Paper Airplanes (23 page)

“
Nothing to tell,” I said, wondering what he was doing right then.

Had he gone back to pick up Scott, or was he sitt
ing all alone in his pool house? I didn’t want to think about him being alone. I knew the fireworks had affected him too. Although he’d held me, his whole body had been shaking throughout the show. He’d had just as many flashbacks as I had.

Marley eyed me skeptically
, not satisfied with my response.

“
Believe it. We’re just friends. It’s all he wants to be,” I told her, hating the way it sounded coming out of my mouth.

“
I don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head as she blew on her hot chocolate. “The way you’ve been talking about him all summer, I thought for sure you’d end up with him. He’s crazy if he doesn’t like you.”

Apparent
ly he’s crazy.

I sighed. “
The truth is, he’s the most wonderful boy I’ve ever met in my life,” I said, sounding so incredibly cheesy when I heard the words out loud.

Marley laug
hed, and it was good to hear her do that. She’d been so solemn since she’d arrived.

“
He’s incredible, Mar,” I continued. “He’s so sweet and considerate. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone like him.”

“What do you mean?”

I knew she didn’t see Jared like I did. She didn’t know him. She saw a good-looking guy with a great smile for sure. She didn’t know the beautiful boy on the inside who’d overcome so much in life and who cared for everyone around him like he didn’t have a choice in the matter. She didn’t know him at all.

I shifted on the couch so my feet were tucked under me. “I mean, you know the guys I usually date. They’re all jocks who are so confident in their looks and their abilities that they have this arrogance about them
, which is usually really sexy, right?”

“Like W
ill,” she agreed.

I nodded. “Yeah, like Will, who was an amazing guy. Don’t get me wrong, but
Jared is special.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Special? Like short bus special?
I knew there was a legitimate reason if he wasn’t interested in you. It all makes sense now,” she said, grinning.

I reached out and shoved her. “Stop it. That’s mean. No,
he’s special, because he’s kind and big-hearted and so unassuming. He blushes when he’s embarrassed, and it’s so adorable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted him to kiss me in the past few weeks.”

“You haven’t kissed him? Are you still feeling guilty over the whole Will thing?”

The Will thing.
She made it sound like Will had broken up with me, but I knew it was her way of not saying what had really happened. The alternative was so much easier to swallow.

“Yes and no, but not enough to stop me from pursuing someth
ing with Jared. It’s him who hasn’t kissed me. Believe me, he’s had ample opportunities, but both times I’ve kissed him.”

“You did?”

I hadn’t told Marley about what had happened when Jared had come over to go swimming the week before. I wasn’t sure why since I told her everything, but for some reason, I felt the need to keep it to myself. What he’d said to me when he told me he liked me, our kiss, his scar, how he’d told me that he’d had been at Coleman during the shooting, and how I’d fallen asleep with my head on his lap, they felt like things that were just between Jared and me, and it was weird to talk about them with anyone else.

But that was before tonight. Now I guessed it didn’t really matter if Marley or anyone else knew.

I nodded. “Yeah, I kissed him. They were only brief kisses, but they were so good. Kissing him has only made me want to do it again and again.”

“
But he doesn’t want to kiss you?” she questioned, trying to understand the situation but in doing so she succeeded in twisting the knife in my heart a little further.

I sighed. “
Apparently not. I don’t know. I thought we were on the same page, that he liked me, but when I kissed him tonight he pulled away.”

I shook my head, the memory of how sweet the kiss had been and how horrible the rejection had felt
as they mingled together. It was why I’d taken off in the first place. I couldn’t stand there and look at him after he’d essentially pushed me away – again.

“You kissed him tonight?”
she clarified, her eyebrows rising.

“Yeah, I did – right before all hell broke loose and I lost my shit in the middle of
Wishburn. Those fireworks were no joke. But he broke off the kiss. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want me.”

Marley sat up straight. “Did your memories come back?” she asked eagerly, probably because if I was feeling crazy it would make her feel saner. Two people who were crazy because of the same incident didn’t seem as nuts as if it was just one person.

I shook my head. “Not completely. I remembered some of the sounds, but that was it, and let me tell you, they were horrifying.” I shivered. “I’m not sure I want to remember the rest.”

In the distance I could hear fireworks going off around town. It sounded like a war zone, and it did nothing for my nerves that had been rattled earlier. I turned on the stereo in an effort to drown out the sound,
grateful for comforting sounds of the Mayday Parade song that filled the room.

“You don’t
want to remember,” Marley said resolutely. “Trust me.

“I know.”

“So how do you know Jared doesn’t want you? Did he tell you that?” she asked then, circling our conversation back to where it had started so we didn’t have to talk about the shooting.

“
No, but I can just tell,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s fine. We’ll just be friends. I’ll give him some space, let the kiss settle, and we’ll be fine.”

I wasn’t sure if it would be that easy, but it wasn’t like I had any other options.

“It’s a good thing I’m here then. I can find lots of distractions for us to take your mind off of him.”

I smiled, truly grateful that she was there. “I know you can, and I’m counting on you to do just that. Jared’s kind of consumed my whole summer, but I think I need to put some distance between us if I want to get over him.”

She grinned. I was speaking her language now. “Or, you can try and make him jealous, make him want you, you know?”

I shook my head. “Jared’s not the jealous type. He doesn’t play games. And if he doesn’t
want to be with me, then I can’t do anything about it. I think I just need some space.”

“That I can do. Your party planner is at your service. We’ll be so busy shopping and getting
mani/pedis and meeting up with our old friends that you won’t have time to think about Jared.”

I nodded, although those were the things I’d avoided doing all summer. But maybe now that Marley was with me, I wouldn’t feel so weird about getting back to my normal life. Maybe I could find a way to move forward. Truthfully, I’d wanted to move forward with Jared, but that wasn’t going to happen.

“I have to work tomorrow, but I’m yours before and after,” I told her.

“
Deal,” she said, grinning at me. I could see plans already forming in her mind. I knew it was how she distracted herself and forced herself to feel more normal. Maybe it would work for me too. “And speaking of work, can you get me a job at Dawson’s?”

“You want to be a server?”

She shook her head. “God no. I want to be a hostess. Can you hook me up?”

“I don’t know. I can talk to Rick and see if he’s hiring.”

“Cool. Thanks. I’ll need something to do and a way to earn money, and that way we can work together.”

I smiled. “I love it.”

Chapter
Seventeen

Jared

“Hey man,” Scott said when I walked into the house the next morning.

“Hey,” I said, scrubbing my hand over my face.

I’d slept like shit with the intermittent booms of fireworks going off throughout the night coupled with the
way I’d left things with Cassie. I’d wanted to talk to her about what happened between us, but with her friend showing up, that hadn’t been possible. So I’d laid in bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling and thinking about her. I wished I would have known Scott was cool with us before she kissed me. I wouldn’t have pulled way.

“You look like hell,” Scott
said around a mouthful of Frosted Flakes.

I slumped down at the table and rested my he
ad on my hand. “I feel like crap.”

“What happened with Cassie? Is she okay?”

“I think so. I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head back and forth on my hand.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

I raised my head to look at him. He was chewing with a thoughtful expression on his face as he appraised me, waiting for my answer, so I filled him in on what had happened from the time we’d left Wishburn to when we got to Cassie’s house.

“Well that’s no big deal,” Scott said, shoveling another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “So her friend’s visiting. I bet she’s hot.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty cute, but what does that have to do with anything?”

He shrugged. “I do
n’t know. I just figured, maybe the four of us could hang out. You know, you could be alone with Cassie, tell her how you feel, and I can make sure her friend isn’t bored.”

Just the idea of being alone with Cassie had me shifting in my seat. I wanted that so bad. Even if I could just hold her in my arms and kiss her fo
r hours I’d be okay with that – anything to be close to her. I was finally ready to cross that line with her since it seemed like we didn’t have any barriers left.

But then again, maybe we did. Now that her best friend was in town, maybe she wouldn’t have time for Scott and me. Maybe we’d just been a distraction since she didn’t want to hang out with her high school friends. Maybe she wouldn’t want to hang out with us anymore. I knew that was a very real possibility. Sure, I’d still see her at school, and we worked together, but it wouldn’t be the same.

“I don’t know, man,” I told Scott. “Her friend didn’t look like she’d be into hanging out upstairs playing video games. I’m not sure that’s the sort of thing she and Cassie do together.”

I was probably stereotyping Marley, but from what Cassie had told me about her and the crazy shit they used to get into, I knew she wasn’t like us.

“You said the same thing about Cassie,” Scott said pointedly.

“Yeah, but Cassie’s different. I don’t know.”

“You’re so quick to judge sometimes, Jared. Maybe she’s cool. Maybe she’s fun, and she’ll think we’re cool guys.”

I laughed. That was the last thing she was going to think. I saw the way she’d looked at me. Cool was the last thing she thought I was.
The sneer on her face as she’d shaken my hand had told me everything. She wasn’t impressed.

“What? We’re cool.”

“No, you’re not. You’re douchebags,” Austin said as he came downstairs in just his pj pants.

Saylor was right behind him.

“Where’s your shirt?” I asked him.

Saylor promptly wrapped her arms around his waist from behind and hugged him. “I like him like this,” she said, resting
her cheek against his bare back.

Dammit.
This was not how I was planning to start my morning, but it was obvious just what kind of relationship Austin and Saylor were heading into, and I needed to make sure they didn’t do anything stupid. I couldn’t prevent them from having sex – they lived across the hall from each other after all – but I could make sure they were safe when they did it.

“Pool house. Now,” I said to my brother.

“Why?” he whined, having just turned on
Sports Center.
He’d pulled Saylor down onto his lap.

“Because I need to talk to you,” I said curtly.

“Fine,” Austin said, because he knew better than to argue with me. We’d made a pact when our parents left that we’d make life easy for each other, we’d stick together. Of course that was before Austin had turned seventeen and started sneaking around behind my back, but I knew he still respected me, so he wouldn’t argue. I’d stuck by him when neither of our parents had.

Austin
followed me wordlessly out to the pool house. When we got inside, I closed the door while he slumped down on the couch. I sat across from him on one of the chairs. He eyed me without saying anything, as if challenging me, but he didn’t scare me.

“Are you sleeping with her?” I asked, not beating around the bush. That was another thing we’d vowed never to do.

“No!” he said, as if appalled that I’d asked the question.

“
Austin,” I said, as if I didn’t believe him, and a part of me did, but he’d answered me so quickly that I wasn’t sure if his response was legit.

“I’m not – not yet at least. She’s a virgin, and she wants to wait.”

“Are you a virgin?” I asked him, because although we’d had the sex talk when he got into high school, I wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t had sex before.

His shoulders slumped, giving me my answer. “Yeah.”

“That’s not something to be ashamed of,” I told him. “You’re only seventeen.”

“I guess,” he said sulkily.

I knew what he was thinking. A lot of his friends had already lost their virginity, and he hated being the last one. I felt his pain.

“Do you
really love her?” I asked, taking a different tactic.

I wasn’t there to tell him not to have sex with Saylor. I knew that wouldn’t do any good. I wasn’t stupid. I might not have ever been as confident with women as my brother was in high school, but it didn’t mean I hadn’t wanted to have sex when I was his age. I just hadn’t been presented with the opportunity.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, and even though he was just a kid, I believed that he at least thought he was in love with her. When he was older I was sure he’d look back and think differently, but I wasn’t going to tell him that now.

“And you are planning to sleep with her?”

“Yes,” he said honestly. “She wants to wait, but we’ve talked about it. She wants me to be her first.”

“Is she on the pill?”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t want her parents to know, so she’s afraid to go to the doctor.”

“Okay,” I said, scrubbing my hand over my face.

Then I got up and walked into my bedroom. I retrieved the full box of condoms I’d bought on a whim the week before, simply because a part of me knew I’d eventually have sex with Cassie. Now I wasn’t so sure.

“Here,” I said, thrusting the box at my brother.
I could always buy more.

He looked down at it for a few seconds. “What’s this?”

I raised an eyebrow. “If you don’t even know what a condom is, then we have bigger problems.”

“I know what a condom is,” he snapped, grabbing the box from my hand. “Why are you giving t
hem to me?”

“Because I want you to be safe. If you and Say decide to have sex, you have to be prepared, because chances are you won’t want to tell her no. Hell, your dick won’t let you tell her no, and I don’t want you to be stupid enough to use the pull and pray method.”

“Okay,” he said, suddenly not meeting my gaze. We’d treaded into awkward territory, and we both knew it.

“
Austin, Chris and Diana have been kind enough to let us live with them for three years. They’ve paid for tons of things for us, they’ve fed us and clothed us and have been the parents we were never graced with growing up. They’re amazing people. Trust me, the last thing you want to do is repay them by knocking up their daughter. Hell, I’m not even sure Chris won’t kick us out if he finds out your dating Saylor.”

“
Diana knows,” he said, still looking down at the box of condoms in his hand.

“Good. She should know, but you also need to make sure that you
respect the fact that this is their house and Saylor is their daughter. I’m not kidding. We can’t afford to live on our own right now. I wish we could, but I can’t swing it. We need them.”

“I know,” he said softly, recognizing the gravity of the situation.

Our dad had initially sent the Larsons a stipend each month to cover any expenses for Austin and me, but then the money had stopped coming all of a sudden. I’d heard from Evan that our dad had gotten laid off from his job and he was still drinking heavily.

It wasn’t like they needed the money. The
Larsons were loaded, but it was a pride thing for me, and if my dad wasn’t going to pay for us, then I was going to pick up the slack. It was why I’d started working at Dawson’s. And even though she’d tried to refuse me, Diana let me give her a few hundred dollars each month because she knew it made me feel better to contribute. I was pretty sure she turned around and used it to buy things for Austin and me, since she was forever leaving ‘gifts’ for us – clothes, books she knew I’d like, a new iPod for Austin – but I figured that was her choice. I didn’t need to know what she did with the money I gave her. But I also didn’t make nearly enough to pay for an apartment and all that went with it.

“Listen,” I said, taking the seat across from my brother
again. “If you seriously love Saylor, and if you want to be her boyfriend, you need to be a man about it and tell Chris. You need to hear him out without arguing or getting defensive. He’s probably going to be upset, or at the very least, he’ll be protective. But he cares about you, and I know he likes you, so he’ll probably end up being okay with you dating Say. However, you will fuck things up if you don’t sit there and take whatever he throws at you, including threats about what he’ll do to you if you hurt her in any way.”

“I won’t
hurt her,” he grumbled.

“I know, but
Chris doesn’t know that. Respect how he feels. Then you’ll have to respect the fact that you might not be able to have a normal relationship with Saylor – at least while you’re living at home. He’s going to be watching you like a hawk to make sure your hands aren’t anywhere near her. And you’ll have to be okay with that. Trust me when I tell you that if he catches you having sex in his house, he’ll make you regret it. If you end up taking things to the next level, you can’t do it here.”

“Fine,” he said, his shoulders slumping.

I knew I’d completely killed his mood, but I wasn’t going to let him screw us out of the good thing we had going for us. And I wouldn’t let him do anything to piss off Chris and Diana. They were the only parents we had.

“Do you want to talk about anything?” I asked him.

He shook his head. It was times like this that I remembered how young he still was. Three years separated us, but I’d had to grow up too fast. I’d made sure Austin didn’t have to do that, and because of it, he still processed things like a seventeen year-old guy should. I knew that, so I let him sulk and get over what he was feeling.

“Do you want to stay here and think about things for a few minutes?”

He nodded, his hands still wrapped around the box of condoms.

“Okay. I’m going to grab breakfast. Do you want me to send Say out to talk to you?”

He shrugged, but I knew he wanted to talk to her.

“I’ll send her out, but just know that this place is off-limits too. No having sex
in my bed, you got that?” I asked, aiming for playful.

He looked up at me. “You had sex with Brooke out here.”

“How did you know that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Because I’m not a dumbass.”

“Yeah, well, I’m an adult. I can do what I want. And it’s my bed,” I said, never having sounded less like an adult in my life.

“Whatever,” he said, obviously not in the mood to be playful.

I figured I’d leave him alone with his thoughts. I needed to eat and get to the gym anyway if I wanted to work out before my shift started, and the last thing I felt like doing was talking about my sex life with my ex-girlfriend with my younger brother.

* * *

“Are you dating Cassie?” Brooke asked me when I went to put in an order at the computer.

She was serving that day instead of bartending, which she’d done more of as of late. It had been nice not to have to interact with her very often, especially since she’d been trying to talk to me since I’d walked in the door five hours earlier.
I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass she could be.

“No,” I said, not giving her the satisfaction of an actual conversation.

“She likes you, you know.”

I looked up at her. “
Oh, yeah? How do you know that?” I asked, feigning disbelief.