My 90s Boy Band Boyfriend: A YA Time Travel Rockstar Romance (Teen Queens Book 2)

by Jennifer Griffith

  “You are.” Barnard’s eyes widened, but not with surprise or delight. They were hot with rage. “Where’s my brother!”

  ***

  It took a full twenty minutes to calm Barnard down after he chased Hudson with an obviously defunct chainsaw around the overgrown yard for a while yelling at him for taking away the family’s brightest light, and for dragging their family through the hardest times, and a bunch of other stuff Oakley didn’t really want to compute. It seemed Hudson wasn’t the only one who blamed him for the deaths of the other three members of Girl Crazy. At least for that moment.

  At last, when Barnard had collapsed on a tree stump and let his emotions dwindle down, his shoulders shaking with the effort, he looked up at Hudson and said, “Hey, man. I’m really sorry about the murder attempt. I’ve just been kind of mad at you.” He still looked angry. “And by kind of mad, I mean seriously ticked.” He didn’t say ticked.

  “Yeah.” Hudson sat down next to him. “I can’t blame you. I’m mad at me, too.”

  Barnard stared off into the distance. “What happened?”

  It seemed like Hudson didn’t know what to say. Neither did Oakley. This guy had been suffering with the loss for a lot of years. He’d been living out here, for heaven’s sake, on a thread of hope. He should be haggard.

  “What can I say?”

  That he didn’t die, and no one knew why for sure?

  The air stilled for a while. Only the sound of distant barking dogs filled the air. Oakley worried that Barnard would change his mind and get the chain saw out again.

  “Say you’ll eat some lunch.”

  Lunch sounded a lot better than getting cut up by a chain saw. Oakley and Hudson followed him inside, where it was surprisingly a lot cleaner than it looked outside. Maybe the outside was a deterrent tactic.

  It worked.

  Over a can of SpaghettiOs, Oakley learned a lot more about the other three members of Girl Crazy—that Alfonzo had been on track to be a concert pianist, and that his family had sold their place in downtown Seattle to cover the cost of his lessons at the top teacher in the city; that Nick’s first instrument wasn’t the drums, it was the marimba, and he had aspirations to go to Washington State on a percussion scholarship—but to also study medicine; that Chris wore the military fatigues because he’d originally planned to go into the U.S. Army because his big dream was to fly helicopters. He played the bass guitar because he thought it had the same resonance as a chopper’s thrumming sound, and he was always trying to recreate that pulse in the other band members’ chests during practice.

  Hudson then told him about the crash, and about waking up two decades later.

  “Oh. So you haven’t been wandering the Camas River Gorge all these years?” Barnard harrumphed. “I thought maybe you were like the real Tom Cruise and had done a deal with El Diablo like The Portrait of Dorian Gray to keep looking young.”

  Likely Hudson didn’t get that reference, at least not the Tom Cruise looking young part. Oakley would have to show him an updated photo of the A-lister on her phone when they had reception again. It was spooky to be somewhere this murky without reception, especially if what Barnard said was true and only he and the dogs lived in these parts. Why was that? Had the dogs eaten everyone else?

  “I’m really sorry about Al. I didn’t mean to let him die. I would have saved all of them if I could have.”

  “And you just survived because—?” Barnard looked askance at him, blaming him again, though it would do no good.

  Hudson shrugged. “I don’t know. I really don’t.” He didn’t tell Barnard about the cresting rogue time wave theory, or even about the eleven eleven wish. That would probably have made Barnard think too much about why Alfonzo hadn’t wished for fate to intervene. The truth was, all of the guys probably had made that similar wish into the night as they screamed. It made so little sense for Hudson to be the only one left.

  Hudson looked agonized. For the first time in a couple of days survivor’s guilt decorated his face again like a twisted mask. Somehow, Oakley would have to figure out a way to help him through it.

  “Nice to reminisce, but you said you came for your box.” Barnard put both hands on the table and pushed his chair back. “It’s never been touched, I swear.”

  “Where’s your family?” Oakley asked. She probably shouldn’t have. It had been the two guys’ conversation. It was like Barnard was seeing her for the first time.

  “This is my girlfriend, Oakley Marsden. Sorry.” Hudson really should have introduced her before, but what with the chainsaw chase and all, it hadn’t been the right moment. “She’s cool.”

  She was? Oh. Okay. Awesome. Being introduced as Hudson Oaks’s girlfriend—again—was a far cry from Shoe Girl. Shoe Girl had never been cool. But Oakley had put Shoe Girl in a strongbox and buried her, never to dig her up again.

  “All right.” Barnard turned his face and looked at her out of the sides of his eyes. “She’s not going to hack me to bits in my bed now that she knows where I live?”

  Oakley laughed out loud. She probably cackled, in fact. “Hardly. I’m more of a struggling algebra student than an axe murderer.”

  “She’s cool. I swear it.”

  “Okay. I only have your word.” Barnard chilled out a bit. “Let’s go. Is she coming too?”

  Oakley did come with them, and she kept a keen eye on the rusty chainsaw, to see that it didn’t come as well. It didn’t.

  It was interesting to watch the two guys pace off the back yard. She didn’t count their steps, but she could hear them doing so. It occurred to her that this was an easy thing for Hudson to remember since he’d done it less than a week ago, according to his timeline. It was like his life had just flattened like an accordion by two decades, and he’d leapt from one fold to the next without even stretching.

  “There!” The tip of the shovel made a chinking sound. “That’s it, pal. Twenty-three years and five days later.” Barnard got down on his hands and knees and started to dig it out.

  It made sense that Barnard would know the time since the crash to the very day. Together, the two guys pulled the black metal box from the piles of dirt and the vines that tried to keep it captive. Hudson’s thumb whisked through a combination and popped open the lock.

  “Good as new.” Barnard grinned. So he didn’t think it was a dead cat after all.

  “Better. Those bonds have matured, and they’re worth twice what you put down on them. That’s not a bad return on investment.” Barnard took out a stack of what looked like paper money, held together by an elastic band, and fanned it against his face. “Not even damp. That was a good box.”

  “And you’re a good guy for keeping watch over it here for me.”

  “That’s why I never left.” Barnard grinned again. “I’m not a welcher when it comes to my word.”

  Oakley heard this and her heart panged. The reason Barnard had stayed with the wild dog packs was because he’d promised Hudson he would? The meaning of loyalty expanded in her mind. It was more than just stubbornly refusing to buy new shoes.

  Fine. I admit it. I knew Mom and Sherm would have bought me shoes at any point. I could have been free of my stigma. I could have walked away. Note to self: ask Mom for another pair of shoes, ones I can wear on off days, between days that required of the Boots of Amazingness. A lot of days could just be normal.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Barnard asked, grabbing an apple off a drooping tree limb, a match to his drooping mustache.

  “First thing, I’m going to hire a private investigator to find the rest of the band’s families—and mine, of course.”

  “You don’t have to pay a guy. I can give you Ignatius Torres’s number right now.”

  “Chris’s dad?”

  “Yeah. He’s been in touch. Lately, too. He says he thinks he finally has the evidence he needs to nail that guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “The one who sabotaged your plane.”

  “Sabotaged!�
�� Oakley’s throat clamped shut. She had to swallow hard to get it down. “What are you talking about? It was a storm that brought the plane down.”

  Barnard rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you keeping track? Apparently not.” He looked disgusted with her. “Well, those conspiracy theories won’t be theoretical for much longer. The facts are about to be made known to the world.”

  “What facts?” Hudson’s eyes narrowed. He was hearing this for the first time as well. “I saw Manny bail out. Manny was not the type to sabotage a plane.” Speaking of loyalty, Hudson displayed fierce loyalty to his friends, and that included Manny.

  Barnard looked like a cat who’d got a canary. “Ignatius Torres isn’t someone I’d want to tangle with any more than that pack of dogs you probably saw coming down the road.”

  Oakley had seen the theories. “But the plane checked out.” She’d seen the records in Mom’s scrapbook, and several articles on the forensics of the wreck. “The pilot himself was found dead. It was a storm. An accident.”

  Barnard narrowed his eyes at her but spoke to Hudson. “I thought you said she was cool.”

  Obviously sensing the danger, Hudson leaned between them. “She is. I swear.”

  Oakley trembled in Barnard’s gaze, a stare icy enough to sink the Titanic. After a few seconds he relented, and Oakley could breathe again.

  “If you’re in touch with Chris’s family,” she ventured, “what about Hudson’s?” She knew Hudson hadn’t asked yet, and she had a guess as to why—because what if Barnard had bad news for him? “They aren’t anywhere we can find.”

  “We can’t seem to find them, either.” Barnard smirked, and Oakley’s heart clunked to the floor—right next to Hudson’s, she imagined. “But that might be just because they want to stay off the grid. Chris’s dad might know where they are, if anyone does. He might just be keeping their location secure.”

  “But they’re alive. You know that?”

  Barnard shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “Can’t say for certain.”

  She exchanged glances with Hudson, and he looked as dejected as she’d ever seen him. She had to turn it around somehow. It was probably impolite of her to ask, but she knew Hudson would want to know. “Where is the rest of your family?”

  “They went back to Seattle when they realized Al wasn’t coming back.”

  “Did your dad find a job, then?” Hudson looked up, hope lighting his eyes. “I know he was a great mechanic.” That would explain some of the rusty metal around.

  “He went back first, and then Mom. And then the others. We all kind of trickled back to life. It took a couple of years. I stayed here. I wanted to be here if you ever came back, Hudson. I thought you would. Something inside me told me you would someday. I had a hunch.”

  Oakley’s eyes stung, and she drew a quick breath. The faith of this guy touched her. It was at least as strong as Mom’s. Something powerful had to be meant by this preservation of Hudson. What could it be that caused Mom and Barnard to know in their hearts they’d see him again? And why?

  ***

  The truck needed gas. Oakley needed food. SpaghettiOs hadn’t cut it. They went a little farther into town, rather than turning back toward Wood River like Mom had asked them to. Fine, but come right home. No messing around in the city, getting lost, and door-dinging people in parking lots.

  If that was the worst trouble she could think of Oakley getting into, Oakley knew she had Mom’s trust. And she didn’t want to violate it.

  Then again, she didn’t think going out for fast food was a violation of trust. They pulled into a gas station that had a restaurant attached. Burgers and fries sounded so good right now.

  “He said something about a sabotaged plane.”

  “I heard.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked over the greasy steam of the fries that smelled like heaven on earth.

  “I don’t know. But Chris did tell me his dad was a lawyer, and that they’d been in touch. Considering how driven Chris was at everything, I assume he inherited some of that from his dad. There was a lot of fight in that dog.”

  “Chris’s dad is the Ignatius person?”

  “Ignatius Torres, yeah.” Hudson took a big bite of his burger. “Some things never change.” He ate another bite. “Wait. Did they put sweet pickles on this?” He set his burger down in disdain. “What the—”

  She’d forgotten about that. “Sorry. I should have warned you.”

  “Yeah. You should have.” He eyed the hamburger with distrust. “What else is on it? Kale instead of lettuce?”

  He shouldn’t say that out loud. Somebody might get ideas.

  “Does your phone work now that we’re in town?” he asked after he’d decided the burger was safe for consumption again—after he’d removed all the offending sugar-laced pickles. “Could you make a call for me?”

  “Don’t tell me. Ignatius Torres?”

  “Yep.”

  “What are you going to say to him?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re not prank calling a lawyer. Every single phone on earth has caller-ID, dude. He will know how to find us if we truly annoy him. What if he’s busy in court and we interrupt him?” Being in Sherm’s family she knew the cardinal rules.

  “I don’t mean that.” Hudson snagged a few more fries. “I mean I’m not going to talk to him. You are.”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Uh, think about it.” Hudson gestured with his hands. “If he talks to me and I tell him who I am, that’s too much explaining to do.” So far, no one had utterly rejected time-jumping Hudson, but a no-nonsense attorney was likely to be the first candidate for that. “Just ask him where my family is.”

  “Chah!” She may have spray-spit this. “Like he’s going to tell me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, what kind of fib do you think would entice a lawyer to break confidentiality to a sixteen-year-old girl?”

  “You could … tell him you’re my daughter.”

  She threw up a little in her mouth.

  “I’m sixteen. Not twenty-three.”

  “But I’ve only been missing. Never confirmed dead.”

  “They’ll do a DNA test. It will bog everything down. They take a lot longer than they do on TV cop shows.”

  “What’s a DNA test?”

  “It’s like a paternity test, only a lot more extensive and precise. And then I’ll be charged with … I don’t know. Some crime like fraud. No, thanks.”

  “Fine.” Hudson sighed and took a spoonful of his chocolate shake. “No fibs. Just call him and tell him what’s going on then. Tell him the truth.”

  Uh, no? “You call him.” No way was Oakley dialing that phone.

  “You know that’s a risk.”

  “Every day we’re alive it’s a risk.” She should be telling this to herself, but she didn’t want to be the one talking to the lawyer. She knew Sherm’s colleagues a little and didn’t want to meet with the gruff answer. Hudson ought to do it. “Look. If this guy is still embroiled in some kind of ‘nailing the saboteur’ deal surrounding your death, it’s not like he won’t remember you.”

  Oakley knew she was making sense, and that she was getting through to him. Hudson squirmed in the booth seat across from her.

  “Why, exactly, don’t you want to talk to him?” But even as she asked it, she knew. He didn’t want to go through what he’d just endured with Barnard—the blame, the emotion, the loss all over again. The explanation was a burden, but the reaction was a millstone. It could drag him down. Hudson was already mourning the loss of his former life, and to have to relive it in front of people who likely saw him as a cog in the wheel of the machine that took their sons away, well, that would make it all the worse.

  “Fine.” She exhaled and closed her eyes.

  “You’ll do it?” Hudson looked a little brighter. She couldn’t resist him when his eyes lit up like that.

  “But I’m not calling Ignatius Torres.” She would swallow h
er pride and ask Sherm to do it.

  ***

  Kissing up to Sherm was not on Oakley’s list of favorite things. Already this week she’d had to ask him for his truck, as well as help finding information on Hudson’s family’s whereabouts, even though that hadn’t worked out. Going to him with another request made a million worms crawl in her stomach.

  Luckily, it was her night to make dinner, while Mom stayed late for faculty meeting. This was her big chance.

  “So, Sherm. How did you like your pork chop?” She picked up his dish and refilled his water glass.

  Hudson had already eaten and had left to go figure out some details with the bonds in his strongbox. She let him use her phone to figure out if they really were worth what he hoped they were. The number seemed too high to be accurate to Oakley—by at least ten times. Geez, how much money could two hit singles make? Couldn’t be that much. Seriously?

  “Great. Pork chops are my favorite dinner, you know.”

  She knew. And she knew he liked chocolate cake from Pepperidge Farm with a dash of home-toasted coconut and almonds. Those were coming next, along with the request.

  “I need a favor. What if there’s a lawsuit I need to know about?”

  “Lawsuit, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sherm took a first bite of his cake. “This is really good. Did you toast the coconut?” He took another bite. “Wow. I know what you’re doing. And whatever it is you need, you don’t have to butter me up with coconut and almonds, Oakley. Just spill it.”

  She plopped into the chair on the corner next to where Sherm sat at the head of the table. “Well, first, did you find anything on the Oaks family?”

  “Nothing. Sorry. All public record of them disappears about eighteen years ago.”

  Huh. Five years had been all the media circus they could take, she guessed. “Thanks for looking. Hudson thinks he might have another lead on them. That’s what I want to know about. The link is a legal case on behalf of the band members’ families. It’s being pursued by another attorney.”

  She told him about their trip to Barnard’s place, about the chainsaw, the SpaghettiOs, the leaning old piano, the strongbox and the bonds. Most of all, she told him how bad she felt for Barnard—and their family.