I did what he told me to do.
And it was magical.
When I got a little too nervous, I touched my waist to touch his hands still holding me.
I looked down and watched the waves hitting the rocks.
So beautiful and so dangerous at the same time.
There was also that sense of rebellion. Knowing if someone caught us, we’d be in deep shit.
That made it even more fun.
“What do you think, sweetheart?” Jett asked.
“I think it’s a horrible idea to be here,” I said. “But I don’t want to leave.”
“Told you,” he whispered. “Now step back with me so we can sit down.”
Jett let me go and I gasped for a breath.
I quickly turned and reached for him.
My mind told me he was gone but he was right there.
I was then in his arms and we sat down together.
We were at a safe distance from the edge, which calmed my nerves.
I sat between his legs, my head back against his chest.
He held me tight.
The night was cool.
It was the perfect night.
“You know I’m probably going to end up getting you into trouble for the rest of your life,” Jett said to me.
“Oh, I know. I hate it. But I know.”
“It’s good to have crazy fun once in a while.”
“Sadly, I agree with that, Jett.” I shut my eyes and smiled. “I hate the way you influence me.”
“I could say the same about you, sweetheart,” he said. “Making me feel these feelings. And making me want to do something in life so I could take care of you.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m very picky with what I want out of life. You better take good care of me. Or someone else will.”
“Nobody will take care of you but me,” he said.
His voice growled with a little bit of jealousy.
I loved being able to get under his skin like that.
“Keep talking to me then,” I whispered.
Jett did.
My eyes stayed shut.
I read somewhere once that if you took away one of your senses, the others were heightened. I wanted to keep my eyes shut so I could hear the waves of the ocean and Jett’s voice better.
I didn’t plan on falling asleep.
* * *
Ohmygod, now I’m late.
“Jett!” I yelled.
He popped his head up from the rock and looked at me.
“Fuck,” he said.
“What did you do?” I yelled. I punched his chest. “What the hell did you do?”
“You fell asleep,” he said.
“So did you,” I said. “I’m screwed.”
“Wait,” he said. “Look. It’s not that late. It’s been thirty minutes. Tops.”
I scrambled to get to my feet.
There was no way I was getting home on time now. And, yes, I was far too old to actually have a curfew, but Aunt Bea set the rules. And with me living under her roof still, her rules were what counted.
Plus, she didn’t like Jett all that much.
So if she knew I was going out with Jett, the curfew was very strict.
I touched my forehead and felt dizzy and groggy.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got this. Jump on my back.”
“What?”
“I can run faster than you, sweetheart.”
“No you can’t,” I said.
“Okay. Do you want to race or do you want to get home on time?”
I curled my lip. “Turn around.”
“Oh, I like when you talk dirty like that,” Jett said.
I groaned and jumped on his back.
Jett took off with speed. More than I would ever give him credit for. Which told me this wasn’t the first time he was cutting a curfew close.
When we got back to his car, I had a sickening fear that the cops would be waiting for us. Or that his car would be towed for parking where he was.
But his car was there.
Waiting.
I got into the passenger seat and Jett got into the driver’s seat.
He looked at me and smiled.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s cute that you still have a curfew.”
“There it is. I was waiting for that one.”
“What?”
“You’re a jerk,” I said. “I have to respect her rules. Nothing else to say.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“Jett, I work at the bakery. Okay? I have plans for the place. She’s the only one who-”
“Shut up and let me drive.”
“Oh, you didn’t… you didn’t just tell me to shut up…”
“I just did,” he said.
He started the car and peeled out.
Jett drove like a crazed man. My eyes were glued to the mirrors, waiting for a cop to pull us over. Which wouldn’t have been the first time it happened.
But the universe was aligned the right way because nothing bad happened.
Other than time ticking away, leaving me beyond curfew.
The only hope now was…
“Shit,” I said as Jett drove down Aunt Bea’s street.
“What?”
“Kitchen light is on,” I said.
“So?”
“Aunt Bea never leaves the kitchen light on,” I said.
“You’re going to be fine, sweetheart,” Jett said. “It’s, what, a few minutes past?”
“It was a few minutes past an hour ago,” I said.
“Oh, shit. I didn’t realize it was that far past. Maybe we were sleeping longer than I thought.”
“I hate you, Jett,” I said.
“No you don’t. Kiss me goodnight.”
I opened the door. “Wish me luck.”
I shut the car door and ran through the yard.
I licked my lips and regretted not kissing him goodnight.
When I got to the backdoor, I slowly started to open it.
Please, please, please, please…
The door inched open and I snuck inside.
The kitchen light was on.
But Aunt Bea was nowhere to be found.
I started to silently cheer.
When Aunt Bea walked into the kitchen, she had a pen and a notebook with her.
I froze.
She looked at me.
She looked at the clock.
My face turned bright red.
I was so screwed.
* * *
“I’m going to teach you how to tell time,” she said as she threw the notebook to the table.
“I know how to tell time, Aunt Bea.”
“You do? That’s a surprise to me. Last time I checked… wait… can you tell me what time it is?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I lost track of time.”
“With Jett?”
“Why does it matter?” I asked. “If I was with my other friends…”
“What other friends? That’s the problem, Julia. All you do is spend time with him.”
“Is that bad?”
“Of course it is,” she said. She pointed to a chair. “You sit right now.”
I had no choice.
I sat down.
I looked at the notebook and the pencil.
“Do I need to draw clocks and you’ll give me a time?”
“This isn’t a joke,” Aunt Bea. “Now I know how old you are. And I know it’s silly for me to set a curfew.”
“But it’s your house,” I said.
“What were you doing?”
“We were just out,” I said. “Hanging out.”
“What does that mean?”
I swallowed hard. Aunt Bea wasn’t dumb. I’m sure in her mind she had it all figured out. Knowing how long Jett and I had been together. Knowing there was no way things hadn’t progressed between us. And she was nervous about what could happen.
“Right,” she said. “Now you go silent on
me. Good. It’s my turn to talk. You need other friends in life. You need to be out with… girls. Women. You need to go shopping. Bowling.”
“Bowling?” I asked.
“What? Nobody goes bowling anymore?”
“Not that I know of,” I said.
Aunt Bea walked the kitchen. She wasn’t done yet. “I set rules for a reason. Dammit. I know you’re old enough to make your own decisions. Fine. But you want to work at my bakery? You want to live in my house? Then you listen to the rules I set.”
I slowly stood up. “I fell asleep. Okay?”
“What?”
“I fell asleep. With Jett.”
Aunt Bea’s face dropped. “Where were you?”
“Near the ocean,” I said. “Okay? I’m sorry. We were talking. Laughing. Having a good time. And I dozed off. I messed up. I made you worry about me.”
Aunt Bea took a breath. “This isn’t about worrying. This is about listening. And you know what, Julia? What if something happened with you and him? Let’s say feelings change. And you two end up not together. Then what? You don’t have any real friends to lean on.”
I nodded. “Okay. You’re right.”
Aunt Bea froze.
I inched my way toward her.
She was worried sick about me. She would never admit it though.
When I got close enough to her, I reached for her hand. “I’m really sorry, Aunt Bea.”
“I say everyone go get a good night’s rest. We can keep talking about this in the morning. Set your alarm for three.”
I nodded.
That was her punishment. Making me get up that early to go to the bakery that early too.
“Aunt Bea,” I said. “Thank you for being there. Waiting up for me. I have no idea what I would do without you in my life.”
Aunt Bea took another deep breath and left the kitchen.
Before disappearing for good, she looked back at me.
That was her version of telling me she loved me. Or something like it.
With Aunt Bea gone, I let out a silent sigh of relief. There were a lot of ways that conversation and the night could have went.
I knew the house, every creak and groan.
When I knew Aunt Bea was upstairs in her bedroom, I bolted for the backdoor.
I needed a cigarette to calm myself down.
But when I stepped outside, I was shocked to see Jett still parked where he dropped me off.
“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered to myself.
I walked through the yard and looked back at the house a few times, knowing I was once again doing something stupid for Jett.
I hurried around to the driver’s side of his car and he put the window down.
“How bad was it?” he asked me.
“It was bad,” I said. “But I’ll be fine. What are you doing here?”
“Still waiting for my kiss goodnight, sweetheart.”
“Are you serious? What were you going to do? Sit here and wait all night?”
“If I had to, sure,” he said.
I sighed. I could never figure Jett out.
Was he half serious, full of shit, or maybe he really did love me.
I leaned down into the car and kissed him.
He put his hand to the back of my neck and I melted as he kissed me back.
There was no way that was a goodnight kiss.
Not with the way my heart was racing as I walked back to Aunt Bea’s house.
But that’s just what Jett always did to me.
Chapter 3
LATER
Jett
(prologue)
I drove toward the house and knew it was a really bad idea.
A really fucking bad idea, brother.
Of course Scotty’s voice went through my head. I had been thinking about him a lot lately too. And what I’d give to have one more conversation with him. Just to hear him laugh or say something that would piss me off.
It was hard when memories decided to strike like that though.
One second it’s the present and the next second I’m running down the middle of the road toward a set of flashing lights, knowing the ending before someone told it to me.
I chased away Scotty’s memory when I saw Julia’s house.
Quiet and dark.
Which meant the house was probably empty by now.
The FOR SALE sign out front had a crooked SOLD sign over the middle of the realtor’s name.
I parked the truck and opened the door.
When I climbed out, I left the door open.
There was no reason for me to be here.
I needed to be at a bar.
I needed a damn drink.
I needed a damn distraction.
The house was gone.
She kept to her word and sold the place.
The house on the beach she worked so hard to get and keep.
And just like that, it was put up for sale and sold.
There were a lot of questions I could have asked myself or asked the night but I didn’t.
I got back into my truck and sat there.
I smoked a cigarette and let the minutes creep by, turning night into… well… more night.
I turned the truck around and drove out of Hidden.
There were places I liked to go to burn off some steam.
That’s the way I always did it.
Part of me never wanted to get involved with someone in town and have that get back to Julia. It made me laugh when she thought my house was nothing but a rock star mansion, filled with half naked women ready and willing to do whatever I said to do.
It was the complete opposite of that.
I kept my personal business not only outside my own house, but outside of town.
The drive to one of the bars that had become something like normal to me throughout my years without Julia went by really fast. Which was easy to do when you lied to yourself. When you told yourself nothing would hurt for forever. Or that the questions didn’t matter.
I parked the truck and stood outside the building and had another cigarette.
My phone rang as I stood there.
I looked at the name on the screen and the hour the name was calling.
I let out a humph sound and let it go to voicemail.
When the voicemail popped up, I listened to it.
As I listened, a woman came out of the bar.
Blonde hair and blue eyes shined against the lights that hung down from the part of the roof of the bar that made it seem like you were standing on a front porch.
I put my phone away and nodded to the woman.
“Got one of those for me?” she asked.
“Have at it,” I said.
“I’ll just take this one for now,” she said, reaching for my hand.
I gave her my cigarette and thought about the voicemail.
Good news, Jett. I’ve found a buyer. They’re going to need to fly in from New York to look around for themselves, but I’ve been working them for a week now. Money isn’t an issue. They just want to breathe it in for themselves. This is going to close really fast too. Give me a call. We should celebrate this.
I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” the woman asked me.
“I’m homeless,” I said.
“Oh? Well, I’m Hope.”
She put her hand out.
I shook it. “Hope…”
“Homeless and Hope,” she said. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”
“Let’s find out,” I said.
I nodded toward the door of the bar.
My hand touched the small of her back.
I laughed in my head.
I was walking with Hope. Touching Hope.
But I would never have hope.
I lost that when I lost Julia.
Chapter 4
LATER
Julia
(prologue)
I sat on the side of the road, on the hood of my car, and I smoked.
&nbs
p; Being somewhere I didn’t know and yet I felt okay. I felt completely comfortable and had no worries. Nobody was going to bust me for smoking a cigarette. Nobody was going to tell me right from wrong. Or what to do next. Or why I should do it or not.
Fuck. You. All.
All I had was a car full of shit.
Bags stuffed into the trunk. Bags in the backseat, from the floor all the way to where I almost couldn’t see out the back window.
But the best part of it?
I had no clue where I was going or why.
I was just…
My phone buzzed on the hood of the car.
Hey. I’m here. Where are you?
I was thirty minutes away and my heart was broken.
So screw it.
What did time actually matter?
I finished my cigarette and got into the car again.
I ignored the text message.
When my phone rang, I sighed.
“Here we go,” I whispered.
I looked at the screen and it was Whitney.
My focus went to the bakery.
“Whitney,” I said.
“Everything is fine with the bakery,” she said.
“Okay…”
“Don’t act like it’s not bothering you. That was your first thought.”
“Shut up.”
“How’s your road trip?”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Not sure if I should call you and tell you this… but I kind of know how this works by now. And if I don’t tell you…”
“Tell me what?”
“I heard Jett sold his house,” Whitney said.
“Wow.”
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure…”
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I appreciate you telling me. I heard a rumor he had it up for sale.”
“Yeah, we talked about it more than once,” Whitney said.
“Oh, that’s right. Sorry.”
There was silence.
Lots of silence.
“You okay?” Whitney asked.
“I’m great,” I said. “Good for him, right? I don’t think he really wanted that house anyway. But it’s not my problem. Then or now.”
“Okay. If you need anything…”
My phone buzzed again with another text message from Kinney.
HIDDEN CREEK NOW: a hidden creek high novel Page 2