So, yeah. I’m doing okay. I’m happy, even. And I’m trying not to question it too much.
Love, Nat
Seventeen
Brooklyn had picked up Nikki and me, and we’d planned to meet Brooklyn’s sister and her friends at a trendy bar at the far end of the city by the harbor. Fourth of July was yesterday, but people were still setting off booming fireworks around town that sparkled against the quickly darkening sky.
“You’re gonna love this place, it’s all artsy and shit,” Brooklyn said, lowering the volume on the stereo as he maneuvered around the surrounding side streets for a spot.
“Care to elaborate onartsy and shit?” Nikki leaned between the two front seats and pressed her hands on the center console.
“Well, it used to be a church, like a hundred years ago,” he explained. “This local family, the Tenneys, bought it back in the ’90s. They kept a lot of the old framework and windows, so it has those high cathedral ceilings and whatnot, but now they’re all written all over. There’s paragraphs fromThe Art of War,Ben-Hur, and all kinds of other crazy stuff, plus some local modern art freehand painted on the walls. It’s kind of a dive bar but slightly cooler.”
Brooklyn swerved into a spot a few blocks away and put the Jeep in Park, then glanced over his shoulder to give Nikki a sly grin. “So, yeah, artsy and shit. But it’s also kind of the only legitimate bar on the island that isn’t attached to a restaurant or anything, so it’s become sort of a rite of passage to go to when you turn twenty-one.”
“Oh, did you also participate in this deeply steeped tradition?” I asked him as he opened the passenger door for me. I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of that, no matter how seemingly simple it was.
“Obviously.” He smirked. “I don’t remember much after walking through the front door, though.”
A warm breeze rolled in from the harbor, tickling all the exposed skin on my back from the silky green corset top Nikki insisted I wear. We walked along cobblestone side streets to the bar, and as I hobbled around in a pair of Nikki’s wedges (also at her insistence), I felt Brooklyn place a gentle, supporting hand on the small of my back, his thumb finding exactly the right nerve on my spine to send blaring sensory alarms to every extension of my body—the kind that the longer he touched, the more likely I was to be overcome with the urge to pull his clothes off.
When we approached the small line outside the door of South Church, Brooklyn pulled me aside. He snaked an arm around my waist, bringing me in close so that our chests were pressed together.
“Have I mentioned how gorgeous you look?” he muttered as he brought his head down to mine.
He, of course, was a vision in dark jeans and a black short-sleeve button-down. Locks of his sandy-brown hair stuck out from the brim of his beige hat, which readdo not disturbin black script. It was something so simple, but he wore with enough charm and grace to probably get away with wearing it in a Michelin-star restaurant.
“You could mention it again,” I murmured back, smiling as he swept me into a kiss.
“You’re gorgeous,” he whispered against my lips, his hands finding that same spot on my back that would have made my knees buckle if he hadn’t been holding me up.
For a moment it was easy to forget there was anybody else in the world—at least until someone loudly cleared their throat. We both whipped our heads around to see Nikki, arm flailing outward to prompt us to move forward in line.
Brooklyn wasn’t kidding about the “artsy and shit” part, and when we walked into the bar, I was immediately sucked into all the words painted on the high cathedral ceilings. One block of text caught my eye, stark white in contrast to the black backdrop of the ceiling.all warfare is based on deception.
But he also wasn’t kidding about the dive-bar part, and it felt like everyone in town between the ages of twenty and thirty was jammed between the long bar that ran along the left side of the room and all the high tops spread around the rest of it. On the far back wall was an open space in front of a small raised platform, where a DJ (or at least someone who controlled the music) was at his laptop, blasting “Stacy’s Mom” from the two big black speakers on either side of him. Strings of Christmas lights hung from the rafters, bathing everyone in a colorful confetti of light.
We made our way to the back of the bar, where a small group of people congregated around Stella. She sat on a cracked leather bar stool at the end of the bar, but slid off and immediately strode over to us in high fuchsia-colored heels that matched her sequined barely there halter top.
“Happy birthday!” I greeted her as she pulled me into a tight hug.
“I’m so so so glad you came,” she squealed. The scent of fruity liquor wafted off her breath. She turned to Nikki and did the same, as if they’d been best friends their whole lives, but that wasn’t surprising. Nikki could make friends with a tree if given the opportunity. It was obviously the same for Stella, and I was slightly envious.
“I’m going to find the bathroom real quick.” Brooklyn pressed a kiss to my temple before walking away, and I found myself warm under his lingering touch. It wasn’t hard to figure out these were all people who knew Brooklyn (or knew of him) as he high-fived and greeted people he walked past, and yet he was comfortable enough with us together to show me affection in front of them.
“Drink?” Stella asked us. “We’ve already got a tab, and I have the bartender’s full attention, if you know what I mean, so if you want something . . .”
Nikki snickered. “Oh I wouldlovea Long Island, since I amdefinitelytwenty-one.”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having.” I gestured to the fizzy pink drink in Stella’s hand.
“Oh, it’s my fav, although they can besodangerous,” she gushed. “I’ve had like, three already, and you can’t taste the alcohol at all. They make their own blackberry lavender syrup that goes in it.”
I didn’t mind a little danger tonight, and I wasn’t about to play protective big sister with Nikki here—the prospect of a good time tonight (a good time that we’d both earned) outweighed any of that.
After Stella had gotten our drinks, I took a spot at the bar a bit removed from the group of Stella’s other friends, some of whom I recognized as her sorority sisters from Larocca University, and who’d been out at the beach with us last week. On the outer orbit of their circle, Brooklyn leaned against the bar and spoke to Alec. When I glanced over at Nikki, her eyes dropped to her Long Island.
“Everything okay?” I asked her.
