The Hard Count (7 page)

He’s Nico.
We don’t play nice.

When I look up at him, the left side of his mouth is pulled into a grin. I give back a reserved smile to mask my nerves, then look down at my camera in my hands, turning it to show him the video I shot of him.

“You wanna see it?” I ask. My heart is still thumping wildly.

His eyes flit from mine to my hands and back, then his lip tugs up a little higher, and he nods
yes
. He leans closer to me, so I slide down the table, making room for him to sit beside me. He’s wearing pads, and his bulky leg mashes up against mine, which only makes the heavy beating in my chest feel harder.

I’m sure my hands are trembling, so I lay the weight of the camera on my lap, paying close attention to my touch on the screen, willing my fingers to behave, not to shake, not to care that I’m sitting next to him. I don’t want to care. That wasn’t what any of this was about.

“I rewound it to the good part,” I say, giggling nervously. I feel better when he laughs with me, until he speaks.

“So I’m the good part, huh?”

His leg nudges mine, and I react with a nervous sort of snort-laugh. I cover my mouth immediately and shut my eyes, my pulse now so loud that I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to hear my own voice—
if
I could talk, that is.

Nico nudges me again, and I open an eyelid to look at him. He laughs once, snorting through his nose and pretending to push up glasses on his face.

“You’re such a nerd,” he says, leaning into me with his upper body now. There are no pads on his arms, so we touch—skin against skin—and I resolve myself to the fact that I feel it.

“You’re a bigger nerd than me,” I say back, my cheeks burning because I’m flirting, and while part of me wants to stuff my silly, girlish words back into my mouth, another part of me wants to dole out more.

“I am
so
not a bigger nerd than you. I mean, look…” Nico twists the view screen on my camera, his hand now basically in my lap. He laughs, then flips the screen closed before looking at me. “One of us is in the AV Club.”

I do my best to narrow my gaze on him and hold my eyes squinted, my mouth hard, as if I’m really pissed, but I break character, and my mouth betrays me, bending at the corners first until my own laughter escapes.

“You’re right. I am the bigger nerd,” I say, jerking when I feel a tickle at my arm. I sigh in relief when I notice it’s just the wave of my hair from my ponytail.

I tug the band loose and let my hair fall down before sweeping it back up and into a knot again. When I look back to Nico, his expression is softer, and I like that he watched me do that. Maybe that’s why I let my hair down—to see if he’d notice.

“So what do I look like on film?” he asks, his attention back to the now-closed screen in my lap. I’m relieved at the change in subject.

I flip the screen open and prop the camera at an angle he can see, then press PLAY.

“You won’t get any sound, not that you really need it, but this is that great play you did,” I say, twisting my lips because I’m not sure if I should be feeding his ego. Nico was great. But he was also undisciplined and difficult.

I look up to watch his eyes as he watches himself. He doesn’t look proud. Instead, his expression looks critical, and when the play runs out, he taps the icon on the screen to pause it.

“Can you rewind so I can see that again?”

I nod and play it again for him.

I watch with him this time, and I wonder what detail he is fixated on. I pay close attention to his feet, to the way he moves, and every step is as if it’s choreographed—it’s the same thing I saw the night I taped him and his friends. It’s raw, but it’s brimming with potential. Maybe it’s even more, maybe it doesn’t need to be touched. Maybe, Nico’s style of play is just the thing my father needs.

“I’m too slow. Look,” he says, pausing and dragging the player backward. He lifts his finger and looks to me to show him how to start it again. I press the button and he nods. “There, look. I know that guy—Garrett. I’m so much faster than he is. He shouldn’t be that close to me, let alone close enough to get his hand on my jersey. I’m too slow. How do I fix that?”

I watch it again, and even though Nico makes the same remarks, this time in whispers, I ignore him and try only to see what he sees. I think we are looking at it differently, though. He’s seeing his flaws, which are all things my dad can help him with. I’m seeing the things he does right. He does
so much
right.

“He has a head start on you. The line always will. But, look…here.” When I stop the video this time, I drag it in so we can view the touch better, the way Nico instinctively bends and twists out of the defender’s grasp. “You knew what to do.”

“I don’t know anything,” Nico says quickly, lifting from the table and picking his helmet up from the ground. My leg is suddenly cold from his absence. He turns to face me, his eyes on the screen at first, then on my face. Even the air stops, the breeze taking a pause to fill the quiet between us with a little more urgency, until Nico’s gaze breaks away.

“Tell your dad I’ll see him tomorrow.”

The video remains paused in my lap, and the boy on the screen walks away from me in real life, never once looking back. I watch it again when he’s out of sight. I watch it through his eyes, and after the fifth time, I finally see it.

Nico doesn’t want to get caught.

L
ast night
I dreamt about Nico. It was one of those odd sort of dreams, only partially making sense. He and I were partners in a game where we had to find a secret room in a house that somehow always had a hallway that led to more rooms and more secret doors and hallways. I slept for six hours last night, but my dream felt as if it lasted for twenty. The search went on forever, and the secret room that held some prize we needed never showed up. But in those few seconds—right before I awoke—Nico turned into me and kissed me on the lips.

I felt it.

It felt…
real.

I jolted out of bed and froze, and it took me nearly fifteen minutes to convince myself that it was all just my weary head, the Cheetos I ate for dinner, or the super-sized Mountain Dew. It’s probably due to the hours I spent last night watching my film footage. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyhow.

But sitting here, only five or six bodies away from Nico, the side of his face in full view—the side that turned and kissed me in my dreams—is messing with my head. It’s thrown me off my game, and I haven’t spoken up at all while we discuss the excerpts we’ve read from Plato’s
Republic
. For once, I honestly can’t find fault with Nico’s position and questions.

I blame the damned dream!

“Plato’s concept doesn’t allow for exceptions,” Nico says. He’s responding to one of our classmates, Megan, who just argued that Plato’s
Republic
is a sound blueprint for peace. Megan’s father is a Superior Court Judge. Nobody is surprised that she’s arguing that class systems work and put people in place to succeed.

“Exceptions create chaos,” Megan says.

My fingertips tingle, so I tap them on my notebook that I have folded to my chest, my eyes switching between Nico and Megan as if I’m watching a slow game of tennis. I want to join in, but I know I don’t need to. Nico is saying everything that’s in my head. We agree. My God, we agree on something.

“
Exceptions
are responsible for pivotal moments in history,” Nico says. In typical fashion, his head is down, his chin tucked at his chest and his hands gripping the top of his desk, as if he’s too disgusted by his opponent to look at her.

This is how he argues with me…

“Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room cabin, the son of a carpenter. Are you saying our world would have been a better place if only he had stuck to his born position in life and built things out of wood?”

“Of course not. Lincoln is different, he’s…” Megan stumbles, her words trailing off. She tries to mask it with a few
ums
and head-waggles, as if she’s searching for the right words, but Nico doesn’t let her off the hook.

“No, you want to apply it to our world, where guys like me work at Mountain Burger, slinging grease-slathered food into paper bags so we can make eight bucks an hour. While
you
pull through the drive-thru in your red convertible—Daddy bought for you when you were sixteen—on your way to some college class you only show up for half of the time, because it probably won’t matter since Daddy’s law firm has a spot held for you when you’re done playing college.”

My mouth hangs open. My eyes shift slightly to both sides to confirm that everyone else’s mouth is in the same
WTF
mode mine is in. And then I realize something even more amazing. Nico’s hand is on the back of his chair, his body twisted so he can look Megan in the eyes, leveling her with a heavy dose of reality—both his reality, and hers. He isn’t wrong. But he is being unfair.

I don’t enter the argument this time. For once I don’t have a good counterpoint. I’m stumped completely. The awkward silence lingers in the room until Mr. Huffman fills it with his off-color humor, saying, “
Da da da
, and until next time…” just as the bell sounds and the quiet is covered with backpack zippers and the clatter of students rushing out at the end of the day.

For the second time in only a handful of days, Nico and I are the last to leave the room. I waited for him. Though now that we’re alone, my mind is divided—the loud half wishing I hadn’t stuck around. I stand at the closed door while he drags an overstuffed bag out from beneath his desk, swearing under his breath when one of the straps is caught on a chair leg, and when he finally pulls it free, his head tilts up and his eyes find me waiting.

“What?” he snaps.

I manage to keep my mouth shut. My eyes, on the other hand, can’t hide my reaction, and they open wide, my brow lifting.

He’s like an angry bull right now, his nostrils flared while he breathes, standing from his desk chair and tugging his heavy bag over his shoulder. He pulls his hat from his back pocket and smooths his hair back before sliding it in place. When he looks at me again, his rage isn’t as obvious. He breathes in deeply, then releases it in a gust.

“Sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t take that out on you. I just…sometimes it feels personal.”

“I get it,” I say.

“No, you really don’t.”

Head down again, Nico walks toward me, to the door. Just as he reaches for the handle, I grab it in my hand and step in front of it, clutching it behind my back in a move that brings my toes and Nico’s only an inch apart.

I have nowhere to go, unless I decide to break down and let him leave with the final word. My fingers twitch, wanting to push the handle down and slide back into the hallway, releasing us both into the crowd. I squeeze the metal hard and hold my breath.

No.

Maybe because of the dream.

Or maybe because I don’t want Nico to think he can sum me up that quickly, too, because I
do
get it. And the fact that he can dismiss my empathy so easily really pisses me off!

“You’re being a jerk,” I say.

“Am I?” His response is fast, and snarky.

“Why do you do that?” I ask, grateful when he takes a step back, giving us distance.

“Do what?” he sighs.

“That’s your thing. You respond to every argument I ever give you with a question,” I say.

His lip quirks up.

“Do I?” Amused by himself, his shoulders shake with his quiet laughter.

My head tilts, and I catch his eyes.

“Are you going to give me a real answer?”

Nico runs a hand down his face, holding it still after a few passes before cracking his fingers open over his eyes to look at me. My palms are sweating, and I can feel my pulse in my fingers that are still clutched around the door handle behind me. I’m in a room alone with Nico Medina, and he’s just stared at me from two feet away, and his eyes match the ones on the version of him that kissed me in my subconscious. They’re golden. They’re so different. My dream got them just right.

“You know you just answered me with a question…right?” he says.

It takes me a few seconds to register his words and then replay my own in my head. My eyes look up while I think, and my head bobs slightly as I say my own words in my head, and in the end, all I can do is growl.

I growl. Like a petulant child mad that she didn’t get the color she wanted from the crayon box. I’m one foot-stomp away from making this a truly spectacular display of my maturity. Add to it the burning feeling creeping up my chest, over my flesh, making me want to shut my eyes and maybe vomit a little. I don’t like any of this.

My hand pushes down on the handle, releasing me from my prison, and I step to the side, my back against the now-open door as I wait for Nico to step through in front of me. He doesn’t though. Instead, he leans on the closest desktop, his dimple deep and his smirk on the verge from dropping him into a fit of laughter—at my expense.

“You frustrate me,” I say, my words sharp and a little louder than they probably need to be. The few people still walking in the hallway glance my way, and I hold up a hand to wave. They look away immediately because, frankly, I’m not that important.

The afterschool crowd thins quickly as lockers slam closed and people clear out for home or practice or special clubs. My shoulder aches from my equipment bag, which makes me think of Nico’s, so I finally give in and turn to face him. When our eyes meet, he pushes up to a stand and steps closer.

“I’m glad I frustrate you. Good; we’re even,” he chuckles, walking past me, but stopping a foot outside the door. “Are you coming to practice again?”

I twist my lips, so completely rocked by everything he says. We’re nowhere near even. And…I frustrate him? He’s standing here, waiting to walk with me. I wonder if there’s a pill I can take that will keep me from dreaming, because…he’s waiting to walk with me. I like that, and
that…
that’s all the damn dream’s fault. I know it!

“Yeah, I’m coming to practice,” I say, stepping away from the door and falling in next to him.

The door slams shut behind me, and we’re now the only two people left in the hallway. When we get to the end, Nico holds the glass door open for me, then stops with his hand out. I stare at it, my stomach actually swimming, unsure what he means by this gesture. I bunch my brow and look from his hand to his eyes, to his smirk which breaks quickly into a laugh.

“Can I help you carry some of that? Your bag always looks so heavy,” he says.

“That’s because it is,” I snap.

“Wow,” he responds quickly, eyebrows lifting with the single word.

I pull my mouth in tight and squint. I’m being short.

“Sorry,” I say, not liking this emotional yo-yo I’m on.

“I get it,” he shrugs, but can’t hold in his laugh as he mocks what I said to him earlier.

“No, you really don’t,” I say back—just like he did. I’m unable to keep a straight face, and soon we’re both laughing.

Nico reaches for my bag, his fingertips running along my shoulder as they sweep underneath the strap. The touch hits me with such surprise that I let him take my bag without any protest; whatever will get his fingers off my bare skin faster because…
holy
.

“Touché, Reagan Prescott. Touché,” he says.

All I can think of while we walk across the main lawn is how Nico is carrying my bag along with his, and how they both look to weigh a good thirty or thirty-five pounds. I’m sure he’s carrying his books along with his practice clothes and shoes, but then it hits me—something’s missing.

“Where’s your board?” I ask.

“Sasha’s driving me home,” he says.

I stop walking, but Nico continues on a few steps before his feet finally halt. His legs bend slightly and lift up quickly as he adjusts the weight on both shoulders before turning to face me.

“I need your advice,” he says, his eyes making it to mine briefly before getting lost in the activity of the parking lot behind me. I know what he’s going to ask, and part of me wants to make him go through the painful task of mustering up the words and having to make his case to me because I’m going to be a hell of a lot easier than my dad, but then again…
I’m going to be a hell of a lot easier than my dad.
He needs to save his strength.

“You want him to give Sasha another shot,” I say.

Nico grimaces.

“My dad doesn’t do that,” I say.

“I figured,” he says.

He leaves it at that, but he doesn’t move. His eyes stay on mine, wearing away at me until I have to avert them. I pull my hair loose from the twist, my fingers pushing the band down around my wrist as I cross my arms over my chest, letting the breeze unwind my hair around me. I watch as players file one by one into the locker room door, some of them leaping to tap the metal sign on the way in that reads TRADITION OF BROTHERHOOD—the answer to the question on the other side—WHOSE HOUSE IS THIS? I think some of them believe it.
Some.
Not all, though. Definitely not all.

Nico and Sasha do. What I saw that night on the field. What I saw in practice yesterday. One leads, one follows—neither abandons.

“All you can do is ask,” I say, not looking at him until I’m done talking, not expecting his eyes to be waiting for me. They’re sincere and hopeful, and my small sliver of a boost pushes his mouth up on one side.

“A’right,” he says, slipping my bag down his arm and holding it out for me to take. I grab it and pull it up on my shoulder, letting the weight of the tripod rest on my hip.

“Good luck,” I say, my eyes squinting from the bright sun. I hold my hand up to my brow to shield my eyes, and Nico’s are still looking at me just the same as they were before. My body reacts with an instant rush of chills, followed by a suffocating flash of heat.

“You should wear your hair down more often. It’s pretty,” he says. He’s walking away before I can blink. And I stand on the bottom of the hill outside the boy’s locker room stunned stupid, because I’m not sure if he really said those last words at all or if my crushing alter-ego made them up because of a damn dream.

Whatever the case, I tuck my hairband into my back pocket and move forward, planning to wear my hair down again tomorrow, and maybe the next day, too.

* * *

I
’ve never really seen
my father compromise. I’ve never really seen him give in. But Sasha is here. Granted, he’s been running up and down bleachers for the last hour, but still—my dad let him put on a practice jersey and take the field…on his way to the bleachers.