Believe in Us (Jett #2)

by Amy Sparling

  She smiles. “I have a feeling this is going to be really eye-opening for you.”

  As much as I want to say something sarcastic or rude, or both, I hold back. I fasten on a smile and thank her for her time. I have to pretend that I’m okay with this or else she’ll force me to come back even more often. Maybe next session I’ll start crying and pretend I’ve had a massive breakthrough. I’ll get out of this as soon as possible.

  When she finally dismisses me, saying she’ll send for me next Monday, I power walk into the hallway, looking for a clock to see how much time I’ve missed. It’s lunch time. Holy crap, I’ve spent four class periods talking about my stupid past with a stranger.

  So much for having a normal school day.

  Chapter 24

  Okay. My first day of the five day suspension should be a glorious, school-free, vacation of wonderfulness. It should be butterflies and rainbows and fast food and watching TV all day. For the most part, it is, but I’m missing her bad. I hate that she’s at school without me, that she’s probably feeling awkward around my friends.

  I kick up my feet on my futon and lounge back, mindlessly watching television. I texted Keanna earlier, when she would have been walking to third period. She hasn’t written back, but I guess she didn’t have time or maybe her third period teacher is strict about phones.

  My stomach starts begging me for lunch. I reach for my phone to check the time, but at the same time I get a text from Keanna.

  Keanna: What are you doing?

  Me: Nothin. How’s school?

  Keanna: Come get me please.

  I glance toward my window but it’s not like I can see her driveway from here. I type back quickly.

  Me: Didn’t you drive to school today?

  Keanna: Yes, just please come meet me.

  Me: Be there in ten.

  I throw on shoes and a clean T-shirt and head out the door. Mom says something about staying out of the public eye since being suspended means I’m supposed to stay home. But she’s too busy pouring over baby shower ideas on Pinterest to really care, so I slip past her and haul ass to the school.

  It’s a beautiful September day, the kind where it finally stops being so ungodly hot outside and starts to feel a little bit like fall. I roll down the windows while I drive, the scent of a bonfire in the distance making it feel even more like fall. I hope everything is okay with her. Anxiety over whatever’s wrong will only get me killed, so I focus on the road instead and soon I’m pulling into the parking lot.

  Her Mustang is parked in my usual spot and she’s sitting inside, hands on the steering wheel and her gaze off in the distance. I walk up to her window and tap on it. She opens the door, climbs out, and throws her arms around me.

  I twist to peer down at her, but she’s not crying. Her eyes are closed, her expression blissful. She breathes in deeply.

  “I missed your smell.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask, rubbing her back. “You still have four more days without me here so this isn’t a good start.

  She laughs. “Tell me about it.”

  “Did something happen?”

  She nods. “Will you take me somewhere?”

  I scratch my neck. Ditching class on Keanna’s second week of school could get us in a lot of trouble.

  Her eyes flutter up at me and she pokes her lip out just the slightest bit. “Please?”

  I reach into my pocket for my keys. “Sure thing. Where are we going?”

  She shrugs and tosses her backpack in the backseat of my truck. “I don’t care, but I am hungry.”

  We drive to Jack-in-the-Box since it seems the least busy out of all the fast food places along our town’s main highway. I think about what Mom said but I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing. It’s not like police officers will be searching around to see if a suspended student is out having fun.

  We take our food to a booth in the back of the restaurant. Keanna frowns when her straw refuses to break through the slot in the stop of her milkshake lid. I take it and do it for her. Her shoulders fall and she breathes a heavy sigh. “Thanks. This is a crap day.”

  “So what happened?” I ask, ripping off the tops of several ranch packets. This place has the best tacos if you dunk them in ranch. It makes the curly fries better, too. I give Keanna a playful grin. “Do I need to kick someone’s ass again?”

  She steals one of my curly fries. “Not unless you want to take on Mrs. Albright.”

  “Who?”

  “The school counselor,” she says, making air quotes around the last word. She screws up her face and sticks out her tongue. “It was a freakin’ nightmare. She called me down to her office and made me talk for three and a half freaking hours.”

  “What?” My soda cup clanks to the table. “Is she allowed to do that?”

  Keanna shrugs. “Apparently my new mom told her about my adoption and my hard life growing up so Mrs. Albright decided to make me talk about it. She wants to have weekly sessions . . . are you kidding me?”

  Now my expression matches her disgusted one. “Can she actually do that? Force you to talk when you don’t want counseling?”

  “I guess so. I mean, she did.” Keanna follows my lead and dunks her fries into the ranch. “I feel like I should be all happy that I got to skip four classes for this shit, but I am so not all about spilling my guts to a stranger. She kept looking at me with all this pity, like I’m some orphaned kid no one wanted. My life wasn’t bad, okay?”

  Her voice rises as she talks and I nod. “I know, babe. You don’t have to convince me.”

  Her eyes meet mine and she seems to snap back to reality. “It was just so stupid. She obviously has no idea how a normal teenage girl should act or feel. Her kid is some cheerleader so I’m sure her world is the complete opposite of mine, ya know?”

  “Ah, Albright,” I say, nodding. “We do have a cheerleader with that last name.”

  “Let me guess,” Keanna says, rolling her eyes. “You’ve hooked up with her.”

  I almost choke on my taco. I shake my head in a furious and adamant no. “No. I don’t even know her. I just recognize the name.”

  Keanna doesn’t seem to care though. She’s too busy staring at her food as if it’s the source of her gloomy mood.

  We eat in silence for a while. Keanna sighs. “Sorry, Jett. You didn’t deserve that.”

  I lift my shoulders. “Yeah, I did. I have a past. A . . . sordid one.”

  She looks up at me, her lips wrapped around her milkshake straw. “Is that what’s been bothering you lately?”

  “Hmm?” Shit, are we really getting into this now? I know we need to, but I’ve been happy ignoring it.

  She meets my gaze and gives me this don’t play dumb with me look. “You’re feeling shitty that I know about how many girls you’ve dated, right? Since I’ve been subjected to an onslaught of that information ever since school started.”

  My throat is suddenly dryer than the dirt bike track in the middle of summer. “I, uh—”

  She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “I have a past, too. I have shit that I’m not proud of and I’d be mortified if someone told you all about it.” She blinks and shakes her head. “No, I’d be dead. I would straight up drop dead if you had to endure people talking about my past.”

  Funny, because that kind of thing should bother me. It doesn’t, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

  I glance to the right but we’re all alone back here. My heart races but I figure we’ve made it this far. Might as well lay it all out on the table. I lean forward on my elbows. “How many guys?”

  “Sex?” she asks.

  I make this noncommittal gesture that’s supposed to mean yes. Do I want to know? Do I even have a right to dive that deep into her personal life?

  Her dark eyes peer up at me, honest and open. “Two.”

  I swallow. I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it.

  She releases her grip on my hand. “You
r turn.”

  I take a deep breath. “I’m a bad person.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Having sex doesn’t make you a bad person.”

  I take a sip of soda and blurt out the real answer, no matter how much I wish I didn’t have to. “Five.”

  She smirks, but it might just be to cover up whatever real emotion she has. “Okay, Adams. That’s not too bad.” She laces her fingers together and flexes them in front of her, popping her knuckles. “Should we reveal hookups as well? Because I’m not so angelic on that one.”

  “Please,” I say quickly. “Anything to make me feel like less of a man slut.”

  She scoffs. “Man slut is such a derogatory term. Saying man first implies that the word slut is for women only and that’s just stupid.” She rolls her eyes. “Anyone can be a slut, you know? It’s not even a bad thing, necessarily. Some people are really proud to be a slut.” She reaches for a fry and shrugs. “It’s only a bad thing if you’ve done it for the wrong reasons. Or, if you’re like me, slutting it up just to feel something.” Her lip curls while she stares at the fry between her fingers. “I can’t even tell you my hook up number, Jett.”

  “You can tell me anything,” I say, almost automatically. But I really do mean it.

  She shakes her head, her brown hair falling in her face. After pushing it back behind her ears, she looks up at me with solemn eyes. “I can’t tell you because I don’t even know the number. Probably twenty, or more.”

  “Same here. Probably twenty-ish.” I gnaw on the inside of my lip. “But none of them mattered and it’s all over now and in the past, so who cares?”

  Her eyes light up. “You really mean that?”

  “I do.”

  “Good, because I hate judging myself over most of those guys in my past. I didn’t even want to do anything with them,” she mutters, going back to eating.

  “Then why would you?” I ask. That isn’t something I can claim—my teenage hormones have gotten the best of me more than once. I’ve always been happy to make out with someone in the backseat of a car. My dad says that’s just how guys are wired—that we’re massive horn dogs who want one thing. And for the most part, he was right. It wasn’t until I met Keanna that my entire way of thinking changed. Now the idea of randomly swapping spit with some peppy girl who wants to be a motocross groupie gives me the chills. Ugh.

  Keanna shrugs. “Well, you know how it is for girls.”

  “No, I don’t. What are you talking about?”

  She brushes her hair behind her ears, but it’s already back there so the movement is pointless. “You know . . . guys force themselves onto you. They guilt trip you for oral sex—just the usual crap.”

  A foul taste in my mouth makes me drop my food onto the tray. The lump that had been in my throat earlier is now a hard pit in my stomach. “Are you serious?”

  “Jett, chill. It’s not a big deal.”

  “It is a big deal,” I say, trying hard to keep from yelling. White hot rage takes over every inch of my body. All I can think about is beating the hell out of any guy who ever took advantage of her.

  “That is not normal and it’s not okay. You need to know that.” I stare into her eyes, refusing to let her look away. “I’ve never treated girls like that ever. If they didn’t want to do something, they didn’t have to.”

  She shrugs. “Babe, seriously. Calm down. It’s over and in the past.” When I open my mouth again, she gives me a glare that makes me flinch. “Drop it.”

  My jaw aches from clenching my teeth but I shrug and try to obey her wishes. Still, my hands are fists and I can’t seem to eat or drink anything anymore. I want to single-handedly track down every guy who’s ever forced her into something she didn’t want. I ache to kick their asses. It’s all I can think about until Keanna slides into the booth next to me, taking my arm in her hands and wrapping herself around me, leaning her cheek on my shoulder.

  “Please don’t be mad. My life is staring over, remember? I’m with you and you’re with me, and we can pretend that’s all there ever was, okay?”

  “I’m not mad at you, Key.” I kiss the top of her head. “I love you.”

  She snuggles into me more, the scent of her shampoo drifting up and sending warm fuzzies through my chest. “I love you, too,” she says, and suddenly it hits me.

  I finally said it. I didn’t even mean to—it just fell out of me like it was meant to be here all along.

  And she said it back.

  And just like that, all of the anger and rage and twisted darkened feelings inside of me are gone. I smile and let out a slow, relaxing sigh.

  I guess love really is as powerful as all those old country songs say it is. “Come on,” I say, taking her hand. “Let’s go do something fun.”

  Chapter 25

  The week without Jett is absolute torture, but luckily it passes by just like every other bad thing in my life. Soon, Jett is back in school and things settle into a routine. I still get a few random glares from girls but I don’t have the time or energy to care.

  Keep your head high and your standards higher.

  Well, that’s not exactly my motto, but it is a saying that’s selling really well in Becca’s online art store. She paints it on these small square canvases that have little wooden easels to display them. They’re the perfect size for putting on a desk or in a cubicle, and I think women really like the message it projects. I’ve been trying to keep my head high, too.

  Things with Jett are great. I shiver as I think about our night together last night, the romance and the intimacy of making out with him in my bed. We still haven’t gone all the way, but we don’t have to. If anything, the slow anticipation of that big night—whenever it may come—keeps our relationship exciting.

  It’s Sunday morning and Jett is running laps with his Dad on the track. I’m sitting alone on the top row of the bleachers, sipping from a coffee in one of those paper cups in the Track’s break room. Although we’re open for business right now, the only client is with Park and Becca is running the front desk so she said she didn’t mind if I wanted to watch Jett.

  Hanging out at the Track is such a welcome pastime now that school has started. This place was practically my home all summer and it feels good to get back here. I haven’t really worked much lately since they haven’t been busy, but I’m not worried about money anymore. I have some saved up in my bank account, and my lovely new mother gave me a credit card the other day.

  “For essentials and emergencies,” she said, wiggling the card before handing it to me. “Park and I will pay the bill, so don’t worry about it.”

  “Essentials like, when you need me to get something on the way home from school?” I asked. “Because I don’t mind getting milk and stuff for you.”

  “Essentials like food, gas, manicures, Starbucks,” she said, listing it off on her fingers. “You know. Stuff parents pay for.”

  I grinned. “Just admit that you’re dying to blow money on me.”

  She batted her eyelashes and handed me the card. “It’s my motherly duty, hun. Get used to it.”

  Even with her permission to use the card freely, I haven’t used it at all yet. But it’s nice to know I have it. It’s nice to finally go to bed at night not worrying about money, or the lack of it. I almost let myself wonder about Dawn, and how she’s doing. If she’s still getting by with little to no money. But that would be a waste of my time, so I don’t think about it.

  “Hey girl,” Bayleigh says, walking up to the bleachers. She holds onto the railing and climbs to the top, taking a seat next to me. She’s wearing a tank top and yoga pants but I still can’t see any sign of a baby bump yet. Last week she said it took about four months of pregnancy with Jett to see her belly growing.

  “How long have they been at it?” she asks, nodding toward the track where Jett and Jace chase each other on dirt bikes.

  “Only about ten minutes,” I say, gazing out. Even though Jace is nearly twenty years older than Jett, you can’t tell th
em apart on the track. They’re both tall, muscular, and covered from head to toe in gear.

  Bayleigh crinkles something—a Pop tart bag—and pulls one out. Strawberry, by the looks of it. She takes a bite and holds out the silver wrapper to me. “Want the other one?”

  I take it and we eat in silence for a bit while we watch the guys ride.

  “You ever think about getting on a bike?” she asks.

  I shrug. “I like riding on the back with Jett. Not sure I’d be good enough to ride one on my own.”

  “It’s fun, you should try it.” She finishes her Pop tart and brushes the crumbs off her hands. “Of course, I’m not any good at it since I started so late. They say getting a kid on a bike when they’re too young to know fear is what makes them good riders. Once you’re an adult and you get on a bike, you have that fear of death, fear of getting hurt—and you’re not very fast.”

  I nod. “How old was Jett when he started riding?”

  “Three,” she says, laughing. “My husband fought like hell to get him on a bike. I was scared out of my mind, but it all worked out. I just had to trust him, ya know?”

  I nod. I like these little talks we sometimes have. It always gives me an insight into what a perfect relationship is like and how the two people who have raised Jett to be the guy I’m in love with deal with their everyday lives.

  “Jett is crazy about you, kid.”

  “Um, what?” I blurt out just because I’m so stunned to hear those words.

  She focuses on Jace as he soars through the air, turning two smaller jumps into one massive jump. As soon as his bike lands safely on the other side, she looks at me. “My son is totally in love with you. I mean, who can blame him—you’re adorable and I love you, too.” She watches him ride around the track, almost as if she’s remembering something that makes her happy.

  “I really love him,” I say, hoping she knows it’s the complete and total truth.

  “You two are a lot like Jace and me.” Her eyes do that far off gazing thing again and she tells me a little about their relationship, how they started off hot and heavy and how it never faded. “Everyone thought I was stupid for falling so hard so fast, but I didn’t care. Getting pregnant was the best thing that ever happened to me.”