Chapter Eight
The next morning, I awoke to the sound of someone pounding on my door. Glancing at my clock as I sat up, I saw that it was only seven o'clock. I hadn't even gone to bed until almost three in the morning. Slowly, I got out of bed and walked towards the door, running my fingers through my hair. I pulled open the door slightly and peeked out. Nick was standing there, fully dressed and ready to go. He had a half-eaten piece of toast in his hand.
"What in the world are you doing knocking on my door this early?" I demanded from him.
"What time is it?" Nick asked.
"Seven," I said.
"Oops," said Nick, shoving the last piece of toast into his mouth, "Sorry. You can go back to bed if you want."
"No," I said, "It's okay. I'll never get back to sleep. Give me five minutes and I'll come out."
"Okay," Nick said.
He walked away and I closed my door. After changing into shorts and a tee shirt, I went to brush my teeth and everything. Then I joined everyone else in the living room. (FYI: LeighAnne had decided to go to the hotel when she found out that there were rooms available and BJ had gone to stay downstairs with her parents because she said that she didn't feel right making me share a room with her.)
"We didn't know what time it was," said Brian, as I sat down on the couch next to Nick, "Sorry."
"It's okay," I said, "No problem."
"So what time are we going?" Nick asked.
"Are you that excited to go?" I asked him.
Well," said Nick, "We've been working for the last few New Years Eves, so we never got to play fireworks. This is a big thing for me."
I laughed. "Okay," I said, "We're gonna leave at about nine thirty. Remember? I told Kevin ten."
"Oh yeah," said Nick, "Aw."
"You can come with us," Aaron offered hopefully, "We're going to the beach."
"Nah, little bro," said Nick, "Maybe next time."
"Okay," Aaron said.Nick, Brian, and I left at about nine thirty to pick up Kevin, Howie, and AJ. We were actually going to leave my car and use the van that they had rented because my parents needed our van to take everyone else to the beach. As soon as we got down to the car, Nick jumped into the front seat. Brian gave me a knowing look as he climbed into the back. I slid into the driver's seat and started the car. It took us about fifteen minutes to get to the hotel. Surprisingly, Kevin and the other guys were waiting in the lobby for us.
"You guys must be just as excited as Nick," I said, as we walked to the van, "He woke me up at seven."
"It's been a long time since we've gotten to do something like this," said Kevin, "But we have to be careful."
"I don't think there's going to be mobs of people around," I said, "The people here are pretty mellow."
"That's what you say now," said AJ, "What happens when we get mobbed?"
"Then I'll change my answer," I said.Well, it was a slightly bad idea to take the guys to shop for fireworks. If I had just let Nick go and buy whatever he wanted, I'm sure he could have rung up over $500 easily. He just kept tossing things into the wagon and I had to stop him. We bought a few packages of these lucky fireworks. You write the name of the person you want to wish good luck to and around midnight, you light each one individually, toss it, and let it explode and that's supposed to give the person good luck for the coming year. Since we had so many people, I had to buy a lot more than I usually would have.
Okay, Nick," I said, as we loaded the packages from the third store we had hit into the back of the van, "Enough already."
"You mean we're done?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Can we go home and light them?" Nick asked.
"Nope," I said, "Not until nine tonight, I think."
"Aw man!" Nick groaned, "I have to wait until nine tonight?"
"Well," I said, "Don't tell the cops, but we usually wait only until it gets dark."
"So I have to only wait until it gets dark?" Nick asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"That's good," said Nick.
We went back to my house to drop off the fireworks and then we went to eat lunch. Since we had been so busy shopping for the fireworks, we had completely missed lunch. AJ voted for McDonalds, Nick wanted pizza, Howie wanted Chinese food, and Brian and Kevin didn't really care where we went, so finally we just went to the mall. They had everything in the food court.
"We should just buy and go home," said Howie.
"Yeah," I agreed, "We can go back to the hotel."
We all got our food and then headed back to the hotel. On the way up to AJ's room, we ran into LeighAnne.
"I was wondering where you went," she said to Brian, "I called the house and no one answered."
"We were gone all morning," he said, giving her a kiss, "Buying fireworks."
"Oh," said LeighAnne, "You should have told me."
"Sorry," Brian said. He turned to the rest of us. "We're going up to her room. Call me when you're ready to leave."
"Okay," said Nick, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"What wouldn't you do?" Brian joked.
"Shut up," Nick said.
The rest of us went up to AJ's room. We sat around the room to eat. There were two twin beds in the room. I sat down in the middle of one of the beds. AJ sat down on the other and Kevin and Howie sat at the table. Nick looked around for a minute and then jumped onto the bed with me.
"Move over," he said, pushing me gently.
"No way," I said, "You move." I smiled at him.
"Okay," said Nick, bouncing on the bed a little, "See, I'm moving."
"Very funny," I said, "And you're also going to spill your soda."
"Whoops," Nick said, stopping.
I moved over a little to give home more room.Nick, Brian, and I got back to my house at about six. The other guys and the rest of the BSB entourage was coming at seven thirty for dinner and everything.
"You'd better go take a shower," I said to Nick, when we got upstairs.
"Okay," he said, "I'm going."
Within an hour, we had all taken showers. Nick looked adorable in the jeans and forest green pullover sweater he was wearing. My mom had insisted that I wear a dress, so I was wearing a long green and white Hawaiian print one that I had just bought a couple of weeks earlier.After dinner, we all gathered in the living room. It was about nine o'clock by then. Nick was really antsy. His mother wouldn't let him play fireworks until it was legally time.
"Okay, go," she said, as soon as it was nine.
All five of the guys, plus Aaron, ran down the back stairs. I went out the front door and sat on the stairs with BJ, Leslie, Angel, and LeighAnne. We watched as the guys lit their fireworks in the driveway.
"Jen," Mom said, coming outside about half an hour later, "Do you want to go and write all the names?"
"Okay," I said, "I'll be right there."
BJ decided to come with me.
"So," she said, as we sat at the kitchen table writing names on the individual packages of fireworks, "Are you going to kiss my brother at midnight?"
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"You know," said BJ.
"No, I don't," I said.
"Okay," BJ said, "Be like that. Pretend you don't know that Nick likes you."
"He doesn't," I said, "Well, maybe he does, but probably not enough to kiss me at midnight."
"You never know."
We returned outside about fifteen minutes later to light all of the fireworks and toss them into the yard where no one would get hurt. When we were done, I walked down the stairs to the driveway where Nick and Brian were still playing fireworks. The other guys had given up and gone upstairs.
"You guys are still going?" I asked.
"Yeah," said Nick, "This is fun."
"Okay," I said, "I'm going up. Come up when you're done."
"Okay," Brian said.
I went back upstairs and sat down in the living room with everyone else.At two minutes before midnight, Nick and I went into the kitchen. We sat down on the bench by the window.
"One minute!" Mom called, just as we sat down.
BJ ran in and handed us both glasses of sparkling apple cider since we were both too young to drink. She gave me a look over her shoulder as she ran back out to the living room.
Nick and I knew the countdown had ended when we heard everyone start cheering in the living room and the fireworks went off all over the neighborhood.
"Well," said Nick, "I guess it's midnight."
"Yeah," I said.
Nick moved closer like he was going to hug me. He slowly wrapped his arms around me and pulled me towards him. Nick's head ducked down and his face came closer to mine. His lips came closer...and closer...and closer....and...
Onto Chapter 9
