Chapter 11
“You did what?” Jacque abruptly interrupted her mother just as Lilly Pierce was telling her and Sally that she had invited Fane and the Henry’s over for pizza.
“Hi Sally.” Jacque’s mother said, ignoring Jacque’s outburst, “You’re staying for dinner right?”
“If that’s okay with you.” Sally answered sweetly.
“The more the merrier. We’re going to play games too, it’ll be fun! Jen is coming too isn’t she?” Lilly asked.
“Yes mother, now could you please tell me why you are so interested in Fane?” Jacque asked her mom.
“Could you tell me what you have against him that you have such an aversion to getting to know him?” her mom responded.
Jacque just didn’t get it. Maybe her mom did think that because she and Trent had split up pushing another guy on her would help her move on. Yes it had been kind of hard on Jacque; they did date for almost 2 years. But hadn’t her mom noticed that she pretty much had moved on, it’d been like 2 months since she’d even seen Trent and she had barely thought about him. In fact in the past 24 hours she hadn’t thought about him at all. She decided to let it slide for now; she knew a losing battle when she saw one.
Jacque looked at Sally and motioned for her to go upstairs, “We’ll be upstairs mom, Jen probably won’t be here until later. She said she would have to eat with her parents, but hopefully she will make if for the game portion of the evening,” Jacque said in mock excitement.
“Keep up the attitude Jacquelyn and see where it gets you,” Lilly said sternly.
Lilly very rarely got cross with Jacque so that’s when Jacque knew it was best to double-time it up the stairs before her big mouth got her working in the bookstore every Friday and Saturday night for her entire Senior year.
Once in Jacque’s room Sally sat cross legged in the floor looking through Jacque’s CD collection. She picked out Jacque’s favorite Evanescence CD and put it in Jacque’s stereo. Once the music was playing just loud enough to keep prying ears from listening, she looked at Jacque and said, “So, let’s hear it, what happened when Jen and I left today?”
Jacque thought about the moment when she had realized that the voice she was hearing was Fane. When he had spoken to her in Romanian she had no more doubt that it was indeed his beautiful voice in her mind.
“Well after you guys left I laid down on my bed, to just chill, ya know catch my bearings. As I was laying there the voice in my head came back, he asked me if I was scared and told me that hadn’t been his intention,” Jacque explained.
“He?” Sally asked. “So it is Fane? The voice is Fane?”
Jacque nodded and added, “I finally confirmed it when he spoke to me in Romanian, and honestly Sal, if you’re going to hear voices why on earth would you hear one that speaks in Romanian?”
“Well duh, because you secretly have a fantasy about running away with a gorgeous Romanian noble to his beautiful ice castle?” Sally said a hint of wistfulness in her voice.
“Oh, of course, I completely overlooked that very plausible answer,” Jacque said rolling her eyes.
“So how long did you guys ‘talk’?” Sally asked and when she said “talk” she put her hands up making the sign for quotations.
“After he spoke to me in Romanian I asked if it was Fane, ya know just for clarification purposes.”
“Definitely good to be clear on these matters,” Sally interrupted.
“Well, when he confirmed it I just kind of shut down. I didn’t want to ‘talk’ to him; I needed to do something, so I got up and picked up my room and dusted the living room,” Jacque explained.
“So all your mom needs to do to get you to clean is find some Romanian foreign exchange student to go all mystic mind-reading on your butt, huh, who knew?” Sally said in amusement.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, then I decided to get some sun. So I lay out in the backyard. I don’t know how long I was out there when I heard his voice again. This time he was, not mad, but sort of frustrated or something.” Jacque said remembering how his voice had sounded in her mind.
“He had the nerve to point out how skimpy my bikini was by asking me if I knew they only sold me one quarter of my bathing suit!” Jacque told Sally in disbelief.
“Oh, Jen is going to love this, a Romanian hottie with a sense of humor. Brilliant and hot to boot!” Sally said grinning to herself. The she paused a minute in thought.
“Wait, so he was looking out his window at you?” she asked.
“Yep, so you know what I did?” Jacque asked.
“Please tell me you didn’t flip him off or moon him, or some other terribly twisted suggestion that Jen would have offered,” Sally said worriedly.
“No, although, those all sound like great ideas, but I simply stood up gave him a good ’ole, southern curtsey and marched myself in the house. After I graciously explained that I would have preferred the bathing suit not cover so much,” Jacque said laughing.
Sally rolled her eyes at her, “Remind me never to be in a lions den now that I know you like to taunt them.”
“Oh come now my dear Watson, are you to tell me you are afraid of lions and tiger and bears,” Jacque started.
“Oh my,” Sally finished putting her hands on either side of her face, pretending to look fretful.
Both girls laughed at their silly antics that seemed to keep them sane. Jacque pulled her hair up into a pony tail, not thinking about the shirt she was wearing and as she turned to grab a hair band she heard Sally gasp. She looked at her friend and realized her eyes were on her neck and back. Jacque had forgotten that she had purposefully worn a shirt with a low back so she could show Jen and Sally the markings.
“Oh, did I forget to mention those?” she said nonchalantly.
“What the hell Jac! When did you get that?” Sally asked in disbelief.
“Well, lets see, if I remember correctly, after ya’ll left I downed a bottle of Crown, ran to the nearest tattoo parlor, had some dude with piercings in every visible body part, and quite possibly not so visible, named Snake give me this awesome ink. I just totally forgot to mention it,” Jacque said sarcastically, and then added suddenly sounding tired “I don’t know where it came from. When I came up to take a shower after lying out in the hot sun it was just there. I kind of had a mini melt down. I screamed at Fane, but he never answered me, which tells me he is the guilty party involved.”
“So now he’s not only doing his mind voodoo, but body voodoo too,” Sally said, and then giggled as she realized how it sounded.
“You know what Jen would say,” Jacque started just as her bedroom door flew open and Jen walked in,
“Depends on what is called for my dear, but do tell, what exactly smart-ass comment am I suppose to be making?” Jen said dramatically.
“Fane has done body voodoo on Jacque,” Sally said in a tattle tale voice.
“Ooooh, was it good,” Jen asked huskily.
“Good freaking grief, she doesn’t mean, like physical voodoo, pervert.” Jacque turned around to show her the markings on her back.
“I guess he decided to forgo the whole ‘hey will you wear my class ring’ and straight into ‘let’s get body art together’,” Jen said studying the markings.
“What, you think maybe he has some…” Jacque trailed off. Then she remembered when they were at the Henry’s she had noticed a tattoo that ran up the side of Fane’s neck, she had totally forgotten it because it just sort of went with the whole biker thing he had going on.
“Stink ya’ll, he did have a tattoo on his neck. I saw it when we were at the Henry’s, but that doesn’t mean it matches this one,” Jacque told them looking for reassurance.
“No, if most definitely does not mean they match.” Sally agreed albeit not very convincingly.
Just then Jacque turned her head and cocked it to the side at Jen, “What are you doing here, I thought you said 9:00 at the earliest?” Jacque asked her.
“Well I just happen t
o mention that you were a little depressed about the whole Trent thing and really needed some girl support and yada, yada and my mom totally swallowed it whole!” Jen confessed.
“That’s just great Jen, now your mom thinks I’m all torn up like a kicked pup about Trent and I’m not! I’m totally over him….aren’t I?” Jacque asked.
She started thinking back to the two years she and Trent had dated, even though they had only been sophomores and juniors in high school, their relationship had been pretty intense. Then out of nowhere Trent came over and told her he felt like they needed a “break.” Jacque politely told him not to treat her like an idiot and just call it what it was, it was over. It literally was out of nowhere. Jacque had asked him several times what had happened because the day before they had been hanging out on the couch and he had actually told her he thought he might be in love with her. When he left her house he told her he would call her that night and he never did. The next time she heard from him, he came over to call it off. Jacque hadn’t seen or heard from him since.
Thinking about him was really making her start to miss him. He really was a great guy and they had had a lot of fun together. He was tall, muscular from lifting weights, had messy wavy hair that he wore just long enough to be wild, and he had unusual grey eyes. He liked to goof off, but he was always a gentleman and could be pretty intense sometimes. They dated for quite awhile before their relationship got physical and when she told him that sex wasn’t on the agenda he was completely okay with it.
“I don’t like where your thoughts are at the moment Luna,” Jacque suddenly heard.
She had forgotten that Fane told her when her emotions were strong he felt them even if she wasn’t broadcasting them to him.
“Well then I guess you should knock before entering,” Jacque told him harshly.
“Who is this Trent? What does he mean to you? When and why was he kissing you?” Fane asked in quick succession.
“Ok you listen up, and you listen good you little Romanian, voodoo-casting, mind reading, nosy,” Jacque stumbled for a minute looking for a word and when she didn’t find one she lamely finished with “person. I am NOT your loona or whatever you call me. You have no right knowing my business and I don’t owe you an explanation. So, so just…grrrrr!” She was so frustrated because she wanted to tell him to take a hike but then a huge part of her rebelled against that because she wanted him with her. She was absolutely nuts.
Acting like he hadn’t heard a word she had said Fane asked again, “So, who did you say Trent was?”
Jacque huffed in exasperation.
“Are you talking to the Romanian hottie?” Jen asked.
Jacque nodded. “He heard me thinking about Trent and wants to know who he is.”
“Why does he care…oooh,” Sally said with a thoughtful look, “he’s got the hots for you.”
“Aww man, why does Red always get the hotties?” Jen whined.
“Hold on girls, give me a sec,” Jacque said.
“Oh, by all means, don’t mind us, the non-voodoo freaks; we’ll just hang out while ya’ll make out mentally,” Jen smarted off, and Sally burst out laughing. “That’s a good one Jen,” Sally told her as they bumped fists.
Jacque just rolled her eyes at them.
Turning her attention back to Fane she had a feeling he wasn’t going to drop it, so she just decided to tell him.
“Trent is a guy I dated for the past two years. We broke up 2 months ago.”
Fane was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “I’m sorry for your pain because of that, but I will not deny my pleasure in knowing I will not have to convince him it was in his best interest to take his intentions elsewhere.”
Jacque was a little taken aback by his honest comment.
“And why exactly would you do that?”
“Because I intend to court you myself, and that would be most difficult if you had affections for another, don’t you think?” Fane asked her.
Jacque looked at the clock on the wall and realized it was 5:15. The Henrys and Fane were supposed to be coming over in 15 minutes.
“So I guess you are going to be over in a few minutes,” she said more as a statement than a question.
“Yes, I am looking forward to seeing you again. Is that okay with you Jacquelyn?” Fane asked her.
Jacque thought about it for a minute and couldn’t deny the butterflies in her stomach at the anticipation of getting to see him again. She really needed to get some medication, she decided.
She heard Fane laugh and assumed he must be listening since she kept forgetting to try and put the wall up he had explained to her earlier.
“I actually have some questions I need to ask you, so yeah, it’s okay,” Jacque told him honestly.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes then, Meu inimă.” he told her.