So the girls come over and we're all just sitting there in Thomas's room.
"Why does it always stink in here?" Lexie says.
Madison says she likes it and gives Thomas's big arm a squeeze. Lexie looks at me and we share a private smile, because Madison is just too much sometimes.
For the first five minutes, Thomas is in another world. I can tell by the dumb look on his face that he's not seeing anyone around him, not hearing anything we say. Madison clasps his hand in hers and says something sort of witty and laughs and looks over at him. His gaze just drifts slowly over in her direction and he puts on a mild, forced smile. He's tuned out like this for only five minutes, and somehow nobody notices but me, and then he's back.
"I still have that whisky," he blurts out, scrambling to get down to the safe on the floor of his closet.
"We can't drink it here," says Madison. "Your dad will know."
"We'll go to Winstead," Thomas says. He opens up that flask and takes a huge swig from it before so much as standing up.
"Take it easy," says Madison. Her voice is so quiet and soft compared to Lexie's. It's kind of breathy.
Lexie gets this sly look on her face and pulls out two joints from her purse. "And when we run out..."
"We won't run out," says Thomas. "I hid a fifth in the garage, too." Thomas doesn't smoke weed. He's never even tried it. He calls me a stoner even though I've only ever smoked it maybe fifteen times in my whole goddamn life. I think he's afraid of it, but I would never say that to his face.
We go out into the kitchen and he opens the cupboard. He passes each of us an empty protein shaker, lid and all. "Let's see about a mixer." He opens the fridge. "Orange juice? Probably not."
Lexie laughs. "Holy shit, Thomas, I'd rather have it straight."
I look in the bottom drawer of the fridge. There's a whole unopened bottle of coke in there. I lift it out and show it to the others.
"Oh thank god," says Lexie.
We fill them part of the way full with coke, then go out to the garage. Thomas hunts down his hidden fifth of whisky. He goes around to each of us, filling those blue plastic goblets like he's the the star of the party, and when he gets to his own I notice there's no coke in there. Instead he fills it a little over half full with straight-up whisky. Thomas Chu has a number of signature moves, but that right there, that's his number one. The girls are laughing about something with their backs to us, so I doubt they even notice. But I notice.
Winstead Park is only about a twenty minute walk from Thomas's house. There's this hidden little area at the back by a fence where we can get really quiet if any cops come by. A massive pine stands over it and shades it through the heat of the day.
We're just walking along Northview. The repurposed protein shakers are hidden in Lexie's backpack. Thomas keeps pulling his flask out of his shorts pocket and taking furtive little swigs from it.
Lexie's holding my hand on and off. She falls back to talk to Madison. And then Madison says, "Where'd you get that shirt, Niko?"
"It's not mine," I say.
"I know," she says in her breathy voice. "It belongs to this guy." She plants her hand in the middle of Thomas's back as he's walking.
"I gave it to him." says Thomas. I kind of think this whole moment is eating him up inside. He takes a long drink from the flask. "I hate that shirt."
"I think it's nice," says Madison. "But it looks better on Niko." She just won't stop talking.
"No one asked you," he says. He sounds serious. By the time he turns around, he's put a smile on, but I think Madison's hurt a little.
We're walking through the park now, and we have to be quiet because it's getting dark and we don't want anyone calling the cops on us. Luckily, the hidden area by the fence isn't near anyone's backyard. There's just a small open field on the other side.
Anyway, we get kind of nestled in there and Thomas is up against Madison and Lexie and I are up against each other, across from them. We're all just drinking from our protein shakers. If you want to know the truth, I'm having a pretty good time at this point. The night is so warm and the vibes are so good that I'm not having too much trouble forgetting about what happened earlier with Thomas. Something like a half an hour goes by where we're just talking and laughing quietly. Thomas and Madison are kissing each other. Lexie and I don't really like PDA, so we only do that kind of stuff when we're alone.
After a while, we're all fairly buzzed, but Thomas most of all.
He kicks my shoe. "Nikola, what are you looking at me for?"
"I'm not," I say.
"Every time I look over you're looking at me."
"I said I'm not."
"You in love with me or something?"
I lock eyes with him. I communicate with him telepathically. I tell him to fucking rein it in, for once in his goddamn life.
The girls seem pretty unmoved. They just sit there and act bored.
"You guys and your bromance," says Lexie. "Why don't you just fuck already and get it over with?"
"I keep begging him," Thomas says. His words are just falling all over each other. "Niko, baby, come home." He laughs.
The girls laugh, too. I feel like I'm actually going to lose my mind. For just one second, I swear I could kill him. Just slit his throat. Then things start to calm down. Thomas is flat-out drunk now. Thank god I'm feeling something too. Otherwise I would probably have to kill myself.
We're walking back across the park. It's dark as hell outside. Madison gets a little weird around Thomas whenever he's drunk, like she would rather distance herself until he sobers up. As a consequence to this, I'm the one he uses to support himself. We're back on the street. The girls are way ahead of us. They turn right, away from Thomas's house, and then it comes back to me: They're going to sleep at Lexie's. Her parents are still gone, and if Thomas hadn't gotten himself so shit-faced, we probably would've been invited over too.
I think they're both thankful in a weird way that I'm so ready and willing to take care of him. He's got his arm clear around my shoulder and he's super heavy. He mumbles something I don't understand and I ask him to repeat it.
"Why are you so in love with me?" he says.
"Fuck you."
He puts his hand under my shirt and kind of starts feeling up and down my abs.
"I said fuck you, Thomas." I swat his hand away.
He goes back in, determined, this time sliding his hand straight down my pants. I feel it close around me and I freeze. I grab his wrist and he releases. I pull his hand out of my pants with so much force that we both lose our balance and fall.
We're sitting there in a little heap on the edge of Northview. The whole thing is just too much to handle, and I start to cry.
Thomas manages to prop himself up on his big arms. "Why you crying, Niko?" He looks so confused. "Shit, Niko, why you crying?" The thing is, he starts crying, too, and it becomes this horrible sob that just completely takes him over. Eventually he starts to calm down, but when I try to get him to stand he won't do it. "Leave me here," he says. "I'm so fucked up. Fucking leave me here." He says it over and over and then he starts to yell, which I know will cause a scene in this quiet neighborhood, so I stop trying to get him to do anything. He stops yelling. I sit back down on the sidewalk with my back to him.
"Something's wrong with me," he says.
I turn and look at him but his eyes are closed. I look back out at the quiet street. Everything's lit up in orange light. I just keep sitting there for what feels like forever wondering how the hell we're going to get through this one. That warm breeze just keeps coming in from the west. I want to believe it's coming all the way from the ocean.
I hear a rustling sound behind me. He's standing up on his own. He's swaying a lot and almost falls, but somehow he steadies himself. And then, slowly, shaking a little, he reaches his hand out to help me up, and in those dark brown eyes is this crazy, intense look of determination.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the true Thomas Chu, underneath it all.