Chapter Twenty-Nine

“AUBURN WOLVES CAN’T BE BEATEN.”

The Auburn Gazette’s headlines haven’t been this positive in a long time. Sofia is entirely caught up in covering the team lately, in this rare moment when sports are genuinely as newsworthy as this town always wants them to be. She asked if she could interview my father about the Wolves’ last winning streak, and I’ve been pushing the interview back with one soft excuse after another. Tonight they played their last regular-season game—another win. An undefeated season, for the first time in almost two decades.

This time when I decide to go to the game, I join Liam’s family. It’s perfect timing, actually, because Mom is taking the girls to sleep over at Nana’s apartment so Juniper can complete her Auburn history assignment. The ride to the away game is quiet. As soon as I get in, Fiona hands me one of her earbuds, and she plays music for us the entire ride.

But the ride home is different, because it’s a win, and Liam had a great game.

I’m still quiet, but I notice some things from the backseat.

I notice how Liam’s dad has a version of loud that isn’t angry.

I notice how he drives with one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting in between the seats, holding his wife’s hand. It almost looks unintentional, like their hands come together automatically when they sit beside each other.

I realize that Liam does this when he drives me to school, but I was never aware of it in the way I am now.

Liam will drive himself home from the school once the team bus gets back, so Fiona and I grab snacks and head down to their basement on our own while we wait for him. It’s already late, but my parents said midnight, and I’m going to steal every last minute I can here before I have to go home.

Their basement has a gigantic television on one end, and big sofas and chairs. And the whole other half of the basement is turned into a little dance studio for Fiona, complete with long mirrors and a barre. She moves to her half of the room, slipping her shoes off and stepping into movements she’s done a million times. I bet she dreams dance.

“When did you start it?”

“Dance?” she asks. She makes eye contact with me in the mirror as she stretches. “When I was three.”

She sits down on the floor and pulls her hair loose from the tight bun it was in.

“I know, it looks crazy,” she says. Her hair is curly and big after she takes it out.

“It’s really pretty, Fiona.”

“Psh.” She rolls her eyes. “Tell that to Dylan Carpin.”

“Who?”

She sighs, leaning forward. “A kid in my grade.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he liked me,” she says. “He said he wanted to ask me to winter formal.”

“Do you want to say yes?”

“I did . . . until he asked what I planned to do with my hair for the dance.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he said it’s really pretty when it doesn’t look too exotic.”

“Wow, Fiona. What a jerk.”

Fiona laughs. “Yup.”

She stands up and moves to the sofa, curling up next to me.

“I thought he was nice. He seemed nice otherwise.”

“Yeah, but nice otherwise could excuse a lot of terrible stuff, couldn’t it?”

Fiona looks at me. “You’re right. It could. Whatever. My friends and I are going as a group. We don’t need dates.”

“I’ve never gone with a date to a dance, and I always have fun with my best friend.”

“Yeah? Good, decision made. Friends only. Well, for me. Maybe you can finally go with someone . . .”

I pull a pillow to my chest. “Don’t even say it, Fiona.”

“. . . like Liam?”

“You said it!”

Fiona tugs the pillow away from me. “You can’t hide from it; I know you want to go with him. You two are dumb together. It’s great to see a couple of smarty-pants be dumb together.”

“Thanks, Fiona,” I say, laughing.

“Just promise you’ll say yes if he asks,” she says.

What is it with everyone making me promise this?

Fiona gasps. “Or better yet, you should ask Liam!”

“Ask me what?” says a voice in the stairwell.

I glare at Fiona and shake my head no.

She just smiles, and looks exactly like her brother when she does.

“Congratulations,” I tell Liam when he sits down on the opposite couch. He must’ve jumped right into a shower before coming down here, because his hair is all wet and he does not smell like he just played a football game. It’s that same earthy shower wash again. The kind he used the first night we kissed. The memory makes me flush with warmth. Maybe Fiona is right. Maybe I am a little dumb with Liam. And maybe that’s okay. To get out of my head and trust my feelings.

But it’s nice to know that it’s even. That I make him a little dumb, too.

“Thanks,” Liam says. “But we aren’t here to talk about football.”

“We aren’t?”

“We are supposed to work on art.”

“Let’s not,” I say, pushing my backpack behind me.

“It can’t be that bad,” Liam says, reaching for it.

He tugs the bag from me and pulls out my art portfolio. He takes out my latest catastrophe, which I’m fondly calling Portrait of an Old Crow.

It’s a drawing of Joe, but wearing a bow tie and a monocle. I’ve told Liam about the real Joe, but I think he didn’t know how seriously to take me. Guardian bird is probably a weird concept to accept outright. It took Campbell, Juniper, and me a while, too.

But now he’s just Joe. Always outside our house. Taking the crackers Juniper leaves him, and giving her marbles in return.

Liam takes the drawing over to the light, and he smiles at it.

“He’s cute,” he says.

“He’s dignified,” I correct.

“May I?” He gestures with his pencil, and I nod. Liam changes the shape of the eyes a bit with his pencil. The change is subtle—intuitive, for him—but the effect is real. It’s like the eyes have come to life a little more on the page.

“Why is he gray?” Liam asks.

“Because the real Joe is gray. Turns out it’s not just an abnormality. My bird guy thinks Joe is an entirely different crow species, called a hooded crow.”

“The most alarming part of this conversation so far is that you have a bird guy,” Liam says.

“An ornithologist, if we want to get technical.”

“Nerd,” he says, and his shoulder rocks into mine. I roll my shoulder against him in return.

“The weird thing is that hooded crows are mostly found in Europe. How do you think Joe came to be here?”

“That’s a little existential for a bird, don’t you think?”

“You two are big geeks, you know,” Fiona says, climbing off the couch. “It’s Friday night, let loose a bit.”

“Maybe we could ‘let loose’ if I didn’t have an annoying, hovering sister around all the time,” Liam says.

Fiona laughs, immune to his teasing.

“You love me,” she says.

“God help me,” he answers.

I smile and slip my drawing back into my bag. Portrait of an Old Crow can wait.

“How about a movie?” Liam asks. “I’ve got a great collection.”

“Oh, no, here we go,” Fiona says. “Here it is, Leighton. We’ve arrived. The moment you dump this boy. Liam only watches superhero movies.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound bad. Everyone loves superhero movies.”

Fiona sits up. “It’s not bad until you are on the third Spiderman movie in a row, debating different director visions and deciding which iteration or decade of comic book portrayals best supports that vision.” She collapses back into the couch. “He doesn’t just watch superhero movies. He dissects them.”

“Thanks, Fiona. You could ease her in a bit.”

“To what a top-level geek you secretly are? There’s no hiding it, Liam,” Fiona says. She turns to me. “Ask him how many times he saw Into the Spiderverse in the movie theater. Hint: more than five.”

“C’mon, Fi. A Black superhero origin story—and my favorite superhero, at that—with absolutely out of this world animation. And if I recall, you went with me to the movies three of those times.”

“Whatever, nerd. I’m going upstairs. Mom is probably watching a home makeover show.”

Fiona hops off the couch and starts to head upstairs.

“You know those are, like, crazy staged, right, Fi?” Liam calls. “Like, how can a preschool teacher and a community garden organizer afford an $800,000 house?”

Fiona leans over the steps at the last second, stretching out her arm and pretending to shoot a web at Liam before disappearing upstairs.

“So . . . have you seen Into the Spiderverse?” Liam asks, turning to me.

“Umm . . . honestly, it’s a lot of My Little Pony and Disney channel in my house. I haven’t seen any superhero movies in years.”

“That’s tragic, Barnes. Time to fall in love with a kick-ass film.”

“Film,” I tease. “Isn’t this a cartoon?”

Liam pauses in his task but doesn’t look up. “Not a cartoon. An Academy Award–winning animated feature.”

I smile at this geeky side of Liam. I think of the glasses, and the shelves upon shelves of comic books in his room. There’s something kind of vulnerable about loving something this much, and it makes me feel like I’m seeing a whole other version of him.

“You could have picked something you haven’t watched a lot already,” I say.

“And miss a golden opportunity to get Fiona to leave us alone for a bit?” he asks.

Well played, Liam McNamara. He joins me on the couch.

He isn’t wrong, though. It’s a great movie. Film.

“Ready to admit it, Barnes?”

“Admit what?”

“I have great taste.”

“Well, clearly.” I shrug.

“I meant movies.”

“I know. But you’re fishing for a compliment, and I’m not giving you the satisfaction. The movie’s fine.”

“Barnes, you’re killing me.”

“Of course it’s great,” I laugh. “Everything you do is great. I’d rather see some flaws at this point. No one is this perfect.”

“I’m not perfect, Barnes.”

“I know. You just want everyone to think you are.”

Well, shit. If I could go back in time thirty seconds and bite my own tongue, I would. I tried to say it with some levity, but it fell terribly flat.

I mean it, and he knows I mean it. Liam reaches for the remote and pauses the movie.

He shifts so he’s facing me. “It’s not like it’s an act. I just feel like I can’t afford to make mistakes.”

“I can understand that, Liam. But maybe . . . with me?”

“Let the guard down?”

“Not a lot. Just a smidge.”

“Okay, okay. My greatest flaw is—”

“I didn’t mean right this minute, Liam.”

“I cannot sing.”

I deflate. “That’s not really what I meant.”

“Sure, but I can’t just not sing—I am spectacularly bad at it. Cannot find a note to save my life.”

He knows I didn’t mean singing. No one can sing. But I’ll hold him to it anyway.

“Prove it.”

Liam doesn’t even hesitate. He pulls up a music app on his phone and chooses a song from the movie’s soundtrack. He starts to sing. And, oh my God, he’s right. He is spectacularly bad.

On the other couch, their cat lifts his head at the noise Liam is making.

I refuse to laugh, because this is such a cheating flaw and I was hoping for something a little more real, but he’s making it hard.

I hold it together until he launches into falsetto. But when he sings the last high note, his cat runs out of the room, and I’m lost. I laugh until I’m crying.

He ends as loudly and terribly as he began. And he bows deeply even though he lost fifty percent of his audience during his performance.

“Baxter doesn’t like your singing, but I do,” I say when I can breathe again.

“You liked that?” He collapses onto the couch, and I half fall onto him.

“I loved that, Liam. If all of your flaws are this incredible, you should really share them with the world. You are depriving people of some very wonderful and very human flaws.”

“Totally worth it. Gotta remember this.”

“Remember what?”

“How great your laugh is. I could definitely get used to hearing that,” Liam says, grinning. He reaches over and wipes a tear off my cheek. I cry a lot when I laugh. I cry when I’m sad and when I’m scared, and definitely when I’m angry, but also when I laugh. Especially when I laugh so hard it hurts my ribs.

Spoiler alert: Leighton Barnes cries all the time.

But now I’m not laughing or crying, I’m just curled up on a couch with a really sweet guy’s arm wrapped around me. I’m not sure how I came to be in Liam McNamara’s basement, snuggled up on the couch, seeing this side of him that I never imagined existed. I’d say it’s like I’ve arrived on an alien planet, but Liam and his family are clearly the normal ones in this scenario. I guess that makes me the lost, out-of-place alien. Don’t mind me, I’m just here to take some space alien notes on what a happy family looks like.

Liam pulls my legs onto his lap. “Leighton, I’ve been really wanting to ask you something. And I’ve honestly never asked this question before not knowing what the answer will be. And before you call me on it, yes, I know that sounds super arrogant. I just want you to know I’m feeling vulnerable here, too. Like a little baby kitten. So if you have to say no, be gentle, okay?”

“Okay, okay. I’m not this mean, am I?”

“I dunno.” He smiles. “Let’s see.”

He’s built this up so much that I’m genuinely nervous.

“Leighton, will you be my girlfriend?”

Oh.

I don’t answer him right away. If he wasn’t sure what my answer would be, neither am I.

I should say no, because. Reasons. I know that I should say no. It’s selfish not to. But I’ve felt so trapped the last two years, and with Liam, I just feel like myself. Like how I could be all the time if things were different.

Besides, Liam McNamara just called himself a baby kitten.

“Do we have to date? I’m really just in it for the sex.”

I’ve won a date night bonus round, and the prize is Liam’s deep, booming laugh.

“Seriously, Leighton.”

“Seriously, Liam?” I ask. I kiss his cheek. “Yes. I’ll be your girlfriend.”

“Does this mean I have a date to the Snow Ball?”

“You know that’s not its name, right?”

“Does this mean I have a date to the Winter Formal?”

“Yes,” I say, and only once I say it do I remember the promise I made Sofia. Maybe I was wrong, and I always would have said yes to him.

“I really wanna kiss you,” he whispers. “But I can’t right now.”

“Why not?” I whisper.

“Because then you will miss the best part.”

I lean my head on his shoulder, and we watch. It feels natural, and comfortable, and a thousand other things I haven’t felt in a long time, and they all begin and end with the feeling of safety.

For the moment, I am the happiest creature on earth.