to wait out the New Year. We kept everything indoors since the weather had finally turned cold. We’d put on our jackets later, after midnight, and shoot off some fireworks.
“Come on, lover boy,” Juliet said, cutting me from the crowd and hustling me to the kitchen. “You can help me with the margaritas.”
“Virgin?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, then pulled a bottle of tequila from a brown bag in the cabinet and unscrewed the lid.
“Quite the little rebel, aren’t you?” I smacked her lightly on the ass.
She pinned me to the cabinet with her body and laughed. “No teasing the redhead tonight.”
“Pleasant ... but not my type.”
She sighed wistfully. Then she shook her head as if to clear it. “Come on, let’s rock these margaritas.”
“Are you trying to get me fired?”
“My dad loves you. It’s just a little tequila. Pace yourself and nobody will know.”
She showed me how to rub the rims of the plastic cups with fresh lime slices and then dip the cups in salt she’d poured into a little dish shaped like a donut sliced in half. I rimmed and she blended, and then I held the cups while she filled them. We loaded them on a tray. I took two and followed Juliet into the family room.
Adam was telling Mike all about New York. I slipped in behind him and handed him a drink over his shoulder. He took it and turned his head back for a kiss. Once my hand was free, I wrapped my arm around his waist and pressed close to his back. He reached around with his free arm and held me to him. He felt so good, so solid, so real, and so here. I held on to him and sipped my drink and soaked up the sound of his voice.
Eventually Juliet had passed out all the drinks and came to claim Mike. She gave me a wink as she dragged him off to dance with her.
“I still can’t believe you’re really here,” I said, once they’d gone.
“I’m really here.” He laced his fingers with mine. “Will you promise me something?”
“What?”
“Promise me when I take you home tonight, you’ll get your guitar and play me my song?”
I nodded, my heart swelling at the request. I had envisioned playing it for him in a room lit by only candles in a house occupied by only the two of us. Tonight wouldn’t be ideal. We wouldn’t be alone. In fact, with Grandma just across the hall, I wouldn’t even be able to play without waking her.
We’d figure something out.
We walked over to where the other kids were dancing and he pulled me to him. We danced, holding each other, experiencing each other all over again. After a while, he pressed his mouth to my ear. “I love you, Nate.”
Before I could respond, Juliet had me by the arm, dragging me back to the kitchen to mix up another batch of margaritas. He watched me go with a combination of frustration and longing.
“Are you having fun?” she asked, unscrewing the cap on the margarita mix.
“Yeah.”
“Adam looks tired.”
“He better be.”
“Stop!” she whined, shoving a stack of plastic cups in my chest. “Now you are flaunting it.”
I laughed a little and separated the cups and set them out while she poured the mix then filled the blender with crushed ice from the freezer door. “I can’t help it, Jules. I’m in love with him.”
She seated the blender jar onto the base and looked at me, her face a question I understood perfectly.
“I’d be declaring myself right now if you hadn’t interrupted.”
“Really? Well, what the hell are standing in here for. Go! Finish the job. Tell him.”
I laughed. “In a minute.” I pressed the button for her and the blender crunched, then whirred, drowning out any possibility of conversation for a minute.
“Are you still here?” she said when the ice was crushed and smooth.
I removed the jar and poured. “I’m going to get him all liquored up so I can have my way with him.”
“Like you need alcohol for that.”
I started to make some clever remark, but loud voices in the living room stopped me. “Nah, man. We just came to party.”
“What the hell?” Juliet said.
We hurried back to the living room. In the entryway, Juliet’s dad was holding his ground against three boys. They pressed up against him, chests puffed out in some primal display. I recognized Andrew Cargill immediately. The two others I knew only as troublemakers. Juliet’s mom hung back, clutching a phone in her hand.
“Leave now or I’ll call the police,” her dad threatened in a voice that commanded a lot more respect than his slender, pale, and freckled frame. He was hardly a match for the three thugs looming over him. Still, he blocked their passage, his jaw clenched, and he wasn’t moving.
“Aaah, come on,” Cargill slurred, “we just want to party with our faggy friends here.” He locked eyes with me.
I stood next to Juliet and felt the temperature rise in my veins. Adam, Mike, and a couple of the other guys Adam knew from theater arts—Warren Calicutt and Traveon Smith—positioned themselves behind Juliet’s dad. I joined them. Cargill took it all in, then seemed to reconsider. He let loose a string of homophic slurs, then backed out the doorway with his little band of thugs. Mr. Ratliff calmly closed the door and locked it.
After that, we all needed a little tequila. The drinks were melting on the kitchen counter, and any guilt I might have felt about the alcohol—Mr. Ratliff would not have been happy—was forgotten. Adam leaned against the edge of the counter and handed me a drink. My hand trembled slightly as I took it. He wrapped his fingers around mine for a moment, then he picked up the tequila bottle and topped off my cup. I looked at him.
“I’m the designated driver tonight.”
“What is it with those creeps?”
He shook his head and pulled me close. “Don’t worry about them.”
I leaned against him, enjoying the feel of my body pressing against his in all the right places. I drank half my margarita, set my cup on the counter, and put my mouth close to his ear. “Do you think anyone would notice if we disappeared for a while?”
“Do you care?” he asked, grinning.
Not even a little bit.
We left the chatter, and the laughter, and the music behind and locked ourselves in Juliet’s room. My pulse still raced, but for another reason altogether.
It was close to midnight when we slipped back into the living room. Juliet was passing out hats and
