Let Me List the Ways

One

NOLAN! MY MOTHER screeched playfully as I heard the back door slam. I quickly smoothed my hair, which was pulled back into a ponytail, my long brown waves hanging in a messy tangle to the middle of my back. His feet fell heavy on our stairs as he trotted up to my room, my mom laughing from below.

Sorry, Mrs. Clark! he shouted down to her. I didn’t mean to startle you, I promise. I could hear the hidden smile in his words. He loved scaring my mom and she loved being a part of his little game. I wasn’t the only Clark who seemed to love Nolan—just the only one who didn’t love him like family.

The knob to my room spun and the door cracked open to reveal a smiling Nolan, his bright blue eyes laughing and his perfect lips curling up in a knowing smile. His hair was getting a little too long, but the way the deep brown strands nearly covered his forehead made me swoon a little. The feeling only intensified when he gave me a small wink.

I tossed a crumpled piece of paper at him but he quickly shut the door so that the paper bounced off the back of the white wood. I giggled when he quickly opened it again, peeking his face back into my room and offering me a scolding look.

Are you cranky, Zie? I come bearing gifts. He slid inside the door and closed it behind him, something my parents would never object to. Nolan and I were around each other so much he was practically their other child.

I tossed my pencil down on my desk and used my feet to tip myself back onto the hind legs of the chair. I don’t get this. I hate that I have to memorize all this stuff when I’m going to forget it a few months later. Besides, when is anyone really going to grill me about the Louisiana Purchase? I blew out a breath, my bangs scattering across my forehead. His low chuckle seemed to slide gently over my skin.

I thought you and Regan were going to study together. He moved next to me and leaned back against my desk.

I squinted a bit as I looked up at him. We might have been kicked out of the library for being too loud yesterday.

Nolan laughed and shook his head. You girls are trouble together. He spun my book around and glanced at the material I’d been trying to cram. For the life of me I can’t imagine what you would have been loud about. This is some pretty dry material.

We didn’t really get to the studying part of the session. I took my book back and returned it to its position in front of me. Quietly I mumbled, We shouldn’t have sat in the romance section.

Nolan quirked an eyebrow and leaned closer to hear me better. I’m sorry. What does sitting in the romance section have to do with being loud?

I rolled my eyes and gave him a little shove, pointing to my kit on the desk behind him. Hand me that. I huffed out a breath. We had every intention of studying, but there was this stack of old romance books sitting on the table calling our names. I glanced up at his face as he tried to contain his smile. They were the cheesy ones with the man perched on something like a rock or a boat and some woman hanging from him. I mimicked the women’s desperate poses.

How did reading get you kicked out of a library? he asked, laughing. He grabbed my kit off the edge of the desk and tossed it to me.

You can’t keep that gold to yourself! I proclaimed in earnest. We took turns reading aloud the best scenes, which may or may not have been appropriate near the senior book club. I shrugged again.

He shook his head. Leave it to you and Regan to corrupt the seniors. He glanced down at my history book again pointedly. You’re great at memorizing useless information, Zie. This test should be a piece of cake. Besides, I brought you a treat and some studying incentive. His eyes met mine, and that was all it took to make my stomach do a little flip. I wanted to brush his bangs out of his eyes but it seemed too intimate. Of course, it’s not as good as naked man chest, but it’ll have to do.

I smiled at him as I slid the test strip into the meter. The day I found out I had type 1 diabetes, the doctor had explained that my pancreas didn’t produce insulin, the hormone my cells needed to convert sugar into energy, but all I heard was that I was going to need to give myself shots and poke my own fingers multiple times a day for the rest of my life. When you’re a child, there are very few things more terrifying than that. But the thing about living with an incurable condition is that you have no choice but to get used to it. My parents and I quickly had to learn how to test my blood sugar levels throughout the day, and how to figure out the correct doses of insulin to inject so that I stayed in an acceptable range. There was a lot of practicing, and Nolan had been there through all of it. He had been there in those first few days when my fingertips had turned purple from the pricks. He offered up his own so I could practice on him too. He had been there when, in sixth grade, I decided I didn’t want to be diabetic anymore because it was too much work, only to be reminded very sternly by my endocrinologist that if I didn’t check myself regularly and administer insulin when I needed it, I was at risk of some serious health issues, including everything from going blind to needing to have a limb amputated. Nolan had held me as I cried. And he was still there now, always keeping an eye out for the signs that my blood sugar had gotten too low or too high, and quietly supporting me every time I had a setback. I knew that kind of unconditional friendship wasn’t easy to find, which was why it was such a simple decision for me to keep my feelings for Nolan secret. There was no way I could ever risk jeopardizing what we had.

Nolan glanced at my meter and made a small tsk-tsk with his mouth, but then shot me that devastating grin again. Sixty-one, Sugar, he said, using his other nickname for me. That’s why you can’t remember shit. He dug through his pocket and pulled out six Hershey’s Kisses, to help me get my blood sugar back to the appropriate 90 to 120 range.

I shrugged and tossed a Kiss into my mouth, rolling up the small square of tinfoil and throwing it at him. Well, he said, catching the foil and then flicking it off his palm for the perfect shot right to my forehead, now that I’m here, I might as well help you study. He kicked off his shoes and lay back on my bed, making himself comfortable on my pillows. I watched him with mild amusement. He used to spend the night when we were younger and we’d both fit, but now his tall frame made his feet nearly dangle off the end, and the way his strong arms folded behind his head made the once-big bed seem child-sized. I giggled at the thought and he narrowed his eyes at me.

What’s so funny?

I unwrapped another Kiss and put it on my tongue, taking a moment to enjoy the smooth flavor. Finally, around the melting lump of chocolate, I answered, You look like Goldilocks in the baby bear’s bed.

Is that so? he asked sarcastically. I think this bed is ‘just right.’ In one quick move he reached down and grabbed my ankle, pulling me off balance so that the front legs of the chair I was leaning back in slammed to the floor. That time he was the one laughing.

I moved to pinch him as he shut his eyes and rested, but he must have sensed what I had in mind because his hand shot out and captured my wrist. He cracked one eye open and gave me a heart-stopping smirk. I know you better than you know yourself. As the words fell from his mouth, he yanked on my arm, pulling me from my chair, down onto the bed with him. I moved to get up but he just held me tighter, dramatically rubbing my bangs and the wispy hair that had escaped my elastic band into my face like a toddler would pet a puppy. There, there, Sugar, he teased, and I laughed, giving up on trying to break free from his hold.

He finally released me and we both sat up, moving to the edge of my small bed so he could pull the huge textbook onto his lap. He flipped through the pages of my open notebook on my desk until he found a clean page and ripped it from the spiral binding, setting it on the pages of the textbook. Next he pulled a pen from the cup where I kept them and clicked its point down so he could write. I think it’s time for one of our lists, he said seriously, titling the page TOP TEN REASONS ZIE WILL NAIL THIS TEST.

I laughed. Even though I probably wouldn’t nail the test, I knew I would save this one just like I had the hundred or so other ones we’d written over the course of our friendship.

Nolan turned to look at me, and for a second I thought he might say something serious because he pulled in a breath and gave me his full attention, but then no words came out.

What? I finally managed a whisper. His eyes left mine long enough to take in the rest of my face. His mouth opened to answer, but then quickly shut again.

His head shaking slightly, he smiled and whispered back, Nothing.

Two

THE NEXT MORNING the sun was up already as I made my way through the gate in our backyard. I smiled as my fingers pushed down the old dirty latch, securing it behind me. It used to be white, but over the years Nolan’s and my hands, filthy from playing in the planters, had left their marks.

I took the two steps up to his back door and turned the knob, letting myself into his house.

Hey, Mrs. Walker. Is he ready yet? I asked as I stole a piece of bacon from the counter next to where she was cooking.

I haven’t seen him. I think he’s still upstairs getting dressed. Why don’t you run on up there and tell him to get down here so he’ll have time for breakfast before you leave? Seth and Gavin took off a few minutes ago. She took a break from the frying pan, wiping her hands on the small towel hanging from the stove. I nodded and set my backpack down on the kitchen counter. Nolan’s younger brothers always rode their skateboards to school.

I took the stairs up to his room quickly, something I had done so many times I could have made it up them in my sleep. Nolan? I inquired as I opened his door.

In here, he called from the small bathroom in his bedroom. I didn’t hear my alarm, he explained as he stepped out and gave me a smile. His wet hair hung down on his forehead and the smooth skin of his bare chest was red from where the hot water had assaulted it. I managed a nod, trying to act normal even though it felt like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. After so many years of seeing Nolan as a friend, it still sometimes took me by surprise how attracted I was to him. I had always loved him, but in the last couple of years it became clear to me that I was also in love with him. I had noticed the little things at first, like the way my heart picked up its pace when he looked at a me a second too long, or the way my skin tingled with sensation if he whispered in my ear, the heat of his mouth so close to my neck. By the time I recognized what I felt for him, it was too late—I was completely in love. Luckily, he never seemed to notice.

We have time. I tried to mentally shake off the sight of him in nothing but his towel. He nodded and pulled the bathroom door almost closed behind himself so he could get dressed. I watched the door for a few breaths, calming my heart before turning my attention to the bulletin board above his desk. Any tension from before vanished when I saw the nearly naked magazine girls again.

We’d been playing this game since we were about twelve. He’d hung up a few magazine pages of girls in bikinis or underwear, nothing too bad since usually they were from magazines his mother had at the house, maybe Victoria’s Secret or some department store catalog. Once, while he’d left me alone in his room as he helped his dad with something in the garage, I had cut out very modest outfits for the women from some of the scraps of construction paper he had in his desk. It took him a few days to see my handiwork, but his reaction had been worth the wait. His brows had pinched together and he’d had to bring his face close to the images, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d been seeing. Then the most beautiful laugh had burst from his chest and he couldn’t get it to stop until long after his face had turned red and his eyes had watered.

As we grew older, he would replace the girls with newer images, and I swear sometimes he picked the most provocative poses to make it more difficult for me to cover them. We never discussed it anymore; he would put the girls up one day and I would dress them another. He used to remove the little outfits I’d made, but lately he’d left them up, only taking down the pictures when a new catalog would arrive.

I slid the little drawer of his desk open and grabbed a sheet of printer paper and a pair of scissors. This model would be easy enough, standing straight at the end of the stage in nothing but a demi bra and small scrap of fabric covering her lady parts. I giggled a little as I cut out a turtleneck shirt and a pair of old-lady high-water trousers. I jumped slightly when his voice echoed from the bathroom.

So my mom said that tomorrow is this month’s game night with your parents. What are we watching while they get buzzed on chardonnay and play Spades?

I quickly slapped some glue onto the back of the horrible outfit. I’m not watching another superhero movie. I’m game for anything but that. There are only so many times I can watch men fighting in tights. I pressed the model’s clothes onto the shiny surface of the magazine’s pages, making a few trims where the sleeves were a bit long.

His chuckle filled the room. I don’t think you’re supposed to be complaining about men in tights. How about a comedy, then? I could hear the drawer in the bathroom open and the sound of him searching for something inside it. I pressed the trousers onto her long legs and stood back to admire my work.

How about the new Channing Tatum movie? It’s a comedy. I screwed the lid back onto the glue and tossed it into the drawer, then swiped the scraps of paper into the trash can beneath his desk.

I thought you didn’t want to see men in tights. I think his main outfit is a football uniform. I wouldn’t want your eyes to suffer. The bathroom door opened, revealing Nolan in a pair of dark jeans that fell perfectly along the definition of his thighs, hanging a little low at his waist. His black T-shirt stretched across his arms and chest. He tossed his towel into the dirty clothes hamper by his bed and quirked an eyebrow, already expecting my smart-ass response.

The tights rule only applies to average men—Channing’s not average. I had my arms crossed against my chest and was trying to act casual as I used my body to block the modestly covered model from his line of sight.

I stand corrected. He grabbed his backpack from the end of his bed and swung it onto his shoulders. Taking two small steps, he came to stand right in front of me. I could smell the fresh scent of his soap and see the smooth expanse of the skin on his chin where he’d shaved that morning. His fingers reached for the bottom of my shirt, his eyes falling to the hem as he tugged it lightly away from my stomach.

It’s a shame you didn’t realize turtlenecks were the new thing. He shook his head a bit and then left me standing, unable to make my knees move as he touched the tip of my nose with his finger and headed downstairs to grab breakfast.

I didn’t really understand how, after all the time that we’d spent together, Nolan could still take my breath away simply by standing close to me. I shook my head to clear it and made my way to the kitchen to find Nolan grabbing bacon without taking off his backpack. I pulled my phone from my pocket and saw that school started in ten minutes. He grabbed a bottled water from the fridge and tossed one to me also. Did you eat breakfast?

Yes, I answered. I got up early to finish studying. Slipping my backpack on, I tucked the water into the side pouch and headed to the kitchen door to follow him out. He nodded and moved down the steps. We made our way along the small side area between our houses before he unlatched a gate that led us to the front of the property.

He unlocked his truck from the passenger door like always, opening it as he took my backpack to toss into the bed. It was quickly turning to spring, so we both rolled down our windows as soon as he turned the key in the ignition. It was too early in the morning to have a conversation, so we just listened to the radio, Nolan’s hands tapping out the beat of the song on the wheel.

Nolan’s and my mornings had become a finely honed routine. Even on the days it was clear we were going to be late to our first classes, he still made sure to wait by my locker as I exchanged books and dropped my lunch off, and then I did the same for him.

What article did you decide to write for this week’s paper? he asked as his strong fingers spun the dial of the combination lock, deftly stopping at their mark before spinning in the other direction. With the loud sound of metal clanking, his hand pulled the latch up and the door swung open. He moved his backpack to his front, leaving his history book in exchange for his English text.

"I decided to do the interview with students who have part-time jobs as refs for Little League sports teams. It should be a fun story to investigate. I have the feeling they’re going to have plenty of stories about crazy parents getting