The Boys are Back in Town

The Boys are Back in Town: Twelve

I slowly came awake when I felt something soft land on my cheek. Somewhere, I could hear snickers and barely contained laughter. I tried to bat it away, my eyes still glued shut with sleep, when my nose finally registered the unmistakable smell of pancakes. My stomach grumbled.

"Oh god, she's nibbling on the pancake."

"Are you recording this?"

A hand tried to remove the pancake pressed to my cheek. I slapped it off and turned over onto my side, away from the voices to finish the soft, sweet, buttery goodness before burying my head under my pillow.

Later, after I was properly up, the boys insisted that they caught me sleep-eating. I denied it, but it explained the sweet taste in my mouth when I woke up.

"Why are you still such a tiny thing if you're a sleep-eater?" Adrian wondered.

"Can I just say, I'm not a sleep-eater," I said. "But also, no one has ever tried to feed me in my sleep before."

"We tried to slap you awake with the pancake," Andre said, shaking his head in wonder. "But you ate it."

"Wouldn't you?"

"Excellent point."

Alek handed me a cup of coffee, smirking. "Want to see the video?"

"You recorded it?"

"Don't worry, I won't make you viral without your permission."

"How kind of you," I rolled my eyes, taking a large gulp of Italian roast. "So, what are we doing today?"

"We have the most exciting plans," Adrian said. "We're going to study."

I wrinkled my nose. "On a Saturday morning?"

***

They were serious about studying. An hour and a half later I was sitting next to Alek at a cafe in the Greens called Sambrino. Alek was watching a lecture online, Adrian had a thick textbook open in front of him, and Andre was rifling through my class notes and readings.

"You'll have AP classes, so those won't help," I said.

"Don't worry about it," he replied. "Since I don't have my materials yet, I don't really have anything to work on."

I slid my stack of French verbs and vocabulary towards him. "Yeah? Quiz me, then."

For the next hour, Andre helped me conjugate verbs and made me translate sentences from English to French. The class was challenging for me, mostly because I could memorize the verbs in order but when I had to use them in sentences it became harder to remember the conjugations. Afterward, I spent an extra half hour going through the index cards while he downloaded the Duolingo app on my phone.

I looked up eagerly from my phone when Alek shut his laptop. He raised an eyebrow, amused.

"Done?"

"Yeah, only two lectures today."

I bumped his knee with mine, he bumped back.

He chuckled. "Want to watch a movie?"

"Yes!"

Adrian said he'd work a little longer, and Andre wanted to go for a run so Alek and I headed back to their house to watch a movie. I scrolled through his collection until I found one that sounded interesting.

"Have you seen this one? The Devil's Violinist?"

"Not yet," he said, pouring a pack of salt and maple popcorn in a bowl. "Go for it."

"Candy?"

He shook a bag of M&Ms in one hand and carried the bowl with the other. I connected the laptop to their TV and we settled down on the lush, thick carpet in front of the sofa.

"All set?"

"Mhmm," I said, ripping the M&Ms bag open. "What's this movie about anyway?"

"You don't know?"

"I thought the title sounded cool."

He chuckled. "It's about Niccolo Paganini, the violinist."

"He sounds familiar," I said, tossing an m&m in the air. He caught it with his mouth, and I smiled.

"Apparently he was a prodigy."

Halfway through the movie, Charlotte Watson was singing an aria to Paganini at his request, our popcorn and M&Ms were gone and I couldn't tear my eyes off the screen.

"Breathe," Alek whispered.

I exhaled, "Wow."

"You've never heard a soprano before?"

"No, I have... it's just, the way he looked at her was intense," I couldn't stop grinning. "I think every girl needs to know what it feels like to have someone look at them the way Paganini looks at -"

I didn't finish my sentence, and my smile faded when I saw the amused half-smile on Alek's face. "What?" he asked.

I shook my head and tapped his cheek with my fingers. "Watch the movie."

The last half of the movie had butterflies rioting in my stomach and, by the end of it, my eyes were blurry with tears. It didn't end the way I wanted, nor expected.

"Are you crying?" Alek asked incredulously. "You never cry during movies."

"I don't know what's happening to me," I said, blowing my nose on the Kleenex he handed me.

"Want to watch something happier?"

"No," I said, indignant. "I just want to go home and cry."

He stifled a laugh. "Was it really that bad?"

"They didn't have a happy ending!"

He nodded dabbing at my cheeks with another Kleenex, but I could see how much he wanted to laugh.

"It isn't funny," I muttered.

"The movie isn't," he grinned. "But you are."

"Stop it!"

Alek shook his head, leaned in and pressed a kiss to the side of my mouth, dangerously close to my lips. I was intensely aware of the skip in my chest, the stutter in my breath. I was also intensely aware of the fact that his hand was on my neck and his hair was tickling my forehead.

"There," he said quietly, triumphantly. "Stopped the waterworks."