by Kate Morris
“Well, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I apologize anyway. That was not a proud moment.”
“It’s fine. No worries,” she said and looked surprised about it. “I…I don’t even care.”
He was pretty sure that wasn’t true.
“Where are you really from?”
Her aqua eyes widened, and a pink blush spread up her neck and onto her cheeks. It matched the color of her lips. She actually stuttered, “Wh-what?”
“I hear your accent sometimes. Like just now when you said ‘no.’ Is it British? Are you from Great Britain?”
“I’m from California,” she told him with the idiot look again.
“Maybe. But not originally,” he said. It was bugging him. She was different from the other girls because he knew nothing about her, and she liked it that way. He didn’t, though, and also didn’t even know why it bugged him.
She tried to chuff and snort and act like he was crazy, which only further fueled his theory. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just tired. Sometimes I slur my words when I’m tired.”
“‘Doe-weren’t’ again. That’s not a slur. The word is don’t. I don’t know what you hear when you say it, but I hear doe-weren’t. That’s a whole new dialect,” he said, getting the widening of the aquamarine eyes again.
“You’re so stupid.”
“So-er?” he mimicked perfectly this time. Then he remembered in that journal she’d left in the library this morning. He’d peeked in it. Elijah didn’t really know why he’d done it; he just had. She’d disguised it as an English notebook by labeling it as such, but when he’d opened the cover, he’d discovered a journal instead. There were drawings, too. Nothing professional level. More like the bored doodling of a teenager. She’d written a short poem about the ocean and drew waves. She wrote about a town she’d either lived in or extensively researched. He wasn’t sure. They were short blurbs, nothing more than a paragraph. Then she doodled more waves or a surfboard. She also drew palm trees. She must’ve really liked the beach, waves, and the sun.
“You had a picture of waves in your notebook…”
She screeched at him, “You looked in my journal?”
“No, I just…”
“You are such an asshole,” she hissed in a tone that was as quiet as it was fierce. Even in her angry state, she was well aware of the little girl in the other room.
“It wasn’t on purpose…”
She said more loudly this time, “Ha! Right! How exactly does one not purposely open the cover of a journal?”
“Notebook,” he corrected, getting angry. She growled at him.
“You had no right!”
“I was trying to make sure it was yours,” he lied. Man, that sounded stupid, too. She obviously wasn’t buying it, either because her stare intensified. Of course, it was hers. She’d been the only one sitting with him.
“You liar,” she accused.
“But listen to me for a second,” he said, trying to make her see what he was getting at. “Calm down a minute and listen.”
She arched a black eyebrow at him. “Excuse me? Did you just tell me to calm down?”
“Try being rational for a minute. I’m trying to tell you that I wasn’t snooping. You’re just not a very easy person to get to know…”
“Did you ever think for one second…” she paused as if she were having trouble remembering something, “Golden Boy, that maybe I like it that way?”
It dawned on Elijah that she didn’t know or remember his name. Man, that was an ego buster.
“Do you even know my name?”
“What?”
“Whart?” he imitated because she’d just insulted him by calling him that stupid, annoying Golden Boy name she’d assigned him. And also, his ego was in serious, physical pain at her not knowing his actual name.
“Shut up!” she hissed in a more hushed whisper and looked toward the living room as if she didn’t want Hope to hear him, which made no sense.
“Why are you worried…”
Her phone buzzed on the small table, and she actually jumped. “Shit,” she swore. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Then she flew at him from her chair, straddled his lap, and slammed her hand over his mouth. Elijah was too stunned to move.
She hit the talk button on her phone, “Yeah?”
He could hear a man’s voice on the other end. Boyfriend? He placed his hand over hers to remove it, but she shook her head and clamped down harder.
“Yeah, just me and Hope. She’s just chillin’ on the sofa.”
Elijah leaned back, but she just followed and kept her hand over his mouth.
“No, we already ate,” she said and then slapped her forehead. “Oh, what? Um, yeah, pizza. I went and picked it up.”
Her muscular thighs were gripping his so tightly, Elijah was pretty sure she could probably kill someone doing this. It was also strangely arousing having her sitting so intimately on and against him. He opened his mouth to speak only to have her remove her hand from her forehead and practically smother his mouth with it. She also leaned into him, way into him. Her breasts were shoved flat against his chest, her face about an inch from his. She shook her head and warned him with her eyes not to speak. Maybe she really could kill someone with her thigh muscles. If that didn’t work, her stare might. Or that gun in the cupboard.
“Of course. Yes, I know. I used cash. Don’t worry,” she said and paused as the man’s voice rose in volume. “I know!”
Her temper was starting to flare at whoever she was speaking to on the other end of the line. Then her eyes grew huge.
“You are? ’Kay. Gotta go. Hope needs me!”
She hung up and looked at him. Something in her registered what she was doing, where she was sitting, and how close they were. Elijah’s hand just barely touched down on the top of her thigh before she jumped out of his lap as if there was a fire under her butt and said, “You gotta leave!”
“What?” he asked with surprise. He’d thought maybe she was interested in him. Girls didn’t usually sit on his lap unless they were looking for something.
“Now! I mean it. Right now,” she said and dashed to the kitchen window. “Crap! No time. He’s home! You gotta go. Come on.”
She dragged him by his shirt through the living room and down the hall, and Elijah followed.
“Is someone here? Your uncle?” he asked as he tried to shoulder his backpack. It fell back off, so he just carried it in his hand.
“Yep,” she said loudly as if it weren’t a good scenario.
“I could meet him. Shake his hand. Introduce myself…”
She pulled him into her bedroom, which was very small, and shut the door behind them. Then she twisted the two locks, which looked awfully extreme for just someone’s bedroom door lock. It looked like the kind of locking system you’d put in an apartment in a dangerous city. As a matter of fact, the door itself looked like steel, not something he would’ve expected in a trailer.
“Look, you gotta go,” she said, her accent on full-frontal display now. “I mean it. You cannot be here.”
“What’s the deal?” he asked, looking around. His eyes landed on a world map with many pushpins stuck in it. “Have you been to all these places? Wow.”
She ignored him and went to her window, shoving it upward.
“Wait, you want me to go out the freakin’ window?”
“Yep!” she said just as loudly as if he were the stupid one for not catching on. “Right now. If you want to live to play in that game Friday, Golden Boy, then ya’ gotta go.”
“Alright, fine,” he conceded. “I’ll go-er,” he teased and got a dirty glare. “but I want something in return.”
“What? You’re bribing me? I’m trying to save your life, you idiot.”
“I’m not above bribery, so it would seem.”
He grinned. She definitely did not.
“Go with me to the homecoming dance,” he said.
“Are you crazy
? Does this look like the sort of household that allows people to go on dates? I’m making you jump out a window over just studying together.”
“Good point,” he said. “Then don’t go with me. Just go. I’ll meet you there.”
“No…”
“Was that a car door I just heard?”
Her head whipped to the side. When she turned back, Elijah felt bad. Her eyes were wide with panic.
“Agreed?” He didn’t feel that bad.
She blew out a sigh of exasperation, “Fine. Just go!”
“I’m go-er-ing,” he mocked and got punched in the back of his shoulder as he hoisted out the window and landed the few feet to the ground softly. When he turned to look up at her, she was already shutting the window and was looking over her shoulder with panicked eyes.
Chapter Eight
Nearly four days went by since she forced Golden Boy out the window. Her heart had eventually slowed to a normal pace after her uncle had come home. She was glad Hope was asleep, too, or she could’ve told him about the visit from Golden Boy. The only thing he’d questioned was where all the pizza went. She’d had to lie and say that she’d eaten six slices. It worked with her follow-up lie of a sick stomach before taking Hope to bed with her as soon as he’d locked up for the night. She did get a slightly suspicious look from him as she’d never eaten that much food in her life.
There was a fall festival going on in town tonight with fair rides, food vendors, a stage where bands would be playing and amusements of the varying degree. She had no intention of going.
“But she really wants to go. Just for an hour?” Lila was begging.
It was Saturday, and this festival happened every year. This year the town was especially pleased because their football team, led by the Chosen One himself, had beat the tar out of one of their biggest rivals. She hadn’t committed the team’s name to memory, but they had a parade this morning, supposedly, to celebrate the win and to kick off the stupid festival.
“I kinda’ just wanted to stay in,” she admitted.
Lila snorted. “That’s all you ever do, girl! Go out! Have some fun. Let loose. I’ll get off at eight. How ‘bout I meet you at the merry-go-round around then, and Alex and I can take her off your hands?”
She paused and sighed. Hope was also staring up at her with big eyes befitting her name.
“Alright, I’ll do it,” she relented. “I’ll take her.”
“Awesome!” Lila chirped. “Here’s fifty bucks. That’ll get you guys in and pay for food and ride passes. I’d better go. Don’t want to be late. We’ve had some call-offs, and a weird thing happened yesterday.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not sure,” she said and left her trailer as Wren followed after her. “One of the cooks at the restaurant attacked another one. Tried to stab him or something. It was crazy.”
“Crazy,” Wren repeated, thinking back to the incident in the pharmacy.
“Yeah, his eyes were all bloodshot like he was strung out or something. Just strange ‘cuz he was never like that. He was actually a good guy.”
“Hm,” Wren contemplated. That definitely was a similar detail in both cases. Maybe some drug dealer in the area was selling a botched batch of illegal drugs. “What happened?”
“Cops and an ambulance had to be called. It was nuts. Big mess. Anyway, now we’re short-handed. You could take her around five. That way you two can eat and ride some rides. See you guys at eight.”
“’Kay, see ya’.”
She kept getting roped into doing things she didn’t want to do like studying with that boy twice, taking Hope to a festival, and agreeing to meet that boy at some silly school dance. That was definitely not happening. No way. Uncle Jamie would kill her. And she didn’t owe Golden Boy anything. She didn’t care if he told everyone at school if she stood him up, either. What they thought of her didn’t matter one whit to Wren. She didn’t care what he thought of her, either. She told herself that repeatedly. She hoped one of these times it stuck.
In the meantime, she worked on school assignments and cleaned the trailer while Hope played with her toys. Her uncle was working overtime on this massive stadium job. She’d confirmed that he was working for the same company as Golden Boy’s brother, whose name she also hadn’t committed to memory. It didn’t matter.
When Hope got cranky, Wren put her down for a nap around one and kept on working. She even carved out time to go for a quick run while the little girl slept. She slept pretty hard most of the time. She locked the trailer just to be safe and always kept the child watch wrist monitor on the little girl that synched to the one she wore when she babysat her, though. When she returned less than a half hour later, she grabbed a fast shower. She chose from the meager pile of clothing she kept in a cardboard box in the bottom of her closet. Packing light was a way of life. She could be ready to leave this spot at a moment’s notice. So, she pulled on faded black jeans with scuffed and threadbare knees. Next, she put on a white tank top and a lightweight gray hoodie for the Marvel Universe comic book company. It was old and the material thinning in spots, but she didn’t care. There was sentimental value there, so she didn’t want to throw it out and couldn’t order another online because she wasn’t allowed to go online. Then her leather boots and matching short jacket came next in case it was going to get chilly later. The weather here seemed very unpredictable.
After blowing her hair dry and applying black eyeliner, mascara, and red lip balm to keep her lips from chapping, she woke Hope around four o’clock to get ready to go to the festival. All she had to do was say ‘festival’ and the munchkin was dressing herself. She even put on her own tennis shoes, even though they were just Velcro straps and not laces. Wren helped her into her fleece jacket, though. Then she buckled her in the back seat of her Honda and left for the festival.
Finding a parking place was more difficult than anything else. She finally found one in an alley near a bar about four blocks from the downtown area where the festivities were taking place.
She paid for their wristbands and entry fee, and Hope jumped up and down with excitement.
“Horseys!” she squealed, spotting a ring of ponies being led in circles. She repeated it about ten more times.
“Sure,” Wren said and led her that way. It was an extra fee, so she took it out of her pocket and paid for it herself, saving back Lila’s money so she could buy Hope food.
When she was done riding the pony, Wren took her on a few of the smaller rides like the children’s roller coaster and the spinning barrels, which left her stomach a little upset. Then they went through a haunted house attraction that the worker assured her was safe for kids. Hope laughed the whole time, but Wren thought it was creepy. She rode another ride with her that resembled a pirate ship that swayed to and fro, and that was it. She needed a break. Wren had never been a fan of carnival rides. Sometimes she got sick from the motion, especially anything repeatedly circular. She wasn’t sure why it happened, but it did. She had a hard time focusing after she got off. Festivals, fairs, and amusement parks were never high on her priority list. Plus, for the past four years, she only had Jamie to go to one with, and he was always busy.
She fed her a corndog and fries and ate only a few of Hope’s fries, washing hers down with a soda. Her stomach was feeling funky after that last ride. She gave Hope chocolate milk. When she had the little girl’s mouth wiped off and clean, they walked around, checking out the various attractions. There was, indeed, a band playing. It was mostly folksy music, but some of the songs were good. She let her play a game where she had to throw a ping-pong ball into a jar to win a prize.
“Okay, aim,” she instructed the little one. “Now, just toss it in there.”
“’Kay. ‘Kay, Wren,” she said, still not getting the ‘r’ sound in her name.
She just smiled and watched Hope toss ball after ball into the square full of jars in the middle of the gaming pen.
“Hey,” someone said beside her in a deep voic
e, causing Wren’s hand to reach instinctively for her jacket. “How’s it going?”
Golden Boy. Of course. Did he have one of those child watch bands on her or something? He always seemed to find her.
“Is this all in your honor?” she jabbed and waved her hand around indicating the festival.
He chuckled once and shook his head, “No, not me. Just to celebrate the season so far. They do it every year.”
She nodded just as Hope made a white ball fall into one of the glass jars. She squealed so loudly and so high pitched that Wren thought she might break those jars. If she was jumping up and down before, the kid was setting some sort of record now.
“You won!” Wren said, encouraging her.
“Good job, Hope,” Golden Boy praised.
“Thanks, Jai-jah,” she answered, causing Wren to frown and speculate at how she was mispronouncing his name. What the hell was his name anyway? Right. Golden Boy.
“You get to pick one out, little lady,” the carny said to her, pointing to the small stuffed animals hanging down from the top of the tent. She chose a pink bunny.
“So, you girls want some company?” he asked.
“No, thanks.”
“Yes, yes, yes, Jai-jah!” she cried and took his massive hand in hers. Hers was completely swallowed by his, but he didn’t pull away as if he were annoyed by her or thought she was a nuisance.
Wren frowned harder this time. It didn’t seem to matter what she said anyway. She was stuck with him as he followed them from attraction to attraction. After a while, Hope held up her tiny, spindly arms, and Golden Boy hoisted her onto his shoulders.
“Hey, bro!” a young man from the team, apparently, his friend slapped him on the back. “Coming to the party tonight?”
“Nah, can’t, Jeremy,” he answered.
“Aw, man, come on,” Jeremy replied as a group of jersey chasers and other football players gathered around. The girls were circling their prey. Wren had heard the term ‘jersey chasers’ while she was in the restroom one day at school. It seemed pretty fitting as she watched the girls drool over Golden Boy and his friends from the team.
