“Y-you do things to me, and I couldn’t fight it anymore,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck again.
I was shocked and flattered by this. Flattered because it was obvious now that he found me attractive. Shocked because I would never have been able to even remotely guess he struggled with anything where I was concerned.
He stopped, studied his surroundings, then picked back up again. I followed.
“What are you fighting, Ezra?” I asked him.
“Instinct.”
“Oh yeah? What does your instinct say?”
“Run,” he said, deflating me. Then my blood boiled.
“What bullshit!” I told him. “People follow their gut when their mind stops getting in their way.” I pointed to the waterfall several hundred yards behind us. “What you did back there, that was your true instinct. And now your mind is meddling where it doesn’t belong.”
I pushed forward ahead of him, not really caring if I was going the correct direction. Eventually I’d have to hit road and I’d follow it down to Ezra’s car, or a bus, whichever came first. I was determined. Determined, that is, until Ezra yanked me back toward the direction he was following.
“I’m not letting you walk off, Jupiter. Stick by my side. No matter how pissed you are at me.”
For several minutes, I stayed quiet, but then the silence began to irk me so, to keep myself from talking to Ezra, I began to hum, to keep me busy but also, hopefully, to irritate him. Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” spilled between my lips, softly at first, but picked up as the song progressed and I gained a little confidence. Soon I found myself engrossed in my little song, examining the world around me, and seriously determined to wipe my slate clean. Any lingering doubt I had in letting my crush go was settling within the walls of the waterfall alcove.
When I got to Chicago, I was going to leave a note for Ezra thanking him for the lift and would purchase a ticket to Seattle with the little money I had saved.
Chapter Seventeen
Sure enough, Ezra led us to his car. Well, what was left of it, anyway.
“Where’s Kai?” I asked, panicking.
Ezra and I ran around and found Kai unconscious near the trunk.
“Kai!” I yelped, falling near his side. Kai stirred, his eyes droopy. “What happened?” I asked him, cradling his head in my lap.
“What took you two so long?”
“Ruby tore down all the ribbons,” I explained.
Kai took a deep, frustrated breath. “She clubbed me over the head with a rock.”
I turned his head around to check out the damage. It wasn’t too bad, really, just a little blood. The bump was significant but manageable.
“Can you sit up?” I asked him.
He leaned forward and Ezra helped him sit all the way up then leaned him against the tire. “I can’t believe she did that,” Kai said, bringing his hand to his temple.
“Who? Ruby? The complete stranger who couldn’t keep track of her clothing?” I sarcastically bit out.
“Not now,” Ezra said, examining his cousin’s head. He stood and pulled his cell phone out of the trunk. There was a huge dent there where Ruby had tried to get in.
I didn’t think she realized with those old cars you couldn’t get into the trunk without the key. I stood and peered inside.
I gasped.
“What?” Kai asked.
“She ripped the inside to shreds, man.”
I could hear Ezra on the phone with the police. I bent down to Kai’s level, literally and figuratively.
“Why did you leave in the first place?” I asked him.
“We saw you both slip behind the waterfall and Ruby figured you two could use some privacy, or so she said. Stupidly I thought she wanted to be alone with me too.”
“Kai,” I breathed out, exasperated. I fell beside him, leaning against the car door.
“How could she do this? She was so hot.”
I snorted. “Seriously, Kai.”
“Did those few hours we had mean nothing to her?”
I laughed. “Get it together, Kai. Look at your cousin’s car.”
He groaned. “I know. He’s going to kill me.”
“If it’s any consolation, he’s already in a foul mood. I can’t imagine it could get any worse.”
“Whoa, really? Why?”
I examined his bump again. The bleeding had almost stopped. “We, uh,” I cleared my throat, “we had a sort of strange, intimate moment back there, but then he, like, bailed. I ran after him like a little lost puppy and demanded he fess up, buttercup.”
“And?”
“He did that sullen Cullen crap.”
“Ah,” Kai offered. Helpful. “Can I just—”
“No.”
He eked out some sort of sound suggesting I should listen.
I sighed. “Fine, spit it.”
“Can you just trust me on something?”
“Who? You? The great judger of character? Kai the common sense guru?” He laughed then moaned in pain, grasping at his head. “Go on then.”
“I admit I don’t have the best judgement of very many things, but Ezra I know. Give him time, Jupiter.”
My head dropped low as I considered what Kai was telling me.
“Do you know something I don’t?” I asked.
“I know enough,” he answered, “but that’s all you’ll get out of me.”
I needed to talk to Frankie. Then I remembered I’d stuck my phone underneath the seat and Ruby saw. “Shit!” I stood up, opened the door, and threw my hand beneath the seat in the back. “Damn, she got my phone.” I gasped. “That beyotch! And my hat! And my bag of goodies!” I stuck my head out to look at Kai. “She is a scandalous hooker! Kale chips, my ass!”
“I’m really sorry about that,” Kai apologized.
I climbed out, closed the door, and sat next to him. “It’s okay, at least my bags and laptop are okay. Thank God for old cars, huh?”
He nodded. We sat in silence for a moment.
“Dude, this is the trippiest trip I’ve ever been on in my entire life,” I told him.
“Bet you wish I’d kept Mary Jane around, huh?”
“I’ve never even touched the stuff.”
“What in the world! How is that possible? Aren’t your parents from, like, another dimension?”
“Shut your mouth, high Kai. We’re organic, but not that organic.”
He started to laugh but sobered when he saw Ezra hang up.
“Cops’ll be here soon,” Ezra said.
Kai panicked. “I thought you were just filing a report or something! What if they finger me for the fire?”
I leaned forward. “Yeah, ya stool pigeon. We don’t want no gumshoe ’round here.” I threw a thumb Kai’s direction. “Bugsy here can’t do another turn in the big house. A couple of goons promised revenge. It’ll be the meat wagon for him for sure!”
Ezra’s stony expression told me he wasn’t impressed with my 1920s gangster vernacular, which was a shame, because I was a dame packing some serious idiomatic heat.
He held out his hand for me to help me up. I refused it, which would have sent a powerful message if I hadn’t forgotten that my hands were scraped up and consequently my standing from a sitting position had all the finesse of a turtle on its shell. Eventually he gave up waiting for me and slid his hands underneath my arms, lifting me like a toddler. Dang it.
Ezra grabbed his first-aid kit and a new T-shirt from the trunk and carefully unwrapped my hands. More delicately than I thought possible for a boy with hands Ezra’s size, he placed squares of antibiotic-treated bandages across my palms then wrapped them both in gauze.
“Keep your mouth shut about the fire, Kai, and you’ll be just fine,” Ezra threw over his shoulder.
When the cops got there, Kai acted so sketchy the police demanded to search the trunk. Thank God they didn’t find anything. Ezra tried to explain away Kai’s insanity by blaming the situation and eventually they took us seriousl
y. They took statements from all of us and promised to send copies of the reports to Kai’s parents’ house for insurance purposes.
“I’ll get you a new phone as soon as we get to Chicago,” Ezra promised once the police left.
I sighed. “It’s all right, dude.”
“No,” Ezra said more forcefully than I thought necessary. “It’s my fault that pyscho took it. I should have listened to you.”
“I hate it when you’re reasonable.”
He bit back his smile. “I’ll even replace your hat.”
“Don’t push it,” I told him, pointing a finger in his face.
This time he smiled. “Get in the car, Jupiter.”
“What did you say at the waterfall?”
“Get in the car, Jupiter.”
“What’s in the bag?”
“Get in the car, Jupiter!”
Chapter Eighteen
The seats were all torn up, so we had to lay blankets across them, which, of course, I didn’t mind at all being the blanket hooker that I am and all. We hit the road, downgrading Kai into the backseat once more. He didn’t complain.
“Can you text Frankie for me?” I asked Ezra.
“Sure. What do you want to say?”
“Don’t tell her the phone was stolen. Just say that I lost it. She’ll believe it. Tell her I’ll call her later.”
Ezra texted Frankie at the stoplight right before the entrance to the highway. The phone buzzed before we’d even had time to access the on-ramp. Ezra brought the phone up to his face.
“It’s her.”
“What did she say?”
In a deadpan tone, “I don’t believe you. You’ve kidnapped her. Don’t even bother. She’s not worth anything. Drop her off at the nearest corner. Unless you own a circus. In which case she might prove useful. She can grow a beard with the best of them. Stick her on the trapeze.”
“Shut up,” Kai said, laughing. “She did not say that.”
“Here,” Ezra said, “read it.”
I sighed. “That’s exactly what Frankie wrote,” I confirmed without even looking at it.
“Only four hours until home.” Kai sighed. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be in Chicago as badly as I do right now.”
“Miss your mommy?” Ezra teased.
Without skipping a beat, Kai said, “As a matter fact, I do.” He looked at me and smiled. “I’m a mama’s boy.”
“No,” I jabbed.
“Make fun all you want, but you’re going to love her as much as I do.” He stared at me hard, making me a little nervous. “But she’s mine, you hear me? Mine!”
“Fine, Kai’s mama is his alone,” I stated for his benefit.
“Do you miss your mom?” I asked Ezra.
He shifted in his seat. So that’s a yes then. He tossed his long side-swept hair to the other side of his head. Huh. He looks a little like Jesse Rutherford without the tats. Never noticed that before. The shaved part of his hair needs a little trim, though, I thought. Then my thoughts went somewhere else entirely. No! Bad, Jupiter.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I really love my mom.”
My hands flew up trying to find something to steady myself on because I was dangerously teetering on the precipice of Swoonville. Ezra looked at me like I was nuts, which brought me back down to earth. Ope! Moment gone.
The rest of the drive to Chicago was fairly uneventful. Kai was in pain from the Ruby fiasco (whom I was right about!), and Ezra was still mopey about the fatal waterfall mistake with me, which was a real boost to my ego, let me tell ya.
I’d thought more on what Kai had told me and wondered if I really should give Ezra some time. I knew his history. I knew he’d had some life-altering crap barrel down at him at the speed of light flushed from an airplane called My Girlfriend is a Cheating Wench. He would never play lacrosse at the college level because of it. He could barely drive a few hours without his legs aching. Lean and muscular though they were, it made no difference. From what I understood, it was a bone-deep thing. Many things went bone deep for Ezra. I was beyond confused.
Thanks to our little waterfall adventure, we were late to arrive to Chicago, and almost as soon as we passed the city line, Kai’s phone rang. He glanced down then brought it to his ear.
“Hello, Mama.”
I heard a woman’s muffled voice on the other line. I turned to look at Kai’s happy face.
“Around half an hour.” More indistinct chatter. “Okay, love you too,” he said, then hung up.
“What’s your mom’s name?” I asked him.
“Rosie.” He smiled.
“Aww, that’s such a great name.”
“It is. It suits her.”
I turned to Ezra, realizing something. “What’s your mom’s name?”
A crooked smile spread across his lips and it made me smile. “Holly.”
I turned to look out the window, satisfied with our exchange. “Do you love your mom?” Ezra asked me.
“Like the dickens,” I told him, and he smiled at me again.
Half an hour later we pulled onto Lake Shore Drive and my stomach dropped. Though the water was so different from what I was used to in the Keys, it didn’t matter. I was so happy to be near it. It was a bolster to my heart. I stuck my face out the window to feel the humid air against my skin.
I breathed in deeply. “I missed the water.”
Kai laughed. “Not exactly Florida, though.”
I grinned. “It doesn’t matter. I never realized how much I needed to be near it.”
“Makes you a little homesick, no?” Ezra asked.
“Maybe a very little.”
We pulled into some sort of underground garage and parked next to a line of incredible classic cars.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“This is my uncle’s garage. He restores cars here,” Ezra explained.
“You live in this high-rise?” I asked Kai, remembering the sheer number of floors that kept climbing up and and up into the sky of the building.
“Not this one,” Kai absently remarked.
“But you live in a high-rise?”
“I live in a vintage building a little south of here.”
“I would have gone there but thought it’d be better to take the car here first since Kai’s dad has a mechanic who could fix the damage Ruby did in time for us to head out next Monday.”
We all piled out of the little GTO that could. I stood and stretched my whole body. I felt pretty relaxed up until I noticed Ezra eyeing my body like I was something to eat. My face got hot, so I bent back into the car to hide my face and to get my boots since I’d taken them off for the ride. I rested a hand on the top of the car as I slipped on each boot, trying so hard not to look Ezra’s direction because I felt his stare and it was heavy enough to speed up my breathing.
I heard Kai and Ezra mumbling something to each other then heard the trunk pop open. I stood when I felt like my face was no longer the color of the forbidden apple. I dared to glance a peek at Ezra. And that would be one forbidden apple, let me tell ya.
“We’re walking,” Ezra told me. “Are you cool with that?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” I took in our collective luggage. Ezra’s and Kai’s bags had rollers on them. Mine didn’t because it was made in 1973 or something stupid like that. “Uh, how far is it?” I asked.
“About three blocks from here,” Kai answered, lifting up the handle of his case.
I studied my heavy case, resolved to my fate. “Okay, that shouldn’t be too bad,” I told them with an overenthusiastic smile, which Ezra for some reason found hilarious.
He walked to the far wall on the opposite side of the cars and pulled two bungee cords off a latticed metal grate bolted to the wall. He walked back to us and laid his own bag flat, rested my case on top of his, and fastened it tightly.
“Swell, baby,” I said without thinking. My face burned that bright red again and I had no way to hide it. “Not that you’re my baby o
r anything,” I tried to cover. His face looked so hurt it made my chest ache. “Uh, well, not that you wouldn’t be a great baby, you know, to someone. Someone else that’s not me. I mean, I know you’re not my baby… Back. Ribs. I want my baby back, baby back, baby back.” Kai looked at me as if I’d sprouted horns. I started to hyperventilate and covered my face with my hands. “Oh God, make it stop.”
“Stop saying the word baby, you freak,” Kai said, wrapping his arm around my neck and playfully driving his knuckle into the top of my head. I shook him off.
Ezra pushed the rolling case out with his foot and started to roll it up the steep incline to reach street level. I started to go after him to help, but Kai reined me back, wrapping his arm around my neck, his hand around my mouth. “Let me spare you from yourself. Just chill.”
I nodded my head, and he released his hand. “You’re hot, but you’re a dork. Follow me.”
Kai walked up the hill and caught up with Ezra. I followed at least ten feet behind, mortified, and not feeling comfortable at all knowing I was about to meet Ezra’s aunt. My feet felt heavy as I followed both boys. It was too awkward for me to walk with them. It was also too awkward for me to walk behind them. The ultimate catch-22. Screw it, I thought. Just own it. Look at the buildings or something. I’d started to but was struck at the resemblance between Ezra and Kai, besides their hair color, and watched them instead. They had the same gait, same build, same height, even the same laugh. The only difference was the slightest hitch in Ezra’s walk when he’d hit pavement with his left foot. It wouldn’t be noticeable to anyone else, really, but it was to me. I suddenly hated Jessica West for giving that to him, despite how indirect the blame was. I felt a little more in tune to Ezra’s struggles watching him walk with his cousin. I felt something unfamiliar deep in my gut. I didn’t know if I liked it.
He slowed and came to a complete stop, his gaze never leaving the sidewalk below him, though. Kai kept walking. I sort of galloped a bit like some My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic doll, then remembered myself. When I stepped next to him, he continued. We didn’t talk, but we didn’t need to.
Get in the Car, Jupiter Page 14