“Umm … How about, where are you?”
“In Mapleview.”
“Still?”
He heaves a weighted sigh. “Look, it’s a long story, but before I even attempt to get into it, I need to ask you for a favor.”
“Whatever you need, I’m there.” After how much Kai has done for me, I owe him like a gazillion favors.
It takes him a second to answer. “I need you to drive over to Big Doug’s house and tell him something happened, that I’m stuck in Mapleview, and he needs to come pick me up. I’d call him, but I don’t have my phone, and I can’t remember his number.”
“If you need a ride, I can come and pick you up,” I find myself saying without even putting a lot of forethought into the decision.
“You mean you and Kyler can come pick me up, right? Because I don’t want him knowing about this.” A drop of jealousy lands in his tone, leaving me feeling guilty and sort of confused.
Is it because he despises Kyler that much, or is it something else? One thing I do know for certain is that the whole being friends with Kai while kind of dating Kyler thing is going to be pretty complicated since the two of them don’t get along at all.
“I’m not with Kyler anymore,” I tell Kai. “He dropped me off at my Grandma Stephy’s house a while ago. I’m with Indigo right now. And I’m sure she’ll let me borrow the car.”
“Oh, I will, will I?” Indigo says from over by the stove. She’s only kidding, her expression laced with curiosity.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Big Doug can do it. I need to talk to him, anyway.”
“Are you sure? Because I really don’t mind.” I don’t, either. Yeah, I’m tired and in desperate need of a shower, but he sounds like he might be in trouble, and I want to help him like he’s helped me. When he hesitates, I add, “If you don’t let me, then I’m just going to sit around and worry all night. I probably won’t get any sleep, and then I’ll be cranky when Indigo takes me shopping tomorrow. She’ll end up never taking me shopping again, and I’ll be forced to wear the same clothes forever because I suck at shopping by myself, and honestly, being in a store alone kind of freaks me out.”
“It does, does it?” He sounds amused.
“Um, yeah. It’s like the worst place to be if an apocalypse happens,” I continue on with my awesome story. “But, anyway, all my clothes will eventually get holes in them, and I’ll end up having to go everywhere naked. I’ll get kicked out of school because of their whole no being naked on school grounds policy, and I’ll have no choice but to join a nunnery and wear their robes because it’ll be the only way I’ll ever be able to get clothes again.”
His laughter fills the line. “A nun, huh? Because I can’t picture you being a nun.”
“Exactly. That’s why you have to let me come and pick you up.” I love that he sounds more relaxed and that I’ve played a part in it. It makes me feel like I did something right.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” He double-checks. “Because, honestly, I’d rather you come get me. I’m a little pissed at Big Doug right now.”
I wonder why. I wonder what happened. I wonder a lot of things, but I can ask him all that when I pick him up.
“Yep. I’m already heading for door,” I say, dragging my ass off the couch. “Just tell me where you are.”
He gives me the address, and I punch it into my notepad app. Then I tell him I’ll be there in two hours tops, and he thanks me at least ten times.
After we hang up, I go into the kitchen to get the car keys from Indigo. “You’re cool with me borrowing the car, right?”
She’s turned off the stove and is dumping the water out of the pan and into the sink. “Grandma Stephy would chew my ass off if I let you drive by yourself to Mapleview this late.”
“I doubt it. I mean, she’s not strict. She let us run around all the time by ourselves on the trip.” I zip my jacket up, cringing at the giant mud stain on it. I haven’t changed or showered since yesterday morning. I can only imagine how I look and smell right now. “Besides, I’m almost eighteen.”
“That doesn’t matter.” She puts the unopened box of macaroni and cheese into the cupboard. “You’ve had a rough day, and she won’t want you being by yourself.”
True. She told me that on the phone when I talked to her earlier.
“So, here’s what we’re going to do.” She dries her hands on a dishrag. “I’m going to change into some clothes while you change yours, because that mud stain is going to drive me nuts. If I have to look at it the entire drive, I might just pull it off you and burn it.” She smiles at me, so I know she’s kidding. Well, kind of kidding, at least about the burning part.
While she goes back to her room, I change into a pair of clean jeans, a long-sleeved black shirt, and slip on my favorite pair of red velvet boots. Then I hurry to the bathroom to wash my face, brush my teeth, and put on some deodorant. I don’t bother looking in the mirror. I know it will only make me want to clean up more, and there’s no time for that.
“Ready?” Indigo asks as she pokes her head into the bathroom.
Her hair is curled, and she’s put on a touch of lip-gloss and mascara. She has on a skirt, knee highs, and a leather jacket, along with gladiator sandals. How the hell she managed to get all dressed up like that in five minutes is beyond me.
“You know we’re just picking him up at some gas station, right?” I give a pressing glance at her outfit.
“Yeah, but I need to be prepared. You never know when you’re going to run into the love of your life.” She heads down the hallway. “For all I know, I could get a flat tire on the way there, and when I flag down someone for help, it could be the guy I’m supposed to fall in love with.”
“Or the guy who’s going to murder us and bury us in the woods,” I say, following her. “Do you know how many scary movies start that way?”
She rolls her eyes as she collects her keys, purse, and phone from the kitchen counter. “Jesus, Isa. Why do you have to ruin my fun?”
“Just promise me you’ll call a tow truck if we get a flat tire.” I open the front door. “No flagging down cars …” I suddenly get the feeling I’m being watched. My hair stands on end, and my heart rate accelerates as I get a bad case of the heebie-jeebies.
“What’s wrong?” Indigo asks as she steps out onto the porch and locks the front door.
My gaze skims the parking lot, the buildings, the trees, the street. “It’s nothing … I just got the strangest feeling I was being watched.”
She tosses the keys into her purse and zips it up. “Okay, I think I’m banning you from scary movies for a while. You’re seriously getting paranoid.”
“It’s not that.” I scratch at the back of my head, trying to figure out why I feel this way. No one’s around. Even the parking lot is almost completely bare. “Sorry. I think I’m just really tired, and this blue car thing has me on edge.”
“Totally understandable. And, like I said before, when Grandma Stephy gets home, we’ll tell her about the car, but honestly, I think it might’ve been either Hannah messing with you or just some freakish coincidence. This town is too small. I see the same cars all the time and the same annoying people.”
Huh. I hadn’t even thought about it being Hannah, but after how mad she was about Kyler and me hanging out, I wouldn’t put it past her. Now, what she could be up to is another story.
“Hannah doesn’t have a blue car, though, with a Superman sticker on it,” I point out.
“So, she could’ve borrowed a car from one of her friends.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” Still, I can’t see Hannah being friends with someone who would drive a car with a Superman sticker on it.
“Stop over-thinking everything.” Indigo links arms with me and hauls me toward the car. “Come on. Let’s go get your man candy.”
I don’t correct her about Kai being my man candy. I just follow her to the car and cross my fingers that we don’t get a flat tire.
Chapter 11
/>
Isabella
By the time we make it to Mapleview, it’s almost ten o’clock. Indigo tells me I should probably text Grandma Stephy so she doesn’t freak out when she gets home and we aren’t there. I send her a text, but she doesn’t reply.
“She’s probably still on the plane,” Indigo says, ashing her cigarette out the window. “When was her flight supposed to land?”
“I’m not sure. She said she’d be home by eleven, though.”
“I hope her flight doesn’t get delayed. She’ll come home all cranky if it does.” She slows down the car as the speed limit drops. “What road was this gas station on?”
I open the notepad app and tell her the address. “I think it’s on the east side of town.”
She flicks her cigarette out the window and focuses on the road. “This town is dead. Not a single store is open, and it’s only ten o’clock on a Saturday night.”
“Mapleview’s like that,” I tell her. “It’s lower key than Sunnyvale.”
She frowns at the stores bordering the street. All of them are closed up, the only lights coming from the lampposts. “It looks like a ghost town.”
“It kind of is.” I type the address into a map app so we can get directions. “I mean, people live here and everything, but it’s the kind of place people live when they’ve done something shady or do stuff that’s shady and don’t want to be found.”
“Then why’s Kai here?”
“He probably was just visiting someone or something.” But I know that’s not true. He mentioned something about Big Doug getting him into this mess. I just wish I knew what kind of mess he was in. “Make a right off here.” I point at a street sign.
Indigo does what I say and turns down the side road. The longer we drive, the sketchier the area gets: fewer lampposts line the streets; the stores turn into boarded up warehouses; and people have gathered in parking lots and street corners, doing God knows what. By the time I spot the gas station, I’m ready to grab Kai and say “peace out” to the town.
“There’s his car.” I point at it while unbuckling my seatbelt.
She pulls into the parking lot and parks next to Kai’s car. That’s when I notice the passenger side window is shattered, the hood is dented, and the headlights look cracked.
Indigo’s eyes practically bulge out of her head as she takes in the condition of Kai’s car. “Did he get in a wreck?”
“I have no idea.” Panic sets in. What if he’s hurt?
I jump out of the car and don’t stop, even when Indigo shouts at me to wait a minute. By the time I fling the door open and stumble inside the gas station, I’m a nervous wreck, all wild-eyed and trying to catch my breath.
My gaze skims the gas station. I spot Kai sitting behind the counter at a table, playing poker with an older man, who’s wearing a button-down shirt with the gas station logo on it.
“I think you might be cheating,” Kai says to the man, glancing down at the cards he’s holding.
“Quit whining and make your bet,” the old man grumbles, “before I make you wait outside.”
Kai adds a few red poker chips to a small pile in the middle of the table. “Yeah, yeah, you’ve said that, like, twenty times.”
“Well, this time, I mean it,” he growls. “Whatcha got? I bet nothing.”
“Ha!” Kai lays down his cards. “A full—” He catches sight of me. “Hey, you made it.”
“Of course I made it.” I smile back, but my smile falters when I see the bruises and cuts on his face. One of his eyes is so swollen I wonder if he can see out of it. A cut runs along his hairline, dry blood dots his cheek, and his lip is puffy. “Holy crap, Kai! What happened to your face?”
“What? It doesn’t always look like that?” the old man asks, smirking at Kai. “Is this that girl you were yammering about being in love with?”
Ummm … What?
Kai seems unbothered by what the man said, grinning as he scoots the chair away from the table and stands up. “Quit trying to get me in trouble,” he tells the man then turns to me. “I’ll explain the face thing in the car.”
“Okay.” I keep my eyes on him as he rounds the counter, trying to tell if he’s injured anywhere else.
Blood stains dot his long-sleeved grey shirt and jeans, and his face looks horrible, but other than that, I can’t see anything else.
“Are you okay? Did you get hurt anywhere else?”
“You and your questions.” He tsks at me, seeming in an oddly good mood considering how beaten up he looks. “You’re always so full of them.”
I cross my arms. “You call me from an unknown number, ask me to drive out to Mapleview to a random gas station in the middle of nowhere, and your car is all messed up, not to mention so is your face, so questions are totally justifiable right now.”
Humor dances in his eyes. “Am I in trouble?”
I have to work really hard to appear angry. “Yes. At least until you start explaining.”
He starts to suck his lip between his teeth, but there’s a small gash on it, and he winces. “Are you going to punish me if I don’t?”
I feel a flush heating my cheeks. “How can you joke right now when it looks like your face got into a fight with a rock and lost big time?”
“Actually, it was a sumo-sized dude and a crowbar.” His shoulders sag. “Look, I know I messed up, but joking is the only thing keeping me from losing it.”
His honesty throws me off. Usually, Kai jokes about everything and hardly ever admits his true feelings.
“Do we need to get anything before we go?” I glance around the store. “Maybe some band-aids and an icepack?”
He cups his cheek with his hand, as if he’s in pain. “An ice pack sounds nice.”
“All right, let me grab some stuff, and I’ll meet you in the car.” I start for the back of the store.
He trails behind me down an aisle. “I just got my ass mugged right outside, and that was in broad daylight, so I’m not about to let you wander around by yourself when it’s dark.”
I open the freezer door and grab a bottle of water. “Mugged by a sumo wrestler?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but it really happened.” He dazes off, looking like he doesn’t quite believe it himself. “I walked away from my car for, like, five seconds, and this guy shows up, breaks my window, steals … something out of my car, then hits me over the head with a crowbar. I blacked out, and when I woke up, my car was all jacked up. He even destroyed the battery and slashed the tires. Stupid crazy bastard.”
A few things run through my mind at once, but the biggest thing that stands out is, “He hit you over the head with a crowbar?” I reach for his head. “Do you have a concussion?”
“I’m not sure.” He squints his eyes as my fingers brush across his hairline. “What does a concussion feel like?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had one before.” Okay. Now I’m really starting to get worried. “I think we should take you to the hospital.”
“No,” he says firmly. “No hospitals. No doctors. My parents can’t know about this.”
“They’re going to find out when you show up, looking like that.” I gesture at his face.
He touches the corner of his eye and winces. “I know it’s bad, but I can’t tell them. They already … my dad … I’m not going home. I’ll just crash at Big Doug’s house or something until my face heals.” He doesn’t seem too thrilled about that idea, though.
“That could take at least a week. Won’t your mom and dad get mad when you don’t come home for that long?” Isn’t that what normal parents do?
“They won’t care,” he says. “They’ll be glad I’m not there.”
I remember the night I saw Kai’s dad yell at him and smack him on the back of the head. While it wasn’t very hard, it still didn’t sit right with me. It makes me wonder if that’s why he doesn’t want to go home. Perhaps he’s worried his dad will hit him or something. And then there’s that thing Kyler said in the car about how hi
s dad wants him to play sports. Clearly their dad’s a demanding guy, the complete opposite of my barely-there father.
I think about how scared I was to go home last night, how Kai stayed up and watched movies with me, and how we ended up falling asleep on the couch together when I thought I wasn’t even going to be able to sleep at all.
“You can stay with me if you need to.”
“At your grandma’s house?”
“She won’t care. She’s nice. She’ll probably make you sleep on the couch, but it’s pretty comfortable. And she makes breakfast in the morning.”
As he considers my offer, a series of emotions flash across his face: hesitancy, confusion, gratitude, and ultimately, hilarity. “Are you going to sleep on the couch with me?”
I roll my eyes. “No. You have to be a big boy and sleep all by yourself.”
He juts out his lip, sulking. “But I slept on the couch with you. Doesn’t that mean you have to return the favor?”
I smash my lips together to keep from smiling and encouraging him more. “I’ll return the favor another time. My grandma’s cool and everything, but not that cool.”
Grinning, he reaches forward and traces his finger down the brim of my nose. “I’m going to make sure you follow through with that.”
His touch makes me feel like a swallowed a jaw full of very alive, very excited butterflies. All from a freakin’ touch.
Afraid my voice will come out all wobbly, I say nothing and search the store for an icepack. I end up settling on a cup full of ice and grab a couple of napkins to clean up the blood with. The band-aids are a no go, so I pick up a couple of candy bars and a soda, hoping a little sugar rush might help him feel better.
After we pay, he waves good-bye to the cashier, and then we head out to the car. Kai grabs a thin folder and his jacket out of his car before sliding into the backseat of my Grandma Stephy’s car.
Indigo rotates around in the seat, takes in the sight of his face, and her jaw drops. “Whoa. You look like shit.”
“Gee, thanks,” he says dryly then sighs. “But seriously, thanks for coming and picking my sorry ass up. It was really cool of you.”
The Year of Falling in Love (Sunnyvale #2) Page 10