I pull back from Nico because I suddenly remember Teddy and the rest of the football team. I told them we were leaving.
“We should go before anyone realizes we’re still here,” I say.
Nico kisses me again—one more quick peck—and climbs onto his bike.
“Yeah. Let’s go,” he says.
I admit getting on my skateboard instead of standing in the yard and kissing Nico all night long is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I sigh in frustration.
“We could go to my house,” he says.
I smile so wide it threatens to break my face. “Okay. I just have to tell my parents first.”
“No problem.”
We stop at my house to make sure it’s okay if I go to Nico’s for a couple of hours. Since it’s only nine o’clock, I’m hoping my parents will still be okay with the eleven p.m. curfew I had before we moved here. It takes a little convincing, and Nico promising he’ll drive me home, but they say yes.
Nico’s house is at the end of a cul-de-sac. It’s two stories high, with a perfectly manicured front yard and a basketball hoop hanging above the garage door at the end of a long driveway.
“My brother’s.” He nods up at the hoop. “It sits sad and lonely while he’s at college.”
“That’s kind of depressing.”
“Yeah.” He gestures to the side of the house. “This way.” We go through the gate, which Nico leaves open as he parks his bike against the wall.
I prop my board up next to it. “Safe and sound.”
“Now excuse me while I go earn the big bucks.” He dashes back through the open gate and to the curb to wheel in a trash can, then does the same with the big blue recycling bin. “Okay. Now we can go inside.”
A few feet up, along the same wall where Nico propped up his bike, there’s a door that leads us into the kitchen. I follow Nico inside and he goes straight to the farmhouse-style sink to wash his hands.
“Nico, honey? Is that you?” a woman’s voice calls from a nearby room.
“My mom,” he tells me.
“I figured.”
“Yeah,” he calls back to her. He fills a glass of water from the sink and drains it in one take.
His mom rounds the corner into the kitchen. “Oh, good. I’m glad you’re home. I kept hearing sirens, and I get nervous when you’re out there on your bike.”
He pats himself down. “I’m here. In one piece. All good.”
Mrs. Noble reaches her hand out, pushes his floppy hair back from his forehead. “Did something happen? You look disheveled.” She tugs at the front of his sweatshirt. “Your pocket is ripped.”
“I fell off my bike. But I’m fine.” He turns to me. “Mom, this is Juniper.”
She turns to me, looking so much like Nico. The same dark eyes and hair. Hers falls in loose waves over her shoulders. “It’s lovely to meet you, Juniper.”
“You too.”
Nico’s mom turns to him. “Who won the game?”
“We did.”
“Hooray! Go, Condors!” She pretends she’s waving a pom-pom in the air.
Nico cringes, looking embarrassed. “Mom, you’re gonna weird out Juniper.”
“I was a cheerleader,” she whispers to me, and waves her pretend pom-pom. She turns to Nico. “You should just be glad I’m not doing the kicks and the tumbles.”
I can’t help but smile. My mom would probably tell me some story about how the cheerleaders were mean to her in high school, but Nico’s mom seems nice. And genuine.
Nico refills his water cup. Asks me if I want one too by raising his eyebrows at me, then the faucet. I nod.
“So we’re just gonna hang and watch a movie or something,” Nico tells his mom. There’s the slightest undercurrent to his tone that says it’s okay for her to leave now.
“Oh. Right. Okay. I’ve got some work to go over anyway.”
“It was nice to meet you,” I say, taking a seat on one of the stools at the kitchen island.
“Likewise.”
“Sirens.” Nico shakes his head as she leaves. “She is such a worrier.” He pulls off his hoodie, and it takes half the T-shirt underneath with it. I sit there watching, trying to figure out how someone who says he sucks at sports manages to look that good without a shirt on. After his T-shirt falls back over his stomach, he empties his jeans pockets onto the island. Student ID. Some crumpled-up dollar bills. An EpiPen. Cell phone. He turns his attention toward the fridge. “You want some food? We have leftover lasagna.”
“Nah, I’m good. I ate dinner early. Before the game.”
“My mom makes the best lasagna. You’ll be missing out,” he taunts as he walks back to me, peeling the tinfoil off the top of a half-empty casserole dish. He sets it down between us. Then he opens a nearby drawer, grabs two forks, and hands me one. “In case you change your mind.”
“Have you ever had to use that?” I ask, pointing my fork at the EpiPen.
“Nope. And hopefully never will.” He takes a bite of lasagna. Chews.
“Do you know how to use it?”
He grabs the capped EpiPen and holds it a few inches from his outer thigh. “Pop the top off and jam it in.” He quickly swings his arm toward his thigh like he’s pitching a softball. “No hesitation.”
“That seems scary.”
He takes another bite of lasagna. Talks around it. “Not as scary as suffocating because your throat is closing up.”
“True.”
I dig my fork into the lasagna and take a bite. “Oh, wow.”
“Good, right?” He takes another bite and so do I.
My eyes dart to the sleek stainless-steel appliances and the soapstone countertops of Nico’s kitchen. So different from my house, where we still have my grandma’s avocado-green refrigerator and the linoleum floors to match. Nico’s house screams new and modern, while ours screams time warp.
“You want more?” Nico gestures to the casserole dish. I shake my head, and he refastens the tinfoil and shoves the pan back into the fridge. “Movie?”
“Definitely.”
I follow him into another room with a flat-screen so big it practically takes up the entire wall. There are speakers affixed to the ceiling in the corners of the room and a big, cushy leather couch with built-in cup holders and seats that recline.
“It’s like your own private movie theater,” I say.
“That’s the goal.”
“Lucky you.”
“So we can stream something, or you can choose a movie from the old-school collection. But be warned, a lot of them are my mom’s.” He opens a massive cupboard filled with DVDs and VHS tapes. “Pick whatever you want.”
I walk over to the cupboard. Run my fingers across the spines. “It’s almost better than a library shelf.” I look at him over my shoulder. “Almost.”
“I won’t fault you for liking books better than films.”
I pull some movies out and read the synopses on the backs like I would do with books at the library. I ponder one called 10 Things I Hate About You.
“This one?” I say.
“I’m not surprised you picked that one. It’s a modern-day Taming of the Shrew. And a classic teen film.”
“No way. I’m so in.”
I settle onto the couch while he sets up the movie. And by the time the opening credits start, he’s sitting next to me, my hand in his, which is exactly what I’ve been waiting for since we snapped our helmets shut outside the party. I zero in on every detail of the opening credits, especially when one guy points out all the different school cliques to the new guy as they walk through campus.
“Is this what it’s like in the cafeteria?” I ask.
“Your fascination with the cafeteria is adorable.”
A few seconds later, Nico laughs at a joke I don’t get, but I don’t care because the sound of his laughter makes my heart trip.
I try to keep my focus, but all too soon, my eyes wander from the screen to look at Nico. At the way his hair and eyelashes fall. At the faint sprinkling of freckles across his nose. At the way his jaw twitches when he thinks something’s funny on-screen.
He turns to me. Smiles. “Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
He leans closer. And then there’s no movie.
There’s only us.