Finding Mr. Happily Ever After_Nathan

by Melissa Storm

  Jazz laughed. “So this is make-out point?”

  He smiled serenely as if he really were going back in time. “It’s where I first talked to you, remember?”

  She would never forget that day back in kindergarten when she and Nathan had first said hello on the playground. She’d seen him peek out at her through the window as her family unpacked their moving truck, but hadn’t gotten the chance to speak with him until the following week at school. From there, they became fast friends, and—as they say—the rest was history.

  But why had Nathan brought them here today? Was it to start a new chapter in their lives? Anticipation soared.

  “I remember,” she told him, unbuckling her seat belt as he did the same.

  “Sometimes I feel like you’re the only one I can talk to, Jazz. Like everyone else looks at me and sees this sexy, athletic, popular, smart—”

  “Is this going somewhere?”

  “Sorry, I got carried away.” He laughed softly. “Everyone else sees the outside, but you…” Nathan grabbed her hand and placed it on his chest. “You see my heart. Like I can be the real me and not worry with you, you know?”

  “Of course, I know.” Her stomach fluttered. This was really happening. Finally, finally, finally. “I feel the same way. Only, why can’t you be the real you with everyone else, too?”

  Nathan shook his head and looked toward his lap. “I don’t know. I wish I did. Just promise me, Jazz. Promise me we’ll never stop being friends.”

  Friends.

  The word resonated through the air.

  Through her.

  When he turned the full effect of his espresso-colored eyes on her, Jazz knew she was a goner—so, too, was any wish she’d had for something more with Nathan. She ignored the disappointment ripping through her and her aching heart. He needed her to be his friend in a way no one else ever had been, and perhaps no one else ever could be. And she loved him too much to take that away from him. He’d been there that awful night when her parents’ marriage finally disintegrated. She would be there for him now.

  “Always,” she said, reaching over to give him a firm, platonic hug. “Always and forever.”

  Five

  On the morning of her sixteenth birthday, Jazz tore out of the house and into the driveway. It was empty.

  She didn’t know why she had even checked. Of course her mom couldn’t afford a car for her, and she didn’t need one—not when she had Nathan right next door and willing to drive her anywhere she needed.

  Still, it would have been nice to gain a little independence.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” her mom said, placing a hand on Jazz’s shoulder from behind. “I wish I could have gotten you a car. Not just any car—a turquoise Cadillac.”

  “I love you, Mom.” At least her mom knew the perfect car and the perfect color. That meant something. It meant everything. And in that moment, she felt sorry for Nathan. Even though he had a nice car to call his own, he didn’t have a close relationship with his parents, not the way she and her mom did.

  His father worked nonstop, and for the brief moments in between, he walked about in a fog of stress, fatigue, and indifference to his family. Meanwhile, Nathan’s mother flitted from one relative’s house to the next, always happy, never demanding more from the man as either a husband or a father.

  That left Nathan on his own most days, but he was never lonely. He had Jazz for his secrets and—most recently—Jessica Biles for his affections. He’d been dating Jessica for three months and one day. Ever since he’d sent her a pink carnation through the school fundraiser on Valentine’s Day. Jazz tried to be supportive of his romances, including this latest one, but didn’t always succeed.

  “I think I might love her, Jazzy J. Like this is it, the real deal,” he’d confided a couple days back as the two of them walked home from school arm in arm.

  “Love?” She burst into bitter laughter—not very friend-like, but she couldn’t help herself. “How would you even know what love is? And what makes this particular bimbo stand out from the parade?”

  Nathan pulled away from her and stood tense on the pavement. “Don’t call her that,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Why not? It’s not like she’s here to stay. They never are, Nathan.” She shook her head in a strange mix of both disbelief and lack of surprise.

  “Yeah, but Jessica’s different. She’s—”

  “Oh, let’s see,” Jazz said, ticking off each trait on her fingers. “She’s pretty, plastic, dull, and dumb. Definitely your type, but you know you never play with your toys for long before returning them to the box.”

  “Jazz, stop!” he shouted as she forged ahead. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve never had a problem with my girlfriends before.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” she yelled back, wishing she could just swallow down her feelings for Nathan Reed and keep them buried so they would never be a problem like this again. She wanted to just be his friend and was trying, but even now, months since his birthday, it was…hard.

  “Fine,” he said with a sigh, continuing to walk beside her until they reached their houses. Neither said anything more, and a moment later, she was safely enclosed in her house, her front door locked in case Nathan tried to follow her inside.

  But he didn’t come, he didn’t follow her in, and she didn’t see him the following day—a Saturday.

  Now it was Sunday morning, her birthday and his halfsie. This was a sacred day, the most important holiday between the two of him. The question was: Would Nathan uphold it?

  “Come inside. Let me make you breakfast,” Jazz’s mother said, pulling her back to the present moment.

  “Mickey Mouse pancakes and Donald Duck scrambled eggs?” Jazz asked with a smile.

  “And Pluto bacon,” her mother confirmed. “Now c’mon.”

  Jazz tried to assist her mom in preparing their meal, but she refused to accept the help.

  “I’m glad your birthday fell on a Sunday this year,” her mom said, cracking an egg into the bright yellow mixing bowl she liked to use for breakfasts. “They’ve been asking me to pick up so much over time lately, I was worried they’d refuse my time off request.”

  “I’m thinking of getting a job,” Jazz said, the idea coming to her just then. “Maybe I can help give us a little buffer.”

  “Absolutely not.” Jazz’s mother waved a spatula at her, dropping egg goo onto the linoleum below. “It’s my job to provide. It’s your job to be a kid.”

  “But Mom, I’m not a kid, not anymore. I’m sixteen.”

  “Which is still a kid.”

  “What if I got a job to save up for a car, or college?”

  “Now that I can get behind.” Her mom wiped up the mess on the floor. “Do you want me to put in a word for you at the store?”

  “No offense, Mom, but no. I’ll find my own job.” As much as she loved her mother, Jazz would work hard to make sure she wouldn’t end up like her. Back in the day, her mom had dropped out of college to get married, and now she had neither a loving husband nor a good job. Jazz wanted to have it all, and she knew her mom wanted her to have it, too. That was part of the reason she needed her own car rather than relying on Nathan to take her everywhere. What if they had a falling out? What if she was suddenly left jobless and stranded just like her mom had been all those years ago?

  “So confident. Don’t you know we’re in a recession?”

  “I’ll figure it out. That’s what adults do, right?”

  Her mom left the griddle unattended to give Jazz a kiss on top of her head. “My little grown up. I’m so proud of you.”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  “Now who could that be?” her mother asked, hurrying to answer.

  Jazz listened from her place at the table with a mix of anticipation and dread. What if it was him? What if it wasn’t?

  “Nathan,” she heard her mom say in surprise. “Why didn’t you just come right in? You’re always welcome here.�
�

  Jazz swallowed a sigh. She couldn’t decide how she felt about him showing up for their long-standing birthday tradition. Would he apologize for what happened on Friday, even though he probably had no idea why she’d gotten so upset? Perhaps he had finally figured out her feelings and had come to tell her that there was no way the two of them could ever be anything more than friends. The possibilities were endless, and thinking of them all made Jazz want to puke up her orange juice.

  “Thanks, Mrs. M.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “Would you mind if I had a quick moment alone with Jazz?”

  Jazz tried to read Nathan’s voice, but he sounded frustratingly normal.

  The door shut behind them and two sets of footsteps traced back toward the kitchen as her mother said, “Take her. She’s all yours. I’ll throw some extra cakes on the griddle. Come eat with us when you’re done with your quick moment.”

  Jazz pushed her chair back so hard, the legs screeched against the floor, leaving an angry smudge in its wake. Charging through the living room, she pushed Nathan outside onto the front porch. “What do you want?” she whisper-yelled.

  “I came to tell you that I broke up with Jessica.”

  “What? Just two days ago you were ready to marry her.”

  “Yeah, but then I found out my best friend hated her.”

  Jazz pinched the bridge of her nose to stave off the stress headache storming inside her brain. She had just turned sixteen, for crying out loud! She shouldn’t be getting stress headaches, especially not from her best friend.

  “I don’t hate her,” she argued.

  Nathan chuckled softly and wrapped her in a hug. “Yes, you do. And you were right. She is a pretty idiot.”

  “Nathan, I did not say that!” she said, hitting him in the chest. “You know I’m a feminist. I would never say that about another girl.”

  “I know, I know, but you basically said that. And you’re right. The type of girl I’ve been dating just isn’t right for me. I need someone just as smart as she is pretty. I need someone like…”

  This was it, this was it, this was it! “Yes?”

  “Like Bethany Goldman. Do you think she’d go out with me?”

  Nathan’s words played on loop inside Jazz’s head. By the time she heard him declare his affections for Bethany a fifth time, she still hadn’t come to grips with this particular revelation. How could Nathan want to date somebody so much like Jazz, but not Jazz? It made no sense, and that broke her heart worse than any of the others had.

  “Jazz?” Nathan prodded, a sudden lack of confidence twisting his features. “What do you think?”

  And there was only one thing Jazz could say. The truth, but not all of it.

  “I...think she’d be crazy not to,” Jazz answered, wondering if Nathan would end up falling in love with this one for real—and whether it was better or worse that this girl was different from the others.

  Happy Birthday to me, Jazz thought bitterly as Nathan revealed his big plan for sweeping his new love interest off her feet. Maybe the time had finally come to quit wasting all her birthday wishes to ask that something more happen between her and Nathan.

  The only person she was kidding, after all, seemed to be herself.

  Six

  Jazz and Bethany sat chatting over cheeseburgers in the school cafeteria. For the first time in their high school careers, Jazz and Nathan found themselves in different lunch periods, which kind of sucked.

  Luckily, the two girls had become fast friends after Bethany’s short fling with Nate the previous year.

  “Oh, did you hear?” Bethany asked, her green eyes wide with whatever secret she had yet to reveal. “Our favorite bad boy is really bad now.”

  “What did he do now?” She tried to sound casual, but Jazz was quite worried about her BFF. He’d once been serious about school, but now Nathan constantly found himself on the receiving end of a detention slip—and nothing Jazz had said made any difference when it came to his bad boy behavior.

  The question was, what had Nathan done now, and why did she have to find out through Bethany? Usually she was the first to know all of his news, for better or worse.

  Bethany nodded and took a swig from her raspberry Snapple. “It just happened between second and third period. Mrs. Neff caught him spray-painting the south wall. Can you believe it?”

  Jazz sighed. “That was really stupid of him. There are cameras everywhere. He knows that.” She was almost afraid to ask but knew she’d find out eventually—and it would be better for both of them if she gave herself time to prepare for the upcoming confrontation with him. “What did he write?”

  “Not write. Draw. And I’m not sure exactly. Some trees and a cat?”

  Jazz groaned. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “I know, right? I can’t believe I ever went out with him.” Bethany laughed, and Jazz forced herself to join in. She still couldn’t believe it, either. She couldn’t believe Nathan had chosen a girl so much like her, but still hadn’t chosen her. Did this mean she would never get the chance to find out? Had Nathan already checked “brainiac goody-two shoes” off his date card?

  “Hey, Jazzy,” Nathan said, turning a spare chair at their table backward before sitting down with his legs spread wide apart. He nodded toward his long-ago ex. “Bethy.”

  “What are you doing here?” Jazz growled, expecting him to be in the vice principal’s office or at home suspended.

  Nathan’s smile faltered. “Ahh, so Bethy told you what happened?”

  “What were you thinking? Graffiti? Really? I can’t believe you’d be that stupid.”

  “It wasn’t graffiti. It was art, made that boring old wall look miles better. And, to your other point, we can’t all be geniuses like you two. Besides, ignorance is bliss, right?” He winked at Jazz, but she shook her head at him. Best not to encourage this unfounded swagger.

  Bethany let loose a high-pitched, tinkling stream of laughter. “Oh, Nate. When has your ignorance made you any happier?”

  Nathan laughed, too.

  Jazz continued to fume, and his nonchalance only made her angrier. He was throwing away any chance of getting into Burton College, her dream school. If he weren’t careful, he’d end up stuck in community college or, worse, find himself in jail after one of his reckless stunts. He could do…be…so much more if he only wanted to.

  “Touché, but hey! It’s not all bad. I got community service. I can volunteer with you in the city, Jazz.”

  “I don’t volunteer. I have a job.” One she loved.

  For almost a year now, Jazz had been spending Saturday and Wednesdays in Brooklyn, tutoring elementary schoolers who struggled with their reading and writing. She also acted kind of like a big sister to them and often spent her paychecks on small gifts for her regular students, which meant she’d saved up exactly $200 for her new car. Still, worth it. So worth it. She had more than enough compared to the kids she helped.

  Could Nathan, with his crazy and selfish attitude, even begin to understand how important this work was? Or would volunteering just be something to do until he’d served his sentence and returned to football practice and video games?

  Nathan shrugged, as if he were trying too hard to act casual. “Yes, yours is a J-O-B, but I’ll just be a volunteer.”

  “No, you’ll be a convict,” Bethany corrected.

  Nathan laughed. “A convict. I like that.”

  Jazz scowled at the crazy turn her best friend had taken. She’d thought when he had turned into the biggest player on Long Island that was bad enough. “You shouldn’t.”

  “Boys will be boys,” he countered.

  “That’s what they say to justify date rape,” Bethany pointed out.

  Nathan put both his hands out as if trying to balance himself. “Okay, whoa. Let’s not go there.”

  “Agreed.” Jazz said, having officially lost her appetite and given up on her half-eaten burger now.

  “So you’ll get me the job?” he asked,
turning his dark chocolate eyes on her.

  She shrugged and shifted the ice in her Styrofoam cup around with her straw before drawing out the last little bit of soda. Ugh. Saying no to him was never easy for her. Okay, impossible. “Fine, whatever.”

  Nathan jumped to his feet and plastered a big, wet kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best, Jazzy J! I love you! And, hey, now you don’t have to take the train. I’ll drive you.”

  “Okay, buh-bye, psycho.” Bethany waved at Nathan sweetly as he left before bursting out laughing again. Bethany was always laughing, and it was one of the many things Jazz loved about her friend.

  “Actually, I like taking the LIRR,” Jazz said in defense of her lack of a car. “It gives me time alone with my thoughts. Much better—and safer—than being stuck in the crowded parkway traffic.”

  Bethany glanced toward the spot where Nathan had just been, then rolled her eyes. “I agree with you there.”

  They cheersed with their cups, and then Jazz flipped the plastic top off hers and crunched the slowly melting ice between her teeth.

  “So what types of things do you think about while riding the train?” Bethany asked casually, but the way she avoided eye contact told Jazz her friend might be trying to get at something deeper.

  Jazz shrugged. “I don’t know. Where I’ll go to college. What I’ll major in. Stuff like that.”

  “Not about… oh, I don’t know… who you’ll date?”

  “I don’t date,” Jazz argued. And she hadn’t, not since Tony Evans slimed all over her at the eighth-grade dance. Ick. No, thank you.

  “But you want to.”

  “What, you can read my mind now?” She kept her voice steady.

  “No, but I can read your face, and you’ve got it bad for one Nathan Reed.”

  “Bethany, shh!” Jazz turned from side to side to make sure Nathan had truly left and wasn’t within earshot of their conversation.

  “See,” her friend said with a triumphant smile. “You love him.”

  “Of course I love him. He’s my best friend.”