Flower(14)

I know I should politely say no—tell him I’ve given him his date, and now our deal is done. Return to my car and let this night be only a brief memory; the night when I let myself pretend I was someone else for a little while—but for all the questions I already asked, there’s something about him that makes me want to know more.

“Only if they have sherbet,” I answer finally.

“Which flavor?”

“Lime.”

“No,” he says, his eyebrows lifting.

“No, they don’t have it?” I ask, confused.

“No, you’re joking, nobody likes lime sherbet,” he says. But his voice is more incredulous than accusing.

“I like lime sherbet,” I retort, defending my love for the sadly overlooked flavor. “And I don’t care who knows it.”

He smiles and shakes his head, as if in disbelief. “Then you might be the only other person on the planet who does.”

I raise my eyebrows, unsure if he’s teasing me again.

“I’m serious,” he says, reading my expression. “It seems we were meant to meet.”

“Clearly.” I roll my eyes, but I can’t help smiling. Enjoying these last few moments with him—before I need to say good-bye.

We cross an intersection, the streetlights flicking from red to green, the air warm and sanguine, people strolling down the sidewalk and stepping out of taxicabs at the curb, dressed for a night out. Then just ahead of us, a guy shouts something, his words muffled, followed by the shrill sound of breaking glass. Two men stagger out of a dimly lit bar right as we pass the door, their hands balled around each other’s shirts, shoving and cursing. A girl screams.

I turn—and it all happens too quickly for me to react. One of the guys slams into my shoulder, propelling me backward. My feet skid beneath me, and I ram into something hard. Pain lances through me. I’m pressed against a car parked at the curb. The men haven’t even noticed me; they’re still wrestling, their bodies crushing me.

“Hey—” I try to shout, but it comes out as a wheeze. My hands push at them, trying to shove them off me, but their weight is too much. I can’t even squeeze out from under them.

There are other voices now, a girl shouting from somewhere on the sidewalk, screaming for them to stop. And then a lower voice, familiar—Tate is yelling, too. All the voices mixing together, ringing in my ears. An elbow juts out, thrusting into my chin, and the pain is sudden and white-hot. I turn my head away, trying to block my face from another blow, when their shifting weight is suddenly gone.

I gulp in air, my fingers instinctively going to my chin, touching skin that already feels swollen and sore.

“Hey!” one of the guys howls in protest, and I blink. Tate is between them, driving the two guys apart, holding one of them by the bicep and the other by a handful of T-shirt.

More people emerge from the bar, gathering on the sidewalk to gawk. Tate’s eyes cut over to me briefly, muscles flexing as he hauls the taller of the two men backward. A girl with straight black hair rushes over, her high heels clicking on the sidewalk as she runs to the guy Tate is still holding.

“Let him go!” she shrieks, as if this were all somehow Tate’s fault.

Tate stares the guy down, hand still gripping his arm, before he finally releases him. “Asshole,” Tate says.

The guy shakes his arm, scowling. His right eye is beginning to swell black and purple, a thin line of blood trickling down from his nose. The girl touches his face, trying to wipe away the blood, but he brushes her off.

“Who do you think you are—” the tall guy says to Tate.

Music thumps from inside the bar like a drum, shaking the warm night air. More people slip out from the haze of the doorway, holding bottles of beer and unlit cigarettes, probably still hoping to see a fight.

“Hey, you!” the guy shouts again, but Tate doesn’t turn around. “I know you,” the man adds.

Tate is elbowing his way toward me, reaching a hand out for mine, when the black-haired girl shouts, “Oh my God!”

“Are you okay?” he asks, touching my arm gently and scanning my face for injuries.

“Fine.” Even though my chin already feels like it’s the size of a tennis ball.

“Let’s get out of here,” he adds urgently, and I nod. A hand grabs at his shoulder and he yanks it away.

“It is you, man,” says the guy with the bulging eye. The crowd is shuffling toward us, converging like insects, clustering and buzzing and thrumming with words I can’t make out.

Tate’s eyes are desperate now. “Charlotte,” he says, only loud enough for me to hear.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, disoriented, glancing at the faces closing in on us.

Someone screams: “It’s him!”

Lights begin to pop around us, flashbulbs blurring my vision, making it hard to see. And then I hear it, clear as a bell ringing right beside my ear. “Tate Collins!”

Voices become pitched, frenzied. Bodies begin to throb against us, shoving us from all sides. Tate manages to grab my arm but I am limp, unable to move, to process what’s happening.

“Tate Collins!” someone yells again.

“Charlotte,” he repeats, but his voice is all but lost in the deluge of other voices. My ears throb, and the air feels suddenly thick and sticky, crowded by hands and eyes and pulsing lights.