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Nick knew he was in trouble the moment he heard the door click shut…he just didn’t realize how much trouble until he looked up and saw them all staring at him.
“Uh,” he managed to get out, and then they were on him.
“You’re gonna volunteer to walk her home, right?” Kaitlyn asked, trying to act casual despite the way she’d nearly climbed across the entire table to put herself right up in his space, her weight on her elbows and her chin propped up in her hands. “Wait, hang on, let me rephrase that: Oh my gosh, Nick, how sweet of you to offer to walk her home!”
His head whipped to the side, checking that the bathroom door was still shut and Abi wasn’t somehow right there, hearing all of this happen. It was, thank God, but his relief didn’t do a whole lot to help the whole confusion thing going on. “I…didn’t…?”
Kaitlyn rolled her eyes, and in a wave, the guys reacted in kind – all except for Ryan, of course, who seemed more than happy to pick through what was left of the snacks while the others’ attention was elsewhere. “Thank God you’re cute,” she sighed, drumming her fingers against her cheeks, “I don’t know how you’d make it in this dog-eat-dog world otherwise.”
“Abi – ” he started, then lowered his voice to a whisper just in case, “ – doesn’t need help walking home.”
“Sure she does,” Dylan piped in.
“No, she doesn’t.” He was about to point out the obvious, remind them all that off-campus housing was pretty much smushed together in one tight blob of ugly buildings not that different from how the dorms had been, only none of them seemed especially interested in things like logic.
Dylan repeated himself with more emphasis that time around: “Sure she does. It’s New Year’s Eve, man. The world at large is one drunken, slobbering mess. You’d let Abi – all four feet, eleven inches of her – wander those cold, unfeeling streets alone? What happens if she’s overtaken by a mob of wasted sorority girls? She can’t handle that kind of peer pressure, man. Next thing you know, she’s choking down a Smirnoff Ice and wearing a pair of those dumb sunglasses with the year on them.”
Somberly shaking her head, Kaitlyn muttered, “Fate worse than death.”
“I know, right?”
“There aren’t roving packs of – ”
“And,” Jacob said, joining Kaitlyn at, or maybe on, the table, his arms folded and his eyebrows going up and down to punctuate almost every word, “I mean. Think about it, dude. It’s icy out there. What happens if, y’know…” He used one of his hands to mime a slipping gesture. “Super easy to fall. That black ice’ll get ya. Then what, huh? Then what? She reaches out to catch herself, sprains her drawing hand…then you got that on your conscience for the next couple weeks…”
Nick sputtered, trying to find the words he’d need to tell them how insane they all sounded, but yet again, found himself cut off.
“Ryan, help us out here.”
“Yeah Ryan, be the voice of reason.”
“Uh…” Turning from the snack table with an impressive stack of cookies in hand, Ryan simply shrugged his shoulders. “I mean…it’s dark outside.”
“Helpful!”
“I’m just saying. She doesn’t like the dark, does she? Abi? I always got the feeling she – ”
“Huh?” Just like they had before, the whole group of them turned at the sound of her voice. Abi stood in the hall, already tugging her gloves on, and if it hadn’t been for the way she was distractedly looking towards the coat rack for her jacket, Nick might’ve worried she’d heard them. “I thought I heard someone say my name just then.”
He didn’t need to look at them. He knew what he’d see if he did. He could feel their stupid eyes on him.
Nick cleared his throat, then shrugged, hoping it came across as casual. “Uh, you did,” he said slowly, getting up and reaching over, grabbing her jacket and holding it out to her. “I was just telling these guys that…” Now he could feel them smirking too. “…that I’m about to head out too.”
Abi blinked for a second there, but took her jacket as he offered it. “Before the ball drops?” she asked, her eyes flitting to the others in the background.
“Well, I, yeah.” So much for seeming casual, huh? “Don’t want to be trying to get home when everyone else is getting out of their parties. Not sure I could hold my own against, uh, say…a roving band of sorority girls.”
“They are vicious this time of year,” Dylan added, and when Nick glanced his way, he’d hidden most of his smirk behind a cookie – one he’d no doubt taken from Ryan.
As she slid her jacket on one sleeve at a time, Abi laughed, her eyes turning down the same way they always did when she got giggly. “Roving band of sorority girls, huh? I mean…that does sound pretty scary.”
“Yeah, and besides…” He swallowed hard and reached for his own jacket, wondering just when it was that he’d become the sort of guy who crumbled into a stammering mess when he was talking to a cute girl. “I figured I could walk you home.”
He fully expected Abi to argue him on it, to point out that her and Emma’s place was just a couple minutes’ walk away, or she’d be fine on her own, or whatever, but…she didn’t. Instead, she focused especially hard on making sure she wasn’t missing any of her buttons as she worked her way down her jacket, her mouth scrunching this way and that like she was trying not to smile too much.
“Oh,” she said softly, undoing and redoing a button. “Thanks! I, um, was actually a little nervous about going alone. I mean…it’s pretty dark out there. And icy.”
It took every ounce of his self-restraint to keep from turning towards Jacob or Ryan. He didn’t even want to imagine the looks on their faces. So, pointedly ignoring them, Nick pulled his own coat on, adjusting the collar before making for the door.
“You kids be safe now,” Kaitlyn said, and he could hear the grin in her voice.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
“Is there anything you wouldn’t do, Jacob?”
“Uh…give me a sec, I’ll come up with something.”
“Later, guys,” Nick called, raising his own voice to be heard over their snickering. “Enjoy the rest of your little shindig.”
“Happy New Year!” added Abi, but she too seemed only too happy to hurry her way out of the apartment when he held the door open for her.
Despite the oh-so-convincing warnings the gang had outlined inside, the fact of the matter was…well, for one, it wasn’t really all that dark as they reached the street, not with most of the windows on either side of the road still full of twinkling Christmas bulbs or bright lights from New Year’s Eve parties. It wasn’t especially icy either, come to think of it, though there was a fine layer of snow crunching under their boots with each step they took and their breaths misted the air in front of them. As for the roving bands of sorority girls wielding Smirnoffs and novelty sunglasses…
“Kinda empty out here, huh?” Abi stuffed her hands into her pockets after glancing around the neighborhood, tucking her shoulders in tightly against the chill. “So much quieter than in there, too.”
“Yeah, well, we’re a noisy bunch.”
“I guess so!”
He smiled even as he swallowed around the growing lump in his throat. This was so stupid! There was no reason for him to be such a jittery mess, and yet…
When he realized he hadn’t said anything for a while, Nick tried changing tack. “Bummer about Emma getting sick. That’s no way to start the new year.”
“Right? I just feel so bad for her, like…it’s totally just the sniffles, and I know she’ll be fine after getting a little extra sleep or whatever, but you know how much she haaates missing parties.”
“Even ones where she has to deal with Jacob?” he joked.
Abi laughed, her eyes meeting his for a moment. “Even ones where she has to deal with Jacob,” she nodded. “It’s probably dumb, me leaving so early, but…I dunno, I didn’t want her to be alone when midnight comes along.” She paused as if thinking, her head tilting to the side a bit. “And now that I’m thinking about it, uh…she’s probably going to be…totally asleep by then, huh?”
“Wouldn’t put it past her.” His smile turned into a laugh of his own when Abi groaned. “That’s super thoughtful of you, though. Not wanting to leave her alone, I mean.”
“Pfft, thoughtful – it’s more like, ridiculous. You’re the one who left the party to walk me back,” she pointed out, and for the millionth time that night, or at least so it felt, Nick was on the verge of reminding her of his extremely convincing excuse for leaving (that he wanted to get himself home before the chaos of a million college NYE parties ending at once hit the streets and hers and Emma’s place was simply on the way) when she interrupted him. “That’s way more thoughtful than me. I mean, I didn’t even really want to go to the party at all, if I’m being honest.”
“You didn’t?” Nick wasn’t sure why, but that got him to stop. He slid his own hands into his pockets, wishing he’d had foresight enough to bring gloves like she had.
Abi turned to him with a wince that suggested she hadn’t meant to say that part out loud. “Uh…no,” she admitted with a sigh. “They’re just not really my thing, you know? Honestly, I was sort of hoping for a quiet night in, but…”
“But…?”
Her mouth scrunched up again, only that time he thought she was trying to decide what to say instead of trying to hide a smile. “Emma convinced me to go. You know how she is. To be fair, she made a really, really super convincing argument, so. Whatever. I’m just not totally heartbroken to be leaving early, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Oh.” He nodded as they began walking again, the snow still softly crunching with each step they took. Every so often they’d pass a building where music thumped loudly from inside, or pass an open window where laughter floated through, but other than that, it was just the soft sound of that snow beneath their feet and the quiet in and out of their breathing. Well, that and the mad thumping of his heart in his ears. There was that too.
The girls’ building was already coming into view when he scrounged up the nerve to ask. “So. How did she convince you, exactly? Is it, like, she needed to live vicariously through you, or begged you to count how many times Jacob brought up how much he missed her, or…?”
Abi didn’t answer for a second there, and that time, it was her who stopped. Considering how close they were to the stairs leading up to her complex, it felt like a pretty significant choice. “Um,” she said, pressing her lips together as she thought. “Not really. She just sort of reminded me of something.”
“Must’ve been something pretty important to get you to give up your chill night at home,” Nick joked, but even as he said it, sensed the nervous flip-flopping of his stomach growing stronger. Why wasn’t she hurrying up the stairs and ducking into the lobby where it was warmer? Black ice or no, it was awfully cold out there.
“Actually.” Her eyes turned down again, like she was inspecting the toes of her boots for snow. “She just kind of reminded me that you’d be there. So.” She lifted her shoulders in a tight, anxious shrug. “I went.”
It took a second for him to process that one – and when he did, he reeled back like he’d touched a livewire. “Wait, you…you came to the party for me? To see me?”
The fabric of her peacoat rustled as she shrugged again, her shoulders somehow drawn in tighter than they had been before.
Nick jawed at the air for a second, caught somewhere between shock and disbelief – of course that would be the one time that night where no one tried to talk over him. “Wow, I…um, you’re probably not going to believe me, but I came tonight to…see…you, Abi.” He let it hang in the air between them, a frosty cloud that shimmered in the streetlights, then added, “I sort of do a lot of things just to see you.”
“Like leaving early to walk me home?” It was hard to tell whether the color in her cheeks and on the tip of her nose was from the cold or something else. When she looked up at him, though, a hopeful glimmer in her eye, he had to believe it was the latter.
“Could be,” he said, trying (and failing) to keep his smile under control.
They stood like that for a moment, one that felt as though it stretched on forever and ever. Then, sounding sheepish, Abi adjusted her hat and made for the stoop, wishing him a quick, “Happy New Year, Nick,” over her shoulder.
She’d made it to the second step when he caught her hand, so when she turned to face him, they were very nearly of a height. He didn’t have to wonder if he’d misunderstood her as her fingers tightened immediately around his, the pinkish flush across the bridge of her nose and cheeks darkening until it was almost red. Her gaze flicked down from his eyes to his mouth and back again, and when he set his other hand on her cheek, tentative and soft and probably much too cold against her skin, he watched her eyes flutter closed, a few stray snowflakes caught in her dark eyelashes.
It was still too early for any celebration, too early for countdowns or confetti, but the same sense of excitement washed over him as he brought his lips to hers and she kissed him back, her hands sliding to his shoulders to pull him closer. Midnight hadn’t struck yet, he hadn’t come up with a single resolution – hadn’t even decided whether he was going to thank the others for teasing him to leave – and even still, as Abi pulled back with a giggle and the brightest smile he’d ever seen, Nick thought he had a pretty good idea this was going to be his year.
“Happy New Year, Abi.”