“Fuck if I know,” I said, shaking my head and taking bite of food.
Kristin stared at me for a few moments, watching me chew as she took a sip of her Diet Coke.
“What?” I asked around a mouthful of cheese and salsa.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” she asked, and I shot her a weird look.
“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. I guess I’ll go to Jen’s house.”
Kristin shook her head. “Jen’s going home with Andrew.”
“What?! Was she going to tell me?” I roared.
“I don’t know,” Kristin said timidly shrinking back into the couch. I think she suddenly realized she was in the crossfire of an issue between Jen and me that she didn’t know existed. I didn’t know it existed until that moment, but suddenly I was hot.
“I mean, come on. I get that I was out of the picture for a while, and Jen could make a lot of decisions on her own, but I’m living here now, and Lily is my daughter, not Andrew’s. I can’t believe he and Jen just planned to take her to Virginia for the long weekend and not tell me. I spent last Thanksgiving with them. What the hell?!”
Kristin threw her hands up. “I don’t know, Zack. She just mentioned it. I assumed you’d talked to her and agreed to it first. I’m sorry. But for the record, I don’t think Andrew is trying to be Lily’s dad. He’s not trying to take her from you.”
“I know,” I said, taking a few deep breaths to slow down my heart rate. I was well-aware that I sounded nuts, but this had been bothering me for a while.
Andrew was one of my best friends. I’d know him for six years, but ever since he and Jen had started dating over summer, the fact that he could have permanent access to Lily had gotten under my skin. I’d been especially pissed when he’d shown up at the hospital with Jen and Lily when my mom was sick – simply because he showed up with them, and that’s how I found out they were dating.
Jen hadn’t even told me before then, but they were apparently pretty serious by that point. What if they got married and moved away? What happened then?
Okay, that might be a little ridiculous in the short term, and my lack of solid sleep over the last week could have been clouding my judgment. Andrew and I were in the same band. In order to do that, we’d have to live in the same city. I didn’t think Andrew would be leaving Liar’s Edge anytime soon. He’d tried his hand at a solo career over the summer, which is why he’d been in L.A. in the first place, where he and Jen had started seeing each other. His solo career had been a bust, and he knew it, so he needed the band.
“Zack, if you’re upset, call Jen,” Kristin said. “Let her know. She’s never done anything underhanded with Lily before, so why would she start now.”
She was right.
“Fine, I’ll call her. Why were you asking me about my Thanksgiving plans anyway?”
“Well,” Kristin said, “If you’re interested, I might be able to book you guys a show in Charlotte that weekend. I was talking to the manager of The Claws, and the band opening for them the Friday after Thanksgiving has been waffling about whether they’re going to play that night or not, so you might have an in. Ian and Todd have always liked you guys.”
Not only was Kristin dating Leo, but she was also our web designer and our booker/manager. We were starting out small, so we’d kept things in the family. Jen was handling our finances.
“Okay, I guess that’s fine. Whatever.” Ian and Todd were cool guys. We’d played with their band before. “We can just drive down for the show.”
Kristin shook her head. “Zack, you need sleep. You’re not getting it. Doesn’t Emily’s family live in Charlotte? And your dad lives in Charlotte. You could spend the weekend there, maybe invite Emily to the show, talk to her?”
Suddenly it was like a light bulb went off above my head. “You’re brilliant,” I said, getting up and tackling Kristin in a giant hug.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she grunted, returning the hug from underneath me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Emily
All day Monday I had the hardest time concentrating on anything but what had happened on Friday night and was rehashing everything again in my head at dinner that night when everyone was talking about what they’d done over the weekend. I hadn’t ended up going out at all. Instead, Rachel and I had continued our ‘let’s play spies and look for Zack’s motorcycle’ after our Friday night attempt had been unsuccessful. We’d driven through all of the townhouse neighborhoods in Chapel Hill but hadn’t seen his bike at any of them either night we’d been out. I had a sinking fear that he hadn’t been at home because he’d been out with Kristin, and my resolve had faded even more.
“He was so hot,” I heard Carrie Little say, as I drifted back to the conversation taking place around me. She was waxing on and on about some guy she’d met at the frat party some of the girls had gone to on Saturday night.
“He was really cute,” Cori said, hugging Carrie’s arm and echoing her excitement. “Even cuter than Clay!”
“I love older guys,” Marnie Lawson said dreamily.
“Since when have you dated an older guy?” Rachel asked, causing Marnie’s face to immediately cloud up. “Besides, last time I checked, you hadn’t dated anyone since you stole Alec from me last winter.”
“Hey, be nice,” I whispered to her.
She was my guest at the house that night, and I didn’t need any of her former sisters deciding she couldn’t stay. Almost everyone had continued to be friendly to her even though she’d left the house, but I knew she and Marnie had bad blood since Marnie had not so subtly swooped in and slept with Rachel’s sort of boyfriend, Alec Christiansen, after Winter Formal last year. I really thought Rachel would be over it now that she was in love with Chase, but it seemed old hatred died hard.
“For your information I’m dating Noah Gillian,” Marnie said haughtily.
“I think you’re just sleeping with him,” Taryn cut in, and I knew she was siding with Rachel, but I also knew she’d hooked up with Noah a few times since the first time they’d slept together, so she probably had more authority on the state of his relationship with Marnie than anyone else.
Hearing this, Rachel burst out laughing, unable to hold back.
Marnie just glared at Taryn and turned her attention back to Rachel. “What are you even doing here, Rachel?” she snapped. “Didn’t you quit the house so you could hang out with your new loser NYU boyfriend, get piercings and tattoos, and get stoned all the time.”
I felt the stab of a protective vibe as she said that, and I wondered how on earth Marnie knew so much about Chase. I swallowed hard when I thought about who Marnie was sleeping with. Noah. Ben was his roommate. I knew in that instant that he’d been talking shit about my brother, and I saw red. Regardless of his recreational habits, Chase was my family, and it was my job to stick up for him. I opened my mouth to say something, hoping it would be witty, but Rachel beat me to the punch.
“Seriously?!” Rachel hissed at Marnie. “You have the nerve to talk about someone you don’t even know and accuse him of being a stoner when I saw you do a line of coke two weeks ago at the Pi Kapp party right before you gave Thomas Reed a blow job in the game room?! Unbelievable.”
Thankfully she said that in a hushed whisper, because doing coke was definitely grounds for expulsion from Gamma Pi. I disliked Marnie, but I’d never wish that on her. Her choices were her own, and if she wanted to be a coke-whore, that was her decision. I was more shocked that she’d had been so flagrant about her oral talents with Thomas, especially when she was supposedly dating Noah. Maybe Taryn was right, and they were just sleeping together.
All around us, mouths were falling open. Rachel sat back with a satisfied look on her face and popped a French fry into her mouth, as she watched Marnie turn red, get up and stalk away from the table. I thought she was enjoying Marnie’s humiliation just a little too much, but then again, Marnie had been pretty cruel to Rachel over the years. Her jab at Chase
hadn’t been justified. She probably deserved what Rachel threw at her.
“Nobody messes with my man,” Rachel said, and I had to laugh.
“So who is this guy you all are talking about,” I asked, in an effort to break the silence that had fallen over us after Rachel’s lashing of Marnie.
“He’s the lead singer of the band that played at SAE on Saturday night,” Taryn explained. “He was really hot in that rock star kind of way, like you’d totally let him eat melted chocolate out of your belly button. I completely would have talked to him, but the guys left after they finished playing.”
I had to laugh at Taryn’s brazen comment. I loved that she didn’t hold back.
“Musicians are so hot,” I said, thinking of Zack as I imagined him eating melted chocolate out of my bellybutton. It was too good of a fantasy to ignore. “If you see him again, Taryn, you should totally talk to him.”
“Oh, I’ll do more than that,” she said, and I could see the devilish glint in her eyes.
If I saw Zack again, I would definitely talk to him – or maybe more than that, depending on how drunk I was. Okay, no, that wasn’t true. I would just talk to him, nothing more.
After thinking about him way too much over the weekend, I knew I wanted nothing more than to see him again and finally clear the air. Girlfriend or not, kid or not, we needed to figure some things out, especially if he was going to do incredibly romantic things like putting homemade CDs on my car and then run away without speaking to me. None of it made sense.
“He had these amazing eyes,” Cori said, looking dreamy again. “And his hair had this sexy way of falling in his eyes while he played. He was all dark and dangerous looking, but he talked in this adorable southern accent which was a total contradiction to his looks. God, he was seriously yummy. And to top it all off, the boy could sing.”
My head snapped up from my salad at her description. Under the table, Rachel kicked my leg. Maybe I was imagining things, but it sounded like they were talking about Zack. Cori had just described him perfectly.
“The band was really good,” Carrie added. “They did a lot of covers, but they played some of their own stuff too. Oh my God, they did this amazing cover of Use Somebody by Kings of Leon. They were really good. I bought their CD.”
I felt the lump that had formed in my throat rise up, so I swallowed it back.
“What was the name of the band?” I asked Carrie, realizing I sounded hoarse all of a sudden.
“Um, I can’t remember,” she said, looking at Taryn for help.
“Something Edge,” Taryn said. “Oh, crap, it was right on the drum set.”
“Liar’s Edge,” I said, knowing I was right, knowing that it was Zack, and that he’d gotten back together with his band. I knew it before Taryn confirmed it for me.
“Yeah, that’s it!” Taryn said, pointing at me. “How did you know? Have you heard of them?”
I nodded. “Um, yeah, I heard some of their stuff over the summer,” I mumbled, getting to my feet. I’m sure I received confused looks from my friends, but I didn’t care.
Rachel was right behind me, as I made my way outside. It was freezing, but I needed fresh air. As soon as I was outside, I bent over, put my hands on my knees and took a few big gulps of cold air. I felt Rachel’s hand on my back.
“He was at the frat party, Rach,” I said, through shallow breaths, suddenly fearful the small amount of food I’d eaten would come up at any moment. “He was there, and I didn’t get to see him, because I didn’t go out, because I was driving around looking for him. Is that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Not the most ridiculous thing,” Rachel said, in an effort to make me feel better.
I stood up, shaking my hands out. “Okay. Okay. Now what? What do we do now?”
I instinctively reached for my pack of cigarettes and lit one, feeling a few notches calmer once I’d inhaled a few times. So much for fresh air doing the trick.
“Well, we could see if the band has any gigs booked, and then go see them,” she suggested.
“Oh, my God, you’re a genius,” I shrieked, throwing my arms around Rachel’s neck, knocking her back slightly. I pulled back. “You are an absolute genius, Rachel Reynolds! I love you!”
“Hey, I do what I can,” she said, pulling her iPhone out of her pocket.
I bounced up and down slightly, watching her phone like a hawk, as she pulled up the Internet, inhaling like a fiend on my cigarette.
“What are you doing?” I asked, just because I felt like I needed to say something.
“I’m going to their website to see if they updated it with the dates of their shows.”
I nodded. “Liar’s Edge.com.” I continued bouncing and inhaling.
I silently cursed myself for not looking at their website in the past few weeks. I’d forced myself to quit cyber-stalking Zack at the beginning of November. Had I looked, I would have seen that the band was back together.
“Yes, I’m well aware of the website of a band I was obsessed with for over a year. What does Liar’s Edge mean, anyway? Did Zack ever tell you?” she asked, her eyes on her phone, and I knew she’d asked just so she could distract me, but it worked. The name pretty much meant what it sounded like.
“He said it’s that point in which you realize you can lie or tell the truth. Everyone has those moments, and it’s up to you to choose your path.”
“Ah, sounds like Zack was on that edge this summer and chose to lie. Not a smart move, Zacky,” Rachel said, and I’m not sure she realized how the words she was mumbling affected me, because she didn’t look up to see how my face had fallen. “Okay, here it is.”
I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth and moved around, so I was standing next to her. We huddled together to see the tiny screen. My heart jumped into my throat when I saw the updated picture of the band on the front of the website. Zack was front and center, not smiling and looking beyond incredible. I couldn’t believe they’d actually gotten back together. He’d been adamant the day Rachel and I had found out about the band that as much as Leo and Derrick wanted to start things up again, he definitely wasn’t interested. I wondered what had changed.
Rachel scrolled down and clicked on the link that said, ‘Upcoming Shows’. I waited in both trepidation and excitement as the page loaded.
“Oh wow,” she said. “They don’t have any shows booked until December 9th. That’s like two weeks away. They’re playing at Devil’s Hangout.”
My heart sank as soon as she said that. All hopes I had of seeing Zack flitted out the window, unless I was lucky enough to run into him at home, but that just had disaster spelled all over it. How ironic it was that I’d feared that just the week before. My emotions were so up and down. Now, I was hoping to run into him, or maybe not if he was with Snowboarding Barbie. If he was with her, I’d just as soon turn the other way, but if I got him alone . . . I pushed the thought from my mind, too nervous to consider what that would mean.
It could be good, but it could also be really bad. He hadn’t stuck around to the end of the fundraiser to talk to me. If he wanted to see me, he would have waited. No, there had to be more to it than that. There had to be. He’d made me that damn CD. That had to mean something.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Emily
“I’m coming over,” Rachel said, when my phone rang the following Friday evening. “No more moping. I’m cutting you off.”
“No, Rach, you can’t come over. I have plans with Ben, and Chase isn’t home.”
I was lying in bed at home in Charlotte, sadly listening to the CD Zack had made me and feeling rather down – pretty much how I’d been for the past week. I didn’t feel like moving until I had to, which was in an hour when Ben would be picking me up to go to the movies. I was hoping some light comedy would pull me out of my desolate mindset for at least a little while.
“Cancel your plans with D-Bag Ben,” she said. “I’m your best friend. I’m more important.”
&
nbsp; “Since when do you refer to Ben as a d-bag?” I asked, rather offended that she’d picked up Chase’s annoying nickname for Ben. She and Ben used to be friends, but it seemed my brother’s opinions of him had worn off on her.
“Sorry,” she said, and I knew she realized her slip up. “I just don’t like the way he treated you this summer when you broke up with him. You might be able to forgive him for calling you a cheap whore, but I can’t. I love you too much.”
Well, at least her insult came from a good place. Ben had called me a whore. Why had I been so quick to forgive that?
“I’ll have Chase call you when he gets home from wherever he is,” I said, wanting to cut our conversation short. I didn’t want to dwell on my mistakes in the guy department. They’d added up over the past few months. “But I’m not going out with you.”
“Chase is with me. I don’t need him to call me, but I need you to get off your ass and come out with us.”
Big surprise, I thought. Chase hadn’t been separated from Rachel for more than a few hours at a time since we’d all gotten home on Wednesday. He’d even gone over to her house after Thanksgiving dinner to have dessert with her family.
“Hey Em,” I heard Chase say through the phone. “We’re coming to get you. Get dressed.”
“Yes, get dressed,” Rachel ordered. “Wear something hot and sexy. Wait, scratch that. I’m dressing you. I’ll bring clothes over.”
“I’ll dress her,” Keely said from behind me, making me jump. I hadn’t heard my sister come into my room. She suddenly grabbed my phone and put it on speaker. “You said hot and sexy, Rach?”
“Hey Keels!” Rachel squealed, excited to have another partner in her attempts to get me ditch Ben for beers with her and Chase.
“What are we thinking?” Keely asked, talking my phone into my walk-in closet with her. She started thumbing through my hanging clothes. “Dress? Jeans? Leather skirt?”
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