Chapter 7
ZARIAH
DENSKY’S PANCAKE EMPORIUM
Working in Roman Villa, commonly referred to as Whorin’ Villa, was notoriously a poor decision for one’s sanity. So my new coworkers had a question for me.
Why the hell are you here?
Elijah.
Even if Roman Villa meant twice the work, even if it meant less time for my script, I could keep an eye on him. I just had to juggle the athletics dorm first. Only I didn’t think working with athletes would be so goddamn difficult and I already had low expectations for them.
They ignored my floor meeting that only Denali and Elijah attended. They ignored me knocking on their doors for room inspections. When I posted my flyer for the mixer in our group chat, six people muted it.
They weren’t like the wide-eyed non-athletic freshmen, desperate for companionship.
The athletes wanted to be left alone. I didn’t care that they didn’t want to hang out, I just needed something to write in my weekly reports.
I propped open my door and set up stacks of pizza boxes to ambush unsuspecting victims.
Footsteps echoed by the elevator and I lurched out. “Hey!”
“Shit,” one of the swimmers muttered, stabbing the elevator button.
“I need you guys to sign one thing, then I’ll forge your signatures for the rest of the year!” I motioned them inside. “Seriously, I promise it’s quick.”
They ignored me, one still desperately stabbing the button.
I rapped the door with my knuckles. “Free pizza?”
They turned warily.
Got ‘em.
My smile was smug as they filed inside for their free food but before they could grab slices and dip out, I held up paint brushes. “There’s an extra price of admission. I do a mixer at the beginning of every semester where my residents write words on my walls.”
Reluctantly, one of them took a paint brush. “You’re allowed to do that?”
“Nope, but I handle my own room checks.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, doing a show of gazing around the room. “Yep, looks in code to me!”
More and more people trickled in, and my friends from the football team dragged in the rest. By one o’clock, my dorm was full of athletes painting. Most of my floor showed up, except for the two people I specifically scheduled around.
Sémajuste called a meeting for his junior hockey players, ergo Elijah and Denali wouldn’t be able to attend my event. Exactly how I planned it.
“Only three rules,” I announced again, refilling the ice bucket. “No curse words, no slurs, no Densky’s!”
“No Densky’s? Like the pancake house?” Montoya asked, hesitating at the door frame. He pursed his lips. “I didn’t realize it’d be so busy—”
“Come in!” I beamed, happy that he gave in to our mutual friends’ peer pressure to come. He awkwardly shuffled inside, and I handed him a plate piled high with pizza. “You’re welcome to stop by whenever, okay? I always have snacks, candy, and condoms.”
I brought out my Frankenstein-hand Halloween decoration bowl, filled with condoms. Montoya’s cheeks flamed red.
“Take as many as you want. I get them from the STI clinic down the road.”
“Uh…” He peered over them. “Do they—um—expire?”
“Hm, in like five years? It depends on the type of condom.”
He picked one up with the tips of his fingernails. “You can’t put them close to a phone because that deactivates them, right?”
“I think that’s credit cards.” I tilted my head. “Were your parents strict growing up?”
“How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
I could see why he was having a hard time. Montoya was so easy to pick on.
Freshly determined to get him to stay for a couple more minutes, I walked him to the wall to write something. He painted the new Gladiator slogan—for the arena—and grinned when I snapped his picture with it.
He was so sweet. I couldn’t understand why Denali treated him like that.
My attention was taken by some tennis players in the kitchen. They were drawing ‘Densky’s’ in huge, bubble letters with ‘open twenty-four hours a day!’ below. I swore and jostled through the crowd, more irritated with each person I had to push through.
“Hey!” I snapped my fingers at them. “What’d I say?”
One of them frowned. “You were serious? I thought that was a joke.”
“It’s three rules, it’s not hard. No curse words, no slurs, no Densky’s!”
“Why’s the pancake emporium on the list?” another tennis player asked.
Fuming, I shooed them away. The words were already dripping down the wall. Goddammit. I had to clean up a Densky’s logo during the spring semester too and that pissed me off even before Denali showed up! Now, with him on campus, having him potentially spot the logo was unthinkable.
Maybe if I didn’t mention the rule, my residents wouldn’t get the idea to paint it, but I was afraid if I didn’t say anything, they’d draw the Densky’s logo in a hidden place I wouldn’t catch until later.
I didn’t want to one day pour myself a cup of coffee in my kitchen and—bam! —see the logo and ruin my day.
I dipped my brush in the white paint to cover it up but if anything, that looked worse. You could still see the blue and yellow letters underneath, practically illuminated.
God, they were so noticeable.
Fuck.
I crossed my arms. Gazing at the letters, my irritation melted into something else.
It was just a restaurant’s logo. The sick feeling I had when I saw it didn’t make sense. But the longer I stared, the more I remembered. Distinct memories tugged at me. Memories at a hockey camp five years ago…
The truth was, the hockey camp wasn’t a nice place. It was a lot more competitive than I was used to and everybody knew everybody from surrounding schools.
Everybody especially knew Denali.
Denali had moved from Alaska only a couple of months ago, and didn’t fit in. He was too quiet, and painfully shy. The deep cystic acne didn’t help, and he was heavier than the other boys.
The first day, the coaches had us give our introductions. The guys on the boys’ team were adamant with Denali’s nickname—Densky’s, after Densky’s Pancake Emporium. The nickname obviously embarrassed him to the delight of his tormentors.
I narrowed my eyes at the snide comments. The laughter was unbelievable and afterwards I approached Denali with my hand outstretched.
He stared down at me. “You don’t have to…”
“I’m Raya,” I insisted, grabbing his glove. “You’re Denali?”
He was silent for a moment. “Yeah.”
“Are you sitting with anybody for lunch?”
“I…um…” He fidgeted. “No?”
“Now you’re sitting with me,” I blurted out and cringed. “Sorry, I mean, do you want to sit together?”
Slowly, he nodded, and it was that simple. From then on, we ate lunch together and he rode his bike to Hersch’s apartment every day. At first, my grandpa wasn’t happy about it—Zariah! Cosa ci fa questo montagna coperto di brufoli in casa mia?!—but I bulldozed him into letting Denali come over.
And then, one day, everything changed.
I had this pair of new skates with stiff laces, they kept coming untied, and I was losing my patience with them.
Sitting on the bench, I couldn’t believe I had to tie them again. I hated taking off my gloves to do it, but Denali sank to his knees and carefully threaded the laces through.
My eyes widened and my belly swooped at the contact. “You—you don’t have to—”
“I don’t have gloves on,” he said simply. “It’s okay.”
When he was finished, he rose above me, and for the first time, I recognized how tall he was. I’d always known—he grabbed my gear above the lockers, of course I knew—but I’d never really thought about it until then.
I never thought about him like that. When we watched movies, I snuck looks, and figured out that I must’ve had blinders on since camp started. Behind Denali’s thick glasses were the prettiest pair of eyes I’d ever seen. How did I never notice them?
Maybe it was because I’d never been so close to a boy who wasn’t my brother before.
Not like that. Not like Denali.
Before the end of the week, I bought a tube of strawberry-raspberry lip gloss and applied it religiously. I ransacked my grandfather’s boxes until I found an old bottle of my grandmother’s perfume. Hersch confiscated it when I dumped half of it down my shirt.
I liked Denali.
I didn’t want him to see me as just another teammate—
I quickly jerked my head, like I could shake out the memories. Fuck flashbacks. Fuck flashbacks. I didn’t want to spend my time on unimportant shit like that. I took an unsteady breath in the room full of chatter.
I was too stiff, I had to force myself to relax. Whatever. The Densky’s logo needed to go and that was my biggest priority at the moment. I’d find dark paint and cover it up, that’d be easier.
I swung around and came to a sudden stop when I realized who stood behind me.
Denali.
It was an automatic reaction, one foot beside the other, moving to hide the Densky’s logo. Denali and Elijah were supposed to be busy until five. That was the whole reason I planned the event for tonight, I didn’t think they’d show up.
“Uh—we have pizza.” I gestured towards the boxes on the table, trying and failing to keep from sounding flustered. I caught sight of Elijah, already with a paint brush. “So…”
“You don’t have to hide anything,” Denali said. “I can see it, Zariah.”
A flush crept up my neck. “I—”
“Is the Densky’s rule because of me?”
“The—? No.” I grabbed a jar of bright green paint, pretending like I needed it for something. “It’s—it’s stupid. Everybody thinks it’s so funny putting a breakfast place on my walls—”
“I’m not fifteen anymore. I don’t care, I promise.”
“It’s not because of you,” I lied. “I didn’t even think you were coming.”
Denali’s eyes drifted to the Densky’s logo, and I resisted the urge to toss paint on it. He was quiet for long seconds. “Okay.”
There was so much packed into that one word, so many layers. Because there were only two rules at Grandpa Hersch’s apartment. No clocks—he was already dying, why bother with clocks?—and no Densky’s.
A rule created entirely because of Denali.
Two weeks after meeting Denali, I ran home after hockey camp, tears stinging my eyes.