The waffles appeared along with the coffee and conversation halted while Grace passed everything out. The syrup was shared around the table and everyone dug in, anxious to get away from the conversation.
When Gina and Mikey had fallen into an argument about something music related, Troy nudged my foot under the table again. I looked up at him, anxious to hear what he had to say. “Would you have said yes before now? If I had asked you out?”
“No,” I told him honestly. “I totally underestimated you before today.”
He smiled at my candidness. “Yeah? And what about now? What if I ask you out tonight?”
“I don’t know… You’re threatening nerds and lying about homework. You’re kind of a bad influence.”
We both knew that was a joke, since he looked like the golden boy and I looked like something straight out of the mouth of hell.
To keep from continuing the conversation, I dug into my waffles, sticking a huge bite in my mouth. Oh, my god. Troy was right. These waffles were bombdiggity.
I tried not to moan, but my eyes definitely rolled into the back of my head.
When I came down from my waffle high, I found Troy watching me expectantly. “Well, Carmichael? What do you think?”
He was obviously right. These waffles were the best thing I had ever tasted. But we also had a bet. And he might be the football stud, but I hated losing. “They’re horrible,” I told him around another bite. “So gross.”
“I guess that means I’ll be paying for them then,” he conceded.
“Duh.”
And then I finished the entire plate of waffles.
But Troy still paid for me.
After the boys paid for our meals, we waddled out to the parking lot to head to the show. The sun sat just on the edge of the horizon, ready to dip down any second.
It would be dark soon and this far away from city lights, it would get really dark. I was anxious to get to the show.
During our waffles we’d avoided any more talk of Battle of the Bands. It was beyond awkward now that Troy’s feelings were out in the open and I was headed to see a different guy.
We’d still had fun though. Troy had spent the entire night confusing me. I knew I wanted Jake. I could only remember ever wanting Jake.
Jake was also… I didn’t even know how to say it. Jake was like this idea… this thing I held onto when everything else was going wrong. Jake Turner was the thing that filled up my daydreams and gave me something to wish for.
But had I ever considered him a real possibility? Or even a real person? Beyond the fantasy?
I’d learned more about Troy Cameron in one day than I knew about Jake Turner after living next door to him for almost my entire life.
That wasn’t right.
On the other hand, Jake had invited me backstage tonight. That was huge! This was my chance to put reality behind the myth of Jake Turner and discover the man I knew he was.
The man I knew was right for me.
At least for tonight.
Troy opened my door for me and stayed close while I approached the car. “You good, Carmichael? I didn’t freak you out or anything did I?”
I looked up at him, unable to keep from teasing him. “I always suspected that you were mental. But now I have proof. I like being right.”
His smile made my stomach do that flippy thing again. “You look good tonight, Cass. Can’t say that I’m sorry about any of it.”
I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth and struggled to find the right thing to say. In the end, I settled on, “Thank you. For the compliment and for driving us tonight. Even if you did have to bully an innocent geek.”
He leaned in, brushing his nose along mine. “Worth it,” he whispered.
I sucked in a breath, expecting him to kiss me, but he pulled back instead and jogged around to the driver’s side.
Ignoring the pang of disappointment slicing through me, I plopped down on the seat and slammed the door shut.
“Battle of the Bands!” Mikey hollered out the window as Troy pulled back onto the main road.
The boys rolled down the windows and the cool air whipped through the car, making my hair crazy and my skin pebble with goosebumps. But I didn’t care. This had been the perfect night so far. Maybe it was nothing like I expected, but it had been everything I needed.
Rolling down my own window, I let my hand dangle in the rush of air. I held it flat and let it dance in the wind, waving up and down as the breeze took it.
My hair tangled in front of my face, so I grabbed it with my other hand and pulled it back out of my eyes.
In my peripheral, I caught Troy staring, so I turned to him. The expression on his face made my heart thump heavily and I had to whisper my question. “What?”
His voice was deep and sincere when he said, “You’re fricking beautiful, Cass. Do you know that?”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow. I had been told I was pretty before. In high school, when I played by the rules and dressed like everyone else. Guys had told me I was pretty and gorgeous and hot and whatever. But nobody had ever sounded like Troy.
Nobody had ever been this sincere… this struck by me.
And how he thought that when I looked like this was beyond me. I dressed like this on purpose—to keep people at bay. I had enough shit in my life right now, I just wanted the rest of the world to leave me alone.
Except Troy wasn’t capable of that.
He invaded my life and my space and my head, whether I wanted him to or not. He saw past the black clothes and the heavy makeup and somehow saw me.
Knew me.
It didn’t make sense to me. But looking at him now, the way he stared at me… the way he made me feel so… noticed… it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have to make sense.
He just had to keep being him.
“Troy, look out!” Mikey yelled from the backseat.
The intimate moment Troy and I had been having across the front seat of the car was abruptly ruined when Troy looked forward again and slammed on his brakes. Something fat, rodent-like and mean looking was currently waddling across the gravel road.
The orange station wagon swerved sharply all over the place as Troy did his best to avoid the fugly animal. One of his arms shot out to hold me in place, as if he could protect me with just the strength of that one appendage. Gina and I screamed when the car did a complete three-sixty and then drove off the road into the brambled ditch.
Our bodies jerked forward and then back when we finally came to a complete stop. We were no longer on the road. Or facing the right direction. But everything was put into perfect clarity when the absolute silence was interrupted by a telltale pop and then a loud hiss.
My side of the car dipped down as the popped tired deflated quickly.
“Well, hell,” Gina mumbled.
Troy’s outstretched arm dropped to the seat and he stared blankly out the window. “Is everyone alright?”
We all murmured our fines, but it was the car I was most worried about. We’d been driving for at least fifteen minutes, so it was a long walk back to the diner. And an even longer walk to Graffiti’s. But most importantly, it was a hella long way back to civilization and the chances of someone stumbling upon us in the middle of nowhere were slim to none.
“What was it?” Gina asked. “What nearly killed us?”
“An opossum,” Troy answered. “I should have bulldozed the frickin’ thing.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Troy Albert Cameron, campus bully, defender of wildlife.”
His head snapped to mine, “Keep it up, Carmichael. See what happens.”
I pressed my lips together and made a fake zipping motion.
After another one of his charming smiles, he let out a slow breath and dropped his head on the steering wheel. His fingers reached down and turned the car off. “Well, we better start walking. Otherwise we’re likely to rot out here.”
“Why?” Gina squeaked. “Are there wild animals?”
Both boys laughed at her. “There’s nothing out here,” Mikey said. “That’s the point. Nobody’s going to find us unless we get our asses moving.”
He had a point.
By the time we rolled up our windows and Troy locked the car, the sun had completely disappeared behind the horizon. The stars came out to wink at us and a clear moon lit up the road for us to see.
We walked for what seemed like forever—long enough for Gina to start complaining about her feet in those boots and Mikey to offer to give her a piggyback ride. My feet were fine in my more practical boots, but the temperature had dropped drastically and I couldn’t help but shiver in the cold night. Without a word, Troy shrugged out of his leather jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. It was still warm from him and smelled like heaven. When I slipped my arms into the sleeves, they dangled way past my hands.
I should have felt small and slight compared to Troy. But the opposite happened. His jacket made me feel safe… secure… protected.
We had finally made it to the main highway when headlights appeared out of nowhere. Rescue!
Troy immediately stuck out his thumb and I did the same. I had taken a lot of buses in my life, but hitchhiking was new to me.
Although I’d always fantasized about hitchhiking around the States. I couldn’t imagine a better summer than seeing as many of the fifty states as possible with nothing to worry about except my thumb and where I was going to lay my head that night.
The truck saw us and slowed down when it got near. I hoped that it would stop and I was very relieved when it finally slowed down.
The driver leaned over and rolled down the window to a super old, light blue truck. “Car trouble?” he asked. He reminded me of one of the dwarves on Snow White. He had a crazy white beard that matched the color of the hair sticking out of his ears. His truck smelled like oil and gas and his denim overalls were covered in grease.
Sneezy—that was who he reminded me of.
“Flat tire,” Troy explained. “Back that way.”
The driver glanced in the direction Troy pointed and gave a grim nod. He didn’t want to go back that way. Damn, he wasn’t going to help.
“But we need to get to a concert tonight,” Troy added quickly. “Are you going by Graffiti’s by chance? We’ll take a ride that way and worry about the car later.”
“Yeah, I ‘spose,” the truck driver said. “I can drop you by there. It’s on my way home.”
Troy glanced over his shoulder with a huge grin on his face. “Thanks, mister. We really appreciate it.”
The stranger waved us off. “Yeah, well, you’re going to have to squeeze up here with me. I’ve got dead chickens in the back.”
Since not one of us wanted to confirm whether he was lying or not we decided to squeeze up front on the bench seat.
Mikey got in first and Gina climbed onto his lap—the only place to sit. Then Troy got in and I climbed onto his lap next.
Troy reached out with his long arm and shut the door hard enough to rattle the car. The stranger made a grunting noise, but didn’t complain.
He pulled back onto the road and stared straight ahead. Meanwhile I was left to sit on Troy’s lap and try not to swoon.
Troy eventually wrapped his arm around my waist to keep me from falling off him. I held onto his arm, but sat rigidly upright.
This was too intimate.
Too close.
His body heat covered my back and his muscular thighs made a very comfortable seat. I wanted to lean back into him and curl into the curve of his body.
But those were crazy thoughts.
Jake Turner, my brain whispered to my heart. But my heart hardly cared about Jake at this point. Which made me wonder if I had ever really cared about Jake… or was it the idea of him that had kept me so loyal all these years?
Secret embarrassment bubbled up inside me and I tried to push it down. I tried to pretend like I had a right to love Jake—or even like him. I tried to pretend like there was a reason to be so hung up on him or to expect that something would happen between us.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t even trick myself.
I realized that Jake had been safe for me. Because he was an idea and a daydream, he couldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t leave me.
Before this last year, he had only been a crush. But recently I’d turned him into something more. Something he could never be for me.
And now there was this super-hot, super nice guy sitting just behind me and I wanted to justify a relationship that was probably never going to happen?
God, I was so confused.
Troy’s arm snaked around my middle and pulled me back, closer to his body. “Sorry,” he murmured. “This is more comfortable.”
I tilted my head so I could see him. “I bet it is.”
His devilish smile told me everything I needed to know. “Hey, I’m taking you to meet up with another guy. I gotta get my kicks where I can.”
Guilt mingled with my already confused thoughts. “That was nice of you. You could have made us go back to the orange-mobile and deal with your tire.”
His chuckle vibrated against my back and butterflies erupted in my belly. “The orange-mobile?”
“Have you seen it?” I asked him. “It looks like my Grandma Florence’s sofa if it had four wheels and an engine.”
“Hey now, that orange-mobile got you to Graffiti’s, didn’t it?”
“No,” I argued. “No it did not. It got a flat tire and gave up. It didn’t even get us anywhere near Graffiti’s.”
“Well, close enough,” he added. “If we wouldn’t have gotten those waffles, we would have been fine.”
I turned and smacked his shoulder playfully. “Those waffles were your idea!”
“And you should be thanking me for them.” He squeezed my side and I squirmed spastically. “You loved them.”
“I’ll never admit that. Not if I keep getting to eat them for free.”
“Well, you have to keep hanging out with me for that. So…”
I elbowed him in the chest. “You’re relentless.”
His nose skimmed over the shell of my ear, whispering, “And you’re perfect.”
“This is it, right?” the driver asked loudly, completely interrupting our moment.
I blinked up at the wide, flat building that housed Graffiti’s and tried to work up some enthusiasm. This was it! Jake Turner! Fresh Suicide! Backstage!
Only they all fell flat. If I was honest with myself, I could have rode around in this stranger’s truck for the rest of the night and not even noticed that I missed the Battle of the Bands.
As long as I got to keep sitting on Troy’s lap.
“This is it,” Mikey replied. “Thanks again for the ride, man.”
“Welcome,” the guy grunted.
Troy’s hand released my waist and opened the door for us. He helped me down from the cab and then turned to help Gina too. When he turned back to me, his eyes were sad and his smile had completely disappeared.
My chest ached at the sight of him like this. I had only had tonight with him, but his expression made my heart hurt.
“Ready for this?” he asked.
I wanted to tell him no. Or that I wasn’t sure. Or that maybe we could find a ride back to that obscure gravel road and then hang out at his aunt’s diner all night.
Instead, I nodded my head and tossed out a casual, “I was born ready. Are you ready for this?
He didn’t say anything. He just shrugged and grabbed my hand so he could lead us in the building.
It was in that moment that I realized I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.
We handed over our tickets and got MINOR stamped on our hands in black ink at the door. Mad Dog was there to check our IDs and welcome us with a grimace and grunt toward the stage.
I couldn’t help but smile as we stepped into the smoke filled room. A bar lined one side of the open space, filled with college kids old enough to drink or
lucky enough to have a fake ID that didn’t look fake. Half the filthy floor was covered with tall tables and barstools and the other half cleared out so kids could smoosh together in front of the stage. It smelled like sweat, cigarettes and the sticky sweet hint of bud.
Fresh Suicide was already on stage, jamming to one of my favorites. Jake had his guitar strung over his front, shouting into the microphone. The place was going nuts.
We pushed through sweaty bodies in the back, making our way as close to the stage as we could get. Troy leaned down and shouted something in my ear, but it was too crazy loud, I couldn’t hear him.
I turned and shrugged, motioning at my ear. The expression on his face made me falter. He looked wounded… hurt. His eyes were tight with frustration and I could tell he did not want to be here.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be here either anymore.
Gina grabbed my hand, unaware of the moment passing between Troy and me, and tugged me along. I let her lead, weaving us through the pressing crowd.
It wasn’t until we’d made it close to the stage that I realized what Troy had yelled. I turned around to look for him, but I already knew he didn’t follow us.
He was going to hang in the back of the room. That’s what he had told me.
For the first time all night, I no longer had to worry about Troy. And I hated it.
Gina threw our hands in the air and screamed for the band. She started jumping along with everyone in the crowd and I no longer had the ability to worry about Troy anymore. It was join them or die.
I threw my other hand in the air and tried to get into the music that I loved so much. I watched Jake and tried to feel the same excited anticipation I always felt when he was around. I tried to lose myself in the crowd and the energy and the night.
But all of it had lost its luster.
The music was too loud, grating on my raw nerves. The crowd was too close, too hot, too aggressive. The band sounded good—they always sounded good, but they couldn’t capture my attention like they used to.
And Jake…
We were close enough that he noticed me. His chin lifted in acknowledgment and there was a twinkle in his eye when he checked me out.
1988: Need You Tonight (Love in the 80s: A New Adult Mix) Page 5
