Page 1 of Follows with Intent

1

Nico

“You can drop me here,” Nico said. For the fourth time.

Emery glanced out the driver-side window. Where the exit ramp merged onto Kingshighway Boulevard, a panhandler shuffled from vehicle to vehicle, carrying under one arm a crate lined with a plastic bag. He had his jeans belted below his ass, so two scrawny white cheeks poked out into the October sunlight, and the cardboard sign on a string around his neck said, VET – PLEASE HELP. A chicken poked her head up from inside the crate and glanced around, beady eyes jerking this way and that, and then bit the man. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Nice try,” Emery said, and then, to add insult to injury, he hit the automatic locks. Not because of the panhandler, Nico thought with dismay veering toward hysteria. To keep Nico from escaping.

“Honestly,” Nico said. “You can—”

“If you say it again,” Emery said, “I’m going to help you move into your dorm.”

Nico managed to stop himself.

The light changed, and they drove on.

It was a beautiful October day: cool, crisp, the sunlight cut so clearly that it looked like a pane of glass. On their left, Forest Park was a mixture of harvest colors: the golden brown of prairie grass; the reds and golds of oak and maple; the slate of the creek’s slow-moving waters. From living in the Midwest all these years, Nico knew the fall could be a mixed bag—some years, the heat and humidity lingered until it was almost November, and others, the cool came quickly. And others, he thought drily, you got both, what they used to call an Indian summer. But today was perfect.

“You’ve got your laptop?”

“Oh shoot. Was I supposed to bring my laptop?”

Emery, of course, ignored that. “And your phone?”

“Only the one I’ve been playing on for the whole drive.”

“What about chargers for all your devices?”

“What are chargers?”

“Keep being a smartass, Nico. I’d love to meet your dormmates.”

Nico tried to imagine that. Bull-in-the-china-shop wasn’t exactly right, because Emery wasn’t a bull. But he could visualize, quite clearly, some degree of smashing.

“I’m sorry.” They rode to the next stoplight in silence, and Nico added, “I’m nervous.”

Emery grunted.

On their right, the massive complex of Barnes-Jewish Hospital slowly gave way to condo buildings, apartment buildings, and hotels. And then, in the distance, Nico spotted a limestone turret, and his heart began to beat a little faster. He began working his way through his mental list: he had his phone, he had his laptop, he had his chargers—

“What’s so special about this conference, anyway?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been to plenty of conferences before. They were never slumber parties. And you certainly never got nervous.”

“I did, actually. I threw up. A lot.”

Emery side-eyed him, and Nico recognized the look—he’d encountered it before, basically anytime someone knew he modeled (even if it was only occasionally) and heard the words throw up. It didn’t help that Emery was, especially for an ex-boyfriend turned friend turned boss, annoyingly perceptive.

“Not an eating disorder,” Nico said. “Just nerves. And I don’t need you worrying about me.”

“You’re too skinny.”

Annoyingly perceptive, Nico amended, about some things.

“You’ve lost weight since we broke up.”

---