The Hard Count(44)

“Your friend…Izzy…” he says, and my heart sinks. “She said something about some dance or something? Right after next week’s home game.”

“Homecoming,” I say. The word comes out flat—like I said a password.

“Yeah, that. I’ve never been…you?” He brings his hand to his neck, rubbing the back of it, and eventually bringing it over his face.

“I went last year…” I say, remembering how Travis took me out of pity. My brother put him up to it, and Izzy encouraged it. I was really over him by then, and the entire night felt like a forced babysitting event. I didn’t even like my dress.

“You think you’ll go again? Like…with your friends or whatever?” he asks. His hands have fallen deeper in his pockets, and he looks up at me in short glances.

My friends.

My…friend.

He wants to know if Izzy will go.

“I don’t know, maybe. I’ll have to talk to Izzy about it,” I say, positioning my key in my hand so I’m ready to leave.

I step around my car, and Nico backs up a few steps to give me space.

“Well…let me know…if you guys go. Maybe I’ll make Sasha come,” he says.

“Yeah, sure,” I say, pulling my door open wide.

My fingers automatically pick at the dry skin on the side of my thumb, a nervous habit I’ve had since I was a small child, and I look at it, knowing that I’m doing this because I want out of this trap—I don’t want to set Nico up with Izzy, and if he dances with her, I don’t want to watch. I open my mouth to give myself an out, to lie and say I probably won’t go because of something I have to do, and I probably won’t be back in time. I’m instantly distracted though by the heavy thumping from a car stereo, and both Nico and I turn to see a dark red car stop at the end of the driveway.

Nico steps a little closer to me as a guy gets out, a black flat-brimmed hat shadowing his eyes and a long-sleeved black shirt hanging low enough to meet the line where his jeans sag, far below the waist.

“Hey, Nicooooo,” he says, dragging the name out long and slow. His eyes are heavy, and his expression is amused. He flicks a lit butt onto the driveway and steps on it. It looks like a joint.

Nico walks over toward him, meeting him near the back of my car.

“Pick your shit up. You know my mom doesn’t want to see that stuff,” Nico says, meeting the guy’s gaze. His visitor laughs through clenched teeth.

“Fuck that. You pick it up,” he says, his lips snarled to carry his threat. Nico doesn’t flinch, and I shift closer to my car, one foot inside, my keys in my hand.

After a few seconds, Nico walks to the butt on the ground and snags it between two fingers, walking over to his friend and holding it out. The man in the hat only continues to laugh, and eventually Nico lets his hand fall down to his side.

The man’s eyes move to me, and his lip raises again as he nods to acknowledge me. He’s in his thirties, maybe a little older, and his hands are covered in black symbol tattoos.

“You get yourself a white girl?”

My balance gives a little, and my heartbeat picks up fast. I look to Nico, who glances from me back to his visitor.

“What do you want, Cruz?”

Nico doesn’t even acknowledge his question about me.

The guy’s eyes linger on me for a few seconds, but eventually he turns his focus back to Nico, leaning forward and spitting on the ground between them.

“Your brother around?” he asks.

“No,” Nico’s response comes fast.

The two stare into each other for several seconds, until the man Nico called Cruz leans forward to spit one more time. He nods when his face comes back up and his eyes meet Nico’s, then he glances to me and back to his car.

“Vincent’s been gone a long time. You see him, you tell him I’m looking for him,” Cruz says, running the back of his palm over his chin as he takes a few steps backward.

Nico never agrees, but he nods enough to let the man know he heard him. Cruz walks back to his car, the engine still running and the music pounding so hard that it’s drawn Alyssa’s attention to the screen door. My eyes move to the little girl, and I want to tell her to say inside. I don’t have to, though. She stops with her hands flat on the screen, watching.

“White girl’s pretty,” Cruz says over the roof of his car. “Hey, baby. Don’t waste your time with a punk bitch.”

He stares at me for a beat, and though it’s only a second or two, it feels longer. Eventually, his attention moves back to Nico, who still doesn’t give him any reaction at all other than the hard line his mouth has been in for the last minute.

Cruz’s mouth curves again, and his chest shakes with a sinister laugh as he climbs back into his car and drives away.

I wait while Nico looks on, as if he’s making sure his visitor is gone, and then he turns and walks back up his driveway, stopping next to me, but never meeting me in the eyes.

“You should go,” he says, looking down at the joint held in his fingers. He gazes up to see his niece at the door. “Alyssa, get inside,” he says, his tone stern as he walks toward the house. The little girl disappears, and Nico pulls the screen open, steps inside and lets it fall to a close behind him.

I wait for a few seconds, wondering if I should go back inside and offer to help, though I don’t know what with. I wonder about that man—who he is. My stomach twitches with the beating of my heart, a rhythm that hasn’t stopped since the moment that man looked at me like I was his to take.