Nothing More (20 page)

Inside, the hallways of my building are empty and silent.

When I step off the elevator and into the hallway on my floor, it smells like sugar and spice. Nora must be here, and she and Tessa must be making a sweet, floury mess in the kitchen.

Music is playing; the crooning voice of an edgy girl taking a stand for disregarded youth who are the New Americana fills the apartment when I open the door. I kick off my shoes and leave them by the door. When I walk into the kitchen, I put the gallon of milk I bought while I was out on the counter near Tessa, but it's Nora who thanks me first.

“It's nothing,” I tell her, pulling my jacket off of my shoulders and down my arms.

I really need to do something for Ellen for her birthday. She looked even less excited today when I asked her about her big day this week.

“I was walking right by the store when Tessa texted me,” I add.

Still, Nora smiles at me.

God, she's even more beautiful than I remember, and it's only been a week since I've seen her.

Nora grabs the milk and walks over to the fridge. “You missed the most epic baking fail. Tessa added whipped cream instead of whipping cream to the scone recipe.”

“We said that was going to be a secret,” Tessa grumbles playfully. She looks at me. “The dough fell flat.”

“Yeah. After the scones burned,” Nora says over her shoulder.

I think I like how comfortable she seems to be feeling here. I like that she walks with ease through the kitchen, her back straight and her full mouth partly smiling, relaxed. She opens the fridge and places the milk inside. I look away when she bends over to grab a pitcher full of cold water from the bottom shelf. I try not to let my mind linger on the tightness of her white pants. They aren't quite sweats, but they aren't really yoga pants either. I don't care what they are: her ass looks incredible with the fabric stretched over it, accentuating the melon shape.

She's wearing a long-sleeved baseball-style shirt, the arms of which are a different color from the body, and her deep-blue sleeves are pushed up to her elbows. Her thick, dark hair is pulled up into a high ponytail and her socks have little cartoon bacon and eggs printed on them. The skin of her stomach is showing, but I refuse to look, knowing I won't be able to stop.

Nora walks over to the oven and pulls out a tray of biscuits, or maybe they're scones? Probably scones. I typically don't care for them; Grind sells only incredibly healthy scones that taste like olive-oil-covered grains baked into wheatgrass bread. Not for me.

My mom's professional-level skills as a baker ruined me for anybody else's cookies or cakes. Our house was always full of sweets, which is probably why I was a pudgy kid. I have to work a little harder than normal people to be able to eat the things I like without putting on weight. It took me a while to realize that, but I'm glad I did. I remember how it felt when the assholes at my high school stopped having a reason to make fun of my weight—not that they didn't find another reason to treat me like shit—but I felt lighter, mentally and physically, and I started gaining a confidence I'd never felt before.

Tessa and Nora have been in the kitchen every day this week, but I've been hiding in my room, trying to get my school assignments done and just plain crashing after work. Even in my dreams I hear the displeased customers' voices as they stare at the menu board on the wall.

“Um, do you have, like, Frappuccinos here? Like Starbucks?”

“Why don't you have cashew milk?”

“What's the difference between a cappuccino and a latte?”

I only worked three hours tonight, but this week has exhausted me. As tired as I am, though, I don't think I want to hide in my room tonight. I want to talk to Tessa, and even to Nora. I hate the way my chest tightens when she looks at me, the way her eyes always catch mine. I'm making a choice to be social tonight. It's nice for me to engage with people, even if it's just the two of them.

Nora takes the scones off of the hot pan and places them on a cooling rack. They smell like blueberries. I sit down at the small three-person table and watch Nora move around the room. She picks up a plastic bag full of yellow goo and twists the end, creating a puffy triangle of creamy icing. She places a small metal tip on the pointy end and squeezes the icing on top of each scone.

Nora says something about how icing makes scones taste better, but I'm too busy trying to make sure my eyes don't linger on her ass for a beat too long to really pay attention.

I'm also suddenly struck with the question of whether I should stay out here with them or not. I don't want to be in the way.

“How was work?” Tessa asks.

She dips her finger into a bowl of thick batter, speckled with blue chunks. Blueberries, maybe? Her mouth opens and she pops her finger into her mouth.

I look over at Nora, who's pushing up her sleeves again. Which leads me to notice the material at the bottom of the shirt. It looks like it's been cut with scissors to reveal the bottom four inches of her abdomen.

I usually wouldn't mind this. Not one bit. I can't imagine that anyone would, unless they, too, were tortured by the temptation that is Nora while also knowing that nothing could come of it.

Her skin is a few shades darker than mine and I can't tell her ethnicity by simply looking at her. I do know, though, that she's a mix of something beautiful and unique. I'm not sure what it is specifically, but the almond shape of her eyes is striking, and so are her dark brows and the thick lashes that shade her high cheekbones. That shirt she's wearing looks perfect on her, just like every trendy outfit I've seen her in. Her hips are full, and the way her white cotton pants cling to her ass is hard to look away from.

Did I already say that?

I allow myself a few seconds to look at her, really look at her. It won't hurt just to stare for a second or two . . . right?

She's so oblivious to my gaze, to my longing to run my fingers along the bare skin of her back. My thoughts take me there, to a world where Nora is lying next to me, my fingers moving their way across her tanned skin. I would love to see her fresh out of a shower. Her hair would be wet, wavy at the ends, and her skin would be dewy, her dark lashes even blacker against her skin when she blinks—

“That bad, huh?” Nora asks.

I shake my head. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn't respond to Tessa's question about my workday. I tell her it was the same as usual, crowded and fast-paced. The first few weeks of college are a busy time for coffee shops, even across the bridge in Brooklyn.

I don't bore them with the details of the nozzle on the sink breaking off, spraying water all over Aiden. I can't say I didn't laugh when he wasn't looking—he was so pissed that his hair got messed up. It was all the funnier because it had been his idea to toy with the nozzle in the first place, claiming that he knew how to fix the leak.

Draco . . . foiled again.

Tessa tells me that she picked up extra shifts for the next two weekends, and I know that by mentioning her work schedule she's also really itching to know when Hardin is coming so she can keep her distance. I should tell her that he's coming next weekend, and I intend to, but I'm going to wait until Nora leaves so Tessa can have some time alone to get used to the idea and figure out how to prepare herself.

I've watched the light in Tessa drain away with each day she's in the city, alone, all the while that she's hearing about how Hardin is thriving under the influence of his new group of friends and the advice of his therapist. I truly think he's getting better and that this time away is necessary for him, even if he loathes it.

If the two of them don't end up married with a bunch of stubborn, shaggy-haired children, I will lose all my faith in love.

I hate the word
therapist
. It adds such a stigma to someone who spends their life attempting to heal others.

Somehow it's been deemed inappropriate to talk about your therapist at the water coolers at your day job, yet spreading gossip about your co-workers' lives is completely acceptable. Sometimes the world's priorities are really messed up.

“Have you heard from your mom?” Tessa asks me.

Nora moves comfortably around the kitchen again. She washes the cooling racks and wets a sponge to wipe the countertops clean while I explain to Tessa that my little sister is using my mom's belly for soccer training. “She swears that little Abby will be first pick in the MLS superdraft,” I tell them.

My mom says her body aches and aches at night, making room for the baby growing inside. She isn't complaining, though—she's awed and fascinated by the changes her body is undergoing at her age and she's eternally grateful to have had a healthy, uneventful pregnancy.

“You lost me at MLD super-something,” Nora chirps, her lips quirking up to one side in amusement.

Slight amusement. Her eyes always seem to have a touch of boredom, like her life prior to the current moment was much more exciting in some important way.

“I was talking about soccer. You don't watch any sports?” I ask. I know Tessa doesn't.

Nora shakes her head. “Nope. I'd rather cut my own eyes out and eat them with ketchup.”

I laugh at her very detailed and fairly morbid reply.

“Well, then.” I reach for a scone that she already covered in icing and she stops my hand just before I grab it.

“You have to let the icing cool,” she explains, her hand still on mine.

“Just like three minutes,” Tessa adds.

Nora's hand is so warm.

Why isn't she letting go?

And why don't I want her to?

I was supposed to be forgetting about any sort of attraction I have to her. I was supposed to get used to my spot in the friend zone. It seems pointless to keep asking myself these stupid questions about why I feel this or feel that, but I'm trying to feel slightly more in control of myself, and asking questions seems like a way to do that.

I need to constantly remind myself to stay in the friend zone. It's hard to do this when she's sitting here, looking at me like this, touching me like this, wearing that.

I glance down at our hands, hers darker than mine, and when my eyes catch hers, she seems to remember that she shouldn't be holding my hand like this; friends don't hold hands.

Tessa's phone rings and Nora jumps. Her cheeks flare, and I want to reach for her again, but I can't.

“It's my boss. I'm going to take this,” Tessa says.

She pauses for a moment and glances at both of us, silently asking if we're okay to be left alone alone.

Nora gives her a small smile, her eyes saying what her mouth—and mine—can't.

With every step that Tessa takes down the hall, the air in the kitchen grows thicker. Nora keeps herself occupied by pulling a pan from the counter and tossing it into the sink. She turns on the water, grabs the bottle of dishwashing liquid, and gets to scrubbing. I don't know if I should just stand here awkwardly while she washes the pan, or if I should just go in my room and spend the night alone, again.

I pull out my phone and scroll through the last few text messages I received. I have a text from Posey, a meme about baristas. A quiet laugh rocks through me and Nora's shoulders tilt toward me.

She seems to stop herself before she completely turns around. She grabs the bottle of soap and squeezes again. Little angry bubbles float around her and I notice that she's still scrubbing the same pan.

I take a silent step toward her and look into the sink. The pan is clean, no cake residue left, its surface all shiny despite a thick and completely unnecessary coat of bubbly soap. Her hands work at the already-clean pan and I take another step closer to her. My foot catches one of the legs of the wooden kitchen chairs and she jumps at the noise.

“So, how have you been? Anything new?” I ask, like I've never spoken to her before and like I didn't just trip over a chair.

Nora's shoulders lift with a deep breath and she shakes her head, her dark ponytail waving back and forth with her movements.

“Not really” is all she says, and her hands go back to scrubbing the pan. Finally, she rinses it and lays it to dry on the wire rack next to the sink.

Where is Tessa?
I wish she would come back and break the awkwardness in this kitchen.

“How's work going? Do you still like it there?” I just can't shut the hell up.

Nora shrugs again and I think I hear her say, “It's okay.”

“Are you mad at me or something?” my mouth says for me.

Mad at me?
Am I five, asking Carter if he's mad that my mom accidentally ran over his toy in the driveway?

Before I can stumble further and make things even more awkward between the two of us, Nora turns around to face me. The curve of her throat seems to be pulsing, her chest rising and falling in a slow throb. My own chest is on fire, a hollow feeling that doesn't belong here, not because of someone who's practically a stranger.

“Mad at you? For what?” There's sincerity in her eyes when she speaks to me; her lips are pouty and she's waiting for an answer that's somehow harder for me to give than it should be.

I rub my hand over the back of my neck, thinking, thinking, thinking, always thinking.

“Everything? The Dakota thing, the kiss, the—”

When Nora opens her mouth to speak, I stop midsentence to let her. She leans her elbow against the counter and her eyes focus on me. She's staring hard, and in this moment I wish I knew her well enough to know what she's thinking, how she's feeling. I can't read her, no matter how badly I want to.

I'm usually good at figuring out people and their behaviors. I can usually tell when someone is feeling something, even when they're trying their best to hide it. The quick movement of their eyes to the opposite side of the room or the subtle shift of their body weight . . . there are a million ways to read someone.