A Midsummer's Nightmare (23 page)

“Ow.”

“Sorry,” she murmured, loosening her grip a little. “I’m just so…”

“Me, too.” I squeezed back and smiled at her. “It’s fine.”

One by one, the auditioning girls exited the gymnasium, all in varying states of excitement or dejection. A few even came into the hallway with full-blown tears streaking their cheeks, and they ran instantly into the arms of their waiting parents. Christ, I hoped Bailey wouldn’t be like that. I couldn’t take crying. Especially if it was from her. I’d be tempted to go in and kick the preppy blond judges’ asses.

“Here she is,” Dad said, stepping up beside me as Bailey came out of the gym, an unreadable expression on her face. “How’d it go, Bailey-Boop?”

Bailey didn’t say anything. She looked at each of us for a moment, not quite a smile but not quite a frown on her face.

Finally, Bailey moved. She walked straight toward me and, without warning, wrapped her arms around my torso in one of the tightest hugs I’d ever experienced. She almost squeezed the breath out of me. She was pretty strong for such a skinny kid.

“Um… Bailey?” I said, patting her uncertainly on the back. I was afraid she was going to start crying into my cotton T-shirt. “What…?”

“Thank you,” she said. After a second, she let go, her face glowing with pride. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I MADE IT!” She did a little jump in the air and touched her toes—probably something she’d used in her tryout—and let
out a whoop so loud I thought I heard the ceiling tiles rattle. “I made it! I made it! They picked me!”

“We heard you the first time,” Nathan said.

“But once is
so
not good enough,” she countered. She turned to face me again, her eyes shining with excitement. “Thank you, Whitley. I couldn’t have done it without you. You really helped me with my routine these past couple weeks.”

“Bailey, I just sat there and watched you,” I reminded her, reaching out to ruffle her hair. “You did all the work, kid.”

“Congratulations, baby!” Sylvia exclaimed, throwing her arms around Bailey.

“I’m so proud of you, Boop,” Dad said, patting the top of her head. “Great job.”

I’m not jealous
, I told myself.
I’m happy. Happy for Bailey. Screw Dad. This is about her, not him.

Bailey looked embarrassed, her cheeks turning bright pink.

“Oh, what the hell!” Nathan said, tossing a wink at me, Harrison-style. “Group hug in Bailey’s honor.”

“You’re not serious,” I muttered.

“Oh, no, Nathan. Please—” Bailey tried, but it was too late.

Nathan collapsed onto her, his arms encircling his sister and mother. Dad followed suit within seconds, and it was my father’s hand that grabbed my arm, pulling me into this hideous display of affection. His arm wrapped around my shoulders, squishing me into the group.

“God, you guys, stop it!” she shrieked beneath us. “This is so embarrassing. People can see.”

I would have agreed with her. Normally, at least. I would have run from awkward, weird, sentimental things like this. Screaming, most likely. But suddenly, this felt less disgusting and more… real. Solid.
Right.

With Dad on one side of me, his arm around my shoulder, and Sylvia and Nathan and Bailey, all of us squished together, all of us connected, it felt okay. Good, even.

I felt Nathan’s hand reach out for me, his palm moving to the small of my back. Like a reminder. Or maybe a reassurance.

These people were my family. They’d be here for me no matter what. No matter what people said, what mistakes I made… or who I fell for.

And just then, I made up my mind.

The paper felt hot between my fingers. Slick, too. Probably wet from the sweat on my palms. So gross. But whatever. I wasn’t backing out now. Not when I was this close.

My fist clenched around the Post-it as I knocked on Nathan’s bedroom door with my other hand. My heartbeat sped up dramatically, and for a minute I thought I might have a nervous breakdown. This should not have been so hard. I mean, I’d been talking to guys for years. Flirting with them. Hooking up with them. This should have been easy.

“Come in.”

I exhaled and pushed open the door. He was sitting on his bed, wearing a
Battlestar Galactica
T-shirt and reading an
X-Men
comic book. I couldn’t help smiling a little, despite my nervousness. Who would have guessed that a nerd would be the one to rope me in? A hot nerd, but still definitely a nerd.

“Hey,” he said, putting the comic aside. “What’s up?”

“I… um…” I looked down at my clenched fist. The yellow corners of the note poked out between my fingers. “It’s about the other night. What you said… in my room.”

“Oh.” He sounded surprised. I looked up to find him staring at me, his eyes wide. He shifted, sitting up a bit straighter. Like he was just as anxious as I was. How ridiculous was this? We both knew rejection wasn’t waiting for us. We both knew how the other felt—because I was sure he could see right through me. So why was this so scary?

I looked down at my feet, avoiding his gaze. “I… well, here.” I tossed the Post-it onto the bed like it was scalding my flesh or something. I was so eager to get it out of my hand. So eager to have everything out in the open.

He leaned over to pick up the crumpled piece of paper, and I waited with bated breath as he read. Waited… waited…

“I don’t get it.”

Goddamn it. Of course he didn’t.

“Think about it,” I insisted.

“It’s your cell number,” he said, staring down at the yellow square of paper. “Whit, I already have your number. It’s programmed into my phone. Why do I need—”

“It’s a
symbol
,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “Come on, Nathan. Don’t make me say it.”

He read over the digits a few more times before I finally
saw a light flicker behind his eyes, and he looked up at me, that familiar smile spreading across his face. “So, you…?”

“Yeah,” I said, exasperated. “Why else would I be here?”

Before another word could escape either of our throats, he slid off the bed and walked toward me. It felt so natural as his arms wrapped around my waist and he pulled me into him. Like we
fit
together. It all came so easily. The way his lips found mine, even with both our eyes closed. The way his palm seemed to meld perfectly against my back. The way my arms fit around his shoulders. Like pieces of a puzzle, and this time I belonged.

In a lot of ways, this was my first kiss. My first real one, at least. The first one that actually meant something. It was everything I’d hoped for at Bailey’s age. Before the parties and the boys got involved. The kind of greedless kiss I never really thought I would find.

But here it was. Right in the middle of what, up until very recently, I’d considered the worst summer of my life.

Maybe it wasn’t such a nightmare after all.

The photos didn’t stop popping up on Facebook.
Ever since the night at the Nest when I’d finally decided to ignore the stupid shit people were saying about me, I hadn’t checked the page or even asked Nathan about it. I didn’t want to care about it anymore. Still, Sylvia had pulled me aside after dinner one night to check in.

“Are you okay? I know the page is still up. Are you sure you don’t want me to pursue this, Whitley?”

“I’m fine,” I said. And, for the most part, I meant it. “It probably was cyber-bullying, but I’ve stopped letting it get to me, so I’m pretty over it.”

She nodded and touched my arm. “I’m glad, but let me know if you change your mind. I just want to be sure you’re okay.”

And, really, I was. Nathan, Bailey, Harrison—they’d all shown me that it wasn’t important what the idiots in this town thought of me. They loved me, and that’s what mattered.

As Sylvia walked away, though, I wished she hadn’t been the one talking to me about this. It had always been her. But it needed to be Dad. I wanted him to discuss the issue with me instead of just blowing it off.

The next morning, after a new picture appeared online, I got my wish. Just not in the way I’d hoped.

The photo had been taken at the Nest. On Tuesday night, the day after Bailey’s tryouts, Nathan, Harrison, and I had decided to take her out to celebrate.

As soon as we got to the Nest, the four of us found a booth close to the dance floor. Bailey was bouncing up and down excitedly, her little white sandals tapping along to the music. I didn’t think she’d stopped smiling since the tryouts. And it was pretty goddamn contagious. We all had grins smeared across our faces because of her.

“Bailey, sweetie, I love your dress,” Harrison said as he slipped into the booth beside her. “You can really pull off pastels. I’m so freaking jealous.”

“Thanks.”

“You know,” I said to her, “Harrison is a real fashionista. He’d probably be good help on that shopping spree you were talking about earlier. The one after your birthday? If you’re still up for it, I mean.”

“Um, of course I am!” she said. “Harrison, my birthday is this Monday. Can we go shopping sometime that week? Before Whitley leaves on Friday? You have to come.”

“Shopping? I’ll be there.” He looked across the table to Nathan. “You coming with us, babe?”

I couldn’t help but smile at Nathan’s lack of reaction to being called “babe” by another male. Any other guy might have freaked out. Or at least raised an eyebrow. It didn’t seem to faze him, though.

“Bailey doesn’t want me picking her clothes,” he said. “I’d be trying to put her in turtlenecks and long pants all year long. Hiding as much skin as possible.” He nodded at his sister. “I don’t like how short that little cheerleading skirt is, either.”

“You’ll get over it,” she replied.

“I doubt that.”

“Come on, sweetie,” Harrison said, grabbing Bailey’s wrist. “Dance with me. Let’s show everyone in this club those moves you’ve got. We’ll have every straight boy in Hamilton
begging
for your number by the end of the night.”

Bailey let him drag her onto the floor, giggling the whole way.

I laughed and turned to smile at Nathan.

He looked worried.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I like the idea of every boy in Hamilton chasing my sister,” he said. “I have the sudden urge to lock her in a closet… until she’s twenty-five.”

“Well, look on the bright side,” I said, squeezing his hand. “There aren’t
that
many boys in Hamilton. Only about… two hundred or so? You can fight off two hundred, can’t you?”

“Of course I can,” he scoffed. “See these muscles? I work out, remember? I’d just rather not have to. The closet idea seems easier.”

I grinned at him, my fingers trailing up his arm. It felt good to be allowed to do this, to touch him without feeling embarrassed or guilty. “You know,” I whispered, leaning in, “you could lock me in your closet. I wouldn’t mind.”

Nathan’s worried expression turned into a sly smile that matched mine. “Oh, is that so?”

“Yeah.” I licked my lips, shifting so that my thigh was pressed close against his.

He looked down at our legs, shaking his head. “You know,” he said, resting a hand on my knee. “That little move? It doesn’t work every time. Not all boys are that easy.”

“It worked on you once, didn’t it?” I moved in closer so I could kiss him.

It was innocent. No groping. No hands sliding under my shirt. There wasn’t even tongue, for God’s sake. It was just a kiss.

But it changed everything.

Because as his hand moved up my arm to touch my hair and my eyes slid shut, neither of us noticed the camera phone pointed our way. Neither of us had a clue that we were being watched.

At least, not until Dad slammed his laptop down in front
of me while I ate breakfast the next morning, his face beet red and his eyes practically popping out of his skull.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded, jabbing a finger at the screen. “Start talking, Whitley.”

I glanced at the monitor and realized I was staring at Dad’s Facebook page. At the very top was a new post.
Greg Johnson has been tagged in a photo
. My eyes found the image, and as I looked it over for a moment, I actually had to think about why he was angry. It was just a picture of Nathan and me. To be honest, it was kind of cute. Well shot. It looked a bit like a screenshot from a romantic movie. One of those perfect kisses.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Damn it, Whitley.” His fist hit the table so hard that my cereal bowl shook.

I flinched.

“What the hell are you and Nathan doing? Why are you kissing him?”

And then I got it.

Dad didn’t know about Nathan and me yet.

No one did. Well, except Harrison… and Bailey, if she’d managed to figure it out on her own, which I was sure she had, since we weren’t doing much to hide our relationship now.

“We’re dating,” I said, picking up my spoon.

“No, you most certainly are not,” Dad snapped, making me flinch again.

We were the only ones in the kitchen. Nathan was at the gym. Sylvia had taken Bailey shopping for a new pair of ath
letic tennis shoes. And I’d only just rolled out of bed at eleven in the morning. I’d been halfway through my breakfast when Dad stormed out of his study, laptop in hand.

Now I wished I’d gotten up early. Gone shopping with Sylvia and Bailey, or even to the gym with Nathan. Anything to avoid this conversation. Which clearly wasn’t going to go very well.

“How could you do this?” he asked, still furious.

“Do what?” I asked. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I want you to end things with Nathan,” he said. “Whatever is going on with you two, I want you to put a stop to it right now.”

“No.”

“Don’t argue with me, young lady.”

I stood up so fast that my chair toppled over behind me. “No!” I was the angry one now. “We aren’t doing anything wrong. We’re just dating. It’s not like he’s actually my brother, so why should I have to end it?”

“Because I said so,” he snarled.

“That’s not a good enough reason.”

“Don’t talk back to me like that,” he said, his palms smacking the table again. He leaned forward, his eyes burning into mine. “You are my daughter, and this is
my
house. You will do as I say. You won’t see Nathan. You won’t date him or kiss him or do whatever it is you two are doing. And that is final.”