Chapter 17 Then Fourteen Years Ago
Then
Fourteen Years Ago
The third week in August was the rainiest any of us could remember.
I was working the closing shift—my fourth painfully slow one in a row—with Sebastian, Tina and Ravi.
We were bored out of our minds, killing time in the dining room while Tina regaled us with gossip, the sound of incessant rain hitting the roof in the background.
“So they’re still kissing when she feels something wet on her foot,” Tina said, eyes gleaming. She was sitting on one of the four-tops at this point, legs crossed, not even pretending to work. Next to her, Ravi was sanitizing menus, looking bored. (I knew better: Ravi loved our small-town gossip.)
“Do I even want to know where this story is going?” I asked, laying my head on the table where Sebastian and I were rolling silverware. He met my eyes, amused.
Tina waved me off. “Just wait. So she pushes him away and looks down. Turns out it was the cockapoo! Little bugger peed all over her to mark its territory.”
“That is maybe the worst first-kiss story I’ve ever heard,” Sebastian groaned.
“I told you! My first kiss, on the other hand—now that was perfect,” Tina said, kicking her feet, a wistful expression on her pretty face. “Eighth grade. Bobby Garcia. On the Ferris wheel. I had the biggest crush on him. I swear we would have gotten married if he hadn’t moved to Bergen County.”
“That sounds romantic,” I said, earnestly.
“Mine was lame,” Ravi chimed in. “I kissed Izzy Lane at homecoming freshman year. She said ‘thanks,’ then told me she just wanted to be friends because she really needed to focus on soccer.”
We all burst out laughing, Ravi included.
“What about you, Nikolaou?” Tina asked, eyebrows dancing.
I stiffened but didn’t look up, pretending to be intensely focused on my millionth napkin roll. In my periphery, Sebastian fidgeted with a packet of Sweet’N Low.
“He probably can’t remember,” said Ravi, his tone the vocal equivalent of an eye roll. “Too much action to keep track of.”
I looked up as Sebastian whipped the napkin he was holding at Ravi, who held his hands up in surrender.
“I remember, obviously.” Sebastian glanced at me, then turned to Tina: “Julia Simmons.”
I knew of Julia Simmons. Everyone did. She was Tina’s age, a year older than Sebastian.
National Honor Society president. Field hockey captain.
Just as much a shoo-in for “most likely to succeed” as she was for “best smile.” Headed to Princeton in the fall.
The kind of girl you couldn’t even hate for being so perfect because she was actually a nice person.
In other words: exactly the kind of girl I’d expect Sebastian Nikolaou to be kissing.
Tina motioned with her hands for him to go on.
“There’s no story, really,” Sebastian continued with a shrug. “A bunch of us were at this beach bonfire. She lives a block from me so we walked home together. It was cold. I gave her my sweatshirt. When she handed it back to me she kissed me.”
Ravi whistled, impressed. Tina cooed. I gripped the fork I was holding so tightly that I nearly impaled myself with the tines.
“Then what?” Tina was leaning forward, elbows propped on her knees. “Did you guys hang out again after that?”
“Sure,” he said casually, fiddling with the hot sauce now. “We hung out a few times at her place. Nothing serious.”
“Mmm. I bet.” Tina grinned mischievously.
My stomach flipped. I could certainly imagine the sort of unserious things Sebastian and Julia Simmons were doing at her house.
“Your turn, Mariano.” Ravi said.
The dining room’s soft lighting suddenly felt as harsh as a spotlight.
“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Mine isn’t really a good story, either.”
Silence. I busied myself reaching for more silverware and realized—too late—that we’d run out of napkins. Crap.
When I looked up, I found three pairs of eyes blinking back at me. Clearly that response wasn’t going to cut it.
“It was with a kid from St. Christopher’s,” I offered, thinking of Josh and his Tic Tac breath.
“I love a man in uniform,” Tina said wistfully. “Details!”
“It was at a party.” And then, because I apparently have the moral code of Abraham Lincoln, I clarified: “During a game.”
“That’s cute,” Ravi said, at the very same time Tina said, “Spin the bottle doesn’t count.”
She nudged me playfully. “Tell us about your actual first kiss.”
I shot her a pleading look, and I could tell by the way her eyes widened that she clocked her mistake—and immediately felt awful about it. Everyone went quiet.
“Enough story time for tonight,” Sebastian said, chair screeching as he stood. “Let’s divide and conquer so we can all get out of here.”
“I’ll close down the snack bar,” I said, pushing through the swinging door before anyone could argue.
Alone in the snack bar, I worked my way through the closing checklist, sanitizing the counters and breaking down cardboard boxes and restocking the condiment station.
All the while Tina’s words rattled around in my head: Spin the bottle doesn’t count.
They were the exact words Maren had said to me, and while I knew that neither she nor Tina had meant to be unkind, the sentiment stung.
I was beginning to sense that there was a divide between girls like me and girls like Tina—and, now, Maren.
Girls who didn’t just talk about boys but who actually had “real” experiences with them.
Girls who didn’t spend all their free time daydreaming about silly crushes.
“Need a hand?”
I jumped, activating the soda fountain nozzle I’d been cleaning and earning a spray of seltzer to the face. I looked up to find Sebastian in the doorway, one hand in his pocket, the other tugging at his mess of hair.
He grabbed a clean towel and handed it to me.
As I dried my face, I considered the likely possibility that he was only here because they’d all been whispering about me, and he’d been the one to feel bad enough to come check in.
But then I searched his face for any trace of pity. I couldn’t find one.
“I’m almost finished with this, if you want to close out.” I nodded toward the cash register.
He obeyed. I turned back to the soda machine and took my frustration out on a particularly stubborn ring of congealed Mountain Dew while Sebastian counted the cash in the drawer.
After a few minutes, he broke the silence. “They were just messing around, you know.” He sounded tentative. “You shouldn’t feel, like, embarrassed or anything.”
I felt my cheeks get hot. As if I didn’t feel childish enough right now. The last thing I wanted was to be told how I should or shouldn’t feel.
“Shouldn’t you be concentrating?” I said instead, and I took his silence as a concession.
Just as I was drying the clean drip tray, I heard the cash register click closed. I tossed the rag I’d been using in the sink.
And then I was in the air.
“Put me down!”
“Only if you promise to stop sulking,” said Sebastian, who had swept me off my feet and over his shoulder in one effortless motion. “What did Big Soda ever do to you?”
I kicked my feet a few times to no avail.
“I’m not in the mood, Sebastian,” I whined to the grimy tile floors. I realized, with a huff, that they still needed to be cleaned. I was never getting out of this place.
I felt the rise and fall of his shoulders as he sighed.
Then, gently, he deposited me into a sitting position on the counter.
We were eye level for once, his torso pressed against my knees, hands lingering on my hips.
I assumed he was just making sure I was steady, but he didn’t pull away.
At some point during the acrobatics my shirt had ridden up a little, which meant Sebastian’s right thumb was now grazing the bare skin just above my right hip bone.
I frowned at him, but he just kept on looking at me in that playful, unserious way he always did when he was messing around at work, trying to make me smile no matter how tedious the task or aggravating the customers.
To Sebastian, I knew, this was just another silly game between coworkers—ha-ha-ha.
Only I wasn’t laughing anymore.
He leaned a little closer, one corner of his mouth curled up in a half smile, and said, “Enough scowling.”
“I’m not—”
But before I could finish the sentence, his free hand—the one that wasn’t bracing my hip—swept up to brush his thumb over my lower lip.
“Scowling,” I said softly. His touch felt like an electric current against my trembling lips.
Sebastian’s smile faltered, green eyes flashing as they scanned my face. Then, before I could process what was happening, Sebastian shifted his hand to my jaw, tugged me closer and kissed me.
“There,” he said softly, his mouth hovering an inch from mine. “That definitely counts.”