Mom calls me from Uncle Jim’s all week.

She went to the doctor with Uncle Jim on Wednesday and found out he has high blood pressure and will start taking a pill to help lower it. I’m relieved that it was only high blood pressure and not something worse.

His house was a pig sty when Mom arrived, and she has spent the last several days cleaning up the disaster. I have a feeling that he won’t keep up with the housework once Mom leaves.

It hasn’t been bad staying by myself. I have gone to Mrs. Jenkins’ house every day, eating an early dinner there after school. She practically insists on me staying each night, but I declined her request each time, telling her if I changed my mind I would come right over.

Nico came over on Tuesday and Wednesday, and both days we watched movies. I picked first, and then he chose a zombie movie that’s part of a three-part series. We didn’t talk about anything serious—we mostly talked along with the movies, as if we were the characters. We made it through the first two zombie movies. But each time after finishing the films before he left, we kissed for a long time on the couch, and I didn’t want him to leave. Tonight, he’s bringing over the final zombie film, and I’m ready for it.

We finish our shift at around nine tonight, and Nico is coming over directly after.

“Should I stop by the store and pick up anything on the way to your house?” He pulls his keys out of his pocket.

I grab mine and unlock the door. “If you want chips. You finished the whole bag on Wednesday. Otherwise, we’re good.”

Nico bumps his shoulder against mine. “I distinctly remember you eating more chips than I did.”

“Maybe?” I say and shift my eyes to the side as I smile.

Leaning forward, he gives me a quick brush of the lips before heading to open his car door. “I’ll be there in a while.”

“Park away from the house like you have been.” I don’t need Mrs. Jenkins giving a report to my mom.

When I get home, the house is bathed in darkness, and I flip on both lamps. Turning on the TV, I sit down to watch it for a while.

Tap-tap-tap. The knock is soft, and I rush to the door to open it. Clenching Nico’s shirt, I pull him inside before Mrs. Jenkins has a chance to see him. It looks like she went to bed already because there weren’t any lights on when I got home.

My stomach dips with the sight of him. Nico has two big plastic bags in his hand, and he hands me one. I grab it and dig through it. There’s one of those huge tubs of cheese balls, plain chips and multiple dips. I pull out the container of cheese balls. “You know I could marry you for bringing these.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks, an eyebrow rises upward. Quickly, I turn and walk to the couch, drawing my face up in a cringe that’s filled with embarrassment. Why did I say that?

I try to play it off. “Yeah, but only if you brought me a container every single day for the rest of our lives.”

Nico scratches his head and laughs. “Only if you give me those juice boxes you have for the rest of your life.” He removes the guitar that’s strapped on his back and places it beside the couch before following me into the kitchen.

Laughing, I walk to the fridge, grabbing us both orange flavored juice boxes. He takes the plastic off his straw, pokes it in the hole of the juice box, instantly taking a sip. I look away from his mouth after realizing I’m focused on his lips.

I turn my stare to the guitar case that’s leaning against the couch. “So, I see you brought your guitar this time. Are you ready to play for me?”

He lets out a huff that shows he’s only pretending he doesn’t want to do it. “If you want me to?” He’s already reaching for the case and taking out his acoustic guitar.

I take a seat on the couch, waiting in anticipation. “You have postponed this long enough, Nico. I’m all ears.”

He begins to strum the strings and plays a song for me that has a slow tempo, building gradually. I feel connected to it. I watch the way his fingertips press against the chords, the way his other hand holds the pick and strums, the way his auburn head is tilted down, holding the bottom edge of his lip between his teeth. His eyes draw to mine and hold, and I don’t look away.

Nico ends the song, and I’m impressed. “Now, I know you’re good. You have officially entered the category of moving the needle out of the middle and toward the section that says good.”

“I showed you mine, now you have to show me yours.” Nico grins, tilting his head back at me while bending over his case to place the guitar inside.

I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Um.” I just stare at him.

His responding grin is huge. “Your art, dummy. What did you think I was talking about?”

Oh. He wants to see my art. I never had a problem showing anyone my art before, but showing him somehow feels different like I’m exposing myself to him. I think about it, and I like the idea of that. “Sure. You have to come with me, though.”

“Now, I’m intrigued.” Nico props his case back against the couch and follows behind me to the art room.

Opening the door, I step into the room. I have been coming in here all week, working on sketches for art class. “This is the art room. Some of my drawings are over there.” I point to a desk covered in piles of pencils, charcoal, paints, and markers.

Nico looks at my desk and then turns his head to the other desk against the other wall. “What about that?”

I look at my feet for a minute, knowing what Nico is staring at. “That was all my dad’s art and supplies. He was the one that taught me everything he knew.”

He looks at a big piece that my dad painted of Mom and me when I was around six. The colors he used are all wild and bright and not the normal colors of our skin or hair. It represents the way that he saw us, and how we always brightened everything in his life more than it was. That’s what he told me anyway.

Nico turns around to look at me over his shoulder. “He was really good.” Then he looks back at the painting.

I decide to tell him what happened. Nico has become more than a co-worker. He’s a good friend and becoming so much more.

I walk and stand next to him, looking at the painting. “My dad died from cancer.” I turn to look at his face which is looking at me intently, and then I look back at the painting of Mom and me. “All the time in movies and books, there’s always someone dying from cancer. I used to ask myself ‘why can’t they choose another illness? They always choose cancer.’” I pause. “It’s because cancer affects so many damn people. My dad waited until it was too late. He wouldn’t go to the doctor to find out what was wrong. All he had to do was seek help, but then you see so many people go through the treatments and lose every ounce of themselves and still die in the end. Maybe that was also what he was afraid of. I only wish he would have tried before it was considered terminal.”

Before I have a chance to react, Nico pulls me into an embrace. My face crashes against his shoulder, and I stand there for a long time holding onto him. He doesn’t say anything and doesn’t have to, but I do. “He didn’t just die, he shot himself in his room, while we were here.”

His hands tighten around me, and he curses softly. I pull back and tell him everything, and he listens. After I finish, I transition awkwardly to a new subject. “So, my drawings and stuff are over there.”

I walk to my desk and hand him my sketchbook. He takes it with interest and immediately flips through it. It’s filled with mainly fantasy creatures, monsters, and my version of creepy flowers. I like to do real life drawings, too, but there’s just something about sketching things you don’t see on a normal basis.

He uses his time absorbing each picture in. “These are really good, May. Are you sure you don’t want to try to pursue art as a career somehow?” His head lifts to me quickly before turning back to the pictures.

“No, way. I like having it as a hobby. As much as I love it, I would much rather teach it. I don’t have the drive that your sister does to show my work, making art for other people. Violet has the personality along with the art, and it will take her somewhere.”

I couldn’t do all that. It’s mainly a release for me and myself only when I’m having a stressful day, inspired, or even bored; I escape and live through it.

I pull out a couple of paintings, leaning against the wall and show him. They are abstract—he can decide whatever he wishes them to be.

“Are you going to draw a picture of me?” He tilts his chin down and looks me in the eye dead on.

“Do you want me to draw a picture of you? I know you are used to it from Violet.” I would like to sketch him. At work when I used to try and hide that I was seriously looking at him, I wished that I had a pencil and my sketchbook right there.

He cocks his head to the side “Yeah I want to see your real-life skills.”

“Okay.” Feeling excited and nervous at the same time, I grab another book I have that has drawings of people only. I bring it into my room with a pencil, since I like the lighting in here better than the living room. Before I begin sketching, I turn on the movie and sit on the bed, and Nico sits down beside me against the headboard. He watches the movie, and I lean forward and begin to draw a side profile picture of his face.

My hand shakes at first from the nerves bubbling through my body for staring at him, but I quickly realize I’m drawing, so it’s okay to stare. We may have already kissed three times, but the nerves haven’t faded. I scoot closer to him to get the details as accurate as possible for the lines of his jaw and nose, and he turns his head to say something. I guess he didn’t realize my face had gotten so close. I smile and casually move back.

Nico gently grabs my arm and stops me from drifting away. His eyes move toward my lips, and I don’t want to wait until after the movie for us to kiss tonight.

Setting my drawing stuff down, I lift my hands to grasp his face, bringing my lips softly to his.

This is when he takes the kiss into real kiss territory. He opens his lips and moves his mouth against mine with firmer pressure. It’s more than a kiss. It’s a rain dance filled with twirling, rain, lightning, and storms. My heart thunders against my ribcage, and I don’t want the feeling to ever end. Not today and not tomorrow.

Our kisses so far have been amazing, but this kiss, this kiss holds the power to unlock everything inside me, and the key is all his. I want it, and I want more of him. I swipe my tongue against his lower lip like he usually does to me, brushing my tongue against his.

He starts to lie back and pulls me on top of him. I thread my hands through his hair and pull gently. His hands run against the edge of my shirt, and he slowly lifts it up, stopping midway, as if questioning me if it’s all right. And it’s so all right. Leaning forward, I let him pull it all the way off. We kiss and we kiss, until there needs to be more. There must be more, and the rest of our clothes come off piece by slow piece, falling to the floor in a broken puzzle.

Nico rolls me to my back and hovers above me. He pulls back from my lips and trails kisses along my jaw to my ear, and I tug him closer to me.

“I don’t want to. Do you?” I ask. At this moment it feels right, and I don’t want to stop.

He leans back to get a better look at my eyes. “I don’t want to stop, but it may not be good.” He looks away and says, “I haven’t done this before.”

Did he think I was a pro at this? Then it hits me. “You mean. You and Lanie didn’t? After three years?” I’m stunned by this. Three years is a long time.

Shaking his head, his face holds an emotion I haven’t seen from him. “No. It’s different with you than it was with her.”

I press my lips to his again. “I haven’t been with anyone either. We’ll have to figure it out together.”

“I didn’t think that you had, but I wasn’t sure,” he smiles.

There’s a lot of laughing with the awkwardness of it all being new, until it all comes together. It hurts, and it may not have been perfect, but it was perfection to me.

We fall asleep afterward, and I wake to Nico still sleeping. He slowly opens his eyes and gives me a sleepy smile. “This means you’re my girlfriend now, right?”

“Maybe.” I smile. I have been waiting for him to bring it up. I don’t think the smile will ever shut off.

Nico reaches his hands out, his fingers at my sides, and then he tickles me until I can’t take it. “Yes! Yes, it does. Now quit,” I half cry and half laugh.