Page 43 of Awestruck at Dusk
“Hey, Bee,” Nolan said behind me with my camera strapped around his neck.
“Oh, hey!” I replied as a server walked beside us, offering more wine. I immediately switched glasses with him. Nolan declined the wine. “Are you guys having fun?” Emily sat and talked with the rest of our friends from Parsons in the distance.
“Emily and Bryce won’t shut up about Jordan Schreiber,” he said, pushing his hair out of his forehead. He looked a little tipsy. I guess I was about to join him any second now. “They’reobsessedwith him. But when I said something about Lily and that little model gang sitting over there”—he pointed a lazy finger at them—“Emily pinched me.”
I laughed. “Well, Jordan’s not my type, but I mean, look at him. You can’t blame them, can you?” Jordan wasn’t the kind of guy who walks by unnoticed, especially if you’re into that bad-boy-fresh-out-of-jail-on-a-million-dollar-bail kind of look.
“Yeah, I know your type,” Nolan teased. “Tall, blond, and Nordic.”
“Nolan!”
He laughed. “Am I lying here, Bee?” He was dead serious with his question. I puckered my lips to the side, thinking about how to handle this conversation.
“Well, we do call you Nolan the Liar at Parsons, did you know?” I laughed.
He chuckled with me. “Come on, Bee. I can see the way you look at him.”
Shit.
“Nolan, I don’t think we should”—I looked behind my shoulders—“have this conversation right now. It’s not the place or time.”
“I’m just trying to help. I know you’rehappywith Nathan,” he said, air quoting the word happy. That threw me off. “Look.” He pulled the strap over his head and turned on the camera’s display. “Look at that. That. Wait …This.” He zoomed in on my face. I was looking at William with a stupid smile on my face. And yeah, my eyes looked—weird. Glazed. Sparkly and shit.
“You should delete those,” I suggested. “Please.”
“Nah, you should keep them. You’ll thank me later.”
“I wouldn’t want Nathan to see them.”
“Why?” he asked, putting the camera’s strap around his neck again.
“Nolan, come on.” I laughed a nervous, uncomfortable laugh.
“I just want to see you happy, Bee.”
“I am!”
“Happier. No … happiest?” He laughed. Yeah, he was tipsy and funny.
“Happiest?”
“The happiest you can be.”
I peeked over Nolan’s shoulder and saw Nathan laughing, drinking, having fun with Joel and his friend Aiden from work. It’s as if he felt I was staring because he looked my way and winked at me with one of his cheeky smiles. Fuck. I loved him.
But …
“Nolan?”
“Yes, Bee?” He signaled one of the servers passing by to come over.
“I have feelings for William.”
“Shit,” Nolan said when the server arrived. “We’ll have two shots of tequila.”
There. I said it.
Best Behavior
