Authors: Julie Cross
I stood and walked closer to them. “Yeah.”
Toby leaned back against the wall, his eyes fixed on Holly. “Jackson, what does it mean if a girl turns you down five times in two weeks?”
I dug deep to find my buried voice. I didn’t need them thinking I was incapable of competent speech. “Maybe she doesn’t eat meat.”
Holly cracked a smile.
“She eats fake meat,” Jana said, walking up behind me. “Do you go to Washington?”
“No.”
The three of them waited expectantly. I went through a quick mental checklist of who I was. This time.
“I don’t go to school.”
“You’re homeschooled?” Toby asked.
“No, I dropped out … you know … got my GED.”
“So, you’re in college?” Jana asked.
“You’re such a snob. You think everybody has to go to college,” Toby said to Jana.
“I might go. I haven’t decided,” I said.
“Then you’re eighteen?” Jana asked.
“Give him a few more days before you pounce on him,” Toby said.
“I’m seventeen,” I told her.
“So is Holly,” Jana said. “She just had her birthday a few days ago.”
Holly rolled her eyes and pulled Jana by the arm. “Let’s go clear off the preschool area. Give the new guy some breathing room.”
Mike walked out of his office and I jumped back into my wall-scrubbing. “Jackson, I’ll show you how to lock up. I have to take off in a couple minutes.”
“I can do it, Mike,” Holly shouted from across the gym. “I’ll show Jackson … so he can lock up tomorrow.”
Mike shrugged. “Cool.”
The second he walked out the door, Holly, Toby, and Jana headed upstairs to the fitness equipment. I watched Holly get on one of the treadmills before I turned back to my work.
The evening chore list was huge and it took me a while to finish, probably due to my lack of experience in cleaning much of anything. I was packing up my stuff when Holly and Jana came over and grabbed water bottles from their bags. Holly pulled her black polo shirt over her head, revealing a bright pink sports bra. Her ponytail whipped right in front of my face and I caught the scent of watermelon shampoo.
I knew it well.
Toby and Holly went back upstairs for an all-out treadmill battle.
“They do this all the time,” Jana said, sitting down next to me. “I hate running.”
“I’m out of breath just watching,” I said.
One of them would up the speed and the other would do the same. This went on for at least twenty minutes until Toby jumped off.
“I finally won!” Holly said when they were back downstairs.
“Whatever,” Toby muttered. “I’m taking a shower.”
“Someone’s a sore loser,” Jana sang.
“Fine, Holly. I admit defeat.” Toby took a graceful bow in front of the locker room door.
Holly laughed and sat down beside her bag, right next to me.
“Is he gone?” she whispered.
My tongue felt like it was covered in sawdust. All I could do was nod. I silently cursed myself for being such an idiot.
Say something!
She collapsed onto her back on the mat. “There’s no way I’ll be able to move in the morning. And if you tell him that…”
I leaned over her and mustered up a little confidence. “What? Will you get me fired? Take all the screws out of the ladder?”
Laughter shook her whole body. “No, I won’t do anything. It was a pathetic attempt to intimidate you.”
I reached my hand out to help her up and she hesitated before taking it. I let go the second she was standing. Touching her was too much of a reminder. “I better go. You work tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’m here pretty much every day.”
After Holly showed me how to lock the front doors, I walked several blocks to the train station, hating the distance between us more with every step.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2007
I walked in the front door of my apartment and immediately recognized my dad’s voice, but he wasn’t speaking English. It was something like Russian, maybe?
I leaned against the wall on the other side of the kitchen and listened as he rattled on for another minute or two before hanging up the phone.
“Jackson, is that you?”
So much for eavesdropping. “Yeah, Dad?”
He met me in the hallway. “Where have you been?”
“Uh … yeah, I was just out with … you know, people.”
He frowned. “It’s late. It’d be nice if you would call.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled before switching subjects. “Were you just speaking Russian?”
He turned his back to me. “Turkish, actually. We’re working on a new drug trial in Turkey. I like to be able to communicate without a translator as much as possible.”
Totally secret CIA stuff.
Suddenly I was reminded of another suspicious incident. One from the future. At the time, I honestly thought Dad was just being a snob about me dating an average girl. It was mid-July 2009. Holly and I had just come back from dinner and were walking into my building. She jumped on my back and we both saluted Henry at the door. He laughed and shook his head. “Have a good night, Mr. Meyer. Miss Flynn.”
“Why don’t they ever use first names?” Holly asked.
“They refuse. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
She was already kissing the back of my neck before the door to my apartment was open. Both of us had been out of town for a long weekend. Five days apart and we were ready to jump each other … well … or at least start making out. Either way, sitting through dinner first had been a terrible idea.
“Do you want a drink?” I asked her, opening the fridge at the bar in the living room.
“I like that really fruity wine. Do you have any of that?”
I snatched the bottle from the fridge and decided against glasses. Since we had actually planned our dinner date, all I wanted right now was to dive back into the impulsive whirlwind we had been in the previous week. “Let’s get totally trashed tonight.”
“What are we celebrating?” Holly asked as we walked into my room and sat on the end of the bed.
Nothing … yet,
I thought as I pulled the cork out and handed her the bottle. “Us, of course. The two coolest people in the world.”
She took a swig of the fruity wine, as she called it. “I can’t believe you’re not using glasses. How much is a bottle of this anyway?”
I examined the label. “I don’t know … maybe a hundred dollars.”
Holly choked on her last gulp. “A hundred dollars! You can get wasted with a ten-dollar bottle of whiskey.”
I laughed. “It was your choice. Besides,
you
could get drunk from two or three beers.”
She rolled her eyes, then smiled again. “Tell me about Europe. Adam couldn’t stop yapping about seeing the Alps and people in suspenders and lederhosen.”
“You first, what did you do in Indiana?” I asked, stalling so I could mentally edit my story a little.
“Jackson, it’s the Midwest. Completely boring. I baked a lot of cookies with my grandmother and babysat my cousins.”
I gave her the rundown of my trip to Germany and Italy with Adam—minus the time-travel stuff. By then we had finished the bottle of wine and Holly was flipping through my music.
She finally made a selection and then crawled onto the bed next to me. “So, I know we’re being all cool and casual, but is it cool to say I missed you? Just a little, when I got really bored. Like when watching the corn grow was the only entertainment.”
“It’s allowed.”
And I just decided we’re getting completely naked tonight. There. I made a plan.
Now all I had to do was convince Holly.
The two of us had had minimal time alone and so far I hadn’t pushed the issue of removing clothing. Not that I would ever push her. It was more like persuasion or a really good sales pitch. She rolled on her back and I lifted her shirt up, revealing her stomach. Then I leaned over and touched my lips just above her belly button.
I watched her face carefully as I unbuttoned her jeans, and when I pulled them off from the bottom, yanking her all the way down to the end of the bed, she laughed really hard, releasing some of the tension hanging in the air.
“Nice, Jackson.”
I lay down next to her again and kissed her cheek. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Yep.” She touched her lips to my neck and slid a hand under my shirt.
A while later, most of our clothes were on the floor and Holly was lying on top of me, my hands all over her, when we heard someone coughing loudly. We both lifted our heads and saw my dad standing in the doorway, his arms crossed.
“Oh, my God!” Holly said, and then she dove under the covers, pulling the comforter over her head.
“Dad, what are you doing home? I thought you were in South Africa.”
“South America. Put some clothes on, Jackson. I need to speak with you.
Privately.
” He walked out and slammed the door shut behind him.
I pulled the blanket from Holly’s head. Her hands covered her face, but I could see the rosy red color between her fingers.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” she moaned.
I laughed and pulled her up toward the pillows. “It’s okay. He could care less what we’re doing in here, trust me.”
“Jackson, your dad just saw me in my underwear. I’m allowed to be a little humiliated.” She flipped onto her stomach and covered her head again. “Just go!”
I grinned at her even though she wasn’t looking. “I’m going to need a minute before I go parading around.”
Her body shook with laughter. “Next time, you’re locking the door even if you think your father’s in Antarctica.”
“You are so damn cute.” I kissed her cheek. “Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
“Really? Because I had big plans for showing my panties to the elevator dude,” she mumbled into the pillow.
“He’d love that.” I pulled on my jeans and walked into the kitchen, where Dad waited, leaning against the counter.
“What’s going on in there?” he asked.
I opened the fridge and pulled out the milk and drank straight from the carton—just to piss him off. “Well, remember that talk we had when I was twelve?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Jackson. Who
is
this girl? And why do you keep seeing her?”
“Her name is Holly, remember? You met her. And I keep seeing her because I like her. What’s the problem, Dad?”
He moved closer and leaned forward. “You don’t know anything about her. She’s had access to confidential information for weeks now. You fall asleep with some stranger in our home. Who knows what she’s doing?”
I pointed a finger at him and nodded. “I think you’re on to something. Industrial spy girl from Jersey. I’ve noticed her diary getting a lot thicker lately. Wait here while I go search her for evidence.”
“Real mature, Jackson.”
I let out a breath. “You know what, Dad? I like Holly. We’re both adults and what we do is our business.”
I walked away without looking back. I was acting all cool and shit, but inside I was shaking like a ten-year-old.
I slid into bed next to Holly and tried to figure out what the hell was going on with my dad. He had never, ever shown any interest in or concern for the girls I dated or brought home.
“Is everything okay?” Holly asked.
“Yeah, fine. You’re not a spy, are you?”
She laughed. “No, but I’ve always wanted to be one, since I was a little girl.”
* * *
Thinking about me and Holly, all casual and having fun in 2009, was so hard. My main goal right now, while stuck in 2007, was to make sure there was never a repeat occurrence of October 30, 2009. If there was, it would be my fault, because I knew what was coming.
I tried to sort out the details of that night, in 2009, when my father had acted a little bit too much like a secret agent, as I fell asleep in my new present, in 2007. Come to think of it, he’d been gone for nearly three weeks and yet he seemed to know Holly had hung around our place on several occasions. He knew a lot more than a normal parent would know.
It all came back to the real question I was too afraid to ask … was it possible those men who had shot Holly could work for my father or be on his side at all? At this point, I couldn’t rule it out. I couldn’t rule
anything
out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2007
Okay, so I totally have a job now. In Jersey. As a janitor. If my father knew, he’d kick my ass. Or just yell at me a lot for dropping out of an expensive private school to change lightbulbs. One week has passed in my new job and so far I haven’t killed myself. However, my coworkers have been nice enough to conceal some of my major screwups that happened late at night, after Mike left. Jana, Toby, or Holly never said this out loud, but I think we have unofficially agreed to a vow of silence. They always stay late and play around on the equipment despite Mike’s constant grumbling about injury prevention and liability.
“Something nasty happened in the bathroom. Can you check it out?” Mike asked as he breezed past me on his way back to the group he was coaching.
I groaned to myself and grabbed a pair of rubber gloves. It couldn’t be much different than cleaning a dorm room toilet. I had been assigned bathroom cleaning duties every other week during my one year of college and sharing a bathroom with two other guys.
When I went into the men’s room and got a quick look at the clogged, overflowing toilet, I walked right back out and over to Mike on the floor.
“I think you might need a plumber.”
He laughed. “Wouldn’t that be you?”
“Yeah … sure. Just joking…” In other words, I was screwed.
Holly was watching me from over her shoulder. She was sitting on the floor with sheets of paper and a stapler spread out in front of her.
“You need some help?”
“No, that’s okay. I got it.”
She got up and followed me anyway. “I don’t mind.”
“Okay, but you’re going to need this.” I handed her a surgeon’s mask from the cleaning cart before opening the door.
We tied them on and stood in front of the clogged toilet.
“That’s just nasty,” she muttered.
“Men are pigs, Holly.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never lived with one.”