Dealing with Blue

by Stacia Leigh

  She laughed, took a sip, and choked. “Gah! What is this?”

  “Sarsaparilla. What did you think it was…a beer?” He tsk-tsked.

  Yes, she had, and she was disappointed and oddly touched at the same time. Drinking beer with a known party-animaniac while sneaking out in her leopard-spotted flats painted a very wild picture. But then, J.J. crossing her yard with two beverages, one for him and one for her, seemed courteous, thoughtful even.

  She took a long drink, and the sugary, root beer flavor filled her stomach and cut at the hunger. It was cold and soothing, and she chugged, glug, glug, glug, then dropped the bottle and panted. Cold sarsaparilla on a hot, empty belly—she splayed a hand across her stomach—it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she’d hoped.

  “Whoa…crazy. You gonna hurl?” J.J. frowned and leaned forward to take the spent bottle from her hand. “You’re abusing a very tasty beverage, and I don’t approve.”

  She burped and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said with a laugh. “I’m so hungry I couldn’t stop.” She tilted her head back at the clear night sky loaded with stars. How perfectly free and wild! Here she stood, outside her confines, sharing a drink with Mr. Cool…Mr. Out of Her League.

  “You haven’t eaten yet? Maybe we should grab a bite at Grubby’s. Up for a walk?”

  “That sounds perfect.” Suzy’s full stomach sloshed. “But I need to grab some cash. From up there.” She thumbed up, pointing to her bedroom.

  “Don’t worry about it.” J.J. said and reached up to pull the window an inch from closed. He nudged the crate to the side of the trailer and jerked his head toward the road out of Badger Court. “Let’s rock. The night is still young.”

  If Suzy had hoped to pass through the trailer court in awkward silence, she would have been thwarted by J.J.’s ease with small talk. He chatted about their behavioral science project—he called it B.S.—and made brain jokes—Yes, Mom, I’d rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me—which led to complaints over inhumane treatment by his mother during the past week he’d been grounded. No computer time, and the only TV he could watch after dinner were cooking shows, like decorating cupcakes, for crying out loud.

  “Are you still grounded?” Suzy asked, crossing the lit street in front of the Badger’s Paw Tavern.

  “Sort of. TV choices tonight were Pickle This or some foreign heist flick, Sven Robs a Bank, I dunno. I finally put my foot down—yeah, I begged—and my parents let me off the hook. No phone, though. I’ll try to get it back tomorrow.”

  The night thrummed with pre-weekend energy, and as they cut across the full parking lot, country music filtered out of the open doorway, along with cigarette smoke and the loud cracking of billiard balls.

  “Are you nervous about something?” J.J. glanced down at her hands. “You’ve got a shred-fest going on with your hangnails there.”

  The bar lights created harsh shadows, and the boisterous guffaws echoed off the pavement. It didn’t seem like the safest place for two high schoolers on a Friday night.

  “Maybe we should cut across the alley away from the bar. It’s lit,” Suzy said and shoved her hands into her pockets.

  “Restaurant dumpsters and rats,” J.J. said. “No can do. But don’t worry about the country crowd. I walk this way all the time.” J.J. waved to the bouncer across a row of cars. The guy looked rough with his thick neck and black Fu Manchu, but he nodded and waved back.

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, that’s Mook. He’s a biker and hangs out at Will’s house. He’s cool. Let me inside once, but turns out the bartender knows my dad, so I got the boot. I lasted fifteen minutes, though. Next time, I’ll head straight for the dance floor.”

  At Grubby’s Burger Joint, J.J. held the door for Suzy, then said, “Yo,” and flicked a wave at a huddle of sophomores playing cards in a bright red booth. He ushered her to the only table available, a little two-seater right in the middle.

  Loud voices echoed off the turquoise and white tiled floor, and herds of teens, parents, and kids milled around, ordering burgers and fries, sharing milkshakes, and self-serving at the soda fountain. Dice clattered across a table from another booth followed by cheers and jeers. A solid wood shelf held tattered books, magazines, and board games, along with a sign for donations and respect for property. Grub, the owner, encouraged loitering as long as there were no fights and no alcohol. One whiff, and he’d call the cops.

  Suzy picked up her order, a regular cheeseburger, a peanut butter milkshake, and large fries and met J.J. back at the table. She eyed her heaping tray of fried goodness with a watering mouth until J.J. lifted his lonely, clear cup of ice water with a lemon wedge. Oink. He probably thought she was a ginormous pig!

  “You’re not hungry?” Her cheeks tingled with embarrassment as she slouched into the red chair. Why was he here with her? His unruly hair plus smooth, olive skin, plus broad shoulders, plus, plus, plus…

  “Nah. Mom grilled steaks and spuds for dinner. I’m stuffed.” He traced circles in the water that dripped off his cup. “I wanted to talk to you about something…something you said the other night.”

  “Oh. What’d I say? I don’t remember.” Suzy unwrapped her burger, situated the fries, and took a long pull on her milkshake.

  “You know. About Gemma caring if my…” J.J. glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention. “…hands were on your butt.” He gave her a wicked grin. Now who was the wolf? Only, he was a pack animal in sheep’s clothing. Nice and sweet, Oh, you’re hungry? Let’s eat, my treat. Then, wham! Hands on butts. All he wanted to do was embarrass her. Screw him. She wouldn’t give.

  But she did, her cheeks burned.

  “Blue, I love it when your face gets red. Goes real nice with your hair.” He laughed.

  “What does this have to do with me again?” Suzy plunked her milkshake down. “I don’t like playing games.”

  “This game’ll be fun, I promise.” He cocked his head back and studied her from under his long lashes. Wolf. “She broke up with me last weekend. Yeah, yeah. Everyone knows.” He waved the notion aside. “But a couple days ago, her and I talked, and she wants to get back together, right? But she’s still planning to go to prom with Ron. So there’s the problem.”

  “Okay? So what does this have to do with you and your hands and my…you know what.” Suzy peeled back the top bun and picked off the limp pickles. She took a bite and closed her eyes. Deee-licious.

  “I want you to go on a date with me.”

  Her eyes flew open, and she stopped chewing.

  “Only as friends, nothing serious,” J.J. said. “If there’s a bonfire, we could go together. Snuggle, hold hands. Pretend we like each other.” He leaned forward and snaked a fry off her tray.

  “Pretend? Why?”

  “To show Gemma I’m not going to wait around. She needs to ditch Ron now, or it’s really over. I’m not going to stand in line, and I don’t care what she says.”

  “So you want to make her jealous?”

  “Believe me, it’s not hard to do. What do you think?”

  “I think it sounds like a lot of unnecessary pawing.”

  “You’re too much.” J.J. grinned and shook his head. “Look at you, The Professor, zipped into your jacket with your hair all wound and tidy on top. Don’t you ever loosen up? Get messy? Have fun?”

  “Hey, I know how to have fun.” Suzy selected a perfectly golden fry and dipped it into a puddle of ketchup. “But what do I get out of this, besides a bunch of girls targeting me from here on out? Gemma and her friends will make my life miserable, and I don’t need the extra attention or the grief. Thanks anyway.”

  “You know how to have fun? Please. I never see you and your friends at the bonfires. I’ll show you fun. We’ll have a good time. Have some laughs, maybe—yeah maybe we could even go to prom. If you want. I’m just throwing it out there. I mean, I can be a great date at a formal.” He shrugged and looked sort of sheepish for all the bragging he
was doing.

  “According to who? I might need to do a background check.”

  “What do you say? In or out?” J.J. raised his brows. “Or do I have to get you drunk? Doesn’t seem like it’d be too hard, the way you nailed your sarsaparilla.” He laughed and held up his palms. “I’m kidding, by the way. Don’t call the cops. Or worse, my mom.”

  “I don’t see any advantage to agreeing. I hang on your arm, pant for you, and when everyone thinks I’ve gone off the deep end, you ditch me like a sad sack, then prance into Gemma’s open arms. Do you really think jealousy is the way to attract somebody? Sounds like a bad plan all over the place. And…” She pointed at him with an extra-long potato slice. “I’m not interested. I don’t need a date for prom because I’m not going. Besides…” Suzy lifted her nose. “I don’t want to make Charlie mad.”

  “First of all, I don’t prance, and Charlie? C’mon, get serious.” J.J. grabbed a pickle off her plate and leaned over, holding it out on his tongue.

  “You’re gross.” She rolled her eyes and nibbled at the red straw poking out of her drink. Why not Charlie? He was smart, nice, sweet…

  J.J. slurped the pickle into his mouth and straightened.

  “Name your price,” he said. “Everyone’s got one.”

  Suzy picked through her fries, looking for another long one. Her seventeenth birthday was coming up, and she’d be a senior soon. What senior didn’t have a driver’s license? Tessa had been driving since she was a sophomore. Whenever she wanted to go anywhere, she drove herself. She never had to ask her parents for a lift or schedule a pickup. This summer, Suzy could go to Bozeman, but why take a bus when she could drive? It would be her first road trip.

  “I wanna learn to drive.” Suzy glanced up. “Let me use your truck to get my driver’s license.”

  “My wheels?” He shook his head slowly back and forth like he was saying no but giving it some deep thought at the same time. “Hmm, I dunno.”

  “For Gemma, right?” Suzy held his gaze. That was her offer. Otherwise he could find someone else to play the fool. “You could always ask Holly.”

  “The Mouth? No way.” He twisted his face and shivered.

  “It seems like anyone you’re with will make Gemma jealous. So why me?”

  His eyes slid away to his cup of melting ice. He poked at the lemon pulp with the end of his straw before sitting back to study her.

  “You’re perfect,” he said.

  What? Suzy pulled back and blinked, her mouth agape. J.J. Radborne, Mr. Cool, thought she was perfect? Her skin tingled all over.

  He shrugged.

  “She’s already jealous of you because you’re my group partner and my neighbor, which is convenient. She’ll think we’re together all the time with you living right next door.”

  “Oh. Oh, right.” Suzy hid her disappointment behind a huge bite of cheese, beef, and bun. She went from perfect to convenient in short order. Wow, that hurt. How about a simple I like you. Was that so difficult?

  “Do we have a deal?”

  Suzy worked at chewing the ever expanding burger ball in her mouth and tried to swallow. Her hunger died with a stomach full of bust and fizzle.

  “So the plan is the keys to your truck for one night of pretend?” she asked and pushed away her salty fries.

  “Are you new to the planet?” He snorted with disbelief. “My truck has boundaries. I’m not just handing over the keys.” He straightened and placed both palms on the table. “Here’s the deal. You don’t get any say in when or where, but before summer starts, you’ll be an expert driver, guaranteed. And since I’ve had some time to think about it, I might need more than one night.” He narrowed his eyes. “A month of driving for a possible month of you being my steady girlfriend.”

  “What?” Suzy glared. “You can’t turn one date into a month of steady!”

  “Learning to drive isn’t a one day thing.” He slouched into his chair with hooded eyelids, back to being his wolfy self. “It takes time, attention. Motivation.”

  “You’re changing things.” She scowled and drummed her finger tips on the gray Formica table, then stated firmly, “No kissing.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know. It might be required.” His gaze dropped to her lips. “We don’t know what the situation’s going to be like yet. So—”

  “No groping my girls.” She pointed to her chest. “Or anywhere else. And…I don’t put out.”

  “Hey. Newsflash,” he said. “Don’t worry. Not interested. Just play your part for Gemma’s eyes only. It’s between you and me. It doesn’t need to be some mushy, sloppy event. We’re just two kids having a good time, alright? But everyone needs to believe it, or word will get out, and we’ll both look like idiots. Deal?”

  A chance at learning to drive? Access to a car and a personal instructor? Like J.J. said, convenient. But it could be a lot more than that, couldn’t it? Why not pretend? All the fun without getting hurt. Add in adventure and a prom date with a cute guy, and things got a lot more interesting.

  “Deal.” Suzy folded the wrapper around the last bite of her burger and dropped it into the basket of cold fries. “Shall we go?”

  “One more thing. If Gemma ditches Ron and wants to go to prom with me, done…and since you don’t want to go anyway, no big deal, right?”

  “Yeah, but you can’t ditch me the day before prom. I’ll be the laughing stock at school. You can at least have the common courtesy to see the night through, and I’m the one who gets to claim break-up rights.”

  “Deal.” He nodded and held his hand out across the table. Suzy slipped hers inside, and he squeezed it, sending a sharp thrill up her arm. She pulled her hand free; he blew out a deep breath. The deal was set.

  Now what?

  Chapter 7: Whack Job

  J.J. stared at the computer monitor intently and tapped the arrow key as his warlock character navigated through the crisp, graphic wasteland. His mission: kill goblins, crawl the dungeon, and pick up swag.

  Tap, tap.

  “Okay, I’m logged onto the Ding server.” Will’s voice tunneled through the headset. “Glad you’re back, dude. It’s been a lonely week ogre-bashing by myself.”

  “Did you level up?” J.J. asked into the microphone, clicking through the game’s map and inventory screens.

  “Twice. Now ogres are the big bad. Hope you can keep up—”

  “Ha.” J.J. scoffed.

  “Speaking of which, incoming at nine o’clock. Get ready for a little flank and spank.”

  J.J. leaned back in the chair to get comfortable and made the mistake of glancing out the office window. He had a direct line of vision across the yard to Blue’s room, where earlier, the blinds had been down, reflecting the morning sun. Now, they were open. Was she in there, or did she sneak out during daylight hours, too?

  “It’s fight or flight time,” Will grumbled. “What are you doing?”

  Geez…calm down, man. Will was taking things a little too serious. J.J. tapped the keys again. One ogre down.

  Tap, tap.

  The deal he’d struck with Blue at Grubby’s last night trickled into his mind like water from a leaky faucet. He had to get his truck back, or the entire plan wouldn’t fly with Little Miss Tough as Nails Negotiator from next door. She seemed prim and uptight, but J.J. couldn’t deny she was easy on the eyes. If Gemma worried about little Suzy Blue, then he might as well nudge the idea along, right?

  Tap, tap.

  “Dude, you just got annihilated! Where’s your head?”

  But saving face took priority at the moment, especially since he’d told Gemma he wanted to get back together, and what’d she do? She’d dissed him by refusing to cut Ron loose. J.J. narrowed his gaze at the computer screen and stabbed at the arrow key with extra force. Hey, he didn’t pine or whine, and if she wanted him back, she’d better be ready to drop a killer apology. And leave an imprint of her foot on Ron’s backside. End of story.

  Will’s disappointed sigh burrowed into J.J.’s ears
.

  “Sorry, man.” J.J. shook his head. “I’m not feeling this game.”

  “Dude, you’re kidding me, right? We just got started.”

  “Nah. I gotta find my dad. I need to get my wheels back.” He pushed away from the computer desk with a “Later, man,” and tossed his headset aside.

  It was time to put an end to this grounding business, once and for all. He’d already pleaded, hugged, and paid proper deference to his mom, winning back her affections and his phone. He was also back in competitive rotation for computer time with Little Oops. Now all he had to do was show Dad what responsibility looked like. J.J. crossed the driveway to the shop.

  Man, just try to keep him off the riding lawn mower.

  “Dad, there you are.” J.J. stepped into the open bay. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “I expected as much,” Dad said. He was crouched on the concrete floor next to his workbench with the weed whacker resting near his grimy boots.

  “I wanted to talk about respons—”

  “Let me guess. You want the truck keys back.” Dad’s focus was on the red gasoline can at his feet as he mixed in two-cycle engine oil.

  “Uh, yeah. But I—”

  “Too bad.” Dad looked up and pushed his dirty Caterpillar hat back on his head. “When was the last time you had the mower out? Nick asked you to see to Marsha’s lawn every two weeks.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m here.” J.J. hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and nodded. “To show you what responsibil—”

  “It’s been nearly four.” Dad narrowed his gaze.

  “Oh…really? It’s been that long?” J.J. blew out a heavy breath and kicked at bits of sawdust on the industrial floor.

  “Yep.” Using a funnel, Dad poured the mixture into the gas tank on the weed whacker and screwed the cap down. He stood and hiked up his faded jeans. “Listen, I don’t want any hard feelings with the neighbors. Let’s keep up with our end of the deal, so Marsha doesn’t have anything to complain about.”

  “What would she have to complain about? Nick pays me, not her. He’s my boss.” Which was weird since Nick and Marsha were divorced. Marsha was the one who lived there. It was her lawn, so why wasn’t she signing the checks?