“Are you eighteen yet?”
I shook my head. “Seventeen.”
Janet muttered something else under her breath. “Then it will be four to five days a week.” She didn’t ask if that would work. I don’t think she cared, as long as I kept filling out the paperwork.
“When do you want me to start?” I moved on to the next section.
“Tomorrow.”
She said it so quickly, I glanced up to see if she was being serious. She was. “Will all the paperwork be done and cleared by then?”
“For my situation here at present, it sure will be.” Janet winced when a family the size of a small village jumped into the back of the concession stand line. “I’ve got to get back there, but leave everything right here when you’re done, and I’ll see you tomorrow at ten.”
“Really? That’s it?” I’d never have guessed getting a first job would be so easy.
“I usually like all of our new employees to sit down and meet with the head lifeguard, too, but he’s on a break and I’ve got a crowd of people about to tip that stand if I don’t get out there. You can meet him tomorrow.” Janet started jogging away when she stopped herself. “Oh, the pay starts at twelve-fifty, but”—she said the but so fast it was like she was waiting for me to complain or back out—“there are opportunities for a raise after putting in a couple of weeks, and then again a month after that. So at the end of the summer, you could be earning almost as much as the starting lifeguards.”
I smiled like this was fantastic news. The truth was I’d never been a big spender. Plus, I wanted the job to give me something to do and to get me out of the house.
“Sounds great. Thanks again!” I lifted my pen, feeling lame for thanking my boss for a job the way a person thanked a barista for their coffee, then finished the application as quickly as I could.
After double-checking to make sure I’d filled in all the boxes and signed all the signature lines, I dropped the papers onto the desk and headed back to Lemon. I’d probably wind up having to carry the thing back home, instead of the other way around.
Right before I got to the bike, I noticed someone behind the steering wheel of the old truck I was passing. He was about my age and had a dark pair of sunglasses hiding his eyes. At first I thought he was staring at me as I struggled to yank Lemon away from the fence—both the pedal and handlebar kept getting hung up in the chain-link.
It wasn’t until I’d ripped the bike free and fallen back a few steps, giving me a better view through the rolled-down window, that I realized he wasn’t staring—he was sleeping. Like the kind of sleep that people call comatose.
It was baking hot out here on the sidewalk in the sun; I couldn’t imagine how much hotter it was inside the cab of a truck. I could see beads of sweat dotting his face and neck, and even though his mouth was parted from what I guessed was deep breathing, I couldn’t see his chest moving.
Moving closer, the bike protesting in squeaks and creaks, I leaned in the window. I was really infringing on this guy’s personal space, but I did not want to be one of those people who ignored someone who might need help.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Which made it easier to confirm that he was still breathing since, yeah…chest.
I reassured myself as I crept another step closer, my eyes locked on a part of his body that had at least a little to do with respiration. I was just a Good Samaritan making sure this stranger I was not at all remotely attracted to wasn’t experiencing heatstroke or a heart attack, I told myself as I took in his skin, sheeny with sweat and golden from the sun.
Speaking of hearts, mine was misbehaving.
Back up, Jade. Slow your roll. It’s just a boy. One of those creatures you’ve run across only a few million times in your life. It’s not like he’s the last boy on the planet or even the cutest one you’ve ever come across.
Maybe.
Back. Up. Jade.
Right as I was leaning out of his truck, something inside blasted with noise. I jumped so hard, I smacked the back of my head against the door frame.
“Ouch,” I yelped, rubbing at the spot I’d whacked.
The guy inside went from the sleeping dead to alert and awake like a switch had been flipped.
The boy grabbed something on the seat and rammed it to his ear. “Hello?” he half-hollered, his sunglasses falling off from all the jolting around. “Hello?” he repeated, louder and slightly more frantic this time.
Okay, so he was awake, but not so alert.
“It’s your alarm,” I said, still massaging my head. That was going to leave a mark.
His phone was still propped to his ear and blaring, and his forehead creased as he turned his head. From the look on his face, he clearly wasn’t expecting to find someone hovering right outside his parked truck. Where he’d just been sleeping. Shirtless. And perfect.
Don’t make me threaten to lobotomize whatever boy-crazed part of your brain seemed to sprout from nowhere, Jade Abbott.
“Huh?” he said, blinking awake, still staring at me like he couldn’t figure out what the hell I was doing here.
“Your phone. It’s an alarm going off, not a call.” I pointed at the screen. “I have the same chime on mine.”
His head tipped. “Huh?”
Okay, so he was nice to look at, but there wasn’t much else going on past that ever so attractive exterior.
“Just…here.” Reaching inside the cab, I swiped my finger across the screen to turn the alarm off. The phone stopped screaming at us. I could feel the boy looking at me, like he was waiting for me to say something. “So, uh, have a nice day,” I said, starting to walk away, Lemon screeching beside me.
“Have a nice day?” he repeated after me, sounding almost as dumbfounded as I felt.
I smiled weakly and kept going. Maybe he’d let it go.
That’s when I heard the sound of a door swinging open. “Hey, hold up,” he called. “You can’t just gawk and bounce like that.”
I skidded to a stop. “I wasn’t gawking at you. I was checking on you.”
He huffed. “Yeah, you were checking, all right. Checking me out.”
A rush of anger flashed through me. I most certainly had been checking on him. At least at first.
Spinning around, I had to yank Lemon along with me. “I think you need to cross-check your definition of checking out. Because there’s a big difference between making sure a person’s still breathing and that person making you pant.”
A slow smile spread as he closed the truck door behind him. He was taller than he’d appeared stuffed inside the cab, and the rest of him followed the chest theme—built, golden, and nice to look at. Too bad that was the only nice part about him.
“Is that why you’re breathing so hard right now?” he said. “Because I make you pant?”
Flames licked up my throat until I felt like I could breathe fire if I opened my mouth. That was partly what I was hoping would come out. Instead, I said, “Yes, of course you’re the reason why I’m breathing so hard right now. Not because it’s ungodly hot and I thought I’d come across a dead person only to have that not-dead person wake up and start accusing me of being some Peeping Tom.”
“I’m not accusing you of being a Peeping Tom. I don’t even know your name. Once you give it to me, then I can accuse you properly of being a Peeping Whoever.”
My eyes narrowed as I contemplated hopping on Lemon and taking off, only to remember this hunk of junk could barely take me a total of two feet before busting its chain or insert-some-other-bike-part-here. I didn’t need to give this guy any other reason to make fun of me.
“So, what’s that name?” He curled his hand around the wall of his truck bed, bracing himself.
“Up. Yours.”
He nodded, fighting a smile. “Unusual name. Exotic-sounding. French?”
“I??
?ve got a few French words I can give you.” Tête-merde, va te faire enculer, and imbecile all popped to mind.
“Always been a fan of the French. Gave the world some of my favorite things.” His expression filled in the rest.
I should have had a comeback for that. I should have had a dozen. I was fast on my feet and not easily rattled. Perks of being raised with a wiseass of a mother. But nothing came. Nada. I wasn’t sure if it was the heat or feeling out of my element or this boy, but I felt off my game. Way off. The only way to get the last word in was to turn my back and walk away. So Lemon and I turned to make our noisy exit.
“Hey, Up Yours?” Hot Obnoxious Boy called after me as I rolled Lemon away. “Next time you can just leave the tip on my dash. The first gawk’s complimentary, but the ones after are going to cost you.”
Powering on, I glared at the sidewalk. The first “gawk” had cost me plenty already, my dignity topping that list. I wasn’t giving him one more thing.
By dinnertime, I’d already forgotten all about what happened earlier that day. I couldn’t even remember what he looked like or much about him at all.
At least that was the story I tried to sell myself. Too bad myself wasn’t in the market for falsehoods and fabrications.
“I can’t believe the pool’s having you start tomorrow. Don’t you want to have some time to unwind and relax?” Aunt Julie was drying the pots I was washing. She’d offered to do it, but I’d said I wanted to. It felt good scrubbing the heck out of some hard surface. Not that I had any pent-up frustration or anything from what may or may not have happened earlier.
“They need someone right away. I think the manager would have started me today if she could have,” I answered, handing Aunt Julie the last dish in the sink.
“Well, they’re lucky to have you. But if it becomes too much, don’t be afraid to say something. Working five days a week is a lot for someone your age.”
If Aunt Julie thought twentyish hours a week was a lot to work for someone my age, she should have seen what I juggled on the road with Mom. Between schoolwork, homework, setup, teardown, and all-around everyday life management, I probably worked two full-time jobs. But I liked it. I liked staying busy and doing stuff. I wasn’t one of those people content to lounge on a couch and watch reruns of whatever reality television show was the latest and greatest train wreck of the hour.
“I’m sorry about the bike. If I’d known it was in such a state of disrepair, I would have insisted on driving you.” Aunt Julie looked over at me with an anxious gleam in her eyes, like she was under the impression I was made of porcelain and capable of shattering from the slightest of mishaps.
“Oh, it wasn’t too bad. I think I got it all fixed up,” I downplayed as I pulled the drain plug. I wouldn’t have mentioned anything about the bike, but Aunt Julie had been stationed at the big window when I came back, practically cradling the beast in my arms after the front tire had gone flat. You know, after the chain had fallen off three more times on the return trip, and the right pedal decided to fly off.
“I never knew you were so handy fixing things up,” said Aunt Julie.
“I learned it on tour. There was always something breaking down or needing to be fixed. Whether it was a bus, a speaker, or a bike. Mom told me I should open a fix-it shop. She said we could call it Jade’s Junkyard.” Saying her name made my stomach twist with a pinch of homesickness. At least I think that’s what it was. I’d never felt it before, because I’d never been away from my mom for longer than a few hours, when she was performing onstage.
“Jade’s Junkyard? I don’t know if that would be such a promising—”
“Mom wasn’t serious about that, Aunt Julie. It was just something she’d say.”
“Oh. Good.” When she sighed with relief, it was like I’d told her I turned down pledging to the biker gang I was invited into.
After spending the past couple of hours hanging with Aunt Julie—the twins had a sleepover at Chinese camp—I was starting to wonder if she and my mom had any similarities at all. I had yet to find one. I mean, other than both being female and born with the same last name.
“I stopped by one of the specialty bakeries in town and picked up a couple of vegan brownies. In the mood for some dessert?” Aunt Julie shot me a smile as she covered Uncle Paul’s dinner plate with plastic wrap. It was almost eight o’clock and he still wasn’t back from work. It was no wonder Aunt Julie had plopped into a lawn chair beside me in the garage earlier when I was tinkering on the bike.
“Vegan brownies? Really?” I dried my hands, eyeing the tray of chocolate goodness. “You didn’t have to do that, Aunt Julie. I told you I’m good figuring out my own meals. I don’t want you to have to kill yourself trying to feed me.”
She tsked as she carefully placed Uncle Paul’s dinner in the fridge. “Oh, please. It would do us all good to eat more veggies and fruit anyway. I’ve already picked up a few recipe books and stocked the cupboards.”
I leaned into the counter as I watched my aunt motion into the packed fridge before moving on to open the pantry. She really had stocked up on food that I could eat.
“Wow. That’s amazing. I think I’ll be set for the rest of the summer.” I smiled, especially when I saw the amount of tofu she’d loaded up on. The whole top shelf in the fridge was stuffed with it.
She inspected her haul with me, then gave a nod of approval before closing everything up again. “I’m sorry Paul couldn’t be here for your first night. I know he wanted to be.”
“Don’t even worry about it. He’s a busy guy.” I shrugged it off, knowing Uncle Paul was some kind of big-shot businessman who did something in finance. From the sound of it, his latest promotion kept him away more nights than he was home. “What’s the girls’ schedule going to look like for the summer?” Even though they were about as different from me as Aunt Julie was from Mom, they were the only cousins I had. Or at least the only ones I knew of. I wanted to get to know them and spend at least some time with them.
She freed a couple of small china plates from the cupboard. “I enrolled them in several camps for the summer. Chinese this week, then there’s violin camp, a STEM-based camp, and ballet camp at the end of summer.”
“Wow. That’s a lot of camp.”
Aunt Julie nodded at me, her face glowing. “So you and I will have lots of time to spend together.”
I painted on a smile and thanked her as she slid a perfectly centered brownie across the counter at me, a gleaming fork propped across the plate.
This was the fanciest brownie I’d ever eaten. Usually Mom and I just dug them out of the pan with our fingers.
“Do you mind if I take my dessert to go?” I asked. “I still need to finish unpacking, and then I’m going to crash. I’m pooped.” From the flight to the malfunctioning bike to the disaster with Hot and Obnoxious, it had been a full day.
“Do you want some help?” Aunt Julie was already grabbing her brownie plate and coming around the counter.
“No.” It came out a little too loud, so I reined it in. “No, thank you. You’ve already done so much. I think I’m going to try calling Mom to see if I can catch her during a layover or something.” Picking up my plate, I left the kitchen. “Thanks for everything, Aunt Julie. You’ve been awesome.”
She gave me a funny look, like she wasn’t familiar with the phrase. Then her eyes softened and her smile moved into place. “You’re pretty awesome yourself, kid,” she said, picking up her fork as she leaned into the counter. It was the most relaxed I’d ever seen my aunt. “If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
Waving goodnight, I ambled up the stairs and down the hall, trying to remember which door belonged to my bedroom for the summer. Their house wasn’t overly huge to the point of being offensive, but it was pretty big. Especially to someone who’d spent her life dwelling in tour buses and motel rooms.
I picked the right door, the third one on the left, and braced myself for the explosion of pink that hit me as soon as I stepped inside. Pink. It was the dirtiest four-letter word I knew. Next to mall.
Reminding myself of how well-intentioned Aunt Julie had been to put this together for me, I closed the door behind me and headed for my bags. We’d put away most everything, but I wanted to take time to find exactly the right spot for my journals and books. Because Mom and I were always moving, I’d never been able to have the serious collection of books I’d always wanted, so I made good use of those mini libraries that had been cropping up all over the country. However, I had personal copies of a handful of my all-time Austen and Brontë favorites. I didn’t care about how much extra weight they added to my ever-moving suitcase—it was poundage well worth it. I’d rather live with one pair of Toms and get rid of the rest of my shoes than have to part with my books.
The journals didn’t take up as much room. They weren’t really journals, but pretty books filled with blank pages I used to scribble down whatever story or thought was working around in my head. I’d written short stories, poems, even a novella or two. I scratched down words that caught my attention, random phrases and meaningful quotes. I loved to write.
At first, Mom thought that love of writing had come from her love of writing music, but I told a different kind of story with my words. Her stories she shared with millions; my stories I kept to myself.
Spinning a few circles around the bedroom, I decided the window seat facing the front yard was the ideal spot to store my precious belongings. A heap of blankets and pillows had been spread around on it—forget about the color—and it seemed like the perfect place to spend a few minutes or a few hours lost in someone else’s words or my own.
After tucking my journals and books on the window ledge and rearranging them a few times until they were in precisely the right order, I shimmied out of my cutoffs and flopped down.
I could have fallen asleep right then if I’d closed my eyes, but I hadn’t gone to bed without reading or writing in forever. It was my bedtime ritual.