The more lightly I touched her, the more still she stood, until it didn’t seem like she was breathing.
“Sorry,” I said, “my hands are probably cold.”
“That tickled.”
I brushed the arc of her back, testing her tight muscles, trying to ignore her cinnamon scent. Trying to ignore what I wanted to do.
“You really should get that checked out.” I finally stepped away. “I’m not sure if the swelling’s going to go down before the fashion show either. Forty-eight hours of rest can do a lot, but not if you’re really injured. Also ice and keep stretching, yadda yadda.”
“Thanks. I guess we’ll see.” We locked eyes, her reflection watching mine. I had to restrain myself from tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I have one more dress to try on.”
“Right. I’ll be right outside.”
“Thanks, Nick.”
When she came out the next time, she wore a red dress with a decoration thing-y on the front. And without any straps. It made her shoulders, which had just been uneven and injured, look like they’d been painted and airbrushed for the cover of a magazine.
“That’s the one.” Heat flooded into my cheeks. Stupid rom-whatever-they’re-called.
I forced myself to stay cool as she looked at me, trying to decide if she believed me. “Dude, if you don’t get that for yourself, I will.”
She gave herself another twirl in the mirror, and I wondered if she’d heard the sincerity in my voice.
Dial it back, Nick. Stop trying so hard.
“You’re getting closer to my nerdy best friend by the minute, Nick,” Eliza called, back in her dressing room. I rubbed my jaw to hide my goofy smile.
Finally, she picked her dresses and left her selections at the desk with Dylan for her mom to grab the next day. We walked through the mall and back towards my car.
“Wow, good job, Maguire,” she said.
“Oh, with the dresses? Yeah, I know.”
“No . . . we passed a Victoria Secret and you didn’t try to look in.”
“Oh, shit, we did?” I spun around. And so we had. I’d been too distracted thinking about certain proximities to certain other people to notice. With the mall almost closing, the hallways were empty except for the few shoppers inside the boutiques. The smell of oversalted pretzels and greasy sushi hung in the air. “I mean, shoot.”
“It’s okay, Maguire. You can say ‘shit.’”
“Nah. I have a strict policy of not swearing in front of girls.”
“I’m surprised.” Eliza said, her voice filled with disbelief and something else. Darn that Girl Code.
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess I really didn’t think you, like . . .” she searched for the perfect phrase, “cared about other people?” Other girls.
As if it had never gone away, the awkwardness was back. “I deserve that.” After a breath, I continued, “I shouldn’t have said anything about Hannah last week. I didn’t really mean it. I was trying to gauge how you thought she stood with Robert.”
And then I said something bros hardly ever need to do, since the Bro Code clearly states that a bro is entitled to his convictions and should never feel the need to defend them: “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” she swallowed a lump in her throat. “Me too. I know you care about me and Carter. And that you’re not, like, a terrible guy.”
“Not a terrible guy. I’ll take it.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” she continued. “You’re still the cockiest kid I have ever met . . . though maybe you’re not totally immature.”
I laughed and threw my arm around her, careful of her shoulder, pulling her into me like I’ve wanted to do a thousand times. “Thanks. Means a lot, O’Connor.”
She didn’t shrug away like I’d expected her to, even as we passed stylish middle school girls searching kiosks for the perfect phone case. Walking beside her, arm around her, felt all kinds of thrilling: like sneaking out, being wide awake, and like I could accomplish anything. That was what I liked most about her—how exciting she could be, even when she was totally chill.
“Yeah, no problem,” she said. “Actually, you did a really good job today. You can have your prize if you want.”
“You know what I’d ask for if this were a rom-whatever, right?”
“Don’t be gross.”
“Can we keep this PG, Eliza? Please? There are kids.” I gestured around the empty hallway.
She took a step to the side, leaving my arm to hang.
“All right, what were you going to say?”
“Well,” I said, “I was going to say if this were a movie, it’d be the part where I said you owed me a kiss. But then I remembered that I’m your nerdy best friend now, so I’ll have to ask for, I dunno, like a non-fat almond milk pumpkin spice latte or something.”
“Oh my gosh. I don’t know if I should start by unpacking that stereotype or the part where you know my coffee order.”
“Nah, it’s fine, though. You don’t owe me anything. You know, pal, you’re a lot different from how you were two years ago.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You didn’t used to be cool.”
Eliza punched me in the side. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“Anytime.” We stepped out of the mall and into a chilly, early October evening. “Am I dropping you off at your house?”
“Duh,” she replied. “Where else would I go?”
“Dunno. I can’t keep up with your boyfriends these days.”
“Neither can I.” She swung her arms, dance-walking across the street with entertaining energy. I matched her dance moves as we traveled through the empty parking lot, keeping her same invisible rhythm. Eliza kept it up until we reached my car, where she clapped at our performance. I bowed, unlocking her door. She curtsied in return, pushing me away before she slid into her seat.
In no hurry, I walked to the driver’s side, taking in the freedom of escaping the mall and soaking up how it felt to be out and about, just the two of us. Lights from the moon and parking lot glinted off my car. It sparkled almost as much as the girl inside it.
RULE NUMBER 10
A bro shalt make the first move.
Finally, it was Friday, the second-best day of the week, the best being Saturday, obviously. I waited in the busy, stuffed-full senior hallway of Cassidy High on my way to fifth period biology. Some dude’s backpack had exploded everywhere—pens rolling into students, highlighters shooting under lockers—which led to a giant traffic jam. I was going to be late. As usual.
Something thorny tapped on my shoulder. “Hey, handsome.” The one and only Madison Hayes walked behind me, looking somewhat normal in her long-sleeved shirt and jeans.
Ding dong, went the bell. Several of my classmates still shoved through the line, and probably half the class wasn’t seated yet; however, Mr. Kendrick, my sadistic teacher, wasn’t the type to care.
“Madison Hayes. The girl I wanted to see. What class do you have?”
“Study hall.”
“Last period on a Friday. Rough.” I rubbed my forehead, dusting off the dirt blowing around from everyone’s sneakers. Apparently, filth could accumulate on you by standing still.
“Torture. Between us . . .” she grabbed my flannel shirt’s collar, “has Carter said anything about me?”
What?
“Honestly I think you’d have better luck with Austin,” I said. “Carter’s really focused on college . . .”
“Wondering if he mentioned stuff about last night. Something, like, happened.”
Even if Carter had said something about Madison, which he hadn’t, the Bro Code stated that drama between a bro and a chick was not to be discussed between that chick and a different bro. I wouldn’t have been able to tell her yes or no,
even if I had had the faintest clue of what she meant.
While it’s hard to pinpoint the true origins of any of the Bro Code’s stipulations, that rule in particular was solidified by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, two OBs. In the 1960s, Richards allegedly cheated on his girlfriend with Jagger’s girlfriend, and Jagger then allegedly cheated on his girlfriend with Richards’s girlfriend. The ladies took their revenge by discussing the rock stars’ allegedly below-average endowments with the media and entire world.
To avoid repeating this travesty, third-party bros no longer get involved with their bro’s relationship drama, or else their manhood could end up on the front cover of a tabloid. You never know.
Madison hiked up her sparkly book bag as the students began to move again. “Get Carter’s side, would you? Who knows, maybe I’ll take that tip about Austin.” She blew me a kiss good-bye and forged ahead. “Come on, people!” she shouted. “It’s not that hard. The sooner we get to class, the sooner we can go home!”
Cheers erupted. I clapped along. The girl was straight-up drama, but no one could deny that she got things done.
I arrived fashionably late (for people who are fashionably late) to my AP biology class, where Carter already sat at our long, black lab table with his safety glasses secured.
The classroom smelled like an animal had stuck its whiskers in one of the power outlets, had been electrocuted, and had been there for an entire month. Fairly on par for Cassidy High.
“You’re in a good mood,” Carter said. “Great, you’ll need to be for this lab. It sucks all the joy right out of you.”
“Oh no,” I said. Arranged on the table were latex gloves, scalpels, scissors, sticks, cutting tools, little poking tools, and some paper towels. On a separate pan, a dead rat soaked in stinky formaldehyde. Which meant my dead animal smell analogy for the room had been fairly accurate.
“Rat dissections again? We did these last year.” In Introduction to Biology, our teacher had taught us basic human anatomy by having us dissect rats to uncover their muscles and tissues.
“Mr. Kendrick wants us to do the brain,” said Carter. He pointed to a packet titled Advanced Placement Biology, Laboratory Exercise IV.
“Cool.” The slimy rat rested before us as a hero among his people—a warrior who’d sacrificed his life for scientific pursuits.
“Do you think Stuart Little was a registered organ donor? Or are we performing brain surgery against his will? I, for one, am not comfortable going against his wishes.”
“Me neither.” Carter shook his head. “Poor guy probably had a wife and kids.”
“I refuse to be a homewrecker.”
“Gotta draw a line somewhere.”
“Speaking of drawing lines . . . Madison asked about you. Like two minutes ago. It was weird.”
The pan clanged as Carter dropped the scalpel. “Awesome,” he said, with the tone of someone who did not think it was awesome at all.
“Why?”
Carter jotted something in his notebook.
“Oh, come on, Carter. She’s hot A.F.”
Checking to make sure Mr. Kendrick wasn’t coming over, Carter pulled out his phone and called up his recent texts.
He’d received a string of about twenty. From Madison. Each insinuating how hot she thought Carter was, and each insinuating exactly what she wanted to do about it.
“Why didn’t you respond?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? None of these have my name in them. She probably sent these, unsolicited, to other guys too.” Carter strapped on exam gloves. “I’m surprised you didn’t get them yourself.”
I scrolled through them again. “The detail in these is impressive,” I said. “I’m jealous. I can confirm I’ve never received romantic texts from her that were this vivid.”
“But you have gotten them from her.”
“What’s your point?”
“Never mind.” Carter skimmed our instructions. He picked up the scalpel and gave me a pinky-sized pair of forceps. “It wants us to see how the brain affects this little guy’s organs and stuff too. We’re going to have to do a full dissection.”
“Goody.”
“And we need the intestines to stay intact. We can’t blow through them like last time.”
“I don’t recall that being my fault.”
“Mags.”
“I don’t recall that being entirely my fault.”
Carter sliced through the skin on the rat with one fluid movement. Future surgeon, everyone. I got to help him cut off the parts that would get in the way. This was usually the part when the people who were going to faint, fainted.
“Ewwww,” chorused around the room as our classmates performed the same part.
“I have a better angle,” I said, taking the scalpel. I had to be careful to keep the rat’s muscles intact. That had screwed us over before.
This was serious business.
“That, like,” said Carter, “made me want to take a hundred showers.”
“I’m actually doing okay with the scalpel.”
“No,” he said. “Madison’s messages.” Carter drummed on the table. He reclaimed the scalpel, unable to stay still. “Was that sexual harassment? I think I’m going crazy.”
Uh-oh. Carter broke.
Well, not totally broke. Was scratched. It would take something much bigger than Madison sliding into his DMs for him to really lose it.
The other tables continued on, not a care in the world but the dead animal slowly rotting before them, already accustomed to the smell. Mr. Kendrick, our six-foot, washed-out teacher, hated sunshine and joy and had put up light-blocking curtains. He claimed they would keep important equipment from being affected by the sun. Mostly the curtains made biology class a perpetually somber affair.
Of course, students knew the truth. I’d originally heard it from a senior on the soccer team when I was a freshman, who’d heard it when he was a freshman. Mr. Kendrick, a legendary vampire, actually guarded the school at night and protected it from the other vampires of North Cassidy. It wasn’t an easy job, and many students are sacrificed, but someone had to do it.
Carter dug through the rat, coughing each time he accidentally inhaled toxic fumes.
“I’ve never been objectified to my face before,” he said, still on Madison. “It was weird, dude. I dunno. Made me nauseous. Trapped in my own skin.” He shuddered.
“Sorry, dude.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Oops.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Thanks, bro. You can start by taking pics of all these. Need to label them for our notebooks.”
While Carter performed neurosurgery, I played with my camera’s lighting settings. I was up for anything, though, besides fessing up. I couldn’t tell Carter about why I was helping Madison date him without getting what was in it for me.
“Let me make it up to you,” I said. “How ’bout neither of us walks out with girls at the fashion thing tonight. We can do the catwalk together.”
I reached for a fist bump. Carter returned it. “Nothing you have to make up for, though you got it, buddy.”
“Maybe all the times Austin and I have objectified you behind your back,” I joked.
“That’s okay,” said Carter. “I know you guys are jealous of my fire bod.”
“Who isn’t?”
Carter focused back on the rat and I snapped pics of him operating, ready to make a killing when he became a famous surgeon.
I knew I had to make it up to Carter with more than jokes, since he did genuinely seem really upset by this. I didn’t really get why, but that was beside the point. From the air in my lungs to my below-average heart rate, I didn’t want Eliza to ever feel like Carter had. It would be all or nothing with that girl. I was going to have to commit. Especially if we were e
ver going to get Carter’s blessing. It was my senior year, but I vowed that if Eliza O’Connor were my first high school girlfriend, she would also be my last.
Despite Carter’s pushback about objectification, at 7:00 p.m. sharp, I posed outside Cassidy High’s auditorium, ready to debut my tuxedo to a live audience. I had a black jacket, white shirt, and yellow everything else. Straight fire.
“Selfie time!” Hannah Green grabbed me out of nowhere, sticking her pink phone in my face. Other fashionable participants passed by, also taking selfies, which I actually can’t remember ever not being a thing.
“Nick Maguire, you are unbelievable. Do it again without sticking your tongue out.”
A sunny laugh came from behind us. Tingles flared on my skin—I’d have known that laugh from anywhere.
“I want one.” Eliza placed her hand on my back. My arm rested around the waist of her long, yellow dress, the fabric softer than Carter’s favorite fleece blanket. I flashed Hannah’s camera a rock star smile.
“Sure, now you do a normal one,” Hannah teased. “Hey, you guys match!”
Eliza gave me a high five. Our yellows were exactly the same color. Which I had maybe, maybe not, done on purpose. “Represent.”
“Oh good, there’s Carter. Carter!” Hannah shouted towards where he was visiting the water fountain. “Come here! You and Nick need a pic.”
“Shades,” I said. Since we were modeling together, Carter and I both brought sunglasses. A bro needs his accessories!
Carter slid his on and positioned himself with his elbow casually on my shoulder. Iconic.
“You guys should model dress shirts,” said Hannah. “Seriously. You could do it.”
“I don’t know if the magazines are ready for our good looks,” Carter replied. “They could cause a lot of issues.”
I bumped his fist.
“Carter and Nick!” Ms. O’Connor called from the stage entrance. She organized most of the show, which involved waving at us like we were about to miss the last flight home while telling someone’s grandma to enjoy the show.
The Bro Code Page 12
