12. Nick
12
NICK
B efore I open the door of the ensuite bathroom, I take a deep, centering breath and work to convince myself not to do this. I shouldn’t do this. But I can hear her moving around on the other side of the door, snooping. She went silent as she crossed the threshold into my room, because it doesn’t look like my room. There aren’t any old NHL players or pop rock band posters plastered on the wood-paneled walls. No awards, trophies, artwork, pictures from my youth. Just a large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall across from a double bed covered in a crisp navy blue comforter. There’s no personality left at all.
Mom kept all our rooms as we left them, I think in the hopes that we’d be more likely to come back, but home isn’t really a place; it’s a feeling. I took home with me when I left.
On the other side of the door a drawer opens and shuts quietly, too slowly not to be intentional. I shouldn’t do this, but I’m gonna.
Tightening the towel around my hips, I step into my bedroom. Jasmine spins from where she was bent over my old desk. When she sees me, she plasters herself against the wall, her clothes folded neatly in her arms and pressed against her chest. Her green eyes make holy shit holes in her head.
“You…that…” She blushes, clutching her clothes tighter. “Your body ,” she whisper-hisses, not quite meeting my gaze.
I tell myself that I’m doing this to make her hate me. As if the more I tease her, the easier it will be to have a clean break when I tell her the truth. But honestly, I just love making her flustered. I revel in how easy it is to make her blush and how prim and proper she tries to be. Key word, tries.
I press my hand to my bare chest. “Dear god, not my body again.”
She slinks along the wall, keeping a wide berth, then slips into the bathroom and shuts the door harder than necessary.
“It’s my bedroom, Jazz,” I call.
She doesn’t respond, and then the shower comes on.
To my reflection in the mirror above my dresser, I say, “Are you proud of yourself?”
I don’t dignify myself with a response. Instead, I flop on the bed to get my heart under control. Each new wave of attraction to her is a surprise, though it shouldn’t be. It’s as if the more I tell myself I can’t have her, the more I recount the reasons I shouldn’t be doing this at all—that I am, actually, a huge fucking asshole—the more my body is tuned to her. The Binder, the blush on her cheeks when I frustrate her or when she’s scandalized, the way she bravely faced my family, how the sun catches the blazing red and fiery gold in her hair.
I end up air-drying on the edge of my bed thinking about ways I can make her pinch her lips in frustration. When the shower shuts off, I bolt up and hop around the room, pulling on clothes so when she comes out, she isn’t confronted with my body once again.
I get my shirt on before she opens the door, but just barely. She walks out looking so hot I might have a stroke and die right here on my childhood bedroom floor. Brow furrowed in apprehension, she smooths her hands down the front of her high-waisted skirt and loose knit sweater. The lingering humidity from our showers curls the hair around her temples and at the back of her neck. Her makeup is sparse. If I smoothed my thumb over her lips, I doubt a trace of pigment would rub off.
“You’re wearing that?” she asks.
I pluck at my favorite Tragically Hip T-shirt, the one I’ve owned since the first time I saw them live when I was twelve. “You’re nailing this girlfriend thing.”
“Sorry.” She worries her bottom lip. “I just mean…am I overdressed?”
“You look perfect,” I say, but my voice cracks. Great; loving my reversion to preteen. Anticipate wet dreams next. “It’s just family dinner,” I assure her. “Tomorrow night is the official anniversary party.”
She nods and sits beside me on the bed, leaving a hand’s width of space between us. A completely normal amount of space. Except that it feels too close and too fucking far at the same time. A pop comes from downstairs, probably Alex opening a bottle of champagne that, while expensive, isn’t necessarily good.
“When are you going to talk to your dad?”
Embracing the opportunity to put distance between us, I hop up and grab the business proposal I put together for him. I splurged and had it printed and bound at an office supply store. Keeping it hidden behind my back, I turn to her.
“Don’t get too excited, but…” I pull it out and present it to her like I’m a game show hostess. “I’m going to talk to him tomorrow. Probably. I’m gonna give him this.”
“Can I see it?” Without waiting for my answer, she snatches the bound package with both hands.
“No.” I give an experimental pull.
“Why not?” She yanks back.
“Because I said so?” I am not about to let the perfectionist browse my business proposal so she can point out everything that’s wrong with it when there’s no way I can make changes before I talk to my dad.
“I just want to see,” she hisses.
She’s always hissing at me. Why don’t I hate it more? I hate that I don’t hate it more, the way her lip curls and her eyes squint.
“Why do you care so much?”
She huffs and lets go, the move causing me to stumble back into the desk.
“I’m not going to point out all your spelling mistakes or anything.” She pats at her hair, takes a few deep breaths, like she’s putting herself back together, making sure she’s public-facing Jasmine once again. Sometimes she’s so well put together it’s almost impossible to find a thread I can pull to unravel her.
“Thanks for assuming there’ll be spelling mistakes.”
She winces at my shitty response.
Dammit. Before her wince can turn into hurt, I sit beside her again and place the proposal on her lap. “Sorry.” I let my shoulders deflate. “I’m a little stressed out. Still. And I’m taking it out on you. Still.”
With a sigh, she draws her fingers along the edges of the bound pages, like she’s making sure each piece of paper is still in place. “I don’t need to read it.” She returns it to my lap and I’m imagining things, but it feels like her touch lingers a breath longer than necessary. “Why don’t you go find your dad now? Get it out of the way?”
“He’s probably in the workshop.” He holes up in there when the house gets full.
“You have a workshop?”
“It’s attached to the indoor pool.”
Her body goes rigid beside me. “You have an indoor pool?” she asks, her voice hitting a totally new octave. “Next to a lake?”
I bite back a laugh at her shock. “Why do you think I told you to pack a bathing suit?”
Head lowered, she peers up at me through thick lashes. “I thought you were going to make me do a polar bear swim.”
“And you were going to do it?” I ask, my voice now battling hers for octave supremacy.
She shrugs. “I kind of enjoy them.”
“We’re going to put a pin in that, weirdo.” Mostly because the image of Jasmine pulling herself out of the freezing cold lake, in a bathing suit, her skin pink, her nipples undoubtedly hard, makes me light-headed and I don’t trust her not to panic in an emergency situation.
Laughing, she slaps her hands to my chest and gives me a good shove. “We’re putting a pin in nothing. You grew up with an indoor pool?” she asks, her eyes wide.
I grimace because yes, I am aware of how that looks. “Yes, but it wasn’t installed until I was in high school.”
That only makes her laugh harder. “Yeah, completely normal. I had one, too. I shared it with everyone else in my apartment building. There were always used Band-Aids at the bottom and the change rooms smelled like dirty diapers.”
I find myself chuckling along with her, not only because she’s funny, but because her laughter is contagious. And that’s how Mom and Miranda find us when they open my bedroom door.
“Knock, knock,” Mom announces herself in lieu of actually knocking.
With a gasp, Jasmine jumps away from me like we’re sixteen and just got caught with my hand down her pants. “Hi, Mrs. Scott.”
Mom offers her arm, and after a moment of hesitation and a peek back at me, Jasmine takes it. Mom leads her away, chatting about god knows what while Miranda hands me a flute of champagne, and we follow them downstairs. These stairs creak like the ones behind the bar at home and as we descend into the circus that is my family, it hits me. The chaos sounds a bit like the bar, too, on a Saturday night when we’re not at capacity yet and the air is already buzzing with excitement.
Mom points out her interior designer’s most recent changes. She might be under the impression that Jasmine gives a shit about that kind of stuff because of where she works, but I don’t think she does.
“Mom’s planning your wedding,” Miranda says.
I shush her, which makes her violent. She punches my shoulder. Ow.
“Look at you,” she teases. Her cheeks are already red and blotchy. After having kids, Miranda could no longer drink a hockey bro under the table, and that hasn’t changed in the months since I saw her last, but clearly that doesn’t stop her. “You’re half in love with her already.”
My throat closes at the accusation, enough that I wouldn’t mind an EpiPen. “Am not.”
“Are too.”
“ Shut. Up. Miranda .” Great. Now I’m hissing.
She frowns in that suspicious way big sisters have, like she can smell the bullshit. “Relax, serial killer.”
“We haven’t said stuff like that yet,” I say quickly. “Lay off.” With a huff, I take a sip of champagne to keep my mouth busy. A trickle of cold sweat rolls down my back.
Once, without proof of any kind other than a I could tell by the look on your face, Nicky , Miranda clocked that I’d failed a math test and forged Mom’s signature. I’d even fooled my teachers. Of all the people capable of detecting our lie, or my lies upon lies, I expected Miranda to. Maybe the lack of sleep she’s suffered from since becoming a mother is getting to her. Or maybe I’m a better liar that I used to be.
“But you are, aren’t you?” She winks. “Don’t worry, little brother. I won’t tell.”
I don’t want to be a better liar, though. I want to be able to come home and feel like I can be myself without judgment.
“She’s not your usual type.” Miranda narrows her eyes on Jasmine, who’s trying to speak to Grandma and getting scowled at for her efforts. “Seems a little…cold. Impersonal.”
Hackles instantly rising, I shoot a glare at my sister. Excellent. The criticism portion of the evening has started, and earlier than usual. “Not at all. She’s actually…really fucking kind. And she’s always worrying about other people. She basically adopted her little sister. And she brought Mom two hostess gifts.”
Miranda hums, like this evidence is circumstantial at best.
“Cut her some slack,” I plead. “She comes from a small family. She’s not used to all this. It’s like being the newest member of the Kardashians, without the cameras.”
“Thank god,” Miranda mutters, dribbling champagne from her glass as she wanders off, finished with her interrogation of me.
“Ready?” Jasmine asks, appearing beside me. Somehow, she’s in stealth mode despite wearing a pair of heels that could pass as the weapon she’ll use to happily murder me once I come clean. She leans against the back of the sectional couch, surveying my family like they’re chess pieces as they begin to take their seats at a dining table so long, my mom must have stolen it from the set of the villain’s hideout from the most recent superhero movie.
I tip my glass toward her empty hands. “Liquid courage?”
She shakes her head, her attention never leaving the rest of the Scotts. “Need to stay focused,” she says with absolute, endearing seriousness.
One second. I give myself one second to laugh, internally, at this earnest, beautiful, strange woman who asked a complete stranger to fake it with her on a whim. She deserves better than me.
My second is up. “Smart.” I set down my glass. “Let’s do this.”
My mother calls Jasmine’s name and she brightens, like how I imagine she did when her teachers called on her to answer a question in class. She’s got teacher’s pet written all over her.
Mom pats the chair beside her, near the head of the table. The seat usually reserved for Alex.
Alex’s eyes widen as we pass him, his brows shooting into his hairline.
“Are we both sitting up here?” I ask, pulling out Jasmine’s chair for her to sit.
My mom sits primly, her chin lifted. My dad, surprisingly, looks impressed. I don’t look at Jasmine because I can feel her staring at the side of my face.
“Or am I at the kids’ table again?”
“You know we don’t have a kids’ table, Nicholas,” Dad says dryly.
“Thanks,” Jasmine murmurs as I take the seat next to her, the one Robert usually sits in. I bump my shoulder to hers in acknowledgment, though I’d prefer to have a word with all the guys who never held her seat for her, instead.
My parents hired caterers for dinner tonight and the party tomorrow. Mom stopped trying to cook for all of us once two of my siblings started producing offspring and four siblings had long-term partners. It’s expensive, but she’s a lot less stressed at Christmas now. She and my dad were the ones who decided to have all these kids anyway.
The volume rises and falls between courses, first a coconut-cream soup, then a salad with goat cheese and cranberries. My siblings get up throughout the night, chasing after errant children, changing diapers or supervising a bathroom break, and putting the littlest ones to bed.
While we wait for the entrées, Tilly wiggles her way between my chair and Jasmine’s, icing Jasmine out like the nose-picking Mean Girl she is.
“Dis yours?” she asks, holding a phone up to my face. The screen’s background is a photo of Jasmine and Jade sitting on a towel on a Toronto beach on a sunny day. Jasmine wears a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and a flowy beach cover-up over a green one-piece with a swooping neckline, while Jade is hatless, in a neon pink two-piece, and likely no sun protection if the burn developing on her cheeks and nose is any indication. Her hair is longer than when I met her and a vibrant, Smurf blue.
“It’s Auntie Jasmine’s, honeybuns,” Robert prompts, smiling apologetically at my fake girlfriend.
“Oh. It’s fine. I mean, I’m not…she doesn’t…”
I take the phone from Tills and pass it to Jasmine just to end this spluttering.
“It rang several times while Tilly was helping me put the baby down. We thought you may want to check.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says quickly, her spine snapping straight and her cheeks flushing. “I hope it wasn’t keeping him awake.”
“It’s fine.” Robert rests a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It just seemed like someone really wanted to get in touch with you.”
If possible, she tenses further. “It might be Jade.” But she doesn’t stand or even look at her phone because god forbid she be impolite even while she’s probably imagining worst-case scenarios.
“It’s fine,” I assure her, covering her hand with my own. To play the part, because that’s what good boyfriends do. And for no other reason. “Go take the call.”
With a tight smile, she excuses herself and hurries to the stairs, her phone clutched tightly in her hand.