Nick Next Door

CHAPTER 1: I'm Supposed to Be Studying

It's official! I'm back on the sunny side again.

I'm not saying this is the best day of my entire 14-year-old life, but this is definitely the most exciting day in this gross, gut-wrenching, bore of a month.

Right now, my eyes are focused on Nick Rangioni across the street playing basketball.

There he is, just zigzagging shirtless across his driveway.

Swoosh. Bang. Swoosh. Bang.

At any other time, the repetitive thumping of a basketball against the pavement and backboard would drive me straight to insanity, especially while I'm trying to study in my bedroom.

But it's Nick.
Nick Rangioni.
Former-Greek-God-and-Cute-Enough-to-Be-a-Netflix-Movie-Star-Nick Rangioni.
And he's back.

Very carefully, I part the window blinds wider with my right hand for a secret, yet targeted, view. My eagle eyes laser in on his thick mound of brown hair.

Yep, it's really him.
I collapse in my desk chair and stare at the blank screen on my laptop.

It's not like I'm intentionally watching Nick's every move from my bedroom window. Not really.

I mean, my desk faces the window - I'm studying at my desk - and there he is in broad daylight just bouncing around with his big orange ball and new post-pubescent muscles, swooshing and banging all over the place!

The nerve of him really. Some of us really need to study.

I reach for my phone to text Roo: Nick's back.

Roo responds exactly one millisecond later because that's what best friends do.

Our texts read like two clucking chickens.

What do you mean BACK? Like, back BACK?
BACK BACK! I respond.
BACK BACK, like he's back in town?
BACK BACK, like he's in his driveway!
On my way. Be there in 10.
Hurry!  I reply.

This is an emergency situation so it makes perfect sense that Roo would want to drop everything and run to my house.  Afterall, Roo has been in love with Nick for her entire teenage life.

Yes, Roo has only been a teen for 1.5 years, but in teenage-girl-time, it's like a 100 years. That means Roo has been infatuated with Nick for a century.

I grab a Hershey's Kiss from a bowl on my desk and lean back in my chair.

"EMMA ELLERBEE!"

The call of my name jolts me upright.
This might be serious.

"What mom?" I holler back from my room with a mouthful of chocolate.

She knocks on the door. "Can I come in?"

"Yes!" I swivel around in my chair.

She opens the door. "I didn't know if you had your headphones on, Emma, so I yelled."

My mom is holding an empty shopping bag while standing in my bedroom doorway smiling.

It's not serious.

"I'm heading to the grocery store," she says. "Need anything that's not on the list?"

By "list" she means the massive ongoing shopping list for our family. It's a necessity with five children, even with only three still at home. I have four older brothers: Errol, Matthew, Ben and Brian. (Ben and Brian are in college.)