A movement across the room catches my eye, and I look past Nabil to see Youssef stepping out of the hallway. It shouldn’t feel like getting slammed with a truck to see him again after only five minutes, but it’s still all I can do not to double over from the impact.
Nabil turns too, and the night throws yet another curveball at my face when he calls out to him.
“Youssef, man, where the hell were you?”
Youssef looks from Nabil to me and then glances around the room like he’s looking for someone to trade lives with.
I too would be down to swap existences with the next server to pass by.
Nabil calls out again, and I watch as Youssef reaches to scratch the back of his neck before coming over. There’s something boyish about it, something that makes it harder and harder to see him as a stranger, not the tall senior who didn’t go anywhere without a beat-up black Jansport hanging off his shoulder and a pair of headphones slung around his neck.
It’s like I’m holding up a ‘spot the difference’ game beside him as he comes to stand in front of the DJ booth, circling the similarities amongst all the things that have changed.
“Youssef, this is Chanly. Or is that a stage name? I—”
“It’s Paige.”
Neither of us is looking at Nabil, and it only takes him a second to pick up on whatever force field of convoluted emotions is growing in the space between us.
“Uh, do you two know each other?”
Those dark eyes don’t leave mine. “Yeah. We...we went to high school together, back in Brampton.”
Mierda. That fucking voice. It’s like I can feel his lips on my skin when he speaks.
I grip the sleeves of my hoodie even tighter and bite out the words, “Only for two years.”
It’s as much a reminder for me as it is for him. He was gone so fast—fast enough that those two years shouldn’t be anything more than a blip in my history. We knew each other in a different life, in a different city where we were different people. Just the wordBramptonbrings up a dozen memories about my family I’d rather forget.
“Wait. Is she—”
The movement of Youssef’s elbow jabbing into Nabil’s ribs pulls my attention away long enough to break our stare-off. Nabil’s eyes have gotten so wide he looks like some kind of nocturnal animal from the dark depths of the rainforest. His mouth is hanging open as his head snaps back and forth between the two of us like he’s following the world’s most engrossing tennis match.
I shift on my feet. I don’t like people knowing more about me than I want them to, and this guy seems to think he knows a whole lot.
“Wow. Okay. Wow.” His jaw drops open again, but he pulls himself together after Youssef’s elbow threatens another assault. I’d laugh if I wasn’t somewhere between pissed off and totally freaking out. “Okay, I’m sure you two would love to catch up, and I really would like to talk about The Cube Room, so how about Youssef and I go wait outside while they finish cleaning up in here, and then we can tag along to get food? If that’s cool with you, of course.”
I let a few moments tick by as I weigh the options. Ingrid texted me just after the show ended to say she was heading out with some girl she met in the crowd—no surprise there; Ingrid can’t even do groceries without five different girls trying to flirt with her—so I don’t have her as an excuse to leave. I’d have to come back to the bar to get my gear tomorrow and then Uber it all to the apartment if I went for noodles, but I know there’s at least a storage closet they could lock my stuff in for me.
I don’t really have a viable reason not to do this, other than Youssef, so if I do bail, he’ll know it was because of him.
The fact that he still makes me feel something, whatever the fuck it is, isn’t something I want broadcasted to the world.
“Okay. I guess we’ll meet you outside.”
Nabil smiles and grabs Youssef’s shoulder to lead him out of the bar. I watch them go, flipping one of the latches on the case I’m holding open and closed a few times. The whack of the metal springing open reaches a frantic tempo before I set the case down, pull my hood up, and march over to the bar.
“Hey hey!” Zach greets me when I fling myself onto the barstool beside him. “That was an amazing show! Seriously, you were on fire. You’re coming for noodles, right?”
I take a deep breath and nod before turning to DeeDee. “Is it too late to get a drink?”
