Charlie
It was Nixon.
And he was holding me.
Just like he had in high school.
Just like he had that summer.
I rested my chin on his shoulder and squeezed tight, never wanting to let go.
I couldn’t believe it. After all those years of missing him, there he was.
His arms slackened around my waist and he pulled back, staring down at me. I studied his long, oval face. Still the same, yet different. His dark hair was even neater than it used to be—short at the sides and combed back, held in place with military-grade hair product. His mom must love it.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as I smoothed my hand down his sweater, then tweaked his collar.
“Wow,” I murmured. “It’s you.”
“It’s me.” His soft whisper made me wonder if I’d been forgiven, but then I glanced into his brown eyes and had to concede that walking out on our friendship without a word probably had a lasting impact. One I wasn’t quite ready to face.
So, in my usual style, I squeezed his arm and let out a laugh that was light and fresh. I couldn’t ruin this precious moment with angst and heartache. I was standing beside Nixon. That was my happy place, and I had to make the most of it.
With a little grin, I nudged his elbow. “Of all the airports in all the world, huh? What are you doing in New York?”
His stunned surprise was making way for a smile. His lips twitched, nearly rising as he tried to answer me.
“I’m, uh…” The phone in his pocket cut him off.
Pulling it out with a fleeting wince, he checked the screen and I swear his shoulders slumped.
With a forced smile, he slid his thumb across the screen and moved away from me.
I studied him while he chatted to… Man, it had to be one of his parents. The way he was running a hand through the back of his hair, grimacing, pointing up at the flight boards. Stress pulsed out of him, and that look he used to get whenever he’d let his mother down flashed across his face.
Damn, I hated that.
Nixon was perfect, and the amount of pressure his parents always put on him drove me nuts.
I mean, yeah, upon reflection, I get that they wanted a good life for him. Nixon was their only son, made even more precious by the fact that they lost their firstborn in a reckless accident where safety had taken a back seat to thrill seeking. It happened when Nixon was thirteen. Against her parents’ wishes, his older sister, Reagan, had taken off on a camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park with some seniors from school. Her boyfriend at the time had convinced her to try free-climbing with him. One slip and her life was over.
It hit the family pretty hard.
Nixon withdrew from everyone, turning his back on all the friends he once had.
He even ended up going to a totally different high school…which was lucky for me. I never would have met him otherwise.
I still remember the first time I saw him—the sad, quiet soul. The perfect A student. The golden son.
Since Reagan’s death, he’d worked overtime to try to help his parents overcome the tragedy. He told me that he’d been stuck in a fog for a while but he clawed his way out of it, starting a new school, trying to get on with life and make the gaping hole just a little smaller. He’d tried to become everything his parents wanted him to be in order to dull the pain and make things better.
He was well-behaved, smart, talented and disciplined. Basically capable of becoming anything he wanted.
But that wasn’t the point.
Because his parents weren’t just going to let him become anything. He was their precious son, and they wanted him to have a sensible, secure life with a safe, predictable future—a stable job, a gated house, a handpicked wife and a bulletproof car.
I rolled my eyes as the sarcastic thoughts burned the back of my brain.
They’d go out of their way to minimize all risks in a bid for their son’s longevity.
The deep sadness I had to constantly dodge rolled through me.
I was never quite sure what to do when it hit. Sometimes I got mad at them, and then myself, occasionally Nixon, or his reckless sister. Other times I cried. Most times I lifted my chin and reminded myself that I’d done the right thing.
It’d just be really great if when I did that, I actually believed it.
Nixon slid the phone back in his pocket and pressed his lips together. It was good to see his standard expressions hadn’t changed since high school.
Heavy sighs, lips pressed tight, slumped shoulders. He was pissed off.
When he turned toward me, I made a funny face, hoping to break him out of his stupor.
His lips twitched and he closed his eyes, shaking his head as he shuffled back to my side.
“Damn this snow, right?” He glanced up at the boards again. “I can’t see those canceled signs changing any time soon.”
I followed his line of sight, then gave him a glum smile. “Probably not.”
He clenched his jaw, and my stomach pitched. Damn, that was sexy. Call me weird, but I’d always had a thing for Nixon’s jaw clenching. The way the muscles on his strong face tightened for a second. I wanted to touch his cheek, run my finger down to his chin.
Kiss his lips.
I squeezed my eyes shut and looked to the floor. He’d never been my boyfriend, and he probably never would be. Kissing was off the table, whether I wanted it to be or not.
But that didn’t mean we couldn’t hang out and have some fun. Yeah, mega-awkwardness was a possibility, but if I kept it light and fun, pretended that the last four years hadn’t existed, hid my pain behind a bright smile, then maybe we could capture a moment in time. We could create a memory that would make us smile somewhere down the road.
Clearing my throat, I caught his eye and gave him my best grin. “So…the rents giving you a hard time, huh?”
He snickered, flashing his straight, white teeth at me. I used to say that to him all the time, and his reaction told me he hadn’t forgotten.
I missed us.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I kept my grin in place while he answered me.
“Something like that. I’m supposed to be back in LA for spring break.”
“Oh boy.” I bulged my eyes, knowing just how much he was saying with those two short sentences.
World crisis! The plan’s been changed!
I kept my sarcastic murmurings locked inside my mouth and overrode them by softly stating the obvious. “I bet they’re pissed about those canceled flights.”
“Disappointed.” Nixon’s head bobbed.
“Nothing you can do about them though, right?”
His thin lips turned into a fleeting pout as he shook his head.
So I did the only thing that was left to do.
Grabbing his hand, I gave it a jiggle and said, “Let’s go have some fun.”
“Uh…” The look on his face brought back a rush of memories that nearly made my eyes water.
“Come on, Charlie, don’t do this to me again. Don’t pull me out of my comfort zone.”
I’d been torturing him ever since we started hanging out junior year.
But I’d never lost.
Because deep down, underneath all that ordered discipline and analytical thought, lay a guy who just wanted to break out and have a good time.
I wiggled my eyebrows at him. “Come on, you know you want to.”
He turned his grimace into a strained smile. “I don’t know, Charlie. I should probably stick around, just in case…”
“In case what?” I laughed. “In case the weather suddenly clears? You know that’s not happening. Let’s at least go have a drink and catch up. You can come back and join the line later. I bet it will have barely moved by the time we get back.”
He sighed at my logic, knowing I was right. “I shouldn’t leave the airport though.”
“That’s cool.” I shrugged. “You got a million bucks? I’m sure that’d buy us a drink or two at one of these airport bars.”
He laughed and shook his head, then pressed his lips together and looked down the line.
The counter was at least twenty people away. He wasn’t getting near that thing any time soon.
Letting go of his hand, I started doing a little dance and whistling a song from years ago—“Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” It used to irritate him, but for some reason it would always win him over in the end. He was a worrier, and there was nothing more triumphant than pulling him out of those frowny faces he made.
His eyebrows dipped in the middle, so I whistled a little louder.
“Stop,” he whispered out the side of his mouth, looking around and giving the guy next to us an embarrassed smile. “Don’t whistle.” He cringed.
I grinned and started singing.
His eyebrows popped high. “And now you’re singing. With the accent too. That’s not embarrassing at all.”
I laughed and kept going, tugging on his wrist and easily pulling him out of the line.
His eyes warmed with a familiar affection that I could feel all the way to the tips of my purple boots.
It was just like old times. Me pulling a reluctant Nixon away from his straight-laced, ordered life to show him a slice of something he never got at home—spontaneous fun.