Chapter 17
Oli
It was Thursday, and I was smug as a motherfucker. June spent the entire class today flipping me off, and she even broke my pencil right in half before feeling bad about it and handing me a pen from her bag. It was clear. She totally liked me. She was mine, and I was so fucking hers.
I was over the moon happy with myself for making a move the other day. Fuck death growls and double bass and mosh pits. Kissing June made my heart soar so high it exited the rush of wind and ended up above it all, peacefully floating about. I needed to make sure I got to feel that again, and again, and again, and while I was at it, make her feel it too.
Still, I had to stay cautious. I’d been methodical about my teasing up to this point, but one wrong move and she’d never speak to me again. She was strong like that. Unstable like that, in all honesty. I had to keep this controlled until she finally let me in fully. There was no way I’d let myself fuck this up.
“You seem to be in a good mood today,” Jonah said hours later, sliding his headphones off and placing them on the desk as we sat in our room. I still hadn’t told him about me and June nor did I plan to just yet. I felt bad about keeping the secret, but this was all too delicate to risk anything.
“Jonah, I think that’s the first positive thing you’ve said all year.” I couldn’t contain my smile as I lay back on my bed, my head at the wrong end, plotting where in the room I’d leave the whoopee cushion for Jonah to sit on tonight.
He scoffed as he stood from his seat. “I have plenty of redeeming qualities. Don’t act like I don’t.” With two fists in the air, he stretched his body, swiveling from side to side as if he hadn’t moved in hours. “It’s not my fault your perspective refuses to recognize them.”
I reached for a rubber band on my desk and shot it at him as he twisted, the elastic snapping off the patch of skin that had appeared between his T-shirt and his jeans. He winced in pain, sucking in a quick breath through his teeth as his palm fell to his side, covering the red mark which was already forming.
It was true. He did have lots of redeeming qualities, and I’d been too caught up in my own responsibilities to cut him any slack. But I was happy today, and he deserved a little attention.
“Boys’ night,” I declared, crossing one ankle over the other and propping my heels on the edge of Jonah’s desk.
He pointed a stern finger at my shoes. “Don’t get any sneaker marks on my lyric pages or I’ll kick you out of the band.”
I rolled my eyes. As if he would ever consider himself the leader. No. We were three equal parts of a wheel that simply wouldn’t turn if a chunk was taken out.
“So you and Noah can become a duo? Oh, I’d love to see that.”
“Never mind,” he grumbled, kicking his foot out in front of himself as he paced between the door and the chair, scratching at his lower back. “Boys’ night, you say. I don’t want to go out.”
“Do you ever?”
“No, so I really don’t know why you keep asking.”
I sighed. “Noah and Tiff are on campus right now for a meeting with the Nature Club.”
Jonah spun on his heel to face me and gave me one of those infamous Are-you-fucking-kidding-me? looks. We hardly ever went to the Nature Club but, for some reason, I wanted to today. I just had this feeling I should go.
“I know, I know. You don’t trust people who eat that much granola.” I stuck my fingers in the air to quote the sentence he’d repeated to me on several occasions. “But they’re not doing anything fancy today. Just a circle in the quad.”
“Oh, good.” He lifted sarcastic little jazz hands in the air to show me his feigned interest. “Will there be douchebags with acoustic guitars there? I really hope they play Wonderwall.”
“No, I think they’d much prefer to hear you sing Jamie All Over while they’re doing their shoe-less grounding.”
He groaned, falling on his bed and rolling himself in his covers. “Why don’t we stay here and watch movies?”
“Why don’t you enjoy your life and stop being such a loser?”
He blew a raspberry from beneath the blanket in response. Good. He only did silly things like that when my begging actually started to work.
I left him covered for a few moments as I changed out of the clothes I’d been wearing all day and into a cleaner, though similar, set. I swapped my socks and tossed all dirty items into the hamper, including pieces of Jonah’s clothing that were thrown on the floor on his half of the room.
When I was good and ready, I placed myself at the foot of his bed, reached my hands under the covers to grab his ankles, and began to drag him out. He whined as he slid down the mattress, which I ignored. I continued to pull until his feet hit the floor, his waist on the edge of the bed and his body folded over it face down. I wrapped an arm around his hips, lifted him, grabbed his torn sneakers and a set of keys, and walked out the door.
◆◆◆
I let Jonah hang on me piggyback style as we made our way to the Nature Club. It only seemed fair. If I was going to force him to get out, the least I could do was save him from walking. I handed him one shoe at a time over my shoulder, each of which he slipped on while clinging to me. When both his feet were securely covered, he wrapped his elbows around my neck and sank his face into my shoulder.
“I’m just gonna sleep right here,” he mumbled. “Goodnight.”
“If you fall asleep up there, I’m dropping you.”
The Nature Club group was standing in the middle of the quad, tucked under a tree that hardly looked orange enough for this time of year, in my opinion. Fall was always my favorite. Everything was a little more brown and a little more orange. I found that to be cozy. Maybe I should’ve moved to New England or something, because I missed out on most of it here.
Kai felt cozier with blues and greens, which could mean anything from the calm sea to a snow-covered mountain. Understandable, for someone who supposedly liked everything.
Jonah’s cozy was a dark room with LED lights, the glowing blue power button on his speakers, or the lit-up switch on his computer.
But mine? Browns, oranges, leaves, breeze. So, this Nature Club event was right up my alley—despite the lack of intense seasons here—especially paired with the cool temperature this evening and the feel of grass under my sneakers. Sitting under a tree felt like an excellent way to spend the few hours before bed instead of studying like I should’ve been.
As I wandered over to the group and placed Jonah down on his feet, a funny thought occurred to me. I wondered what June’s cozy might look like. Was it a season or a color or a place? I couldn’t imagine it if I tried, but I desperately wanted to know. I wanted to know everything about her.
The universe must have been listening in on my thoughts because it produced her out of thin air. Like an apparition, she stood before me, tucked between other group members in a pair of ripped jeans and a zipper sweatshirt. Her hair was tied into a messy bun, and she pulled delicately on a dangly strand that had gotten stuck in her lip gloss. I had to blink twice to ensure she was truly here and not just a beautiful mirage.
“Juni,” I said to the girl standing no more than three feet away.
“Oliver.” She made an adorable attempt at a curt nod of the head, but her arms folding across her ribs told me just how nervous she was. My shoulders relaxed at the sight. Not that I wanted her to be nervous around me. Quite the opposite. But the new hookup tension wasn’t so bad to see, being that this was our first time seeing each other outside the protective bubble of class since we’d kissed. I probably would’ve shit my pants if she’d brushed me off like I was nothing.
“Hi, June,” Jonah said. He stood next to me with his feet far too close together and offered her a small, awkward wave. Fucking dork.
June pressed her lips flat in response.
Noah and Tiff weaved through a few people I’d never seen before as they approached us. Our bassist crashed into my chest, greeting me with a giant, happy hug. Tiff raised her hand in a high-five position, and I smacked her palm behind Noah’s back. She then moved to Jonah and did the same just before Noah peeled himself from me and pounced on him. Jonah was trying to participate awkwardly in the embrace when Tiff turned to glance at June.
“You two know each other?” Tiff asked the both of us.
Know each other? I knew what that girl fucking tasted like. I knew exactly how to piss her off. I knew just how fucking intelligent she was. And I couldn’t stop staring at her long enough to produce an answer.
“Yes,” Jonah said smugly. Noah finally pushed himself away from him to cling to Tiff’s arm. “They’re quite close. They’re—”
“Project partners,” I blurted, launching my hand out to the side to slice the air before Jonah could embarrass the shit out of me.
“Project partners,” June said. She glared at me, wrapping her open sweatshirt around herself before spinning off to make small talk with some of the others.
Fuck. Did my answer come off as rude? What was I supposed to say? I bent down to speak to Noah and Tiff quietly. “What is she doing here?”
“I invited her,” Tiff said. “A few weeks ago. She was looking at club listings so I gave her a flyer. She seemed kind of lonely. I thought she would come for sure, but she never showed up until now.”
I couldn’t stop staring at her. I couldn’t even look at my friends who were speaking to me. June looked like the subject of a fucking painting, surrounded by leaves and trees and grass as she snuggled into her thin, gray sweatshirt which evidently wasn’t doing a good enough job at keeping her warm.
“I didn’t realize you two have…issues?” Tiff said.
“Issues?” I whipped my head to look her in the eye. “Why would you think we have issues?”
“Because you’re acting weird as hell, bromigo,” Noah said casually, slapping me on the shoulder. “Your vibes are heavy, man. Like a big, gray filing cabinet.”
My eyes snapped to him. “A filing cabinet?!” I’m not sure why his comment made me so defensive. It was probably the stupidest fucking thing a person had ever said to me. But I certainly didn’t want June to think I was boring or gray like a filing cabinet. Sure, I had goals and drive, but I could be fun too. I could be spontaneous. I’d shown her as much the other evening in the library.
“Don’t listen to him,” Tiff said. “That’s not true.”
“Yours are green like lies,” Noah murmured to her.
“They have anything but issues,” Jonah added with a half-smirk. “Make sure they stay near each other.” He reached into his pocket to pull out his phone but I smacked it straight into the grass. He was going to record me interacting with her and send it to Kai. I just fucking knew it. This is why I didn’t plan on telling him about the kiss anytime soon.
Tiff nodded and touched my arm. “I got you.” She turned to the rest of the group and clapped her hands once. “Okay everyone, thank you so much for coming! It’s about 4:29 so we’re going to get started.” She checked her watch and looked around. “This is a casual meeting. However, we have quite a few new faces today, so let’s do something a little bit different. For the first ten minutes, I want you all to pick a partner and get to know them. Then we can sit around and talk nonsense.”
Jonah groaned and tripped over his own feet as he tried to walk away, but I stepped in front of him to block his path. I was keen to run away too because I knew exactly what Tiff was doing, but I couldn’t. I had to talk to June.
“Don’t worry, Jonah,” Tiff said. “You can be with Noah.”
Jonah groaned again, louder this time.
Tiff played the oblivious card and waved June back over. “Come here!”
June approached warily. All I could think about was backing her up into the fucking tree and kissing her again.
“I never got your name,” Tiff said to her.
“June,” she answered quietly. She refused to meet my eye. Why wouldn’t she meet my eye?
“I’m Tiff. These are my friends. They don’t usually come, so I thought since you’re all new, you might like to meet them. That’s Jonah.” She pointed to him as he grumbled to himself. “And that’s Noah, my boyfriend.” Noah curtsied, holding out his tie-dye T-shirt at the sides. “And I guess you know Oli.” I blinked. “Jonah and Noah are attached at the hip, so I’m just gonna let them be a pair.” Tiff waved a dismissive hand as Jonah’s mouth dropped open. “One of our other newbies seems a little nervous, so I’m gonna go chat with him. Why don’t you get to know Oli better?”
June remained silent for a moment. “Maybe I should go,” she then said, her eyes darting between Tiff and me. “Right?” she mumbled to herself. “Yeah, I should.” She returned her voice to a normal volume. “My mom called, and I—”
“Go on,” Tiff said, nudging June along with a hand on her upper back. “He doesn’t bite.”
Except I do. And I did. Her neck, just the other evening.
June planted her feet in front of mine, her arms still folded over herself, and Tiff disappeared. As if my thoughts weren’t already a scrambled mess in my head, they completely imploded at the sight of her up close; that sparkly gaze, those bits of hair swaying in the breeze, and that shiny lipgloss—it really, really did something to me. She looked so pretty, I wanted to die.
My hand reached for her jaw without my permission. Her eyes gaped, and the shock in them brought me back down to earth. I pulled away quickly. Nobody here knew that we’d kissed, and I intended to keep it that way. Our private business was our private business.
“No skirt,” I whispered, looking down at her jeans.
“No skirt,” she said sharply.
“That’s okay.” I shrugged, letting my mouth stretch into a complacent smile. “You didn’t know I’d be here.”
“If I had known, I wouldn’t have fucking come. Much less come wearing a skirt.”
“Are we still playing that game, Juni?”
“It’s not a game.”
I ignored her attitude because it was really fucking turning me on and focused on something more important. She was shivering from head to toe. “You’re cold.” I pulled my flannel off from on top of my black sweatshirt. She turned to walk away with a scoff, but she didn’t get far. I plucked the piece of clothing off my wrist and held it between both of my hands, hooping her in and pulling her back. She fell into my front. I bent down to her ear. “Put this on, June.”
Her breath hitched, her skin so close to my cheek, and I had to fight the urge to spin her around and plant my lips on hers. She turned to take the flannel reluctantly, staring at me as she shrugged it on. It fit her like a tent, and the messy bun, plus the shirt, plus the soft look on her face all created the very image of what I wanted to see each evening before bed.
My heart. My poor, poor heart.
“We don’t need to do this,” she said, looking around herself. I cocked a brow, unsure of what she meant by that. “This activity. Don’t worry about it, Oli. This doesn’t need to be a big deal.”
She wasn’t being her usual, rude self, I realized. She was nervous. Very. Once again, she turned away toward the rest of the group.
Thinking quickly to get her to stay, I said the first thing on my mind. “Wait, I have a question.” It wasn’t until after I’d spoken that I realized I had no idea how to formulate said question in a way that didn’t sound totally batshit. “Uhm…” She stared at me flatly, crossing her arms to punctuate that the floor was mine whether I knew how to produce coherent sentences or not. “I like fall.”
One of her eyebrows fell lower than the other. “That’s really cool, Oliver.”
Her sarcasm almost made me giggle, but I was feeling anything but amused by my failed attempt at conversation.
“No, I mean…I like fall. And brown and orange. It’s calm…and cozy.” I rubbed my hand in my hair, wincing at my awkwardness. “Kai likes blues and greens. The water, and the sky, and even snow, for example. What does calm and cozy look like…uhm…to you?”
God, I felt like a fucking idiot. Her face twisted like she couldn’t believe me, but I could tell she was thinking about it.
“Red,” she finally said. Her answer was short, and she certainly didn’t seem very calm or cozy while saying it.
“Like my flannel?” I gestured with my eyes to my favorite red flannel, which she was hugging around herself, in hopes of lightening her up.
“No. Like red velvet.”
“Like cake?”
Fuck, now I wanted cake.
“Like red velvet,” she repeated sternly. Her tone had never sounded so cold. Hard? Snippy? Sure. But never cold. Now, her words were ice. She’d given me a true answer, and I’d most certainly, accidentally, pressed a button.
“June, I’m sorry. I—”
“Jonah.” She projected her voice, looking me straight in the eyes. “I’d love to chat. Oliver and I already talked. Let’s swap.”
Ouch. Now I really wanted cake.
“Great idea,” Jonah said, awkwardly petting Noah on the shoulder and stepping off to the side for June to follow. He sent me an apologetic shrug, and I was left freezing.
Noah giggled as he placed himself in front of me. “That girl does not like you, and not in a Jonah way.”
Noah had a theory that Jonah pretended to hate him but really loved him underneath it all. He was right, though we still hadn’t gotten a confession. I wasn’t so sure that was the case with June. “Yeah. Thanks, Noah.”
I watched as my best friend stood with her, irrationally jealous though hoping he’d at least gather some intel and fill me in on their conversation later. But Tiff called the group together, and June and Jonah were unable to chat. June immediately separated herself from us as if she’d been freed from a cage. Her disdain made my heart sink.
◆◆◆
June
Oliver’s gaze burned through me as I sat next to Tiff in the grass. The entire group had settled into a circle, though divided up into little cliques. He sat crisscrossed with Jonah’s head in his lap only a few feet away, facing Tiff and me, the frail roommate curled up into a ball around his knee. Noah leaned back casually on his hands just next to them, his legs outstretched and his bright pink socks stacked one over the other.
I could feel Tiff getting ready to say something to me. What would she talk about? Surely something I didn’t relate to, like sex or parties. That was all anyone seemed to talk about these days. I hugged my arms tightly across my chest, staring down at my lap, awaiting the inevitable small talk.
“Tell me about yourself, June.”
Fuck. I wished she’d just asked me about sex or parties.
I shook my head, forcing a social smile. “I don’t know. I grew up in Silver Lake. Now I’m here.”
She snorted, perhaps at my horrible answer, and pulled her knees into her chest, plucking a piece of grass from the earth.
“Babe! Don’t hurt our little buddies,” Noah said, pointing to the ground.
She lifted her gaze to meet Noah’s and tossed the freshly murdered piece of grass at him. It simply blew back at her, weightless, and she watched it land on her sneaker.
“Rest in peace, little one,” Noah added, shifting and lying down to curl up on Oliver’s free knee. Oliver sighed, his eyes falling shut with frustration, an overgrown boy on each leg.
Jonah might have been sleeping, but when Noah kissed him on the head, he flinched, fully alert. “Noah!” he whined as he slid to a different spot on Oliver’s knee, one where he could be a bit further away.
Noah giggled and settled into Oliver’s thigh. Oliver began playing with their hair. Neither boy seemed bothered by the fact, but they probably would’ve been, especially Jonah, had he known Oliver was braiding their hair together.
“Looks like you might lose your boyfriend,” I said quietly to Tiff, hoping that wasn’t an overstep and that I was being cute and sassy like I used to be in high school.
She chuckled. Thank god. “Then perhaps we’ll have to hang out more, you and me. You know, to fill the void and all.”
Fill the void, indeed.
“But really,” she said. “Tell me more. What do you like? Tell me…” She thought for a moment. “Wait a second.” She turned to her boyfriend. “Noah, give me one of your getting-to-know-you questions.”
“Favorite memory!” Noah jerked his head up in excitement, tugging Jonah along with him by way of their black and blonde braid.
Jonah began fussing about, squirming in the grass. “Oliver, get me the fuck out of here!”
Oliver giggled as Noah tried to wrestle Jonah into what might’ve been a hug. I ignored the three large children.
“Favorite memory,” Tiff said. “Tell me your favorite memory.”
A million flashed through my mind, but I just sat there stupidly, my mouth hanging open as I stared at her. I watched the highlight reel in my brain. Alana hiding in the Home Ec cabinet to keep Mrs. Evans from realizing she’d snuck into the class. Falling off the bleachers with Henry Carlsen’s football cleats in my hands after Alana and I stole them and ran. The time our art teacher, Miss Lila Lorrie, caught us graffitiing the side of the school, only to realize we were covering up obscene drawings done by the punks and join in with us.
“I think…” I faked another smile and looked down at my Converse crossed beneath me. “I think I’d rather hear yours if that’s okay.”
Tiff bumped my shoulder with her own. “Of course.”
Fuck. I hated the pity in her voice. I was hardly listening as she began to tell me about her high school prom. Something about a boy named Jack who was bullied horribly. Noah ended up taking him, I think she said, so she got to go with her best friend, Sarah, and it became one of her favorite memories.
I, myself, had skipped prom. I skipped the senior social, I skipped the senior all-nighter, and I skipped anything that might’ve threatened my precious trove of happy memories with Alana by creating one that dared be happier or more memorable.
Tiff looked so excited as she went on and on, and I began to shift uncomfortably. Coming here was a bad idea. Nature Club was a bad idea. I was starting to notice just how cold the grass was under my ass, and I was tired of smelling Oliver all over the flannel I had wrapped around me. He smelled too good for someone as gross and rude as himself. Tiff was too nice for someone who wanted to replace Alana. Noah was too happy for this dark, freezing world. The only one who might’ve had it right was Jonah, who was currently dismissing himself back to the dorms.