Finding Dell (2 page)

“You worry about a web of drama you weaved yourself,” Natalie said coolly.

I stole a sidelong glance at her. She had a creamy, deeply tanned complexion without a single blemish or freckle. Her narrow nose offset her pouty lips, which she thought made her sexy but often just made her look bratty.

“Is Ruby meeting us later? I’m surprised she’d miss the first party of the year,” Natalie said.

“Probably not. She wanted to see Nicolas tonight instead.”

Natalie rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why she insists on dating him. Her expectations are too high. It’ll only lead to disappointment. He can never be what she wants him to be.”

I felt a pang of identification with Natalie’s words. High expectations led to bigger, riskier, falls. I was guilty of it—the ceiling was only limitless to me, not the others who had to live up to my expectations. I shook my head to clear my mind as the sidewalk turned into a narrow path lined with weeds masquerading as grass.

Alex Connor’s apartment building was a single-story unit with white plastic siding and a rattling gutter. The adjacent alley housed a wide green dumpster, and hints of hot garbage wafted over when someone opened the lid to toss a bottle in with a crash of glass.

The door to his apartment hung open while a short boy named Tennessee blew cigarette smoke into the murky lights affixed to the siding.

Natalie and I squeezed past Tennessee to enter the crowded living room. I spotted Alex immediately.

He stood in the kitchen, urging people to take shots with him for his birthday. He had a booming voice; it penetrated every room of the party. Alex had an unmistakable presence, but it was one that ignited eye rolls after too long spent in his company. He was dominant yet needy, but I still liked spending time with him. I stood in the entryway and watched him for a few minutes before he spotted me.

Alex’s gray eyes sparkled and he made his way over, stumbling over a pair of flip flops abandoned in the middle of the room. He regained his composure, smoothing a hand over his dark blond hair in a gesture of momentary insecurity.

“That’s why guys should not be allowed to wear flip flops,” Alex bellowed in his deep, drawling voice. “They always lose them at parties. I can’t tell you how many random men’s sandals are always left here after a big rager.”

Natalie smiled curtly at him. “They’re probably all yours and you’re just too scattered to remember.”

Alex didn’t catch the subtlety of her tone, but I nudged her side. She had been cool toward Alex ever since I stopped showing up to eat lunch with her and instead spent my time flirting with him in a biology study group.

At my touch, Natalie shrugged and rolled her eyes. She walked away without a word, sidling up to a tall football player with bushy eyebrows in the kitchen. I turned back to Alex.

“How was your summer?” I asked.

“Not any different than during the school year,” he said. “I stayed here. My lease ran through the summer, so I took summer school classes.”

“I’d hate to be on campus when it’s empty. It seems so out of character.”

“It’s not so bad. But I’m happy that everyone’s back. That you’re back.”

I smiled tightly and fought to think of a new topic when images of Will rushed to my mind.

“It must be nice to have a birthday during the first week back at school. You always get to have the biggest party before classes start.”

Alex nodded as he looked around the room. “Your birthday was fun last year, too. Remember that concert that we went to over winter break?”

I blinked. I’d forgotten about that concert, forgotten that Alex had shown up even though we didn’t attend together. I was surprised he remembered it took place on my birthday; most people forgot birthdays that happened over winter break.

“That reminds me. I have something for you,” Alex continued.

“For me? But it’s your birthday!”

Alex laughed. “I know, but I’ve been meaning to give this to you for months. Come on.” He gestured for me to follow him down the narrow hallway.

The electric bounce of music faded in his bedroom. It didn’t look different from when I used to spend the night last year, and a wave of déjà vu crashed over me. I hadn’t been in Alex’s room since I started seeing Will, but I felt surprisingly at home still. I sat down on the low bed and waited while Alex rooted around his closet.

“I got this for you at that concert,” he said, his voice muffled through the hanging shirts. “I wanted to surprise you with it, but we both got busy and I didn’t see you that much.”

I realized he was referencing my relationship with Will. I wondered if he knew we were still together.

He produced a carefully rolled poster. He sat down on the
floor in front of his closet and watched me as I smoothed out the thick paper and examined it. A crowd of signatures circled around a neon graphic announcing the band’s name, The City Skies.

“You got it autographed?”

Alex nodded, his eyes sparkling.

“Under this name, it says ‘give him a kiss for me,’” I said, pointing at a signature scrawled with a fat-tipped Sharpie.

He smiled. I knelt on the floor to give him a careful kiss on the cheek and he beamed.

A small clump of dust from the back of his closet lingered in his hair, and when he sneezed a moment later it floated to rest on his eyelash. With my thumb and index finger, I reached to remove it for him.

Kneeling in front of Alex’s closet, with his scuffed shoes and milk crates overflowing with wrinkled loose leaf notes, suddenly struck me as too intimate. My tender touch on his eyelash left my fingers throbbing with guilt. I jerked my hand back and scrambled to my feet.

His gray eyes were stricken, and while I searched for something to say a baseball rolled from the top shelf of his closet and landed in his lap. He jumped in surprise and the moment was broken.

At the bedroom door, I looked back at him absently rubbing the red stitching on the baseball, his head hung low while the din of his birthday party rose without him.

As the party thinned out and everyone went to Dean’s house down the street, I found myself wavering at the door when I saw Alex standing in the kitchen, alone. He was gathering discarded cups, moving too slowly to be productive.

I hesitated. Images of Will clawed at my mind, where his blue
eyes were even more defined against the tan backdrop of a summer spent at a lake cabin, and I wanted to be with him. But I couldn’t leave Alex to clean up by himself on his birthday.

I checked my phone to see if I had a message from Will yet. Nothing. He was probably finishing unpacking before he stopped by Dean’s party later. I could imagine his arms wrapping around me for our big reunion after the summer apart, his drawling whisper in my ear as he told me he wanted us to be alone. Tonight might even be the night we had sex for the first time. A shiver climbed my spine and burst in ripples of anxiety in my stomach at the thought.

Then my mind drifted to the poster, and I wondered if Alex told the band I was his girlfriend to get them to write that teasing phrase.

“I’ll help you,” I called. I slipped off my shoes near the door and looked around the apartment.

It was a mess. Beer cans and empty Solo cups littered every surface. A discarded Tiki torch was propped up next to the refrigerator, muddy shoeprints decorated the linoleum in the kitchen, and a cardboard cutout of a baby sat on the coffee table.

I walked into the kitchen and reached for the garbage can.

“Let’s get this done so we can go to Dean’s party sooner.”

I looked up when Alex didn’t respond.

He was looking at me with steady, glazed eyes. He stumbled closer and leaned in for a kiss. I turned my head away deftly, leaving him to sloppily kiss my cheek.

Alex stepped back with concerned eyes; I had never turned down a kiss from him before.

I thrust the garbage can at him, creating a barrier between us.

“You take the living room and I’ll take the kitchen?”

Alex grunted and lurched across the apartment, collapsing on the futon. As I watched him, I wondered why I was spending
my first weekend back at college with Alex when I could be curled up in bed with Will back in Paso Fino.

The way his head lolled to the side as he sank deeper into the futon told me he wouldn’t go to Dean’s party later, but his shoes were still on. I crossed the room and crouched down, balancing on the balls of my feet to untie his shoes and slip them off.

Alex stirred and groaned, examining me with one drunken eye open.

“Did you have a good time on your birthday?” I asked as I stood up.

Alex straightened himself on the futon and immediately put his hands to his head to steady his swaying vision.

“It could’ve been better,” he mumbled. “You’re going to stay with me, right?”

I hesitated. “No, I’m going to Dean’s party and then back to the dorm.”

Alex reached out and touched his hand to my leg, encircling the hollow of my knee, and pulled me closer to him. I stumbled, taking a lunging step forward as Alex stood up from the futon on unsteady legs. I lurched into his chest and he slid his hand up my back and rested his hands, clasped, around my waist.

“Dance with me,” he whispered.

I frowned, unsure I had heard him correctly. Alex, with his perfectly gelled hair and his neatly pressed button-down, was suave and collected, not the type of guy who would dance anywhere, let alone slow dance in his living room. But he began to sway and pulled my hips into his.

Instinctively, I set my head down on his shoulder, feeling lightheaded as the drinks from earlier rushed to my head.

“We’re missing music,” I whispered into the curve of his neck.

“We’re not missing anything.”

The tickle of Alex’s warm breath brought me back and a wave of guilt crashed over me. I pushed away from Alex and scrambled to the door. As I fumbled with my sandals, I called a goodbye, but I couldn’t meet Alex’s stunned gaze.

Outside, my sandals slapped the concrete walkway and I could see lights blazing in neighboring apartments.

I’d barely cleared the expanse of the neighbor’s front yard when Alex shouted my name. He ran up the crumbling sidewalk clutching the poster I’d forgotten in his bedroom.

“Give it a good home,” he panted, handing me the poster. “Goodnight, Dell.”

Brightly colored lights glowed in halos of red, orange, and blue. Rap music floated down the street, loud enough to vibrate the windows of nearby apartments.

I stopped at a pistachio-colored house with a sagging porch down the street from Alex’s apartment. Before I went to the door, I crept across the yard to a sickly shrub on the side of the house. I gingerly placed the rolled poster behind it, at once feeling guilty for hiding it and for having it, too. I couldn’t wait to put it on the wall, but I didn’t want to explain it to Will.

I brushed my hands off on my shorts and pretended to approach the house nonchalantly. Dean Tedesco stood at the doorway, his short but beefy frame blocking the entrance while he collected wrinkled dollar bills from guys. He nodded approvingly at the girls in line on his porch and let them in with a once-over.

Last year, our friends tried to give Dean a nickname—Dean “Teddy” Tedesco—given his compact build, broad chest, and soft, short brown hair, but he refused to answer to it.

He pulled me into a clumsy, sweaty hug, his callused fingers rough on my skin.

“Dell! No cover charge for you,” he shouted.

“I’d feel special if I didn’t know you let every girl in for free,” I laughed as I pulled away. “Is Will here yet?”

“Not inside, but he could be waiting.” He gestured to the growing line of people wrapped around the porch.

I shook my head. “He’d never wait. He’d say it’s a waste of time and walk right up to the door.”

Dean reached for a cup of beer and took a swig. “Are you two still together?”

“Yeah. Yes, we’re together. We will be together.”

“Cool.” Dean nodded thoughtfully. “Is Ruby coming tonight?”

I stepped aside to let a group of skinny, giggling girls into the house. “I don’t think so. She just moved in a few hours ago.”

“So, uh, she still seeing that one guy, whatshisname?”

“Ruby’s still seeing Nicholas,” I confirmed. “But I’ll tell her you asked about her.”

Dean’s broad cheeks flared an uncharacteristic shade of pink in the dim glow on the porch. “I was just wondering,” he muttered.

I smiled. “I’m going to look for Natalie inside until Will gets here. Talk later?”

Dean nodded. His short, almost shaved hair disappeared into fat rolls on his neck with the motion. I headed inside as he turned away.

The air was thick with smoke and the heavy-cologne fog of freshmen. Scrawny boys with concave chests huddled in groups of three and four and glanced nervously around the room, and I could tell it was their first college party.

The living room was filled with people dropping their hips and shaking their shoulders to the pounding bass of the songs.

I shouldered through the crowd looking for Natalie. I was
relieved to brush up against other people, thinking it might mask the scent of Alex’s cologne on my shirt.

In the center of the room, Natalie was pressed against Jesse, the football player from Alex’s party, dancing with her arms thrown possessively around his neck. Jesse held a full cup of beer against Natalie’s lower back while they danced; it splashed on her when they were bumped by other dancers. Natalie didn’t react, but her silk shirt was beer-soaked after a few songs.

I shook my head as I watched them and realized I needed to find Will and go back to Paso Fino together. He might skip the line at the door and go directly to the basement, so I decided to check there.

Passing a growing line of girls waiting for the bathroom, I descended into the steamy basement smelling of sweat and stale beer and maybe even pee. Dean had replaced all of the lights with red bulbs. The basement thumped with loud bass, the work of an amateur DJ.

The basement was hot, crowded. At one end there was a beer pong table set up next to a keg. I shouldered through the crowd, passing a couple near the washer and dryer.