“Oh, right.” He looks across the kitchen, like maybe I made a mistake and she’s just hiding behind the fridge. “Does she ever say anything?” he whispers. “Like, about me?”
Frankie Torres … not a lady … something wrong with this picture …
“Honestly, we haven’t talked much lately,” I say. “With work and hockey stuff … we haven’t seen each other.”
“Oh, okay. Cool. I was just—”
“One minute, people!” Amir cuts the music and turns up the television, and Frankie and I merge into the living room with the rest of the crowd. The place is packed, and I end up in a chair across from the couch, separated from Will by a dozen warm bodies. Simultaneously, everyone joins in on the countdown, all of us watching the giant silver ball descend over Times Square.
“Five … four … three … two … one … Happy New Year!”
The horns and cheap noisemakers muffle the “Auld Lang Syne” trumpets blaring from the television, but that’s just fine by me, because that song always makes me cry. Paper confetti snows down around us, everyone drunk and swaying, hugging and kissing. Only Frankie Torres is alone, sitting on the couch and staring out the front windows as if he’s still hoping Dani might show. Right now she’s dancing in some fancy hotel ballroom while her dad’s jazz ensemble belts out this very song, and Josh is making out with Abby, and Mom is schmoozing the locals, and Bug’s back home, probably watching the same channel as me, swallowed up by the giant pillows on our couch, and I’m just—
“Where’s my girl?” Will calls out across the room. He smiles when he finally sees me, his eyes lighting up like there’s no one else here.
I look behind me, half expecting to see Kara there with open arms and a freshly glossed pout, primed for kissing. But there’s only me, rising dumbly from the chair as Will edges through the crowd, drink held high above a sea of people.
“Happy New Year, Hudson.” He grabs me with one arm and pulls me into a kiss. The feather boa crushes between us, its delicate feathers tickling my chin. His mouth tastes sweet from the red stuff in his cup, but his movements are intentional, not sloppy or drunk. His hand glides up my neck, tangling into my hair, and the kiss intensifies, my heart hammering so loudly in my ears that I no longer hear the celebration around us; I’m not part of it. My whole body reacts to his touch, skin heating up as his fingers trace lines down my neck, across my collarbone, erasing the rest of my thoughts.
Unnoticed, Will and I sneak down the hallway and slip into a room on the other side of the house. The space is small and mostly dark, some kind of office, illuminated only by the white-yellow glow of a streetlamp outside.
Will closes the door with his foot, his lips never breaking from mine. He backs me against the wall, and as my shoulders hit the cold, painted plaster, I give in to the current of him, melting beneath his touch. Slowly, he tugs the boa from my neck, feathers quivering as it falls to the floor. I slip my hands underneath his shirt, trailing my fingers over the smooth, knotted muscles of his back, all the way up to his shoulders. Beyond the window on the opposite wall, icy snow falls soundlessly from the sky, but in here, Will’s skin is warm, the heat of him radiating through my thin camisole, the ragged, uneven tide of his breath hot on my neck.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers in my ear, soft and hungry. I pull him tighter against my body and close my eyes, letting his words linger, his hands expertly moving down my back.
This is it, the kiss he promised, the midnight interlude I’d been warned about. But as good as he makes me feel on the outside, on the inside, I can’t stop my mind from wandering. Each time I try to catch my thoughts and bring them back to this moment, every cell of my body pressed against Will’s in the newborn moments of another year, I lose my way. It’s like driving in a blizzard, slowly inching along the road back home only to realize at the end of a long, cold night that you’ve pulled into someone else’s driveway, someone else’s life.
“You okay?” Will whispers, slightly breathless. He brushes a lock of hair from my eyes and kisses my face, but my hand is flat against his chest, holding him back. “We don’t have to do anything you—”
“It’s not that.” I slide my hand down his shirt and close my eyes, fingers tracing the ridges of his abdomen. “I’m sorry. I just … I feel kind of light-headed.”
“Do you want to sit?” He takes my hands in his and squeezes gently, nodding toward a desk chair behind me.
“I think I need some water.” I kiss him once more to alleviate his concern and duck into the hall. The bathroom is thankfully unoccupied; inside, I click the door shut and run my wrists under the cold tap, willing the chill into my veins, counting my heartbeats until they slow to a regular rate.
Will Harper. Until recently, he barely acknowledged my existence. Now, after just a few weeks of hanging out, he’s calling me his girl? Looking at me like I’m the only person in a crowded room?
His girl? Is that what I want? Is that who I want?
My thoughts drift again to Josh, that first day we met at Fillmore, his visits to Hurley’s, the backward crossovers, the music, all the jokes and practices. I know we’re just friends, but sometimes, when our laughter fades and he holds my glance a little too long, I swear he’s looking at me as something more. Not just a friend. Not just a skating bud, showing him those complicated crossovers again and again until he gets them right. But then his phone buzzes or he starts talking about something else and the thin, momentary thread connecting us breaks and I start to think I imagined the whole thing. Why can’t I get him out of my head?
I turn off the bathroom faucet. My hands are shaking, and I’m afraid to look at my reflection over the sink. It’s one thing to lie to your mother, your baby brother, even to your best friend. But alone in a tiny beige box of a room on the first of the year, there’s no hiding from yourself when you meet your eyes in the mirror.
Will Harper. Josh Blackthorn. The Capriani Cup. So much has happened this winter, so much has changed. I’ve changed. And maybe I’m not ready to see it yet. Maybe I don’t want to know the evidence, the smudged makeup, lips red from kissing, eyes burning with some new, unnamed intensity. So I focus instead on the old water spots, the fingerprints of everyone who lives here. I reach for the hand towel on the side of the sink and—
BANG! The door rattles against the frame.
“Just a minute,” I say. “Be right out—”
“Or …” The door swings open. “I’ll just come in.”
“What—”
“Yeah. Hi, Hudson. Happy New Year to you, too.” Kara shuts the door and leans her back against it, red liquid sloshing out over the cup in her hand. Mascara is smudged beneath her eyes and her long, strawberry blond hair is slipping from its headband, the ends tangling in a black boa around her neck. I didn’t see her in the crowd before, but of course she’s here.
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning to stab you with an ice pick. At least, not with all these witnesses around.”
My eyes flicker to the sink, but there’s nothing but a bar of soap and a cup full of frayed toothbrushes. Sure, a dental instrument to the eye might sting for a minute, but as far as self-defense weaponry goes, the Jordans’ bathroom is severely ill-equipped.
Kara downs her drink and tosses the plastic cup into the bathtub. It rattles against the porcelain, leaving a trail of orange-red dots in its wake.
“Kara, if this is about Will, I really don’t—”
“Nope. Over it.” She helps herself to one of Mrs. Jordan’s lotions from a shelf on the wall and flips the cap. She sits on the edge of the tub, props her foot up on the sink, and massages white goop into her bare legs. The whole room reeks of dried roses and spiked fruit punch, and I have to breathe through my mouth to keep from gagging.