Chapter Ten
Jade
All the blood in my veins turned to ice, where seconds before it had been warm and bubbly from Lennon making me laugh.
My fingers locked up on the steering wheel and I suddenly had the sensation that I’d never driven a day in my life as I pulled over to the side of the road.
“Great,” Lennon said, his tone far less tense than mine would be if I could open my mouth. “How is it that I’m throwing the party of a lifetime miles away, and the cops find us here?”
I swallowed hard, glancing in the back seat where my now-soaked shirt rested.
Ohmygod that reeks of alcohol.
“Whoa.” Lennon turned toward me. “Relax. I was only kidding.”
“No,” I whispered. “My shirt.”
He glanced down at the shirt I now donned courtesy of him and the gas station before something clicked behind his eyes. He spared a look in the back seat, but his signature smirk shaped his lips when he returned his focus to me. “Like I said.” He shrugged. “Relax. You were probably speeding. No big deal.”
“I wasn’t—” The shadow of the officer who’d pulled us over loomed above my window, effectively strangling another word from leaving my mouth. I panicked internally, wondering if he could possibly know about our little after-hours visit to the school. Technically we hadn’t taken anything that wasn’t ours, but my heart raced all the same.
I quickly rolled down the window.
The officer leaned in, eyeing Lennon, then me, and back again. “What are you two up to tonight?”
“Nothing,” I said at the exact same time Lennon said, “We’re on a date.”
Heat flushed my cheeks, but I tried to smile. Suppose our little fake kiss back at the party had saved him once, might as well keep the story rolling here. Not like we could tell the cop we had just come from one party with underage drinking and were trying to get to an even bigger one.
Oh God the cop can probably read that all over my face.
Don’t think about the party.
Think about anything but the party.
Lennon. His lips. The kiss.
That wasn’t a great idea, either.
“License, please,” he said, and I moved slowly to grab it from my bag. My fingers trembled as I handed it to him, and I hated feeling like I’d done something wrong when I knew for a fact I hadn’t.
Except, you know, the whole picking locks at school and attending a party with drinking thing. Maybe Jade 2.0 is a little too wild for the real me.
Still, I didn’t have a clue why he’d pulled us over.
“You have any tickets or priors, Ms. Aaron?”
I snort-laughed, unable to stop the nervous response. “No, of course not.” I’d never been stopped by a cop before. I’d never even gotten a B on a test before.
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”
“Could you tell us why you pulled us over, sir?” Lennon called through the window as the cop walked away.
I hissed, my eyes flying wide at him. Luckily the cop didn’t turn back around.
“What?” Lennon chuckled.
“What?” I huffed. “You can’t ask him that!”
He furrowed his brow, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why not?”
“B-Because,” I sputtered out. “That’s like begging him to give you a ticket.”
“You’re crazy,” he said playfully like we were having a silly debate over who would pick up the food tab.
“I am not!”
Lennon shoved some hair off his face. “Look,” he said. “You have every right to know why he decided to flag you down just as much as he has the right to do it. He shouldn’t have left us sitting here stewing in our own nerves—”
“Ha!” I snapped, pointing at him. “So you are nervous.”
His shoulders dropped, and he rolled his eyes. “Your car does kind of reek of whatever concoction Lori was drinking.” He shook his head. “But neither of us has had a drop. The time it would take to prove that, though, would definitely be more than we could spare. We’ve got a little bit before my show starts, but a setback like being hauled in would lose us our shot with Rachel, the producer.”
I gaped at him, totally amazed at his logical approach to the situation. He was more worried about getting back in time for his show than the possibility of being arrested. Not that we had done anything worthy of that, like he’d said, but still. I couldn’t calm the nerves twisting inside me no matter how easy the terms he put them into were.
“Breathe,” he said, and somehow I managed to take a good, solid breath. “I’m sure it’s nothing. He’s probably just worried a punk kid like me is going to take advantage of a nice girl like you and break your heart or something.”
I snort-laughed again. “Yeah, I’m so sure that’s why he flashed his lights and pulled us over. To save my heart from the likes of you.” I rolled my eyes. Sometimes boys could be more dramatic than any girls I’d ever known.
“It could happen.”
“Or,” I said, the blood rushing from my face, “he could’ve heard about your party somehow, and he recognized you from a description someone gave him. Hell, his buddies could be breaking up the party as we speak and he’s back there confirming that you are you and I am me and we’re totally, completely screwed.”
Lennon’s jaw flexed as he swallowed hard, his eyes widening a bit. After a few moments he blew the air out of his lungs. “Your imagination scares the shit out of me.”
Laughter made the frozen breath in my lungs loose. “Let’s hope I’m wrong.”
“God, for once I hope you are.”
The car filled with silence as we waited.
And waited.
After ten minutes, I swore we’d been siting there for an hour.
Finally the officer walked back to my open window, handing me my license. “I need you both to step out of the car.”
Oh holy hell. Here we go.
A low groan sounded from Lennon’s chest that I prayed the cop couldn’t hear as we both slowly got out of my car. The officer motioned us toward the back end and stopped us near the trunk.
“Ms. Aaron,” he said, pointing behind me to my left taillight. “You need to get that fixed as soon as possible.”
A rush of relief swept over me so fast I nearly fainted.
Luckily I didn’t.
Unluckily I started laughing so hard I had to clutch my side. Lennon gaped at me, barely containing his smirk as he watched me lose it in front of the cop.
“Oh, that?” I managed to say between snorts.
The officer’s lips pressed into a hard line, his stone-faced features causing me to lose all the hilarity of the situation. I held my hands up as if he were pointing his gun at me instead of just standing there glaring, and backed up two steps. I curled one hand into a fist and gave the taillight a firm tap on the side.
The red light flickered to life, and I flashed the cop an innocent smile.
“It’s just an old car, sir.”
“You need to get the taillight replaced or inspected so it doesn’t go out anymore.” The officer arched an eyebrow at me. “I’m letting you off with a warning this time instead of giving you a fix-it ticket.”
I nodded a little too enthusiastically.
He shifted his focus to Lennon. “You two be careful. It’s grad night, after all. Be smart.”
We smiled and nodded and slowly backed up to the doors as the officer walked to his cruiser and sank inside. I waited until he’d pulled away and passed us before breathing normally.
Lennon let out a loud, booming laugh that vibrated the entire car. “Now that,” he said, “was hilarious!”
“It so was not!”
“Oh yes, it was!” He shifted in the seat to face me. “Did you see the look on the cop’s face when you hit the taillight?” He chuckled again, his eyes wild. “Priceless. I swore he was going to give you a ticket just for proving him wrong.”
“I wasn’t trying to,” I said. “I just wanted to show him that it wasn’t technically out.”
“Oh, you did.” He smiled, sucking in a deep breath. “That could’ve gone so much worse.” He glanced at the soaked shirt in the back seat.
“Totally,” I said. Thank goodness he’d grabbed a new shirt. Another flare of anger seared my chest at the thought of how close Lori had come to getting us in trouble. Though I had gotten an incredible kiss due to her insanity, so I really couldn’t be that mad at the girl.
I placed my hands on the wheel again, eyeing Lennon. “Shall we?”
He motioned forward. “We shall.”
Taking the car out of park, I pulled onto the street and headed toward his lake house, but at the rate we were going, we’d never make it there on time.
The stars shining in the inky sky were much more visible now that the traffic had thinned and we’d turned down the secluded road that would lead to his lake house. We were about ten miles out, and I was tempted to ease up on the gas just to keep him to myself for a few minutes longer.
The shock of that realization hit me in a warm tingly flutter. I liked who I was around him, which wasn’t just Jade 2.0—it was the person I’d always wanted to be but had been too buried to see it. Lennon brought that out in me…and he seemed to like it, too.
“Is it like that everywhere you go?” I asked when the silence threatened to swallow me.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his tone completely innocent and yet with a teasing to it that proved he knew exactly what I meant.
“With the girls. The groupies. I mean, I’m sure it is,” I said. “I’ve just never seen you outside school or your dad’s house. I’ve watched you perform, but that isn’t the same thing as witnessing fans react to you.”
Of course, Braylen was a huge fan of his, and I’d seen her geek-out over his music like I would if I ran into Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead comics—but Bray could be normal around him. Not like the two girls I’d seen in the last hour, or the countless girls I’d seen over the years.
“It varies,” he said. “I wish I could say girls like Lori and Carey are rare, but I’d be lying. The second we signed on for a summer tour with the BlackHats at the beginning of the year, it got worse.” He popped the tab on his Red Bull and took a fast swig. “Some fans are genuine, and it’s the most amazing thing to talk to them and see the effect the music has on their lives. Then there are people who just want to get wrapped up in the fame of it all…the perks, the late hours, the lax rules, the clubs that let us play. They don’t actually care about the music, the movement of it, or the fact that we’re actual people, not just a band.”
Oh, hello nerve I stumbled upon. Real smooth, Jade.
“That must be insanely hard,” I said, sparing him a glance. “But…”
“What?” he asked when I chewed on my lip instead of continuing.
“You like it,” I said, hating that I had to know the truth. “All the girls? I’ve seen you date so many—”
His sigh cut me off, and he shifted in the seat next to me. “I’ve taken a lot of girls on dates over the years, yes. But I haven’t done what everyone in school says I have.”
I tightened my grip on the wheel, noting the annoyance in his tone.
“I don’t sleep around. I don’t break girls’ hearts…well, not on purpose. They always know up front I’m not boyfriend material.”
The last three words stung more than they should have.
“I can’t help that music has always been my first love,” he said. “Trust me, if I found a girl who made me feel like I do when I climb that stage…” He grew so quiet I spared him a glance before turning my focus back to the road. “The groupie thing, though,” he finally said, switching gears. “That’s something I can’t help.”
I nodded, the weight of his words changing things inside my heart. He hadn’t been a player, sleeping with everyone because he could. He’d been who I thought he was all along, the boy who made me laugh between practices.
“But it’ll only get harder,” I said. “You realize that, right?”
He chuckled so hard he nearly spit out his drink, and I was grateful the tension had ebbed from his shoulders. “Thanks for laying it on me easy.”
“Don’t be modest, Lennon.” I scoffed, waving him off. “It doesn’t suit you. You know Ignited Hearts is on the brink of exploding. And with that…” I sucked in a breath, only now realizing the sting in my chest at the thought of him disappearing underneath all the fame and glory headed his way. “The groupies, stalkers, fans, and haters will multiply exponentially.”
“I love it when you talk math to me,” he teased, and I rolled my eyes.
“Seriously,” I said. “That’s one of the reasons your parents are riding you so hard about the college experience thing. I think they know how much your life will change after this tour, and they’re desperately hoping to keep you—you—for a little longer.”
He pressed his lips together, nodding. “Same case could be made for your parents, I suppose.”
I returned my eyes to the road and gripped the steering wheel a little harder than necessary. “Ha, yeah, well…I’m not a rock star.”
“You are in the mathematical world,” he countered. “And your graphic novel? It could be bigger than Ignited Hearts.”
I swallowed hard. “You didn’t even read it.”
“I skimmed. And I can see.” He raised his hands before dropping them on his thighs. “Maybe your mom realizes that. And she wants to delay it, too.”
I huffed, hating that he made too much sense and that it softened the anger that constantly burned in my heart over mine and Mom’s fights.
“Maybe. Or maybe the thought of me drawing embarrasses her. The fact that I’m not working toward the C.A.M.L. research lab has her hating anything else I might want to do.”
“She’s clearly blind to your talent. She’ll come around once you show her how serious you are about pursuing it as a career. It might not even take her that long.”
“Maybe,” I said, the idea making me more hopeful than I had thought possible. “But again,” I continued, determined not to open the Mom discussion any further, “whichever route I take, I’m not going to have groupies.” I laughed, and he joined me, easing the tension that had built around our too-serious conversation.
Graduation had brought the past to a head and the future on the cusp, making me—and likely him—feel like we were on a giant ledge overlooking a vast sea of unknown. It was impossible to hold a conversation tonight without it having some weight to it, but I was eager to steer it back to the lighter side.
“You are way too interested in the groupie thing.” He chuckled.
“It’s fascinating!” I pushed my glasses up my nose before returning my hand to the wheel. “And I’ve never seen it that up close before.”
“You’ll get used to it when your novel gets picked up for a television show.”
“Ha!” I shook my head. “Let’s not dream that big, yeah? You’re the only other person I’ve ever shown it to.”
“What?” His jaw dropped. “You’re not serious!”
I shrugged.
“What about Braylen?”
I shook my head, my lips in a firm line.
“Fynn? Zoey?”
“Nope. Nope.”
He sank back against the seat, the air rushing out of him. “Why not?”
“In the beginning?” I sighed. “It was because I loved having something that was solely mine. Something that hadn’t been pushed on me by my parents, or expected of me by my friends or teachers. It didn’t have to be anything because it was just for me.”
“And now?” he asked when I didn’t continue.
“You’re the first person I’ve wanted to show.”
“Jade. You don’t realize how much that means to me,” he said, his tone so soft I had to look at him. I narrowed my gaze, trying to see past the walls he had over his eyes. Was he feeling what I was?
He blinked and shifted in his seat. “But of course,” he quickly continued, “I’ve known your dirty little secret for a while now.” Another flush raked my skin.
“It’s not dirty!”
“That won’t stop groupies from flocking to your signings,” he said between laughs. “Desperate to get you to draw something as your signature.”
“That’s a solid idea.” I pursed my lips, arching a brow at him. “Not the groupie thing, which is ridiculous, but the signature part.” A tiny symbol started to take shape in my mind. Thick black lines that swirled around thinner ones in a swooping endless circle that contained my initials.
“Again with the mention of groupies,” Lennon said, snapping me out of my daydream. “I feel like you’re a little obsessed.”
“Please,” I said.
“No really. You bring it up one more time, I’m going to think you’re jealous.”
My chest tightened and heat blazed on my cheeks.
I flicked on my bright lights, the thick expanse of trees on either side of the small, winding road making visibility more difficult. In the same instant the road was illuminated, a familiar clunk echoed, and my car jerked and sputtered.
“Shit.” I pumped the brake and pulled off to the side of the road, knowing I had a few precious seconds before my car stopped working altogether. I threw it in park and silently cursed the engine.
“I was kidding!” Lennon said. “You don’t have to kick me out and leave me stranded on the side of the road!”
“My. Car. Sucks,” I said.
“Oh hell.” He sank back into his seat. “Damn. You know the fix?”
I pressed my lips together, nodding. “Time. It’s overheated.”
“All right,” he said, opening the door and hopping out to walk in front of the hood. “Pop it.”
I obeyed, meeting at his side shortly after. He stared down at the engine, which looked like a mangled mess of rusted metal to me. Give me a quantum equation and I was all over it, but a tricky ancient engine? Not so much.
He whistled, waving his hand over the contents under the hood before gently closing it. “No idea.”
“What?” I laughed. “Then why did you look?”
“I don’t know!” He shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I thought I’d know what to do when I saw it.”
“I’m telling you, it just needs a break. It’ll start back up in an hour or so.”
“An hour?”
“Sometimes it’s less.” Not often, but there was that one time at school where it’d started after only twenty minutes of letting it cool down. “Do you want to call someone at the party?” I motioned down the road where his house was only a few miles away.
He pulled out his cell, and I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. I’d enjoyed being Lennon’s sole focus for the night, and the second we made it back to reality, it would all be shattered.
“Nah,” he said, pocketing it again. “It’s not even ten o’clock yet. As long as I make it back for the show, we’re good. The exec probably will show up late, too.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Do you want to walk?”
He shook his head and hopped up on the hood of my car. Propping his elbows on his knees, he ran his fingers through his hair. Like he didn’t have a career-altering show to get to. “Your car would be stranded. That’s not how I’ll repay you for helping me all night. Let’s wait it out. Try again in a little bit. Cool?”
“Sure,” I said, glancing around. With the headlights off, we were surrounded by nothing but the thick trees and the dark night sky above. Totally a place where Jason Voorhees would feel absolutely at home. Or that dude from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Lennon tapped the spot next to him, drawing my attention. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said.
I snort-laughed as I sat beside him. “Could you read the terror in my eyes?”
“A little.” He nudged me with his shoulder.
“Can you blame me? This looks like something straight out of a horror movie.”
He scanned the area, going silent as he focused to our right.
“What is that?!” he screamed, and I jumped so hard I practically landed in his lap.
He laughed as I undug my fingers from his shoulders and slid back to my spot. I smacked his chest, the breath entering my lungs in shorts gasps from the terror ripping through my blood. “Not. Funny.”
“A little bit.”
I shook my head, holding my hand over my chest like it would ease my racing heart.
“Oh, all right,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. It was too good to pass up. I won’t do it again.” He tilted my chin up to force me to look at him, and suddenly my racing heart had nothing to do with the easy scare he’d given me. “And I meant it, I wouldn’t ever let anything happen to you.”
Somehow, I knew that.
Knew it as if we’d been best friends for years, or even more than friends—which was insane because we hadn’t been. We’d had fleeting moments of time, short conversations that I had thought were nothing more than friendly, but as this night wore on I was beginning to question if they’d been…more.
Something rushed inside me, a sense of awakening that threatened to jolt me.
I liked Lennon.
A lot.
All this time I thought he was player, a wildcard never to be looked at beyond a friend. But the more time I spent with him tonight, the more I felt myself feeling things for him I never thought I would.
“If you’d rather I call someone to come get us, I will.” Lennon withdrew his arm, reaching for his cell again.
“No,” I said a little too quickly. “I mean, I’m totally fine to wait.” I shrugged. “I just feel bad you’re missing your own party.”
Kind of.
A sly smile played at his lips. “Could be worse.”
I tilted my head at him. “You’re stranded in the middle of nowhere, sitting on top of an ancient car, missing out on the most epic party of our high school careers. How could it be worse?”
“I could be stranded without you.”