Maybe he'd done that before he answered the door.
We slid into his car, and in the moment before he closed his door and the lights went out, he looked me up and down. "You look good."
"Thanks." I gave him my own version of the half smile. "You, too."
It was the biggest understatement I'd ever made. Nate looked amazing. He wore dark jeans, Converse sneakers, and a plain black T-shirt. Couldn't have been simpler. But on him it hung perfectly. He looked long and lanky, and he had gelled back his hair in mussed-up spikes that showed off his chiseled cheeks and jaw. I thought I'd be disappointed when he shut the door and the lights went out, but he looked even hotter in the dim glow from the dashboard.
Nate didn't want to talk. He played the Ruse's CD to prep us for the show. It was perfect for me: I knew nothing about the band. I didn't exactly fall in love with them on the drive, but I loved watching Nate listen to their music. He tapped the beat with one hand and drove with the other, and sometimes he'd unconsciously work the guitar fingerings. There was an intensity to it all, like he wasn't just listening to the music but inhabiting it. I was positive he was the most passionate person I had ever met.
The Works was an all-ages club, and packed with people. We maneuvered ourselves to a good spot, then Nate leaned close so I could hear him over the roar of the crowd. "Want a beer?"
"What?" I shouted. Clearly I'd heard him wrong. I thought he'd asked if I wanted a beer.
"A beer!" he repeated. He leaned his head back and mimed tipping a bottle into his mouth. "Want one?"
Ah. So I hadn't heard him wrong. But we were only sixteen. At least I was only sixteen. Maybe he was older than me. Still, no way was he twenty-one. "How?"
Nate rolled his eyes. "Do you want one?"
I'd never had a beer. With the exception of four sips of Manischewitz at last year's Passover Seder, I'd never touched a drop of alcohol. Okay, there was the time Claudia and I were twelve and tried to get smashed on a box of amaretto cordials we'd found deep in the back of her freezer, but I'm pretty sure the all-night giggle fest that followed was more of a sugar rush than anything else.
What if we got caught and arrested for underage drinking? Isn't that the kind of thing that lands on your transcript and keeps you out of college? Nate didn't look worried about that, but maybe Nate wasn't interested in college. Nate did look a little impatient, which meant that I really should answer and soon. Did I want to have a beer?
Big Picture, this seemed to land in the "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" category. After all, I didn't have to actually drink the beer.
"Sure!" I said.
Nate gestured for me to wait where I was. I wanted to pull out my phone and text Claudia, but I thought it would look really lame if he came back before I was done.
I shouldn't have worried. It took him a half hour. By the time he got back, the show was about to start.
"Long line." He handed me a bottle with a lime stuffed in the neck. "Corona okay?"
"My favorite." My favorite? What was I saying? And how did he get the beer? Did he have a fake ID? Did they not card at the bar? Did he have someone else buy it for him? Had anyone else noticed? Were we about to get busted?
Nate pushed his lime all the way into the beer bottle and took a big swig.
What else could I do? I followed suit. I pushed in the lime, tipped the beer into my mouth...
...and nearly snarfed it out my nose.
I didn't realize it would be so bubbly! People don't warn you about these things!
I somehow held back the snarfing reflex, but to avoid a coughing fit, I needed liquid. And the only liquid I had?
I took another sip.
I didn't love the taste. It was a little bitter. But it wasn't awful. It was cold, though, and that felt great; the club was stifling.
I drank some more.
The lights went down and the Ruse took the stage. Nate chugged the rest of his bottle and cheered wildly. As the Ruse started playing and the whole room reverberated with sound, I took another long drink.