Page 9 of Bordeaux Bombshell
Rolling my eyes—because of course Nate would do anything for my brother, even put up with a few hours of screaming girls singing along with their favorite boy band—I linked my arm withhis. “Thank you, even though I would have been okay on my own.”
I tugged him toward the Moda Center’s entrance, joining the mostly female crowd. Groups of girls stopped to take photos together, signs tucked under their arms declaring their love for one of the boys in the band. When I’d first decided to come to this concert, that was how I’d envisioned it for myself—except when I asked around, none of my so-called friends were fans.
Or else they just didn’t want to come withme.
When I explained the problem to my mom, crying over how I’d wasted my carefully saved money on a second ticket, my parents offered Kel up as an alternative. Humiliating and pathetic, but because I didn’t really want to be here alone, I’d sucked it up and convinced him to come with me.
“Coming alone was not an option.” Nate turned his shoulders, deflecting bodies away from me as they barreled past.
“I would have been fine.”
“Fine is not the same as safe.” I moved to smack his arm, but he caught my wrist before continuing with a wink. “Orfun.” He grinned down at me before loosening his grip and throwing an arm around my shoulder instead. “Come on, Hellcat, we’re going to have a good time tonight.”
When he started humming one of the band’s most popular songs, it occurred to me that maybe he wasn’t here under duress after all. Maybe I didn’t know Nate quite as well as I thought I did.
I let him steer me toward the entrance gate, our steps falling into sync as we walked. His arm around my shoulder was familiar enough; it wasn’t like we hadn’t touched each other plenty over the years—especially the ones when wrestling seemed like the best way to work out our disagreements. But in this context, it was new. And exciting. And made me feel grown-up in a way that was only rivaled by the memory of my first kiss.
The one this man stole and never mentioned again.
The one I still thought about all the time.
“Does this mean you’re going to buy me some merch?” I paused to let a bored security guard look through my purse.
Nate held out our tickets to be scanned. “Maybe. Depends on if it’s any good.”
As we cleared the entrance, he reached back to tuck my hand in the crook of his elbow. It was probably to keep me close in the crowd, but the romantic nugget that lived in the deepest depths of my heart decided it meant more. Grinning up at him, I batted my eyelashes. “Don’tIget to decide if it’s good or not?”
“I’m the one who will have to look at it. So my opinion counts more than yours.” Nate laughed. “Did you get something in your eye?”
I switched to rolling my eyes, bumping my hip against his as we wandered through the venue. In the end, he bought me a T-shirt, joking about how he expected me to wear it at our shared birthday party in a few months, and a soda to share.
Somewhere between the opening band and the main event, the ribbing and teasing gave way to pure enjoyment. At the music. The collective energy in the stadium. And especially at the feeling that sharing it with the crowd multiplied the fun and freedom floating in my veins.
Afterward, as I followed him through the parking lot, hands clasped, I couldn’t help joining in with the rest of the fans singing their way out of the stadium. “Have you always been this fun?”
Nate tugged me past a couple making out and winked. “Funny enough, yes, I have.”
If I stopped to dwell on the wink, my heart might explode, so I tucked it away in my mind to overanalyze later.
“Have you always been this normal?” he asked before I could formulate a retort.
That made me laugh, my stomach aching from how much of it I had done this evening. “How dare you!” I pouted in mock outrage. “And we were having such a nice time.”
The crowd thinned as we neared Nate’s car. He could have let go of my hand but didn’t, a fact I added to the tally of moments I would remember forever.
As we climbed in and joined the long line of ruby taillights inching out of the parking structure, I couldn’t help wishing that this might be the first of many nights I could count on Nate to be not only Kel’s friend but mine too.
“Still wish Kel had come instead of me?” His tone was still teasing, but I answered him honestly anyway.
“What I really wanted was for some girlfriends to come with me. But since neither of us has one of those, I guess you’ll do.”
We drove in silence for a beat until Nate reached over to pat the top of my head, reminding me exactly how he saw me while snuffing out the romantic feelings that had blossomed in my chest. “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”
Nate
Nooneanswersmyquiet knock, and for a second, I consider going home again. If there weren’t lights on, I would turn around and leave, but Kel’s car is in the driveway, and I need to talk to him.
There’s a late frost predicted this week, and I can’t get the warming fan to work. He was always better at fixing stuff than I was.
