I frown briefly, glancing at the clock. It’s exactly eight a.m., which we agreed was the best time to depart to beat the worst of the weekend traffic. I cut the engine. Maybe they’re doing last-minute bathroom trips so we won’t have to stop.
Respectable. Honorable. Lawful good.
I jog up to the door. “Hello?” I call, pushing it tentatively open.
Eve bustles past me wearing bikini bottoms, flip-flops, and a Bruce Springsteen muscle tank tied at her waist. In her arms are three stacked trays of plastic-wrapped desserts, which she thrusts at me.
“Finally!” She scurries off without further instruction.
Graham, who’s shirtless, visibly confused, and wearing one sneaker, hobbles by. “Hey, man.”
“This is awildlyirresponsible amount of dessert.” I stare at the heavy trays. Where am I supposed to put these? My trunk is nottemperature-controlled to safely contain cream-based desserts. I close my eyes, willing myself not tobemyself about this. “Where’s Nomi?”
“Here!” Nomi walks out of her bedroom, fully dressed in black denim cut-offs, sandals, and today, a Joan Baez T-shirt with its sleeves removed.
She looksgorgeous.Her brown hair hangs in loose, shower-damp waves down her back, her bangs long and parted to reveal her big, brown eyes and the cluster of freckles that dapple her nose and round, apple-pink cheeks. She has a duffel on one shoulder and her giant leather bag on the other, wearing a big, bright smile in between.
“Watch it!” Eve yells, and I snap back to attention as the trays list to the side. I correct just in time but not without pinching a finger in the process. I hiss out a curse as Eve glares at me.
“If you can’t be trusted with desserts, you can’t be trustedat all.” Eve hoists shorts up and over her hips, zipping them without breaking eye contact.
It’s the most intimidating thing I’ve ever witnessed.
“Come on, Julian.” Nomi scoots past me in the hallway. “We don’t want to be late!”
I grunt, then follow her out to the car. It’s a little easier to breathe outside, away from the chaos of Graham’s bumbling efforts to pack and Eve’s gremlin baker energy. It’s also 8:14 a.m. I lower the trays into the trunk first, scooting them as close to the air-conditioned interior as I can. If people experience dairy spoliation–related diarrhea due to the proliferation of food-borne bacterial pathogens after eating these, well. I know how to write a prescription.
“I see the short shorts are back,” Nomi says as I straighten to standing. The little smirk she’s wearing brings down my blood pressure by a full ten points, more or less. Hard to say without the cuff.
I lean against the trunk, subtly flexing my forearms across my chest. “Well, someone once told me a muscular thigh, and I quote, ‘never hurt nothing.’”
“Who said that?” Nomi pulls her sunglasses down and over her eyes, her crooked smile creating heat in my chest. “Sounds pretty smart.”
My throat bobs involuntarily as I smile for the first time all morning. “Smartest person I’ve ever met.”
Her own gaze lingers on my face, a pleased flush pinking her pretty cheeks, and I feel the heart-soaring joy that I might be able to pass this test after all.
“Quit standing there flirting and help Grahamuel find his shoe!” Eve bellows from the front door, then slams it shut again.
“Mornings stress her out,” Nomi explains. “And sobriety.”
By the time we find Graham’s shoe (it was in the trash can), Eve smokes up, and Nomi turns off the lights and locks all the doors, it’s after nine a.m., and my eye’s begun to twitch.
“Ugh, what is this!” Eve complains as we enter a long line of backed-up cars for our first turn, all headed to the same place.
“Well, we weresupposedto leave at eight,” I say, unable to resist. “So, this is traffic.”
“Sorry, DAD,” Eve says belligerently from the backseat. Then, “Ooh, coffee! Thanks, Dad!” A beat later. “Is this supposed to be iced?”
“It was iced. An hour ago.” I breathe deeply through my nose. “When we were supposed to leave.”
“Oh,honey.” Nomi looks at me over the rim of her sunglasses and places her hand lightly on my thigh. “Did you really think a car full of stoners would leave on time?” Her palm is warm and soft, and my muscle tics upward, jumping to meet it. She’s so foxy right now, I’m regretting the length of my shorts. I don’tthinkthere could be a jailbreak incident? But I didn’t try these on aroused, either.
“I—guess that was naive, wasn’t it.” I smile tightly.Be cool, be cool, she’s gorgeous and for some reason likes you, so for God’s sake, BE COOL, JULIAN.“But we’re on the road now, and I love going—” I checkthe speedometer, “twenty-three miles per hour on highly congested highways.”
“Good.” Nomi withdraws her hand as she stretches back in her seat, content as a kitten in a patch of sunlight, and yawns. Meanwhile, my forgotten thigh enters a state of mourning. “Because this one-hour drive’s gonna take two and a half hours now.”
Even though the iced drinks have gone watery, and Graham seizes my phone because “NPR podcasts are not a playlist,” the morning skies are a seamless bolt of blue, and Nomi’s sitting in my front seat, drumming her fingers happily to music I didn’t know existed. The dual feeling ofeuphoric!/terrified!takes turns letting me float away then snatching me back down again, like a bored kid playing God with a balloon. I’m the balloon.
