by Jamie Shaw
“I think he’s hot as hell,” Dee offers. “I mean, those arms, right? Even Joel doesn’t have arms like Mike. Joel’s arms are kind of lean, but Mike’s arms are—”
“Do you have a crush on Mike or something?” I ask, and Dee’s face twists, her brows knitting over a severely crinkled nose.
“What? No!”
Rowan stifles a laugh, and I ask, “Are you sure? I mean, if you do, I won’t tell Danica, but—”
“Hell no, I don’t have a crush on Mike! Jesus. I’m with Joel.” Dee leans across the table and emphasizes his name. “I have a boyfriend.”
“O . . . kay?”
She rubs the line between her eyebrows, and Rowan laughs a little before asking, “What about you, Hailey? Do you have a boyfriend?”
“I did,” I answer, slowly pulling my eyes from Dee. “But we broke up before I moved here.”
“Oh.” Rowan’s mouth turns down in a frown, her blue eyes sympathetic behind black frame glasses that are slipping down her nose. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be,” I say as I squint my eyes to try to read the coffee menu behind the register up front. I wonder if there’s anything I can afford with the three dollars and two dimes in my pocket. “We’re better as friends anyway.”
“So nothing serious?” Rowan asks, and I give her my attention.
Serious? I’m pretty sure I’ve never had a serious relationship in my life. The few boyfriends I’ve had were more like guy acquaintances I just spent extra time with, and all of my breakups have been easy. Nothing worth losing sleep over.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Definitely nothing serious.”
Rowan’s smile widens, and I ask her what she’s drinking before excusing myself to splurge on a cup of coffee, desperately needing the caffeine after this morning’s runaround. Walking a kennel’s worth of dogs is always exhausting, but walking them in the beating rain is brutal, especially when I have three back-to-back exams to suffer through after.
By the time I sit back down, my coffee is already half gone, and I search for the phone I left on the table only to find it in Dee’s hands.
“What are you doing?” I ask as she maneuvers her thumbs over my screen, and she answers without looking up.
“Giving you all the necessary numbers.”
“Hey,” Rowan says before I can ask the next question lingering on my tongue, like Who told you that you can touch my phone? “We’ve got to get going, but I almost forgot to give you this.”
She pulls a plastic grocery bag from her backpack, and at the sight of a sliver of familiar green fabric, I help myself to the contents before she can finish laying the bag on the table. “I never thought I’d see this again!” I squeal, lifting my treasured hoodie into the air.
The week before I started taking classes at the Ivy Tech community college, my parents came with me to the bookstore. Since neither of them had ever gone to college before me, none of us had any clue what we were doing or how to shop for textbooks, but we figured between the three of us and my seven-year-old brother, we could probably figure it out. We talked to a nice employee who helped show us how to find used books for each of my classes, and she assured me I’d be able to sell them back at the end of the year. With all of my books successfully piled in my dad’s arms, my whole family was buzzing with excitement over the fact that I was starting college—college!—next week, and I grabbed some folders, notebooks, pencils, and a pretty green Ivy Tech hoodie to throw in front of the checkout register as well. A face-splitting smile stretched onto my face as the nice employee checked us out, and it stayed there right up until my father’s credit card was declined, and then declined again.
Outside the bookstore, with all of my textbooks and school supplies abandoned inside, I tried not to cry. State grants had covered most of my tuition, and my dad had assured me we could afford the rest, but apparently that wasn’t true. He called the credit card company, who told us our balance, and I begged my mom to wait with my brother outside while my dad and I went back inside to figure out exactly what we could afford. I put the folders back, I put the notebooks back, I put the pencils back, and finally, I hung my hoodie back up on the rack.
I told myself that I had my textbooks and that that was all that mattered—I could make do with my high school folders and notebooks and pencils, and I did. But that still didn’t stop me from bursting into tears when I opened up my first present that following Christmas morning to find the hoodie I had hung back up on the rack. My parents went back to buy it as soon as they could afford to, and even though it’s now five years old and its green color is a little less green, it still means the world to me.
“You forgot it on the bus,” Rowan says as I hug the soft material against my face, emotion catching in my throat.
“I know,” I say as I breathe in the fresh-washed scent. I spread the hoodie out on the table, adding, “In the sink. Shawn tried to help me clean it, but . . .” I trail off as I flip the right sleeve over and over and over. My eyebrows knit together, and I start doing the same to the left sleeve. “Where’s the stain?”
“What stain?”
“The one on the sleeve,” I say, continuing to flip and flip and flip. “It was right here. It was like . . . mud and oil, or something. We couldn’t get it out. It—”
“Mike must have done it,” Dee interrupts, and my eyes search hers for answers, but Rowan is the one to offer them.
“Mike gave me that to give to you,” she says with a soft smile. “I’m just the messenger.”
My head spins with the knowledge that Mike—Mike, rock star, gamer, my cousin’s boyfriend—got the stain out for me. The stain on my favorite hoodie that meant more to me than he could ever possibly know. The stain Danica put there.
“You should call and thank him,” Dee advises, standing up while Rowan packs up her backpack.
“I don’t have his number . . .” I say, sounding as confused as I feel. But Dee just grins and hands my phone over.
“Sure you do. Like I said”—she leans in and whispers—“necessary numbers. You owe me a story.”
Chapter 6
In my room, in my hoodie, with one hand fidgeting with my phone and the other pinching my bottom lip into a weird, squishy U, I’m a cliché. I’m every nervous teenage girl calling a boy in every straight-to-DVD coming-of-age movie ever. Which doesn’t make any damn sense, considering that Mike is just some guy I played video games with one night. Just some rock star I watched perform in front of an entire club full of screaming fans. Just some dude who went through the effort to get an impossible stain out of my favorite hoodie that I never thought I’d see again ever.
I tap my phone against my forehead.
He’s Danica’s boyfriend, for God’s sake. I’m just calling to say thank you. This isn’t a big deal. This isn’t even a small deal. This is no deal.
Resigned, I pull my phone away from my forehead and go into my contacts. Only there’s nothing under Mike.
Nothing under Madden.
I’m scrolling, scrolling, thinking about forgetting the whole thing, scrolling some more—and then there it is. Under S.
I shake my head and hover my thumb over “Sexy as Fuck Drummer,” imagining that Dee’s entire phone is programmed this way. Rowan is probably under “Best Bitch” and I’m probably under “That Awkward Girl Who Smells Like Wet Dogs.”
I groan and press my thumb against Mike’s number before I can chicken out, swallowing hard and holding the phone to my ear.
Please don’t pick up, please don’t pick up, please don’t pick up—
“Hello?”
Mike’s smooth voice makes my eyes shut tight. “Hey. Um, is this Mike?”
“Who’s asking?”
Is it too late to say wrong number? It’s probably too late to say wrong number. . . . right?
“This is Danica’s cousin. We met last Saturday?”
“Hailey?” he says, and my heart stumbles at the sound of my own name. “Hey, I
was just thinking about you.”
My lip gets clamped tightly between my fingers again before I ask, “You were?”
Why is Danica’s boyfriend thinking about me? Why is Danica’s boyfriend thinking about me?!
“Yeah. Kyle the PussySlayer asked about you.”
The laughter that bursts out of me is probably louder than it should be, the product of unfounded nervousness and a long, wet day. “Did you tell him I was busy sleeping with his mom?”
“Better,” Mike promises, and I hear the grin in his voice. I collapse back against my mattress, feeling the tension escape my body as my smile shines up at the pale green stars on my ceiling. “I told him that you were so good, they recruited you to beta test Deadzone Six.”
“There’s a Deadzone Six already?” I ask, and Mike laughs.
“Nope.”
My soft chuckle rasps against the phone. “But he believed you?”
“Yep. You should’ve heard him freak out. You know that scream he does—”
“The one that sounds like a meerkat with its nuts in a clamp?”
Mike barks out a laugh before I hear him half choking on his end of the line. “You made me spit out my beer!”
My cheeks ache from smiling so wide, and I poke at one with my fingers. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says, but it doesn’t matter, because I wasn’t anyway. “Hey,” he asks after neither of us says anything for a while, “how’d you get my number?”
I stop poking at my cheek. “Dee gave it to me. I hope that’s okay. Rowan gave me back my hoodie today, and I just wanted to say thanks.”
“I’m glad you got it. That stuff you got on the sleeve was hard as hell to get out.”
I’m holding the edge of the sleeve against my nose, breathing in the freshly laundered scent and forcing myself not to correct Mike. I want to tell him that his girlfriend was the one who got the stain on the sleeve, not me, but instead I simply ask, “How’d you manage it?”
“I called my mom,” Mike says with a little laugh, and a warmth pools beneath my cheeks.
“You called your mom?”
“She worked as a housekeeper for a few years when I was a kid. I figured she might know how. I called Shawn first, but he said he already tried, so—”
“Mike . . .” I interrupt, overwhelmed by his kindness. “You didn’t have to go through all that trouble.”
“It’s nothing—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“No.” I stretch my arm above my head and admire my rescued hoodie. It almost looks newer than it did when I first got it. “It’s something.”
“Well,” he says, his voice softening, “you’re welcome then.”
With no idea what to say next, I say nothing. I let the silence stretch and stretch until I’m rushing to find anything to fill it. “I’ll go ahead and let you get back to your game,” I stammer. “I really just called to—”
“Hey, do you want to play?” Mike interrupts.
“I don’t have Deadzone Five . . .”
“What about Deadzone Four?” he counters. “I’m getting tired of this one anyway.”
My lip is in a U again as nervous little butterflies attempt to take flight in my belly. I curse the three-day-old leftover Chinese I ate for dinner, shaking my head and saying, “I can’t . . . I have a gaming date with my little brother.”
“The one who plays Deadzone?”
Last Saturday, Mike and I had a lot of time to pass. We talked about drums, games, jobs we’ve had, and most of all, I talked about Luke. “Yeah,” I say about the twelve-year-old I miss so much, it hurts. “But tonight he wants to play this weird role-playing game he’s getting into.”
“Which one?”
“Dragon something? I can’t remember. It’s some fairy tale game or something.”
I expect Mike to laugh and jokingly tell me to have fun, but instead, he asks, “Can I play with you?”
“You want to play?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Because you’ll probably have to play as a fairy princess or something?”
“Are you worried I’ll look better than you in a dress?”
My face cracks into a big smile as Mike and I fall into the easy banter we had last Saturday. “It’s not my fault I have stubby little legs.”
“Whatever you say, Stubs.”
The laugh that comes out of me sounds more like a giggle, and I smother myself with the baggy sleeve of my hoodie to prevent another one from breaking free.
“Now are you going to let me play with you,” Mike asks, “or do I have to cry myself to sleep?”
I attempt to sound angry when I say, “Let me ask my brother, Princess.” But by the way Mike chuckles, I fail.
Ten minutes later, in a three-way chat, Mike and Luke make easy introductions. Luke takes it upon himself to explain the game to Mike in typical Luke-fashion, leaving absolutely no detail out. He explains things I’m sure Mike already knows—like which keys to use on the keyboard, and how to change the way he chats—and as he talks, and talks, and talks, Mike listens, and asks questions, and engages him in a way that melts my heart. I become a third wheel except for when Mike brings me into the conversation, and by the time midnight rolls around and I order Luke to go to bed—for what has to be the tenth time—I am thankful to Mike for more than just my hoodie.
“He loved you,” I say when I answer my ringing phone at 12:02 a.m. I expected that we were all going to bed, but then Sexy as Fuck Drummer showed up on my phone and my heart skipped into my throat.
“I’m going to see if I can get the Deadzone people to let him beta Five,” Mike says, and my eyes widen.
“You don’t have to . . .”
“I want to.”
“Why?”
“Because your brother’s cool,” Mike says, and I snicker.
“He’s twelve.”
“He’s the coolest twelve-year-old I’ve ever met.”
“I’ll have to tell him that,” I say with a genuine smile in my voice. “Oh! And he doesn’t even know you’re a rock star. He’s going to die.”
“Rock star.” Mike laughs.
“What’s funny?”
“Adam is the rock star.”
In the dark, I wonder, Is that what he actually thinks? Does he really not know what a star he is? And I suddenly feel a deep-seated need to correct him.
Maybe it’s the big sister in me. Or maybe it’s the indebted hoodie owner. Or maybe it’s just the girl who knows deep down that Mike deserves to understand how special he is.
“You should’ve heard these two girls outside the club talking about you last Saturday,” I say.
“Oh yeah? What were they saying?”
“They were talking about how hot you are.” I try to sound as casual as possible in spite of the fierce red blush creeping across my cheeks.
“Go on,” Mike says, his amused tone making even the tip of my nose glow red.
“Something about drummers really knowing how to bang.”
Oh God, my entire face is on fire. I flip the pillow over and bury my flaming cheeks in it as Mike laughs.
“They said you never hook up with fans though,” I rush to add, and Mike’s laughter slowly quiets.
“Yeah, I don’t.”
“Why not? Isn’t that one of the perks of being a rock star?”
A long, long moment of silence passes, and then Mike says, “Can I be honest with you?”
“Of course.”
He takes a deep breath, and I hold mine.
“I don’t think I ever really got over your cousin.”
“Oh.” I pull the covers over my head to hide from the heavy awkwardness that just swallowed this conversation whole. It’s like I forgot that he’s Danica’s boyfriend.
Danica’s. Boyfriend.
“I’m supposed to take her out this Saturday . . .” he says while I continue hiding in the pitch-black.
“Sounds like fun.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey,
Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to head to bed, okay?”
The line is silent for a while, and then he says, “Okay. Thanks for letting me play with you and your brother tonight, Hailey.”
I thank him again for my hoodie, and we eventually end the call. But not before he wishes me sweet dreams.
I fall asleep thinking of the way his deep, quiet voice sounded when he said it.
Have sweet dreams, Hailey.
I sigh against my pillow.
Goodnight, Mike.
Chapter 7
“You should go out with Mike,” my brother informs me on Saturday afternoon as I shoulder my phone against my ear and pick up dog poop while simultaneously trying to untangle three dog leashes from my legs. Apparently, walking a poodle, a dachshund, and a wolfhound all at one time was a terrible freaking idea.
“He’s dating Danica,” I reply as I try to kick my foot out of a dog-leash noose.
“So?” Luke counters.
“NO!” I shout at the world’s horniest poodle when he gets excited and tries to hump my leg. I push him down, but the wolfhound thinks I’m playing and tackles me to the grass. Again.
“Geez, sorry,” Luke says while I get my face licked by three dogs at once.
“Not you.” I make spitting sounds as I writhe on the ground trying to keep dog tongue out of my mouth. In the distance, I hear someone laughing, and I guess the shelter director, Barb, is getting a kick out of me being assaulted by a horny fluff ball, an overweight hot dog, and a shaggy horse-mutt all at once. No amount of college internship credits could possibly be worth this. It’s taking all of my concentration to not roll onto the bag of poop that fell somewhere on the grass nearby. “Hold on a second, Luke.”
Approximately five hundred NOs later, I’m finally on my feet again with three very sorry-looking dogs sitting on the grass in front of me. “These dogs are going to be the death of me,” I huff as the wolfhound hangs his head.
“They can’t be worse than Teacup.”
“Teacup is an angel!” I protest in defense of the adorable potbelly pig I had to leave back home. Sure, she had a thing for eating people’s shoes. But who needs shoes anyway?