“SO HOW DID things go with Joel?” Rowan asks from the couch as soon as we’re alone. We spent the evening watching three rocker boys who had no clue what they were doing try to fix my door. Adam and Shawn noticed my bruised wrists but pretended not to, and I drowned my discomfort in a blender full of frozen margarita mix and tequila. I probably should have studied for the big test I have tomorrow, but there was no way I was going to miss the spectacle in my apartment. By the time the guys left, all they succeeded at doing was taking the old door off its hinges and suggesting that I buy one of those beaded privacy curtains to take its place.
I shrug and stand in the open doorway of my room, shaking my head at the open space. “He thinks he cares about me.” Since our talk, I’ve stopped doubting that Joel thinks he cares about me. The only question now is how long it’s going to last.
“So do I,” Rowan says, and when my surprised eyes fix on her, she explains, “He busted his knuckles open and broke your door down.”
I flop onto the cushion next to her. “Yeah, because he’s an idiot.”
She chuckles. “Yeah, he is, but he’s an idiot who likes you.”
“Lucky me.”
She frowns and says, “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
Rubbing my eyes, I confess, “Yeah, but not just because he feels like he has to.”
“What do you mean?”
I sigh and let my hand fall to my lap. “He wouldn’t have done this before.” I don’t have to specify before what, because my entire life will now be measured by the before and the after of that single event.
“Maybe that was just his wake-up call . . .”
“Yeah maybe,” I say, too tired to burst her bubble. Rowan wants me to be happy, and I want that too, but the kind of happiness I find with guys is fleeting, and the kind I’d find with Joel would be crushing.
After washing my face and telling Rowan goodnight, I curl up under warm covers, careful to place my wrists on top of my pillow instead of under it. My eyes close to the present, and a dream drags me into the past.
“Dee, come down here,” my mother says, just like she had the last time I ever saw her.
I was eleven years old, standing at the top of the stairs, staring down at her bags packed by the front door. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“Come down here so I can give you a kiss.”
I reluctantly went to the bottom of the stairs and into her arms without hugging her back. She kissed the top of my head. “Be good for your dad, okay?”
I stared up at her when she released me, and she gave me a saccharine smile I didn’t try to mirror. I knew she was leaving us. I just had no idea I’d never see her again. She cast one last look at my father, who was sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, before she turned around and stepped onto the porch, closing the door between us.
When the door clicks shut, I wake with my face covered in tears. I angrily wipe them away and knock my tear-soaked pillow into a thin ray of morning sunlight cutting a line across my hardwood floor, cursing my subconscious for making me dream of her. I haven’t cried over her since that year, after I cried every last tear out with Rowan’s arms around me. My dad cried too, when he thought I wasn’t listening, and I’ll never forgive her for that.
Seconds later, I have the phone to my ear and him on the line.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
I almost break down as soon I hear his soft voice.
“Dee?”
“Hey, Dad. How are you?”
“Is something wrong?” he asks, his concern for me making me stronger.
“No, I just woke up. I had a dream about you.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“I dreamt I was at home and still had to eat your pork chops and green beans,” I lie.
My dad breaks into big belly laughter that dries my tears and makes me smile. Even though he was the one who raised me, he never mastered the art of cooking, and he never met a pork chop he couldn’t burn. “Keep it up and that’s what we’ll have every holiday you come home,” he teases.
I wipe the last of my tears away with the heel of my palm. “I miss you, Dad.”
“I miss you too. Now are you going to tell me what’s wrong or am I going to have to call Rowan?”
God, so many things are wrong, I wouldn’t even know where to start. But I can’t tell my dad about any of them or he’d want me to quit school and go somewhere closer to home. It was hard enough leaving him on his own as it was. And he’d also want me to press charges against Cody, but Rowan and I already had that argument, and I’m not going to change my mind. I want to put what happened with Cody in the past and leave it there, and I know that’s selfish, but it is what it is. I’m also guessing the only reason Cody didn’t press charges against Joel was because of the leverage I have.
“I think I want to quit my job,” I tell my dad. It’s at least part of the truth, and it’s as much as I can share. I blew off a shift last night that I may or may not get fired for, and I have no desire to deal with annoying customers this week or to potentially run into Aiden after what I did with him a few nights ago. Now, the memory just makes me sick.
“Did something happen?”
“No. I just hate people.”
My dad laughs again, eliciting another smile. “You know you never needed to get that job in the first place. I just want you to concentrate on school. How are your classes going?”
I sit up and crisscross my legs, propping my elbows on my knees and tugging on my tangled hair. “Midterm grades are going to be posted soon . . . and mine aren’t going to be pretty BUT,” I say before he can interrupt me, “I’m going to do better, I swear.”
A pause, and then, “How ‘not pretty’ are they going to be?”
Another pause, and I admit, “I probably shouldn’t even tell you.”
My dad sighs. “But you’re going to make them prettier?”
“Starting today.”
“You swear?”
“Pinky swear.”
“And you’re going to come home some weekend soon to see your dear old dad?”
I chuckle into the phone. “Of course. Easter’s right around the corner. I’ll even cook the whole time I’m home.”
“I think I’d rather take you out to celebrate the good grades you’re going to get.”
Oh, daddy guilt—he sure knows how to lay it on thick. “It’s a deal.”
As soon as I get off the phone, I launch my plan into action. Step one: skip my history class because I didn’t study for the big midterm we have today. Step two: go to the doctor’s with a fake cough so I have an excuse for missing the big midterm we have today.
I go to my first two classes but skip the last. I’m sitting in the waiting room of the student health center when my phone dings and I read a text from Joel.
Come over after school.
Why?
Do I need a reason?
Actually, now you need 10 or I’m not coming over.
I smile wide when the texts start coming through one at a time.
1. I miss your hot body.
2. I miss your hot face.
3. I want to see what you’re wearing.
4. I’m bored and hungry so we should go eat.
5. Adam is busy writing and won’t let me help.
6. Shawn won’t let me borrow his car b/c he’s lame.
7. Have I mentioned you’re hot?
8. You’re smiling right now.
9. I care about you. ;)
When a shadow falls over me, I look up into the scowling face of an angry Mrs. Doubtfire. “Didn’t you see the sign?”
Of course I saw the sign. The stupid one about turning your phone off in the building. The one no one pays attention to. “What sign?”
“You need to turn your phone off,” she orders.
I turn it on silent and shove it back in my purse, killing her with an oversweet smile. My name is called a few minutes later and I’m taken to a patient room where a rookie doctor buys my sob story. He writes me a note—and a prescription, which I toss into the trash on my way out—and then I’m walking to my car and rooting my phone back out of my purse.
10. I have a surprise for you.
Oh, that boy likes to play dirty.
What kind of surprise?
The kind you’ll need to come here to get.
When I find myself glaring and smiling at the same time, I growl at my phone and bury it back in my purse. Twenty minutes later, my car is parked in front of Adam’s apartment building and my heels are clicking down the fourth-floor hall.
I knock on the door to apartment 4E and immediately hear Rowan yell, “NO! You stay in the kitchen!” A few seconds later, she swings the door open, her face twisted with exasperation. I reach forward to wipe a smudge of flour off her nose before following her into the living room.
Adam is sitting at the breakfast bar, his foot swinging back and forth as he picks a cluster of chocolate chips out of a glass bowl and tilts his head back to eat them. Rowan launches forward and captures his wrist before he can, dragging his hand back over the bowl and smacking at it until he drops the chips back in with the rest.
Shawn, leaning against a kitchen wall, laughs and reaches his hand into the bag of chocolate chips he’s holding, tossing a whopping handful into his mouth.
“How come he gets to eat them?” Adam whines as he eyes Shawn.
“Because he went to the store and bought extra,” Rowan answers. On the kitchen side of the breakfast bar, she sidles up next to Joel, who is smiling at me like he has a secret he can barely contain.
“Share with me,” Adam orders Shawn, and Shawn pops another choking-hazard-sized handful into his mouth before directing a shit-eating grin at Adam.
“Share with yourself,” he teases with his mouth full.
“Shawn,” Rowan barks, “give Adam some damn chocolate or I’m going to beat you with a wooden spoon.” She waves her weapon of choice at him. “And you know I will!”
Shawn and Adam both laugh, and Shawn sets a single chocolate chip on the counter in front of Adam. Adam glares at it and then at Shawn before popping it in his mouth.
“Cookies?” I ask, hoisting myself up onto the stool next to Adam.
“Joel wouldn’t stop whining about how bored he was and how much he wanted them,” Rowan explains, “so he’s going to learn how to make them.”
“I changed my mind . . .” Joel says, dipping his finger into the cookie batter.
“YOU’RE GOING TO LEARN,” Rowan barks, and I bite back a laugh. I know that living with three guys grinds on her nerves sometimes, but today they must have really sent her overboard.
“You realize you guys are rock stars, right?” I swing my gaze between the three of them. Sometimes, it’s hard to reconcile the performers I’ve watched command the stage with the guys who hang around doing Disney-appropriate things like baking chocolate-chip cookies.
They stare back at me like it just occurred to them, and Joel smiles wide. “She’s right. I’m too cool for this shit.”
Rowan whacks him on the arm with the wooden spoon, and Joel yelps and resumes stirring the cookie batter.
Trying not to laugh, I say, “Is this my surprise?”
Joel’s blue eyes swing to mine, his expression bright with excitement. “Come on, Peach,” he begs, “I need to give her the surprise!”
Rowan sighs and dismisses him with a wave of her hand before pulling out a roll of parchment paper. “Whatever. Go, but I’m not giving you any cookies.”
Joel’s face falls in a pout. “Seriously?”
“Fine,” Rowan growls, “you can have some. Just go before I stick my head in the oven.”
Adam and Shawn chuckle, and Joel swoops down to plant a kiss on my best friend’s cheek. “Love you, Peach!”
He breezes past me into the living room, and I hop off of my stool to join Rowan on the other side of the counter. She lines the pan while I start rolling the cookie dough into balls. We’ve fallen into a wordless rhythm when Joel finishes rooting something out of a backpack by the couch. He stands next to Adam and smiles at me, holding something behind his back.
“You ready?”
“This had better be the best surprise ever,” I warn. He’s built this up to epic proportions.
“Remember how you said you wanted to go to ManiFest?”
“You didn’t . . .” I say. My hands stop balling the dough as I gape at him. ManiFest is a huge music festival that’s held each year, but the where and when is as unpredictable as the entertainers who perform. A few weeks ago, the festival was announced, but tickets sold out within twenty-four hours.
Joel sweeps his hand out from behind his back in a dramatic gesture, and I stare at the tickets in his hand.
“Oh my God!” I squeal, grabbing his hand over the bar and pulling it close to my face. Six tickets. Six freaking tickets to a sold-out freaking show! “Oh my GOD!”
I’m frozen, and Joel says, “What? I don’t even get a kiss?”
I rush around the bar and launch myself into his arms. “How did you get them?”
He squeezes me tight and sets me back on my feet, smiling like I just gave him the surprise instead of the other way around. “We have a ton of friends performing.”
Adam and Shawn start rattling off the names of bands they know, and I just stare at the tickets while feeling overwhelmed and kind of nauseous.
“I don’t think I can go,” I mutter.
“What?!” Joel says. “Next week is Spring Break! Why can’t you go?”
I know he’s doing this to prove he cares about me. If I accept it, what will that mean? “I have a project.”
“Since when do you care about projects?” Rowan asks, her brow furrowed with suspicion.
“Since I promised my dad I’d pull my grades up.” I do have a project, and I did make a promise.
Shawn pushes off the wall and hands Adam the bag of chocolate chips. “What kind of project?”
“For my marketing class,” I explain. “I have to find a local company and come up with some advertising materials for them, and then research how the materials affect the business. It’s a semester-long project and our proposal was due last week, but I never turned mine in.” I avoid Rowan’s frown. I had promised her I’d do it last weekend, but . . . things came up. “It’s worth most of our grade,” I finish.
There’s a long moment of silence, and then Adam pipes in with his mouth full of chocolate chips, “What about a band?”
“Huh?”
“What about doing the project for a band instead of a company?” His chocolate chips struggle to get down his throat, and he seems cautious when he adds, “We need to find a new guitarist . . .”
Right. Because I ruined things with the last one.
Resisting the guilt wrapping its icy fingers around my throat, I say, “Why not just bring Cody back?”
All three guys stare at me like I just suggested we lick cookie dough off the floor.
The clang of the oven slamming startles me, and Rowan whirls around with an exaggerated smile on her face. She wipes her hands on her jeans and says, “I think doing a band project sounds like a great idea. You could come up with flyers and advertise online and stuff. And researching how well it works would be simple, because if they find a guitarist, it worked.” The corners of her mouth tip up in a triumph, and I begin envisioning the flyers in my head.
“I could advertise at the festival,” I muse. This project would be easy, and it’s the least I could do for the guys after what they did for me.
“So you’re coming?” Joel asks, spinning me around by my shoulders to give me a hopeful smile that’s impossible to resist.
I pluck a ticket from his hand, steal Adam’s chocolate chips, and plop down on the couch to write an overdue proposal.