Eight days later, on my final March Break shift—a Saturday night—Noah comes in with Ava, who’s visiting from the city. Just what I need at the end of a ten-day stretch in which I’ve worked five split shifts (lunch + dinner) and three closing shifts (dinner until close—as late as two a.m. by the time the cleaning up is done), done zero homework, and had no sleep. I am haggard, smell like a deep fryer, and feel about as sexy as a dead cactus.
Ava, whom Noah met while staying with his mom last summer, is painfully adorable and about as opposite from me in looks as a person can be. She’s short and tiny-but-curvy with curly black hair and blue eyes so big and round they could belong to an anime character. I’m not hideous or anything, but I feel like a bag of sand next to Ava. I feel very medium compared to her—medium height, medium build, and sand-colored all over. Even my eyes can’t decide between being brown and green and therefore come out looking almost the same shade as the rest of me, only shinier.
But you’d have to have a heart of stone not to like Ava. She’s sweet and smart and tonight she seems a little down. They both do—probably because she’s leaving tomorrow. And so, as part of my ongoing efforts to not act jealous, or give my feelings away whatsoever, I take it upon myself to cheer them up. I’m so successful that they stay for hours, laughing and canoodling and lingering over dessert and coffee.
Which serves me right, I suppose.
They do eventually leave, but not before Ava hugs me about a million times and Noah thanks me sincerely enough to make me feel like the worst person on earth, since all I really want is for her to go away and never come back.
Finally, when the last stragglers are gone, the sections are all cleared and wiped down with vinegar, ketchups are married, roll-ups are rolled, sugars, salts, and peppers are filled, and chairs are put up, it’s over. My feet and knees are throbbing, my brain feels like it’s just survived a hurricane, my heart aches, and I have that end-of-shift tired/wired feeling that sometimes takes hours to come down from no matter how exhausted I am.
I scarf down a bowl of lemon rice made with fresh curry leaves, ginger, green chilies, and lentils. Maya makes a big pot of something simple for the staff every day that we can help ourselves to, and it’s always ridiculously tasty. (Plus I never knew until I started working here that curry came in any form but powder.) Feeling nourished and slightly less jangled, I drift over to the bar, where Nita, as she does sometimes on weekends, pours beer for the remaining staff. Kyle and I are underage, but all the customers, plus Dev and Maya, are gone, so she winks and pours each of us one too. It starts to turn into a bit of a party, but Nita’s too cautious to let it continue very long, which is how I end up inviting everyone to come over and hang out in my basement.
“My parents are at a funeral,” I tell Brianna and Kyle.
“At one in the morning?” Kyle says. “Cool funeral.”
“Ha ha. It was today, but they’re gone overnight. First time they’ve left me alone, actually.”
“Well, then we’ve gotta come over, babe,” Brianna says. “On principle.”
A few people stop to grab more alcohol from their places on the way, and we also do a careful raid of my parents’ bar, but the party is low-key until Kyle spots the old vinyl record player.
“Whoa, does this thing work?”
“I think so.”
Within a couple of minutes he has it up and running, ’70s disco playing, volume cranked. Brianna has a strobe light app on her phone, and somebody rolls back the rug so we can dance on the tile floor.
Kyle turns into a hilarious dancing maniac. He jumps and slides and gyrates, and pulls out one record after another. Soon we’re all dancing. I grin and laugh and sway, my aches and pains forgotten, my money and future worries forgotten, my impossible crush and guilty feelings about my crush shoved aside, and lightness stealing over me.
Things eventually start to die down, people leaving in twos and threes, and then I’m alone.
Alone with Kyle, that is.
“I don’t think I should drive,” he says, the manic gleam still in his eyes. “Can I crash here?”
“Sure, um . . .” I’m not entirely sober myself. “You can sleep down here on the couch. But won’t your dad worry?”
“As long as I don’t drink and drive, he’s cool. I just have to text him.”
Kyle sends the text while I stand there waiting, swaying a bit on my feet.
“Let me get you a pillow and some blankets,” I say.
“I’ll help.”
“No, that’s—” He’s following me up the stairs anyway. “Oh. Okay, thanks.”
I feel him close behind me as I head down the dim hallway and push open the door to my room.
“Do you want a T-shirt too, or—”
I never finish the sentence because all of a sudden Kyle is kissing me.
He’s kissing me, and I’m kissing him back.
It is not part of the plan.
And I have a split second of thinking I shouldn’t be kissing Kyle, because of Noah.
But Noah’s with Ava. Right this second he’s with her.
And damn, can Kyle kiss. Kyle can kiss so well he could give lessons. For the good of humanity he should give lessons.
I let my arms wind up around Kyle’s neck and let him press in closer. We make out in the doorway until standing starts to seem counterproductive, and then we stumble over to my bed.
“No sex, okay?” I murmur in his ear. “I just want to mess around.”
“Fine, sure,” he says, and strips my shirt off of me.
All right, then.
Kyle comes on strong, hot, and hard to stop, but he’s also really fun.
I lose most of my clothing and so does he, and there’s a lot of rolling around and heavy breathing, but everything’s playful and unserious until suddenly I feel him right up against me.
I pull back. “Wait, no, wait.”
And he says, “Sure, sure, okay. Relax,” and applies his lips to my collarbone and his hands to other places.
I close my eyes and say, “Okay,” and relax, and then relax some more.
And then all of a sudden it’s happening. The thing I said no to.
I gasp.
“It’s okay,” he says, and continues.
It’s okay . . .
“Condom,” I manage to whisper, and we stop while I get one from the back of my bedside table drawer.
I didn’t want to do this, but now it seems too late.
Oh well, I think but do not say, I guess we’re doing it.