One Night That Changes Everything (10 page)

I feel the heat of tears prick at the back of my eyes, but I push them away. I don’t have time to cry, and I don’t have time to think about how easy it would be to tell them to go to hell, that I don’t care if they put my stupid notebook on the internet. But I can’t do that. Even if I wanted to, even if I didn’t care. Because the thing is? Not all of the secrets in that book are mine.

10:11 p.m.

Marissa’s right—Nigel’s over in the corner playing craps with his friends, two guys I don’t know very well, one named Nick and the other one they just call Shove. I think it’s because he used to shove freshmen into lockers until someone ended up with a broken finger and the whole administration really started cracking down on that kind of stuff.

I smooth down my jeans and tell myself this is so totally not a big deal. I mean, how hard is it really to seduce someone? Aren’t all guys my age totally hormonal and just waiting for someone to even hint that they have a chance with them? Of course, it would help if Nigel actually knew who I was.

On the bright side, I’m definitely dressed for trying to
seduce someone. My jeans are tight, my shirt is low-cut, and my shoes are high.

I catch Marissa’s eye as I make my way through the crowd over to where Nigel is—she’s sitting on the L-shaped sofa, next to Jeremiah—and I see her send me a message with her eyes, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I telegraph back. As okay as I can be, anyway.

Nigel has his back to me, and he and his friends are all huddled around … hmm. Looks like they’re huddled around nothing. Well, not nothing, exactly, they’re huddled around the ground, which has a bunch of dollar bills on it, along with some dice. Nigel and his friends are really into craps, apparently. But I don’t think it’s the normal casino type of craps, it seems very shady what they do, with all sorts of weird rules. And of course they’re not winning money from the casino, they’re taking money from each other. Which is weird, you know, since they’re all friends. But whatev. I’m not one to judge about what’s weird or not, after the night I’ve been having.

I approach them gingerly, not really sure exactly where to begin. I mean, what do I say, “Oh, hi, Nigel, I have to kiss you now?,” “Wanna make out?,” or maybe just “I’ll give you twenty dollars if you kiss me.” I pull my shirt down a little, because I figure I need all the help I can get.

“Hello,” I squeak at Nigel’s back.

“Oohhs, yeah, you know I’m gonna school you fools,” Nigel is saying. At least, I think that’s what he’s saying. It’s hard to hear him, because he has his back to me.

“Hello!” I say again, a little louder this time.

Shove glances up from the other side of the circle, looks at me, and then goes back to ignoring me. Seriously, what is wrong with people? It was the same thing at Cure when I tried to dance with Rich. Am I that invisible?

I turn around and try to get Marissa’s attention, but she’s not on the couch anymore. I scan the room for her, or maybe even Clarice, who is supposed to be on her way, but the only person I see is Cooper, watching me from the other side of the room.

I turn back to Nigel and his friends and decide I’m just going to have to go for it. I lean into him from behind, so that my boobs are almost pushed against his shoulder, and then I whisper into his ear, “So how do you play?”

“What?” he asks, turning around and looking at me like I’m some kind of nuisance. Then his eyes fall on the plunging neckline of my shirt, and a flicker of interest passes across his face. Ugh. Of course. Although … I probably shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I pull my shirt down a little more.

“I said, ‘How do you play?’” I try to use my most seductive voice.

“You want to play?” Nigel asks incredulously.

“Aww, Nigel, come on,” Shove says. He throws some dice into the middle of the circle. “You’re up.”

“You need a drink?” Nigel asks me.

“No,” I say. “I already had one,” I add. Nigel frowns. “Not that I’m, like, drunk or anything. I mean, I’m just … I’m like,
loose, you know, like up for anything. But not so drunk that I don’t know what I’m doing.” I shoot him a smile, and Shove rolls his eyes at me like I obviously don’t know what I’m doing.

Smart guy, that Shove.

“Why don’t you sit right here,” Nigel says. He moves over on the chair he’s sitting on, a fold-up that can hardly hold him.

“Uh, thanks,” I say. I slowly perch down next to him on the chair.

“Now watch and learn,” he says. And so I do.

“Um, where are we going?” I ask thirty minutes later as Nigel leads me down the hallway of Isabella’s apartment, to what I’m assuming is her bedroom.

“Down here,” he says. The hallway is dim, and I’m trying to follow him, which is hard since I don’t know exactly where I’m going, and these damn shoes are hard to walk in.

“Um, are we supposed to be back here?” I ask.

“It don’t matter,” Nigel says. Hmm. This definitely isn’t true. I’m pretty sure Isabella is the type who doesn’t like people hanging around her bedroom, poking through her stuff. Not that we’re going to poke through her things. Like I even care. Probably all she has is a bunch of love letters to Cooper and sexy lingerie that she parades around in for him. I start to feel a little sick to my stomach, so I push that thought right out of my mind.

“Yeah, well the thing is,” I say desperately, in an effort to keep Nigel at the party. “You know, I kind of feel like … dancing.”

He turns around and looks at me. “You can dance for me, girl, you can give me my own private dance party.”

Usually I’m a big fan of private dance parties. But something tells me Nigel has something different in mind than me dancing around by myself, pretending to be Beyoncé or Cher. (Yes, I pretend to be Cher—who cares? She’s a survivor.)

“Yes, well, um …” The problem is this: I have to make sure that when I kiss Nigel, someone is around to see it. I don’t think it’s enough to make out in private. It has to be done somewhere semi-public. Damn. I should have kissed him while we were out in the living room. Of course, it’s not like there were really any good opportunities. Nigel spent the whole time trying to teach me how to play craps, and I spent the whole time nodding at what he said, whispering things in his ear, and touching his arm a lot.

After a little while, Nigel stood up and said he needed a break (commence a bunch of eye rolling and complaints from Shove and the gang, who were super into the craps game), and then he started walking away, and I just sat there until he finally looked at me and said, “You coming?”

Now Nigel’s opening the door to what appears to be Isabella’s bedroom. The bed is neatly made in a lavender and white bedspread, and there’s a tall white dresser in the corner. There’s a huge floor-to-ceiling bookshelf against one wall, but it’s, predictably, almost empty.

“Come here, Alyssa,” Nigel says, patting the bed next to him.

“It’s Eliza,” I say, impressed he actually almost got my
name right on his own. Alyssa’s pretty close to Eliza, right? And whatever, he knows it now.

“I think we should get back to the party,” I say, glancing toward the door. Now that the moment is here, I’m nervous. This whole thing is so totally and completely bizarre when you think about it—I was so afraid to approach Nigel a couple of years ago, and now here he is, pretty much ready to make out with me. I mean, I could, like,
have my way with him
. If you’d told my two-years-ago self that, she would have been thrilled. Now all I want to do is run away.

Although … Nigel
is
hot. Not someone I’d want to date (the gambling problem, which seemed very edgy and cool in ninth grade seems kind of lame now, and the wannabe gangsta stuff got old a little while ago), but I’ve always loved his smile and scruffy face, and his hair is super-cute and spiky. Plus he has really broad shoulders. Much broader than Cooper’s.

Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. I mean, maybe Nigel isn’t going to be my future husband, but what if he’s supposed to be my rebound hookup? Everyone needs a rebound hookup, right?

I make my way across the room and sit down next to him on Isabella’s bed.

“Where,” Nigel asks, lowering his eyes, “did you come from?”

I’m not sure if he means right now, or like, you know, into his life. So I just smile in what I hope is a mysterious way.

And then Nigel leans over and bites my lip. Wow. I’ve never had my lip bitten before. Not that I’ve had tons of
hookups and tons of, um, chances to get my lip bitten. And not that it’s horrible, getting your lip bitten. It’s just … different. I decide maybe I should try to bite him back, but then his lips are on mine, and we’re kissing.

Nigel’s a good kisser. Not too soft, not too firm. He smells good, like cigarette smoke mixed with cologne—spicy and hot. He puts his hands into my hair and pulls me closer and then we’re lying on the bed, and I can’t believe it, but I am making out with Nigel Rickson! I let my fingers wander around the back of his neck and sort of … melt into him.

Hmm. Maybe there’s something to this whole rebound thing after all. Or maybe I judged Nigel too harshly. I mean, I did like him once, and who said he can’t be a good boyfriend? He’d be at least a much better boyfriend than Cooper. Although Cooper was a good boyfriend while he was my boyfriend, he was just faking it. And someone who’s being real is a much better boyfriend than someone who is faking, no matter how amazing the faker is being.

Anyway, the point is that maybe Nigel
could
actually be my boyfriend, if I would just give him a chance, or he could at least be someone to hook up with more than once, not on a dare or anything, but—

Ooh. What was … ? Oh. Uh-oh. Nigel is getting a little, um, worked up.

He pulls me closer into him, and his mouth is on mine, but now he’s a little more … insistent.

“Hey, hey,” I say, pulling away and sitting up. I smooth my hair down. “Um, Nigel … let’s … why don’t we just chill out for a second.”

Nigel looks upset, but then looks like he thinks better of it. “Why?” he says. He sits up and starts kissing my neck, and his mouth feels soft and warm against my skin. “Why do you want to chill out? Doesn’t this feel good?”

“Ye-es,” I say honestly. “But, um, I don’t want … I mean, shouldn’t we slow down a little bit?”

“Slow down?” Suddenly Nigel pulls back and looks at me like he’s been slapped. “What do you mean, ‘slow down’?”

“You know, slow down.” He’s stopped kissing my neck now, and I move a little closer to him, but he’s not having it.

“I am not,” he says forcefully, “a premature ejaculator.” He looks at the floor and shakes his head.

“Oh, no!” I say quickly. “I don’t think you’re a … a premature ejaculator!”

“You don’t?” he looks up at me. “Because I don’t play that.”

“No, I know you don’t,” I say. Geez. Talk about being defensive. Although. Now that I think about it, I do remember this rumor going around last year, something about Nigel and Hannah Rutherford, about how he got all worked up while they were making out and then he totally ruined her new comforter by—

There’s a knock on the door and Nigel and I look at each other.

“Who is it?” I say.

“Yeah, who’s there?” Nigel wants to know.

“It’s Cooper,” Cooper says. Probably coming to check up on me and see if I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

Nigel looks at me. I shrug.

“Who?”
he asks.

“Cooper Marriatti.” The sound of the doorknob rattling fills the room. I didn’t realize that Nigel locked the door. I’m not sure if I’m scared, flattered, or surprised that Nigel would think to do that.

“The room’s full, dude,” Nigel says. “Find your own.” He smiles at me and I smile back tentatively.

But Cooper keeps knocking. “Eliza?” he asks. “Are you okay?”

Nigel looks at me. “That’s your man?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “That is
not
my man.”

“Good,” Nigel says. “Because I don’t play that.”

“I figured,” I say, adding it to the list in my head of things Nigel doesn’t “play.” I clear my throat. “But you should know that he
is
my
ex
-man. Ex-boyfriend, I mean.”

Nigel nods, like he can accept this.

“Eliza!” Cooper calls. “Open the door or I’m breaking it down.”

“Oh, for Jesus’ sake,” Nigel says. He crosses the room and opens the door. “What do you want, dude? She’s with me now. Bugger off.”

Wow. Two guys fighting over me! Of course, one of them is fighting for me only because he wants to have sex with me,
and the other one is fighting for me only so that he doesn’t get into trouble with his secret underground jerky fraternity, but still. I sit up and pay attention to the drama.

“Eliza?” Cooper asks, looking past Nigel into the room. “Are you okay?”

Is he serious? Am I okay? He’s blackmailing me and now he wants to know if I’M OKAY?

I get up off the bed and cross over to where Nigel is standing with the door open, his arm blocking Cooper’s path into the room.

“I’m FINE,” I say. “What’s it to you?”

“Yeah,” Nigel says. He slings his arm around me. “What’s it to you?”

And then I realize I have a golden opportunity. I am standing in this room, with Nigel close, and Cooper watching. So I lean in really close to Nigel, grab his face, pull it toward me, and kiss him. Right on the lips, a full kiss, tongue and everything. And then I pull away to see Cooper’s shocked expression.

“See?” Nigel says. “She’s fine, mate.”

And then Cooper turns around and walks away.

What. Ever. He was so totally just trying to see if I was making out with Nigel. So he could go back and report it to the 318s. He wasn’t upset. Not for real, anyway. And honestly, it’s so lame. I mean, he is a horrible, horrible person. And all that pretending he’s concerned about me or that he wants to know if I’m okay? That just makes him worse, because an
asshole who pretends to be nice? Is even worse than an asshole who actually is an asshole.

An asshole who sometimes pretends to be nice totally has the ability to suck you back in, making you think that you should give him another chance, or that maybe you had him all wrong.