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“I’m just saying, there’s a bar right out there. Least we could do is get him a drink, since he couldn’t join us for the show.”
“AndI’mjust saying the show is sold out tonight.” This conversation had been going on all afternoon. “I know you don’t believe me, but Nick isn’t taking it personally that you couldn’t get him a seat with less than a day’s notice, I promise. He was here opening night.”
“I’m sure he’d appreciate the invitation,” Mom said. “You should call.”
Hayley tried hard to stay expressionless, but she knew her shock had to be showing. It had taken Mom years to warm to Kevin, and when she had, it was like she’d decided she might as well be civil to the guy who didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Dad was the sort to invite just about anyone home for dinner, but Hayley couldn’t remember both of her parents actively trying to spend time with one of her friends. Of course, the one time it happened had to be with Nick and had to be tonight.
“You want to get a drink with Nick,” Hayley said to her mother. “You want to stay out late so we can drink with a friend of mine.”
“And Kevin’s,” Mom said.
“What?”
“I thought he was a friend of yours and Kevin’s.”
“Kevin’s, yes,” Hayley said quickly. “You want him to come out here at ten o’clock for a drink.”
“He can always say no.”
“I don’t think he will.”
Mom smiled wryly. “You can tell him I won’t lose any sleep if he does.”
“I might,” Dad deadpanned.
Mom scoffed. “You don’t lose sleep.”
“It could happen.” Dad was teasing her now. “You know how fragile I am.”
“Go ahead,” Mom told him. “Get this all out of your system before other people join the table.”
Did Mom actually like Nick, or was she pushing Hayley to call because Hayley didn’t want to? It really didn’t matter. The more Hayley fought this, the more her parents were going to wonder why she didn’t want to hang out with her friend, who was also supposed to be Kevin’s friend.
God, she needed to move. Needed to dance.
“I’m going to call him,” she announced. “We ought to give him plenty of notice.”
Without waiting for a reply, Hayley strode all the way out to the parking lot, then kept pacing as she got out her phone. Her call went straight to voicemail:Hi, this is Nick Freeman, and if you leave a message, I promise I won’t make you wait too long for a reply.She smiled in spite of herself as she pictured Nick diligently responding to each of his messages in the order in which they arrived.
“Nick,” she said. “It’s Hayley. We’re at the show at Vivez, and my parents won’t stop bugging me about inviting you for a drink after. Not that I don’t want you to come. Because I do. I just meant that they …” She sighed. “Look, we all want you to come, but I don’t want you thinking you have to come if you don’t want to. My mom said she wouldn’t lose sleep over it. Which I’m realizing sounds meaner than she meant it. Just call me if you want to join. Call me either way, actually. I want to make sure you’re okay. Bye.”
Hayley realized she was furious.
She had asked. She had stood in front of him and asked if she had done anything to upset him, and she hadn’t even needed to do that, because she wasn’t in charge of Nick Freeman’s mood. This wasn’t her fault.
Come on, Hayley Michelle. You want it to be your fault.
Every step Nick had taken from her porch to the car had been stiff, his body rigid, every facial expression and word tightly controlled and leaving no doubt that he wanted to be far awayfrom her. If she’d made some mistake, then fixing everything would just be a matter of working hard enough. But she hadn’t done anything wrong, and he was drifting away anyway. She was already worried about Kevin—the more she fought to hang on, the harder it was to connect with him. It was supposed to be different with Nick. They weren’t in love; they weren’t working toward something or working to preserve something. Hayley didn’t need to carry the weight of whether or not he was okay, and yet she could feel, deep down, that she needed him to be. She needed too much from Mom, from Icarus, from Kevin, and now from Nick, and she hated that she was keeping herself from being happy. From feeling normal.
Hayley didn’t cry. She kept the struggle from rising up and out of her, willed it down until the weight settled on her chest, and kept the desperation out of her voice when she pulled Mimi aside to ask if it was okay to use a rehearsal room after the show.
19
Nick had turned off his phone just before walking into Vivez Dance that night, hours before the Burke family arrived for the sold-out seven thirty show. The place was largely deserted, and Mimi was reading a paperback in the box office.
“Do you think the kid sister did it?” Her eyes never left the page as she spoke. “Or was it the tennis instructor?”
“The tennis instructor,” he said promptly. “It’s a sport full of murder weapons.”
