Chapter Seven #2
Nicky Broome could charm anyone. Students, teachers, that weird guy who cleaned the floors in the gym. He had confidence and attitude. He also had a smile that was ever-present, completely sexy, and utterly irreverent.
Nicky Broome did things people talked about.
He wore a Clash T-shirt to graduation. He hopped up on stage during Junior prom and played a couple of songs with the band.
He drove a beat-up old Jeep that was impossibly cool.
Most of the time it had no doors and it always had the keys dangling from the mirror – and no one ever stole it from the student parking lot.
Not once. Nicky Broome was a goddamn high school legend and the ink on his diploma wasn’t even dry.
As Nicky stepped forward into the little nook, he tucked his long glossy, sun-kissed brown hair behind his right ear.
‘Hey,’ he said, not really looking at her.
‘Hey,’ she answered back.
It was the first time they’d ever spoken other than the rare ‘did we have homework?’ or ‘can I bum a pencil?’ because only two teenagers could see each other three thousand times a day for years and never actually have a conversation.
Nicky Broome was taller than Lucy; her head reached only about as high as those shoulders of his that she wanted to climb.
He smelled like clean ocean, peppermint, cigarette smoke, and some dark, mysterious something that was either an off-brand deodorant or pure, unfiltered hot guy pheromones.
Combined, they made one word throb in Lucy’s brain: tasty .
As they each set about digging through the piles of CDs, the soft hem of Nicky’s Beastie Boys tee brushed against Lucy’s hand. She felt it like an earthquake. It made her list in his direction and question the stability of the ground beneath her feet.
Lucy willed herself to breathe. And not sweat. And calm her thudding heartbeat, which she was sure the whole house could hear over Snoop Dogg.
‘Wow,’ Nicky said, holding up an Ace of Base CD for Lucy to examine.
‘Yes,’ Lucy replied, coming back to her senses. ‘And then there’s this,’ she said, holding up an Enigma album.
‘I’m getting a European theme,’ Nicky said with a smile, holding up a cardboard-wrapped Culture Beat single.
‘You might be right, because what else could explain this?’ asked Lucy, proffering an Erasure CD.
‘I’m afraid, there is no explanation for that,’ he deadpanned.
Lucy laughed.
Nicky cracked a little smile. His eyes slid to Lucy’s mouth, and back up to her eyes.
Then he started laughing.
And, because Nicky Broome’s laugh was like some kind of irresistible spell designed to unhinge teenage girls, Lucy laughed harder. Until her stomach ached and a tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
It really hadn’t been that funny.
When Lucy caught her breath, she noticed that Nicky was staring at her. His mouth twitched with the faintest hint of a smile. His eyes communicated something unfamiliar. Curiosity? Interest? Maybe he thought she was a lunatic?
Lucy couldn’t figure it out, so she grabbed her beer from the table and took a slow sip to cover her face and work out exactly how Nicky Broome looking at her hit in such a way that she could physically feel it. In her stomach. And maybe somewhere a bit lower.
‘Here,’ Nicky said. He pushed the stop button on the stereo, then the eject button. ‘Better switch to the radio for a minute,’ he instructed her.
Lucy fiddled with the radio dial until it read 102.7 and The Cranberries floated from the speakers.
‘Ah-ha!’ Nicky exclaimed. He showed Lucy the back of the Snoop Dogg CD. A streak of something (hopefully mustard?) was stuck to the surface.
He rubbed the back of the disc unceremoniously on the leg of his jeans. Then scraped at a stubborn spot with his thumbnail. He held it up to the light to check it, before carefully polishing the CD with the inside of his shirt.
As he worked on the disc, his shirt slipped up. And up. Lucy stopped breathing for a moment as she glimpsed the honeyed skin of his abdomen and the barest suggestion of a happy trail that disappeared beneath his waistband.
Tasty.
While Lucy tried to restart her heart, Nicky plopped the CD in the tray and it closed with a whoosh. He cued up track eight and hit play.
The first notes of ‘Who Am I? (What’s My Name?)’ filled the house and Nicky grinned at his own success.
Cheers erupted from all over the house. Leave it to Nicky Broome to get a standing-o for hitting play.
‘You get that reaction to everything you do, don’t you?’ Lucy teased.
‘You don’t?’ he asked, feigning confusion.
Nicky Broome flashed Lucy that devastating smile of his and focused his green eyes right on hers. And, because Lucy was a heterosexual female with a pulse, she had little choice but to smile right back. There may even have been some egregious eyelash fluttering, to her eternal shame.
Lucy said, ‘I’m going out on the deck.’ She produced a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and held it up. ‘You wanna?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Sure.’
Lucy led the way, scooting sideways through the crowd in the living room, which was now on its feet drunkenly grinding to Snoop. She raised the arm with her beer to avoid spilling.
Nicky took the beer from her hand in mid-air. ‘I got it,’ he said.
They stepped through the sliding door into the cool night air. He handed her beer back.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Lucy made brief but eventful eye contact with Kim, who was across the deck chatting with Mike Pellegrini and the Melissas.
Kim’s eyes widened to saucers and then blinked in a way that Lucy easily interpreted as ‘what the fuck? Oh my God! Nicky-fucking-Broome!’ Lucy gave her best friend one long blink in reply, then focused her attention back on Nicky.
Lucy offered him her pack of smokes. He declined, producing his own from his back pocket.
They each lit their cigarettes. Lucy blew a puff of smoke up in the air toward the thin sliver of a moon that hung over Rehoboth Bay.
‘So, not a fan of European bands?’ Nicky asked.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Lucy said, leaning back against the porch railing. ‘I mean, that would have to include Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, right? So—’
‘But it would also include Milli Vanilli and Wham!,’ Nicky responded with a wry grin.
‘Any category that could include both The Beatles and Milli Vanilli is obviously so broad it’s useless.’
‘You may have a point there,’ Nicky conceded.
‘I mean, U2?’ Lucy added.
‘UB40?’
‘The Smiths,’ Lucy said emphatically.
‘Golden Earring,’ Nicky threw back.
‘Queen.’
‘Europe.’
‘Oh, man,’ she gasped as though the very mention of the band Europe hurt her physically. Then she tossed him, ‘The Cure.’
‘Falco,’ Nicky said triumphantly.
‘Bzzzzz,’ Lucy said, smacking an imaginary buzzer on the deck railing. ‘Falco does not fit the category.’
‘What? Falco is Austrian!’ He looked up at the stars for a second, then back to her. ‘Wait, Australian ?’ he chuffed.
‘Austrian,’ Lucy confirmed. ‘But a solo act, not a band.’ Lucy couldn’t help the smug grin that had spread across her face.
‘Shit,’ Nicky grumbled, pretending to look dejected.
‘If it makes you feel any better, the mere mention of Falco will now have “Der Kommissar” running through my head for days.’
‘That does make me feel better.’
‘That’s a little bit evil, Nicky Broome.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, tossing his cigarette into a bucket full of sand and cigarette butts.
Then, he stepped into her space. Close. Close enough for Lucy to notice his chest rising and falling. Close enough to feel the heat of him shifting the cool ocean air around her.
‘I wonder what else I could have running through your mind for days,’ he said, almost to himself.
The line should have been cheesy, but not from Nicky Broome. From him it was an irresistible invitation. It was a question she was meant to answer.
And it was the moment. One that Lucy would look back on throughout her life.
In times when she faced a choice that required a blind jump, an act of daring that was terrifying but rife with the potential for something new and amazing.
It was the moment that taught her every single thing she would ever know about risks and rewards.
Lucy jumped.
‘Do you want to get out of here?’ she asked.
‘Where?’
‘My place in Rehoboth.’
‘Yeah.’ He grinned. ‘I do.’
‘Cab?’
‘I have my car.’
‘You good to drive?’ Lucy asked.
‘Stone-cold sober,’ he replied.
‘Just let me tell Kim.’
Nicky nodded. ‘I’ll meet you out front,’ he said, before heading down the porch stairs into the yard.
Lucy crossed the deck and pulled Kim aside. ‘I’m going home.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Nicky Broome will be there.’
‘Holy. Shit,’ Kim exclaimed.
‘Quiet. Listen, are you okay here or—’
‘I was going to stay over with Mike anyway.’
‘Okay. You sure?’
‘Totally,’ Kim replied. ‘I’m good. I’ll be back tomorrow by ten. I have a shift at noon. So, be decent and not fucking on the coffee table when I get there.’
‘I’ll try.’ Lucy laughed.
‘Is he okay to drive?’ Kim asked, concerned.
‘Yeah. Sober.’
Lucy turned to go, but Kim stopped her with a hand. ‘Wait.’
Kim reached into the pocket of her jean jacket and pulled out a book of blotting paper. She ripped off a sheet and tapped it on Lucy’s nose.
‘Do you have condoms?’ Kim inquired with a motherly tone.
‘Of course,’ Lucy replied.
‘Did you remember to take your birth control this morning?’
Lucy joked, ‘Yes, Mom.’
Kim reached into her pocket again and came up with a tube of Lip Smacker, dabbed it on Lucy’s lips.
Kim capped the lip gloss dramatically, then swept Lucy’s bangs out of her eyes with her long French-tipped pinky nail. ‘Remember,’ Kim said earnestly, locking those shocking amber eyes on Lucy. ‘He’s just a boy.’
‘I know,’ Lucy lied.