Chapter 8
PRESENT DAY
“We’re not doing so hot tonight,” I say when we get back to the limo…which has a flat tire.
After crawling back through the broken fence, we spotted Jackson crouched down, sleeves rolled to the elbows and a spare tire leaned up against the curb. He told us to hang out for a bit while he fixed it, and I offered to help, but the look he gave me basically said to back the hell off. So I took the time to stop the nosebleed.
Rian rises on her toes and kisses my cheek. When I look down at her with wide eyes, she says, “Do you believe in fate?”
I take the bloodstained material away from my nose. “Not really. You?”
She leans in and waggles her eyebrows. “I’m a big believer in fate.”
I thought she’d say something more, so I stand there like an idiot for a few seconds, waiting for her to continue, but she never does. So I start humming the tune to “She Was There” under my breath just to fill the silent air. I haven’t sung it since I was in the play in school. It was my senior year in college and I was nervous as hell, and I was in the apartment I shared with Landon practicing when he walked in with Lizzie and Theresa.
“Wow, keep singing,” Lizzie said as the door shut behind them. I sort of laughed it off and put my sheet music down.
“Sorry, didn’t expect company.” I scratched the back of my head to try to hide the blush I’m sure was making my ears red. I wasn’t exactly singing on key.
“But you sounded so good.” Lizzie plopped herself down on the edge of our unusually clean coffee table (really, that should’ve tipped me off that we’d be having guests, since Landon had sprayed the entire place with Febreze and wiped it down), and Landon laughed and gave her a look like he’d never before seen such a beautiful girl. My stomach jerked with surprise. I remember that perfectly. Because Landon had described his girlfriend as a goddess, I was expecting Aphrodite herself when I finally met Lizzie. And yeah, Lizzie is beautiful: blond hair and sweet eyes and a very young face (granted, she was eighteen at the time). But when they all walked in, I immediately thought Theresa was this goddess girlfriend. I saw these amazing wide, fiery eyes, long and unruly cherry Coke hair, and curves that just about gave me a heart attack where I stood. And she was smiling this crooked, amused smile that sent goose bumps up and down my arms. Ten thousand pounds of bro-code guilt was consuming me until I saw the look Landon was directing toward Lizzie, and suddenly I was a fumbling all-out mess because there was a possibility that this gorgeous girl was available.
“I…um…I don’t quite know the notes yet, so it’s just…” My eyes followed Theresa as she crossed the room, sat behind the keyboard we had set up in the corner, and placed her fingers on the keys. “A work in progress,” I finished weakly.
“The Scarlet Pimpernel, right?” she asked, and before I could nod she started playing the notes without music.
Landon sat down next to Lizzie, held her hand, and played with her knuckles while she waited for me to sing. They were all waiting. Yet I was captivated by the girl playing the piano.
“Tell me something no one else knows,” Rian says, pulling me out of yet another daydream.
“I can’t.” I shake my head at the cracked sidewalk. “There’s one person who knows everything already.”
“Everything?”
“I think so.”
She slumps against the crumbling brick of the building, crossing her arms and eyeing Jackson as he loosens the lug nuts. I want to punch myself in the face for being such a dud. Tonight was supposed to be about moving on, but all I’ve done is just moved around like a dog on a leash—going with her here and there and half-assing our conversation, daydreaming and moping—and I’m not going to do that anymore. She spent money on my sorry ass, and not only that, she’s not exactly a boring girl. She was so real up there on the roof.
“I can’t whistle.”
Her eyes flick to mine. “Really?”
I put my lips together and blow. Nothing. Like always.
“Aww,” she says with a laugh, leaning up from the wall. “That’s so sad.”
“Only time it hurt me was during a play. They had to have someone whistle from backstage.”
She stifles her laughter, and Jackson drops the tire iron, drawing our attention to him again for a split second.
“I’d try putting your lips closer together.”
“Any closer and I’ll be imitating a fish.”
She rolls her eyes and puts her hand on my face. “Like this,” she says, squishing my lips together with her thumb and forefinger. Laughter barrels up from my gut, the first time I’ve felt it come from there tonight.
“Don’t smile!” she scolds, squishing my lips with more pressure. Once I’ve controlled most of my laughter she says, “Now blow.”
“Pbbsthhh.”
Her eyelids shut instantly, and she slowly lifts her shoulder to wipe the spray from her face. We’re both laughing now, and it feels good and natural and I’m thinking finally and maybe and this could be the start of something when Jackson drops the tire iron again, so loud this time that it clangs and echoes and takes us out of our moment.
“You sure you don’t need help, man?” I ask him. He shoots me a sour look over his shoulder and shakes his head.
“I got it. Might take me a minute, but I got it.”
His eyes move to Rian and undeniably soften. She bites her lip and grasps my wrist.
“Feel like walking for a bit?”
Jackson straightens up, clutching the tire iron in his hand and using his leg to balance the tire itself. “It won’t take long,” he protests, then raises his voice as if he’s shouting to someone across the street. “I think you should stay here.”
Rian’s grip slips on my wrist. “We’ll be fine.”
“It’s late,” he argues, flicking his gaze to me for the briefest of seconds. “You probably shouldn’t wander without me or TJ to keep the crazies off you.”
Rian grins up at me. “I think I’ll be safe with Alec around. He did take a basketball to the face for me.”
I chuckle, but it’s quickly chased away when Jackson says, “Yeah, I thought I heard some screaming up there.” He nods at my nose and smirks. “Must’ve hurt like a bitch.”
“Oh, that scream was me trying to catch the kid who threw it,” Rian says before I can say anything. Not that I would. Doesn’t seem worth it to get into a fight with someone I barely know over someone else I barely know. Rian’s hand drops from my wrist into my palm and she drags me to the limo. Jackson’s eyes widen a bit as she ducks inside and fumbles around for our jackets.
“Keep your phone on,” she tells Jackson as she hip-checks the door shut. “I’ll call if we need you.”
“I really don’t think you should—”
“I said I’ll call.”
The look they share is like that of two bulls in a standoff, and though Jackson has about sixty-plus pounds and a little over half a foot on her, Rian knows how to stand her own. After a few uncomfortable beats, Jackson huffs, his breath fogging the air, and then bends down to continue fixing the flat. Rian snags my hand again once we’ve got our jackets on and tugs me down the sidewalk.
“Is he okay here alone?” I say just loud enough to be a dick and make sure Jackson hears.
He lets out a hollow laugh as we pass, and the second Rian’s not looking he gives me the universal “up yours” gesture.
Once we round the corner, Rian drops my hand. She absentmindedly plays with the chain ring she has on her thumb and forefinger, and I notice her eyes moving over her shoulder a bit more than usual. I nearly tuck an arm around her shoulder in case she really is worried about walking around this late, but the second I finally do decide to make the gesture, she shakes her head and laughs at the ground, looping her arm through mine to keep warm. I can still feel her toying with that ring.
We walk mostly in silence. Damn silence. I start humming under my breath, and she pretends to turn up the volume on me so that I sing louder. But it just mostly makes me laugh and completely miss the upcoming note.
Rian suggests Central Park as our next stop, but I turn her around. She’s not giving up on this evening, and so neither am I. And it’s only fair that after she exposed so much of who she is underneath the fame and the eccentric appearance, I reciprocate.
“I thought this night was ladies’ choice,” she teases as I get us a cab.
“You’ve struck out so far.” I grin as I open the door for her. “Time to let me take the reins.”
Her teeth nip her bottom lip. “Lots of people love Central Park.”
“True,” I say, sliding in next to her and shutting us in the warm taxi. She’s finally stopped playing with her ring. “But I’m more of a bright-lights kind of guy.”