“I guess it’s not for everyone.” Brooklyn shrugged, rolling over onto his stomach and hanging his long arms off of the foot of the bed. I flopped back down beside him, absentmindedly tracing theN-I-K-Eletters on the back of his T-shirt.
He tilted his head to look up at me and squinted like he was staring up at the sun. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I smiled down at him.
He lifted his torso off of the bed to bring his lips to mine, and it felt like as soon as we touched, we were interrupted by a gentle knock at the door. Brooklyn’s mother poked her head in.
“Brooklyn, can I borrow you for a minute?” Her voice was calm but the pinched smile she gave us didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t start without me,” he mumbled into my neck before bouncing off the bed and shutting his bedroom door behind him.
I loaded upWish Upon a Star(my pick for the night), then went back to the bed, lying on my back and counting the dark little rivets in the wood-paneled ceiling. I got to fifty before I realized at least ten minutes had passed. I pulled out my phone to text him.
NAT:everything okay?
I dropped my phone onto the bed and rolled back onto my stomach, watching the little blue DVD icon bounce around the idle TV screen. I picked at a hangnail on my thumb until it stung. Another ten minutes. I checked my phone again, and he hadn’t answered.
“What the hell,” I muttered to myself. I found myself padding across the carpeted floor of Brooklyn’s room and easing the door open to stick my head out.
The hallway was dark and there was a stale silence, as if nobody else was in the house. After a moment more of silence, I swallowed hard and went back to the bed.
>> <<
“You all right?”
I awoke with a jolt to the sound of Brooklyn’s voice. He sat up on the bed beside me, the light of blues from the title screen ofWish Upon a Stardancing across his face. Outside, the sun had completely set and a foggy night had taken over, the moon barely visible.
“What happened?” I asked, rubbing the side of my face to get some feeling back into me.
“You fell asleep,” he replied.
I sat up too fast and all the blood rushed to my head. “No, I mean you. You were gone for like forty-five minutes.”
“Oh.” He frowned. “Nothing happened. It’s fine. We were talking, that’s all.”
“You can talk to me, too, Brooklyn. You know that.”
Brooklyn slid himself back until he could lean against the headboard of his bed, and eased his eyes closed. “Nat, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so weird.”
Without giving it a second thought, I felt compelled to reach over and give his hand a gentle squeeze. “I know you don’t.”
“I had a bad conversation with my dad, that’s all,” he continued.
I didn’t want to say it, but I couldn’t help it. It just came out like word vomit (and suddenly I knew exactly how Cady felt inMean Girls). “Does this have anything to do with the text message you got the morning you left my house?”
He let out a heavy breath, finally willing himself to look at me. He didn’t look at all angry; he looked upset, and that felt worse. “You saw that?”
“I didn’t mean to,” I insisted. “Your phone was going off, but I didn’t know it was your phone, I thought it was mine, so I grabbed it and there it was.”
He tensed up beside me, dragging his teeth along his lower lip.
“Brooklyn, if you’re in some kind of trouble—”
“I’m not,” he said bitingly, uncharacteristically venomous. When he saw me recoil slightly, he eased up. “Not anymore, anyway.”
I slid up to lean against the headboard beside him. “What happened?”
When I saw the hurt in his eyes, my heart clenched.
