Mayhem

by Jamie Shaw

  Inside, he orders two different kinds of French toast and a crepe for good measure. I stick to my standard strawberry pancakes.

  “Do you know where we could have gone instead?” I ask. When he waits for my answer, I tease, “McDonald’s. We could’ve gotten French fries.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous . . . Everyone knows McDonald’s doesn’t start serving fries ’til ten thirty.” He smirks at me, and I laugh.

  “You’re kinda crazy,” I tell him with a smile.

  “Says the girl who came along on a three-­day road trip with ten guys she’d never even met before.”

  It isn’t exactly true, but the truth is even crazier. “Touché.”

  And thus begins our French lesson. I open the textbook and do a little review before saying, “Okay. We need to practice some of the written stuff . . . aaand we forgot to bring a notebook.”

  “No, we didn’t.” Adam wiggles the miniature notebook that I saw him writing in this morning out of his back pocket.

  “That is your notebook?”

  He nods and sips a coffee our server brought earlier. It’s something French vanilla, and I highly suspect—­no, I know that he ordered it just because it had “French” in the name.

  “You use that for class?” I ask.

  He nods again. I hold my palm out for the notebook, and he hands it over.

  When I open it, I see that it’s almost completely filled with scribbled lines. Lyrics. There are random phrases everywhere, written in varied sizes and slants—­almost none of them actually following the lines of the paper. “There aren’t any notes in here,” I say as I flip through the pages.

  “Sure there are.” Adam takes the notebook back and flips through it before he finally finds what he’s looking for. He slides it over to me. “See?”

  The note—­literally, just one—­says to finish the homework on page 82 for Monday—­which, if I remember correctly, means that it’s more than two weeks old.

  “Did you?” I ask Adam as I hand back his notebook.

  “Did I what?” He flips to a blank page.

  “Finish the homework?”

  He hesitates before saying, “That’s not the point.”

  I immediately start laughing again, and he grins at me. “I think we need to get you a new notebook.”

  “Or a cute note taker,” he says with a smirk, and I scoff.

  “As if those girls would actually know how to take good notes.” I’d be impressed if the girls he sits with in class even know how to read.

  “What girls?” He looks thoroughly confused, his eyebrows scrunched together over eyes locked with mine.

  “Those girls you always bring with you to class.”

  He laughs and scratches the back of his head. “I don’t bring them. They just kind of follow me.”

  I want to comment on how unbothered he seems about that, but I bite my tongue, dropping the conversation and resuming the lesson. I assign Adam written exercises, and eventually, I slide into the booth seat beside him so I can show him exactly what he’s doing wrong. When the server brings our food and sets it in front of us, I quickly move back to my side and pull my plate in front of me.

  Adam is eyeing me curiously when I glance up at him. “What’s your deal?” he asks me.

  “What do you mean?”

  He looks at our server, an elderly woman who is now helping a family of four sitting three tables down, and then back at me. “Why’d you dive back over there?”

  I don’t really know how to answer that. Because I’m getting way too cozy with you and I’m pretty sure your absence is going to feel like a giant gaping hole in my life when I have to get back to reality?

  Adam sighs and sets his fork back down. “Look, if this is about last night—­”

  “It’s not.”

  “I’m sorry. I’d had a lot to drink, and then you were in the room and I just thought—­”

  “Adam, it’s not that. It’s cool, alright?”

  He frowns like he doesn’t believe me. “Then what is it?”

  “You don’t think it would be weird if we sat on the same side?”

  His head tilts slightly. “Why would it be weird?”

  “It’d look like we were dating or something . . .”

  “So?”

  “So . . . I don’t know.”

  “So what you’re saying is you have no good reason?” A one-­sided smile is sneaking onto his lips, making me feel a strange mix of emotions. Embarrassment and . . . something I don’t want to think too hard about.

  “I’m sure I have a good reason . . . I just can’t think of it right now.”

  Adam laughs and picks his fork back up. “Then I think you should get back over here.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  I don’t answer him. Because again, I have no idea what the hell to say to that. Instead, I busy myself with drenching my pancakes. I stir a mountain of sugar into my coffee as I let the syrup soak in, and then I pour another layer on. When Adam cuts off portions of both of his French toast piles and his crepe and slides them onto my plate, I cut off a big chunk of my pancakes and slide them onto his.

  He smiles down at the pancakes as he carves into them. “The guys really like you.”

  The compliment makes me blush. I’m glad they don’t hate me. “They’re pretty awesome.”

  Adam takes a bite of my condiment-­logged breakfast and chuckles with his mouth full. “Holy shit, this is syrupy.”

  I grin at him. “Only way to have it.” While he’s swallowing it down with a big gulp of coffee, I tell him, “My friend Dee and I eat at IHOP a lot. We always get the strawberry pancakes. And if we’re hungover, we order them with sides of bacon, and she always tries to steal mine.”

  Adam starts cutting into a second bite. “Really? It happens enough that you have a routine set up?”

  Okay . . . I really need to stop opening my big mouth. I attempt a casual shrug. “I guess. She’s kind of a wild child. We’ve been friends since . . . well . . . forever.” I hope that changing the focus from me to Dee will help steer this conversation away from drunken nights, one of which was notably spent with a very hot rocker boy who is currently sitting across from me paying nerve-­racking attention to my every ill-­conceived word.

  “Shawn and I are kind of like that.” Finally, a topic I’m comfortable with. The muscles in my shoulders immediately loosen, and I forgive Shawn for all of the stupid “Peach” comments he made yesterday.

  “Yeah, I can tell you two have been friends for a long time. What about the other guys?”

  “Shawn and I have been friends with Mike since middle school, and friends with Joel since high school when he moved to town. Cody is his stepdad’s brother’s cousin-­in-­law’s son or some shit like that. He joined when we started getting big. Before that, it was just the four of us.”

  I nod and dig into Adam’s blueberry French toast, which is pure amazingness. “He’s kinda quiet.”

  “It’s better that way. When he’s not, he’s usually saying something stupid.”

  I chuckle, remembering how Cody asked me how it felt to be the “only girl to turn Adam down.” God, that had been awkward.

  Adam adds, “He’s cool for the most part though.”

  Really, they all are. Even the roadies seem great, especially Driver—­even though his extracurricular activities leave something to be desired. Our server pops back in to ask if we need anything else, but so far, breakfast has been perfect. When she leaves, Adam slides from his booth seat to mine, pulling his plate over. I swallow hard and watch him. He’s so freaking close. “Yes?”

  He slides the textbook and notebook over without taking his eyes off mine. He looks far too amused. “We need to get back to work.”

  Oh, right. I flip to the page we were on and get bac
k to it. By the time we’re both finished with our meals, we’ve pounded through two whole chapters. We order more coffee and stay until we’ve gotten most of the way through the third, but I’m distracted. There is now a group of girls our age sitting two tables down, and they’ve been stealing glances at Adam for the past twenty minutes. Every time they look our way, I find myself glaring. If we weren’t sitting on the same side of the table—­looking utterly ­couple-­ish—­I don’t doubt they would have come over to get his number, his home address, and his dick size for future convenience-­store shopping purposes. I don’t know if they keep staring because they recognize him or because of the whole sexy bad-­boy vibe he gives off, but either way, it’s getting under my skin.

  When Adam shifts toward me in the seat, resting his knee between us, I’m distracted from my scowling. I give him my attention, and he brushes a loose strand of hair away from my face.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, not stopping him.

  He smiles warmly at me, but there’s mischief in his eyes. “Don’t you want to make them jealous?”

  More than anything. “Why would I want to make them jealous?”

  Adam snickers. “All girls want to make other girls jealous.”

  No arguing there. I let him play with my hair until he starts to lean in, and my eyes get wide. He doesn’t go for my mouth though—­he whispers in my ear. “Relax. I’m not going to kiss you. Just play along.”

  Adam kisses a spot next to my ear tenderly, and I don’t know how he classifies this as not kissing—­because I am definitely feeling thoroughly kissed. He marks a two-­kiss trail along my jaw and then looks into my eyes as he comes in close. His lips are warm against my skin when he presses them against the outermost corner of my mouth in an agonizingly soft and teasing kiss.

  My eyes close because I’m helpless to stop what happens to my body. My breathing stops, my heart stops. Every ounce of energy I have is poured into not turning into the kiss. Because God, I really want to. I want to so bad it almost hurts. I should. I should just—­

  When Adam slowly pulls away, I open my eyes to find him smirking, and I feel self-­conscious as hell. I try to control the breath I’ve been holding so that it doesn’t come out in a humiliating sigh.

  “Look,” he says quietly, referring to the girls.

  I peel my eyes away from Adam and look over to their table to find them frozen like statues, all four of them gawking at us. One literally has her mouth hanging open. They look away in a hurry, and I immediately start giggling. “Wow.” I don’t know if I’m referring to the effect we had on them or the kiss itself. My blood is still lava, struggling to pump oxygen to my brain.

  Adam is serious when he says, “We could make them more jealous if you want . . .”

  I chuckle nervously because yes, I do want to make them more jealous. I want to make them more jealous . . . in the privacy of a bedroom . . . where they aren’t even present to witness how jealous we’re making them.

  I flip to the next page of the textbook and try to say in an even voice, “Time to move on to irregular verbs.” I try to get my mind off of that non-­kiss as Adam and I work our way through the third chapter, but I think it may have been the hottest kiss I’ve ever had in my entire life. Is that even possible?

  I throw myself into teacher mode to try to calm myself down, and forty-­five minutes later, the tingling memory of Adam’s lips has finally faded from my nerves. When we’re all the way through the third chapter, we decide to head back to his car.

  “If you were this motivated in class,” I chide after Adam insists on paying the check and we’re walking out the door, “you’d pull straight A’s.”

  “If classes were like this study session, maybe I’d be more motivated.” He lights a cigarette as we walk, and then he slides his shades on and climbs behind the wheel. I rest my elbow on the door and let the wind wash over me as he speeds through the city streets. The sun is clinging to the last remnants of summer, heating my skin and beating into my eyes. I pull my glasses off since I’m fairly certain they’re magnifying the sun’s hellfire rays and scorching them right into my pupils.

  Holding my hand over my forehead, I turn to Adam and ask, “Do you have an extra pair of shades?”

  He stares over at me for a long moment, and then he takes his off and hands them to me. “Nope.”

  Crap, I didn’t mean to put him on the spot or anything. Pushing them back toward his chest, I insist, “No, no. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not worried about it.” He smiles and tosses them onto my lap. “They’ll look better on you anyway.”

  Okay, I really need to get this blushing thing under control. “Thanks,” I tell him, picking up his glasses and sliding them on. Parts of them are still warm from where they were snug against his skin, and I have to remind myself that friends do stuff like this all the time. Sharing his sunglasses is no big deal. No. Big. Thing.

  I look at myself in the side-­view mirror and chuckle. Turning to him, I ask, “How do I look?”

  Adam gazes over at me, and the corner of his mouth pulls up in a grin. “Tu sembles chaud.”

  I’m helpless to stop the giggle that escapes my mouth. Adam Everest just said I look hot. He smiles appreciatively at me.

  “Merci,” I finally manage, and he winks at me, which nearly makes me giggle all over again. Who is this girl and why won’t she get out of my body?!

  “You ready to get started on that fourth chapter?” he asks after I’ve been staring out the open window long enough to get a grip on my ditzy alter ego.

  I recline my seat and sink into it, whining, “Do we have to?” We’ve been studying in IHOP for almost three hours straight, and even though we’re making good time and Adam is really like some sort of damn prodigy with all the progress he’s making, I’m getting really tired of staring at that blasted textbook.

  He shrugs. “I’m cool with not studying if you are, but I’m legally obligated to inform you that by refusing to tutor me, you will no longer reserve the right to hold me to the terms of our wager.”

  I groan. “Okay, we’ll study. Give me . . . half an hour.”

  I lay my head against the headrest and inhale a deep breath of muggy afternoon air. It smells like asphalt and the decay of summer. Fall has been slow in getting here this year, but the October leaves are finally beginning to change color in spite of today’s vengeful heat.

  When Adam plugs his phone into the radio and hands it to me, I scroll through the song list to find instrumental versions of his band’s music and pick a song that has a familiar title. When it plays through the speakers, I turn my head to him. “Sing for me again?”

  He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, and then I watch as a bad idea curls the corner of his mouth. “Let’s make a trade.”

  Uh-­oh . . . “What kind of trade?”

  “I’ll sing you a song if you do a tequila shot with me tonight.”

  I shake my head. “No deal.”

  “Aw, come on! Why not?” He looks over at me, an indignant sparkle in his eyes.

  I shrug. “Not a fair trade.” Do a body shot with Adam Everest? Uh, yeah, it would be more than a fair trade. Girls would trample each other for the opportunity. Hell, maybe that’s what Leti’s dream had been about. Maybe it was a psychic vision.

  I can’t tell Adam that the real reason I won’t do shots with him is because every time his lips are on me, I never want him to take them off. And if I put mine on him . . . I honestly can’t even predict what would come of that. Probably Dee’s dream come true. Unfortunately, my answer only encourages him.

  “Alright, what do you want then?” he asks.

  I chuckle and shake my head.

  “Come on, just name it!”

  “I don’t want anything!”

  “You have to want something.”

  I pick up Adam’s p
hone and change it to the noninstrumental version. His voice sings through the speakers, and I grin at him triumphantly.

  But he’s smiling right back. “Not what you really wanted though, is it?”

  I huff and turn the radio down, and he laughs at me.

  “I’ll think about it,” I say, pulling my phone from a cup holder so I can check my messages.

  “Think about what you want, or think about doing a shot with me?”

  “Both.”

  I’m not crazy—­I’m so not going to think about it.

  When I turn on my phone, I have texts from Dee and Leti, but none from Brady. I’m thankful this is one of the few days that he hasn’t messaged me first thing in the morning—­because today has been good so far and I really want to keep it that way.

  Dee texted me a few times to “check the status” of my “imminent deflowering.” I text her back to let her know that my daisies remain unplucked and healthy as ever, and to wish her good luck on her first day at the new job.

  Leti texted me to let me know that he had another dream about Adam. In this one, I was apparently sitting on Adam’s lap in French class telling him everything I wanted for Christmas, and Leti was pissed as hell because he had been in line to sit on Adam’s lap first.

  While reading his text, I bust up laughing so hard that tears pour from my eyes, and Adam turns a curious glance in my direction. Leti’s next message asks me to send him another picture of Adam today to make up for my “bitch-­slap-­worthy line-­cutting” last night. After I finish my hysterical laughing, I ask Adam if I can take another picture of him for a friend of mine.

  “Only if you do a tequila shot with me tonight,” he replies matter-­of-­factly.

  I roll my eyes and tell him what I’m texting to Leti as I type it into my phone.

  Sorry, but his highness Adam Everest is being a total freaking diva today.

  Adam chuckles. “Tell your friend why I won’t let you. Let’s see whose side they’re on then.”

  God, I can just imagine how that conversation would go. Dee would probably quit her new job just so she and Leti could drive all the way out to the next venue and hold me down while Adam licked salt off my stomach.