9. Nolan
Hadley
The energy in the stadium is something I’ve not experienced anywhere else, so intense, it feels as though I’ve had a shot of alcohol or straight adrenaline.
It’s not as gratifying as the daring ideas that sometimes flit through my head like riding a motorcycle or taking a trip across the globe by myself, but it siphons off some of the energy that’s been thrumming through me all week, just the same.
“Do you think we should go out? We should, right?” Hannah asks from her seat beside me.
Camden’s offense is lining up, making it tricky for me to tear my attention away as I try to figure out who is who. “I thought that was our reason for coming out tonight?”
“Ethan doesn’t even know I exist. God, what do you think Nolan told him? I should never have told him.” She covers her face with both hands, clearly spiraling.
“Yes, you should’ve. You were brave and completely badass. Do you see Ethan? How do you know him?”
Hannah sighs deeply, before pulling her hands down her face. “He’s in one of my programming classes.”
“A nerdy meathead. Interesting.”
Hannah scoffs. “He’s a gamer. He doesn’t know much about programming from what I can tell.”
I nudge her with my shoulder. “Maybe he could use a tutor.”
She grins.
“Which one is he?” I study the guys on the bench and the field.
Hannah points. “Number thirteen.”
It’s too far for me to see much more than the fact he has sandy-colored hair from where he sits near the end of the bench.
“I hardly know him,” she admits. “I’m hoping he’s not one-dimensional.”
“That would be awkward in bed.”
She cackles, her cheeks turning pink as she shakes her head. “What do you think of Nolan? Could he and Katie be more opposite?”
“I almost want to ask if they were raised in the same household,” I admit.
Hannah giggles. She has a great gasping laugh. “ Same . He seems so laidback.”
“I wish I could be like that,” I admit. “Sometimes I worry that society is making all women into anxious, over-achieving, perfectionists. It’s no longer that we have to maintain the perfect house, or perfect kids, or even the perfect job—now we have to have the perfect figure, the perfect hair, and the latest trend in everything , in addition, be well-read, well-versed, well-traveled, an animal in the bedroom, and completely demure and professional in every other setting. ”
Hannah’s shoulders sink, as though my words have set a heavy weight on her. “God, I hope Ethan isn’t a chauvinistic pig who expects me to change my eyebrows for every trend.”
“My fingers are crossed for you.”
“I mean, it’s not going to be serious so it shouldn’t matter. This is just fun.”
My attention slips from the field to Hannah. “Why are you already expecting things to fail? Maybe you’ll like him. Maybe he’s amazing and supportive and hilarious and a closet hacker.”
She clasps a hand across my chest. “Be still my heart.” She tinkers out a laugh, so different from when she giggles. “It’s just fun because I’m not getting married until I’m at least thirty.”
“Thirty?”
“I haven’t told you my plan?”
I shake my head, realizing again how often my roommates and I have narrowed the scope of our conversations to academia.
“The prefrontal cortex part of our brains isn’t fully developed until we’re twenty-five, so all we care about is instant gratification and anything that makes us feel good. We basically have little control over our impulses and are addicted to bad decisions and are easily influenced.”
I felt a heavy dose of a reprieve this morning when learning Hannah wasn’t vying for Nolan’s attention as I’d believed, but this explanation of the human brain serves a double dose of dopamine through me, explaining my ridiculous and unattainable crush on Nolan. “And that changes at twenty-five?”
She nods.
I think of my long list of impulsive temptations. “Are they replaced with something else? Like are we too busy thinking about laundry, board meetings, and grocery shopping or how does that work?”
“What?” Hannah’s studying the field or maybe the bench again.
“What happens to our impulsive thoughts?”
“What do you mean what happens to them?”
“What do we feel after twenty-five?”
“Common sense, I guess,” she says, shrugging. “That’s why people over the age of twenty-five pay less for car insurance, they don’t drive as recklessly.”
“Does that mean I won’t be afraid of public speaking after I’m twenty-five?”
“What?”
“I hate public speaking. Will that stop when I turn twenty-five? Will the pre-frontal whatever bury that fear?”
“Cortex.”
“Right. So will it?”
Hannah rolls her eyes, but it’s half-hearted.
“Maybe? I don’t know. I mean, technically, you’ll care less about what people think and won’t be as influenced by others, but you have a fear of public speaking, not an impulse.
I’m delaying marriage until I’m thirty because I want to travel and establish my career and know what I like and want before settling down with one person. ”
I stare at Hannah for a moment as though seeing her for the first time. “So do you want to date Ethan or just sleep with him?”
“Date him. Just because I don’t want to get married until I’m thirty doesn’t mean I want to casually hook up with every willing participant.”
“I didn’t mean you do.” I kind of did. My perception took a one-eighty, and now I’m back to being semi-unaware of everything about my roommate.
She must recognize my indecision because she sits forward in her seat, so we’re at eye level.
“I like Ethan, and if he’s a nice guy, I’d like to date him, but I don’t want to be one of these girls who plan to get married after graduating.
Not that I’m trying to bash girls that do, it’s just that’s not my goal.
I want to go to Scotland for a year, and then Belgium, and Tokyo.
I want to start my own company and own a house before I get married. ”
“But what if he’s perfect?”
“Ethan?”
“Or a guy you meet tomorrow or next month or next year or when you’re twenty-five.”
She shakes her head. “You know me. I’m goal motivated.”
I want to mention that I am, too, but it doesn’t make me hate public speaking any less.
“Do you know what’s going on right now?” Hannah inclines her head toward the field where the formation has broken, and the guys are beginning to scatter.
My gaze shifts over each of the players like a pinball, searching for the player with the tape that runs along the back of his arm from bicep to wrist that makes it easier to pick Nolan out.
I spot him at the same moment the ball is passed to him.
He catches it easily, turning with a fluidity and grace that would make even a ballet dancer envious, and then he runs.
It’s a jog that makes my heart thrum, realizing he’s going to be caught in a matter of seconds—he has too far to go and four guys from the defense have pegged their sights on him and are about to converge and trap him like a scene off Animal Planet.
“He has to get across the field?” Hannah asks, her disbelief audible.
The first defender to reach Nolan leaps.
I cringe, waiting for the collision, but Nolan shifts and darts out of the way.
He runs faster, in the direction of another defender which has me certain he’s color-blind or oblivious.
That defender runs in a dead sprint, straight for Nolan, and at what feels like the last possible second, Nolan stutter steps, slowing himself as the defender throws himself at Nolan with a missed tackle.
Nolan leaps over him, sprinting now down the field, straight into the endzone.
The crowd loses it, and as Nolan throws both hands in the air, they get even louder.
“How did we not know he was Katie’s brother?” I ask.
Hannah looks at me with a tight-lipped smile. “I think we have to ask her, but my guess is people act differently when they find out your brother’s one of the most sought-after athletes in the country.”
My attention is glued to Nolan as he tears off his helmet and makes another celebratory move that the crowd is starved for. They love the points and the potential win, but they are enamored with him.
“How are we going to find out where they’re going tonight?” Hannah asks.
“Nolan gave me his number and said to text him when the game was over,” I don’t mention that he’d scrawled it on “The Shining” poster he’d taped to my back window this morning. I was grateful no one heard me scream.
Two more posters were waiting for me, one in the hall closet where we keep spare toiletries and cleaning supplies, and another outside my bedroom window. I’m not even sure how he put it there. I didn’t know we owned a ladder.
My trip wire in the fridge was an amateur move if each of his pranks is this thorough.
We watch the rest of the game, catching up during timeouts and breaks on how we each spent our summer.
Hannah is from Connecticut and spent the past three months at home—summer is the only time she can stand Connecticut, claiming it’s too cold.
She’s an only child and spent most of the summer gaming and working on hacking projects.
I tell her about Lanie being pregnant and my dad adding the additional space in the office as a nursery that Mom and I decorated with elephant-themed everything.
Each time Camden’s offense has possession, our conversation wanes and we focus on the game.
Ethan doesn’t get any minutes, but Hannah doesn’t care.
She still squeals a little when he stands from the bench and pats another player on the shoulder.
I Google him to get a better look. He has reddish brown hair, hazel eyes, and a friendly smile.
“He’s cute right?” Hannah asks looking over my shoulder.
I nod.
“God, I hope he’s not a dick.”
As the minutes tick down, the crowd is split into two groups: those who race out of the stadium, likely to beat traffic or get to a party knowing the twenty-point lead won’t slip, and those who linger, wanting to soak in every second of the win.
We’re part of the latter group, unsure where we’re going.
“Did you text him?” Hannah asks.
“Do you think I should wait? Don’t they have press after games?”
She shakes her head. “This was the first football game I’ve ever watched. I have no idea”
I pull out my phone and scroll down to Nolan’s name, trying to ignore and rationalize how nervous and giddy I feel about texting him.
Me: Where should we meet you?
Minutes pass. The crowd begins to dwindle. Hannah scrolls through social media, and checks in with Katie, then messages another friend before she looks at me with impatient eyes. “Anything?”
I’m about to shake my head when my phone vibrates.
Nolan: At the house.
Me: What house?
Nolan: Our house. It’s a small group.
“What did he say?” Hannah asks.
“That he’s inviting them over to the house.”
“ Our house? ” She sounds as alarmed as she looks.
“This is a terrible idea,” I say in agreement.
“Or … it could be okay.”
I shake my head, knowing it’s not. “That’s your unformed cortex speaking.”
Hannah smirks. “Maybe or maybe this will be fun. Think about it, Hadley. We spent all of last year studying and working our asses off. We deserve to have fun. Besides, we only get to be young and stupid once. We might as well make it count.”
Me: We’ll meet you there.