return, which only makes him laugh.
“You like me,” he says, winking as he steps by me, my bag held in his hand, his forearm flexed. I take it from him as he reaches for the late slip from Mr. Vernon. “Thanks, Mr. V.”
“Anytime, Nico,” our teacher says.
Nico’s dimple is the last feature I take in before his eyes slip from their hold on me and he heads toward the other end of the hallway, hands in his pockets and nothing on his back. I’m not sure where his stuff is, but I know that he planned on waiting me out. I could have shown up an hour late and Nico would have been there. Because he wants to take me to the dance. Not Izzy. Me. And that feels…
12
“So are you going to tell me he asked you to the dance? Or are you just planning on showing up with him and bobbing between me and your hot new boyfriend all night, hoping I won’t put things together?” Izzy asks.
I’m trying out a new lens on my still camera outside the gym. I asked Izzy to pose for me, so I could use her as my test subject. She’s meeting the rest of the cheerleaders here so they can all pile into the van for the game tonight on the north side of town. Her question comes out of the blue. Izzy and I haven’t talked much this week, and I haven’t seen Nico other than at practice or in class, so I haven’t had to contend with the two of them being in the same place yet. I was going to tell her, but I was also afraid.
“Uhm,” I say, my eye still flat against the viewer while my fingers delicately twist the lens in and out, repeatedly bringing the paint smudges on my friend’s arm in and out of focus.
“Nico told me,” she says, looking at me through the lens, her eyes direct. I suck in my lips and back away, looking at her for real. My chest thumps wildly. If I’m this nervous talking about Nico with Izzy, I’m pretty sure I’ll vomit when I have to tell my dad.
“Reagan?” she says, standing then sitting close to me, no longer in my camera’s view. I unclip it, giving up and putting it away.
“I was afraid you’d be mad,” I admit.
Izzy laughs, but when she realizes I’m not kidding, the sound falls away and her mouth slopes into a look of sympathy.
“Reagan, I think a lot of boys are cute. I don’t run around putting MINE stamps on them. If you liked him, which…clearly you do! You could have just said something,” she says, leaning into me while I pull the camera bag to my lap, sliding the mini tripod in place and pushing in the various camera parts.
“Yeah, but you never dated Travis, and I felt kind of like a hypocrite, so…”
“First of all, I never went out with Travis because he’s an immature ass-head without a plan,” she says, her mouth a hard line that eventually twists into a grimace while her eyes look off to the side. “He is hot, though, so it wasn’t easy. Still…loser. No plan!”
I giggle, feeling some of the pressure I put on myself this week leave my shoulders.
“I’m sorry. And it’s just the dance. He’ll probably go with me and realize what a boring wallflower I am, especially when I’m more interested in how the guy lines up the tracks for the music than actually dancing with Nico,” I say, laughing at myself. I’m a terrible dancer, even when it’s nothing more than slow swaying in a circular pattern. My feet find the tops of other people’s.
“He asked me about you,” she says, and I look from my lap to her in an instant. “Yeah, I thought that would get you. I knew he wasn’t into me. That night at Charlie’s, after I left you in the bathroom, I ran into Nico. His very first question was if you were all right.”
“He was probably just worried because Noah was being…Noah,” I say, still not ready to admit that Nico feels remotely the same way for me as I do for him.
“He asked about you several times, Reagan. And when he saw you talking to Sasha? On that bench? He did not like that…at all!”
I smile with her last few words, looking down at my hands, which are nervously zipping and unzipping the camera bag, then looking back at my friend, meeting her eyes.
“He didn’t?” I bite my lip.