“My parents go to this charity dinner thing every Wednesday,” Melissa said. “Except this week it got called off at the last minute.”
“Which therefore wiped the entire concept of Wednesday out of existence,” Christina said.
“Daniel and I are supposed to have the house to ourselves for, like, five hours. It’s our night, TMI, et cetera, you get it.”
Christina made a face like she’d just taken a whiff of sour milk.
“So anyway, it became this whole thing because he was like, ‘Why don’t we go for a drive?’ and I was like, ‘I’m not going to the tennis courts again, or the loading dock behind the Price Chopper,’ and he was like, ‘What about the golf course?’ and I was like, ‘That place is freaky as shit at night,’ and so long story short we didn’t hang out and his precious routine got all thrown off.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and pressed her hands together like she was doing yoga. “Anyway. We’re here now. I’m done thinking about it.”
“As soon as we’re out of Fremont Hills, it won’t even matter,” William said.
Melissa gave him a soft half smile, then turned to the window. Daniel’s front door opened, and he stepped outside, wearing black Adidas shorts and a sleeveless Princeton Tigers shirt. He was burdened with four backpacks that swung chaotically from his shoulders and arms. Dangling from one bag’s strap were his muddy size 12 running shoes, laced together. He held his phone in one hand and a half-finished orange Gatorade in the other.
“Looks like he’s late for the big game,” Christina said. She raised a fist. “Go local sports team.”
When the car door slid open, a humid cloud of musk announced Daniel’s arrival. He tossed his bags down in a heap and climbed in after them, breathing hard. He stooped awkwardly for a moment before sprawling out onto the bench.
“Come on,” William said. “All over my upholstery, with your perspiration.”
“I think it’s pronounced Jesspiration,” Christina said.
A curious odor wafted from Daniel’s shirt—not exactly BO, but rather the ghostly hint of it, as if the shirt had been worn, shoved into a locker, reworn, and so on.
Daniel closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. Then he sat up. “This seat is, like…touching me.”
“Daniel, please,” Melissa said. “You have to go take a shower. We’ll wait.”
“Does this thing not have a shower? I kind of figured it would.” He looked at William for confirmation.
William thought about it. “The bathroom’s pretty intense. It actually might.”
“That’s not the point,” Melissa said. “The point is, you didn’t think to yourself, Hey, I might be on a livestream in a few minutes, or national TV, I’d better clean myself up a little?”
Daniel pointed at the ceiling. “Is that drone out there filming us?”
“Aaaaaand we’re off,” Christina said. Taylor and Swift watched from the window as Autonomous backed out of Daniel’s driveway. The car retraced its route through Woodland Estates, toward 316 and the highways beyond.
Daniel gulped down the rest of the Gatorade. He looked like a sweaty athlete in a commercial, skin about to bead up orange. Whenever Daniel was fresh from practice or the gym, he always seemed more imposing. Elements of Serious Basketball made him swollen with achievement, all those clutch free throws conspiring to reshape his presence. Sometimes William caught himself staring at the contours of Daniel’s shoulders and chest with a weird tingling sensation. He was pretty sure it wasn’t sexual, but he wanted those big arms to squeeze the life out of him. Or something. He wondered if Melissa ever got a similar urge.
“Solid chug,” William said.
Daniel made a sound of thirst-quenched satisfaction. “Thank you.” He gave the empty bottle a shake. “Recycling?”
“Gimme the shirt,” Melissa said, putting out her hand.
Daniel shrank into himself, protectively folding his arms across his chest. “No way, Fabes. I know exactly what you’re gonna do, and this is a perfectly good shirt.”
“Baby.” Melissa sat down next to him. “You know I like you sweaty—”
“Autonomous,” Christina said, “please stab me in the face.”
“—but you need to clean yourself up. There is nothing perfectly good about that shirt.”
“I was out running when you texted,” he explained. “I had to get in a five-miler before we left, and I just got back.”
Melissa flashed her eyes at William, a quick pleading gesture that signified Help me with this idiot.
“Just give her the shirt,” William said. “She promises not to chuck it out the window. The first rule of this road trip is no littering.”
“You’re like the King Solomon of dirty shirts,” Christina said.
Daniel looked at her for the first time and nodded hello. “Christina Hernandez. How you doing?”
“Peachy.”
He reached both hands behind his head and paused in shirt-removal position, armpits exposed. “Okay, so I have weird nipples. Just so you know.”
Christina closed her eyes. As if that wouldn’t be enough insurance against a weird-nipple sighting, she turned her head away.
“They’re not that weird,” William said. “They’re just tiny little baby nipples, the wrong size for your freakish pecs.”
Back in tenth grade, William and Daniel had driven around with some older guys on the basketball team and leaned out of the car with baseball bats, inflicting drive-by assaults on mailboxes. Daniel’s forearms had tapered down to wrists almost as skinny as the bat’s grip. Since then he’d been on a steady weight-training regimen, and now he was a beast in the paint, a natural brawler when it came to a contested rebound.
Christina slapped her palms over her ears. William thought she was being prudish on purpose to demonstrate her weirdness, give herself an ostentatious quirk. It was just a guy’s chest, nothing you wouldn’t see at the town pool.
He realized that he’d never been swimming with Christina. In three years of being Next-Door Neighbor Friends, they’d never once seen each other in bathing suits. Did she own one? Did she know how to swim? He wondered what would happen if Melissa took Christina bikini shopping, and imagined the two of them stepping out
