Make the Fireflies Dance, page 15
Before I have a chance to second-guess myself, I lower myself to the next step so I’m close enough to reach him. Then I lift up on my toes, wrap one hand around his neck to pull him down to my level, and press my lips to his.
Donovan freezes, his body turning to stone. I feel the muscles in his neck tense beneath my hand, and his mouth opens in shock for a second before he pulls back.
We break off the kiss and I take a step back, rising to the deck, moving away from him as I do. Donovan stares at me, stunned, but he doesn’t seem to be upset or offended. If anything, he looks embarrassed.
“Um,” he says, not looking directly at me. He scratches the back of his head. “Look, Quincy, I think you’re great and all—”
“Sorry,” I interrupt. “That’s something I needed to do.” I grimace at how ridiculous I sound.
“Why?” he asks. “I mean, not that I’m not flattered, because I am, but… why?”
There’s no way out of this—I’m not nearly a good enough liar to come up with a story on the spot. And I still can’t tell if it was him at nana’s party. Not based on that non-kiss. He froze so completely that it was like kissing a mannequin.
“Donovan?” I take a slow, shaky breath to steel my nerves. “At my Nana’s party did you—”
“Quincy?”
I spin at the sound of Kenyon’s voice. He’s standing behind me on the deck, and I catch the look of pain on his face before he shutters his emotions.
“Ken—” I start at the same time Donovan says, “Hey, man.”
Kenyon looks from me to Donovan and back to me before turning and disappearing into the house.
“Crap,” I groan.
“I’ll talk to him,” Donovan says.
When he steps past me, I grab his forearm, stopping him. “Let me. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
He nods, and I see the understanding wash over his features. “We good?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. We’re fine.”
Back in the great room, Naoise and Marcus are spinning a blindfolded Kira in circles. She holds a unicorn horn above her head like a javelin as she turns. I skirt around them and search the rest of the room, but I can’t find Kenyon anywhere.
“You okay?” Ezra pulls me over by the fireplace, away from the unicorn commotion so it’s easier to hear. “You look lost.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say. He pierces me with a stare I’ve not seen in years but immediately recognize. He doesn’t believe my lie for a second. I sigh. “Actually, no. Did you see where Kenyon went? I need to talk to him.”
“I think he left,” he says. My stomach drops. What he saw on the deck—me kissing his best friend—I need to explain that.
“You can probably still catch him,” Ezra says, “if you hurry.”
“Thanks,” I say over my shoulder as I rush toward the foyer and out the front door.
I scan the driveway and street, but Kenyon is nowhere in sight. Finally, I turn toward the neighbors’ house and see him standing next to his Jeep.
“Kenyon, wait!” I yell as he pulls the door open. I rush down the porch steps and jog across the expansive side lawn to join him.
“Hey,” I say when I get to him. I take a few measured breaths, trying to regain control. My heart pounds against my rib cage, only partly from the exertion. “You’re leaving?”
Kenyon tilts his head back, pulling in a deep breath through his teeth. He huffs it back out and finally looks at me. “I’m all partied out,” he says, his voice flat.
“Look, about what happened,” I say, but Kenyon holds up a hand to stop me.
“Don’t,” he says. “I get it. You told me you were going on a bunch of dates. I knew you were going out with Donovan tonight. But I never thought that meant…” He turns back to the Jeep.
I grab his arm. “Kenyon, please, listen for a second. It’s not what you think.”
“Quin, stop.” He shakes my hand off. Then he climbs into the Jeep and shuts the door. I stand numbly beside the vehicle as the engine roars to life. Kenyon doesn’t glance my way once, but simply eases the Jeep onto the road and leaves me standing alone in the dark.
chapter Twenty-Four
“DID YOU FIND HIM?”
Ezra is waiting for me in the foyer as I come back inside.
“Yeah.”
“Everything okay?”
Even after these years apart, Ezra still knows me too well, so it’s no use lying to him. I shake my head and say, “I just want to go home.”
“But it’s your party,” he says.
“I know, but it’s about over anyway, right?” Half the crowd has already left, and the rest have mellowed out. “I need to find Donovan so we can go.” I didn’t think it could get more awkward than the drive from Southport earlier, but I’m pretty sure the ride home is going to beat that, hands down.
“I think I saw him and Shyla heading upstairs a few minutes ago.”
I thank him and head for the staircase. Upstairs, I hear laughter coming from Shyla’s room. The door is open a few inches, and I push my way in.
“Hey, Shy, have you seen—” My words freeze in my throat. Shyla’s on her bed, lying back on a mountain of pillows. But that’s not what catches me off guard.
Donovan is leaned over her, propped up on one forearm. He sweeps her hair back from her forehead then leans down and kisses her, so tenderly I almost swoon. I back out of the room and walk to the staircase. This night can’t possibly get any weirder.
I’m halfway down the stairs when I hear Shyla calling my name. Her voice quavers. She’s scared—of what I’ll say and how I’ll react. I turn and see fear etched on her face. She pulls the corner of her lip into her mouth and bites it, the same nervous tic she’s had since middle school, and she stares at the floor right past me, not ready to meet my eye. Seeing her standing there, so vulnerable, my shock fades. Behind it isn’t the anger I’d expect, but a small thrill of joy for my friend. Beneath her fear, I can see the excited flush still in her cheeks and neck, and I’m suddenly incredibly happy for her. The emotion rushes through me, knocking me a bit off-kilter.
“Hey,” I say softly.
Finally, she looks up, her eyes catching mine. “I’m so sorry, Quin. Please, please don’t hate me. It’s just—”
“Shy, it’s—”
“You know how hard it is to be Naoise’s sister? She’s so beautiful, and tall, and thin, and everyone who sees her loves her, and then there’s me”—she gestures to her whole self—“nobody sees me when I’m with her.”
“Shyla—”
“Wait, let me finish.” She steps down to join me. “But Donovan sees me. He doesn’t look at me and see Naoise’s less-pretty, fat sister. He sees me, and he likes me, and he thinks I’m beautiful. I know that doesn’t excuse me kissing him when you’re on a date, but I—”
“Shyla!” I finally have her attention, and she snaps her mouth shut, tears shining in her eyes. I pull her into a tight hug.
“You are not Naoise’s fat sister. You are one of the most incredible people I know.” I pull back and hold her at arm’s length so I can look her in the eye. “Donovan is lucky to have you, Shyla.”
“You’re not mad?”
I shake my head. “I was,” I say. “Or I thought I was. But mostly I’m surprised. Not mad. But…”
“But what?”
“We kissed tonight. Just a few minutes ago. If I had known how you felt, Shy—”
“I know,” she interrupts. “He told me.”
“He did?”
She nods, a smile spreading across her face. “He said that kissing you made him realize he doesn’t want to waste his time anymore. The reason he didn’t want to go on a blind date was because, well, he wanted to ask me out.” Her blush deepens, and she tries to hide her smile. “Sorry. I know you wanted to find out—”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Really.” And it is. I’m happy for her. But as the shock continues to wear off, I’m left with the memory of what happened with Kenyon. I hurt him, and for what? To kiss a guy who only wants to be kissing my best friend? I can’t get the image of his pained expression out of my head.
“What about Operation Mystery Kisser?” Shyla drops her voice to a whisper.
“It wasn’t him,” I say, though I’m not totally sure. What happened on the deck wasn’t a real kiss and didn’t at all help me know if he kissed me at Nana’s party or not. Maybe he did, but I’ll never know. Because when I look at Shyla’s face, filled with the giddiness she has when talking about Donovan, I know I won’t take a second chance at kissing him. “That was the most awkward kiss of all time.”
She laughs. “Yeah, that’s what he said too. You’re really not mad?”
“Really. I’m happy for you, Shy. Donovan is great, and you two will be great together.”
She hugs me again. “Thank you.” Her voice quavers.
“Hey, I’m actually gonna get out of here. Can you tell Donovan?”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll go get him.”
“No, don’t. Go have fun. I’ll get another ride.”
Pulling my phone from my bag, I head downstairs. I’ve somehow missed six calls, the noise of the party apparently drowning out my ringtone. Four are from a number I don’t recognize, and two are from Nana. I check the time on them—9:42 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. My heart drops when I see her name. I can’t believe I missed these, so caught up with my party that I didn’t keep track of the time. Every year on my birthday, Nana calls to celebrate me being an official year older, right when I was born—at 9:42 p.m. I stop in the stairwell to call her back, looking out over the end of my birthday party as the phone rings in my ear.
Marcus, Naoise, and Kira are all piled in a heap on a couch, and Ezra sits on the arm, laughing. The rest of the house appears to be empty. Ezra catches my eye as I drop my phone back to my side. Voicemail. I’ll have to try again later. I step into the room and give him a small wave and a smile before heading to the front door. I pull up a rideshare app and start typing in the Patel address.
“Need a ride?” Ezra pushes the door shut behind him and joins me on the front porch.
“I’m fine,” I say, waving my phone. “I’ll call a rideshare.”
Ezra takes my phone from me. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll give you a ride.”
“It’s okay. You stay.”
“I need to get home anyway. I have an early class tomorrow.”
He hands my phone back and leads me to his car. Once we’re settled in and headed toward my house, I ask, “How many more classes do you have?”
“This is the last weekend.”
“Then you’ll be a full-blown paramedic?”
He shrugs. “Only an EMT, and I can’t actually work with the EMS until I’m eighteen, but I’ll be qualified at least.”
“Only a few weeks to go, then,” I say. “That’s pretty awesome. But why EMT?”
He shrugs. “Why not?”
“That’s not an answer,” I say. “It’s a pretty big thing to do at our age.”
“I guess I thought it would be a good job for summer and during school. And it’ll look good on med school applications later.”
“You want to go to med school? Since when?”
He looks at me with a wry grin. “A lot’s changed since we were kids, Quincy.”
“Oh, yeah? What else has changed?”
Ezra stares straight ahead, and I can see the muscle in his jaw working. He stretches his fingers out straight then regrips the steering wheel.
Finally, he sighs, and the tension leaves his shoulders. “I found him,” he says.
“Found who?”
“My dad.”
“What?” I’m shocked. I had no idea he even wanted to find his father. In all our time as friends, he never once hinted about looking for him. “Where? How?”
“He lives in Charleston.” Ezra stares straight ahead as he talks. “He has a whole new family. A wife and four kids. He’s a doctor now.”
“Is that why you want to go to med school? Because your father’s a doctor?”
Ezra pulls into the other lane to pass a truck. He doesn’t answer until we are back in the right-hand lane, the truck fading in the distance behind us.
“At first, yeah. It’s silly, I know, but I thought that, maybe, if I could get into med school… maybe I’d be good enough for him.”
“You are good enough, Ezra. It’s not your fault your dad is a douchenozzle.”
He smirks, but I can still see sadness on his face. “I know. I do, really, but when I found out about his new life, it’s like something in me snapped. I found the EMT course that same week. Oh, shoot, I missed the turn. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Truthfully, I didn’t even notice when we drove past my street. Ezra’s revelation about his dad had me too distracted to pay attention to where we were.
We drive across to Wrightsville beach, where Ezra pulls off on a side street and flips a quick U-turn. When we’re on the right road headed toward my house again, he says, “It’s not about him anymore, though.”
“What isn’t?”
“The med school thing. I signed up for the EMT classes on an impulse, but I ended up really loving it. I’m good at this, and I think I’d really like to be a doctor.”
“That’s great, Ezra.” I can’t imagine what it must have been like, searching for the dad who chose not to stick around. Finding him. Seeing the new life the man was living without him. I can’t help but wonder if Ezra’s absolute silence on the matter over the years wasn’t because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much.
“Does your mom know?” I ask as we turn onto my street.
He shakes his head. “I thought about telling her, but I can’t. She’s in a really good place, and I don’t want to ruin that.”
“You’re going to keep this to yourself, then?”
“I think I have to. Hey, who’s that?”
There’s a vehicle in my driveway, some kind of vintage car I don’t recognize. Ezra pulls in behind it, and the headlights illuminate midnight blue paint and an Iowa license plate.
“Who on earth?” I whisper.
“I’ll walk you up,” Ezra says, and we climb out of the car at the same time.
“Oh, thank goodness,” a voice calls from the front porch.
A girl bounces down the steps and rushes to us, meeting us halfway across the yard. She’s gorgeous, with blonde hair piled in a messy bun on the top of her head. She’s wearing a casual sundress. “Are you Dr. Walker’s daughter?”
“Yeah?” I say.
“What’s going on?” Ezra asks.
“Your dad’s in the hospital,” she says. “We were at this play for extra credit, and I was driving behind him on my way home, and there was this truck, and…”
She keeps talking, but I don’t hear anything. A loud whooshing sound fills my head, an ocean blocking out the rest of her words. Dad’s in the hospital. I need to go. Right now.
“I’ll take you,” Ezra says, a reply to my unspoken thought. He presses a hand to my lower back and guides me to his car, helping me into the passenger seat.
I hear Ezra and the girl talking for a moment before he gets in and backs out of the driveway.
“It’s gonna be okay, Quin.”
I wish I could believe him.
chapter Twenty-Five
NANA’S AT THE HOSPITAL WHEN WE ARRIVE, AND I RUN into her arms as soon as I see her. She holds me tight. I fit her body like I belong there.
“Shhhh,” she whispers into my hair. “I’ve got you, baby girl. I’ve got you.”
When I calm down, we head to the waiting area, and Ezra goes off in search of coffee for the three of us. Nana fills me in on what she knows so far: the girl at the house—Anna—is in Dad’s freshman lecture and was at the play with him and some other students to earn extra credit.
“She waited with him until the ambulance came,” Nana explains, “and then she found his cell phone and called me.”
“Where is he? How bad is it?”
Ezra returns and hands us each a paper cup filled with coffee before sitting in a chair across from us.
“He’s pretty banged up,” Nana says, and I gasp, less from the words than from the quiver in her voice. Nana’s always so strong and seeing her this affected scares me. Tears fill my eyes. “I don’t know much yet, but the doctor says he’s stable. We should be able to see him soon.”
I stare at the coffee in my cup. The surface of the liquid shivers with the shaking of my hands. “Where’s Clark?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Nana says. “I left him a message. Seems you both have a problem answering your phones tonight.”
“Sorry,” I mutter. I think back to the calls I missed earlier.
Nana pats my knee, leaving her hand there to calm me. “Don’t you apologize. You didn’t know. I hope you were having a good birthday party.”
“You knew about that?”
She nods. “I figured that was why you weren’t answering. That sweet girl offered to go wait for you. She seemed really shaken up by the whole thing. She didn’t want to go home until you and your brother knew.”
“I should call Clark,” I say, but before I can pull out my phone, a man in dark blue scrubs walks into the room and I freeze.
“You can see him now,” he says, and Nana and I rise together.
“Give me your phone,” Ezra says. “I’ll try to get ahold of Clark.”
“Thanks,” I say, passing my phone to him. Nana grabs my hand, her grip like a vise, and we follow the man to go see Dad.
I’m curled up in the chair next to Dad’s bed when the door creaks open and Ezra peeks his head in. “Up for more company?”
“Ezra,” Dad says, his voice bright. “Come in. Maybe you can convince this girl of mine that I’m fine.”
“Sure you are,” I say. It’s been an ongoing argument between us for the past hour. Dad acts like nothing even happened, despite the hospital bed and all the monitors he’s hooked up to. Despite the massive splint wrapped around his left leg, bracing a broken femur, and the gauze covering the side of his face and head.
The doctor gave us a quick rundown of what to expect as he led us to Dad’s room. His leg is stabilized as well as possible while we wait for the orthopedic surgeon to arrive and evaluate it. Until then, the focus is on pain management, decreasing the swelling, and monitoring Dad’s head. He’s showing signs of a mild concussion, and he’s got a line of stitches under the gauze running from the peak of his cheekbone in a high arc over his ear.
