by Jamie Shaw
Oh, God.
I take a deep breath and stand up, and Leti looks so amused that I’m seriously going to smack the snot out of him as soon as there aren’t any witnesses. I make my way to the stairs and then take one down, two down, three down.
“Adam,” Dr. Pullman says as he walks closer to where Adam is standing. They meet halfway. “I’ve lost track of how many times you’ve been tardy or absent in this class. I might be willing to overlook it if you actually paid any attention to the lessons or at least attempted to do well, but it’s become obvious you’re here for . . . well, why are you here?” Dr. Pullman shakes his head to himself and continues before Adam can respond. “The last day to drop this class is Friday. You won’t get a refund, but you won’t get a failing grade. If you don’t drop, I’m giving you a zero. I’m tired of you coming in late and interrupting my lectures.”
“But I need this class to graduate . . .” Adam says, like it never even occurred to him that he might not pass.
“Maybe you should have thought of that earlier,” Dr. Pullman informs him unapologetically.
And then, inexplicably, words start coming out of my mouth before I even comprehend what I’m doing. “Dr. Pullman, I’m so sorry,” I say, coming to stand next to a very curious-looking Adam. “Today was my fault . . .” Uh, it was?! “I was . . . going over class notes with Adam this morning, and . . . I lost track of time, and he hadn’t eaten anything at all, and so I told him he should really stop at Lion’s Den to get something, like maybe a BLT or a chicken salad sandwich or even a bowl of soup or something . . .” Okay, I’m full-on rambling now while everyone looks at me like I’m crazy. I smile sweetly. “You know, to help with his low blood sugar and all that jazz. But anyway, it was my fault and he really was trying to do better and he really was late because he was aspiring to improve in this class.” Lies, lies, lies!
Dr. Pullman gazes at me suspiciously. “You were helping him polish his notes?”
“Yes.” I nod vigorously. “We . . . we already arranged tutoring for this weekend and everything. He really wants to do better.”
Dr. Pullman looks over at Adam then, who is staring at me with a still very-freaking-confused expression on his face. “You do?”
Adam’s eyes slowly drift from my face to Dr. Pullman’s. “Uh . . . yeah, I do. Tutoring . . . this weekend . . .”
Dr. Pullman inhales deeply as he considers this new information, glancing back and forth between me and Adam. “Okay. Rowan, if you’re going to help him . . . and Adam, if you’re serious about this . . . one more chance. Don’t be late again.”
I nod and exit the room, passing by Leti with Adam close behind. What in God’s name did I just do, and better yet, why did I just do it?!
“Hey,” Adam calls to me when I keep walking. Having no idea what to do about any of what just happened, I nervously turn around to face him. Over his shoulder, Leti is one gigantic smile. He winks at me and then slips away. “That was . . . uh . . .” Adam scratches the side of his chin adorably. “Why did you do that?”
By the way he looks at me, I can tell he has no idea who I am. And I’m not sure if that makes me feel relieved or so disappointed that I need to skip speech class to wallow in Dee’s room. “It just looked like you could use some help,” I say, forcing my shoulders to shrug in an attempt at looking casual.
He studies me for a moment, and my assumption that he doesn’t recognize me falters. He scrutinizes my features until his gaze locks with mine. “Do I know you?”
I shake my head a little too vigorously. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?” His head tilts slightly to the side, and I nearly let out a swooning sigh. “You look really familiar.”
“Positive,” I lie.
“Are you sure you’ve never been to one of my shows?”
I contemplate acting like I have no idea who he is or that he’s in a band, but decide that’d be overkill, and it would probably make him even more suspicious. “Nope. I just thought you could use a hand . . . Sorry, I acted impulsively.”
“No,” he blurts when I start to turn away from him. I turn back around. “No. No, you’re fine . . . Thanks.” He smiles, and it brings back an onslaught of memories. Him pressing me against the kitchenette counter. My pink heels lying in the walkway of the tour bus. Him leading me up the stairs. Me asking him to help me forget. Him smirking and asking me to count backward from ten. I feel my cheeks redden before he adds, “I actually think tutoring sounds like just what I need.”
“Huh?”
“Tutoring. This weekend.”
“Oh . . .”
“We kind of have to now anyway, don’t we? I mean, if I don’t do halfway decent on the test we have on Monday, we’re both screwed. He’ll know you were just covering for me.”
Freaking hell. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Just one problem,” Adam says. “I have a few shows out of town this weekend . . .” He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and packs them against his palm as he thinks about it, staring at the ground. Then his eyes lift back to mine. “You’ll have to come along.”
“I’ll what?”
“I mean . . . can you? Do you have plans this weekend?”
“No, but I—”
“Good. We can leave tomorrow morning.” He smiles at me, like there’s no doubt I’ll go with him.
“No, we definitely can not leave tomorrow morning!” I practically shout.
“Why not?”
“I have classes . . .”
Adam frowns. “ ’Til when?”
“Two o’clock.”
His eyes stare up then, his mouth moving as he does some math in his head. “Okay, that works. I’ll pick you up out front after class. We won’t get back until Sunday night, so make sure you pack some stuff.”
“I don’t even know you!” I protest.
Adam grins and then sticks out his hand. “Adam Everest.” I stare at his hand, too shocked to take it, until he laughs and reaches forward, pulling mine from my side and shaking it. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for saving my ass.”
Chapter Ten
DEE, LETI, MACY. Macy, Leti, Dee. My feet carry me down their row of faces and back again as I pace across Dee’s room, pulling my hair through my fingers. “There is no way I can go!”
After my conversation with Adam, I skipped speech class to come back here and panic. By the time Dee and Leti showed up, I had worked myself into an anxiety attack.
Dee ignores me and pulls two nearly identical tops out of her closet—one pink, one aquamarine. When I first told her about Adam’s offer, she squealed so loudly I literally cringed. She immediately launched into a high-pitched monologue about all the fun we’d have—since she proclaimed us a “package deal”—until I reminded her that her first shift at her new waitressing job was scheduled for this Saturday. She’d been putting in applications all month, had finally landed an interview last week, and must have sweet-talked the hell out of the owner, because he hired her for a job that she wasn’t even remotely qualified for. Fast-forward to an hour later—after I’ve explained all the reasons why skipping her very first shift would be a really bad idea—and she’s busy packing my suitcase, ignoring the hundred times that I’ve insisted I can’t go.
Dee studies the pink and aqua tops she’s holding up, and then she walks over to me, holding each against my body in turn. Satisfied, she hangs the aqua one back in her closet and tosses the pink one in the suitcase she’s busy stuffing.
Leti watches us from his slouched position in Macy’s computer chair, his ankles crossed on her desk. “Why can’t you go?” he asks me. “You don’t even have classes on Fridays, so it’s not like you’d be missing anything.”
“Because! It’s insane!”
Macy, usually the voice of reason, asks, “Why is it insane?” Seriously?! He
r too?
“Because I don’t even know him!”
“Everyone knows him,” Leti says, watching Dee as she lays three black skirts on the floor, looks them over, and then tosses the shortest one into the suitcase.
I slump on my bed, my elbows on my knees. “This is such a bad idea.”
Dee holds up two pairs of hooker heels, and I pale at the sight of the hot-pink shoes I wore to Mayhem. “Leti,” she says, “A,” she holds up the pink pair, “or B?” She holds up a black pair.
“Hmm,” Leti hums, smoothing a pretend-beard. “Both.”
Dee grins at him appreciatively and then lays both pairs in the suitcase.
“Deandra!” I snap. “You’re wasting your time!”
The next afternoon, I’m walking to campus with my suitcase rolling behind me. It’s making a racket as it skips and tumbles over cracks in the sidewalk. How in God’s name does Dee always succeed in talking me into things like this?
In the midst of our arguing, she got me to admit that I didn’t believe Adam was a bad guy or that he’d take advantage of me, and she even got me to confess that I might have a little fun. Ultimately, though, I think it was her reminding me of the consequences of not going that finally sealed the deal. If I don’t go, Adam will fail. And even though that would reflect poorly on me, I have to admit, the main reason I’m going is just that I sincerely want to help him. If he needs this class to graduate, he needs me to come along. And after what he did for me that night at Mayhem, I owe him that much.
When I finally arrive back at campus at two thirty, I look all around for him, but I don’t see him anywhere. What I do see is a black Camaro convertible in the parking lot, surrounded by girls. A blonde is sitting on the back of the topless car, and two other girls are standing by its side, framing a pair of charcoal sneakers that are propped in the open window. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out whose feet are in those sneakers, so I take a deep breath and walk over. As I get closer, the girls lift their heads to stare at me. At first, their expressions remind me of the look Leti gave me that first day in class when I told him I was a freshman and he thought I was lost. Then, hostility washes over them, like they can’t believe I’m actually coming over to talk to—gasp—Adam Everest.
I ignore them and walk right up to his sneakers, looking down at him stretched out in the backseat. He has shades pulled over his eyes and both hands behind his head. The girl sitting on the back of his car has her pink-pedicured feet resting on his stomach, but he doesn’t seem to mind. When he sees me, he slowly sits up, knocking the girl’s feet off his body. She bristles and tries to paralyze me with the poisoned daggers she’s staring, but Adam doesn’t seem to notice. “I was starting to wonder if you were going to show or not,” he says.
I use my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. “I had to run back to the dorms to get my stuff.”
He hops over the side of the car, grabbing my suitcase and tossing it into his trunk. “Cool. I’m ready to get out of here.” He looks to the girl still sitting on the back of his car, but she doesn’t budge until he holds his hand out and helps her down.
“Adam,” one of the other girls whines, “are you sure we can’t come?”
“Sorry,” he says as he hops behind the wheel. “I need to study.”
The girl looks at me, her perfectly-shaped eyebrows furrowed as I toss my backpack in the back and slide in next to Adam. “I didn’t think you were serious . . .” She takes in my bright blue leggings, my loose black T-shirt, my glasses. “But I guess you were.”
I roll my eyes. I sure as hell didn’t dress like this for her amusement. I did it to make sure that Adam kept me locked me into his memory as the nerd-girl from class, not the cute Peach from Mayhem.
With me inside, Adam’s Camaro purrs to life, and then we’re on the road, the wind threatening to make my messy bun a whole new level of messy. “So,” he says with one hand on the wheel, “you live on campus?”
“Yeah.” I tuck some loose strands of hair back into my elastic band. “Er, no. I mean . . . kinda.” Wow, smooth. This trip is already off to an epic start.
Adam pushes his shades up, which pulls his straight brown hair back too, and I’m once again left breathless over the color of his gray-green eyes. I force my gaze back to the road when he gazes over at me and asks, “How do you kinda live on campus?”
“My living situation fell through, so I’m staying with a friend of mine while I look for a place.” That’s mostly true, so I don’t feel too guilty saying it. I haven’t actually been looking for a place, but I know I need to. Dee’s Resident Assistant knows I’ve been staying in her dorm room even though it’s against the rules, and she’s been getting on our case. If I don’t leave soon, I know she’ll report it, and the last thing I want is to get Dee or Macy in trouble.
When I ask Adam if he lives on campus too, he tells me he lives in an off-campus apartment with his band mate, Shawn. I remember the way Adam licked Shawn’s face on the tour bus, and the memory makes me smile. I can only imagine what their apartment must be like. After a while, I pull out my phone and ask Adam exactly where we’re going.
“All over,” he says with an easy smile.
“Can you be more specific? I want to let some people know where I’ll be.” He raises his eyebrow at me, silent until I add, “You know, in case you decide to murder me. I want my friends to know where to look for the body.”
Adam laughs, much to my relief, and a goofy smile finally forces its way onto my face. I listen as he gives me the full itinerary. Tonight, we’ll be driving for roughly four hours before we get to the first concert venue. Tomorrow, we have a five-hour drive before we get to the second venue. Saturday, we’ve got a four-hour drive to the final venue, and Sunday, we have a six-hour drive back to school.
“Jeez,” I say. “No wonder you’re falling behind in class. That’s nuts.”
“It’s not like this every weekend,” he tells me, wrapping his black-nailed fingers around the gearshift to change gears as we merge onto the highway. “And most of the time, I’d be traveling on our tour bus, so I don’t really have an excuse.”
“You have your own tour bus?” I ask, remembering how nice it was and wondering how the band can afford it.
“It’s not actually ours,” he says, “but we have a friend that lets us use it.”
“Why didn’t you take the bus this time?”
He turns his head to smirk at me. “Because my French tutor had classes that didn’t finish until two o’clock.”
“Oh.” God, now I’m blushing all over, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m happy he waited for me or if it’s because I feel bad he waited for me. “Sorry . . .”
“What are you apologizing for?” He looks at me like one of us is seriously confused. “You covered for me when Pullman was about to kick my ass to the curb, and now you’re taking a three-day road trip with me across two states to help me get caught up.”
Okay, he makes a good point. “Well, in that case, you’re welcome.” He flashes a smile at me, and I joke, “I expect a backstage pass to all your shows.”
“Whatever you want”—he stares over at me again—“just ask.”
Okay, is he flirting with me? I might be imagining things, but the way he said that and the way he’s looking at me . . . it makes a shiver dance through me from head to toe.
I swallow and concentrate on the telephone poles marking distance to my right. “Well, do you want to get started on French now?” Anything to get my mind off those lips and how soft they’d felt against the skin of my neck. I glance at my backpack in the backseat.
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
“Honestly? I think I’d rather crash this car.”
I laugh even though I know I probably shouldn’t—from what I know about Adam, I don’t doubt he’s serious. “Alright.
When then?”
“Later.”
“Like, this-car-ride later?” I prop my elbow on the door and make waves in the wind with my hand. We’re leaving the outskirts of the city now; I watch it get smaller behind us in the side-view mirror.
“Like, later-later.”
“So, when we get to the venue?”
“More like . . . later-later-later.” I laugh, and he grins at me.
“Tonight?” I pull my hand back in the car and rub the chill away.
After pulling a cigarette from its pack, Adam tucks it between his lips and pushes his car lighter into the dash. “Maybe?” He presses the lighter against the cigarette and puffs until the end burns hot. “I’m not really big on plans.” He replaces the lighter, takes a long drag of the cigarette, and then holds it between two fingers with the hand he’s using to steer. With his other elbow propped on the car door, he’s hard not to ogle. Even when I turn my head away, I can’t stop picturing him sitting inches away in his navy blue T-shirt and faded jeans. Maybe it’s his black nails or his layered bracelets, his longish hair or the cigarette he keeps lifting to his lead-singer lips, but God, he’s such a typical bad boy. He’s the kind of boy girls love because there’s no way they can ever bring him home to their parents.
After we’re silent for a while, Adam plugs his phone into the sound system and hands it to me so I can pick some music. He has so much of it, it’s ridiculous. There are tons of bands I’ve never heard of, so I take a chance and set it to a random shuffle. I’m glad when the first few songs are ones I’ve actually heard before. The music drowns out all the apprehension I’d been feeling about this trip, and I tilt my seat farther back, closing my eyes and letting the sun warm my barely tanned skin.
“So are you a fan?” Adam asks.
I’m guessing he’s talking about his own band, not the one playing through the speakers. Without opening my eyes or turning my head, I say, “I haven’t heard much of your stuff. But I liked what I did hear.” I turn my face toward him and smile, using my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. “You’re very talented.”