“Jenna!”
My eyes pop open at the sound of my name along with the beating on the door.
“Jenna, if you’re in there, open the door. You have my key.”
I lift up, realizing I’m lying with Miles. “Oh crap.”
His eyes are the size of dinner plates…make that platters. “Is that your dad?” he whispers, barely audible.
I nod.
He mouths the F-word, and I jerk up off him. I think for a second. “You know, I am eighteen. Maybe we could handle this like rational—”
“Are you out of your mind?” he whispers, shrugging me off him.
Reason kicks in. “Okay.” I point at the bathroom.
“Jenna!”
“Hang on, Dad! I’m coming out of the bathroom.”
I motion for Miles to flush, and he catches on.
I smooth myself out…not sure why…I’ve clearly been asleep, which isn’t wrong. The only thing that is wrong is the boy in my bathroom. Miles closes the bathroom door, and I open the front door. “Hey.”
My dad throws up his arms. “What’s going on? I show up at the address you gave me for Nicolette’s house, and she tells me you were never there.”
I look around. “What time is it?”
“It’s eight thirty. Now answer me.”
“We had a fight. She sort of stormed away from me, and I didn’t think I was welcome at her house.” That’s as close to the truth as it gets.
He pushes past me and surveys the apartment. I wince at Miles’s phone laying on the other futon.
“What about the other girls?” my dad asks.
I try not to look at the phone, so as to not draw his attention to it. “I don’t know, they just sort of left, and I was all alone. I had to Uber back here.” Truth, just in a little different order.
“I’ve been texting you for the past half hour. Where’s your phone?”
He searches the room, and I grab Miles’s phone like it’s mine. “It must be dead. I think I left the music playing all night again.”
He waves me off. “All right, just as long as you’re okay. You had me scared to death, sweetie.”
He takes me in for a hug, and I rest my head against my dad’s chest, my guilt engulfing me. I don’t like any part of lying to my dad, even when I get away with it.
“Are you ready? We need to get going. We’ve got a busy day ahead. We’re taking your mom’s car in at ten. If we leave now, we’ll just make it back in time. I’ll have to do eighty.”
“Okay, let me just grab my stuff.” He heads toward the bathroom. “Where are you going?”
He looks confused. “To pee.”
My chest seizes up. “It’s broken.”
“Well, then I’ll take a look.”
“I already called the super. He’s coming this afternoon.”
“I’ll take a look. I’ve got to go.”
I panic as he walks right in there. After a minute I hear him peeing, and I wince. Holy crap. What is happening?
Flushing. Water running. He turns off the light and comes out. “That toilet’s fine.”
“Oh, I thought it sounded funny a minute ago when I flushed.” I gather all my junk as fast as I can.
He peers into the kitchen, and I rush in there. I grab the garbage bag and cinch it so he doesn’t see the beer cans, but their empty clanking isn’t helping me. “I’ll just run this to the dumpster on our way to the car.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Two pizza boxes. You must have been hungry.”
He eyes me and then walks back toward the bathroom. I run over and stand in front of the door with my arms out. I know in my brain that we’re completely screwed, but I can’t just let him walk in there and see Miles in the tub.
He folds his arms over his chest. “Want to ask your friends to come out here and say hello?”
I bite on my finger, and then hold it up. “Actually, it’s just one friend.”
His expression darkens. “Then why don’t you tell your one friend to come out here and face me like a man.”
I wait a couple of seconds, and then cringe at the sound of the shower curtain sliding open. My dad closes his eyes and shakes his head. He turns around and walks into the middle of the room, waiting for Miles to come out. Look at my sweet, lovable dad being all menacing.
Miles walks out of the bathroom like he’s facing a potential prison sentence. “Hello, sir,” he says, his typically low voice coming out high and squeaky.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Miles.”
“Miles, is this a practice of yours? Spending the night with young girls and hiding from their fathers?”
Miles shakes his head so fast I think his brain may come loose, his mouth open but no words coming out.
“Dad, it’s not like what you think.”
He turns his neck slowly. “Jenna, there’s a trash can full of beer cans over there, and you made me knock on the door of a perfect stranger’s home this morning for no good reason. Please don’t make me out to be a bigger fool than you’ve already done this morning.”
“Tell him, Miles,” I beg.
Miles just stands there before my dad, obediently not saying a word.
My dad looks Miles up and down, his khaki pants, blue button-down, beige loafers. He looks back at me. “Which one is this? The one who plays guitar, or the one who composes on the piano?”
“The composer,” I say. “The one I took the number from at Sensation auditions?” I ask, hoping he’ll piece it all together. I told him the whole story in the car on the way home the day of talent show tryouts.
My dad cuts his eyes back around to Miles. “And you still want to hang out with her?”
Miles nods. “We’re songwriting partners.”
My dad rolls his eyes. “Is that what you were doing over here last night? Writing songs?”
Miles scratches his cheek, furrowing his brow. “Um…”
“Dad, we didn’t have sex. If we did, there’d be a condom lying around somewhere, and you don’t see one of those, do you?”
I think Miles might crawl under the futon.
My dad inhales a deep breath, eyes closed, but I can tell he’s coming around.
“I swear,” I say, “we just kissed, and only for a minute. Miles was an absolute perfect gentleman. He didn’t even—”
My dad holds up his hand. “Don’t…finish that sentence.”
I sneak a smile at Miles, but he gives me a mortified look instead.
My dad looks down at my pink phone sitting on the end table. He points at the phone in my hand. “Give the boy back his phone, so he can get the hell out of here.”
I hand Miles his phone. He nods at my dad and practically sprints toward the door.
“Miles,” my dad says. He looks back, eyes wide. “Next time, leave when you drop her off, okay?”
“Yes sir,” he says and then closes the door behind him.
I put my hands on my hips. “Was that necessary?”
My dad eyes me. “Yes.”
Chapter Twenty
Miles
I hang around at the front counter of the store where Dev works, waiting for nine o’clock to roll around so he can get out of here and we can do something. I spent the day at The Glass Vortex helping Kelly with her website and social media presence. I swear, sometimes I feel like people over forty think technology has teeth that can snap at them. It’s not that hard.
I’ve been trying to keep busy so I don’t sit around freaked out about what happened this morning. That was not the way I wanted to meet her dad. I don’t even know what we’re doing yet, so I definitely didn’t want to introduce myself to him for the first time shamefully coming out of my hiding place in his bathroom.
Kissing her was good…too good. And I think she felt the same way. I could so easily see things progressing forward in a way that both thrilled and scared the shit out of me. What I really want is to pause this moment…put it on hold until after the competition. But it’s not like
I can say, “Do you mind if we pretend like we never kissed and aren’t into each other so I can win without you distracting me?”
“Thank you for shopping at Doug’s Drugs,” Dev says.
I eye him as a customer leaves. “Doesn’t that sound a little seedy?”
“It’s a drugstore. It’s what we’re supposed to say.”
His purple-haired co-worker drops a box at the counter. “We’re supposed to just say Doug’s…not drugs.”
Dev shrugs. “I like to add the drugs.”
Her nose-ringed nostrils flare as she glares at him. “If you’re going to have your friend in here talking to you, make yourselves useful and unpack these displays.”
“Yes ma’am.” Dev pulls out his pocketknife and cuts open the box. “So, I take it last night didn’t go so well.”
“Why would you say that?” I ask.
“You’re here waiting for me to get off work and not with her.” A few feathers float out of the box as Dev rips it open. He pulls out a pen with a bird’s head on the end.
“I wanted to hang with you since Nicolette’s not talking to you,” I say. Not a total lie.
He starts to assemble the display. “Aww, thanks, dude. Now you want to tell me what happened last night with you and Jenna?”
I lean against the counter. “It actually went okay until this morning when her dad showed up.”
“At the apartment?” he asks.
“Yeah. I was totally freaked out. I hid in the bathroom for a minute but he figured it out. I had to meet him.”
Dev stops working. “Holy shit! That’s fucked up.” A customer eyes him, and he lowers his voice. “So did he kick your ass?”
The sick feeling in my stomach doesn’t improve with the look on his face. “No, but he wanted to.”
“No doubt,” Dev says with a chuckle.
I glare at him.
“Oh, come on, man. It’s kind of funny.”
It may be one day, but I can’t find any humor in it right now. “I don’t know. This whole thing with her is…freaking me out a little. She and her dad seem really close. She talks to him about condoms and kissing and weird stuff like that.”
He points a bird pen at me. “I think you’re focused on the wrong thing, my friend.”
“What are you talking about?”
He makes a show of searching my eyes for an answer. “The contest, dude. She’s your competition. Your stiffest competition, if you ask me.”
I know this is true, but I want to hear why he thinks so. “Really?”
“Did you not see her on that show? She owned that audience. Everyone loved her. That hot woman who hosted the season teared up when she was voted off.”
My gut wrenches at the idea. “I know.”
“Dude, she made it to the top ten. Do you have any idea how many people she had to beat in order to get that slot? I’ve heard they audition like tens of thousands of people every season…from all over the country. And you think she’s not poised to win our little high school contest?”
“You think I haven’t thought of that?”
He looks me up and down. “Not hard enough, apparently. Do you even want Belmont?”
“God, yes,” I say, with conviction.
“Can you go without that money?”
I glance around the store like the answer is somewhere. “I don’t see how. My dad won’t pay unless it’s Emory, and my mom wants me to pay regardless of where I go. I mean, I’m going to have scholarships, but it won’t be enough. I’ll need a job regardless, but I need that money.”
As I say the words, I remember how true they are. I can’t afford to lose this competition. What have I been thinking?
“Exactly.” Dev points at me. “If you don’t end this now, you’re going to be competing against your girlfriend. Do you understand the magnitude of that? Why do you think I didn’t even try to put something together for tryouts?”
“I thought you said you didn’t want to mess with it.”
“I lied. I didn’t want to compete against Nicolette. Now look at me. She’s not even talking to me.” He jams a pen into a cardboard cutout, a little too hard, and it splits open the display. “Fuck.” He points a pen at me again. “Don’t get into this shit, man. Not now. Girls do nothing but fuck you up. Take it from me.”
I realize that Dev’s issues with Nicolette are weighing heavy on his words, but they aren’t untrue. If I would just stay strong and end this with Jenna now, I would have no distractions or speed bumps on my way to that fifty grand…in theory.
“Besides, isn’t she with Shane?” Dev asks.
My lip curls up in disgust. “No.”
Dev holds up both hands in surrender. “Damn.” He narrows his gaze at me. “You’re way into this girl. You may be too far gone. It might be too late to turn back.” He shrugs. “May need to find another way to get that money.”
Panic weaves its way throughout my chest. “It’s not too late.”
Dev leans on the counter. “Then get out now before this gets out of hand. Do you hear me?”
I hear him…loud and clear. I’ve let my heart…and other parts of me…veer me off course. I got wrapped up in a moment. We both did. I need that money. If I don’t have it, I’m not going to be able to pay for a place to live or books or even Taco Bell. I’ve got to end this with Jenna before it gets out of my control…if it hasn’t already.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jenna
I texted Miles a couple of times this weekend, but his responses were short. I get it. Saturday morning was not ideal, and I guess my dad was pretty intimidating, but that will pass.
As I walk by the guitar conservatory on my way to my locker Monday morning, Shane bolts up and shoots out into the hallway. “Why wouldn’t you talk to me this weekend?”
I put books into my locker. “I did.”
“You kept putting me off.”
“I said okay.”
“But that’s all you said.” He opens my locker door farther so he can see me. “Look, I’m sorry…about everything. Getting high on our date…having shitty friends.”
I shut my locker. “You can help those things, you know.”
He lets out a deep breath. “I know. Look, I already talked to Bianca this weekend. I told her to cut it out with you.”
I lean against my locker, holding my books against my chest. “What’d she say?”
He gives me a wobbly stare. “She said okay.”
I cock my head to the side. “And what are the chances of her actually leaving me alone?”
He furrows his brows, searching for his words.
“Mmm-hmm.” I head toward Precal.
“Look, screw Bianca. I just don’t want this to mess up our vibe.”
“It won’t,” I say.
“Are you sure?”
I cut my eyes at him. “Well, I’m not going shoe shopping with her anytime soon, but I don’t see what it has to do with me and you.” I stop in front of Precal and turn to him.
He leans against the wall, putting one hand in his pocket. “So we’re back to friends now?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
He tugs on my sleeve, all flirty like he’s in player mode. “What if I want more than that?”
I hug my books to my chest. “You don’t.”
He frowns. “I do, actually.”
“Uh-huh. You want to beat Miles Cleveland is what you want.”
“What? That’s nuts.” He tries to look appalled, but his red cheeks tattle on him.
“Look, if you want to compete with Miles, do it in the talent competition, but leave me out of it.”
“That’s not what’s going on here, Jenna.”
I purse my lips at him. “Really? It’s not?”
He stares at me, his expression faltering, He puts his hand on the wall and studies it. “I really do like you, Jenna.”
“I like you, too, Shane…but as my friend.”
He frowns. “So are you with him now?”
I shr
ug. “I don’t know. Possibly.”
He inhales a deep breath, and I can see old wounds oozing. Then he shakes his head, looking off down the hall. “He’s always one step ahead of me.” He narrows his gaze at me. “Does this have anything to do with the fact that he’s rich and I don’t come from money?”
I straighten up. “That’s insulting.”
He shrugs as if he didn’t believe it, either. “All right. So…this is over now, huh?”
“Our friendship?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Yeah.”
“Why would it be over?”
He looks down the hall. “I don’t know. Because we went out on a date. Is that weird?”
I scoot over to let someone in the room. “It’d be weird if we had sex. We never even kissed.”
He tilts his head to the side in concession. “So…friends?”
“Yep,” I say. He nods and starts to walk away, and I grab his arm. “But I mean it. Like I want to be your friend. This isn’t one of those deals where we’re just ending things politely. You get that, right?”
He looks a little surprised. “Okay.” His face opens in a smile. “So, does that mean we can have lunch today?”
“Sounds good,” I say.
“Cool. See you after fourth…friend.”
I hit him lightly on the shoulder with my books and head into Precal…which lasts forever, as does English and Spanish. I’ve never been so excited for a school class. I need to calm down. My mom, as screwed up as she is, was right about one thing. Lots of boys…good. One boy…bad.
But as Miles loafs into the class looking every inch the mess he does every day with his shirts that are too big and his out of style jeans, I just want to run over to him and jump up into his arms.
He sits, pulls out his notebook, and then starts sketching. He doesn’t even look at me once. Okay, this is weird. I know Saturday was really strange, but he can look at me, can’t he?
Weston shuts the door and starts in on melodic formulae. Forty-five minutes later, he does that thing where he claps to get our attention. “Through the course of the semester we’ll move through arranging and composition as well as the vital roles for different sounds and instruments in the song. But of all these elements, nothing is more important than what’s coming from here.”
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