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“I don’t like any of them,” I answered, certain.
“Kevin Jax is so into you and he’s so handsome, any girl would kill to go out with him. Have you noticed his eyes? They’re different colors.”
I didn’t care about Kevin and I didn’t care that Axel was ten years older. I could only think of him, of that tingling I had felt ever since he’d come back to Byron Bay, about how it moved me when he looked at me or I saw him smile, as if everything else just froze.
Oliver raised an eyebrow when I walked out to the dining room. “What are you wearing?”
“A dress.”
“A very short dress.”
“This is how people wear them,” I answered, and when I saw he wasn’t convinced, I walked over and hugged him. “Come on, Oliver, don’t be a wet blanket, it’s my first New Year’s Eve without our parents.”
“Don’t make it hard on me.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
He smiled and kissed me on the forehead.
I said goodbye to Blair and helped my brother with the preparations for dinner, even if almost everything was premade. Oliver set the big table in the middle of the living room, and I stretched a tablecloth over it and laid out the silverware and glasses. The doorbell rang while I was setting a fork down over a yellow napkin. I remember that detail because, at that very moment, I heard Axel’s voice and my stomach got tight, and so I focused on the little checked print.
“Where do I leave the drinks?” he asked.
“Probably best to put them in the fridge,” Oliver said.
I turned around to see him, weak in the knees.
I don’t know what I expected. I don’t know if I thought he’d see me in that dress with my eyes made up and suddenly I wouldn’t look like a little girl to him even if I still was. He noticed. I know he did. I know because Axel’s always been transparent. But he didn’t seem surprised.
He put away the bottles and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“Babe, can you put down one more setting?”
I hated him. I hated that babe that he used with me like I was some kid, in that tone that must have been nothing like the way he talked when he was with a girl he liked. So tender, so older brother–sounding…so everything I wanted it not to be.
A while later, everyone else showed up. Jake, Tom, Gavin, and two brunettes.
I hardly opened my mouth during dinner. Not that I had the chance to, because Axel, Oliver, and their friends talked about their stuff the whole time, stories from their past, stuff they’d done the weekend before, what they were thinking about doing next weekend, stuff that only concerned them and that I didn’t have any idea of. I was playing with my food when Axel spoke to me.
“You starting classes this month?”
“Yeah, in a few weeks.”
The girl next to me said something I didn’t manage to hear, and he cracked up laughing and looked away. I concentrated on my dish again, trying to ignore Axel’s smile as he looked at Zoe. Next to her, I felt small and irrelevant, as if he could see right through me. And I was for the rest of the night, while they all drank and talked and saw off the new year clinking their glasses, and I sat there with nothing to drink but water.
The knot in my stomach got worse when Axel finished his third drink and started flirting with Zoe. He danced with her when a song came on the stereo, sliding his hands down her curvy body, squeezing her against him and laughing with shiny eyes, whispering words in her ear.
“Leah, are you okay?” Oliver was looking at me.
“A little tired,” I lied.
“Go to bed if you want. We’ll turn down the music.”
“No need. Good night.”
I kissed my brother on the cheek and said goodbye to the rest of them without even really looking at them, then climbed the stairs and went to my bedroom. I turned on the lamp on the nightstand and pulled my dress over my head, leaving it wrinkled at the foot of the bed. Sitting at my desk, I took off my makeup with a damp rag. I looked at the black streaks covering it when I finished, and thought how those dark marks were a perfect representation of my night. All of it was my fault, for thinking he’d notice me. All I had gotten was a glance. One. Not much better than that fraternal babe. Any token gesture from Axel was enough to hold in my memory, to grab on to…
I put on my pajamas and got into bed.
