Page 6 of One More Time
The elevator doors opened before them. Nicky stuck his hand in the door to keep them open.
He blurted, ‘It’s me. I’m nervous. I need to not be so nervous.’
Excuse me?
‘You’renervous?’ Lucy grumbled. ‘Are you kidding? I’m standing here with the lead singer of Super. How do you thinkIfeel?’
‘Okay, right,’ he said, taking a deep breath. ‘Let’s pretend like we’re just a couple of people who knew each other in high school.’
‘Yeah, okay. But I was a hundred-percent nervous around you in high school, too.’
‘You were not,’ he rebuffed, incredulous.
‘Seriously? Everybody was nervous around you. You were Nicky-fucking-Broome, hottest guy in high school, probably the hottest guy in the state. And you were so ridiculouslycool.’
‘Me?’ he asked, as though truly shocked.
Lucy looked to the heavens for assistance, but found only a garish exit sign. ‘Oh, my God. Yes,you.’
Nicky stepped into the elevator and held the open button until Lucy had safely followed.
‘I would not have called myself the hottest guy in school,’ Nicky grumbled. ‘Definitely not the coolest.’
‘Nicky Broome,’ Lucy admonished, ‘you brought a twenty-one-year-old girl – sorry, woman – to prom.’
He shrugged. ‘I knew her from work.’
‘She had tattoos.’
‘Well—’
‘And a tongue piercing.’
‘I mean—’
Lucy could not be stopped. ‘And rocked that pink leather minidress like she was on MTV. It was so much like Molly Ringwald’s prom dress fromPretty in Pinkand yet was so damn tight. She wasn’t wearing anything under it, right? God, I’ve always wondered about that. I’m right, aren’t I?’
Nicky looked at the floor, trying but failing to hold back a smirk. That answer was good enough for Lucy.
‘I knew it! Ugh, that dress was the perfect level of subversive. I was so jealous of that dress. What was her name? She was a legend.’
Nicky laughed. ‘Her name was Heather.’
‘Of course, her name was Heather. The perfect name for her.’
‘What about you?’ Nicky asked as the elevator descended.
‘What about me?’
‘You were the cool one,’ he said without a trace of sarcasm.
Lucy was dumfounded. ‘Uh, no. I was a complete nerd in high school. Utterly forgettable.’
‘Lies,’ Nicky said plainly. ‘With all those cut-up concert tees and the Doc Martens and those fucking hair buns? What do they call those things by the way?’
‘Space buns,’ Lucy offered.
Nicky groaned like they had driven him crazy – in a good way. ‘Space buns,’ he mused softly.
