The Space In Between

by Melyssa Winchester

  Pulling her lunch out and diving in, cracking the top of the soda can and taking a long drawn out swallow, I decide to use the time to redirect everyone to a much safer topic.

  My need to get a job.

  “Did you hear anything back from the shop you applied to?” I ask Jonah, at the same time trying to ignore the way it feels as Emery moves on the bench and her leg brushes against mine.

  The shot of adrenaline and heat that seems to completely take me over every time she does it.

  “No, and after talking with my dad, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to.”

  “Why?”

  “You know how he is. He said having a job at my age is pointless. I’m pretty sure he called the place and told them not to bother. What about you? Any word from Sport Chek?”

  Last week, we’d gotten the idea into our heads—or I did and brought Jonah along for the ride—that we needed to get jobs so that we didn’t have to depend on our parents so much for the shit we wanted to do and things we wanted to be able to buy. After picking out a few places in the mall, we’d gone and filled out some applications and were now just waiting to hear back.

  The only difference being that Jonah applied to work at a garage just down the road from his house because he secretly had a thing for cars and wanted the chance to learn from the best.

  “Nah, but that could just be because they’re not hiring.”

  “Dude, right now if it meant having some cash to be able to take April out, I’d throw on a fat suit and be the mall Santa.”

  While the idea of my best friend dressing up as Santa did hold its own humorous appeal, especially with the way he acts anytime he’s even so much as standing near a little kid, it’s hard not to agree with him.

  If I want to be able to take Emery out and treat her like a queen, I gotta be able to get my hands on the money to do it. Hence all of the applying at the mall I did, even taking it a few steps further and going around to all the fast food chains too.

  Christmas is a little over a month away. Leaving date nights out of it, I want to be able to get something nice for her, even though she told me that all she wanted was time alone with me.

  Something needs to give soon or I’m going to have to talk to my dad if I want to make things happen, and I know the second I do that, all of the anonymity that I’ve been able to have with Emery, will crash and burn.

  He’s going to want to know what I want the money for, how long I’ve been seeing her, how serious it is and how soon she can make it over to the house so he can meet her.

  “The Laundromat near my house is hiring.” Emery interjects and turning toward her, watching as Jonah does the same, she laughs. “If only you two moved that fast all the time.”

  “Do you think they would hire a couple of kids with no experience?” Jonah asks before I’ve gotten the chance to.

  “You give out change and accept dry cleaning in. It’s not exactly rocket science, Jo. It’s run by a nice old couple that I think are looking to have a break, so I’m pretty sure they’re not gonna be too picky about things like age and experience.”

  “If you know this, why haven’t you applied?”

  “Because between my classes, the paper, and wanting to spend as much time with this hot guitar player I’ve been seeing, I have zero time. Besides, it’s not like I need the money for anything. Mom’s been saving away for years for my first year of university.”

  She has no idea, but I could so lean over right now and kiss the living shit out of her. It’s not exactly the job I think I was born to do, but it is the job that can get me the money I need to be able to do things with her without involving my dad.

  It’s freaking perfect.

  She was right before. I do have a thing for that word.

  After telling Jonah she’d talk to her mom and get the number for the place, she turns her attention to me and leaning in as close as possible, her breath on my ear both tickling and exciting me, she lays out her true plan.

  “I’ll go by after school and fill out an application for you. My mom helped them out a few times, so I’m pretty sure you just have to show up to meet them and it’s yours.”

  If I didn’t already know I was falling for her, this, her wanting to help me out, would have sealed it.

  There’s no doubt. I’m a goner.

  Emery

  All through lunch I couldn’t stop thinking about what Jonah said.

  Sure, I did my best to play along, even telling Christian about the favor my mom was owed so that he had a leg up on getting the job he’s been talking about wanting to get, but it was still there in the back of my head.

  What was he looking up and why does it have to do with tattoos?

  Christian, in the short time I’ve known him, has to be the most levelheaded person at Greenville. I guess when your dad’s a cop, there are only two ways it can really go. You either do everything you can to be the perfect kid or everything in your power to fight against it. From what I’ve seen, Christian is the former, not the latter.

  So why was he looking up tattoos? And better yet, why was he so quick to ditch the laptop from the table when I got there? What didn’t he want me to see?

  “Hey, Jo!” I call out after I see him slip his way out of math class. When he slows down and turns, I wave and jog the distance over, taking in the way his eyes lower before looking away.

  He doesn’t want to talk to me.

  Interesting.

  “Make it quick, Carmichael. I got a class downstairs in five and I still gotta hit up my locker.”

  “Tell me what you saw at lunch and we’re done.”

  “Damnit. I knew I should have kept walking.”

  “Jo, come on. Not all that long ago, we were the same way you and Christian are. Tell me what you saw.”

  “And make it so you end up going off and he’s coming at me at practice? No thanks.”

  Okay, I didn’t want to do this, but it’s obviously time to pull out the big guns since bringing up our past friendship didn’t seem to sway him away from his loyalty to my boyfriend.

  “I swear it stays between you and me. I just need to know what he’s hiding. You saw the way he ditched the laptop, right? Why would he do that when he’s never moved it before?”

  Running his hand through his hair with a sigh, he reaches out and placing both of his hands on my shoulders, leans in close. A move that for a split second I contemplate stepping back from until he brings his head down close to my ear and starts whispering.

  “He said he was looking up the meaning of infinity, but I don’t buy it. He could have landed on any site for that info, but I saw it clear as day. It was a tattoo site and there was a huge pic of the symbol on someone’s arm.”

  “Why would he want a tattoo of that?”

  Moving back and slipping his hands back into his pocket, he grunts. “I’m pretty sure that’s obvious.”

  “Me? What does infinity have to do with me?”

  “Ems, I know that sometimes you act like an idiot in order to sucker people into giving you what you want, but even you aren’t that dumb. Think about it and then think about what you two are to each other.”

  Okay, I can do that.

  “He loves you times infinity.” Jonah offers up, choosing not to wait me out, and as he says it, it clicks.

  “Jo…”

  “I know. You don’t even have to say it.”

  “How do you know what I was going to say?”

  “I’ve known you since kindergarten. I know that look. You think him doing this is stupid, just like I do. I told him so, but to be honest, I don’t think I got through.”

  “Why not?”

  “You showed up and he was too quick to toss it away and change the subject.” Pausing and looking down at his wrist, the second hand of the clock ticking away, he reaches out with his free hand and squeezes my arm.

  “Not to drop a bomb and run, but I gotta get to PE or Coach is gonna have my balls in a vice grip.”

  Flas
hing him my most sympathetic smile, I wave down the hall in the direction he needs to go and free him from the conversation. “Go ahead. Sorry if I made ya late.”

  “You didn’t. Just do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “When you talk to him about this later—because we both know that you’re gonna do it—don’t mention me, alright? Me and Chris, we got a good thing going and I’d hate to have that blown to shit because I stuck my nose in something that was none of my business.”

  “Deal.”

  Waving again as he takes off down the hall, I head to my last class of the day. The only one that thankfully, after the conversation I just had with his best friend, I won’t have to see Christian in.

  Using the time I still have to myself wisely, I slip my phone out of the side pocket of my pants and do the only thing left that I can, at least until I’m able to meet up with him again later.

  Call in Mom’s favor.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Christian

  Emery wasn’t joking.

  I’ve been working at the Daydream Coin Laundry for exactly three weeks, today being my first pay day, and all I’ve done to earn it is check peoples clothing to be dry cleaned, dish out money along with soap and dryer sheets, and help out the customers while doing rounds and cleaning out the machines.

  It’s the easiest two hundred dollars I ever made and that’s counting the newspaper route I had when I was twelve.

  The only thing I hate about taking shifts after school and Saturday is that it’s taking a big chunk out of girlfriend time. But where I went in thinking it was going to annoy her, not having me around the way she did before, it did the opposite.

  We’ve taken back up getting together in the early morning again, working on songs that have nothing to do with what’s going on in class, and sometimes, when she’s not feeling it, she brings out her camera and takes pictures of me playing.

  The first couple times, I’d tried blocking her, but after finally giving in and letting her do it, I had a hard time seeing why I was so against it at first.

  Her taking pictures makes me feel like a rockstar. It also helps that with as protective of them as she’s been since I started letting her take them, I know they’re for her eyes only. A fact that after the heated way things got in the room yesterday, makes me extremely happy.

  *****

  “Oh, look what you’ve done to this rock and roll clown,” I sing completely off key, and she as she lowers the camera, giving me a full view of the happiness dancing in her eyes, I smile and continue. “Oh look what you’ve done. You’ve gone straight to my head.”

  “Very smooth, Mikey. Is that another one of your dad’s moves that passed on to you?”

  “Nope. This one’s all me. Well, me and great taste in music.”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard Def Leppard and great taste in music in the same sentence before.”

  Lifting the camera again as I swipe at her, she starts snapping away, and this time I play for her.

  It wasn’t like that at first, but there’s a look she gets when she mentions photography. It’s similar to the way she plays music, but different. Her face takes on this determined expression, her button nose scrunching as she tries to figure out the perfect angle, and the cheeky way she reacts—complete with sticking her tongue out at her subject—when it doesn’t work the way she expects makes it impossible not to give into.

  But the one thing that remains the same for everything she does is how it transforms her.

  Taking pictures, making music, writing lyrics, they give her the confidence I saw on the first day. When you take any of those things away, she’s back to being the standoffish person she became when she was avoiding me.

  I definitely like this version better.

  Lowering the camera and putting it down gently on the desk, she moves in close, and with a tap of the guitar and a flick of her finger to let me know she wants me to move it, I lay it across the chair beside me and wait as she slips her legs over me, her body pressed close and straddling mine.

  Rubbing my nose softly against hers, I move in for the kill. Touching my lips to hers, she parts them, letting her tongue slip out, and like always runs it over her bottom lip, teasing me until I catch it with my teeth.

  A move that seems to recreate her response to chocolate as she moans softly, the vibration reverberating back on my own mouth and making the need to taste her that much stronger.

  “You’re sweating.” She whispers as she pulls away and runs her finger down over my face. “Does playing really make you that hot?”

  “Don’t think it’s the music that’s causing it.”

  “Well you should do something about it.”

  “I know what I’d like to do.”

  Laughing when I wink, she surprises me as she slides her hands down until I can feel the soft brush of her fingers as they graze my skin, followed by the touch of a chill that appears as my shirt begins sliding up.

  “Em, what are you doing?”

  Whatever it is, please don’t stop.

  “Cooling you off. You’re seriously hot, Christian.”

  “Funny. I was going to say the same about you.”

  “I mean it. You’re practically burning up.”

  Lifting the shirt up with her hands until the material is brushing against my shoulders, I take over and pull it the rest of the way up and over my head, tossing it to the side of us, hearing it land against the guitar that had been discarded equally as quick.

  “Better?”

  “Mmmm, much.” She moans again before using her teeth and nibbling on my lips. “I’m gonna need to you to stay exactly the way you are now.”

  I’ve heard those words before. It’s what she says before she takes pictures. But before I can reach out to stop her, she’s silencing me with another kiss and pulling away, her hands grabbing for the camera.

  “Em—”

  “Less talking, more looking sexy.”

  I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s one thing to do it goofing off in the room, it’s a whole other thing to do it with pieces of clothing going missing. Especially when at any moment we could have an audience.

  It’s early, but not so early that I can say for certain we’ll remain completely alone.

  Hearing the familiar sound of the camera as she takes shot after shot, I swallow down my argument and let her have her moment, which judging by the deliciously evil grin she’s wearing, she’s enjoying a whole lot.

  Using the pause in between stills, I decide to go for broke and ask her again what she takes all these pictures for.

  “Aren’t there better things you could be taking pictures of? Why so many of me?”

  “I want to remember.”

  “Isn’t that what your imagination is for?”

  “Mmhmm,” she agrees. “But that only works when I’m alone and missing you. This is a different kind of remembering.”

  “Are you ever going to expand on that riddle?”

  “Maaybe, but not yet. All will be revealed in time, grasshopper.”

  “First I’m a polar bear and now I’m a grasshopper. What’s next?”

  “Not sure yet, but when I know, you’ll know.”

  “There is one thing I wanna know now, though.”

  Putting the camera back down, she slinks ever so slowly back toward me, a half risen grin playing on her lips and her eyes locked on my chest. Murmuring her quiet response, I grab her once she’s within reach and when she squeals pull her as close to me as possible.

  “If you’re as hot as I am.”

  *****

  Where I thought I would feel the loss of those hours together, with the way the mornings went, it was almost as though there was no change at all.

  “Excuse me, but I’ve been standing here waiting for service for the last fifteen minutes and quite frankly, I’m sick of it.”

  Focusing on where I am, remembering that despite the visceral reaction that just thinking about Emer
y brings alive in me, I’m actually still at work and not free to zone out the way I have been, I paste on a smile and lift my head, ready to meet what’s sure to be the very angry glare of the customer I’ve been ignoring.

  The customer that I see once I acknowledge them, isn’t a customer at all. It’s my girlfriend.

  “You scared the shit out of me!”

  “Drama class pays off again! You should have seen your face.” She grins. “I mean, I’ve seen you fake a smile when we’re in class and you’re called on, but this was worse than that. Great customer service you got there, Mikey.”

  “I know. It’s amazing I have a job at all with all the smiling I’ve been doing.”

  Coughing into her hand, she hacks out the word fake, following it up with another cough and unleashing another smile.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I stopped to grab a coffee next door and I saw Mr. Potter pull in as I was pulling out, so I couldn’t resist doubling back to bug you before you get off.”

  “Sorry to burst your bubble princess, but I haven’t gotten off yet.” I joke. “But if you’re up for sticking around, you can always help me out when my shift ends.”

  “Perv!”

  “Says the girl that started it.”

  Leaning over the counter, she shuts me up with a kiss and after a few seconds of just enjoying the feel of her lips on mine and our tongues playing together, a loud and distinct throat clearing breaks us apart.

  “Nice to see you again, Emery.”

  “Pleasure’s all mine, Mr. Potter.”

  “Evidently.”

  With a raise of his eyebrow, Emery laughs and after an awkward couple of seconds deciding whether or not to join her despite my embarrassment at being caught, I follow suit.

  “Go on, Christian. Get out of here. We’ll see you Monday.”

  Confused, I try and remember why he’s saying he doesn’t need me on the weekend and that’s when Emery pipes up, clueing me in before my boss has to.

  “Tell Sandy that I said congrats.”

  Sandy Potter, the owner’s daughter. Now I remember. She’s getting married this weekend and instead of keeping the store open, they decided to close it so they could enjoy it with her.