Page 11 of Lines We Cross
“Nickel Heads!” they all yelled and then rammed through the doorway to close around me in a group hug. The force pushed me back and I would have gone down what with all my weight on one leg, but someone got in behind me and held me up. A sharp pain lit up my temple when someone else knocked their skull against mine. This was just as I remembered. A group of raucous guys who loved each other as if no time had actually passed.
“Boys!” Mom shouted over their laughter.
We broke apart quickly. In Nickel Bay, when a mom shouts at you, you better listen. A mom was a mom no matter if you were biologically related. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder a vibrating mass of male testosterone and the need to talk all at once to make up for lost time. I was having a weird moment of feeling like I was back in time, still a sixteen-year-old kid, but in a grown man’s body.
Mom’s face was stern but I could see the twitch on the one side of her mouth. “Nice to see you boys again. Take your roughhousing out back where you can’t break anything. Tacos will be ready in twenty minutes. Now get!”
We left the front door wide open, rushing to hug her one by one and then get to the back porch before she chased us with a wooden spoon. Sounded crazy but it had happened more than once before, so even as adults now we weren’t taking any chances.
“Hello, Mr. Duke!” several of them hollered to my father as we went by him on our way outside.
We may have all splintered off to various places around the country and our texting may have petered out a few years ago, but we were Nickel Bay boys through and through, bred on good manners and the “work hard, play hard” motto.
We all took seats around the rickety circular picnic table out on the back patio, staring at each other with big goofy grins on our faces.
“Well?” Heath asked. Leave it to him, the CEO frequently seen at the head of a huge conference table of board members, to be the one to get down to business. The sleeves of his expensive collared shirt might be rolled up, but there were far more serious bones in his body than playful.
“Well, what?” I shot back, enjoying the teasing nature of most of my conversations in life, especially with Heath.
His eyes narrowed slightly, his voice low and gruff. “Don’t make me mess up your pretty face. What’s going on with you and why are we back in Nickel Bay?”
Ryder nodded, following the conversation like a tennis match, his well-groomed head swiveling back and forth. His haircut probably cost more than my top-of-the-line pickup truck. When you’re up on a billboard on the freeway in your Calvin Klein tighty-whities, you have to have perfect hair, right?
Jase just leaned back in the patio chair and folded his hands over his lean belly to wait us out. Ever the cerebral one as a high school math teacher, Jase was used to listening to crazy talk and then offering sound advice at the end.
“Listen, boys. We made a pact graduation night. You remember that?” Heads nodded, but Heath just stared me down. “There were five of us then. All five hands went in the center and we vowed to move back to Nickel Bay when we turned forty.”
Heath made a noise. “Not sure if you had the brains knocked out of you when you took that hit, but we’re not forty yet.”
I nodded seriously. “Wow. That’s really helpful. I’d forgotten my huge thirtieth birthday bash in Vegas just six months ago, but thank you so much for the reminder.” I shot him a dirty look—to which he smirked—and kept going. “Between Emerson and my injury, it’s made me do some hard thinking.”
I paused and looked each one of my best friends in the eye. “We need to move back now before life passes us by. Forget waiting until we’re forty and so stuck in our ways we can’t assimilate back into this town. Let’s do it now. Let’s make a life together, here, like we always dreamed of. We all went out and found fame and fortune. We did it. Now it’s time to move home. What do you say?”
The crickets that serenaded my parents every night in the back yard sounded like they had little speakerphones next to their hind legs rubbing. Not one sound came from the guys or the rest of nature, like everything under the sun had paused, held their breath, and placed bets on which way the guys would answer my impassioned plea.
Ryder did what Ryder did best: looked to the others for an indication of which way to lean. Heath clenched his jaw tighter which could have meant all kinds of things. Jase stroked his chin and looked deep in thought.
I was about to start bumbling at the mouth, trying to list off a thousand more reasons why moving home was a good idea, when Heath leaned further in and slapped his hand down on the tabletop, rattling the chipped decorative tiles that ringed the center.
“I’m in.”
I whacked the table with my palm and stuck my hand out, excitement filling my limbs for the first time in weeks. Heath and I did our ridiculous hand-slap routine we’d had all through high school. Some things are never forgotten. Like true friendships and pacts you make when you’re eighteen.
Ryder and Jase leaned in then, grins spreading across their faces. The excitement was contagious and I knew what their answers would be. If Heath could move his Fortune 500 empire to Nickel Bay, Ryder and Jase could certainly find jobs too.
“So, this is it? We’re all in?” I asked excitedly.
Enthusiastic agreements filled the cool evening air and suddenly those crickets were a rock band playing our theme music. The Nickel Heads were back. Down one member, but not done. Not by a long shot.
For the first time in forever, I thought of Emerson and didn’t get slammed by grief.
“I’ve actually been thinking about getting out of the big city for awhile now. Emerson’s funeral seemed to set something in motion. A discontent that’s been growing each passing day.” Jase was back to stroking his chin.
Ryder nodded. “Same here, man. I’ve been sick of traveling so much. Sick of the parties. The women.”
Heath snorted. “Come on. You expect us to believe you’re done with the ladies?”
Ryder smiled and you could hear a thousand women’s hearts breaking. “Not done, no. But a little sick of the same kind of woman throwing themselves at me? Yeah.”
