Page 13 of Night Shift

“Neither did I,” I croak. “Oh my God. Can you overdose on Advil? Is that a thing?”

“I’m making you chicken noodle soup!” Nina shouts from the kitchen.

Both insist on staying home with me for the night, even though I know the new going-out shirt Nina ordered two weeks ago finally arrived and she’s dying to give it a test run. I prop myself up in bed and watch as they rearrange the furniture in the living room so I can see the TV through my open doorway.

“It’s not too late for you to ditch me,” I call.

“Shut up,” Harper says. “What do you want to watch?”

“You guys should pick. I’m just going to fall asleep thirty minutes in.”

Harper puts on Pride & Prejudice, which she knows is my all-time favorite and she can’t stand. I’m about to thank her when she says, “I’m only watching this sappy shit for you, Kenny. As soon as you pass out, we’re putting on something else.”

“This movie is a masterpiece,” Nina mutters.

“How the fuck am I friends with you guys?” Harper asks.

Because we love each other. The thought brings tears to my eyes. I didn’t have this in middle school or high school. I got along well enough with people in my classes, but I was never anyone’s first-choice friend—the one you invited to a movie and sleepover, the one you ran to with your secrets, the one you asked for advice. Which is fine. It was my own fault for being so reserved, and I probably saved myself a world of stress and heartbreak from all the messy politics of high school friendship.

But Nina and Harper are worth all the mess in the world.

I don’t know how I got so lucky, to have found two people who still want to spend time with me when I’m at my absolute worst. As I watch Matthew Macfadyen’s Darcy put his foot in his mouth and find I’m daydreaming of Vincent Knight’s brown eyes, I realize that I’ve been keeping a secret from the two people whom I most want to confide in.

“I have to tell you guys something,” I call out, “but you’re not allowed to make fun of me.”

“Oh, God, are you going to throw up?”

“No. No, it’s just—it’s sort of embarrassing.”

Harper’s head pokes around my door frame. “How embarrassing, on a scale of me sleeping through my sociology final to Nina getting kicked out of the art club’s Bob Ross party?”

Nina gasps in outrage. “That was one time.”

“Because they banned you for life.”

“It’s not my fault the only chaser they had was boxed wine—”

“I made out with Vincent Knight,” I blurt.

For a moment, silence. And then both of my roommates appear in my doorway, scrambling over each other in their haste to see if I’m joking or if the fever has made me delirious.

“I’m sorry, you what?”

“Like, on-the-basketball-team Vincent?”

“When did you—and where did you—just, what?”

I wait until they’ve stopped blabbering to say, very calmly, “He came into the library during my shift last Friday needing help finding some poetry. We went up to the second floor, and one thing led to another, and we made out.”

After my detailed recap, Harper and Nina obviously have some follow-up questions. How big are his hands? Did he moan, because it’s so hot when guys—wait, I’m sorry, he lifted you? I thought you said he only had one good arm! Did he get a boner? He did. Oh my God, Kendall, you seduced him!

The two of them are giddy at the revelation that I’ve hooked up with one of Clement’s star basketball players. They roll around on my floor and give commentary on my storytelling until I’m red-faced with mortification and laughing, even though my throat is killing me. Slowly but steadily, I feel the weight on my shoulders ease. It feels real now. Not like some weird fever dream. Vincent and I made out in a dark corner of the library, and it was insane and spontaneous and, in retrospect, a great story.

Maybe I’ll be okay. Maybe having the story will be enough.

• • •

By Wednesday, my voice is practically gone and I’m still a bit shaky, but I feel human enough to crawl out of bed and climb onto my bike before dawn.

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