What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 7)

by Lexi Buchanan

  I’m fully dressed now. Blue wears nothing but his jeans as we both sit flush against the car. I pull my hair through my hands, trying to make myself presentable for when I walk through the door of my house. There’s a good chance my mom will be wide awake on the couch, lost in a rented copy of a certain Nicholas Sparks movie.

  “It sucks that I’ll probably never see you again,” I say, fully aware that I couldn’t sound any more unaffected.

  He pops one palm against my knee. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You’re leaving town tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t tell you?” He tosses his shoulder, his trademark. “I think I’m gonna be sticking around for a while.”

  “What are you talking about?” There’s gravel in my throat.

  “I’ve spent my entire life dreaming of going home, but I’ve never had a home to go home to. I’ve decided to give life away from the carnival a shot. Most people run away to the carnival. Well, I’m running away from it.”

  There’s no point in lying. That scares the hell out of me. Him staying here would mean that this is no longer an isolated moment in time. People in this town, like any other small town, talk. It’s not even that I’m ashamed of what they’d say. It’s just that this was all supposed to be dangerous, random and done.

  I shake my head in disbelief. “How are you going to afford to live?”

  “I’ve got enough money to last a few months. I guess I’ll have to find a job or something, which shouldn’t be too hard, since I’ve been working since I was twelve.”

  My brow arches. “Twelve?”

  “I spent my youth robbing civilians of their hard-earned coins, working the game booths with my mother.”

  I’m sure he’s a walking storybook, every page filled with a lifetime’s worth of magical text, but I still can’t get past the fact that he’s planning on calling my home his home. “Not to badger you with an exhausting game of twenty questions, but where will you stay?”

  “My uncle has an empty apartment above his barn.”

  “I didn’t know you had family here.”

  He laughs. “Charlie, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

  Isn’t that the truth. “And there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

  “Touché.” His abs fold as he leans across me. One hand brushes against my cheek. “I wanna know things about you, though. Your favorite movie, your favorite song, your favorite color—”

  “It’s Blue.”

  “I know.” He smiles and it lights up the dark, though that could be the lightning.

  The other half of me, the half that’s not scared shitless, wants nothing more than to see him again.

  “Will I see you again?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s kissing me, cupping me at the chin. My body shifts so that I can embrace him in return as he says goodbye with his mouth.

  When it’s over and he pulls back, I have an answer. “Call me.”

  The skies are in full-on downpour mode and I’m parked on the side of the road. For a car that’s only two years old, my windshield wipers are far too inadequate. I hope Blue was able to get to shelter before the torrential rain began, but it’s mostly a false hope. The storm began moments after I pulled onto the pavement.

  I sit here contemplating several things, but at the forefront of my mind are two things in particular. I would like to thank Jimmy Clay for being an uneducated meteorologist, because if it weren’t for him, I never would have met this mysterious, sexy, charming man.

  I would also like to not-thank Jimmy Clay for the same reason, because thanks to him, I’m torn—torn between wanting to see Blue again and wanting to keep tonight as nothing more than a snapshot of a memory in time.

  Chapter Five

  The sun shines through my window, setting my skin on fire. It’s the first of September and a thin layer of sweat coats my body. While I was asleep, I dreamed that I told my mother I wasn’t going to college. I was prepared to face the scorn, but she embraced me instead. She followed that up with the promise that I had made the right decision.

  In reality, I’m sure that conversation is going to go slightly different than I optimistically dreamed.

  “You’re doing what?” my mother screams as she paces back and forth, her recently cut bob-do bouncing against her neck. I don’t know what it says about me that my eyes are focused on her bare feet padding against the soft carpet. From the television, there’s a familiar mating call, the atrocious sound of Sarah Palin thinking out loud.

  “I know the timing’s bad, but you know I can’t leave you right now.” There really has to be another reason I’m staying. Sure, she’s heartbroken, but I shouldn’t be putting my life on hold for her, especially since she hasn’t asked me to. There’s something else holding me back, and I just wish I knew what it was.

  “You don’t need to worry about me.” She motions with her hands. “Go finish packing your things.”

  I sigh. “I’m not going, Mom.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, maybe I’m not college material.” Then again, that nut-bag on TV graduated college. What does that say about me?

  She’s waving her hands again. We all have that one annoying thing we do, and that’s her nervous tic. Personally, I’m a run my hands through my hair kind of girl, but to each their own. “Don’t be stupid. You’re not stupid.”

  “Of course, I’m not stupid, Mom.”

  She quits pacing and her green eyes focus on me. It’s like looking in a mirror, well except for the fact that she’s a blonde and I’m a brunette. And I’ve moved on from the nineties. She’s definitely my mother and I imagine I’ll look just like her, when I’m her age. “Then how could you do something so stupid?” she snarls at me.

  That was a quick turnaround. “My life doesn’t end today because I’m not starting school tomorrow.” I’m on cracked ice, and I really need to be careful with my choice of words. She could go into melodramatics at any moment.

  “Oh, my God,” she cries and brings her hand to her mouth. She sits on the edge of the loveseat and shakes her head. “This is all my fault. I should have been a better parent.”

  My eyes somersault backward. She’s ridiculous. “You were a perfect mom.” It’s not exactly the truth, but she was no Mommie Dearest either. I mean, there were no wire hangers to be found in this house, but I’d chalk that up to the changing times.

  Her attention snaps toward me. Her brow furrows, and I know things are about to go south. “Are you on drugs?”

  “No.” I let out an exasperated sigh that fades into a moan. “But I should be.”

  Her chest sinks and I suddenly remember she’s not one of my friends and will expect me to pee on a stick within the end of the hour. “I let you watch too much television.” She’s really gunning toward an Oscar nomination.

  “Good God, would you get a grip?” My turn to snap, I guess.

  She throws herself onto her feet. “Get a grip?”

  “Yes, get a grip. You’re acting like it’s the end of the world. It’s not. Whatever my reasons are, they’re my reasons. If I leave and go to school now, I’ll fail. Not because I’m stupid, but because I don’t want to be there. I’m not saying I’m never going, but I am telling you that I’m not going right now.” I say this in one breath, and I suddenly feel like a smoker unable to catch my next breath. “It’s my decision. So find a way to deal with it.”

  A little overboard, Charlie…

  She doesn’t say a word. She’s stunned, sad, angry, or all of the above but definitely over-sensitive. I could try to make things better, but I don’t think it would make a difference what I say next. She walks past me, brushing her shoulder against mine, and exits the room.

  Not able to take the rambling of Fox and Friends anymore, I whisk the remote off the coffee table and flick the television off. The front door slams shut, and I hear something hit the ground. Could be a family photo, or it could be the foundation of the house cracking.
But there it was—her Oscar-winning breakdown. I hope she comes home later tonight cooled down and able to talk about this rationally. Maybe I could even snag an Oscar of my own—in the supporting actress category—as I bring my mother back to the realm of reality.

  Summer isn’t exactly happy with me, but who is these days. We’re in her bedroom folding clothes and packing them into boxes that were stolen from the trash behind the local supermarket. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten, and up until about five minutes ago, we were supposed to be roommates at Ohio State. I’m supposed to leave tomorrow for an early start, but she’s not leaving until next Saturday. In retrospect, I probably should have given her more warning, but on the bright side, my dad still doesn’t know. And he won’t be finding out anytime soon.

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving me.” She shakes her head and throws a pair of jeans into a box.

  It’s only semantics, I know, but she’s the one who’s actually doing the leaving.

  “You could have told me earlier. Like, at least a month ago,” she says. “You do know that I’m going to be the only girl on campus living solo in a double, right?”

  That sounds awesome to me.

  She grabs a pile of shirts and stuffs them into another box. “I can hear the whispers now. Who’s that loser bitch with no friends in room 23?” She throws her hands in the air. “I bet she smells funny, they’ll say.”

  She’s always had a flair for the dramatic and I can’t help but laugh. “You’ll be fine.”

  She looks at me with a huge grin. “I’ll just have to find someone to replace you.”

  “Bitch, I’m irreplaceable,” I say and push her lightly.

  “Speaking of irreplaceable…” She grabs me and throws me onto the bed. Her legs straddle me as she pokes at my forehead with her finger. “Since you just dropped out of the rest of your life and doomed yourself to forever live in this town—”

  “Thanks…”

  “Does this mean you’re going to get back with Mr. Plaid? The love of your life, Dylan fucking Parker?”

  “Doubtful.” I grab her by the waist and roll her off me and onto a pile of not going with her to college clothes. I scoot off the bed and hop over a pile of shoes, before standing in front of the body mirror that hangs off her bedroom door.

  “Something’s off,” she says. “Wasn’t college the reason you broke up with him?”

  “I thought so.” But I’m not so sure anymore. The girl looking back at me has the same flowing brown hair as me. The same burnt green eyes, and she even dresses like me. But she doesn’t feel like me. I wonder if that girl on the other side of the mirror understands me better than I understand myself. If she does, then this would turn into a fantasy, so it’s best if my mirror self doesn’t start talking to me—though I’m sure it’d be an interesting conversation.

  Summer approaches me from the back. She’s taller than I am so I can see the top of her head in the mirror as she draws in closer. Not many girls can pull off red hair quite like she can. She makes it look effortless and beautiful and somehow gives off the illusion that she actually has a soul. “I wish you would have given me more notice,” she tilts her head sideways and flips her hair, “cause I would’ve fucked him.”

  “He’s not into gingers.”

  “Everybody’s into gingers. It’s just not something you say out loud.”

  I turn to her. “They might want to get in your pants, I’ll give you that.” I sit back down on her bed. “But really, who could ever really love a redhead?”

  Her shoulders brush against her chin. “Your dad.”

  If anybody else said that to me, they’d probably end up face down in a pool of blood. At the very least, I’d block them on Facebook, but Summer and I have known each other since we were four. We’ve been ride-or-die ever since and we can say the bitchiest things to each other without a hint of resentment.

  “Yeah, well, there’s no accounting for my dad’s bad taste.”

  “He’s kind of hot.”

  She’s had a thing for my dad since we were in high school. Since she also wants Dylan, I’d say she has a rabid taste for my leftovers. And just to be clear, Dylan is the leftovers, not my dad. “Can you at least wait until the divorce papers are dry?”

  “Can’t wait,” she says, rolling her tongue between clenched lips. If she ever actually fucked my dad, I wouldn’t care. He’s been around town like a straight inmate on early release after five months of imprisonment. Calling him a father at this point is a joke anyway. He can be her daddy because I don’t need him anymore.

  Summer resumes folding a pile of jeans that lay on the bed. “How was the Lakeview family reunion, otherwise known as the county fair?”

  My body tenses and my fingers dig into the mattress.

  “Charlie?”

  “Summer?”

  “Come on. How was it?”

  “Hot.” I shrug.

  Her eyebrow cocks.

  “It was fine,” I say exasperated. “It’s the same fair as every other year, with the same people, same rides, same food, and same stench.”

  She tosses a stack of jeans in a cardboard box and grabs another pair to fold. “You’re being mysterious.”

  “I’m not. I just—there’s nothing to say.” My hand glides through my hair, and she knows me well enough to know what that means.

  She tosses the denim in her hands to the floor and springs to life, pushing me onto my back and straddling me again. She grabs my arms and throws them above my head, pinning me down. “I’ve known you my entire life, so I know when you’re full of shit. And right now, you’re full of it.”

  “You’re not as light as you used to be. Can you get off me?”

  “Not until you talk.”

  My eyes roll. I contemplate telling her the truth, but a modified version of it. She’d get all the gruesome details, right down to the size of his dick, but I’d conveniently leave out his profession. We may love each other like sisters and never fight, but there’s still plenty of room for judging, like the time she got chlamydia from some—admittedly cute—guy at a college party.

  “I’ve got shit to pack, but I’m really not letting you go until you spill.”

  “Fine,” I yell. “I met a boy.”

  “My God. I want all the details. Height, weight, eye color, and dick size.”

  “The fact that you think I know how big his dick is makes me question what you really think of me.”

  “The world, Charlie. That’s what I think of you. The world.”

  “He was gorgeous.”

  “On a scale of one-to-Dylan, how gorgeous?”

  “Well… He wasn’t wearing plaid.”

  “Sounds like a downgrade,” she says. “I wouldn’t waste my time.”

  Once again, I push her off me and sit up on the edge of the bed. “I’m not sure there’s anything to waste. It was a one-night-only kind of thing.”

  She jumps onto her feet. “So you did fuck him!”

  I give her a simple smile because I don’t need to say anything else.

  “What’s his name?” she asks in her best detective voice, trying to discern whether or not she knows him.

  “Blue.”

  Her nose rumples and her smile fades into a grimace. “Like the color? That’s a thing?”

  “It’s a thing.”

  “Well, he’s obviously not from around here, is he?”

  “I actually don’t know where he’s from, but apparently, he’s sticking around.”

  “Oh, no,” she says perturbed. “He’s obsessed with you.”

  “You’re so dramatic.”

  “You’re obsessed with him, too.” She nods her head accusingly.

  “Shut up. I’m not obsessed with a carnie…” It’s like my brain just ran out of brake fluid.

  Her eyes widen and her smile fades into a frown. “You fucked a carnie!?”

  I look around the room nervously. “Would you be quiet?”

  “Okay. Whew.” She runs
her hand through her ginger hair, and then glides down onto her knees so that she’s kneeling in front of me. “Intervention time.”

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m intervening. You can’t go around fucking carnies. For one, they’re gross. For another? Eww.”

  “First of all, I can do whatever the hell I want. It’s America. Secondly, it wasn’t exactly intentional. And besides, he’s different from the others.”

  “I’m going to give your judgmental statement a pass—”

  That’s ironic.

  “–but nothing good will come from fucking a carnie. Do you remember Rebecca Ross?”

  “I don’t.”

  “That’s because she dropped out of school in the ninth grade after getting knocked up by Bigfoot the clown.”

  I grab her by the arms and force her onto her feet. “She was in ninth grade and Bigfoot was obviously a pedophile.” My hand digs into the pocket of my jeans and I grab my phone. “Besides, did Bigfoot look like this?”

  She takes a fleeting glance at the picture on my phone–the snapshot of Blue the night of the fair. “No, because Bigfoot was a clown. What part of that—” She rips the phone out of my hand. Her eyes light up and her jaw drops. “God spent a little more time and all that hocus-pocus on this man. Those beautiful eyes…”

  Being a bit too possessive, I wrestle the phone from her hands. “Tell me about it.”

  “Please tell me that he’s coming to my party Saturday.”

  I just shrug because I couldn’t tell you what’s happening tomorrow, let alone what’s happening in six days.

  Chapter Six

  It’s the night of Summer’s party, and I still haven’t heard from Blue. It dawned on me Tuesday that he had lost his phone. My best guess is that he’s not in a rush to run out and get a new phone, as that would take a dent out of his mysteriousness, and we just couldn’t have that.

  I stand in front of the mirror in my bathroom, running a brush through my hair and considering a color change. Red’s out of the question, but I’ve had blonde on my mind for a while now. I’ll see how the night turns out and make a decision in the morning. We always make the best decisions when we’re drunk or hung over.