Collide (Worlds Collide Book 1)

by Quinn Nolan

  I pause, waiting for her reaction—a smile, a squeal, a gulp, something—but she just stares as if I gave my news in Spanish or Mandarin. I lift my napkin to my lips, afraid perhaps there’s a chunk of bacon clinging there, distracting her from my words, before trying again. “We’ve been out twice this week. He’s incredibly talented.”

  She blinks twice and settles her fork and knife on either side of her salad bowl. “You just met this boy and you’ve already been out twice?”

  My stomach clenches. I know this tone—it’s the what-are-you-thinking tone, the are-you-sure-you-know-what-you’re-doing tone. “No, Mom—we didn’t just meet—”

  “So, he’s a friend, then. What’s his name? Have you told me about him before?”

  “His name is—” I catch myself. I almost said Everett. “His name’s Graham, and no, I haven’t mentioned him before because we were just acquaintances. From the brewpub.”

  “That’s it? Just Graham? He doesn’t have a last name?”

  My shoulders drop. “Of course he has a last name.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “And, what? You don’t know it?”

  “Yes, I know it.” It’s true—I do. I’ve seen it on the schedule at the brewpub a thousand times. I just don’t see a reason to give it to her. It’s not as if she knows a dozen Grahams and needs to figure out which one I’m talking about. “Why do you wanna know? Are you gonna look him up online?”

  “Have you? How well do you know this acquaintance?”

  “Well enough.” Heat prickles the back of my neck. “Why, what are you implying?”

  She lifts her chin. “You just never know with people nowadays. And given that you know this boy because he frequents a bar doesn’t exactly speak highly of him. You know Kristen McCall?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  Mom waves her hand. “Of course you do. She’s Liz McCall’s niece.”

  Liz McCall volunteers with Mom at the library. I’ve met her once or twice—always on the fly during one of the library’s events, and I’m positive I couldn’t identify her in a lineup. I’ve certainly never met her niece. Still, I don’t say that to my mom. She seems to think that I know every person she’s ever met and gets upset when I point out that’s not the case.

  I make a noncommittal noise and Mom picks up her fork. “Well, Kristen started dating a boy she met online, of all places. They saw each other several times a week—just like you’re doing. And you know what happened? He started stalking her. Any night they weren’t together, he sat outside her apartment complex with a pair of binoculars and sent her text messages about what she was doing. Apparently, he was trying to catch her in a lie. She had to take out a restraining order on him.”

  I fight rolling my eyes. “Graham’s not stalking me.”

  “How do you know?”

  I don’t dignify her question with a response. I cut another slice out of the cheesy dish in front of me and shove a too-large bite into my mouth.

  “If he’s not stalking you, he might be trying to steal your identity.”

  I slap my hand on the edge of the table, giving her an are-you-serious look, but she just points her fork at me.

  “Donna Kimball’s step-daughter met a man at a bar.” She pauses to give a significant look. “She thought things were going well—he seemed really sweet. Until the end of the month when her credit card bills came in. He racked up thousands of dollars in charges—televisions and stereos and those MP-six players or whatever they are. Apparently he waited until she was in the bathroom and went through her bills and the next thing you know, her credit’s ruined.” She spears a cherry tomato and pops it into her mouth.

  I chew furiously, wanting to take advantage of her momentary inability to cut me off. “Graham hasn’t stolen my identity. He hasn’t even been up to my apartment. Besides, I don’t have a credit card for him to make charges on anyway.”

  Mom sighs dramatically. “Really. How do you ever hope to build up a good credit score without a credit card? How many times have I told you? It’s important to build up your credit so when you’re ready to make a big purchase, you’re not turned away. What happens when you and your husband go to buy a house and you don’t have any credit? The house gets put in his name, and it’s his house, and when you get divorced, he keeps it and you have to start over.”

  I don’t bother pointing out there are other ways to build one’s credit, or that I don’t want to go into a hypothetical marriage with the mindset of what I will or won’t get when it ends in divorce—but I know it’s no use. She won’t hear anything I have to say now. Although it’s been five years since she and my dad split up, she acts like it just happened. Any time we talk about it, it’s like the first time we talked about it—full of anger and tears. And I get it, I do—Mom’s had a rough go of it since they divorced. She was a housewife, hadn’t held a job outside the home since before I was born. Then, suddenly, she had to figure out how to make a life on her own. She never anticipated having to support herself, but since she’s had to, she’s made sure I know how important it is to be able to.

  We eat in silence punctuated by random strands of conversation for the rest of the meal. By the time we go our separate ways in the parking lot, I feel empty and sad. I’d hoped that for once, she could just be happy for me—but, as usual, she found fault with my good news. I’ll never be the perfect daughter she worked so hard to have. I destroyed that when I quit my job. And no matter how many times she reminds me of how much I’ve thrown away, of how disappointed she is in me, I can’t help wanting to make her proud.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ashlyn

  “He just did the hair flip! Take a drink!”

  It’s Sunday night and Teresa and I sit on either side of Reagan on her couch made for two. Every Sunday we’re not working, the three of us meet up at Reagan’s tiny apartment and watch a few episodes of whatever TV series is next on our list, all while playing a drinking game specific to the show. Currently, we’re on one of Reagan’s picks, Soul Shift. Although there was much eye-rolling from Teresa and me when she chose it, we’ve both since been won over to the cause. The show’s a total guilty pleasure, full of shape shifters and paranormal elements and buckets of faux-teenage angst. Technically, we were supposed to move on to one of Teresa’s picks tonight, but we all pretended like we forgot it’s the week to change shows and are well into the second season.

  Teresa groans, downing the shot of salted caramel vodka Reagan pours her. I take mine, too. It barely burns on the way down, which is probably a bad sign.

  “Is it just me, or does he flip his hair more as the series goes on? Like he knows people play a drinking game when they watch it and he just wants everyone to get drunk?” Teresa slams her shot glass down harder than is strictly necessary. She doesn’t hold her liquor nearly so well as Reagan or me and she’s already several shots in. At this rate, we probably won’t make it through much more than one more episode before she falls asleep on the couch and I have to keep Reagan from dipping her hand in a bowl of warm water.

  My phone chimes and I barely glance at it before switching it to silent mode. It’s the fourth text since I got here. It’s my own fault, really—I answered the first two. “She’s got a point. Maybe we should change the rule to every other time he flips his hair.”

  “And no more shots when he does a sexy smile,” Teresa adds, the last two words slurring together.

  Reagan’s jaw drops, scandalized. “Why?”

  “Um, maybe because you think every one of his smiles is sexy,” I offer.

  She gestures to the TV just as Braden Crowe, the main character, flashes a grin. “I rest my case.”

  I pour her a shot. “Feel free. But I’m with Teresa. I can’t drink every time he smiles. There’s not enough vodka in the world.”

  Reagan’s face scrunches in concentration before she springs up, swaying only slightly as she starts toward her kitchen. On the screen, Braden Crowe flips his hair twice in the time it takes Reagan to
return, but neither Teresa nor I take shots.

  “I’ve got it!” Reagan announces, returning with two dark brown beer bottles in her hands. “We’ll take a sip of beer when he does a sexy grin! That way, we’re not breaking the rules.”

  Teresa snorts. “We’re the ones making up the rules. What, do you think if we don’t drink some alcohol whenever Braden smiles the drinking-game police are gonna come in and arrest us?”

  Reagan shrugs before plopping back in her spot. “You never know. Don’t wanna tempt fate, do you?” She pops the top off one of the bottles using the opener she and I spent one slightly inebriated evening screwing to her coffee table. She got angry that she kept misplacing her bottle opener, so we borrowed a cordless drill from one of her neighbors and permanently affixed it to the table. I’m still surprised neither of us ended up in the hospital that night, and a bubble of pride wells in me each time someone uses it. “Okay, we missed some. Should I rewind?”

  “No!” Teresa squeals.

  My phone vibrates against my leg, reminding me of the text I ignored. I swipe at the screen to read the message. I was right before—it’s another from Graham. It started off simply enough—he asked what I was doing tonight and I told him I was hanging out with some friends. He asked who and I told him, then he suggested I cut out early to see him. I didn’t respond to that one, and this one is another option: How about you text when you’re finished with your friends. We can go out after.

  I lock the screen and flip the phone over. I could—and probably should—respond, but I don’t want to. Despite what I tried to convince my mom of earlier, things aren’t all sunshine and kittens with Graham. It’s true we’ve been out twice, but the second date was much like the first, with him commandeering most of the conversation. His questions about me were surface at best, the most in-depth questions being about Everett. Not that I can exactly blame him on that count—seeing Everett on the boat before we went out complicated matters. And the more I insisted Everett and I aren’t seeing each other, that we just occasionally see each other, the more Graham started planning future dates.

  For someone who was nearly completely disinterested in me a week ago, now he can’t seem to get enough of me. And for as happy as that should make me, it twists my stomach instead.

  “So, who keeps texting you?” Reagan asks, eyebrow arched. Of course she noticed—she’s never had too much to drink to not notice guy-related things.

  “No one.” I know as soon as I say it that it was the wrong thing. Teresa, who had been reclining against the cushions, leans forward so she can look around Reagan at me.

  “By no one do you actually mean hot rocker dude?”

  My cheeks heat. Has Teresa figured out who Everett is? Did I say something about him I shouldn’t have? “No, it’s not Everett.”

  Teresa’s eyebrows pull together. “Who said anything about Everett? I was talking about Graham.”

  Shit. “Oh.” Shit, shit, shit. “I thought you said hot talker dude.” It’s a lame cover up, but it’s all my alcohol-fogged mind can fabricate at the moment. “Because Everett... He likes to talk. And he’s hot. Because he’s not a rocker. Just a guy.”

  Teresa nods like what I’ve said makes perfect sense, but Reagan’s eyes are narrowed. I can’t tell whether she knows I’m lying or if she’s so far gone she’s just doing her best to understand what I’m babbling about.

  “How are things going with Graham?” Teresa asks. “You didn’t even get a chance to gush about your date last night before we started watching the show. So you should gush now. Go on. I need a break from taking shots anyway.”

  Reagan perks up, head swiveling to the left and right until she spies the remote, which she launched across the room earlier when Braden Crowe was making out with Celeste Hart, whom Reagan will only refer to as “the trollop.” She rocks forward like she’s going to get up and grab it, but instead she pours herself another shot and leans back, nodding at me. Apparently pausing the show isn’t worth the effort of getting off the couch.

  I’ve been expecting this and I’m ready—I have the words all planned out, just the right details from our last date to put it in the best possible light. So I’m surprised when I open my mouth and something else entirely comes out: “He’s a little...self-involved. Like, he wants to talk about his plans for his band, his rehearsal schedule, what he plans to do with all his money once he makes it big. On our two dates, he’s told me the same story about how he learned a song in five minutes after only hearing it once three times. The second and third time? They were, like, five minutes apart. He’s barely asked a thing about me. Finally, on our last date, he asked why I live above a garage, but once I said I was the groundskeeper, he started going on about how he hates mowing a lawn and that’s why he lives in an apartment. Then he told me about every place he’s ever lived. You’d think it couldn’t be that many because he’s like twenty-four, but it took him forever, because then he had to detail every chore or job he ever did at the place. It’s...exhausting.”

  Teresa and Reagan stare when I’m done talking. Teresa’s head tilts to the side. On the TV, Camden Murphy shapeshifts into a wolf. Reagan’s eyes stray to the screen, but Teresa nods.

  “I dated a guy like that once. Talked about himself constantly—mostly embellished, of course. And he was kind of a douche. We dated for about four months.”

  It’s my turn to stare. If the guy was a douche, why would she stay with him for eight months? I can’t imagine Teresa wanting—or needing—to stay with a guy for any reason. She’s so smart, confident, and beautiful, I don’t understand why she would want to stay with a guy unless he was a good one.

  But Reagan’s nodding like she understands. “Ash, you remember Tyler Moore? In high school?” She rolls her eyes for effect before turning to Teresa. “Wouldn’t give me the time of day through most of high school, but after I dropped the weight before senior year? He was all smiles and compliments when he asked me out. And he was nice—most the time—but when he got irritated because I corrected him for being a dumbass or something, he’d say these awful things—like, things people used to say about me when I was bigger. He’d call me whale and cow and all that—right in front of his friends.”

  I remember the guy she’s talking about. At the time, she told me he was wonderful and about all the good things. She kept the bad things to herself to such an extent that I was actually shocked when they broke up. She finally had enough at a school dance. I wasn’t there—of course I wasn’t, I was too busy with homework from one of my college classes, no doubt—but Reagan showed up at my house around ten that night, face streaked with mascara, and she told me the whole story. They’d been together for three months, and he’d been saying those terrible things to her the whole time. She just assumed it was the price of moving up the social ladder, but it finally got too much to handle.

  For the first time, I think I understand why they’re sharing these stories: They accept—expect, even—that guys aren’t perfect. And they date them anyway, until something happens to make the relationship not worth it anymore.

  Is it worth it, being with Graham? He’s not mean or douchey. A bit full of himself, sure—but confidence isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s actually probably necessary in music.

  Still, Everett never comes across that way. But maybe it’s because he’s already made it—he doesn’t have to convince anyone that he’s talented because people already know. Besides, how well do I really know Everett? Maybe if we ever went out on a real date, he’d be exactly the same as Graham.

  But somehow I doubt it.

  On the TV, Braden Crowe says his catch phrase—“I’ll be waiting”—and I pour myself a shot. Although our drinking game has mostly dissolved into anarchy—as it inevitably does once we get going—I’m glad for the excuse to take another drink. I’m putting too much thought into everything—I always do. If Reagan and Teresa can put up with asshole guys for months, I can deal with one who’s slightly annoying for a few more dates, a
t least, in the interest of giving him a fair shot. The alcohol spreads through my belly, warming me from my center outward, making the edges of my consciousness go fuzzy. I pour another shot, even though I’m not really watching the show anymore. My thoughts soften, like they’re suddenly made of cotton balls—much too fluffy for any real work.

  “Why does dating have to be so complicated?” I grab the unopened beer off the coffee table and attempt to remove the cap three times before managing to get it off. “I just thought...”

  Reagan giggles, claiming the already-opened bottle and bringing it toward her mouth. “What? You thought when you met the right guy, things would just click and everything would be perfect and magical?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Well, no. But, I did expect things to be...easier. I mean—I know it’s not really the same, but, with Everett...” I pause, taking a swig of my beer. I’m treading close to dangerous territory here, but why? I shouldn’t be talking about Everett, I remember that. I’m not supposed to talk about him because...because I’m dating Graham? But both Reagan and Teresa have met Everett, and he’ll help make my point.

  “Can we just pause a sec and talk about how hot Everett is?” Teresa asks, her eyes open wider than usual, giving her a slightly manic look. “Like, hot hot. He looks like a movie star or something. And I’d know. I was on set once with—”

  Reagan holds her hand up in front of Teresa’s face. “Please. I’m far too drunk to be forced to listen to the same story about the one time you got cast as an extra. What was it? Your elbow’s the only thing that showed up on film.”

  Teresa swats her hand away, looking slightly put out. “All I’m saying is that certain people have that look, you know? The look like they could be a model or a movie star or whatever. And Everett’s got that look.”

  Everett. Yes. I was going to say something about him. My cotton-fluff brain struggles to retrace the steps back to my original thought. “He’s nice,” I say, but it sounds lame even to my ears, so I elaborate. “He didn’t have to help me with Graham, but he did. Twice. And nothing’s ever hard between us—”