‘Bye,’ I say, squeezing her tight.
We watch her get in the car and drive off and Jesse grabs my hand and pulls me towards the door of the store. It’s covered in plywood, which has been nailed tight to the wooden frame, replacing the smashed glass. Inside it’s like a cave. The battened-down front window allows no glimpse of the outside. We could be buried underground. Jesse hits the light switch and I gasp. It’s still a mess inside, with shelves hanging from their hinges and display stands leaning wonkily against walls. Though the glass has been cleared up and the bikes are all standing, the devastation is total.
Jesse doesn’t seem to notice, however. He pulls me towards the counter and reaches behind it to pull out his computer. He takes the iPod out of my hands, which I realise are still shaking, and plugs it in.
‘Where are we going to upload it?’ he asks.
I lean over him. ‘We need it on an external hard drive somewhere Tyler can’t access it.’ I grab the laptop and log in to my blog’s server and once the file has transferred to Jesse’s computer I quickly hit the upload button.
Just then Jesse’s fingers stroke my cheekbone. His touch is accompanied by an artillery explosion of rocket fire behind my eyeball.
‘Ow,’ I wince.
‘He did this to you?’ Jesse growls, trying to turn me to face him.
‘Yes,’ I say absently, watching the file as it slowly starts to upload.
‘I’m going to kill him,’ Jesse growls.
‘No you’re not,’ I answer. ‘You’re going to hurt him, yes, but no fists allowed.’
Jesse doesn’t answer because the sound of someone hammering against the door makes us both jerk around. Tyler’s voice accompanies the banging. ‘Give it back, Ren,’ he yells, his voice muffled by the plywood.
I glance at Jesse and then back at the computer: 22% uploaded. Jesse makes a sudden move for the door and I snatch his hand and pull him back. ‘Ignore him,’ I say. ‘He can’t get in.’
The pounding keeps on. This time the wood against the window frames starts to rattle.
Jesse turns back to me, his expression unhappy. In fact his expression is walking a fine line between murderous and vengeful. I think the bruise on my face from Tyler’s fist just pushed Jesse over the very fragile ledge I’ve managed to pull him onto and back into the land where orange overalls are his future.
‘Jesse,’ I say, holding on to him now with both hands, gripping his shirt as though he’s hanging over that ledge and it’s only my grasp that will keep him from tumbling over. But I can’t hold him, I can feel him slipping, pulling, turning away, reaching towards the door.
So I do the only thing I can think of to distract him. I kiss him. Hard. Pressing my body against his, I tune out the banging and Tyler’s yelling, which actually isn’t all that hard to do because Jesse’s lips are against mine and his body is just one thin layer away from my touch. And I can feel the muscles of his chest rock hard beneath my hands, his body still half turned away, rigid and defensive and pulsing with anger, but then slowly he softens and untwists and in the next instant he’s wrapping me in his arms, pulling me close and holding me tight and kissing me so deeply that everything is forgotten. Everything in this whole world is just Jesse Miller.
Until the tinkling sound of glass splintering breaks us apart. We stare up at the shattered window above the door – one of the only pieces of glass that had been left untouched from the break-in and vandalism. And then suddenly the dark patch of sky we can see through the gap blazes orange.
Jesse moves instinctively, pulling me against his chest, burying my head against his shoulder as he turns his back to take the worst of the blast. My face feels the scorch of flames and we stagger backwards, blind, towards the counter. Jesse lets me go and I turn to see that a fire is now spreading across the front of the store. The boards covering the front windows are alight and a rack of cycling shorts and T-shirts has burst into a ball of flames. I don’t have time to figure out how the fire has started – only that Tyler must have thrown something flammable through the window – because Jesse is pulling me towards the back of the store, yelling at me over the whoosh of flames to run.
We throw ourselves around the counter and I snatch for the laptop, glancing at it as we run. Miraculously, it’s still uploading. Jesse pushes me into the back room and shuts the door.
‘It’s nearly done,’ I say, watching the screen. ‘Just a few more seconds.’
‘No time,’ Jesse says, grabbing my wrist and pushing me towards a back door. He tries it but something has been wedged against it from the outside. Jesse swears and lays all his weight against it. It won’t budge.
‘Shit.’
We turn around; black smoke has started billowing under the internal door. Jesse crosses back towards it, ripping off his T-shirt as he goes. He stuffs it against the crack at the bottom, blotting out the worst of the smoke, and then he comes back towards me. I’m still trying the door but it’s locked tight.
I turn to look at Jesse, the seriousness of the situation beginning to sink in. Tyler Reed is trying to smoke us out of the building. No, I realise. He’s not trying to smoke us out. All the exits are blocked. He’s trying to kill us.
‘What are we going to—’ I start to ask but Jesse is already moving. He is dragging one of the upturned cylinders over to the far wall. He jumps up onto it and then, using a hammer he’s grabbed from the table, he smashes a small window set high into the wall, above the door. Jesse ducks to cover his face from the exploding glass but I see the spots of blood that appear across his bare shoulders and back, the crimson streaks. He doesn’t seem to notice, instead he calls my name and I run over to him, still holding the computer and the book.
I glance up at the window. It barely looks big enough to get my butt through and I can’t believe that is the first thought that comes to mind – not you’re going to die in here, Ren, with a boy you may or may not be falling in love with but you’re going to die in here, Ren, because your butt is too big.
‘Leave it,’ Jesse shouts over the noise of the flames, pointing at the computer. I never realised how loud fire is, it’s crackling and bursting and shrieking as though it’s alive and wants very much to feast on our flesh. Sweat is pouring down Jesse’s face and chest. I lean over, coughing, my eyes stinging from the smoke which is still sliding noxiously into the room, my lungs threatening to seize up.
99% . . . 100% . . . upload complete.
I put the computer down, sliding the iPod back into my pocket. Jesse takes the book and puts it in the back pocket of his jeans. My eyes are stinging and the smoke is filling my lungs. Jesse pulls me up onto the cylinder, steadying me. He lifts me by the waist until I can reach the window and then using my arms I haul myself through. I feel the sting of broken glass cutting into my palms and my head bashes the top of the frame but I ignore it and force myself to bring my legs through the small space. My butt does fit. It’s amazing how fat cells minimise themselves in the face of being melted. I’m clinging to the edge of the wall, peering down into darkness, when I hear Jesse yelling at me to jump so I take a breath and then let go.
I land on my feet on concrete, the air knocked completely out of me. I’m still coughing, hacking and spitting, and I roll onto my side. Everything feels jarred and bruised but nothing is screaming in pain so I don’t think anything is broken. I get to my knees and stare up at the window.
‘Jesse!’ I yell.
I can’t hear anything except the roar of flames.
‘Jesse!’ I scream again, my voice lost amid the screams of timber catching alight.
Oh God. I stagger to my feet. ‘Jesse!’ It comes out as a shuddering sob and I’m scrabbling at the wall, trying to find purchase, a foothold, some way of climbing back up to the window so I can help him. And then, just as another scream roars out of me, I see his face appear in the window, before disappearing in a cloud of black smoke that billows and swallows him whole.
‘Come on!’ I shout. Even from here I can f
eel the heat radiating off the walls. The roof has caught and the flames are licking up into the sky, hungry and alive.
As I watch, Jesse drags his body through the gap and then, hanging by his fingertips, he drops to the ground in a heap beside me, coughing and shaking. I wrap my arms around him and try to pull him to his feet, aware that we are sitting on the ground about half a foot away from a burning building that sounds like it is very soon going to collapse in a meteor-sized ball of flame. The heat is scalding my cheeks, singeing my hair, and the smoke is still filling my lungs like tar.
‘Come on,’ I say, tugging at Jesse. ‘We need to move!’
Jesse staggers to his feet, leaning heavily against me. He’s still coughing, drenched in sweat and blood. I stumble under his weight but we start making our way across the empty lot.
And then a shadow comes looming out of the darkness on one side, barrelling towards us at speed. I don’t have time to dodge it. Instead I try to turn, to block the blow that’s coming, stop it from hitting Jesse. But Jesse sees Tyler at the same time as I do and he pushes me behind him. And as I fall backwards, my hands flailing at air, I watch as Jesse’s fist lands squarely in Tyler’s gut.
Tyler collapses to his knees, his hands pressed to his stomach, his eyes bulging in his head. Jesse stands over him, hunch-shouldered, his face and body smeared with black grime and sweat. Blood from a cut on his forehead has streaked his face so he looks like he’s wearing a crimson mask. He is breathing heavily, his shoulders trembling. I watch him, unsure what he is going to do now.
But then his hand falls to his side. He takes a step backwards, his eyes fixed on Tyler but his hands searching for me, and I move forwards into them, let him wrap me up and hold me.
We stand there, holding each other, my head buried in Jesse’s shoulder, and I am shaking and he’s stroking my back and my hair telling me it’s going to be OK, when suddenly we hear a yell. Jesse spins around, still holding me tight, and I catch sight of Tyler’s face, spitting anger. He’s managed to get to his feet and is coming at us again. Jesse pushes me out the way again just as Tyler’s fist comes flying through the air. Jesse is knocked sideways. I scream as I watch him stumble and just then Matt appears, racing across the lot. He launches himself at Tyler, bringing him to the ground and pinning him there.
‘This is for my sister,’ he says, smashing his fist into Tyler’s face. ‘And this is for Jesse’s sister,’ he grunts, as he punches him a second time, knocking him out.
I stagger over to Jesse, who is swaying slightly. He stares down at Tyler, out cold, and then at Matt, sitting on top of him, and nods. Matt smiles grimly back. Jesse holds out his hand and helps him to his feet and the three of us stand there, not saying anything, watching the flames spear the sky and listening to the sound of sirens screaming closer.
39
We are ringed by fire engines and it’s like sitting in a strobe-lit nightclub without any music playing, but with lots of men in uniform bustling about instead of pillheads dancing. The fire is out but dark plumes of smoke still smoulder in chimneys, rising into the dark sky, blanketing out the stars.
I glance down at my bandaged hands – the sting feels muffled through them – and then I look up and around. The whole situation feels dreamlike, as though I’ve wandered onto the set of a Hollywood movie. I think the paramedic told me this was the residual effect of the shock and adrenaline leaving my system. The world feels unreal, drenched and saturated with colour and sound.
Mr Miller stands a little way off, talking to a fireman, glancing occasionally over at Jesse with a worried look on his face. Matt is giving his statement to a policeman in the back of one of the police cars. Another policeman stands by Jesse, who is sitting in the back of an ambulance wrapped in a blanket. I want to be next to him, I want to be under the blanket with him, stroking his skin, making sure he is OK, checking every inch of him with my lips. For some strange reason almost dying has made me want to have sex with Jesse Miller even more than I already did. The smoke inhalation must have affected my brain, or maybe it’s the oxygen they gave me, or maybe it’s the fact that I almost DIED. In this most inappropriate of moments – surrounded by men in uniform carrying hoses, with flashing lights and a building still smoking in the background – all I can do is fantasise about shoving the paramedic aside and straddling Jesse on the tailboard of the ambulance and letting him do anything to me.
I clutch hold of my sides and breathe deeply to make sure that I don’t act on this impulse because it feels like there’s a very real possibility that I will. And right then Jesse looks up and straight at me and I can see that he has read exactly what I’m thinking on my face – the lust must be that obvious, even through the grime and the sweat. But in a butterfly-leaping moment, I recognise that Jesse’s thinking exactly the same thing as me, the desire on his face is of the XXX variety. I know for a fact, without a doubt, that Jesse Miller is this very second picturing me naked and imagining all the things we could be doing, even as the policeman beside him taps his pencil on his pad and waits for him to finish his statement. The heat of Jesse’s gaze is almost hotter than the smouldering building behind me. It could ignite me from fifty paces. My helium heart is stitched back together and floating off somewhere past Jupiter right about now.
I turn my head, unwillingly (if I don’t, the danger is that I will be arrested) and look instead towards the car with the silently flashing red and white lights on top of it. It is a beautiful, even poetic, totally incredible sight. I pull out my iPod and take a photograph in order to capture it. I cannot resist. And when the flash goes off, Tyler Reed glances up and sees me. His eyes narrow into venomous slits. I wave and smile. He can’t wave back because his hands are tied behind his back. With handcuffs. I stood right by him when they put them on him and as the police read him his rights and charged him with arson.
‘Add attempted murder. And assault,’ I told the policeman.
The policeman turned to me with his official face on and informed me that he would take a statement from me later. I cannot wait. To prime them I gave the policeman the book that we stole from Tyler’s and which is now locked in a plastic evidence bag in another police car. Victory is so sweet.
And then I look back at Jesse and start thinking about sex again.
I am drinking in the deliciousness of him, half naked, draped in a blanket, still covered in dark grime. His face has been cleaned up and a Band-Aid covers the gash on his forehead. The burns and cuts on his shoulders are only superficial thankfully and the medic has slathered some kind of ointment on them.
I’m keeping an electrically-charged safe distance when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I’m expecting it to be a fireman telling me to mind out the way of the hose, or a policeman telling me he’s ready to take my statement, but it’s actually Mr Thorne. As in Jeremy’s father. As in . . . what the hell is he doing here? I guess Matt must have called him.
Mr Thorne is not the first person I want to see, definitely not the person I want to have interrupt my Jesse lust-filled dreams.
He looks at me absently, almost directly through me, and at the smoking remains of what was Miller’s Bike and Boat Store. ‘I was just passing by, heading home, when I saw there was a fire,’ he says.
That’s odd, I think to myself. Matt didn’t call him after all. Maybe he doesn’t realise that Matt is here.
‘We own the vacant plots on either side of Miller’s so I wanted to see what the damage was,’ Mr Thorne says, gesticulating at the area around us.
I remember that Mrs Thorne works in real estate and the conversation I overhead between Mr Thorne and Mr Reed about buying out Miller’s now makes sense. It also makes me want to sock him one. He’s come to assess the situation while the place is still burning. He’s about as sensitive as his shithead of a son (Jeremy that is, not Matt).
I’m about to walk away (the heat from Jesse is acting on me the opposite way that kryptonite acts on Superman) when Mr Thorne grabs me by the arm and says, ‘Why is Tyler
in that police car?’
I glance over my shoulder at Tyler in handcuffs. ‘That would be because he tried to kill me and Jesse Miller by burning down the store,’ I tell Mr Thorne.
The look on his face is priceless. He stares at Tyler then at me as though he’s waiting for the punchline and then he looks back at Tyler and swears under his breath.
‘Does his father know? Has anyone called him a lawyer?’
My eyebrows are hovering somewhere above my head. ‘Yeah, sure, that was the first call I made, even before I rang for the ambulance and the fire brigade.’
He catches my sarcasm and stepping brusquely past me pulls out his phone and hits speed dial. He walks out of earshot but I imagine the call that he’s placing and wish I could be on the other end to see Richard Reed’s face when he hears what his son’s been up to tonight and where he’s headed. Ain’t going to be Vanderbilt College, that’s for sure.
I walk over to Jesse who is finishing up with the policeman. The paramedic is trying to put the oxygen mask back on his face but he pushes it off. His eyes are fixed on me and it’s as if all the flames are still reflected in them. He reaches for me and pulls me towards him. His lips meet mine and in that instant I feel like the world has caught alight again.
The firemen are packing away. Mr Thorne stands talking to Matt off to one side. And suddenly a red car comes screeching into the lot. Jesse and I watch as Paige and Sophie jump out of the car. Both of them stare open-mouthed at the smoking remains of the store. Sophie runs over to Matt, who pulls her into a hug, and Paige comes jogging over to me and Jesse.
‘What happened?’ she asks, shock making her already pale face even paler. ‘Sophie just called me. Matt called her to tell her about the fire. What happened? Are you OK?’
‘Yeah, we’re OK,’ I say, feeling Jesse’s hand stroking my back. ‘Tyler came after us.’
The Sound Page 25
