“I have never been so jealous of someone,” Heather announced. It was Saturday night and we were all lying in my bed, our elbows pressed up against one another. It was cramped on the single mattress—Heather had brought Kim along without warning me—and squishing four bodies onto the limited space was difficult.
I’d just finished telling them about the tour of the ranch Cole gave me yesterday, something I promised to divulge only after we finished our art project. Kim was surprisingly helpful; she knew exactly how to rein in her friends and refocus their attention when they got distracted. Even so, my gossip seemed to work as perfect motivation for Heather and Riley.
“Oh, good God,” said Riley. Untangling herself from the rest of us, she grabbed a pillow from the head of my bed, tossed it on the floor, and situated herself on top of it. “Why can’t one of the Walter boys take me on a date?”
“It wasn’t a date. It was a tour,” I said, correcting her. “Which, I might add, Cole only gave me because Lee was being a jerk.”
“You went horseback riding and watched the sunset together,” Heather said, sliding down next to Riley. There was a half-finished bowl of popcorn abandoned few feet away, and she scooped up a handful. “That’s a straight-out-of-a-book example of a romantic date.”
“What do you think, Kim?” Riley asked, holding her hands out to inspect her nails. The bright blue polish was chipped on every finger.
“About what?” Kim asked without looking up from the pages of the comic book spread out in front of her. During our boy gossip, she stayed quiet and stuck to reading. Riley tried to pull her into the conversation with occasional questions, but Kim had a knack for dismissing them immediately. She would offer a few quick words and wave her hand for effect before returning to her comics. It was a talent I had yet to master, because whenever I tried to wiggle my way out of a question, I dug myself into a deeper hole.
“You think the tour counted as a date?”
“Jackie was the one who was there,” Kim said. “She would know best.” “That is such a lame answer,” Riley said. “Jackie, do you have any nail
polish?”
“Sure.” I jumped up from my bed, glad for the change of subject. “Do you need remover too?”
“And some cotton balls.”
I opened my closet, looking for the heavy box that I knew was inside. “Whoa,” Heather said, as I pulled back the door. “What’s with the
rainbow?”
She was referring to the fact that all my clothes were hung color coordinated, from shades of red on one end to the purples on the other.
My cheeks got warm. “Just a habit,” I said, locating the nail polish.
After sliding the box out with some difficulty, I dumped it next to Riley, making the bottles inside rattle together. Everyone was silent as they looked down at the huge, cardboard moving box that was filled to the top with every color imaginable.
Eyes big, Riley looked up at me. “Is that all?” she asked sarcastically, air puffing out of her mouth in disbelief.
“For real,” Heather added, sliding next to Riley so she could get a better look. She dug her hand into the box and plucked out a bright red. “Planning on dropping out of school and starting your own salon?”
I shook my head. They weren’t mine. Lucy had been obsessed with painting her nails the way Heather was obsessed with the Walter boys. She
put on new color every day to match whatever outfit she was wearing. Her collection of polish was always scattered about the house, stuffed in drawers and cabinets or whatever space she could find. It got to the point that my mom had to set up a vanity in Lucy’s room specifically so she would have a space to do her nails. Regardless, bottles would pop up every now and then, tucked between the couch cushions or under a bookshelf where they had rolled and been forgotten.
She was always trying to paint my nails too, but I didn’t like the way the polish chipped after a few hours, making my fingers look unkempt. “Jackie,” she would tell me, “doing your nails is like making a personal statement. Each color can say something different about you and your mood.”
I always thought it was silly—blue was blue, and pink was pink. Not tranquil or melancholy or cheerful. Even so, when Katherine helped me pack my belongings, I couldn’t leave the nail polish behind. I swiped all of the bottles off the top of her vanity into a box so I could take some of Lucy with me to Colorado.
“I don’t really use them,” I said, showing off my plain fingers. “They were my sister’s.” The statement slipped off my tongue casually, but everyone went silent. When I realized what I had said, the meaning behind my words, my shoulders went stiff.
“Well,” Riley said slowly as she selected a dark purple, “this is quite the impressive collection.”
“Definitely,” Heather agreed, shaking the bottle against her palm. “Want me to do your nails, Jackie?”
She unscrewed the cap, and I realized what I liked so much about these girls. They knew about my family, that much was evident from the first time I met Heather, and they loved to gossip, yet they never once broached the subject. It had come up through offhand comments that I didn’t realize I was making, but these girls maneuvered around them gracefully, as if I hadn’t said anything.
“Why not?” I told Heather, dropping down next to her and tucking my legs underneath me.
“So,” she said, starting to apply the bright red liquid to my pinkie, “can you tell us a little more about that near kiss?”
I made a face. “Not this subject again,” I said, but I couldn’t pull away. Heather was bent over my hands, the tiny brush moving carefully. “I thought we were done talking about Cole.”
“Please, Jackie?” Riley begged. “Don’t you know how amazing this is?
One of us has actually been near enough to Cole Walter to kiss him.”
I didn’t want to recollect that particular experience—I was embarrassed that I let it happen—but I knew they wouldn’t stop interrogating me until they heard every last detail. On the upside, the way Riley said us made me feel special.
“Okay, all right,” I groaned, giving in quickly. It was easier that way, just getting it over as fast as possible. “What do you want to know?”
Their questions came at me faster than I could answer. “What did he smell like?”
“Was he holding your hand?” “How close did your lips get?”
“Did he tuck your hair behind your ear?”
It was suddenly quiet, as both girls waited for me to say something. “Um?” I answered, looking back and forth between the two.
“How about this,” Riley said in a serious voice, as if we needed to resolve some huge issue. “Why don’t we ask Jackie one question at a time?”
“Me first,” Heather said, looking up from her work. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad did you want him to kiss you?”
“Oh, that’s a good one,” Riley said, nodding her head at Heather. “Ahhh?” I said with a frown.
Truthfully, I hadn’t the slightest idea. I mean, it wasn’t like I was staring at Cole’s lips, waiting for the moment he would kiss me. Everything just kind of happened. We were standing there, we were close, and something—
an energy of some sort—was moving between us. I didn’t even know what was happening until it was all over. How was I supposed to rate a feeling like that?
“We’re waiting,” Riley said.
“I guess a five?” I said, hoping that wasn’t creepy high.
“Only?” Heather said, looking disappointed. “I would have thrown myself at him.”
At that moment, my bedroom door slammed open.
“Jackie wants to kiss Cole!” Benny shouted at the top of his lungs. My heart stopped when I saw him. How long had he been listening?
Alarmed, I shot to my feet. “That’s not true, Benny,” I said slowly. “Why would I want icky boy germs?” There was no way he was leaving my room shouting something like that. If Cole heard him…
“Jackie and Cole sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” He sang louder and louder, his voice cracking at the end.
“Benny Walter,” I said sternly. “If you don’t stop this instant—” I lost my words midsentence when I noticed what was on his head. “Oh my God, is that my bra?”
I tried to snatch it back, but Benny was faster, darting away like a minnow. He leaped onto my bed and started jumping up and down.
“I got your booby holder!” he taunted me.
Kim, who was still curled up on my comforter trying to read, glared up at him. “Hey, kid,” she said, sternly and forcefully. “You’re going to wreck my comic.”
Benny stopped jumping, his eyes huge. “Is that the newest Dr. Cyrus Cyclops?” he asked, sticking his face next to hers so he could get a better look.
“It is,” Kim said.
With Benny distracted, Riley was able pluck my bra off his head. She handed it to me, and I recognized it immediately as the one that went missing from the bathroom while I was showering. Someone had drawn nipples on each cup with a marker.
“Can I read it with you?” Benny asked, and then he added, “Please?” “How about this,” Kim said. “If you promise to leave us alone and not
repeat any of the conversation you heard, I’ll give it to you.”
“Like to keep?” he asked, and Kim nodded her head. “Wow! Cross my heart, hope to die,” he said instantly. Benny held out his hand, but Kim didn’t hand it over right away. She gave him a look, one of those piercing stares that said, “Don’t mess with me.” Only when Benny swallowed, clearly nervous, did she relinquish her comic.
He sat on my bed for a moment, holding it in his hand as he gazed down in amazement. Then he bolted from the room as if Kim might snatch it back.
“Nice one, Kim,” Heather said, shutting the door behind him. She shrugged and stretched out. “I try.”
“Thanks a bunch.” I let out the breath that I had been holding since Benny appeared. “That could have been disastrous.”
We all looked at each other for a minute before bursting out laughing.
***
“I had fun last night,” Riley told me, zippering up the sleeping bag she’d slept in.
“Yeah, me too,” I said as I grabbed my own bag to roll up.
It was Sunday morning, and Riley was helping me clean up the mess in my room. Kim needed to be home in time for church with her family, and since Heather was her ride, the two had left before Riley and I were even awake.
We stayed up most of the night talking about all sorts of things, like how Kim was too obsessed with her online gaming—a problem Heather thought could be solved with a boyfriend—and how Riley thought the new American history teacher was cute in a scholarly, Harvard professor sort of way. But most of all, we talked about Cole and the Walters. I spent the whole night constantly trying to change the subject, but it was as if Riley’s and Heather’s brains were hardwired to think about Cole every half an hour.
It wouldn’t have been so awful if they hadn’t kept insisting that I liked him, and vice versa.
“It was really cool of Mrs. Walter to let us stay over,” Riley added as she shook a blanket out, holding it by two end corners. A few stray pieces of popcorn were launched into the air, but she ignored them and started to fold up the flannel fabric.
“Yeah, Katherine’s been awesome to me.” I’d moved on to cleaning up the nail polish. Heather had dumped the entire box over in search of the perfect pink.
“You know, you’re pretty awesome too,” she said. After setting the newly folded blanket on my bed, she dropped onto the floor next to me and helped me with the bottles. “Most people can’t put up with Heather and me. We’re a little…”
“Intense?” I offered.
“That’s a nice way of putting it, but yeah.”
I shrugged. “Back home, I have this friend Sammy who reminds me of you both. The girls at my old school think she’s weird, but she’s just super passionate. You know, the kind of person who comes off as crazy because she cares too much?”
Riley grinned. “Sounds like we’d get along.” “Totally.”
A minute passed as we finished picking up the nail polish. When all the different colors were off the floor, Riley sat back on her heels and tucked a strand of bright red hair behind her ear. I was about to pick up the cardboard box and put it back in the closet, but she looked at me then, a strange half-happy, half-sad expression on her face.
“So,” she asked slowly. “Are you…settling in okay?”
It was the closest she had come to asking about my family, and in the silence that followed, I realized that I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s only been a week,” I finally replied, even though that didn’t answer her question. And then I added softly, “Everything is so crazy here.”
“How so?”
“Living with the Walters—I feel like I never know what’s going to happen. It’s so—” I broke off, not able to think of the right word.
“Unpredictable,” Riley said. “Exactly.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Looking down at my hands, I turned them over as if they held the answer that could help me explain how I felt. “I don’t know,” I told her, still struggling. “It’s like I have to keep my guard up 24/7.” I glanced back up at Riley to see if she was following me, but the look on her face said she was lost.
“Why do you need to have your guard up?”
“Because,” I told her, a discouraged sigh hissing out my nose, “I have to be ready.”
“For what? A zombie apocalypse?”
I gave her a look. “No, just stuff. Life stuff.”
“Well,” Riley said, her eyebrows scrunched together. “That seems like a lot of work.”
“What does?” I asked.
“Trying to be ready for everything.”
“Not literally everything,” I told her. “But life’s a lot easier if things run smoothly.”
“Sure,” Riley said, “but it’s also no fun if there aren’t any bumps. Not knowing what’s going to happen every once and a while makes things all the more interesting.”
I was suddenly overwhelmed, the lack of sleep from the past night catching up. “But if you don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said, throwing up my hands in frustration, “if you’re not prepared, that’s when you make mistakes.”
“Mistakes can be good things, though.” I just looked at her.
“Okay, take me for example,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared, as you like to say, for my first boyfriend. He was older than me, more experienced. We
dated for about four months and then he broke my heart.” “I don’t see how that’s good,” I pointed out.
“Okay, well, maybe that wasn’t the best example,” Riley said, “but if I could do it again, I would.”
“Why?”
“Because he was my first love. Those first four months, as quick as they went, were a whirlwind of bliss. Sometimes you have to let your heart take the lead.”
“But if I can prepare for things—”
Riley laughed. “You can’t prepare for love. It’s not like taking your driver’s test or the SATs. It’s a gift. One that can happen at any moment.”
“How did we even get on this subject?” I asked. “I thought we were talking about my move.”
“We’re talking about it because you’re afraid to take a chance.” “On what?”
“Just stuff,” she said, echoing my words. “Life stuff.” But there was the tiniest crack of a smile on her face, and I knew she was hinting at something more.
“Riley…” I said, frowning at her.
“What?” she asked, shrugging and faking innocence. “All I’m saying is that you’re too busy worrying about the future. Sometimes, you just gotta feel.”
***
Riley’s mother picked her up after breakfast. I stood on the front porch and waved until their car disappeared at the end of the drive, but instead of going back inside, I took the wooden steps down onto the front lawn. The fresh spring air was refreshing, so I followed a gravel path that wrapped around the side of the house into the backyard. I was heading in the direction of the tree house, a place I’d wanted to check out ever since Cole pointed it out during the tour of the ranch.
As I neared the oak tree, I realized just how tall it was and how far the branches stretched out in every direction. A canopy of green above me created a pool of shade from the sun. I took the time to count the number of wooden planks nailed into the trunk—there were twelve in all. The house itself looked neglected, and I wondered when one of the Walter boys had used it last. Probably not for a long time, I thought. It would be the perfect place to hide out.
Placing my hands on the wooden step above my head, I started to climb carefully, not wanting to get a splinter. When I reached the top, I pushed open the trapdoor in the floor, and its hinges screeched.
“Jackie?” someone asked as I poked my head up through the floor.
Startled, I let out a scream and my foot slipped. There was a flutter in my stomach as I lost my balance, but my hand shot out and caught the top rung of the ladder before I crashed to the ground.
“Give me your hand,” Alex said, his face appearing above me through the hole. I reached toward him, and he gripped my wrist, yanking me up into the safety of the tree house. We both collapsed onto the floor, chests heaving.
“I almost fell out of the tree,” I said in disbelief.
“And I almost died of a heart attack,” he replied. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” I gasped, still out of breath. My heart was pounding so hard that my chest hurt. “I didn’t know anyone was up here.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Being curious,” I said. “I’ve never been in a tree house before.”
My heart was finally starting to slow down, and I had a chance to take in my surroundings. The small room was washed in calm, green shade, and despite its lack of air-conditioning, the foliage outside kept the space cool. There were two tiny windows, one of which had a telescope screwed into the sill.
On the wall was what looked like a hand-drawn map of the ranch, but the imagination of a child had clearly created it. The pool was called Poison
Lagoon, the Walters’ house was the Black Fortress, and the tree house was Woodland Sanctuary. A plastic toy sword was leaning in the corner, and small crates for sitting were arranged around the floor.
“Never?” Alex asked. He propped himself up onto his elbows to get a better look at me.
“I’m from New York City, remember?” “Don’t you have trees there?” he joked.
“There’s a potted bamboo tree in our lobby,” I said, still examining the map on the wall. “But I don’t think it would make much of a tree house.” Underneath the drawing of the waterfall, I could barely make out the scribble of words: Mermaid’s Cove. A treasure chest was colored onto the sand with jewels dripping out over the edge.
“It’s so strange to think that you didn’t have a backyard,” Alex said. “I mean, I practically lived outside when I was a kid. My dad helped me build this when I was eight.”
“Even if I did have a backyard, it wouldn’t have mattered,” I said, reaching for the plastic sword. I scooped it out of the corner and swished it in the air. “My dad wasn’t much of a handyman.”
“He was a businessman, right?” Alex asked.
Lowering the toy, I tilted my head to the side so I could get a better look at him. Alex was the first Walter to ask me a question about my family. As I stared at him, his entire body went rigid when he realized his mistake. Instead of being sympathetic, he seemed uncomfortable, more so than me, and for some strange reason that put me at ease.
“It’s okay,” I told him before he tried to apologize.
He didn’t reply for a moment, and I thought at first that he was going to ignore me. “What do you mean?” he asked carefully.
“Alex,” I said, pushing myself up into a sitting position. “I can tell by the way you won’t look at me that you feel awkward—about my family.”
“Oh.” He forced himself to look up at me. “I wasn’t trying to act weird,” he said then. “I just don’t know what to say. I mean, I’ve never known someone who—whose family—” He stopped, unable to finish his sentence.
“Someone whose family died?” It was the first time I’d said it out loud to any of the boys.
“Yeah, that.” He held my eyes for a moment before looking away again. “Most people just say they’re sorry,” I said, trying to get him to relax. It
was a strange feeling. Normally everyone tried to comfort me when my family came up, not the other way around.
“That’s a strange custom, don’t you think?” Alex asked, which wasn’t what I was expecting him to say. He pulled himself into a sitting position and leaned back against the wall.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s say, for example, that it was an accident,” he said, and by “it” I presumed he meant death. “Then there’s no reason to apologize since it technically isn’t your fault, right? Saying you feel bad makes more sense, but nobody really wants to hear that, do they? Besides, I’m sure not everyone actually feels bad. What if you don’t really know the person who died, but you just feel like you have to say something? That’s not really genuine.”
Alex was in full-on ramble mode. “Alex,” I said, trying to get his attention.
“Maybe people should just give hugs. Physical contact says a lot without actually saying anything, but I guess people give hugs at funerals anyway. And I’d feel awkward giving you a hug since we barely know each other.”
“Alex!” I shouted this time and clapped my hands together for emphasis. “Huh?” he said, shaking his head. When he noticed me staring at him, he
blushed. “Sorry, I tend to talk when I’m nervous.”
“I can see that,” I said, a small grin curling on my lips. It was honestly the worst condolence someone had ever given me, and yet somehow it worked. “Thanks.”
When he saw that I wasn’t upset, he smiled back. “No problem.”
I turned serious again. “You want to know one of the worst things?” I asked, but I didn’t wait for him to respond. “When people treat me
differently, like I’m going to break or something. For a second there, I was afraid you were going to get all weird on me.”
“I’m sorry, Jackie,” he said then, since there was nothing more he could say.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, more to myself than to him. “Me too.”
We were quiet for a while, both lost in thought, until I finally worked up the courage to speak again. “So what are you doing up here?”
This question seemed to make Alex more uncomfortable then talking about my family, and I felt him tense up again, his hands balling into fists at his side. When I looked at him, I realized that something was wrong. There were dark purple marks under Alex’s eyes, like he hadn’t slept all weekend.
“Hey,” I asked, “what’s wrong?”
His gaze flickered to the left, and when I followed him with my eyes, I spotted something discarded on the floor—a piece of paper or something. Alex didn’t move, so I slowly reached for it, watching him the whole time to make sure it was okay, but he didn’t indicate that I should stop. When I picked it up, I realized that it was a folded-up photograph, and I carefully smoothed out the crease. I recognized the people in it immediately. There was Alex, grinning at the camera, his arm wrapped around a girl with blond ringlets—the girl from our anatomy class.
“Her name’s Mary Black,” Alex said without waiting for me to ask. “She’s my ex-girlfriend. We broke up three weeks ago.”
“I take it you miss her?” I knew it was a lame thing to say. Of course he missed her, but I didn’t know how to properly comfort him. It explained the longing look he gave Mary on my first day of class. Alex nodded his head.
“Do you think you guys will get back together?” I asked, trying to be positive.
“I’ve had a crush on her since elementary school,” Alex said instead. “The first time I saw her was in third grade, and I remember holding my breath as she walked by me on the playground. She was wearing this little pink jumper and her hair was hanging down her back in two braids. She couldn’t’ve cared less that all the boys stopped playing kickball just to
watch her skip rope with her friends.” The words were spilling out of Alex’s mouth now, so I let him go on without interrupting.
“I’ll be the first to admit, after that day, I think I was in love, but I never did anything about it. Mary was the type of girl that seemed so unobtainable, and I knew I didn’t stand a chance. I dated a few girls in junior high, nothing serious, and then at the beginning of this year, she sat next to me in English. On the first day of class, she just popped down next to me and started talking to me like we were good friends, like I hadn’t been crushing on her since forever. After a few weeks, I worked up the courage to ask her to Homecoming, and then we started dating.”
“So what happened?”
“She dumped me out of the blue for a different guy.”
“Ouch. Did you at least find out who it was so you could get a good punch in?” I was only trying to lighten the mood, but I saw anger flash in his eyes.
“I would have, but she wouldn’t tell me,” Alex said. “So then, imagine my surprise when I come home and see her sitting on the couch watching a movie with Cole.”
I gasped. “She broke up with you to date your brother?”
Alex laughed, but it wasn’t a nice one. “Cole doesn’t date,” he said, repeating the same fact that I had already heard multiple times. “For some reason she thought she could change him, but I know Cole better than that. She called me Friday night and told me she’s sorry and wants to get back together.”
“What did you say?”
“That I wouldn’t be her consolation prize,” he spat.
“Alex, I don’t know what to say,” I said uncomfortably. Obviously something was going on between Alex and Cole, and I didn’t want to get in the middle of it. “Why are you even telling me all this?”
A long time passed before Alex said anything, and at first I thought he wasn’t going to give me an answer. “Look, I know about your family, and now I’ve told you my secret, so we’re even. I know your baggage. You
know mine. We can just be normal.” He paused there, as if he needed a moment to collect himself. “I should get going,” he said, picking himself up and moving toward the trapdoor. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
***
For the rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Alex had told me. Cole stole his girlfriend. How could he be so callous? As I mulled it all over, I sorted through all the material from all my classes. Since starting at my new school, I hadn’t had a chance to organize anything because life with the Walters meant there was always some unexpected event that kept me from the task. Each class received its own file in my accordion folder, ordered by period with the syllabus always at the front.
A history assignment slipped from my hands and fluttered to the floor. When I bent down to pick it up, I caught a glimpse through my window of Cole heading toward the second garage. Over the course of the week, I’d noticed that he frequented it every night. Curious, I left the homework on my desk and pulled on a pair of shoes. By the time I made my way across the driveway, Cole had already shut the doors, but I could hear a stream of music from within.
“Cole?” I knocked, but he didn’t answer. “Hello?” I called out. I rested my hand on the handle, not sure if I should intrude. I knew he was still inside because I could hear him moving around, but I didn’t want to be rude. When I heard the clang of metal on concrete, followed by a stream of swearing, I yanked open the door to make sure he was okay.
The small space was closer to the size of a shed than an actual garage. Along one wall ran a workbench, covered with different wrenches, ratchets, screwdrivers, and other strange-looking instruments. Above the bench were rows of shelves piled high with car parts, making it look like a Transformer had exploded across the length of wood ledges. A huge black car took up the rest of the space, and its hood was propped open, revealing its guts. Cole was crouched on the floor, picking up the gear that had spilled across the floor when a red toolbox fell to the ground.
“Everything okay?” I asked, making him jump.
“God, Jackie!” he exclaimed, glancing up at me and putting both hands on his knees. “Were you trying to scare me?”
“I knocked,” I said with a shrug before slipping inside the cramped space. “What are you doing?”
He stood up. “Working.” Cole was wearing a plain white shirt and an old pair of jeans, both of which were covered in grease. There was a red rag hanging from his pocket, and he plucked it out to dab across his brow. “Did my mom send you out here to get me?”
“No,” I told him as I picked my way around the car. I didn’t want grease on my good silk blouse. “You never showed me this place during my tour.”
“That’s because nobody is allowed in here,” he said, his face flat. “It’s my space.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback by how curt he was being. “Sorry, I didn’t know. I guess I’ll leave now.”
Cole sighed. “No, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to snap, but Alex has been a dick to me today and I took it out on you.”
“What happened?” I asked, trying to sound mildly interested. In reality, my ears were perked. When I made the decision to come down to the garage, it was partly because I wanted to find out if Alex’s accusations were true. I knew that the topic would be hard to slip into a conversation, and I hadn’t thought it would actually come up, but now that it had, a spark of excitement shot up my spine.
“I don’t know,” he said, leaning back against the car. “He’s been a prick for the last few weeks.”
“I see.” I couldn’t tell if Cole seriously didn’t understand why his brother was mad, or if something else was going on. “So are you going to talk to him?”
“I already did, but he never listens,” he said as he wrung the dirty cloth in his hands. “Whatever. If he wants to be ignorant, that’s his choice.” Cole crumpled the rag into a ball and tossed it on the workbench. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure,” I said, even though I was dying to know more.
“All right. Well, now that you’re out here, I might as well show you my baby.”
“Huh?”
Cole pulled back the passenger side door for me. “Get in.”
“Is it clean?” I asked, squinting inside. There wasn’t much light in the garage to begin with, and the lights in the car didn’t turn on when Cole opened the door.
“I vacuumed the seats,” he said, making his way around the front of the car. “Just get in.”
Ducking down, I carefully settled in. Cole yanked his door shut, and I followed suit, sealing us in the musty cabin.
“So this is your baby?”
“It’s a 1987 Buick Grand National,” he said, running both hands over the steering wheel. “Used to be my grandpa’s.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” I wasn’t trying to be rude, but the car was a bit of a clunker.
“This is a classic car.”
“It doesn’t look like much.”
“Well, it is. And when I finish restoring it, it’s going to run like a dream,” he said, sweeping his hand out in front of him as he imagined his car.
“So that’s what you’re doing? Fixing it up?”
“I’m trying to, but it’s expensive,” Cole said, his hand dropping back to his side. “That’s why I work at Tony’s. He pays me with the parts I need.”
“When did you learn to fix cars?” I didn’t mean to grill him, but this was the first conversation I’d had with Cole where he actually seemed passionate about something.
“I’ve taken a lot of shop classes in school, but it’s always just come naturally to me,” Cole explained.
“How long have you been working on it?”
“On and off since the start of high school.” He paused and then added, “But I’ve really made it a priority since last year.” Cole pressed his lips together, and his eyes turned dark cobalt as he stared out the windshield.
I took that as a sign not to push any further. “Cool,” I said instead.
He was obviously thinking about something, because then he shook his thoughts away. “I’m sorry, Jackie,” he said. “I don’t mean to kick you out, but I really wanted to take another crack at the engine before dinner.”
At first, I didn’t understand what he was saying, but then I realized he wanted me to leave. I must have said something wrong. “Oh, okay.” I fumbled in the dark to find the handle, and as I did, my face turned red. When my fingers finally found the smooth metal, I yanked it open as quickly as I could and stepped out.
“See you later,” he said, but he wasn’t even looking at me. His gaze was still focused out the window.
“Yeah, bye.”
I hurried out of Cole’s garage, but when I got to the front porch, I glanced back over my shoulder. It was hard to spot him in the shadows, but the mop of blond hair gave him away. He was still sitting in the front seat— he hadn’t moved at all.
