Page 24 of Nowhere to Hide
And that’s the part I can’t give her. Of everyone at this school, Ivy is the one who could help me untangle it and the one person I can never tell, because the boy is her brother and I’m still not sure how she’d react to that.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I say again.
She watches me a beat longer, her eyes boring into me, so I busy myself putting my makeup back on the shelf. But whatever she sees pulls the grin from her face, and she crosses the room and squeezes my wrist.
“Okay,” she says. “I won’t push. But whoever taught you that wanting something was dangerous is wrong. So, whoever he is, when you’re ready, I’ll help the magic happen.”
“Thanks, Ives,” I say.
“Sure,” she says. “Let’s go?”
I nod, and we leave Sterling House and walk to Ironwood House — known around campus as the Hockey House — with our arms linked. She spends the walk telling me about a boy from her art history seminar who keeps trying to explain Caravaggio to her.
As we walk, her sandals click against the sidewalk, gold and strappy and insane. I can feel her shivering through our linked arms, but she won’t acknowledge it, and I respect this about her even though I want to give her my coat.
Ironwood is already crazy when we get there — music pounding, light spilling from every floor, and people on the deep front porch holding cups and vapes. Somebody has drapeda bedsheet banner over the porch railing that reads TOGA IN EXCELSIS in purple marker.
“Oh my God,” Ivy says, squeezing my arm. “He’s insane. I love it.”
Inside is better. Or worse, depending on how you feel about 150 people in bedsheets crammed into a Victorian rental house. But most importantly for Luca’s vision, there are bowls of actual grapes on every flat surface and plastic wreaths on every head.
Luca sees us through the crowd and approaches, both arms out. “My daughters,” he says, and then he sees Ivy. “Christ on a chariot.”
“Hi, Luca,” Ivy says, putting her hands on her hips and daring him to say something about her outfit… or the lack of much of one.
“You can’t wear that here.” He feigns outrage. “It’s scandalous for a member of the Halden community to dress like that at a tasteful party.”
“Here we go,” I say.
“I’m serious. You’ve taken the poor boy’s breath away.” He gestures behind him to Theo, who is holding his cup at an angle that says casual but lands closer to rehearsed.
Theo’s eyes are locked onto Ivy, soaking in every scandalous detail. And when he realizes we’re all looking at him, Theo straightens up and takes a sip of his drink, totally oblivious to the fact he’s now flushed red.
“The one pretending he wasn’t staring?” Ivy snorts.
“They’re all pretending they weren’t staring,” I offer.
“He’s worse at it,” Luca says.
I laugh, because Luca and Ivy together are the kind of people who fill a room just by standing in it. Already, Luca is conducting the night like it’s his orchestra, and Ivy is radiating confidence you can’t engineer.
They’re two people I admire, and two people I desperately wish I could afford to be like.
And then there’s Theo, trying so hard to look like he belongs that there’s practically a neon sign saying so. It’s a look and a vibe I recognize, because I’ve been the same for months, just with more practice. So I offer him a smile, and he goes even more red than before.
Before Luca can say anything else, a girl from Ivy’s class screams her name across the living room. Ivy gives me a small two-finger salute and is gone, and I’m standing in the entryway, watching the party happen without me.
I take a breath and step into the noise.
For the next half hour, I work the room. I find a girl from my communications class near the stairs and ask about our group project. She introduces me to her roommate, I laugh at a joke, and I compliment her on her wreath.
The Halden Girl is operating at full capacity and the returns are good.
That’s when I see him.
Rowan is by the kitchen with Niko, the Russian, wearing the laziest possible costume — a length of plain white fabric thrown over his torso, jeans underneath, and sneakers. No shirt. No wreath. He looks like someone who got handed a bedsheet at the door.
But the fabric has slipped, or maybe it was never secured properly, so one shoulder and most of his chest are bare. The white cotton cuts a diagonal from his collarbone to his right hip, and everything above that line is just…
