“Good, that’s good.”
“Hey, Nate.” It was Coop this time. “Tell us if you need anything, okay? We’re here for you. And for Madison.”
The bone-deep exhaustion of the day weighed him down, just as gratitude squeezed his chest.
“Thanks, Coop,” he croaked, his voice thick.
“And whenever you want to tell us where you got those bitchin’ dance moves we saw earlier, we’ll be here to listen.”
Nate’s bark of laughter was so abrupt he startled even himself.
“Oh, fuck off.”
“Why?” Cooper whined through the phone. “We want the details. No, we deserve the details. Were you body-snatched, is that it?”
There was a quiet scuffle heard through the line before it was Liam’s voice again.
“Forgive the idiot. What he meant to say was that you two looked good and that we’re happy for you.”
Nate’s throat tightened for a completely different reason.
“We’re friends.”
There was a slight pause of silence over the line.
“I don’t think so, buddy.”
nineteen
The weekend following that Friday night was everything it was supposed to be.
Like Christmas had thrown up all over it.
Exactly how Maddy liked it.
When her nonna visited them, they would decorate both the main house and her small apartment, thus testing the endurance of electrical outlets of the house to its maximum.
Christmas was only two weeks away so it was time to get their festive mode on.
It was Maddy’s favorite time of the year.
The twinkling lights, the Christmas tree full of colorful ornaments, the garlands on the banisters, the wreaths on the doors, the stockings on the fireplace, she loved it all.
But most of all, she had always loved the family time, how they would always be together, Maddy and her three favorite people. Listening to Christmas music, cooking, playing an even more insane amount of board games. Maddy and grandma ending up being the most competitive ones of the bunch, just shy of exchanging insults.
All in good spirit of course.
All that holiday anticipation, however, made the last few days of school before the break go by exceptionally slowly.
In one such day, Maddy had been shamelessly zoning out, her gaze wandering outside the classroom window. She hadn’t really been looking at anything in particular but her eyes quickly zeroed in on a familiar figure, something which made her heart skip a beat.
Maybe she should have that checked out. It clearly wasn’t something normal.
Nate was passing through with a couple of his classmates, his hands in his pockets.
Maddy smothered a sigh that threatened to escape her lips and embarrass her in front of her professor.
How could anyone look so effortlessly good? She certainly couldn’t pull that off. But Nate did. He so did. And he wasn’t even a little bit cocky about it. Sure, he joked about it but he never actually showed off. He just traipsed about looking likethatin sportswear, for Christ’s sake.
