A Cruel Kind of Beautiful

by Michelle Hazen

  He’s relaxed with one hand tucked up under his head and those gorgeous lashes resting against his cheeks as a smile plays across his lips. “Ask me for a favor.”

  I frown. “Um, did you mean do you a favor?”

  “Uh-uh. Ask me for a favor.”

  I consider this. “Why, exactly?”

  “Because I want to hear one of your songs, and I’ve been listening to the radio nonstop but they haven’t come on. If I do you a favor, then I can ask you to sing me a song.”

  His eyes are closed so I don’t bother to hide the pleasure that tingles through me at the request. “Okay, what kind of favor can I get out of you?”

  “Well, I’m pretty good at throwing a baseball. If you need a baseball thrown, I’m your guy.”

  “Hmm, low on baseball needs currently. What else have you got?”

  “I can fix most things on a car as long as it’s not too new and it doesn’t require a hoist. Oh, and I’m excellent at reading books out loud with funny character voices.”

  “Now that’s tempting. I’ve got a lot of accounting reading to do and it could seriously benefit from funny character voices. But I also have a slipping clutch that Mom hasn’t had time to look at...”

  That gets his head up and eyes open. “Your mom normally works on your car?”

  I nod. “Grandpa was a master mechanic. Never made much money at it, but he scraped together enough to get Mom to college. Which is why she’s almost as good with cars as she is at mortgage finance.” She tried to teach me when I was younger, but I have the attention span of a fruit fly for mechanical things. Not that I’m about to admit that to Jacob.

  He drops his head back to the carpet with a groan. “God, that’s hot.”

  I smack him in the arm. “Gross! That’s my mother you’re speaking of.”

  “Sorry, but it is an objective fact that chick mechanics are hot. Chick mechanics, chick motorcycle riders, chick drummers...” He ticks them off on his fingers.

  Okay, that was definitely flirting. I glance away and push myself upright, curling my legs beneath me as I flip through the closest box of records. It puts an ache deep in my belly to know he has a thing for drummers. That is the last thing I want to be thinking about when all six feet plus of his flawless muscles are stretched out on my floor in front of me.

  As long as we were lying with eyes closed, absorbing the music together, I was okay. But now my skin heats and the fabric of my jeans seems suddenly coarse against my inner thighs. All my circuits are set to go, and yet I know if I were to draw him up to his feet and lead him back toward my bedroom, it would be a disaster. I’ve never had trouble with attraction. Just relationships and everything that goes with them.

  I swallow, tongue scraping the dry roof of my mouth.

  “Animals,” he says without opening his eyes.

  I nearly choke. “Sorry, what?”

  “Play The Animals next. I have a thing for the chord progression in ‘House of the Rising Sun.’”

  I put my hands to work searching for the album, because they obviously don’t know what’s good for them anyway.

  “So, I don’t mean to be creepy or anything...” Jacob begins.

  “But you’re wondering if my mom is free for dinner sometime?”

  “What?” He snorts. “Oh, no. Though if she has a trick for removing stripped-out screws, I’m all ears. What I was going to ask about was the show you had coming up. Are the tickets already sold out, or is it still open to the public, by any chance?”

  My fingers pause on the records. He actually sounds...interested. Andy loved to tell people his girlfriend was in a band, but he was so tied up with sports and his premed classes that he only ever made it to three of my shows, and he never seemed that into the music itself. “I, uh, I’ll have to check and see if there are any tickets left.” As if Dad and Jax wouldn’t both be blowing up my phone if we were sold out. I clear my throat. “Okay, I seriously can’t find The Animals anywhere. Are you sure you own that one?”

  He scoots up next to me. “No, I do. Some of these aren’t in their original sleeves.” He pretends to duck away from me in fear. “You’re not going to go all purist on me, are you?”

  I narrow my eyes. “Just don’t consider mixing up my sleeves, buddy.”

  “I got a lot of these from my dad.” His fingers flip through the records with the speed of long familiarity. “So some of the missing sleeves are his fault.”

  “Does your family live here in town?” I ask, and he fumbles one of the records and has to go back and check its label again.

  “Yeah.” Jacob clears his throat. “We grew up in Beaverton, which is pretty much Portland, but my little brother and I share an apartment a few blocks from campus.”

  “Does he go to the Stink, too?” I ask, using the unofficial nickname for PU.

  “No, Ben just turned eighteen and he’s kind of deciding which direction he wants to go right now. In the meantime, he works at AutoZone, which is nice for me because of his employee discount on parts.”

  “But he’s living with you because it gets him out of the house, right? It’s kind of painful doing college with your parents breathing down your neck and all.” I nod toward my phone and roll my eyes.

  His eyes flick up to me, then back down as he reaches across to massage his right shoulder—his pitching side. I wonder if he’s got old injuries that still bother him. “Yeah, uh. Look, we don’t have to get into it or whatever but my parents—they’re uh...”

  My stomach drops. I’m not sure what he’s going to say, but I can feel how bad it is.

  “Car crash.” His Adam’s apple bobs, but he doesn’t look up at me. “Last year.”

  “Both of them?” I whisper, cold raking over my skin. “At the same time?”

  He nods and my heart thumps once, so hard it almost hurts, and goosebumps appear all across my body. I try to picture getting a call and hearing Dad was gone. Just gone; no goodbye, no second chance, nothing. And the first person I would run to would be Mom, but what if she wasn’t there, either? My whole family dead while I was just going about my business, listening to records or something and not knowing everything had changed.

  “But that’s...” I sputter, “that’s bullshit!”

  “Yeah?” Jacob’s eyes jump back to mine, and then they crinkle at the edges as he starts to chuckle, shaking his head. “Yeah!” he says louder. “It is bullshit.”

  I draw my knees up, hugging them as I use one palm to try to rub the goosebumps away through my jeans. “What about your brother? You said he was eighteen, and if the accident was just last year...” I swallow, my brain darting across the idea of how short a year really is. “So did you end up raising him when he was a minor? I mean, are you his guardian or whatever?” My eyebrows lift. “You said it was crazy that I kept up with school when I was helping Granna out, but she’s an adult. I can’t imagine being responsible for a teenager.”

  He stares at me for a second. Was that rude? I meant that it was impressive but maybe that’s not how he took it.

  Jacob glances down, rolling his right shoulder and shaking out that wrist. “Our older sister, Hayden, was technically his guardian. She’s got a job and she’s married and everything. She would do anything for Ben, but they’re exactly the same kind of stubborn and without me there to buffer, they don’t get along so great. After two months of that, I swapped my dorm for an apartment and Ben moved in with me.” Jacob scratches his ear. “I wouldn’t say I’m raising him, but it’s tough because we’re all on our own now. When Hayden can’t make the minimum payment on her credit cards, or her husband is driving her crazy, or Ben wrecks his car, there’s no one to bail us out but each other.”

  The pressure of so many responsibilities feels all too familiar. “So is that why you...” I break off, remembering I heard about his baseball career mostly through rumors.

  “Is that why I quit the team?” He smiles a wry, pained smile. “You can say it. It wasn’t my family’s fault, though. That wa
s all me.”

  His fingers pick at the corner of one of the album covers and I have to stop myself from covering his hand with my own. It might turn this into something it’s not, and it probably won’t do anything to ease the pain he must be feeling, having to re-live all this.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “No, I don’t mind. I hate dancing around people knowing about my parents.” He takes a breath. “A lot of things changed after the accident. My coaches and the team were really supportive and everything, but I couldn’t just ride the bench until my head was back in the game. I’m the pitcher.”

  I don’t miss his use of the present tense. Some things you can’t erase. I could put down my drumsticks tomorrow and I would still—always—be a drummer.

  “Doesn’t that make it worse?” I hug my knees. “I’m not a huge sports fan, but I know you don’t get good enough to play Division I ball—much less be the starting pitcher—unless it’s something you really love. When everything else was so shitty, why give up something that made you happy? Besides, if you had to get three jobs to make up for the scholarship and stipend you turned down, it’s not like you have more time now.”

  “It was complicated.” His voice is quiet. “And things were, yes, shitty. At the time.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, not wanting to press him if he doesn’t want to talk about it. “For real.”

  We sit for a moment, letting the record spin out.

  My mind keeps returning to Granna’s funeral, with the one-size-fits-all eulogy the priest gave her, and how angry I was that he didn’t know her well enough to realize how little it described who she was. I wonder how close the date of her funeral was to Jacob’s parents’ accident, and if they’re buried in the same cemetery.

  I bounce to my feet. I’ve got to stop thinking about this or I’m gonna bawl, and I’m an ugly crier. I hold out a hand to Jacob and he looks up, his eyes clouded for a second as if he was pretty far away, too.

  “Ice cream,” I state, and he lays his hand in mine, still appearing confused. I grasp his wide palm and try to pull him to his feet, which really doesn’t work because I weigh about as much as his right thigh.

  Fortunately, he’s too polite to let on, so he stands up as if I helped. “Why ice cream?”

  I start tugging him toward the kitchen. “Because I feel like shit and it’s going to take me a lot of empty calories to get back on track.” Guilty lines appear next to his eyes and I’ve got to nip that right in the bud, so I keep my voice light. “Don’t worry, Sparky, you’re not on the team anymore, so you don’t have to watch your waistline.”

  At that, a smile appears, and he starts to chuckle. “Good point.”

  “We are also probably going to need to bust into my emergency M&M supply, because life is bullshit, which means I don’t get to meet your folks to see where you got all those great baseball-throwing and story-reading genes. So, you are going to tell me a fact about each of your parents for every bite we eat. If we don’t feel better after that, I’m calling Jax over so he can use the wisdom of his advanced years to teach us the proper way to make Jaeger floats.”

  Jacob’s stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, not even pretending to let me lead him anymore. But instead of letting go, his hand clings to mine. His eyes warm with a light that tells me I made the right gamble with hoping he’d want to talk more about his parents, not less.

  “I think I would like that,” he says, very quietly.

  My heart stumbles over something in his tone, but I’m in full cheering-up mode now, so I only wink. “I wouldn’t make any promises just yet. The only kind of ice cream I have is mocha almond fudge that melted once and was refrozen, and you don’t even want to know what that tastes like in a Jaeger float.”

  Jacob starts to laugh, really laugh, and the sound makes me smile. He’s a good guy, and I don’t know why I was so skittish about spending more time with him. He even wanted to come to my concert.

  My whole body tingles at the idea but I’m not sure I should risk it. I’ve gotten better at ignoring all the small clues that I’m disappointing people, but when it comes to my music, my band? Those are sacred. And yet the steady warmth of Jacob’s hand in mine makes me think that this time, it might be okay.

  I let his hand slip from mine and busy myself getting out silverware, my eyes on the drawer. “You know, I might be able to dig up one more ticket to my show. If you want.”

  “Are you serious?” Jacob takes a step forward. “Because I want. I want, bad.”

  Chapter 11: To Be Recognized

  “Guys suck.” I drop my head back against the wall of the radio station and sigh. The hallway we’re waiting in smells like scorched Ramen noodles. “Men are like beautiful agents of Satan, spreading insecurity and misery throughout the world.”

  “You know we’re guys, right?” Jax asks. “Don’t be sexist.”

  I click on my phone again, and Danny swipes it out of my hand and shoves it into his pocket. “You wouldn’t hate guys so much if you didn’t spend so much time over-thinking our text messages. We type shit. The same shit we are actually thinking. End of story.”

  “Yeah, stop being such a girl about it,” Jax says.

  “You know I am a girl, right?” I elbow him. “Sexist.” I cross my arms and stare at the wall across from me. Ancient concert posters line the radio station’s hallway, their corners curling up underneath the thumbtacks that keep them on display. I’ve read them almost as many times as Jacob’s texts.

  Danny so doesn’t know what he’s talking about, because not all guys just say what they really mean. If they did, everything would be so much simpler. I steal my phone back out of my best friend’s pocket, and he just shakes his head as I scroll back to the four-day-old texts from Monday.

  We’ve got a problem.

  You can’t come to the show? That’s ok. No worries. :)

  Why the fuck did I add that happy face? Like, yeah, I love it when you ditch me after practically begging for an invitation. No problem. Let me just sing a quick chorus of Shiny Happy People.

  No, even worse. I was telling my little brother about it, and as soon as he found out you were the drummer, he stole my ticket.

  Uh-oh. That is a problem.

  Brilliant, Jera. Hilarious.

  Now he wants a tattoo. Question: Is there any part of his anatomy you definitely do not want your name across?

  Elbow. I couldn’t stand to have my name associated with the ugliest part of the human anatomy.

  Damn, the elbow was his first choice, and you don’t want to know the second.

  I smile, picturing Jacob’s deadpan perfectly. I read his next text.

  I have a plan. I was thinking if we could keep him from seeing you onstage with your drum kit, we might be able to keep him from falling in love in the first place. I noticed the venue is a bar. He’s only eighteen—is the venue going to allow all ages on the night of the festival?

  I stared at this text forever when it first came in. It’s sorta flirty, but then I’ve made the mistake of thinking Jacob was flirting before and been wrong. What’s with all this stuff about his little brother anyway? Was he planning on bringing him along? Is he not joking around and his brother really has a crush on me? In the end, I decided I was sexually frustrated and overanalyzing, and just sent the simplest answer.

  Sorry, we’re part of the pub crawl night of the festival. No kiddies allowed.

  Ah, he’ll be crushed. Maybe he can watch it on YouTube or something.

  He sent nothing but more chatty, jokey texts for three days and then this morning it got weird:

  Hey, something came up. I’m going to try really hard to make it to your show, but I can’t promise anything yet. Will let you know for sure when I know.

  I put away my phone. Yeah. I must have gotten a hundred texts like that from my ex. It wouldn’t even be surprising that Jacob was flaking on me like every other guy, except that he’s so painfully charming up until this point. Well, screw him. The good
thing about being out of the dating world means I don’t have to put my heart out there where anybody can kick it. I can stay right here, with the two guys in my life I can always count on.

  On my right, Danny has his hands clasped behind his head, studying the ceiling as if the patterns in the acoustic tile are swirling themselves into new tattoo designs in his mind. On my left, Jax leans forward, elbows propped on his knees so that his jiggling leg makes his whole body rattle like an old, gas-guzzling Chevy.

  “I just don’t get why, if your uncle could get us this interview, he couldn’t get us the list of questions ahead of time,” Jax says.

  I pick at the peeling sole of my combat boot and reach deep for my patience. Jax is the perfect front man, with a face that could sell a billion albums and a voice like foreplay, but until you give him an audience to perform for, he’s a hot mess.

  “First, Bear is my godfather, not my uncle, and he didn’t get us the interview,” I say. “This radio station is one of the sponsors of Things That Go Bump In The Night, so they’re interviewing all the bands. Bear just got us the time slot right before the festival headliners, so anybody who tunes in to listen to PhantAsmic’s interview is probably going to catch a snippet of ours.”

  “And second, they don’t have prepared questions, douchebag,” Danny says. “This is KKSX, not MTV. The guy probably just makes it up on the spot.”

  “What’s with the name?” Jax says. “‘Bear’ is kinda cutesy for an ‘80s rocker.”

  “His given name is Grizlane.” I drop my voice a little. “Sometimes a nickname is a gift, Jax, and if you value your limbs, do not tell him I told you that.”

  Jax’s knee jiggles harder, his big hands clamped together so every knuckle stands out. During the day, he works as a logistical something or other at UPS, which only feeds his compulsion for details. He pretty much gorges on checklists all day and then girls at night, the kind who’ll sleep with anybody who can play “Wish You Were Here” with a soulful look on his face. Give him a task or an audience of any kind and he comes to life like you just stuck a quarter in his back, but ask him to sit still? Well, maybe just best not to ask.