In Real Life (28 page)
Authors: Jessica Love
I shrug. From what I know, my relationship with Grace is about as opposite from his relationship with Nick as Planet Hollywood was from Buffalo Bill's, but I don't think that's the point here.
“I'm sort of a dick to him sometimes. I get that. Butâ” He reaches up and adjusts his hat, scratching the back of his head. “âI know this about my brother. He's upset right now, but he'd regret it so much if he let you leave Vegas like this. He always gets in his own way, and I can't let him do that this time.”
I twist my hair into a bun as I let this all turn over in my head. Then I remember Nick's admission last night at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
“Does this have anything to do with Frankie?”
He shakes his head as he laughs. “Nah, dude. She's a whole other story.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “So, you told me to come here for no other reason than you wanted to help Nick out? Really?”
“I know you don't believe me, butâ” He shakes his head again, like he can't even believe he is saying any of this. “âI feel like I owe him. He kept talking to you, but I never kept in touch with Grace after we met. I'd ask Nick about her and stuff, but I never did anything about it.”
Well, this is surprising. “Why not?”
“Too cool, I guess.” His laugh doesn't have a trace of humor in it. “I'm stupid. But then when you guys showed up last night, and Grace was there, man, I felt like it was a sign from the universe or something. It was weird.”
I open my mouth to respond, ready to tell him that even though Grace threw her necklace off the roller coaster, I'm pretty sure she has no intention of getting into another relationship anytime soon, but he holds up his hand, stopping me. “I don't know what happened between you and my brother last night. But it doesn't matter. You guys have history. You're important to him. And I know you think I'm an asshole, and maybe I am, but Nick's my brother, and, well, you know he sometimes has trouble saying the right thing. This whole âdealing with people' thing has never been easy for him, and I do want him to be happy. I don't want to see him be an idiot like I am.”
His admissions stun me into silence. I stare down at my knees, trying to process it all, then look back at him. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Anyway,” he says, “will you come out back to the party? Nick doesn't know you're here, and I was thinking, well, maybe it could be a surprise. Like last night, but hopefully more successful.”
“Sure,” I say. “As long as you're not revealing any Cooper family secrets or anything. I've had about all the drama I can take.” Here we go. I came here to talk to Nick and make things right. The fact that his brother wants to help me do it, well, it makes the whole thing easier, I guess.
Alex smiles and helps me out of the truck bed. I wave to the girls, who are sitting on the curb across the street, watching us. As soon as Grace reaches arm distance of Alex, he reaches his arm around her shoulder and pulls her in close, kissing her on the top of her head. “Glad I got to see you again, sexy.”
“We're surprising Nick, I guess,” I tell them, and shrug.
“Wheee!” Lo says. “I love a good surprise. And last night's was such an epic bust, we need a do-over.”
Instead of walking us through the front door, Alex opens a gate on the side of the house and ushers us through. He holds a finger up to his mouth as we each pass him; then he carefully eases the gate shut. “Okay,” he whispers. “Nick is back there, but I don't want him to see you guys yet.”
“There's seriously no need to whisper,” Lo says. “We could hear this music from the state line.”
Alex rolls his eyes, but the three of us can't help but laugh. “Fine,” he says in a normal voice. “The band is going to start playing in, like, five minutes. It would be best if Nick didn't know you were here just yet, so maybe you girls could just hang out here for a few. Cool?”
“So, that's it? You're just going to leave us back here?” I wave my hand around to indicate the three trash cans, storage shed, and lawn mower. “How is this surprise going to work?”
“Oh, you'll know. I promise. Just hang out here and keep an eye on things.” He pulls down on the strings on the front of his hoodie. “Do you want a beer or something?”
Lo makes a gagging noise at the suggestion of more alcohol, but Grace nods enthusiastically. I flash back to last night and how my first time drinking led to kissing limp-tongue-Jordy and almost getting offed by a pit boss. “I'm good,” I say, shuddering. “Thanks.”
Alex returns a minute later with a red party cup full of beer for Grace, and I study the peeling paint on the wall of the house while he pulls her into a kiss. “Okay, Hannah,” he says once his mouth is available again. “You ready for this?”
“Honestly, no. I have no idea what I'm doing.” Giving this control over to Alex has my heart beating like it was at the top of the Desperado. But I try to hold on to how much fun that ended up being, the rush of the free fall, the thrill of the speed and the wind in my hair. I have to trust Alex here.
“Just wait for the signal.”
“What's the signal?” I ask, but he walks off toward the clamor of the party, leaving me more confused than I was when I arrived.
“So, what now?” I look at the girls, hoping they'll have some answers for me. A pretty pointless hope, since this plan is all Alex's, and he's just wandered off to set up the band's equipment.
Grace takes a huge gulp of her beer and then shrugs. “I guess now we wait.”
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Seven minutes, five spiders, and fifteen peeks around the corner of the house later, we're still lurking in the space between the Cooper home and the wood fence that separates it from the neighbor's lot. I'm rubbing my penny like a genie is about to emerge from it, while Grace has a solo dance party to the music blasting from the speakers in the yard. Lo, annoyed with all the excess energy, sticks her head into the storage shed, pulls out a couple of old towels for the two of us to sit on, and spreads them on the grass.
“I can't believe you're not freaking out about this more, Hannah,” Grace says, twirling in a circle. She's right. I'm mildly annoyed at the lack of information from Alex, but aside from that, I'm surprisingly Zen even though I have literally no idea what we're waiting for.
“So, what are you going to do when you see Nick?” Lo turns around and leans into my propped-up knees, and I reach for a chunk of her hair and start braiding in an effort to keep my hands and mind occupied. “If we're really going to make this an epic surprise, I think you should run out to the band and steal the mic away from Jordy and sing him a song or something.”
“No! Gross! Nick would absolutely hate that.” I shudder at the thought. “Can you imagine? Everyone pulling out their cameras and Instagramming it? If anything, it would support his decision to never speak to me again.”
“Well, luckily, you have Frankie as president of your fan club,” Grace says. “And Nick adores you. You could shout from the top of the Stratosphere, and you know he'd forgive you.”
Before we can come up with a real plan, one that doesn't involve public humiliation, the loud music turns off and it's replaced by the clatter of drums and the tuning strums of guitars. The band is getting ready to play.
“I think this is what we're waiting for,” Grace says, extending a hand to Lo and then to me, helping us up.
I dust off the back of my jeans as I peek around the side of the house for the millionth time. The yard is full of people, so many more than it seems would be there, even though the street is packed with cars. The band's equipment is set up in the back right corner, opposite from where we are hiding behind the wall, and the guys are all warming up their instruments, getting ready to play.
“Do you see Nick?” Lo whispers. She grips my shoulders and leans over me. “Where is he?” We spotted him briefly when we first peeked, but since then, he pretty much disappeared. I don't know how this apology thing is supposed to work if I can't even keep a lock on his position.
But then it doesn't matter, because Jordy grabs the mic and taps a couple of times before speaking into it. “What's up, everyone? Thanks for coming out. We have some new stuff to play for you today.”
A whoop goes up in the crowd, and the guys onstage all laugh. “I know you love our old stuff, but we've been working on some new songs, so you all, our dearest friends, get to be the first to hear these new jams.”
Someone in the crowd cheers, and some chick yells, “I love you, Jordy!” She's clearly never kissed him.
“Well, if you love these new songs, be sure to let Nick know. Mr. Sensitive has been slaving over these ones.” Jordy shakes his head. “This is one we wanted to debut last night at House of Blues, but Nick had a fit at the last minute and begged us not to play it, which totally makes sense to me now. Anyway, I think you'll be into it. It's called âHaunted.'” Then Jordy says a quick “One, two, three” into the mic while Drew on the drums hits the beat out and Automatic Friday launches into a song I've never heard before.
I try to listen, but I'm stuck on what Jordy said before he started singing.
“What did he mean?” I ask the girls without turning away from the band and the crowd. I still haven't found Nick. “When he said to tell Nick if you love the songs. What did that mean?”
They don't answer me and I don't try to get a reply, because right then Nick walks out of the sliding glass door from the house. He doesn't step down on to the patio; he lingers there in the doorway, the sliding glass door framing him. He's wearing a plain gray T-shirt and jeans, and he has his glasses on and his hair is rumpled, not in a “I spent ten minutes trying to make my hair look like this” kind of way, but in a “I didn't get any sleep and then I brushed my hair with my shoe” kind of way.
He looks gorgeous.
He's holding a red plastic cup and he's watching Jordy intently. His mouth moves along with the lyrics of the song, like he's the one up there onstage, and for the first time since Jordy started singing, I listen to the words.
Some people have a love story
But we have a ghost story
You haunt my every space
I see nothing but your face
Jordy is singing the words, but Nick is mouthing along like they belong to him, and it all clicks in my head.
Why Nick is almost like a member of the band.
What he said he wanted to surprise me with.
Why Jordy was so bad at smooth talking.
Why Alex wanted me to see the band playing.
It's not Jordy who writes Automatic Friday's songs.
It's Nick.
This is the signal, I know it is, and I'm frozen. Absolutely frozen in place. I sense the girls behind me have come to the same realization I have, but I don't turn around to confirm, because I can't tear my eyes away from Nick, lightly tapping his foot on the ledge of the sliding glass door and singing along with Jordy. I watch him pull his phone from his back pocket. He looks at it, thumb hovering over the screen. He frowns and puts it back in his pocket, looking disappointed, then pulls on the ball chain around his neck, bringing the ghost penny to the outside of his T-shirt and tucking it back in.
Finally, I snap out of this daze and turn around, to see Grace and Lo staring at me, eyes about to pop out of their heads.
“Hannah,” Lo says, her fingers digging into my arms. “What are you going to do?”
I pull out my phone and I type out a text to Nick.
THIS IS MY NEW FAVORITE SONG
I hit Send and peek back around the wall of the house. Yup, I'm being a total creeper, but it's worth it when I see him pull his phone out again. He blinks at the screen, smiles, then frantically scans the crowd. This is right when Jordy finishes up the song, so I mumble, “Wish me luck,” to Grace and Lo, and I walk out to the party, across the yard packed with strangers, and right up to the sliding glass door.
There he is. My Nick. My best friend. His glasses a little askew, much like his hair. His fingers that have texted me thousands of times, now tapping nervously on his thigh. His mouth that laughs at my jokes and tells me secrets, pulled into a tight, serious line as he scans the crowd.
Looking for me.
For the first time since I ran downstairs and suggested this trip to Lo and Grace, I don't think. I don't worry about ruining our friendship or Frankie or breaking the rules. I light up from the inside when he sees me, and I cross the distance between us like he's a magnet, drawing me to him. And when I get there, I use both hands to pull his face down to mine and I kiss him.
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The instant my lips meet Nick's, my mind shuts off and four years of pent-up feelingsâconfusion, longing, and wantâtake over. This is it. This is happening.
Nick's hands grip my waist as soon as we make contact and he pulls me into his body. I move my hands from his face and wrap my arms around his neck, and I stand on my tiptoes, trying to get as close to him as possible. It seems there is no way to get close enough.
Just as soon as my brain turns back on and catches up to the fact that I am actually, really, truly kissing Nick Cooper, he pulls away. I'm stunned by the absence of his lips, and when I focus on his face, I see seriousness. Straight face. Concerned eyes. Not the expression of someone who finally kissed the girl he said he had feelings for.
“Ghost,” he says. “Before we ⦠we need to talk.”
And the reality of our situation comes crashing down on me. I just kissed my best friend, who has a girlfriend, in front of all their friends. Shit.
“Oh God, Nick. I'm sorry. Iâ”