The urge to squirm under those all-seeing eyes crept through me and irritated me at the same time. I didn’t owe any of them an explanation. “It was a boring party.”
His snort echoed in the too quiet classroom.
Classroom.
Hell, we were still at school. Mr. G just left to make some copies. Granted, the teacher’s lounge and copy machines were on the far side of the school, and it was a safe bet he wouldn’t be back before the last bell—but still!
“Jake…”
“Uh-uh.” Jake braced one hand on the seat back behind me and the other on the desk in front of me. “It’s just you and me, Frankie.”
“Clearly, unless invisible students enrolled this semester.” Once upon a time, that joke might even have made Jake laugh, lame as it was. Currently, however, it earned me a blank stare.
I tried again. “We’re at school, Jake.”
“We’re in Mr. G’s room. We’re not seeing him again until tomorrow. That’s why I waited until we were alone.” So he’d been waiting all day for this? “You’re a private person, I respect that.”
Respect.
I clamped my mouth shut. Sometimes, if I didn’t think before I spoke, I forgot what a verbal filter was, if I’d ever had one.
“But you’ve been a ghost. You took off, skipped the end of the year party. Skipped the opening pool party. Didn’t show up when Archie had his tonsils out…”
His what?
I blinked. “What?”
“Oh, now you notice?” Jake’s eyes were hard. “Archie. Tonsils. Two weeks after school got out, he was in the hospital for an emergency surgery. We were there. Where were you?”
Dread curled through me.
“I didn’t know.” Oh crap. Clearly, he was fine but… “No one…”
“Told you? I called you, Frankie. So did Coop and Bubba. Archie asked. We lied for you, by the way.” Each word landed like an icy slap. Archie had been in the hospital, and I’d missed it.
There had been messages from the guys. Voicemails.
I’d just never listened to them.
“Then Coop covered for you.” The last surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. “He told us you and your mom were fighting, which… honestly would be weird since you and your mom barely talk.”
“We talk,” I argued, defensiveness flaring.
“Uh huh. Asking about the weather and if the coffee is ready isn’t talking. Or how was it you put it? Your mom has her life, and you have yours, and somewhere along the way you became roommates instead of parent and child?”
Okay. That was true, but… “Roommates fight.”
Jake snorted, but no mirth filled his eyes. “Why?”
“Why what?” Belatedly, I wondered if he meant why had Mom and I been fighting, not that we had. Fighting would imply caring. Mom cared, but she didn’t really care like other people’s parents. She did the best she could, and it worked for us. I was perfectly capable of looking after myself.
Jake closed his eyes, and I swore I could see him counting to ten, like a tangible thing or one of those cartoon blowouts. Of the four of them, Jake was the one who never let me get away with anything. Coop ignored my deflections, Archie would poke at them, and Bubba? Well, he just indulged me like it didn’t bother him in the slightest—part of why I’d gone to his birthday party, even when I’d told myself it was a terrible idea.
Seeing Rachel and Cheryl there had all but confirmed it for me. Though Cheryl, at least, had been sympathetic. She also thought their behavior was some kind of cute or how was it she put it? “It’s adorable, Frankie. They actually care what happens to you!”
Or what didn’t happen, apparently. It sucked when the people you thought were your friends turned out to be nothing more than sexist pigs, a kind of lurid joke on the high school experience where guys kept score based on how far they got with a girl or how…
Dammit. I wasn’t mad anymore.
Blowing out a breath, I twisted sideways in my seat and met his stare. “I didn’t know about Archie. I should have and I didn’t.” That was on me. “I had things to do this summer. It wasn’t personal, Jake.”
“Bullshit,” he countered, his voice softening a fraction under that single word. “It’s pretty damn personal when one of your best friends just ghosts you for no damn reason.”
Oh.
There’d been a reason.
But either I owned it and confronted them or I let it go. I’d let it go.
“I had to figure some things out,” I admitted. It wasn’t a lie. I did have a lot to figure out. More than just college and Mom dating, there’d been the reality of what did I want to face and more—who did I want to be?
“Like what?” Instead of irritation or anger, elements of concern crept into his tone and that just fanned the flames of guilt a little higher.
“A lot of stuff,” I said, keeping it vague. “Some of it was girl stuff. Some of it life stuff. Some of it…”
“Stuff?” he offered.
Not really smiling, I shrugged. “Kind of.” Great. Now I’d become one of those twittering girls who impregnated every comment with layers of meaning in order to test the people around them.
Like Presley.
She’d done that for years. Always testing the people around her, dictating whether she would be your friend one day and then freeze you out the next. The politics if being a girl was what my mom had called it.
Girls sucked.
The dense silence grew heavy and oppressive. Did I crack? I wanted to—and if I wanted to, was that cracking?
“High school is almost over,” I found myself saying. “Sometimes—it feels like it already is.” Graduation pictures in June. First round of college applications due by the first of October. Early admission decided on by November. Then the holiday breaks and the final class rankings and the breakneck dash toward AP exams and graduation itself. Most of the guys would probably have parties—the rumors of past graduation bashes had begun in freshman year and Archie took it as a personal challenge.
Even if none of them had a party, he would throw one that would probably dazzle the entirety of our senior class.
“Kind of happens when you become a senior,” Jake said. “But we’re not done yet.”
“I know, but…” I wasn’t even sure how to phrase this. It was a gloomy damn thought. Gloomier than Coop liked to hear, and Bubba would just give me that charming smile and tell me life had a way of working it out. Damn Boy Scout also had an irritating habit of being right.
Archie might get it. Maybe. Depending on the day.
But Jake?
“But you’re both ready to be done with this place and uncertain of what the hell you’re going to do after they hand us our diplomas?”
“I’m not even sure I’m gonna walk.” That admission staged a jailbreak, slipping through the bars before I could get the door shut on it.
“Frankie,” Jake admonished, straightening abruptly. “Why wouldn’t you? You’re in the top of the class—not just the top percent, but the top twenty people. You’re gonna graduate with honors and have a ridiculous number of college acceptances and probably enough scholarships to give you a full ride at the priciest of schools.” His mouth firmed and his head tilted as he eyed me. “You’ve probably applied for every single one you qualified for and have a stack of applications waiting to hit send on when you meet some arbitrary date or requirement they have…”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. Heat flooded the back of my neck and left my cheeks flushed and far too warm.
“Ha,” Jake said with a smirk. “See? I know you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Those words stymied his smile, and he frowned at me. “Then what are you talking about?”
“Everyone—everyone earns a diploma. On May 18th, at fifteen minutes after three when our senior grades lock in—I’ll have qualified for graduation or not. That diploma is mine. You don’t have to walk to get it.”
The frown fell away from hi
s expression and his eyes sobered. “Well, I guess… yeah, I guess you don’t have to actually walk to get that.”
“Graduation gowns and packages are expensive, Jake.” Talking about money was a taboo, but Jake got it. He worked part time to help out his mom and his younger sisters. The SUV had been a guilt gift from his dad. A return on an investment. His dad was still serving overseas and, while his sisters went to visit, Jake steadfastly hadn’t. Not once since him and his mom came back to the States.
“The base package is about sixty bucks—that’s cap, gown, and cord. You don’t need any of the rest of it. I mean who needs some fancy frame with the year on it?” In this, we were united.
“And sixty bucks is two tanks of gas on my way to school. Sixty bucks is a week’s worth of groceries for just me—not counting the cats.”
A flash of a smile appeared on his face.
“Sixty bucks for an outfit I have to wear over another outfit that I’ll never wear again? You can’t even donate it because they shift the shade of the gown each year.” They claimed they didn’t, but they did. There was a reason why they recommended you didn’t “borrow” one from a previous graduating class.
“I’ll pay for it,” Jake offered.
“Jake…”
“No,” he said, setting his hand over mine on the desk. “I know you didn’t tell me any of this because you were looking for someone to pay for the gown. I get it. I know… I know we give you a hard time about your job.”
A hard time? They’d been relentless, always teasing me that I worked too hard and it made me a dull girl. That was why they had shown up at Mason’s or dragged me out to movies. Friends don’t let friends get dull.
“But I clip coupons for my mom, I scan the sale papers, I’ll make the trips to the different stores to get the best deals when she’s on a limited budget.” Child support didn’t stretch as far as it used to, not when his youngest sister seemed to outgrow everything year after year. She was going to be tall—like Jake. His other sisters were more average in height, unlike me, but Louisa was almost 5’7 and she was in sixth grade and already taller than either of her older sisters. “You have plans.”
“So do you,” I reminded him. “This isn’t about sixty dollars for a graduation gown. It’s about all the things that come after it, if I get into the school I apply for, and if I get the scholarships or if I get the financial aid… It’s not just about the money; it’s everything.”
Head canted, Jake frowned. “You’re scared?”
“Fucking terrified,” I admitted. For the first time, maybe ever, I’d said it aloud. Surprise filtered through his expression, and I forced a smile. Though I doubted he believed it anymore than I did. “Just had to figure that out. Had to put money away…” Because even if all I got was a local college, I had to go. I had to plan my future, and I had to make it work for me.
I wasn’t going to… Shutting off that uncharitable thought, I exhaled harshly. “I really don’t want to talk about money anymore.”
He stared at me for a beat too long. For a tense second, I thought he wouldn’t let it go. As much as I hated to admit it, I’d missed all of them. “Okay,” he said, leaning back in his seat. Then he tapped the sheet on top of the textbook. “You really got a dummies guide?”
Just like that, all the air rushed back into the room and the discomfort bled out of my muscles. Jake wore a familiar patient expression and his eyes had warmed from demanding and chilly to teasing and cool.
It took me a minute to dig out the dummies guide from my backpack. When I held it up, he snorted.
“Read it yet?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. Thankfully, his roll of the eyes this time was a little more lighthearted than his earlier scoffing. He tugged the book from my fingers and began to flip through it. “The point is—they use different phrases and focus to tackle basically the same stuff the text does, but it’s distilled down. Think—a little more researched docudrama versus documentary.”
“Huh.”
Two pages in, I’d lost him to reading the dummies book. I didn’t mind. That was—familiar. Jake read a lot, it made him a fun person to debate the finer points of a text or a lesson with because he devoured books the way I did. After checking the chapter numbers for this week’s reading, I sprawled in the desk and twisted the chair in front of me so I could put my feet up. Jake mirrored my pose, only his feet were on my desk—at least he wasn’t in the way.
We were still reading when the bell went off announcing the end of the day. I finished to the end of the paragraph on the page and Jake held up a finger as I packed away my textbook and then he nodded as he snapped the book closed.
“Definitely going to stop and grab that on my way home.” He handed it back to me.
“It’s funny, right?” Because that was the thing that struck me. The author of the dummies’ book had tried to take facts and added snark to them, a turn of phrase here, a well-placed pithy comment there. All of it designed to soften the reader into absorbing the facts willingly. Since I liked history, it was almost like being offered ice cream to eat my favorite meal. I’d have done that anyway.
He snorted. “Probably funnier than it should be.” But I got it. He stuffed his books into his bag, then snagged my backpack and held it up so I could thread my arms through the straps.
Despite the fact the bell had rung and the stampede of footsteps and too many voices filled the hallway, neither of us hurried. One, because unless you were in the parking lot when the bell went off, there was always a long line of cars to get out. Two, the buses always took priority, so the bus lanes were closed and there were literally hundreds of students choking the hallways as they headed out to get onto their respective buses.
Then there were the walking kids. I’d been one of those. The apartments were a solid twenty-three minute walk at a brisk pace, but at least most of the walkers were already across the street. I pushed the door open, but Jake braced it and then we wandered down the hall.
Looping my fingers through the straps, I didn’t rush any more than Jake did. His parking space was a lot closer than mine, but instead of angling toward the Hall B outer doors where he parked, he trailed along with me toward the gym halls closer to where I parked.
“Do you have practice this afternoon?” I hadn’t asked either he or Bubba for that matter. They’d come from the athletics hall that morning before coffee and Bubba’s hair, at least, had been damp. But I hadn’t really looked at the closely at Jake’s. In addition to summer practice, the football team usually had two to three-hour practices at least three times a week, sometimes four if they were heading into playoffs. Morning practices were better than afternoons, at least in August.
“Not on Mondays,” Jake said with a hint of a smile. “Morning practice on Mondays and Tuesdays, then afternoon Wednesday and Thursday. Big game on Friday.”
Crap. First game of the year. Another “landmark last” as it were, especially for Bubba and Jake.
“Want to go grab some more coffee and work out a schedule for when you want to do EU history review? I figure we can keep each other honest.” Jake hesitated a beat, then added. “Okay, you can keep me honest.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t mind, but I gotta take Coop home.” He was probably sitting on my car waiting impatiently for me. Or maybe he was off making out with Laura. She looked good, after all.
The snarky thought nipped at me, and I smothered it with a pillow.
“Eh, make him walk,” Jake suggested. “Or give him your keys and you can ride with me.”
I stopped in mid-stride and glared at him.
Give him my keys?
“Or not,” Jake backpedaled, raising his hands. “I forgot.”
I didn’t let anyone drive my car. Coop was lucky I let him ride in the car.
Speaking of the devil, there he was, leaning against my car with Bubba.
“You know,” Jake mused as we closed the distance, but he didn’t finish the thought. The afternoon heat threatened to
smother us. The air was heavy and sticky. I made a face, already aware of the sweat gathering along my hair line and the way my shirt clung in the back. Coop looked cool as always, but at least Bubba had the grace to perspire.
“Heads up,” Jake called, and his keys flew on an arc. Bubba caught them easily. “Give Coop a ride home? Frankie and I are gonna go get something cold and go over our homework schedule.”
We were?
Really?
“Yeah,” Bubba said, tossing the keys up once before catching them, then he threw them back toward Jake. “No. I got dibs on Frankie. I asked her in calculus to go over the assignments with me. Can’t afford to fall behind in there.”
“Pfft,” Coop intoned dismissing them both. “Frankie’s mine this afternoon. We have an AP Lit project.”
That we already divvied the work on…
“Too bad,” Bubba countered, glaring at Coop. “Calculus is due tomorrow. When is your lit assignment due?”
Next week, but Coop only smirked. “Doesn’t matter, Frankie does all homework the day we get it. She’s never leaving anything until the last minute.”
“Exactly,” Jake tacked on. “Which is why we’re going to figure out our study schedule now. You two can wait.”
Before I could interject, a whistle cut through the three of them as Archie pulled up behind my car. He had an elegant old school Ferrari. Remember what I said about too much money? Archie didn’t flaunt it, except when he did. That car? Definitely flaunting it. But the hot orange coupled with the sleek lines meant it would stand out no matter who was driving it.
“Leave these bozos and run away with me, Frankie,” Archie yelled. “We’ll have the discussion in air conditioning.”
They were nuts.
Every single one of them.
“Hey,” Coop grunted as he straightened. “We’re talking serious stuff here.”
Bubba snorted. “Archie’s got her first period.”
“I don’t care, I had her before school.”
Jake scowled.
Yeah. They were nuts. And the sweat beginning to work its way down between my boobs was going to not only make me uncomfortable, but probably smell at the rate we were going. We couldn’t all fit into Archie’s Ferrari and Jake’s SUV was around the corner in the other lot.
Rules and Roses: Untouchable Book One Page 4