He leaned back over the seat and reached for a bottle of water. Cordelia got a real eyeful when he did, and she could feel her body temperature spiking.
“Here you go,” he said, handing her a bottle.
The lukewarm wetness from the plastic felt good in her hands. “Thanks.”
She chugged the water so quickly that she almost choked. Then she put the bottle up against her forehead, which cooled her down a little. “So what are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know. This place is off the main road, so I doubt we’ll be rescued anytime soon.”
Cordelia frowned. “It’s just so hot out.”
“The sun will be going down in a few hours. We just have to make it until then.”
“God, Paul is going to be worried,” she muttered.
Jake looked puzzled. “Who?”
“My boyfriend, remember? We’re headed to Yosemite to meet him.”
“Right, right. The heat is doing things to me.”
She glanced at his chest again. It’s doing things to me, too.
Jake took Cordelia’s bottle of water out of her hands unexpectedly and took a big gulp. “So how long have you lovebirds been together?”
“We’re not lovebirds,” she blurted.
Holy shit, did I just say that out loud?
“Okay, what are you?” Jake asked, handing her the water bottle again.
Cordelia just took it and stared at the squirt top. If she placed her mouth on it, it would be like putting her lips on Jake’s….
Snap! Snap! Snap!
“Do you have any idea how annoying you are?” she said sourly.
“Well, then stop spacing out and answer my question.”
“We’re…you know…close.”
“Wow, Cordy. That’s sooooo lame.” He snickered.
“Well, what about you and Molly? Were you two red-hot lov-ahs?” she replied.
“Are you kidding me? She was the most beautiful girl in the senior class,” he said. “Homecoming queen, prom queen. I didn’t stand a chance in hell with her.”
Cordelia was confused. “Wait, you mean you guys never…uh—”
“Did the pokey-pokey?”
“Ew, Jake! She’s my sister!”
Jake laughed so hard, he had to lean on Cordelia in order to hold himself up. The way the side of his body pushed against hers made everything from her pinkie toes to the tips of her ears tingle. He finally calmed down and wiped his eyes. “That really wigged you out, huh?”
“Let’s just talk about something else,” she said.
“Why? What are you afraid of?”
Cordelia was not about to back away from a challenge, especially when it came from Jacob Stein. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Except flying,” he corrected.
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to kill my mother.” If I survive this, that is.
“She didn’t tell me, Molly did,” Jake confessed.
“What?”
“On our first date,” he continued. “I couldn’t believe she said yes. I totally thought it was some sort of prank. Anyway, I took her to this cheap pizza place and then we walked on the beach. She kept telling me how much you loved it there, and that she was worried about you.”
Cordelia was dumbfounded. “Worried about me? Why?”
“She told me that you’d won this smarty-pants award or something, and that you were asked to attend a fancy banquet in New York.”
Her stomach grumbled at the memory of it. She’d been selected as a National Merit Scholar, along with Alexis Dunbar and five other students. She’d taken her PSATs a year early and scored in the top one percentile. Everyone had been so proud of her, and she’d really wanted to attend that ceremony in New York. But there’d been just one thing….
“You backed out because you wouldn’t get on the plane,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Molly said she was concerned that you’d miss out in life because you were too afraid to really face it.”
Cordelia was very shaken by this admission. Not only had Molly never told her any of this, but she was amazed that her sister had even thought about things so deeply. Molly always seemed to be this flighty good-time girl, whose only concern was what pair of designer jeans she was going to wear to school or what boy was going to come after her next. She knew Molly was as sweet as they come, but she’d never exactly thought of her as contemplative or wise.
“After that, she took off all her clothes and ran into the ocean, screaming ‘Cowabunga!’”
Cordelia doubled over in laughter. “You just gotta love Molly. What did you do?”
Jake smirked. “I got down on my knees and thanked God.”
“I bet you did.”
“But I didn’t go skinny-dipping. I was too afraid.”
She playfully elbowed Jake in the arm. “And you missed out.”
“You’re telling me,” he said, grinning. “I was thinking about what you said to me, though. About being a hypocrite.”
“Hold on a second. I want to enjoy this.” She giggled.
“Ha-ha. Anyway, I thought I should tell you that I believe taking risks and letting go are good things, when you’ve made a conscious choice to do so and weighed all the options. Know what I mean?”
Cordelia’s cheeks actually hurt from the wide smile that came across her face. “Yes, I think so. You’re saying that balance is important in life.”
“As important as breathing,” Jake said, grabbing the water out of Cordelia’s hand once again. This time his thumb grazed her palm, and that fluttering sensation from a few days ago came roaring back with a vengeance.
She tried that breathing thing of Paul’s again, but strangely enough, it didn’t work. So Cordelia closed her eyes, pretended that she was strolling along the sleepy California shore, and hoped that she would make it until sunset without hyperventilating. After all, Jake would be the only one around to resuscitate her….
Chapter Ten
Cordelia and Jake made it through the night and lived to see the next morning. It’d been her idea to stay in the car until dusk so that they’d be protected from the sun. But the heat had become so unbearable that Cordelia had changed into her red two-piece Tommy Hilfiger swimsuit. Jake had seemed very uneasy at the sight of Cordelia’s overly exposed skin, so he’d quickly pulled out a deck of cards from his glove compartment and spent two hours teaching her how to play a mean game of blackjack. At sunset, they’d sat on the roof and munched on the remnants of a half-eaten package of mostly melted Twix, which Jake had found rolled up in a beach blanket in the trunk.
They’d talked about lots of insignificant stuff—favorite movies (Jake’s was Kentucky Fried Movie and Cordelia’s was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ), the least edible food in the vegetable kingdom (Cordelia hated sprouts while Jake detested cauliflower), and best-looking celebrities ( Jake lusted after Jessica Alba and Cordelia nearly fainted when she said Josh Duhamel’s name). When it got dark, Cordelia crashed in the backseat while Jake snoozed in the front. Before they went to bed, Cordelia prayed that she’d wake up to some sort of miracle.
But all she’d gotten were lousy kinks in her neck and everywhere else in her body. She was so stiff from being cramped in a ball for seven hours that she could barely get out of the car. She felt pretty grubby, too. All that sweat from yesterday and she was nowhere near a shower. This was definitely not the work of angels.
Cordelia stood up and stretched, but was startled a bit when she spotted Jake working under the open hood of the car.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He offered a rueful grin. “I don’t know. I keep thinking that if I just look at the engine long enough, something will happen.”
Cordelia ambled up beside him and peered under the hood. She pointed to a dangling loose wire. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a cable line.”
“It looks like it should be connected to something,” she remarked.
“How about the batt
ery?” he asked. “Right over there.”
She reached in and grabbed the wire.
“Watch out, your hands are going to get dirty,” Jake said. “And you might be out of Purell.”
Cordelia smirked. “I never run out.” She moved her hands around the battery and felt something like a hole. Keeping one hand on that, she pulled the loose wire toward it. There was a click as it caught onto something, and then the wire became taut. She and Jake looked at each other.
Without a word, Jake hopped into the driver’s seat. A second later, the engine was noisily throbbing. Cordelia slammed down the hood and got in the car.
“I have absolutely no idea what I just did!” she exclaimed.
“Neither do I,” Jake replied. “But who cares? We’re moving!”
“Cowabunga!” she shouted, and pumped her fist in the air.
“Now take your clothes off,” he said jokingly.
Cordelia recoiled the instant he made that comment. She wrapped her arms around herself and shifted awkwardly in her seat.
“Jesus, Cordy. I was kidding.” Jake shook his head and chuckled. “Your clothes can stay on if you want.”
“I know, I’m just chilly from the sudden blast of AC,” she lied.
He grimaced. “Right.”
Cordelia dug into her bag and got out her snoozing Treo. She shook it a little bit, hoping that there was a tiny speck of juice left in it. Nope, nothing. There wasn’t an outlet in sight either. She needed to call Paul, and fast, before he sent out a search party of park rangers to look for her.
“Did you sleep okay?” Jake asked. He was flooring the Charger now, but it still only went about sixty miles per hour.
“I guess,” Cordelia said, grabbing the back of her neck, which was still extremely tight. “My neck kind of hurts.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve crashed back there many times and woken up feeling like total shit.”
Then Jake took his right hand off the wheel of the car and put it on Cordelia’s left shoulder. He began rubbing slowly at first, then worked his way to the back of her neck. She was shivering, and she knew it had absolutely nothing to do with the air-conditioning. His hand massaged her more intensely now, each circle he made with the palm of his hand felt so good. She closed her eyes and concentrated on how every cell in her body was releasing all of this built-up tension. Her lips began to moisten as Jake pressed harder on her skin. Her cheeks felt flushed, and she was clenching the muscles in her thighs.
“All better,” Cordelia stammered, grabbing his hand.
“You sure? My hands can go on forever,” he said.
She swallowed hard. “Really, I’m okay. Thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Jake placed his hand back on the steering wheel. “Your sister always loved my back rubs.”
Cordelia felt this burning sensation rise up in her chest. She couldn’t believe this. Was she actually jealous of her sister…and Jacob Stein? She imagined herself pushing an eject button beneath her seat and soaring back home to San Diego.
“Well, I’m sure it wasn’t agony for you,” she snapped back. “Molly’s so beautiful.”
Jake said nothing for a minute, his eyes glued to the road. “She was always supremely sexy,” he said finally. “And something else; I don’t know how to describe it. Being with her was like…being at a party.”
Cordelia nodded in affirmation. “Yes, Molly loves to party.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Molly is a party. All by herself. And when I was with her, I felt like I’d been invited to Cirque du Soleil or something. She was always sparkling, you know? There was no darkness, no worry. All the bad stuff in the world, all the problems, they didn’t touch her. It was like she was above and beyond all that. Nothing bothered her.”
“So, if you were with Molly…nothing would bother you either.”
Jake grinned. “Well, that’s what you hoped for. Like maybe it was contagious. That she’d kind of rub off on you.”
Another burning pang of jealousy stabbed at Cordelia’s rib cage. “So, did she rub off on you? Did you forget all your problems?”
“No. I tried, though. I guess I’m still trying. It’s probably why I act so—”
“Weird?” Cordelia said.
Jake sneered a little. “Um, I was going to say stress-free.”
“Gotcha.”
“You see, I did have problems. I still do,” Jake continued.
“Everyone has problems,” she said, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
“And Molly didn’t like that, especially if I talked about them. Even if I was just worrying about them silently, she could tell. She wanted me to be happy all the time. She’d tell me to cheer up, let it go, loosen up. Live in the moment.”
“Like Paul.” Cordelia didn’t realize she’d spoken out loud till she heard Jake go, “Huh?”
“He’s all about meditation, you know? He thinks we should all experience the here and now very deeply. He believes everyone should be one with the world.”
“Interesting,” Jake said.
“What?”
“I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but from what you said, it seems that he expects everyone to do things his way. That’s kind of self-indulgent and arrogant, don’t you think?”
Cordelia sat there, unresponsive. She knew she should have jumped to Paul’s defense, but she felt like there was some truth to Jake’s observation, even though she wasn’t entirely sure.
“Anyway, I tried to be what she wanted me to be. Only I couldn’t. So she…” His voice trailed off.
“That’s sad,” she murmured.
“I’m over it,” Jake said unconvincingly.
“I mean, I think it’s sad when people can’t be loved for who they are.” She tried to put it in concrete terms.
“Like, two people fall in love, okay? Then one of them tries to change the other one, to make him or her into someone else. Not the person that the person was to begin with. So why did they fall in love in the first place? Am I making any sense at all?”
Jake glanced at her. “I think I get what you’re saying. What was the basis for the original attraction between two people? And why can’t that be enough?”
“Yes! If you love someone, why would you want that person to change?”
Jake took his eyes off the road just long enough for them to share a look of complete comprehension. Cordelia could feel a rush of exhilaration pass through her. It was as if they were really connected, like they totally knew each other. Then Cordelia quickly turned her head and glanced out her window, cutting the moment short.
Signs for Yosemite were popping up now, but Cordelia’s eyes focused on one for a restaurant with a pay phone. She knew she had to call Paul and tell him they were almost there, even though the excitement she had felt about this visit had gone missing all of a sudden. And then she got a funny feeling, an odd sense of awareness, like she knew the exact place she’d lost it….
“Jake? Do me a favor. Pull over at that restaurant up ahead?”
“Sure, but I’m not shutting the car off.”
She laughed. “I don’t blame you.”
“You must be starving,” Jake said. “Sorry I didn’t mention food earlier; I just thought you’d want to get to Paul as soon as possible, considering how close you guys are.”
“Knock it off,” she replied. “I have to call him collect so that he doesn’t think I’m dead in a ditch.”
“C’mon, you’re with me.”
“Exactly,” Cordelia quipped. “Knowing him, he probably already has your picture up on America’s Most Wanted.”
“Sounds like a great guy. Can’t wait to meet him,” he said sarcastically.
Cordelia’s eye twitched uncontrollably when she realized that she’d be spending the next day with Paul and Jake. Paul—the perfect guy. Paul, who she’d barely thought about in the last two days.
Chapter Eleven
An hour or two later, the Charger pulled up in front of the Yosemite
National Park information booth. Paul raced to the car, practically tore the passenger door off its hinges, yanked Cordelia out of her seat, and threw his arms around her. He seemed thrilled and relieved to have her back in his arms; he had never squeezed her tighter.
Cordelia felt great, too. Paul was being as sweet as ever and he had this stubble on his cheeks that scratched her skin a little. It also made him look much older and wiser. He greeted her with his traditional “nose bump”—he’d take the tip of his nose and pat it against hers. She loved it when he did this.
However, there was one problem with their joyful reunion. It was being monitored by a bunch of total strangers and, of course, Jacob Stein. While Paul planted kisses all over her face, his Eco Warrior Yosemite friends were circled around them as if they were observing a rare specimen of larvae or something. It made Cordelia really uncomfortable, so she bashfully buried her head in his chest.
She was usually okay with him being affectionate, but everything seemed so off-kilter at the moment. Cordelia could barely make sense of what was happening around her. Maybe it was lack of food, maybe it was lack of sleep, or maybe it was a lack of something more intangible. She wished Alexis were around. Then they could sit down and analyze everything that was going on much like they did during model UN.
Jake stayed in the car until the public display of affection was over. But then he resurfaced and she had the unnerving task of standing between her boyfriend and her worst-enemy-slash-sister’s-ex-turned-semifriendly-acquaintance-who-also-happened-to-be-super-hot.
Paul reached out and shook Jake’s hand. “Thanks for bringing her by, Jake. I wish you hadn’t run into so much trouble.”
“Not a problem,” Jake said. “We just had some bad luck, that’s all. But we’re fine. Right, Cordy?”
She tried not to think about how her stomach was tying itself into a fisherman’s knot. “I’m just glad we’re finally here.”
Paul flashed a megawatt smile and took her hand in his. “Me too.”
Cordelia began to relax more when she felt his fingers intertwined with hers. It was so nice how small and comforted and delicate she felt in Paul’s presence. She hadn’t really noticed that she missed it until just then. “So aren’t you going to introduce us to your friends?”
Getting Lost with Boys Page 10