To where? And to what?
The possibilities were too horrible to contemplate.
Before I knew it, I was scrambling after them, weaving my way through the small crowd until I was walking on my own, heading straight in their direction.
By the time I caught up, they'd almost reached Joel's car. Unlike the huge parking lot on the building's other side, this parking area was small and dark, with only a few vehicles.
Behind me, in the distance, I could hear people pouring out from the main entrance, laughing and talking as they made their way toward their cars, trucks or whatever.
But over here, it was just us.
From a few paces away, I stopped and called out, "Joel, wait! Please?"
He stopped, but didn't turn around. Unfortunately for me, the girls weren't so reluctant. Bustier looked over her shoulder and said, "What's your deal, anyway?"
"Yeah," the second girl chimed in. "Take a hint, will ya?"
Ignoring them, I focused all of my attention on the guy I loved. He still hadn't turned around, but he was listening, right?
"Joel, seriously," I said, "there's something I need to tell you, and it can't wait."
Finally, after a long, awkward moment, he let go of the girls and turned slowly to face me. His posture was stiff, and his eyes were so cold, they gave me a shiver. In a tight voice, he said, "Alright. Go ahead."
I swallowed. "What?"
"Go ahead," he repeated. "Tell me and be done with it."
I almost flinched. Where was the guy I loved? He had to be in there somewhere, right? I gave his companions a nervous glance. "Can't we talk alone?"
Bustier gave a snort of disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me." She looked to the other girl and said, "Can you believe this chick?"
If it weren't so pathetic, I might've laughed. It was, after all, the same exact same thing she'd said to me earlier about her new best friend.
Ignoring them, I inched forward, walking slowly until I was standing within arm's reach. I gave Joel a pleading look. "Just five minutes, okay?"
He watched me in stony silence, but said nothing.
I tried to smile. "Please? I drove all this way just to talk to you."
He gave a tight shrug. "Not my problem."
"Yeah," Bustier chimed in, "like he'd care."
I looked to Joel, waiting for him to contradict her.
He didn't.
The other girl snickered. She looked to me and said, "So now, you need to drive all the way home." She made a fake pouty face. "Bummer for you, huh?"
Yes. It was a bummer and then some, but I wasn't going anywhere yet. I returned my attention to Joel. The way it looked, he didn't care. But that couldn't be true.
Somewhere, under that cold, hard façade was the guy I loved. I just needed to reach him. But how? I was still searching for the perfect thing to say when Bustier suddenly blurted out, "Oh, my God, you're her."
I froze. Oh, crap.
Chapter 4
Bustier laughed like I was the funniest thing she'd seen in forever. Through her continued laughter, she said, "No freaking way! No wonder you were so funny about it." She turned to the other girl and said, "You know who she is, don't you?"
The other girl frowned. "A stalker?"
"Yeah, totally," Bustier said. "But she's also Melanie Blaire."
Melody. Not Melanie. But that was hardly the point.
The other girl scrunched up her face and said, "Melanie who?"
"You know," Bustier said. "She's that rich bitch he hooked up with over the summer."
The other girl turned and gave me a dubious look. "I dunno," she said. "She doesn't look rich. I mean, look at her coat. It's like, older than me."
Stupid or not, heat flooded my face. The coat was old. It had been my mom's. I wasn't a huge follower of fashion, but I did know that the coat was several seasons out of style. This was no surprise, given the fact that my mom, along with my dad, had died over five years earlier in a private plane crash.
On instinct, I wrapped the coat tighter around my torso and tried to act like I didn't give a flying flip that it was old and didn't fit so great.
I couldn’t afford to care. It was the only long coat I had, and I couldn't justify a new one. Whenever I had any money, which was nearly never, I sunk it straight into the house – because let's face it, keeping the furnace running was a lot more important than wearing the latest fashions.
Still, the remark stung, not because I wanted to impress some random hoochie, but because Joel was just standing there, letting them make fun of me.
Didn't he care? Not even a little?
I searched his face, looking for some sign of the guy I used to know. Almost from the first, he'd been the only person in forever to actually stick up for me, to take my side when I was terribly outnumbered.
I almost wanted to cry. I was outnumbered now. Two against one. My stomach sank. Or was it three against one? From the look in Joel's eyes, I knew one thing for sure. It definitely wasn't two against two.
Bustier gave me a dismissive look. "Seriously, take a hint, okay? He's done with you." She gave a mean little laugh. "I mean, you've got loads of money. Go buy yourself a pool boy or something."
My mouth tightened. "I don't have a pool."
She smirked. "You don't need a pool to have a pool boy." She laughed. "Dumb-ass."
Finally, Joel spoke up. "Look, if you've got something to say, just say it."
My gaze snapped in his direction. Oh, God. That sharp tone had been for me. Not her. My mouth opened, but all that came out was a jumbled mess of nonsense. "I, um, well, you see…"
Bustier laughed. "You know what? I think she's high."
I wasn't high. I was low. Really, really low. And just when I thought I couldn’t feel any lower, Joel's voice cut across the short distance. "Is that it? You done?"
"No," I said, feeling the first sting of tears. "I'm not done. I haven't even started."
Joel lifted his wrist and glanced at his watch. "Yeah? Well, you've got one minute."
Was he serious? He looked serious. I gazed up at him, wondering how on Earth I could pack everything I needed to say in one measly minute.
The other girl gave me a sarcastic smile. "Tick tock."
There were so many things I wanted to say.
I love you.
It wasn't my fault.
Don’t give up on us. Please?
But from the look in Joel's eyes, he didn't want to hear any of these things, and heaven help me, I couldn’t bring myself to say them – not here, not in front of an audience, and especially not to the snickers of Bustier, who looked to the other girl and said, "See? She is high."
The other girl nodded. "Oh yeah. For sure. I mean, she can afford the good stuff, you know?"
I couldn’t help it. I gave a bitter laugh, or at least, that was my intention. But it came out as a choked sob, devoid of any humor, bitter or otherwise.
Desperate now to end this already, I looked to Joel and said, "Fine. I wanted to tell you that you shouldn't be fighting."
At this, both girls burst out laughing. Bustier said, "Oh sure. And suckers shouldn’t be sucking."
I gave her an annoyed look. Who sounded high now?
I turned back to Joel, who gazed at me with cold, dark eyes. Well, at least, he wasn't laughing. That was something, right?
Ignoring the snickers of his companions, I bumbled on. "You know, because of the suspended sentence. Derek knows about it, and I'm pretty sure he means to cause trouble." I winced. "He knows the prosecutor or something. And anyway, I don't think it's safe."
Bustier gave another bark of laughter. "Safe? You're shitting him, right?" She looked to Joel and said in a tone of mock-concern, "Ooh, I bet you're really scared, huh?"
Joel had no reaction – not to me, and not to her. Desperately, I searched his face. When he said nothing, I said in a voice that sounded way too small, "You heard me, right?"
As an answer, he lifted his wrist and looked at h
is watch. "Time's up." And with that, he turned away, guiding the two girls toward the passenger's side of his vehicle.
I watched in silent dismay as he opened the passenger's side door and held it open while Bustier and the other girl jostled against each other, trying to claim the front seat.
In the end, Bustier won by elbowing the other girl out of the way and launching herself, sideways, into the car. After a few choice words, the other girl gave it up and climbed awkwardly into the back.
Joel closed the car door behind them and circled around to the driver's side. A moment later, he slid into the driver's seat and slammed the door behind him.
Standing alone, I watched in stunned misery as he fired up the engine and peeled out of the lot, leaving me staring after him.
Chapter 5
It took me a moment to realize I was crying – not the loud, sobbing kind, but the quiet pathetic kind, with a lot of tears and sniffling. I stood there for the longest time, staring at his empty parking spot.
He'd left. He'd actually left. And with those other girls, too.
I was so lost in my own wretchedness that it took me a moment to realize that someone was talking to me. Startled out of my trance, I whirled around to look.
It was the same guy as before. He said, "Man, you took it hard."
I gave a confused shake of my head. "What?"
"I mean, I've seen girls disappointed before, but you're the first one to cry about it."
I swiped at my damp eyes. "I'm not crying."
"Uh-huh. If you say so."
"Well, I'm not crying anymore. I just, uh, stubbed my toe."
I stubbed my toe? Seriously, couldn’t I do any better than that? Still, it wasn't quite a lie. I had stubbed my toe, but that was three days ago, and I hadn't cried about it.
The guy gave me a wolfish grin. "Want me to kiss it and make it better?"
I drew back. "No."
"Good thing." He shrugged. "I'm not a foot person, if you know what I mean."
I didn't know. And I didn't want to know. I glanced around. It suddenly struck me that I was outside in a crappy part of town, alone with a stranger, after midnight.
On the other side of the building, the hum of voices and cars had grown eerily silent. Just as I noticed this, the big overhead lights flickered off, making everything go suddenly dark.
Well, that wasn't ominous or anything.
I bit my lip. Where was everyone? Gone? Already? The way it looked, I'd been standing out here longer than I realized.
At something in my expression, the guy said, "Yeah, no shit."
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean." He flicked his chin toward the other the parking lot. "You got a car over there? C'mon, I'll walk you over."
I hesitated. I'd be an idiot to trust him. But I'd be an even bigger idiot to keep standing out here by myself.
So reluctantly, I moved forward, keeping what I hoped was a safe distance between me and the stranger. Following my lead, he turned and began walking alongside me toward the other parking lot.
We were halfway to my car when he said, "Ten bucks he'll be back."
I reached up to rub at my still-damp eyes. They felt warm and swollen, like I'd been crying for hours. Lost in thought, I mumbled, "What?"
"Joel," he said. "Ten bucks he ditches them and circles back."
It was a nice story, but I didn't believe it for one minute. I kept on walking. "Why would he?"
"My guess? To find you."
I gave a bitter scoff. "Yeah, sure." There was no way on Earth that I'd be taking such a bet. Not only did it seem incredibly far-fetched, I didn't even have ten dollars.
"Alright, how about this?" the guy said, "I'll give you two-to-one odds. Your ten to my twenty."
"I don't have a ten."
With annoying optimism, he said, "Hey, I can break a hundred."
I sighed. Maybe he could, but I couldn’t. In fact, if I searched every inch of my car, I might find two bucks in spare change. But there was no way I'd be sharing that sad fact with a stranger, so all I said was, "I’m not a betting person."
"Good thing for you," he said. "I would've cleaned you out."
I wanted to roll my eyes. Was he joking? I had no idea. But I did know that the odds of Joel returning any time soon weren't looking nearly as good as the guy seemed to think.
As I trudged along beside him, I couldn't help but wonder why he was being so nice to me. Was it because he knew Joel? Like maybe they were friends or something? Or maybe, he was just a decent guy.
Of course, there was always the chance that he'd toss me into my own trunk and steal the car with me inside it. But somehow, I didn't think so, so I tried to be thankful, even if I was too depressed to be decent company.
As we headed toward my car, I considered all of the things that I didn't get to say. For one thing, I'd been meaning to tell Joel that I still had his money – over fifty-three thousand dollars in cash.
He'd left it, stashed up in my guest house. I'd found it only hours after he left. And yet, I hadn't touched a single one of those dollars, not even tonight, when I'd been facing a three-hour drive on a nearly empty tank.
I also had Joel's paintings, a bunch of his clothes, and a slew of memories that broke my heart. Did he know that I still loved him? And if so, did he even care?
The stranger's voice interrupted my thoughts. "If it makes you feel any better, the guy's been a total asshole since he got back."
"Joel?" I stopped in my tracks. "He has?"
"Yeah. And I’m guessing you're the reason."
"What makes you say that?"
"Not hard to figure out," the guy said. "The way he peeled out of here? He was pissed."
"So?"
"So you don't get that angry over some girl you don't care about."
"Oh." I started walking again. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't be so sure."
In spite of my lackluster response, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the guy's words had sparked an embarrassing leap of hope in my heart. Did Joel still care? It would be nice to think so.
And yet, now that I'd passed the crying phase, a different emotion was creeping up with a vengeance. That emotion was anger. My anger. He'd treated me like garbage. He'd stood aside, saying nothing, as those two other girls ridiculed me right to my face.
And then, he'd left me standing there, alone, in a dimly lit parking lot. True, maybe I'd brought most of this on myself, but if Joel cared at all, he sure had a funny way of showing it.
I was still mulling all of this over when we finally reached my car. Around us, the parking lot was now almost completely empty and utterly dark. Aside from a big grey van, parked tight against the driver's side of my car, there wasn't a single vehicle in sight.
I gave the van a closer look. It had two flat tires and a bunch of flyers tucked underneath the front windshield wipers. Obviously, the van had been there a while, and wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.
Pushing aside the distraction, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my keys. And then, I turned to the stranger and said, "Thanks."
"You're welcome." He grinned. "And you owe me."
I wasn't following. "What?"
"The bet."
"But we didn't bet," I pointed out. "And besides, I still wouldn't owe you. It's not like he came back or anything."
He was still grinning. "You sure about that?"
I listened. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the squeal of tires, like a speed-demon driver had taken a corner way too fast. I froze, trying to listen more closely. Soon, I heard it again.
But it couldn’t be Joel.
Could it?
Chapter 6
In front of me, the stranger said, "See?"
I didn't see. But I could hear. The sound was getting closer with every passing second. And yet, there was no guarantee that the sound was coming from Joel's car.
I gave a small shrug. "That's probably someone else."
"Nah. It's him."
/> "How can you be sure?"
"I know the car."
I frowned. "But they all sound alike."
"To you, maybe. Not to me." His eyes filled with mischief. "Now c'mon. Let's have some fun with it."
I stared up at him. "Fun? What kind of fun?"
"You wanna see Joel flip out?"
I drew back. "No."
"Aw c'mon. Sure you do."
I shook my head. "No. I don't."
"What about payback?" he said. "The guy was an asshole. Don't you wanna give as good as you got?"
I wasn't even sure what he meant, but I did know that I wasn't the type to play games. Whatever this guy had in mind – regardless of how nice he'd been about walking me back – I wanted no part of it.
I gave another shake of my head.
He looked far from discouraged. "Trust me. You'll thank me later."
"Thank you? For what?"
He flashed me a sudden grin. "For this."
Before I knew it, he'd moved forward. On instinct, I backed up until my butt hit the front bumper of my car. I gave a little gasp. "What are you doing?"
He loomed over me, large and imposing, until our lips were almost within kissing distance. "Nothing."
I leaned my head back, trying to get some space. "Then stop it."
"Stop what?" He sounded perfectly reasonable. "I'm not doing anything."
"Yes, you are."
He gave a cheerful laugh. "I'm not even touching you."
It was true. He wasn't. And yet, I found myself reaching back with both hands, searching out the hood of my car, if only to make sure that I didn't topple over. Briefly, I considered the opposite approach – reaching out to push him away – but I wasn't sure I could do that and still maintain my balance.
And yet, for some odd reason, I wasn't afraid. Maybe I should've been, but the guy's eyes were filled with so much good-humor that it caught me off-guard.
As if making casual conversation, he said, "You see any good movies lately?"
Movies? What the hell? Enough was enough. I gave him a serious look. "I'll scream," I warned.
He nodded. "Good idea. That'll really make him nuts."
I stared up at the guy. Speaking of nuts. What on Earth was he up to?
Unfortunately, I had no time to figure it out, because a moment later, amidst the sound of squealing tires, I was nearly blinded by the sudden glare of headlights coming up, hard and fast, toward the passenger's side of my vehicle.
Something True (Joel Bishop Book 2) Page 2