by A. M. Mahler
“Thanks, Dad,” she joked, tapping his cheek. Then a pained expression came over her face, and Ryan grabbed her hands.
“It’s okay to joke, Jacks. That wasn’t at his expense. It was at mine. And I like that you’re finally making jokes. As long as McKenzie makes you happy, I’ll leave it alone. If he can make you laugh like that, well, I just hope he keeps being that good to you. One toe out of line, Jacks, and I’ll put him straight in the hospital.”
His sister went up on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Ry,” she whispered.
He was stunned. She’d never said anything like that before. Sure, she clung to him now and then, but she’d never said she loved him. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. “I love you, too, Jacks.”
She stepped out of his embrace, kissed his cheek again, and went back inside.
By the time Ryan sat down again, he could hear her laughter carrying across the room.
“What the hell, Ry?” Cooper demanded. “You didn’t put a stop to that?”
“Not yet, no.”
“The guy is bad news, and he’s only after one thing.” The more Cooper scowled, the more apparent his jealousy was.
“She doesn’t think so,” Ryan said. He leaned back and studied his friend. Cooper looked like it was taking some effort to keep himself restrained.
“Because she’s naïve,” he retorted. “She’s lived a sheltered life.”
“On the stock car circuit?” Ryan laughed. “Give me a break. You think it’s wild in the stands? You have no idea what it gets like down in the garage at night. Believe me, she’s not as naïve as you think she is. She stays away from it—for the most part—but trust me, she knows it’s out there. She’s probably seen more wild stuff than you have! Hell, she spent the summer with me!”
“He’s going to hurt her,” Cooper said darkly.
“If he does, he’s in for a world of pain,” Ryan replied. “I can’t stomp on it right out of the gate, Coop. Come on. If I tell her not to hang out with him, she won’t. But she’s laughing her ass off over there. I’ve never seen her this happy since the accident. And if he’s the one making her laugh, well, I’m going to have to trust her judgment until there’s a reason not to.”
Cooper didn’t say anything in response, just continued to brood in his sister’s direction. Ryan knew that he was interested in Jackie. That much was obvious. But what he didn’t know was if Cooper was interested in his sister, or Jimmy Reilly’s daughter.
Thankfully, Cooper had put all his Reilly gear away after the accident. Ryan wasn’t sure how Jackie might have handled being reminded of her dad and what had happened to him.
Ryan found himself thinking about it a lot. Stuff just didn’t seem to add up. When he asked his dad about it, he toed the company line and said Jimmy Reilly had had a heart attack behind the wheel. But was that what his father truly believed?
“WELL, THOSE TWO are definitely not in my corner.”
Jackie began to turn her head to see who Danny was talking about, but he grabbed her shoulders. “Don’t look! Damn, girl.”
“Well, who are you talking about?”
“Your brother’s friend, Cooper.”
He noted how Jackie’s smile faltered a bit.
“What is he doing?”
“Shooting daggers at me,” Danny said, glancing over to where Cooper and Ryan’s table was now filled with kids from the school’s happening crowd.
Cooper had a direct bead on their table, and he didn’t seem to care that he was obvious about it. It gave Danny a bad feeling. The way he stared at Jackie was almost possessive.
“He’s really got an intense lock on us. I’d say he doesn’t approve of our friendship.”
She squirmed a bit, which didn’t go unnoticed by Danny. “He kind of makes me uncomfortable.”
“He does? Why?”
The death ray coming at them was certainly one red flag.
“He’s just always looking at me, and he hardly ever talks. When he does, he asks me about my father’s accident or other odd things. He just, like, broods at me. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but it’s like every time I turn around, he’s there.”
“If he ever does anything you don’t like, tell me. I’ll kick his ass.”
Jackie rolled her eyes. “All this testosterone! Why must everything end with violence?”
“Is that what your brother said about me?” Danny smiled.
“Yes, and don’t you dare threaten my brother.”
“Your brother’s looking out for you,” Danny shrugged. Willis didn’t concern him. “Cooper’s something else. I mean it. If he does or says anything that makes you the slightest bit uneasy, tell me. I’m surprised your brother lets him get away with that.”
“He looks at me like he’s mad at me for something.”
“Oh, Jacks.”
Jackie raised her brow at Danny’s use of her brother’s nickname for her, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“This is what male hunger looks like. That guy wants to drag you off under the bleachers and do ungentlemanly things to you.”
“Well, I don’t know why he would want to do that.” Jackie shook her head. “With all the girls that surround him, he’s got plenty to choose from. And ones that are actually pretty.”
She started gathering up her books, but Danny touched her hand. “You’re crazy, Jackie, if you don’t know that you’re pretty. I’m glad you’re not stuck on yourself, but you should know that those girls don’t hold a candle to you. They know it, Cooper knows it, and your brother knows it—which is why he’s so crazed about me hanging around you.”
Jackie swallowed and looked him straight in the eye. “Are you saying you want to do ungentlemanly things to me?”
“I wouldn’t be a guy if I didn’t.” Danny sat back and let go of her hand. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her off in any way. If she thought he was after what the other guys were, she’d probably avoid him like the plague and he’d be right back at square one. “I like having you for a friend, Jacks. You get me like nobody else does. One day, maybe things will change, but I find myself harboring an awful lot of respect for you, and that’s a new emotion for me. I don’t want to do anything to fuck it up.”
“That’s oddly sweet,” she smiled.
“What do you say we get the hell out of here? It’s a nice day, and in a few weeks, New Hampshire is really going to suck.”
“New Hampshire is beautiful,” Jackie said as Danny threw away the remnants of their lunch.
She watched him gather up both their backpacks, swinging them over his shoulders.
“Beautiful to some is a prison for others.”
“Come on,” she said as they went outside under the watchful eye of Cooper. “Do you really hate it that much?”
“Well,” Danny replied. “It’s definitely a little bit better this year.”
Six
“YOU KNOW, IF you lay like that, people will get the wrong idea about us,” Jackie said, looking to where Danny was laying in the grass with his head on her thigh.
He idly strummed his guitar.
“I don’t see you pushing me away,” he finally replied. “Besides, I don’t care if people get the wrong idea about us.”
“Did you ever think that maybe I do?” she demanded in return.
He sat up, moved his guitar, propped himself on his hands, and scowled at her. “Do you?”
Jackie smiled at his glare, then ruffled his hair. “You’re messing with my vibes here. I can’t get a date with you constantly lurking around like a scowling owl.”
He gave her the evil eye for form, then stood up, grabbed his stuff, and stalked about ten feet away, sitting down with his back to her.
“Danny,” she laughed. “I was only kidding! Don’t be mad.”
“Go away! Go sow your wild oats somewhere else.”
“Ugh,” she sighed. “You’re impossible!” She grabbed her own stuff, th
en plopped down next to him. “I’m not following you ever again. Next time, you’re just going to have to sulk all on your own.”
“Who do you want to date?” He was playing it casual on the outside, but on the inside, his stomach was plummeting to his feet. Had he misread her signals? Was she actually interested in another guy?
“I don’t want to date anyone! I told you, I was just kidding!”
“Really? Cooper’s not finally getting to you?” He meant it as a joke, but she lost her smile as soon as he said it. “What happened? What’s wrong? You were supposed to tell me if he did anything, Jacks.”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” she replied. “As usual, he doesn’t actually do anything. He’s just always there. He comes to our room a lot to hang out with Ryan. Or he’ll drop by, even when Ryan’s in class. He’s got to know that Ryan isn’t there.”
“I thought you couldn’t get to your floor without a security card?”
“Someone must flag him up.” She shrugged.
“What the hell good is security if people are just going to flag others up?” he shouted.
“Keep your voice down,” she said between her teeth. “We have a peephole. I don’t open the door when Ryan’s not there.”
“He makes you nervous enough that you don’t want to be alone with him?”
Danny did his best to control the volume and tone of his voice, but these were uncharted waters for him. He’d never had a girl instill these kinds of feelings in him before, and he felt an overwhelming need to protect her. If this guy was making her scared, then he was going to damn well do something about it.
“Danny, everyone makes me nervous enough that I don’t want to be alone with them.”
“That’s not true. You have no problem being alone with your brother, Sophie, or me.”
“Well, my brother’s my brother, Sophie’s a girl, and you’re…”
“What am I?” he asked quietly, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Who am I to you, Jackie, that you trust me so much?”
“You’re my…”
“What?”
“You’re my Danny,” was all she said. When she brought her hands up to her face to cover her embarrassment, he gently pulled them away.
“That’s good enough for now,” he said softly, then pressed a kiss to her forehead. It was the first time his lips had made contact with her skin. They’d been practically inseparable for weeks, but he had never once made a move on her.
“Here,” he said, pulling back and tapping his lap. “Your turn.”
Her eyes widened. He knew it wasn’t because she didn’t trust him, but because people were more likely to get the wrong idea about them. But the thing was, he liked the idea of them as a couple. She was too shy to make the first move, so he knew it would have to come from him—at the right time. He also knew that she had little to no experience with boys. If she had, her brother wouldn’t automatically glower at any guy within a fifty-foot radius of her.
Jackie put her sunglasses on and slowly lowered herself to the grass, laying her head in his lap.
He began to stroke her hair, and he could tell that she liked it. His other hand linked fingers with hers, and he suddenly realized that there was nowhere else he’d rather be.
He watched Ryan, Cooper, and their gang cross the courtyard. Ryan glanced their way a couple times, then turned back to his conversation. Cooper still shot death rays at them. What was that guy’s problem? Couldn’t he tell he was creeping the poor girl out?
When Danny had first met Jackie, he’d discovered a protective streak in himself a mile wide. What she told him about Cooper only increased the size of it. What would Ryan think if Danny started hanging out with his sister in their room? Would he be a jerk about it?
Enough was enough. He shot Cooper a glare that could freeze hell over. He didn’t mind getting into it with the guy. The more time he spent with Jackie, the stronger he felt about her, and anyone who caused her distress was definitely going on his shit list.
“Hey, Jacks,” Danny asked as a thought struck him.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to go to the prom with me?”
He surprised himself by the question. He had never given the prom much thought. It was for all the other highbrow kids here, something Danny had never considered himself to be. He might be rolling in dough, figuratively speaking, but his father was in the Navy for crying out loud. He was a working man. Danny didn’t even have a bedroom of his own at home. He did own a sweet Mustang, which he was considering trading in for a massive, kick-ass Jeep.
Jackie took off her sunglasses, sat up, and looked at him in astonishment. “What?”
“You heard me. Do you want to go to the prom with me?”
“It’s months away. And besides, you said you didn’t want to go to the prom.”
“No,” he agreed. “I have no actual interest in the prom. However, I have a feeling your glowering ape stalker might ask you, and if you say yes to me, you’ll have a good, solid reason for saying no to him.”
“You would go to prom just so I won’t get somehow suckered into going with Cooper?”
“These are the sacrifices I’m willing to make in the name of friendship, yes.” He sighed dramatically and risked a look at her. He could tell she wasn’t buying what he was selling.
“Why don’t we just do something else that night instead? ‘I’m busy’ is just as good of an excuse, right?”
“Nah, we’ll go to the prom. It’s a rite of passage, isn’t it? I’ll get a tux, and you’ll get a dress that will make my eyes pop out of my head. I’ll get to hold you close all night, then I’ll go home and take a really cold shower. The best part? You won’t have to fight an octopus off all night. Sounds like fun, right?”
“A killer dress, huh?” Jackie eyed him suspiciously.
He could see she knew the kinds of dresses he was referring to, and that they generally required certain accessories to hold them up. He knew she didn’t think she was pretty. It was an anomaly for a girl in this school not to be stuck on herself. But all the same, Danny wished she could see herself the way he did. Her beauty was quiet and real. It wasn’t bought from some fancy, expensive A-list doctor in Los Angeles. There wasn’t a single thing enhanced about her. How could she not know how refreshing she was in a place like this? She didn’t even dye her hair or paint her nails!
“You mean the ones that show off your cleavage, with no back? They drive me crazy.”
“I have no cleavage.”
“I refuse to respond in any way to that comment,” he retorted. “Come on, let’s go to the prom. I promise I’ll slow dance with you.”
“You’re such a dork sometimes,” she laughed, shoving at his shoulders.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes, I’ll go to the stupid prom with you, even though it’s not until the spring. We have the whole winter to dread it.”
“Good,” he smiled, and patted his lap again. “That’s the spirit!”
She laid back down, and he began to run his fingers through her hair again. While he wasn’t into the prom, he was into Jackie, and he was guy enough to want to show her off. He knew Ryan kept the other guys away from her. It must have eaten Cooper up when he’d heard she was off-limits, yet Danny—of all people—had got a pass from her brother. Danny suspected that she probably shared their lack of intimacy with her brother, and that kept Ryan from being a pain in the ass.
But as Danny had discovered over the last few months, there was more to life than physical intimacy. He respected Jackie, and he couldn’t think of anyone in his life that he genuinely, deeply respected. She probably knew him better than anyone else ever had, and he’d cut off an arm before he did anything that disappointed her—including making a move she wasn’t ready for.
He’d stopped trying to get kicked out of school because now he had a reason to stay. Oddly enough, he was even looking forward to the prom. Things seemed to be going his way these days, but based on pas
t experience, he knew that was just about when things usually turned to shit.
Seven
DANNY SAT ON the futon in his dorm room strumming his guitar. His roommate was gone for the weekend. Saturdays were quiet in the dorm, as a lot of the kids went home for the short break. Some still lingered, but not many. Danny hadn’t ever gone home for a weekend. In fact, he wasn’t even sure where home was at the moment. As soon as school was done, he went to camp. From camp, he went back to school. He didn’t have a bedroom somewhere in another state. He lived out of duffle bags. It was all right, all in all. He had a laptop and his guitar. Besides clothes, what else did he really need?
Still, he found himself anticipating the end of the school year. Upon his high school graduation, he would receive a large disbursement from his trust fund. He’d get another one when he graduated college, and then the full amount when he turned thirty. The first two disbursements were more than enough for him to live out his life and never have to work, but he doubted he’d go down that road. Even he knew that he would need something to occupy his time.
Up until this point, Danny’s graduation goal was simple: to get the hell away from New Hampshire and never look back. He thought he’d maybe buy an RV and travel the country a bit before picking a college and a major. He still couldn’t think of anything to do as a career, but he wasn’t so antsy to get away now.
Jackie had changed that. His new plan was to take some of the money, get an apartment nearby, and wait for Jackie to finish up at Trent since she was a year younger than him. He was an honor roll student and his test scores were high, so he’d have no trouble getting into whatever school she wanted to go to.
It wasn’t lost on him that if he did get an apartment, he’d have to furnish it, and it would be the first actual home he’d ever had. Maybe he’d rent a furnished place, so he wouldn’t have to deal with moving or storing a bunch of bulky stuff. The last place on the planet he wanted to put down roots was New Hampshire. He’d spent the last eleven years here clawing to get out. He could bear one more year if he had to, but nothing after that. It would be just his luck if Jackie picked a college in the area. It wasn’t so much that there was anything particularly wrong with the place, but when someone was forced to be in one spot with no opportunities for change, it made one antsy to leave and never look back.