In Real Life (18 page)

“Fact.”

“And Grace wasn't home. So the title of worst dancer is still up for grabs.”

We start off by trying to out-bad-dance each other. I do the Sprinkler. He responds with the Washing Machine. I wave my hands in the air like I just don't care. He robots his arms and turns himself in circles. We both laugh until we double over, our heads knocking against each other, which brings even more laughter.

Then the music changes. It's still uncensored hip-hop, but this song is faster, sexier. There's a sudden shift in the atmosphere in the room, and I know I'm not the only one who feels it. Everyone moves in closer. Closer to the dance floor. Closer to each other. Alcohol and sweat and bodies close in around us, forcing me into Nick's space and Nick into mine. The music pounds and we're dancing, but not like before. Now we're moving with the music like we don't have a choice, like it has taken over. I could look around the dance floor to see if the song has had this effect on everyone, but I can't tear my eyes from Nick. His face is as close to mine as it's ever been and I didn't even realize his arm had wrapped around my back and pulled me in tighter.

Our hips touch and our eyes are locked and we are moving with this music and each other and I want to put my arms around his neck or his shoulders or his back and pull him in tighter. I want to tell him everything I've been thinking. I open my mouth and try to stretch myself up, but he's too tall and the music is too loud and the gorilla keeps bumping into my back, pitching me against Nick over and over.

Now isn't the time for talking; now is the time for dancing.

So we do. We dance, closer than we've ever been, and our eyes and bodies are locked together. I'm tuned in to so many things about him. His Adam's apple moving up and down his neck as he swallows. His mouth parted slightly, his fingers pressed firm and strong against my spine, the small beads of sweat building up on his forehead.

Slow dancing might be cuddling set to music, but somehow this ends up being more intense. More intimate.

I'm almost completely lost in the music and in Nick when the clown DJ gets on the mic, reminding me quickly where I am. “Okay, party people! It's time for the bouquet toss!”

Nick and I snap out of our dance trance. I blink at him as I'm brought back to reality and “Single Ladies” blasts over the speakers, two of the sexy princesses doing the dance from the video right next to us.

“Bachelorettes, get out on the floor!” DJ Clown insists.

Still in a daze, I tug lightly on Nick's sleeve. “I think this is our cue to leave.”

“You don't want to go do the ‘Single Ladies' dance?” He jerks his head toward the enthusiastic dancers next to us. “There is no doubt you won this dance-off, Ghost. You could handle it.”

I hold back a laugh. “Tempting. But I'm going to pass.”

“Should we say good-bye to Jason and Mai?”

I locate the couple on the dance floor. Mai shakes a small bouquet of hot pink and white flowers over her head while Jason snaps pictures of her with his phone.

As I look at them, I'm body-slammed with feelings. I don't say what I'm thinking to Nick, though. Because what I'm thinking is this actually could be us someday. Not the wedding, certainly. I haven't spent much time daydreaming about my future wedding, but I can guarantee it will be nothing like this drunken costume party.

But Jason and Mai. It's clear how in love they are, and even though this wedding reception is weird as hell, it's so obviously
them,
and they are so obviously together. So obviously perfect.

This could be Nick and me someday.

It could have been.

And maybe it still can be, if I get my freaking mouth to work and admit to him that I lied. But instead, I say, “Nah. Let's just go. I don't want to interrupt.”

On our way out the door, Nick snags another slice of cake. He scribbles

Congratulations, Jason & Mai

Love, Teenage Jason & Mai

in their guestbook, which is an album of pictures of them with a fluffy white dog, and waves good-bye to the party, even though everyone is paying attention to the bouquet toss and not the random wedding crashers.

We don't talk about the wedding as we make our way back through MGM toward the lobby exit. We don't talk about our dance or our closeness or our intense eye contact. We let ourselves exit that alternate reality we entered, but we aren't all the way back in the real world quite yet—I can still feel the oasis Nick and I shared surrounding us, thick and present.

Close to the main door, which leads out to a taxi stand, Nick stops. “Ghost, look.” It's the first thing he's said since we left the wedding, and he's pointing at a small machine. I walk up next to him and see it's a souvenir penny flattener that stamps the MGM lion. “Remember the penny I—?”

I don't even let him finish. I pull my clown penny from my pocket and hold my hand out to him. Showing him I have this penny with me—that not only do I remember when he sent it, but I also brought it along on this trip—feels like exposing a secret part of myself, like skipping through the casino in my thong.

He stares down at it like it's something strange and wonderful, and he reaches out. I lift my hand so he can pick it up, but he doesn't reach for the clown penny like I think he's going to. Instead, he brings his fingers to his neck and pulls a long ball chain out from under his T-shirt. Hanging from the loop of chain is the Disneyland penny I sent him years ago. The one with the hitchhiking ghosts.

“I had one of Alex's friends put a hole in it for me.” His cheeks are pink, and he looks everywhere but at my face as he tucks the necklace back under his shirt. “I wear it every day.”

I stare at him, speechless. He wears the penny I sent him every day, tucked under his shirt? He has it with him all the time?

Do it now,
I tell myself.
Tell him how you feel.
He threw me a ball, and I just need to swing. But I open my mouth and nothing comes out. I just fish-mouth and look down at the penny still in my hand.

He apparently doesn't know what to make of my silence. He smooths out his shirt, looks down at his shoes for entirely too long, then says, “Well, let's go find that taxi line,” and turns toward the front lobby.

And … strikeout. The opportunity is gone. Crap.

Still speechless, I slip the penny back in my pocket and follow him to a cab. As we drive to Paris, I stare out the window again, soaking up the lights and the people on the street as I try to make sense of what Nick just showed me combined with our dance at the wedding. I finally figure out how to use my words when I notice several guys lining the curb in neon T-shirts with signs on their backs, handing things out to people who pass. “What are they doing?”

“Oh,” he says, “those cards are for escorts. Like, call this girl and she'll show you a good time tonight.”

“Ew. Why did they try to give one to that woman?”

He shrugs. “Hey, some ladies want lady company. You never know. Don't judge.”

“I have enough lady company with Grace and Lo,” I joke. “I'm certainly not paying for more.”

We both laugh, and he leans back in the seat, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “So, what's the big deal about the Eiffel Tower, anyway? Honestly, it sounds like exactly the kind of thing you would hate.”

“Oh. You know. I want to see a killer view of Vegas.”
And have more alone time with you so I can tell you all my feelings.
Although this alone time is going to be wasted if, when I can manage to speak, I use it to talk about prostitutes and Vegas trivia. On the phone, these random conversations have been a daily occurrence for four years, and I wouldn't think twice about them. Which Pokémon is the best. Our favorite types of socks. Pizza toppings in order of deliciousness. We talk and text for hours about anything. Nothing. But now that Nick is next to me, I can feel the reality of our lies and things not said and real-life feelings between us, and it's hard to bridge them. Especially given Frankie. And my inability to be honest about my feelings. And the fact that he wears something I sent him that has a picture of his nickname for me on a chain around his neck. He's so much closer, now that there's not a phone or screen between us, but somehow this small real space, and all the complications that come along with it, has become so much more difficult to cross.

We reach Paris Las Vegas and hop out of the cab, then wander a casino floor designed, obviously, to look like Paris, France, until we find the gift shop selling tickets for the “Eiffel Tower Experience.” Nick pays for both of us with his portion of the slot machine winnings. I smoosh myself into the back corner of the elevator as we ride up because, honestly, long elevator rides freak me out almost as much as roller coasters do. I try not to be too conspicuous about the fact that I'm not loving every second of the Eiffel Tower Experience, since this was my genius idea, but Nick stands as close to me as he did when we were dancing and watches me from the corner of his eye.

I know because I'm watching him from the corner of my eye, too.

We get off at the observation deck, which is just a big fenced-in ledge. The lights of the Strip and the rest of the greater Las Vegas area stretch out ahead, but I can also see the street way below my feet through the openings in the deck's woven steel floor.

This was a freaking terrible idea. We could have gotten alone time riding a gondola at the Venetian or something. But Oscar probably isn't scared of water, so here we are. Gotta take what I can get tonight.

Nick immediately steps off the elevator and presses his face to the cage around the platform. “Check out this view, Ghost. It's unbelievable.” He turns around and I'm still standing sort of stuck to the elevator door, even though it has closed and the car has gone back down to bring more people up here. He reaches out his hand to me. “I knew you weren't going to be into this,” he says. “Like when you went on that school field trip to the Getty Center. Remember how much you hated being up there?”

A tingle spreads through my body when he mentions this old memory. I went on that field trip in ninth grade—so long ago, I hardly remember it myself. And here he is, pulling out the story like it's his own, like he's kept it close this whole time.

And just like that, the strange, unfamiliar real space between us is bridged. I take his hand, allowing him to lead me to the edge of the observation deck, and heat spreads up my arm from our touch. “How do you even remember that?”

We are next to each other, close, but we're both looking out over the lights of the Las Vegas Strip. The fountains at the Bellagio shoot high into the air, and he hasn't dropped my hand. I don't do anything to change that.

“I've told you a million times, Ghost. I'm an elephant. I never forget. Anything.”

I'm so aware of him next to me, his fingers still wrapped around mine. Every cell in my body is on high alert, keeping close track of his nearness. The brush of his jacket against my bare arm sends an excited shiver all through me.

He drops my hand and turns to face me. “Oh, are you cold?” He moves to shrug off his jacket. “Do you want this? I don't need it.”

I'm about to say,
No, I'm fine.
I'm not cold at all, and I'm certainly not going to say it was his accidental touch that made me shiver, and not the air temperature. But then I realize I don't want to say no to his jacket.

I sort of hate myself for letting him hold on to my hand and wanting to wear his jacket. He has a girlfriend, and as much as it pains me to admit it to myself, Frankie is actually pretty cool. I'd say she's someone I would be friends with, but the fact is, I doubt we'd even be friends because I'd be too intimidated by her. I like Frankie, and she's Nick's girlfriend.

And I did come up here to tell him how I feel about him. To tell him I lied about not ever wanting anything romantic to happen between us.

I take his jacket and slide it onto my shoulders. Hey, Frankie isn't here. And I always follow the rules and do the right thing—and, yeah, I usually end up with what I want, but that's because I work for it.

Maybe I need to work for this, too.

And maybe that work involves breaking a rule or two.

Because, damn it, Nick was mine first.

 

CHAPTER

19

We settle back into gazing out at the lights. I wish his hand were wrapped around my fingers again, but I have his jacket on me, and that's good enough. It's like a hug from him. I breathe in deep, realizing the smell on this jacket—cinnamon gum mixed with old, smoky leather—is Nick's scent. It's another missing piece to the real Nick, and another part of everything real about him I've always wanted.

I know I need to say something, that this is the time and the place for feelings to be shared, hearts to be exposed, but now that we've crossed another small divide, I'm even less sure how to start the conversation.

“Better?” he asks.

I nod.

“Good,” he says. “I know you're cold-blooded.”

“Better than coldhearted,” I say, and we both laugh and then settle into silence.

Silence, but not the awkward kind. Comfortable silence. Not the type you can have with just anyone.

Last year, on the anniversary of his mom's death, Nick called me at night. “I don't feel like talking, Ghost,” he'd said. “I just need someone to not talk to.” So I stayed on the phone with him for twenty minutes, neither of us saying anything. I listened to his quiet breath and wondered how it must feel not to have a mom. I ripped a page out of my school notebook and wrote down things I wanted to say to him, questions I would have liked to ask. Finally, he'd said, “Thank you so much. That meant a lot to me.” We hung up and never talked about it again. I haven't told Lo or Grace about that, because I can't imagine either of them not saying anything to someone for that long. I know they wouldn't get the silence.