Chapter 18
A longing that aches has lodged itself inside me.
Feelings I can’t seem to shake that live just under my skin and prickle against it. Sometimes inspiration feels like that. It crawls against your mind and niggles at the back of each of your thoughts.
And you just need to get it … out.
With only a coffee and a doughnut stolen off the table for the Sunday-morning Bible study in the common room, I head to the studio.
There are only three people here, so I put in my earbuds, and I start with my normal warm-up.
I draw the desk my mother wrote letters at when I was younger.
Pushed against the window, papers scattered across it.
I draw her sitting and writing. Hair trailing down her back and ankles crossed.
But when I get to her hands, I know I can’t draw them.
My eyes move over to Max’s desk, and all I can see is his disappointment.
Why couldn’t I just say sorry?
I could text him, say the words that way, but I remember exactly how he looked at me when he saw the drawing that I had fished out of the trash, and—
Max is not my friend.
A week later, we all get invites from Carter, who has decided to host a fundraiser to make up for his lack of volunteer hours.
Not a real fundraiser with people who have money.
Just a bunch of college kids partying in the basement of the Cattle Club.
There’s a five-dollar cover charge and a drink minimum, along with an amateur bartender who claims that serving drinks is part of his volunteer hours for the committee.
All proceeds go toward at-risk art programs. I have a feeling that at the end of the night, Carter will just write a check from his trust fund.
Linden and I are sitting on two barstools shoved in the corner behind a foosball table.
Two scrawny freshmen play as they wait for senior members to call them to do something menial, like clean something up or drive someone home.
It all feels a little like a frat and not an organization to preserve art for generations to come.
Linden hands me a drink in a red Solo cup, and I don’t bother to ask what it is. “It would be fun to spend break at Carter’s lake house. Watch the snow fall. Drink hot cocoa.”
“Carter’s lake house?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Did he already ask you?”
“I have to work on the mural.”
And there’s no way I’m going near any water with Carter ever again. Linden looks at me like she can read my mind.
“Max says he’s going, and if there’s no one to let you into the studio, then you can’t work.” She taps her temple. “Big brain. Problem solver.”
“If Max is going, I definitely can’t go.” And I shouldn’t go anyway.
“That’s stupid.” She takes a drink from the red Solo cup in her hand. “What’s the deal with you two anyway? I can’t tell if you hate each other or…”
Or sounds more like it, but I just nod and hope it’s enough.
I watch Max from the corner of my eye as he tosses balls into cups and smiles at other people. Max doesn’t smile like that at me. Everything he’s ever done is to make me feel like we weren’t friends.
Which makes the fact that I took his work feel even more wrong. What right did I have to it?
My opportunity to apologize comes minutes later when Max walks up to the bar alone. I decide not to overthink it, and I walk up to him. “Hey.” A stellar opening.
He looks at me, not even a little surprised that I’m speaking to him. “Hey,” he says with an even tone.
“I wanted…” I take a breath and keep my eyes on the cup that was just handed to Max. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. About the thing.”
He doesn’t speak, and eventually I look up at him.
“Apologies usually come with eye contact and a reason for the apology.”
My teeth press against each other. “I’m sorry I took your work.” And made it better.
It’s just the corner of his mouth, but it lifts and then he nods. “Okay, Nieve.” He only makes it two steps before I hear a loud squeal of delight.
Beautiful and tall, the two girls who throw their arms around Max look like models. Max struggles not to spill his drink as he returns their hugs with a smile, and he looks at me.
I have never felt more awkward in my life. Linden comes to save me, hugging the girls she calls Ayra and Emily.
“This is my cousin, Nieve,” she says, introducing me.
“You have the best freckles.” Ayra’s compliment feels sincere. She’s nice and beautiful and she makes Max smile.
Ayra puts her arm through Max’s and they walk toward the small tables by the back wall, and I watch as Max laughs at something she says.
He looks … kind. And handsome.
“How does she know Max?” I ask.
“Oh, I think they hook up sometimes?” Linden says casually. “Ayra loves him. Not literally or anything, but they’re really close.”
I nod and for some reason want to rip her head off.
“Linny, Nieve!” Carter is yelling across the room. “Come play darts!”
“Ugh, I suck at darts,” Linden says next to me, and I follow after her.
Carter holds his red cup high above him in welcome. “Nieve, will you be on my team?”
“Oh.” I look at Linden and back at him. “I’m really bad.”
“Perfect,” Max says, coming up behind Carter. “Benji and Linden can be on a team, and Ayra and I can be on the other.”
Ayra nods, and her golden nose ring catches in the light. She is beautiful in a way that makes me feel boring and average. I bet she’s a Leo.
“Yes!” Carter hops up from his stool and puts all our names on the board and tells us we are playing Around the World. It’s decided that Benji and Linden go first, and although Linden says she’s not good, she hits the one on the first try.
“It’s just lucky,” she tells us. “Don’t expect it to always do that.”
When it’s my and Carter’s turn, he hits the one twice before passing me the darts.
“Hold your hand like this.” His fingers wrap around mine, repositioning them on the cool metal of the dart. I can feel his breath on my skin.
Carter wraps his fingers around mine, the heat from his skin setting me on fire. “Do you like that?”
I push away and drop the dart. “Oh, I’m—” I bend down, rushing to pick it back up, embarrassed that I just …
“Sorry, did I—” Carter starts.
“No, no, it was me. I’m…”
I’m going insane, actually. Let me tell you about how we used to date, and you died. Sometimes I remember the way you used to touch me. And …
“I’m fine.” I take a deep breath, and I throw my three darts, and each one lands on the one.
Carter cheers, sounding surprised next to me, and he wraps me in a hug that lifts me off the floor for a moment.
Benji looks at me, a little skeptical. “You suck at darts, too, huh?”
“I’ve played before.”
“I knew I picked right!” Carter shouts, and I can feel my heart start to hammer in my chest. A blush rises to my face, and I hope the darkness hides it.
“When did you play before?” Linden asks.
She’s known me my whole life. I can’t say I learned to play darts here in this basement with Carter, so I just shrug.
Max goes next, getting two in the one, and Ayra gets none. But she laughs with Max, who pats her back and tells her she did great.
Linden and Benji go, but the whole time, Carter’s trying to give me different strategies for the darts. I nod, but I’m not really listening as he whispers close to me.
When it’s my turn again, Max coughs right before I throw my dart, and I miss the board completely.
“Don’t worry about him,” Carter tells me. He puts his hands on my biceps and kneads the muscles like a coach warming up his fighter. “Shake it off.”
The next two make it, and Carter cheers like I won a gold medal. I give Max a smug look, but he only smiles at me like it doesn’t matter to him.
When it’s Max’s turn, I pretend to bump into him, and his dart hits the board next to the one we’re using.
He looks at me with darkened eyes. “Oh yeah?” he asks. “This is how you want to play?”
“I’m so sorry,” my eyes wide with mock apology. “I tripped.”
Linden looks at me with her eyebrows raised. She thinks she knows what she’s seeing. That I’m flirting with Max.
Am I?
When it’s my turn again, he ups the stakes by throwing an ice cube at me.
The others have started playing this game, too. They’ve all chosen someone to pick on. Linden with Carter, Ayra and Benji. It’s fun. But it also feels like something more, like everything with Max has felt recently.
“Let’s make this interesting,” Carter tells us. “If you miss, you take a shot.”
“We’ll all be on our ass if we do that,” Linden complains. “How about if someone hits the number, they get to pick who takes a shot?”
“Ohhhhhh,” Carter says, and kisses her cheek.
Linden blushes.
And I can’t help the way my face falls into a frown. He kissed her cheek.
Carter kissed Linden’s cheek.
Carter goes to the bar and grabs a bottle of cheap vodka and a shot glass. When Benji hits his number, he looks around to see who he’s going to call on. “Ayra.” As if it weren’t obvious.
She laughs as she takes a shot and then looks up at Max from under dark lashes. He wraps an arm around her shoulders. Suddenly, I feel ill.
What is happening?
When it’s my turn, I miss. But when Max stands up from his barstool, he points directly at me like Babe Ruth calling his shot.
I walk up to him and do the only thing I know to do. Something I saw in one of Grandee’s favorite films. I lean in, so close to his ear I’m sure he’s going to pull away. His body goes rigid, and for a brief second, I think I’ve crossed a line.
I can feel my breath bounce off his skin. “I’m better at art than you.”
Max smirks and releases the dart. He hits the number and points at me. Leaning toward me, he whispers, “No, you’re not.”
I take the shot, not because I’m supposed to but because I need it with the way Max is looking at me. It doesn’t feel like how he talks to Ayra, or even Linden. Something hangs in the air between us, and I can’t really decide what it is. Like there’s something that only we share.
Our art.
I take two more shots before I quit the game and walk over to a couch that’s set up in a corner. When no one is in this room, it’s enormous, but there are so many bodies in here that I can’t even see the other side of it.
Benji comes and sits down next to me.
“Did you lose?” I ask him.
“Taking a break. Now that you’re gone, Max has decided I should drink more.”
“How’s that going?”
He shakes his head. “I wish you were still there for Max to flirt with.”
I laugh, a hollow thing in my chest. “You mean bully. He’s not flirting.”
Benji stops and studies me in a way that makes me feel like he sees more than I’m actually saying. “Would that be a bad thing?”
I open my mouth to say yes. Obviously, Max flirting with me would be …
Would it?
The one thing that would absolutely keep Carter and me from repeating our mistakes would be … Max and I …