After the game, my cheeks are cold from the wind as Nico and I roll to a stop in front of a craftsman bungalow a few blocks from the school. I only know the house is called a craftsman bungalow because it’s the same as the house we live in. They’re popular in Playa Bonita. Nico’s on his bike. I’m on my skateboard. Both of us with helmets intact. We unsnap them in unison.
“Dorks times two,” I say.
He uncoils his bike lock, loops it through his back tire, wraps it around a skinny tree trunk, and clicks it closed. “If dork were a sound, it’d be a ten-speed bike lock clicking shut around a tree in front of a high school party.”
“Well, you don’t want anything to get stolen.”
“Yep. Gotta keep things safe,” he says, patting his bike seat.
I can’t help but laugh.
The party is bigger than I’d expected. Crowded with people like something out of one of the CW shows I watched at Mimi and Bumpa’s house over the summer. When I see the swell of bodies packed inside through the big front window, I feel claustrophobic already. And then there is laughter. Screeches. The heavy thump of music seeping into the street.
I pull my skateboard closer to my hip like a shield.
Nico eases my skateboard free and shoves it underneath the braided metal of his bike-lock tether. It’ll do nothing to protect my board, but it looks like it’s secure in theory. “The party’s gonna be fine. I’m right here with you. It’s basically the football game with beer and music.”
“And drunk people I don’t know.”
“The beauty of drunk people is precisely the fact that they’re drunk. They have no idea what’s going on.”
I nod my head, trying to exude confidence. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The front door is unlocked, and Nico walks right in like he lives here. We’re instantly assaulted by a too-sweet strawberry-scented vape cloud. I cough. The guy who blew it bobs his head at me and inhales again. Thankfully, he blows the smelly cloud over his shoulder into someone else’s face this time. We land in the living room, where the coffee table is filled end to end with empty red plastic cups and a half-drained bottle of clear liquid that I’m pretty sure isn’t water. There are two couples making out on the couch. Two guys on one end and a girl and guy on the other end. Everyone’s hands wander to places that make me feel like a perv for watching, so I turn away.
I focus on the video game playing on the TV instead. It’s one of those first-person shooter games where you only see the back of someone pushing through an empty warehouse with a gun. It’s the kind of game Sequoia will probably want to play someday and my mom will have to curl up into the fetal position in the corner of her bedroom, crying and asking where she went wrong. I can’t even tell who’s playing, since there are too many people here and the couch is taken.
“Another room?” Nico says.
“Good idea.”
We push through the throng of people. A drunk guy goes off-kilter, banging into my shoulder. I grab for Nico’s hand and our fingers lock. He squeezes. And I’m suddenly back in that classroom with the movie playing and the pizza steaming and Nico all excited about Stephen King. Here and now, he turns around and smiles at me. I smile back.
In the kitchen, there’s a line for the keg, and people in it that shouldn’t be because they’re already too drunk. But who am I to say?
We lean against the counter, where empty chip bags are scattered across the black-and-brown-speckled granite. I can only imagine how disgusted my dad would be. “Heart disease in a bag,” he’d say.
I admit there’s a part of me that wants to clean up this mess. To sort it out between bins for recycling or composting. I hold Nico’s hand tighter to stop myself.
Next to us, a girl dumps a bag of peanut M&M’s into an empty bowl. Nico flinches. Peanuts. She leaves.
“Do you drink?” Nico asks.
I shrug. “I haven’t. But I can. I guess?”
“No pressure, okay?”
I nod. “None felt.”
We get in line for beer. Everyone pushes forward until my knee bangs into the side of the metal keg with a clang. I quickly regain my balance so Nico can let go of my hand to grab cups for us. I have no idea how to work the faucet thing, but Nico handles it like he does it all the time.
“Maybe just halfway?” he says to me, and I nod.
He fills my cup first, hands it to me, then knocks his own full cup against mine. Some beer burps up over the rim and gets my thumb wet.
“Cheers,” he says.
“Cheers.”
He takes a sip.
I take a sip.
The beer is bitter and bubbly and foamy. It’s gross like black coffee in a different way. I want to spit it out, but I swallow it down instead. I’m pretty sure I wince, because Nico slants his head to the side. Softens his gaze on me.
“You cool?” he asks.
“If you mean am I cool with the beer, yes. If you’re asking if I’m cool in general, not even close.”
He smiles. Points at himself. “Dork with the bike lock, remember?”
“How could I forget?” I tap my elbow to his. “But your winning film knowledge makes me swoon, so…”
“Does it now?” He leans against the counter, his brown eyes locked on mine. “What else makes you swoon?”
“I don’t know.” Everything. “What makes you swoon?”
He grins. “Oh, Juniper, where do I start?”
“Wherever you want.”
“Well…” He leans forward just as some guy pushes into me, spinning me out of the way so he can get to the keg. My hip bone digs into the edge of the counter. “Dude,” Nico says to him as he grabs my elbow to steady me.
“My bad,” the guy says, stumbling away and bumping into everyone else in his way like a bowling ball knocking down pins.
Nico presses his hand to my hip where it hit the counter. “You okay?” he asks. His fingers skim the space between the top of my jeans and the bottom of my sweatshirt. I can feel the heat of his fingers through the cotton. I want to feel his fingers against my skin instead.
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, I’ll be lucky to leave here without bruises.” I squint at the crowd. “This place is more packed than the football game. Do you know all these people?”
He looks around. “Pretty much. I’ve probably hung out with everyone here at one time or another.”
“So whose house is this?”
“Mason and Mercy Miller’s.”
“That’s a lot of M’s.”
He takes a long chug of beer. “Mmm.”
“So they’re married?” I say, emphasizing the M.
“Clever.” He knocks his cup against mine in cheers. “They’re twins.”
“Do you know them more than sort of?”
“Mason and I were on the same Tee Ball team in first grade. Mercy and I did cotillion together in sixth.”
“So it’s been a while.”
“You could say that, yeah.” He takes another sip. “But this town is so small that everyone still knows each other, you know?”
“I don’t. So far I know you. And Jared, I guess.”
“Well, that’s about as good as it gets, so…”
A roar goes up over Nico’s shoulder as a Ping-Pong ball lands in a cup of beer. Everyone around the table chants, “Drink! Drink!” and the guy drains his cup without coming up for air.
Someone else at the table holds a ball up to Nico. “Noble! You in?”
He shakes his head no.
I turn toward him. “I love how your last name is Noble. Like a noble fir Christmas tree. You’re so festive. I want to drape you in tinsel.”
“Do you now?”
My face flushes red. Oh jeez. What am I saying? “I mean…”
He smiles. “Forget the tinsel. My name’s all about being tall and sturdy and shit.” He pounds his chest.
I look him up and down. “But you’re not that tall.”
“Ah, but I’m sturdy.” He raises an eyebrow at me.
“Wow.”
“I aim to wow.”
“You’re pretty good at it, honestly.”
“Yeah?” He takes a sip of beer. Smiles over the edge of his cup.
I take a sip, too. Smile back. “Yeah.”
“Good to know.”
A sloshy, wobbly girl leans against the counter next to us. She points at me as approximately twenty metal bracelets as thin as pencil points slide up her wrist toward her elbow.
“I know you,” she slurs. “You’re that girl my mom showed me. The one from the video at the pumpkin patch.”
I shake my head in a mixture of trying to clear it and also faking a nope, not me.
“You are. Oh my god. Your family is totally evil.” She pulls on the collar of an enormous guy, all muscle and brawn and clearly a football player, standing behind her. “Teddy, this is her! The girl from that family that got the measles.”
“Whoa,” Teddy says. “Did you have ’em, too?”
The girl slaps him on the shoulder. “Dude. That’s literally what I said.”
“Actually, it isn’t,” Nico mutters.
“Sorry.” Teddy holds up his cup to the girl. “I’m kinda…” He makes a face that I assume is supposed to indicate that he’s out of it.
“You’re such an idiot sometimes,” she says.
They fall into each other, laughing sloppily.
Nico angles in sideways, creating a shield between all of us.
“Seriously, though.” The girl looks at me and shudders. “Are you still contagious?”
“Dude, she wouldn’t be here,” Teddy says. “Unless she wants to kill us all.”
“Not us. We’ve all had the measles shot. She just wants to kill babies.”
I drop my cup on the counter with a thump. Take a step back.
“That’s enough,” Nico says. “Leave her alone, Avery.”
I know I should say something. I want to say something. The right thing. The same way Nico wanted to say the right thing on Halloween. But I don’t know what that right thing is.
“You should go home,” Teddy says to me. “For real.”
Avery throws her head back and laughs. “You’re so brutal, Teddy.”
Teddy snorts obnoxiously. Pumps his fist in the air. “Go home! Go home!” he chants the same way the group at the table behind us chanted, “Drink! Drink!”
I don’t even think before I do it. I just push on his chest with my hands. And Teddy goes tumbling to the floor in a tangled mess of limbs and muscles. Laughter erupts all around him. He rights himself, lifts up on his elbows, and looks at me with rage in his eyes.
“What’s your problem?” he says.
“You deserved it,” says Nico.
“You little…” He scrambles back to his feet, lunges for Nico. “You’re dead, dude.”
We both duck and Teddy stumbles into the breakfast nook, his head hitting the light dangling above it. He falls into one of the built-in benches almost like it’s on purpose. Like he’s going to sit up and eat scrambled eggs now. But he doesn’t. That last hit sobered him up, and he grunts his way to standing and hulks out in front of us.
“Teddy,” Nico says, putting his hands up. “Let’s not do this.”
Teddy’s nostrils flare. “Oh, we’re doing it.” He balls his hands into fists. Releases. Balls them again.
A bunch of girls scream, which alerts five huge, scary guys to rush in from the other room. Great. The football team. They look left and right and up and down, clearly trying to find someone more intimidating than Nico from the film club.
“Stop,” I say, blocking Nico.
Teddy stands in front of us, breathing hard through clenched teeth.
“Look, I don’t know who you are,” one of the other football guys says to me. “But you better get out of the way while these two work this out.”
Teddy sways from side to side. Grunts like a bull in the ring.
The kitchen is chaos. Filled with people. Screams. Empty cups flying. And why is the music so loud? The guns from the video game are still shooting. All the noise hurts my head and my brain. I hold my hands to my ears.
“Stop!” I yell. It comes out long and screechy, filled with O’s. “We’re leaving.”
I grab Nico by the elbow and pull him through the sliding glass door to the backyard.
Teddy pushes toward us, but a couple of guys pull him back.
“Let him go,” one of them says. “It’s not worth it. Playoffs, Teddy Bear. Remember?”
Laughter swells up behind us.
“How do we get out of here?” I say, fumbling with the latch on the side gate that will lead us to the front yard. My hands are shaking and I can’t grip it. I look over my shoulder to see if anyone’s coming. Nico stands there silently.
I finally unhook the latch and pull us into the front yard as the gate slams shut behind us. I stride toward his bike. Loosen my skateboard from underneath the metal tether. I yank my helmet over my head.
“I should’ve taken care of that better,” Nico says.
“No. I don’t need saving. I don’t need you swooping in like some superhero every time I mess up.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I turn to him. “You couldn’t have taken care of that even if you wanted to. It was six against one, Nico. Did you see those guys? They were drunk and irrational and they would’ve killed you.”
“But you didn’t even let me try.”
I turn to face him, my helmet slipping. “Try? Are you kidding me right now?”
He shrugs.
“Look, I’m not into all that fighting stuff. If that’s your thing, if you’re the kind of person who goes to parties to get into a fight, we shouldn’t hang out anymore. As much as my parents annoy me, they taught me to be a pacifist. I don’t like what I just did back there. I’m down with the peace and love thing.”
“I’m not that guy. I’ve never even been in a fight before.” He shakes his head. “But maybe I could’ve talked to them.”
“Yeah? And what would’ve happened when they didn’t want to listen?”
“I guess they’d kick my ass.”
“Exactly.”
He angrily wraps his lock around the handlebars of his bike. Then he shoves his helmet onto his head and fastens it. He turns to face me, frustration still biting at the corners of his eyes.
I can’t help it. I burst out laughing.
“What?” he says.
“If you could see yourself right now, you’d know why I dragged you out of there. You do not look like someone who should attempt to take on six football players.”
He leans against his bike. It teeters. “You’re really saying I couldn’t take them?” He flexes his biceps.
“Not even close.” I lean closer to him. My mouth is practically touching his. “But that’s why I like you.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Yep.”
He wraps his hands around my waist, his fingertips pressing into the space between the bottom of my sweatshirt and the top of my jeans again. He grabs at the edge of my shirt underneath. Lifts it up just enough to let his fingers skim my skin. “So you like me.”
“I do. When you’re being you.”
“Good. I like you, too.”
He leans in closer.
Closer still.
My eyes flutter shut.
Because I’m pretty sure Nico’s going to kiss me again.
But now that I have time to think about it, a million things go through my mind at once. Do I tilt my head? Do I hold my breath? How do I start? How do I stop?
He presses against me.
I sigh happily.
And then, as it’s about to happen, the tops of our helmets bang against each other, preventing our lips from meeting.
We both bounce back in shock.
“Oh, come on,” Nico says, yanking off his helmet and throwing it to the ground.
He bends his knees so he can get up and underneath my helmet, and then his lips touch mine. Soft and sweet, like the Nico I know. Not like the Nico who wanted to punch Teddy five minutes ago in the kitchen. And even though I’ve never kissed anyone until tonight, my mouth somehow knows what to do. Maybe it’s because Nico’s guiding me in his own gentle way. A nudge. A swoop. I stop thinking and melt into him. Our hip bones pressing together. His hands still pushing into the small of my back, urging me closer.