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It’s with big volume and such a cheery smile that Rick gets his first “Happy birthday!” of the morning.
He wraps an arm around her, steering Beth clear from the big crowd so the entire school wouldn’t overhear. Beth always loved birthdays and made a big deal of them. It was endearing for the most part that she got so excited to celebrate with other people. Now that it’s his turn, he’s thankful she’s committed to the same level of enthusiasm, but being the centre of attention always makes him awkward.
He ducks his head. “Thanks, Beth.”
“I can’t believe you’re 18 now.” She grins at him. “An adult! How does that feel?”
“Not really any different from yesterday.” It’s weird having a birthday in the fall. Everyone is turning 17 while he’s a whole year older.
“I always thought turning 18 would make me feel more responsible. You can vote! And buy a house! Or buy e-cigarettes.” She gives him a stern look. “Don’t do that, vaping is really bad for you.”
He chuckles softly. “I’m not planning on starting any addictions anytime soon.”
She gasps. “You can legally change your name back to Rick Tyler by yourself!”
Rick mulls that over as he switches a textbook in his locker. “Huh.” He’s never thought of that before. “That, I might actually do.”
“You should.” Beth tugs on his wrist, dragging him towards Justin’s still-empty janitor closet. It’s a place they usually go if they needed somewhere private to talk–Usually about JSA things– sometimes, admittedly, just to gossip. “I have something to give you.”
Rick tries not to cringe. He’s seen the labels of some of her clothing, he would have an aneurysm if Beth dropped two hundred dollars on a designer hoodie or something.
“I don’t need presents.”
“It’s not expensive,” she promises, sensing his apprehension. She unlocks the door and closes them in, back against the door by the mop and broom. Rick glances at the outdated horse calendar pinned to the wall.
“You don’t want to wait for the Pit Stop party after school?” Courtney and Pat have been planning a surprise party for almost three weeks. Rick’s known about it for two.
She shakes her head, biting her lip. “Actually, it’s for right now.”
He pauses at the peculiar tone she uses, glancing at her again with a raised eyebrow.
“Right now?” Why did Beth sound shy?
She takes a big breath and nods. Before Rick can wonder any longer, she takes one step forward, grabbing the neck of his t-shirt to pull him down, pressing her lips to his.
She says it again, this time, in the silence after it is over. “Happy birthday.”
But this one is sweet and quiet, Beth unmistakably nervous as her breath fans his face, her eyes round as ever behind frames smushed to her lashes and darting left and right for his reaction.
Rick had no idea kissing Beth is something he wants until it was happening. His arms soon around her, gliding down her back as her head gently thuds against the door so he can slot his mouth over hers again. She eases her grip from his shirt, reaching up to card fingers through his hair with a relieved sigh. Alert this time, he brings her arms to wrap around his waist, then cups her face, his mouth sliding over hers. She tastes like expensive syrup. She smells like her kitchen, vanilla and sugar. Rick thinks, pancakes. She feels like Beth. Small, soft, loud, wonderful, full of warmth and heart.
She lets out a small whimper and Rick kisses that too until his chest burns and his head grows light like he has to stop, like he has to breathe.
The bell rings for homeroom, shrill and jarring, shattering the fragile space between them. Beth gasps and scurries off before Rick can say anything. He stands next to cleansers scattered with webs and a dirty yellow bucket that used to hold Excalibur, slowly coming back to himself.
“Happy birthday!” Yolanda and Court cheer from either side when he finally slides into his seat–And Rick is rolling his eyes again, his regular self–As if he hadn’t spent five minutes kissing his best friend, as if she hadn’t said I have something to give you like it was something she’d always known Rick wished she’d do.
Beth is at the front of the class, already taking meticulous notes. Rick spends the whole lesson staring at the back of her head waiting for her to turn and see him. But she doesn’t, and then she doesn’t wait for him either.
At lunch, she’s not there. A sinking feeling twists his stomach at the card in her writing that Courtney hands over.
“She’s not coming?” Rick doesn’t mean to sound as gutted as he feels, but Yolanda and Courtney share a long glance and it’s like they know. Not that she kissed him. That he’s in love with her. And then, Rick thinks, maybe they have always known.
“She wanted to give it to you herself but she’s busy with something.”
The card is simple and just like the others. Heart signs and smiley faces, inside jokes. No hidden notes or undeciphered chemistry equations. Just a card with a standard message signed,
Beth
Your friend, always.
Eighteen, Rick thinks, eyes over the big number cut out of the card. Eighteen and nothing is the same.
It’s moments after class is dismissed and Rick is dragging his feet, walking to his car for JSA training as if he doesn’t know there’s a soon-to-be party. If it weren’t for the fact he knows Jennie is catching a bus from Milwaukee, he’d seriously consider driving out of town to have a good existential crisis on the side of a cornfield road.
“Rick?”
Rick looks up and finds her sitting on the yellow hood of the mustang, a brown folder on her lap.
He snaps, “Where have you been?”
To her credit, she cringes. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you skip school?”
“I didn’t skip. My mom called to dismiss me.”
Rick drops his keys in his pocket and exhales when she smiles, the anxiety wound tightly in his chest dissipating like smoke.
“Did you get my card?” she asks.
Rick huffs and quotes. “Your friend, always?”
“I didn’t know if you’d…” She cuts herself off and doesn’t say more. It takes a moment, but the sentence fills in his mind, what she’d left unspoken.
Beth didn’t know…If he’d wanted that kiss.
She suspected and risked, but, no, wasn’t sure. Couldn’t be. Rick hadn’t known himself. For all Beth was brave and confident that morning, she was vulnerable and more than a little afraid, he realizes, and the card reads differently now.
Your friend, always , in case it couldn’t be more.
“Beth.” He wants to hug her and hold her and kiss her. So she wouldn’t be biting her lip so hard, so she’d stop jiggling the charm anklet around her foot, dangling from the height of his car.
She holds out the envelope, stopping him. “I wanted this to be a surprise.”
Rick takes the envelope, eyes on her face and not on the paper that slides out.
“Look at it,” she says.
Rick is confused.
“I looked it up with Chuck after class. You need to be 19 in Nebraska to change your name.”
“So I wait a year.”
“Unless you’re an emancipated minor. You need to be 16 or older, and self-sufficient, which you are. Mature and knowledgeable.”
Rick raises an amused brow.
“Which you are,” Beth says firmly.
“Beth. I’ve been arrested.”
“Your uncle dropped the charges,” she says flippantly. “I think you should do it.” Gesturing to the document, she adds, “The county clerk was very helpful. You just need to sign.”
Rick doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t even know what to feel. Tucking the legal papers back into the envelope, he sets it into his car. “Thank you.” It doesn’t feel like enough.
“And about this morning,” she starts. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
He shakes his head. “I’m glad you did.”
Beth frowns, frustrated. “I meant to tell you what you meant to me first but I didn’t and then I…” Words caught in her throat, she isn’t able to finish when Rick quiets her easily with a hand on her cheek. And if it isn’t now that she sees how much he’ll do for her, Rick thinks she never will.
She struggles, both frozen and burning in his gaze at the same time. “I can be your friend forever, but I can’t promise that for more.”
“Turning eighteen isn’t that big,” Rick tells her. “I don’t need promises or name changes, okay?” His thumb curves at the corner of her mouth, pulling out her smile. He almost says I don’t want anything at all , but that’s no longer true.
He kisses her the way she did in Justin’s janitor closet, with all feeling and no hesitation.
“I just want this.” It’s so true it hurts. So simple, it's stupid. He wants moments like this, a lot more of them. He wants those brown eyes on him, trusting him to make her happy. He wants to kiss her and let others know he wants to kiss her. He wants all of it if Beth does too.
“Okay,” she says and starts to giggle. Once she starts it’s like she can’t stop. “Oh, dear. You need to drive. We have a party to get to.”
Rick deadpans, “There’s a party?” Beth swats his arm with more giggles.
“You have to pretend to be surprised!”
“I will.”
“I’m serious,” she warns when Rick starts to drive. She leans her head against the window. “Barbara worked really hard on the cake and Jennie thinks she’s going to shock you.”
Rick gasps. “Wha– Jennie?? What are you doing here??”
Beth laughs. “That’s better.”
Hours later, Rick is sitting upstairs in the loft with friends in front of 18 lit candles, a party hat coerced onto his head.
“Make a wish!” Thunderbolt crows, circling around the table in his bright pink hue.
It’s Beth Rick looks at through the wisps of candle smoke.
You. That’s his wish. Just more of you.