27 Nicole #2
“He didn’t push them,” Brandon says.
“He didn’t—” Ian says, getting up, just as everyone else comes downstairs, Victor practically jumping the banister to get between them and Jon. Well, good, someone knows he’s bad news.
“What is going on?” Victor asks. “Who even is this guy?”
“He’s my—” Brandon starts.
He stops himself, but she can tell he was going to say boyfriend . After one hookup and some shopping today. “Oh Jesus,” Nicole murmurs.
“It’s fine,” Jon says, one hand open and up, the other holding his beer. “I just found Ian in our room and asked them what they were doing.”
“I just got turned around,” Ian says, standing.
“Okay,” Ollie says. “So it’s all fine! Let’s go back upstairs and keep playing. You missed the lesbian question, Nicole.”
“I really need more lesbian friends,” Nicole says, realizing it suddenly. Surely a bunch of women wouldn’t be this insane. Then she remembers Ellen’s apartment. No, they could be. With her luck, they would be.
“No, I want to know what this guy was doing to Ian,” Victor says.
“Victor, relax,” Tom says. “You just said—”
“I look out for my friends,” Victor shouts at him. “And that means protecting them from drug dealers and whatever”—he turns on Jon—“you are.”
“I’m not a drug dealer,” Tom protests, maybe with too much vigor.
“And I’m just a guy,” Jon says, backing away. “Relax, man.”
Nicole thinks about shouting, accusing, telling everyone he’s obvious trouble, but at this point, that would just further drive Brandon away. She stays silent.
“Victor—” Ian says, putting their hand on Victor’s shoulder.
“Watch yourself,” Victor says, reaching out and shoving Jon’s shoulder slightly, causing his beer to splash up all over his face.
“Fuck,” Jon says, pulling up his tee to wipe his face, showing off some skin. Brandon stares.
“What the hell, Victor?” Brandon asks, standing between him and Jon. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“He pushed Ian!” Victor shouts back. “I’m not letting this guy hurt anyone.”
Nicole rolls her eyes. Victor’s not wrong about Jon being trouble, but he’s acting like an overprotective boyfriend.
“He’s not going to hurt anyone,” Brandon yells back. “Just cool down!”
“‘Cool down’?” Victor asks, even louder. Nicole opens her mouth to stop this, but not fast enough. “Fuck you, ‘cool down’!”
Brandon throws his drink on Victor. Nicole stares, jaw dropped. She almost wants to laugh.
“Cool down,” Brandon repeats, quieter. Both he and Victor look shocked.
“Whoa,” Safiya says, speaking for all of them.
“Okay,” Ollie says, waving his arms from atop the landing. “Let’s all just relax.”
“I think it’s a little late for that,” Ian says. “What the fuck, Brandon?”
“He shoved Jon!” Brandon is shrieking now.
Nicole doesn’t understand how he doesn’t see what’s really happening. “Jon shoved Ian,” she tells him. “C’mon, Brandon—”
“No, I didn’t,” Jon protests, voice angry now. She turns to look at him, and he’s glaring.
“He—” Ian starts.
Ollie shouts something, but Nicole isn’t paying attention. Her eyes are locked on Jon, whose eyes are locked right back on her.
“What’s your problem with me, anyway?” he hisses.
“Oh, like you don’t know?” she asks. Around them, people are shouting.
“I don’t!” he says back. “I haven’t done anything.”
Nicole throws her head back in a cackle.
The audacity of this man. “Haven’t done anything?
” He’s the reason some poor guy got shot, the reason they’re all in danger, that she had to leave work, that she idiotically hooked up with her boss—none of it would have happened if not for him.
And he thinks he hasn’t done anything! He’s going on about Ian in the den.
She opens her mouth, ready to spit venom, but Brandon screams out first:
“Why don’t any of you give Jon a chance?
” He sounds so hurt, Nicole feels guilt crack in her chest like an egg.
He locks eyes first on Ian, then Nicole.
His eyes are watering, and she realizes for a moment how it must look to him, her coming down so hard on Jon, a guy he really likes.
She’s not being protective or even overprotective.
She’s being cruel. “I really like him, and you’re all here snooping”—he points at Ian—“or interrogating”—his hand flies over to Nicole—“or trying to be smart and find stuff out but just embarrassing yourself,” he says, hand finally landing on Ollie like he’s choosing them all out of a lineup as the criminals who attacked him.
“I’m just trying to solve the case!” Ollie whimpers.
“Case?” Tom asks, but everyone ignores him.
“He’s trouble, Brandon,” Nicole says, but it sounds weak, even to her. “Can’t you see that?” She’s not wrong. But she knows this has been the wrong way to tell him.
“Oh, like you would know, with your nose in your phone all night. Texting your boss?”
Nicole flinches at that—she was blaming her bad choice on Jon in her mind a second ago, but she knows it’s all her. She looks away.
“Yeah, you want to talk about bad romantic decisions, how about that one? Or you, bringing the guy you say is ‘too nice’ but is clearly a drug dealer and the ex you were hate stalking until today to the same party?”
“Fuck you,” Ian says, but their voice is soft, fuzzy.
“It’s like the moment I find something that makes me happy, and not just the butt of all your jokes, you need to do everything you can to take it away from me,” Brandon screams at the room. Tears are running down his face.
“Hey,” Jon says, taking Brandon’s arm. “Hey, it’s okay.
” She sees it then, the charm, how safe Brandon must have felt with him, how special.
She hasn’t been making any of her friends feel that way recently.
She was thinking of them the way Ellen did—as silly.
Kids she has to clean up after, not the friends she should be working with.
“He’s dangerous,” she says, pointing at Jon, pleading with Brandon. “Look what he did to Ian!” She’s bad at this. She’s been too aloof for too long. But she needs him to listen.
Brandon looks at her a moment, and she thinks maybe he’ll finally believe her, finally see what she wants to show—that she cares about him, that she worries, that she just wants him safe. But he sneers.
“Let’s clean you up,” Brandon says, getting between Jon and Victor. “I think we’re done for the night.” He pulls Jon back into the den and slams the door.
Nicole sighs. That all could have gone a lot better.
Ollie laughs loudly. “Well, that was dramatic.”
“Are you okay?” Tom and Victor ask Ian, voices overlapping. Oh Jesus, now this?
“I’m really fine,” Ian says. “Victor, you shouldn’t have pushed him. I just tripped. It was all just…a misunderstanding.”
“Was it?” Nicole asks. “Or were you snooping?” She wouldn’t judge them if they were. She hopes they have information.
“Like you wouldn’t?” Ian asks. “We’re all doing it. Brandon was right.”
No, no, no. She might regret how they’re treating Brandon, but that doesn’t mean they can trust Jon. “Because he’s bad news! Are we all forgetting what Ollie and Brandon saw?”
“This is why I was trying to be subtle,” Ollie says.
Nicole throws her head back and cackles. “You think that was subtle? Jesus, Ollie, you were as subtle as a car crash.”
There’s a beat in her mind before she realizes what she’s said. A moment where it just seems like any old comeback, something she’d say at brunch, before she remembers and it pours down on her like a pipe just broke over her. She’s such a bitch. She’s a bad friend. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” Ollie says. She can tell from his expression that it isn’t.
She keeps staring at Ollie, who won’t meet her eyes, as Ian and Victor walk off.
“Don’t worry,” Safiya says to Tom. “I think they just need to talk.”
Nicole tries to catch Ollie’s eye with an expression hopefully conveying exactly how ridiculous that sounds. A little inside joke to show how sorry she is. But he only frowns.
“Why don’t we set up Pictionary?” Ollie says. “We can go back upstairs…”
“You think Brandon and Jon aren’t coming back out?” Safiya asks.
“Maybe after they’ve fucked,” Nicole says, taking a swig of beer, now an instinct.
It’s disgusting. She puts it in the sink.
“Maybe everyone will come back to the game room, all tension just screwed out of them.” She knows she’s being mean, crude.
She’s just so angry. Why can’t Brandon just listen to her?
“Sorry,” she says. “No, you’re right. Let’s go set up for Pictionary.
Or celebrity. But Pictionary we can do with only four people. Girls versus boys.”
She tries to look cheerful as they head upstairs, but she knows everything is bad now.
She takes out her phone.
NICOLE
Dude is no good
ELLEN
You find something out?
NICOLE
Just looked in his eyes. He just pushed a friend. I feel like we should call the cops or something.
ELLEN
No don’t do that.
He could get violent.
Nicole frowns, feeling like that’s even more of a reason.
She puts her phone away and sets up the little white marker board upstairs, which has been fussy since Ian knocked it over three parties ago and now needs some finessing.
Setting it up feels like penance, and she keeps glancing over at Ollie, who is shuffling cards.
“Where’s Pete?” Safiya asks.
“Probably still downstairs. I’ll go get him,” Ollie says quickly, clearly eager to get away from Nicole.
Nicole sits down, her phone buzzing.
ELLEN
Maybe you can convince him to leave
Let me know if you do
“Who’s that?” Safiya asks.
“Just work,” Nicole says.
NICOLE
Ok I can try
“You’re smiling too much for it to be work.”
“I’m not smiling,” Nicole says, glancing up.
“Well, you’re frowning less,” Safiya says.
Nicole snorts.
“Are most game nights like this?” Tom asks.
No. Normally they’re fun and warm and feel like everyone together in the dorm again. But tonight feels cold and shattered. Ice on the floor. But Tom doesn’t need to know that. So Nicole shrugs. “Depends how much people are drinking.”
“I probably should have made sure Ollie told everyone about the cheese,” Safiya says.
“What about the cheese?” Nicole asks.
They explain, Nicole very happy she was focusing on the Gruyère because it was closest to her, and then Ollie comes back, and they split into teams, and Ian comes back in, looking sad.
So much for a reunion there. She tries to look sympathetic.
But Tom seems nice, and Victor and Ian clearly have too much stuff. Ian just needs a clean slate. No mess.
She should text Sam. Thank her for the advice earlier.
She shakes the idea out of her head and tries to turn toward the Pictionary board, but Safiya isn’t even done drawing her first clue when there’s the sound of a slamming door downstairs.
They all go to check, but Nicole knows what to expect—she feels a swell of guilty relief like a balloon inside her, seeing Brandon in a towel, wet.
“He left.”
He’s crying, like real ugly crying, and it hurts Nicole like an ache, but she’s also so glad Jon is gone.
NICOLE
He just left.
Maybe all this can finally be over.