The Jasmine Project

by Meredith Ireland

  “You should text your favorite suitor instead of sulking,” Emily says.

  “Whoever that happens to be.” June winks.

  As she leaves, I know two things: My friends are the absolute worst, and I don’t know where I’d be without them. And one day very soon I’m going to lose both of them, and then what will I have if it’s not Paul?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “I thought maybe I’d gone too far with the puke-face emoji,” Eugene says as I get out of my car. He smiles and that one dimple shows. As I step closer, I realize I missed his dimple. I missed him.

  I texted him postintervention and he immediately responded. We decided to meet on Tuesday after my day shift at Berry Plum.

  When I was done with work, he texted me an address. That was all I got—just an address. I asked where we were going, what we were doing, and what I should wear, and he didn’t reply. So I did what any normal girl with a crush would do: I threw on a sundress, got in my car, and drove more than half an hour to meet a boy I barely know.

  If this were a Dateline special, I’d already be dead.

  “You’re entitled to your wrong cereal opinion,” I say.

  He smiles and shakes his head. He’s leaning against his truck, and I have the now familiar urge to press myself against him and sniff his neck.

  Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with me either.

  Safe to say, I remain where I’m standing, playing with my car keys. “So what are we doing here?” I ask.

  We’re in the parking lot of Speedway, a huge whitewashed building off the Florida Turnpike.

  “Well, you won’t get on my bike, so I thought go-karting might be the next best thing,” he says.

  “I’ve never been,” I say.

  He smiles. “You’re in for a treat, but I’ll warn you, it’s addictive. Come on. Let’s get your headsock.”

  “My what?”

  He doesn’t answer, but I follow him. He holds open the door for me, and as soon as the tracks come into view, I know this is a terrible idea. I don’t like going fast. Speeding and taking chances are Emily’s thing, not mine. These Formula One–looking race-carts will not be my cup of tea. Speaking of…

  “Maybe we should get tea somewhere instead,” I say.

  “Nervous?” he asks.

  “Well…” I gesture to the general track area.

  We walk to a computer and he swipes a card before touching the screen.

  “There’s a little kids’ track too,” he says. “We may want to do that since I’m not sure if you’re tall enough for adult races, anyhow.”

  He puts his hand on top of my head, fake measuring.

  I skew my face. “Can your big head fit into one of the helmets?”

  “Ha!” Eugene laughs.

  He pulls up the waiver of liability form, and I take a look. It’s all about death and injury and maiming. “Maiming”—they actually use that word.

  He scrolls down to the signature portion and waits for me to sign with my finger. I glance at the form, at him, and back again. Like… nope. There’s no way.

  “There’s a really nice tea shop not far from here,” I say. I look up with what I hope are pleading eyes.

  “I swear it’s safe. You wear a helmet and you’re strapped in. It’s just fun.”

  We obviously have different definitions of fun.

  He purses his lips. “I tell you what, because I can’t resist good tea: Do two races with me and we’ll go afterward.”

  “Two races? One.”

  “Two. I already paid.”

  Dammit.

  I hesitate. There’s nothing in me that wants to hop aboard a maiming machine. But he smiles when he’s excited and his teal eyes go a little wide, and well, it’s only serious, permanent injury.

  “It’s once around the track?” I ask.

  He laughs. “That would take, like, a minute. It’s sixteen times around, fastest time wins. You try to beat your best time every lap.”

  “Sixteen times? Like, one, two, three, four… sixteen? No, thank you.” I shake my head vigorously.

  He smiles like I’m cute instead of stubborn and leans closer to me. “Bubble & Co. is nearby and has Thai milk tea.”

  My resolve waivers. When he’s this close, his scent floods my senses. “Yes” sits on the tip of my tongue.

  “And… bubble waffles,” he whispers in my ear.

  Every hair on my arms rises, reaching to be nearer to him.

  “What are bubble waffles?” I say, nearly breathless. We’re talking about a midafternoon dessert, but it doesn’t feel that way.

  “You’ll have to race me to see. Winner buys.” He stands straight again.

  I turn my head toward him. “Wait… what? It should be loser buys.”

  “If you think I’m not Asian enough to fight for the bill, you have another thing coming,” he says.

  I laugh.

  Paul never understood the war-over-the-check Asian cultural dynamic. Weirdly enough, my mom’s side, which is not Asian aside from Aunt Kim’s family, is just as bad as my dad’s. So all fifty people may go in for the bill. It’s a blood sport.

  A girl in a tight Speedway T-shirt comes up to us. She’s around our age. She winks at Eugene and types a bunch of things rapidly into the screen. The next thing I know, I have a cotton thing in my hand, a membership card, and jealousy flowing through me.

  But Eugene doesn’t seem to notice anyone but me as he leads me to the racks of helmets. He slips a cover over his head and looks like a knight’s squire.

  “What the hell is that?” I say.

  “It’s a headsock. You have one too.” He smiles.

  So that’s the cotton thing. I will look very, very fetching in this.

  He grabs a helmet and holds it in his hand.

  “Come on, Miss Safety. Put on the headsock and let’s find a helmet that fits you.”

  I raise an eyebrow, but he laughs.

  After I have both a headsock and helmet on, we wait to be loaded into the concussion-carts.

  I can’t believe my life has come to this.

  The best part is, I’m not just racing against Eugene. I have to do sixteen laps against a bunch of people I don’t even know.

  “I swear it’s not hard,” Eugene says, like he’s reading my mind. “That kid can’t be older than thirteen—if he can do it, I’m sure you can too.”

  He points to a father and son ahead of us, and the kid is definitely middle school age. He reminds me of Kyle McGovern’s popular crew. He’s spent the entire time mocking the guy giving the safety protocol, because of course he has to act above safety.

  “But I don’t know what I’m doing,” I say. It comes out as a semiwhine. There’s little sexier than whining, I’m sure.

  “You’ll figure it out,” he says.

  He rubs his hand over the center of my back, and suddenly it’s hard to remember what we’re doing here. It’s hard to focus on anything other than him touching me.

  Our time comes and because I’m a total sucker, I get in the go-kart. The steering isn’t exactly a wheel. It’s more like a video game controller, which Davey would be great at. I, on the other hand, will probably die, as I suck at Mario Kart.

  But I stay in my harness. There’s a countdown and the traffic light turns green. Eugene floors it and I’m waved forward. He rounds the bend and shakes his head as I putter along, trying to get a feel for the accelerator.

  I’m about three-quarters of the way around when Eugene pulls up beside me. He’s lapped me. He stares at me then zooms off again, and I know that look. That’s catch me if you can.

  I shake my head. What am I even doing here? Paul never would’ve made me do anything like this. He knows my limits, my comfort zone. Eugene pushes me right out of it.

  I’ve just started my second lap when the middle school kid passes me. He mocks me before speeding off.

  Yes, an acne-faced twelve-year-old just heckled me for driving carefully.

  And something about
that makes me snap. I’m just fed up—with being teased, with being a doormat, with constantly trying to settle for safe. I started being like this because of a kid like him in eighth grade and what has it gotten me other than a broken heart?

  I check my harness again and then I floor it. The speed makes my stomach knot, but I’m a great defensive driver. I know it. I can predict what people are going to do before it happens.

  That’s how I knew the middle schooler would try to sideswipe me for fun. That’s why I hit the brake, so when he swerved, he missed me and crashed into the tires. I pause for a millisecond to look at the wreckage, then accelerate past him. Now I want to pass Eugene, who is a “regular” according to the girl who was flirting with him right in front of me. Like I was invisible yet again.

  My small feet push against the rests, my body tensing and begging me to think about the safety of this plastic wagon hurtling at thirty-five miles an hour. The scenery blurs by me, but I focus only on him.

  He’s a better driver than the kid. As soon as I gain ground, he puts distance between us. But he has to go around a slower cart, and I gain on him. He also has to slow into the turn. I accelerate, mentally calculating the widest arc where I won’t have to decelerate but won’t hurl myself off this track. Unlike Paul, I never cheated on my math homework. I’ve got this.

  I pull up beside Eugene and he does a double take. I see it in my peripheral vision, and because he slowed down to look, I pass him.

  Eugene fist pumps the air, cheering for me. I let out a laugh.

  Fourteen laps later, the race ends and we return to the starting positions.

  Eugene unbuckles and then helps me out of my harness. He takes off his helmet and headsock. His hair is cutely messed up.

  “That was amazing!” he says. He points up to the board, where I’m listed as fifth. He came in second. “You sandbagged me!”

  I laugh. “I promise I didn’t. I’m not sure what came over me.”

  “You’re a competitor at heart. I knew it.”

  I try to stand, but I’m wobbly getting out of my cart. Really wobbly. It’s like my legs and the ground are Jell-O. My hands have a noticeable tremor.

  “Whoa, I got you,” he says. He puts an arm around my waist. I lean into him. It sounds romantic, but it’s not because I’m kind of a rag doll at the moment.

  “It’s a lot of adrenaline,” he says.

  He walks me over to the rack and I take my helmet and headsock off. After he puts our helmets away, he wraps his arms around me again. I’m not sure if I need it, but I want it. I lean into him and feel his heart beat through his T-shirt. And this is worth the merry-go-round of maiming carts.

  “You surprised me, Jasmine,” he says.

  I like the way my name sounds when he says it. Other people call me Jaz, but he uses my full name and it’s adult, even sexy, spilling from his lips.

  “I surprised myself.”

  He smiles. “We don’t have to race again. That one was pretty epic,” he says.

  It’s everything I wanted to hear.

  I look up at him. “Are you sure? I thought you paid for two.”

  “I did, but you can come back anytime. Come on. Let’s go. I think you earned your bubble waffle.”

  We leave Speedway and head over to Bubble & Co. A few minutes later I sit at a café table with my first-ever bubble waffle—which is a normal waffle but with air circles instead of pockets. Mine holds vanilla ice cream, chocolate chips, strawberries, and chocolate sauce. Eugene ordered chocolate ice cream, bananas, and a caramel drizzle.

  I tried to pay because, technically, I did beat him once. He gently pointed out that he bested me the other fifteen times. I don’t think those count, but he insisted, so here we are.

  I’m staring at my bubble waffle, trying to figure out if I’m supposed to eat it like a gyro or with utensils, when Eugene comes back with two spoons and our Thai milk teas.

  He sits across from me and we dig in at the same time.

  “So, was go-karting your worst nightmare or actually a good time?” he asks.

  I smile slowly. “Okay, I had fun.”

  On the ride over, I thought of ways I could’ve gone faster on the track. So he was right: it’s addictive. Once I broke through my initial fear, it was a rush.

  And Eugene helping me out of the cart was the real win.

  “I may need to go back,” I say.

  Eugene smiles widely. “Yeah?”

  “Maybe—if you join me,” I say.

  I try to cut the waffle with the spoon, but that’s not happening, so I pick it up and bite into it. It’s soft and perfect. Eugene stares at me with a look I can’t place. Maybe I was supposed to eat the waffle with a spoon. Am I a cavewoman who can’t eat properly?

  We lock into a conversational pause, and he doesn’t look anxious to break it. I, on the other hand, am unnerved.

  “So… why are you looking at me?” I ask.

  He laughs. “Where am I supposed to look?”

  Okay, good point. But being face-to-face with him is… intimate. Paul tended to scroll his phone or we’d be surrounded by his friends. We were rarely face-to-face like this, except for Burrito Friday.

  Eugene’s stopped eating, so I put my spoon down. He sits back in his chair. He’s handsome when he’s mulling things over, and his teal eyes take on a faraway look.

  Not that I’m staring.

  Note: I’m totally staring.

  “What?” I ask.

  He leans forward and I mirror him. He bites down on his lip and I want to bite down on his lips too and I need to stop being such a creeper.

  “I like you,” he says.

  I blink a few times. “You like me as… as a friend, right?” I say.

  “Um, no,” he says, an amused expression lighting his face. “I mean, yes, I do, but I also like you in the dating way.”

  It feels like someone set off a rocket in my chest. It’s everything—joy and ecstasy—to hear him say that. But then I come back to earth because who even talks like that? Paul would say I love you back, but I can’t remember him saying “I like you.” Ever. My head fills with all the reasons Eugene shouldn’t like me: I’m awkward. I’m short. I’m not that pretty, or talented, or special.

  And all right, maybe Emily had a point about about my self-esteem.

  “But I mean, this isn’t a date date. Is it?” I say.

  He laughs but his eyes focus on my mouth. “It isn’t? I guess I have to try harder.”

  I barely have time to register his words before his lips meet mine. My eyes shoot open then drift closed. He tastes like chocolate and tea and miracles. It’s a kiss so good, it takes my breath away. It’s the kind of kiss I’ve only ever read about, but never in my life have I experienced anything close to this. Not in all the make-outs after Burrito Friday.

  His tongue encircles mine, and I feel like I’m floating and maybe I am… until my arm feels damp. I break our kiss and look down. I knocked over my milk tea.

  Typical.

  Eugene and I scramble for napkins to sop it up. We catch each other’s eyes, smile, and clean up the spill. Once the napkins are thrown out, we go back to our bubble waffles.

  But even though I’m eating a delicious dessert, all I can think about is the taste of his kiss. And how I can’t wait to kiss him again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  DAVEY’S WORRIED FAMILY GROUP TEXT

  JUNE 4

  Cari

  So a few things are going on and almost none of them are good

  Aunt Tammy

  Is someone in jail?

  Aunt Minnie

  That cannot be your response every time

  Aunt Tammy

  I mean, it’s a possibility

  Uncle Vin

  Is it though, love?

  Cari

  No one’s in jail, but Jaz met Paul for lunch. He’s still trying to get her back

  Cousin Madison

  Why would she meet him?

  Aunt Kim
>
  Well, they do have a lot of history

  Cousin Joe

  Come on. She has three guys after her

  Cari

  There’s more

  Dad

  Well, it can’t be worse than Paul

  Cari

  Her friend Emily almost told her about the competition and doesn’t want to be involved anymore

  Cousin Wesley

  Surprise. It got worse. What? Why?

  Cari

  It took Emily a while to get onboard, but… she thinks we’re underestimating Jaz and that this will hurt her in the long run

  (Ten seconds of silence.)

  Cousin Joe

  Well, shit

  Cari

  And there’s one more thing

  Aunt Minnie

  I think I’d prefer someone being in jail at this point

  Cari

  Um, it’s a long story, but I made an anonymous podcast about all of this and… well, it’s gone viral

  Aunt Jay

  That is *not* good

  Aunt Tammy

  Oh, Cari

  Cousin Wylan

  How many episodes are there? What’s it called?

  Cousin Joe

  Are we all famous now?

  Cousin Teagan

  Focus on Jaz. The more hits, the more likely it is to reach her

  Cousin Wylan

  Gentle reminder that she has no tech skills

  Uncle Carlos

  But if it gets big enough, won’t she eventually hear about it?

  Mom

  I can’t believe you didn’t ask us first

  Cari

  I know, Ma. But I didn’t think it would go anywhere. But the downloads keep rising and someone asked me on Reddit if I was the host

  Mom

  You have to shut it down. Immediately

  Cari

  I didn’t expect it to take off

  Nonna

  You need to shut down the podcast

  Cari

  I will

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  THE LITTLE BACHELORETTE PODCAST EXCERPT