The Keys to Jericho (59 page)

“Hey, Kit Kat.”

Hearing Jared’s improved mood, I glance up from the nail cartridges and smile. “Hey.”

He leans his arm onto the counter, peering down at my task before looking to my face. “So.”

I purse my lips before repeating, “So…”

“I was thinking. Let’s grab some dinner tonight.”

My smile brightens. “Okay.”

He looks over his shoulder before lowering his voice, asking, “Why don’t you wear that school shirt you wore when you were sick?”

I’m not so quiet as I suddenly laugh. “
That
thing? It’s an old shirt I sleep in!”

“Yep. Oh, and your glasses and a skirt.”

My laughter drops like a brick. “Are you serious?”

When Jared responds with a smile, it’s a whole different level of wickedness compared to Dash. “Uh-huh.”

“Why?”

Without missing a beat, he replies, “Because.”

“I’ll need to go home early so I can throw the shirt in the washer.”

“I can take you home.” I bet he would.

“Well, my mom wants me to stop to look at more paint chips with her. She can just take me to class tonight, since we’ll be down that way.”

He’s quiet as he mulls that over, but says, “Okay. I guess that works. How about I pick you up around eight?”

“You’re not going to tell me why you want me wearing those?”

His wicked smile kicks up again. “Nope.”

“I’m worried.”

Jared laughs, and leaning closer to me, he whispers, “You should be, Kit Kat.”

My eyes almost leave my skull and I nervously laugh. “Um, okay.” Shaking my head, I say, “I hope I don’t get kicked out of the restaurant for looking worse than an old traffic cone.”

“Not even possible.” He pushes off the counter and says, “See you later.”

I nod, but am not sure what I just agreed to doing.

When I answer my door, Jared instantly looks at my shirt and an unabashed grin graces his face. That’s when I notice the maroon, school football shirt he’s wearing. Our school.

“Holy hell!” I say, laughing in disbelief. “Where’d you get that? It looks new!”

“It is. All my old shirts are gone, so I got a new one.”

I stare at it as it brings back so many memories. Good and bad. “But why?”

He shrugs. “I told you to wear yours, so I should have one, too.”

I laugh again, shocked that he’s wearing it. “Yours looks so much better than mine.”

“Yeah, but yours is an original.”

“Like you, huh?”

Jared laughs, licking his bottom lip. “I like your glasses.” I touch them and he asks, “Ready to go?”

I grab my purse, still grinning ear to ear. When I shut the door, he grabs my hand, leading me to a black car, and I stop, which makes him stop. “Whoa. This is your car?”

Jared proudly smiles. “Yep. Dodge Charger, in case you’re wondering.”

“It certainly isn’t the Nissan.”

“Yeah. No.”

He leads me to the passenger side, opening the door for me, and I smile, refraining from giving him a kiss, since my mother is probably watching from her window. “How sweet, Sonic. All of it. Thank you.”

“Uh-huh.” He shuts the door and I’m heavily surrounded by the scent of him. This is Jared’s car. His own space, and I love it. As I buckle my seatbelt, I notice the stick shift, making me giggle.

When he slides into the driver’s seat, he asks, “What’s so funny?”

I bite my smiling lip, shaking my head.

He rolls his eyes. “I find that hard to believe.”

Jared backs out of the driveway, and I nearly squeal out loud, watching him shifting. What the fuck is wrong with me?

As he drives, hitting traffic lights, I can’t help but watch him in fascination. I could never drive a manual transmission.

I want to reach over and hold his hand, but he’s busy and I don’t know when he’ll have to shift again. So I just stare at him, stepping on the clutch and shifting.

Stopping at a red light, he asks, “Why are you so quiet?”

I blink out of my ogling and smile at him. “Sorry.”

“What? Playing with
my
stick doesn’t turn you on enough?” The tone he uses has a mocking edge to it as he raises an eyebrow, and I try not to laugh at his jealousy for something that wasn’t true.

I absently toy with my seatbelt. “It does.”

When the light turns green, he looks ahead and stomps on the gas. He then glances my way as he shifts, and the dark look he gives me makes my body tingle, inside and out.

Before I realize it, I say, “I’m not hungry.”

Jared takes his eyes from the road, and I know that
he
knows exactly what I want to do instead. However, he raises that eyebrow again and says, “I am.” Holy hell. He just picked food over sex?

Sighing, I ask, “Where are we eating?”

“We can go downtown. You can pick anywhere. There’s Italian, Greek, steakhouses, seafood, Mexican—”

“How about a Wendy’s?”

He looks at me, almost appalled. “A what? You want to go
there
?”

“Yep. Let’s get it to go and eat in the parking lot.”

He laughs, but it’s more in doubt than hilarity. “What the hell? In my
car
?”

Even though I’m turned on by his driving, his facial expressions, and his cynicism, I playfully pout. “Oh. You’re one of
those
guys?”

“No. I just thought you’d want to go out somewhere.” Why do I feel like the poles have just shifted?

“We can eat somewhere nice in Philadelphia Saturday night. Tonight, let’s do burgers and fries.”

“Again? Last time we ate together, it was on the boardwalk and we didn’t even finish our food.”

“So? I’m a simple woman.”

“Right. With the striped hair, the makeup, the blue contacts. Simple.” He laughs and looks over at me. “You just think you look like, what was it, an ‘old traffic cone?’”

I laugh because he’s laughing. “Maybe, but we can sit in the car and talk. Is that so bad?”

“I guess not, but I’m suspicious.”

I lean closer, stretching my seatbelt, and whisper, “You should be, Jericho.”

I’m now the one with a wicked smile, and his throat dips and rises before he looks back to the road. How easy was that?

Jared pulls into Wendy’s near downtown, and when I see the toy for the kids’ meal, I tell him I want one.

Turning to me, he doubtfully laughs. “Are you fucking serious?”

I eagerly nod. “It’s Scooby Doo! Come on!”

Jared’s face crumples. “Jesus. It’s like having Calder with me.”

“Except, I don’t have a dick.”

His frown gives way to another laugh. “No, you do not, but neither does he.” I smack his thigh, but he grabs my hand before I pull it away, lacing our fingers together as we wait to order. The smile on my face could permanently etch itself there, but he doesn’t notice because he’s too busy perusing the brightly-lit menu.

After we exit the drive-thru, he finds a parking space in the back of the lot, underneath a tall light post, and overlooking another parking lot. Not incredibly romantic, but we’re alone, at least.

Jared turns off the car, but leaves the radio on, in which I immediately hit the scan button. He protests, “Hey! Who said you could do that?”

I giggle at his overly dramatic fury. “I did.” The end of a familiar 80’s song fills the car and I end the search.

“What the hell is this shit?” he asks, trying to be pissed off, but he’s secretly enjoying it.

I shrug as we both unbuckle our seatbelts. “I don’t know the name of it.” I hand him his bag of food, and then opening mine, I pull out a small Mystery Machine toy. “Look here, Jericho!” I giggle as I study it.

I know he’s rolling his eyes, so I tease, “I bet there’s a mystery we could solve.”

“Yeah. What fell on your head?” I stick out my bottom lip and he shakes his head. “Huh-uh. That shit doesn’t work on me.”

Giving up on that, but wanting to make him laugh, I pick up my bag and lightly shake it. “There’s a lot of greasy food here. I’ll try not to mess up your car.”

Derisive, he retorts, “Thanks.”

Putting the Mystery Machine back into the bag, I coolly ask, “What would you do if I did?”

Before taking a bite into his sandwich he says, “Another demerit for you.”

I’m quite enjoying my teasing. “What does it entail? Because I really liked my last demerit.”

He tries not to smile as he chews, but it seems to be a chore. When he swallows, he says, “I’m still deciding on that.”

Picking up his Coke, he takes a drink and I abruptly ask, “When did you lose your virginity?” Now,
that
really did come out of nowhere.

Jared chokes on his drink. Between wheezing, he asks, “What?” He coughs some more. “I was
not
expecting that.” Neither was I. It was just on the tip of my tongue, threatening to roll off at any time… Shit.

“Clearly.”

Setting down his drink, he glances at me as he reaches for a napkin for the wet spots on his jeans. “Why do you want to know that?”

“You know about mine.”

He frowns at his jeans. “Just who and the general time period. I don’t know details. I don’t
want
to know.”

I shift in my seat, angling toward him like he’s going to tell me a riveting story. “Tell me.
I
want to know.”

He sighs, picking up his cheeseburger, but not appearing hungry anymore. He’s not eager to divulge this information; therefore, I prepare to be blown off, as usual.

“I lost it to an older girl at school.”

“Oh.” I shove my food and toy back into the bag, unexpectedly losing my appetite.

“She, uh, was a friend of Hadley’s.”

I instantly look up in horror. “What?”

He drearily says, “Actually, one of her best friends. Blair.” He stares at his sandwich, while I stare at him in disbelief, because it’s not possible to have just heard that.

I stutter over the words I do have. “Does Hadley know this?”

“To an extent. I changed some details.”

“What a shitty best friend she had. How’d it happen?”

Still without looking at me, he continues, “She stayed over one night with Hadley. My dad used to drink beer, and I snuck some of it into my room. Blair knocked on my door to see what I was doing. Things…happened. Being drunk and that young, I had no idea what I was doing, but I went along with it.” My heart thuds.

“Wait a minute. How old were you?”

Not making eye contact with me, he quietly says, “I was 13.” My heart shatters for him.

“What the fuck? Jared! Why? I mean, I know boys that age are hormonal, but that’s too young!”

“Because… I needed to.” He looks at me, but then darts his gaze away. “Do I have to talk about this?”

“Yeah. You do, and not because I’m being nosey, but because I’m guessing that you…need to.”

“I don’t, but…” He sighs again and returns his sandwich to its box. “My mom left us when I was three. She never looked back. Never contacted us. Although, I’m told that Hadley and I look like her, I felt that I needed to do something to erase everything I could of her. So when the opportunity presented itself, I took it. By losing my virginity, I defiled my innocence—that hold—my mother had over me.”

I recoil in my seat, wrapping my arms over my stomach, as if that will keep me from losing it. “Oh, my God, Jared. Was it just the one time with that girl?”

“No. It went on for a couple months. I turned 14, and she graduated and left town. I came to find out, she was also fucking Hadley’s boyfriend Max. So, yeah. Shitty best friend, boyfriend,
and
brother.”

“You were a drunk kid!”

“I wasn’t drunk every time.”

“She was what, 17? What the hell did she see in a 13-year-old boy?”