Текст книги "All It Takes"
Автор книги: Sadie Munroe
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 16 страниц)
Chapter 17
Ash
Holy shit.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
It’s a car.
And it’s not just any car. It’s a fucking 1967 Pontiac Le Mans Coupe.
I’m in love.
I don’t care what anyone says. The 1967 Pontiac Le Mans Coupe was the shit, and yeah, this one is barely a skeleton of one, but it has the potential to be amazing if someone put a little effort into her. God, I can just picture it. Clean up that engine, new tires, fresh coat of paint. Cherry red. Or maybe blue. Damn, this thing would be amazing.
I can’t believe it’s just been sitting here, all this time.
I’m still holding the edge of the tarp in my hand when Star sidles up behind me. Her brow’s all furrowed, little wrinkles between her eyes.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
Matter?
Oh. Right.
So maybe my mental outburst wasn’t as strictly mental as I thought.
“Sorry. Nothing’s wrong. Did you know about this?” I can’t imagine she did, or she would have put the garage at the top of her little list. Even without fixing it up, this thing’s probably worth some money.
“What is it?” she asks, and takes a step closer. I pull the tarp up higher so that she can see. But when she looks, there’s no recognition playing across her face, so I’m gonna have to fill in the blanks.
“This,” I say, tossing the tarp back to reveal as much of the car as possible, “is a 1967 Pontiac Le Mans Coupe.” My voice gets louder and louder with every word, but I can’t seem to stop it. I’m just so fucking excited. This is an amazing find. I can’t believe Star’s mom had this in here.
“You’re really excited about this,” she says, a little smile spreading across her face.
“This is a fucking cherry ride, babe,” I tell her. “This is amazing.”
“Do you think it’s worth anything?” She looks back down at it, but she’s pressing her tight little body up against me, and I grin and wrap my arm around her and tug her closer. She’s all warm, and my fingertips sneak under the hem of her tank top, stroking the smooth skin of her belly. She twists a little under my hold, squirming against me, and I grin. My girl is ticklish. Good to know.
“It’s gotta be,” I tell her. “I don’t know how much or anything, but I think I can find out.” I might be able to track down Mr. Bremner, my old auto-shop teacher. Everything I knew about cars, I learned from that man. He might even be able to help Star find a buyer. The thought of letting such a sweet ride go kind of sucks, but what can I do? It’s not like I have any money, and I know Star’s bank account is pretty much burned out. So even though I have visions in my mind of fixing it up myself, when it comes down to it, it’s her car. And it’s her choice. So I tell her I’ll try to give Mr. Bremner a call. She smiles at me in return, and presses her lips against mine before turning and heading back into the house.
I watch her go, her hips swaying to and fro as she moves, and all I can think about it how hot she’d look sitting in the Le Mans after it’s all fixed up.
Not gonna happen, I remind myself, and turn back to the open garage. You’ve got less than a month left with that girl, then it’s gonna be a wave in the rearview mirror and a thanks for the memories. She isn’t gonna stick around and wait for your dumb ass to be able to treat her right. You’re lucky you got as far with her as you did.
Grimacing, I kick out in frustration and send a grocery bag full of grocery bags out of the way.
I only have a few weeks left with Star max. I have to make them count.
Now I just have to figure out how the fuck to do that.
Star
I had to go all the way across Avenue to find the tea shop Maisie had told me about when we’d dropped off the diapers, the one with the good Wi-Fi. But it’s so worth it. I have my laptop out, full bars on my Wi-Fi, and a steaming hot cup of caramel-flavored tea by my side, so decadent and rich that I think Maisie was right about the whole tea-is-just-as-good-as-coffee thing after all. I take a sip and the warmth flows through me, and I sink down into my seat happily, letting my eyes flutter shut.
I feel like I’m back at college.
I’ve missed this feeling so much.
But at the same time, it just reminds me how soon the summer is ending. How close I am to losing Ash. God, I think, reaching up and running my hands through my hair, what the hell am I going to do?
I miss college like crazy, and I have to go back. But leaving Ash behind . . . Just the thought of it makes my chest ache.
I need to figure out what I am going to do. What even are my options? Do I just go back to school? Do I try to transfer somewhere closer? Do I ask Ash what he wants? I want to stay, but I don’t even know if that’s possible. I can’t take time off without losing my scholarship. And without the scholarship, I can’t finish college.
Does he even want to continue with . . . things? I don’t even know what to call it. We’ve barely talked about it. Our relationship has changed surprisingly little. It’s the same as before, that easy friendship, that underlying attraction. Except now, there’s sex. And not only that. There’s . . . affection. There’s a warmth to how Ash treats me, and it builds something up inside me. I’m not sure I can let that go.
I only have a month of the summer left. I need to figure things out. And honestly, I have no idea what I’m going to do.
It’s like I’m balancing my heart in one hand, and my future in the other, when in fact I don’t want to be balancing them at all. I want to grab on to both and hold on to them for dear life.
I’m screwed.
Sighing, I take another sip of my tea and bask in its heat. I came here to email Autumn, to explain what has happened between me and Ash, to ask for her advice. But now that I’m sitting here, laptop out in front of me, my mind is blank. How am I supposed to ask someone else to help me decide the course of my life? Would that be fair to anyone? The cursor on my blank email just blinks at me. No help there, either.
It’s funny. I’m surrounded by people. I have more people in my life, who care about me, than I’ve ever had at one time before. But at the same time, I’ve never felt so alone.
Somehow, I am going to have to decide what I want. And I am going to have to do that all on my own. And I am going to have to do it soon. I need to be back at school in less than a month. If that’s what I choose. I just don’t know anymore.
Giving up on my email to Autumn, I close that window and open another. Click by click, I navigate over to the hoarding website that had been my oasis in the span between my mother’s death and meeting Ash. It has been nearly two months since I’ve been on it, and it feels strange to be browsing through the once-familiar links and logging into my once-avid profile.
YOU HAVE 3 NEW MESSAGES
Brow furrowing, I click on the message folder and I’m accosted by a wave of guilt as I realize that all the messages are from LuckNGlass, the girl who’d been so helpful when I first realized that I had to clean out my mother’s hoard.
TO: Star2274
FROM: LuckNGlass
June 2
Hey, haven’t heard from you lately. How’s the cleanout going?
I can’t believe so much time has passed. It’s gone by like a whirlwind. Feeling bad for leaving my hoarding-buddy hanging for so long, I click on the next message.
TO: Star2274
FROM: LuckNGlass
June 29
Hey, I know you’re probably super busy, but when you get a chance, I could use an ear. My parents’ house is getting out of control.
That had been almost a month ago. Biting at my lip, I click on the last unopened message.
TO: Star2274
FROM: LuckNGlass
July 23
Sorry about the other messages. I know I’m being pushy, but I’m going crazy here. I think I have to move out. I don’t know what else to do. My dad’s hoarding is out of control. He’s spent all the money we have.
I don’t think I’m going to get to go to college anymore. Not the way I planned to, anyway.
Look, if you get this, can you please please reply? I’m losing my mind.
I hope cleaning out your mom’s house is going well.
All the best,
Glass
Shit, I think, and toggle the mouse over to the reply button. I’m about to click it when I hear a familiar voice, and my spine turns to steel. I look up from the screen and there, walking in the front door, is Lacey. Luckily, she doesn’t see me. She’s chatting away into her phone, grinning widely as she makes her way toward the line, looking like she’s on her way to spend the day at the beach. She’s got her long hair loose, falling in big waves around her shoulders, and a pair of what look like designer sunglasses perched on her nose. I can’t help but wonder how she can afford to look like that on a waitress’s salary, but there’s no way I’m going to ask. For one bright moment I think I’m in the clear. But then I realize that the line just happens to go right by my table. I stifle a groan and sink down in my seat. Maybe if I just don’t look, she won’t see me. Maybe she’ll just walk right by.
No such luck. Even with the sunglasses obscuring her eyes, I can tell the instant she sees me. Her entire body flinches and she stutters to a stop and goes silent. I can hear the sound of the person on the other end of the call asking in an annoyed tone if she’s still there, even from half a dozen feet away. She grimaces as she mutters, “I’ll call you back,” and ends the call, making a beeline toward me.
“Listen,” she says, plopping down in the seat across from me. I’m starting to think that this is kind of a thing with her. This aggressive no-introduction form of communication. She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. It takes actual physical effort not to jerk away like I want to. But we’re in a public place—extremely public, considering the way people are starting to turn and sneak peeks at us from the corners of their eyes—and it’s not like I’m the town’s favorite resident right now. Or ever, really. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I’m currently occupying the second-to-last spot in the popularity contest, as far as the town of Avenue is concerned. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
I blink at her, confused. What the hell is she talking about? “For what?” I ask.
“Well, for the car, of course.”
What? I blink at her for a few seconds, certain that my confusion is clear on my face, but she doesn’t say anything further.
Okay, subtlety isn’t going to work on this girl. I lean forward and try to keep my voice low, so I don’t attract any more attention than we are already getting. “What are you talking about?”
She pulls her hands back from mine, eyes widening.
“You don’t know?” she says. “Oh my god. I thought for sure he would have told you?”
“What are you talking about, Lacey?” I ask. I don’t like the sound of this.
“Your friend’s car,” she starts, and then suddenly stops talking. She looks away, appearing to gather her thoughts for a moment, and then blows out a deep breath and looks back at me. “Preston and the guys. They were the ones who messed up your friend’s car.”
What?
“What?” I snap.
“Listen, it’s not what you think,” she says hurriedly, as though talking faster is somehow going to make me understand. “Preston was just worried about me.”
“How the hell,” I say, “can you say that? What the fuck does one thing even have to do with the other?”
“Oh god,” she says, reaching up and covering her mouth with her cupped hands. As I watch, her fingers curl in, and she’s pressing her fists against her lower lip. “Preston was just looking out for me, okay? He saw that your friend was always hanging around me, and he got scared. He wanted to scare him off before he did anything. To me.”
What.
The.
Fuck?
That’s it. I’ve had it with this fucking town. I shove back from the table, my chair making a god-awful screeching noise as it scrapes against the floor. People are turning in their seats to look at us. I don’t give a shit.
“And you actually bought that? That’s a load of crap, Lacey. First of all, Ash barely goes into the diner just because of the shit he’s gotten from people like your asshole boyfriend—”
“Hey!”
“I’m not finished!” I yell. Everyone is looking at us now. Good.
Good.
“First of all,” I repeat, more slowly this time. I lean forward, planting the palms of my hands against the table, to get in her face. “Ash never fucking goes near you. Second of all, Ash is not fucking dangerous. He made a mistake. He got in a car when he shouldn’t have and he drove when he shouldn’t have. He’s not a murderer. He didn’t go out there intending to hurt anyone. He made a mistake. And yeah, it was awful. It was heartbreaking. But that’s life. But you, little miss perfect, and your boyfriend wouldn’t know a thing about that, now, would you?”
Lacey’s sitting there, dumbstruck. Her mouth sort of sags open as she stares at me. But then she pulls in a breath, and starts to push forward, moving as though she’s going to respond. But I’m not done.
“Finally,” I snap before she can say anything. “Finally, how the hell do you get from your stupid boyfriend thinking that Ash could possibly be threatening to you, to him and his buddies beating the shit out of Ash’s car?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the three teenagers behind the counter hovering together, whispering. One of them kind of sighs and then his eyes dart over to me, and when he sees me looking at him, his entire body actually jerks. Great. Now I’m the crazy one. Those poor kids are probably over there drawing straws for who has to ask me to leave. Fantastic.
I turn back to Lacey, but my eyes can’t even focus on her. I’m just looking through her, like she doesn’t matter to me anymore.
And as I take a deep breath and force myself to calm down, I realize that’s exactly it.
She doesn’t matter.
None of these people do.
Only Ash and I matter. And that’s the way it should be.
“You need to get your life together,” I tell her and pull myself back into a standing position as I scoop my laptop off the table and snag my bag off the back of my chair. I shove the computer inside and pull it over my shoulder. “Because no one should think that what you and your little boyfriend did was okay.”
Then I pick my tea up off of the table, turn on my heel and walk out the door.
Ash
I hear Star’s car pull up in the driveway and I wipe the palms of my hands against my jeans for the millionth time.
I can’t believe how fucking nervous I am. We’ve been messing around for weeks, and just the thought of asking Star to actually go out with me has my knees shaking. My palms are sweating like I’m thirteen fucking years old and about to ask Jessica Kirkley to our first middle school dance.
But this is going to go better than that had. It has to. I am sure of it. Jessica Kirkley had laughed in my face and told me to try again when I got taller.
Bitch.
Star wouldn’t do that to me. Not after everything we’ve been, though. Even if she hates the idea, she’d be nice about it. I’m sure of it.
Pretty sure.
I think.
“That stupid bitch!” Star groans out once she’s in the door, and my head whips around to look at her. What the fuck happened while she was gone? She hauls the strap of her bag over her head, sending her hair flying, and dumps the bag on to the sofa once it’s free. The living room isn’t quite clear, but it’s getting there. Soon we’ll actually be able to use it for, you know, living.
Okay, for sex. The air-conditioning will be fucking glorious for that.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, a million different scenarios running through my mind. “What happened?”
“Lacey,” Star snaps, like that explains everything. It doesn’t. I have no fucking idea who Lacey is. And after a second of me just staring at her, Star seems to realize that. “The waitress,” she says, reaching up and rubbing a hand over her face. “The blonde from the diner that was rude to you when you applied for a job. That Lacey.”
“Oh . . . kay,” I say. Progress. We’re getting there. “What happened?”
“It was her boyfriend that trashed your car,” she says, and throws her hands up in the air. Unfortunately, the house is still a little too packed to be expressive in, and her hand knocks against a precariously-placed—and what appears to be empty—shoe box at the top of a pile, and it comes falling down. We watch it as it somersaults to the floor, knocking down a grocery bag full of grocery bags—why the hell are there so many of those in this house?—and a plastic Christmas tree topper in the shape of a star. Everything goes tumbling, and Star is standing there, looking like the goddess of fury and in that moment all I can think is she is really fucking hot.
She hauls in a deep breath, and, once the dust has settled, continues her rant like nothing happened. “She told me, at the tea shop that Maisie told me about. It was Preston and his brother and their stupid asshole friend. They’re all assholes. And Lacey is the biggest bitch of all because she had the absolute gall to try and tell me that they did it for her protec– Wait. Ash? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I can feel the smirk tug at the corner of my mouth, and I don’t bother trying to hide it any more. Instead I just look her up and down and take a step forward.
She, in turn, takes a step back. “Ash . . . seriously?” she says, eyes widening. But I can see the flush that’s starting to spread up her neck, and I’m struck by the urge to see just how far down it goes.
“Mmmhmm.”
“Seriously? This is doing it for you?” She takes another step back. But it’s the last one. Now she’s backed up against the row of boxes against the far wall, the ones we’ve been working up to going through. I grin and reach out and press my hands against the boxes on either side of her, bracketing her body against the stack of boxes with my arms. I lean closer and press a kiss to her jaw before pressing my lips against her neck and just breathing her in.
“You have no idea,” I say, because hell yes this is doing it for me. “Somehow you’re even hotter when you’re all pissed off.”
She scoffs, but her hands come up to spread against my chest. “Somehow I don’t think you’d be so into it if it was you I was pissed at.”
“Hmm, well we’ll just have to see, then, won’t we?” I say, and lean in for a kiss.
***
Afterward—way, way afterward—we’re in the kitchen and I suddenly remember what I’d been meaning to ask her when she walked in the door all mad and hot. So while we’re waiting for our macaroni to finish cooking, I swallow down my fear and say, “So . . . you wanna go out dancing with me tomorrow night?”
Star kind of stares at me for a second, all deer-in-the-headlights, and I can’t help it. I start laughing. She harrumphs out a sigh and reaches over to whap me on the belly with the back of her hand. “Stop laughing,” she says. “It’s not funny.”
“Yes, it is,” I say, reaching out and poking her in the side before stepping around her to poke at the noodles in the pot. Another couple minutes, I think.
“Well it’s not like I was expecting it,” she says, exasperation in her voice. But when I turn to look at her, she’s smiling this soft little smile, and I want to wrap myself around her and never let go. “Why do you want to go out, anyway? You hate this town.”
“Yeah,” I say, “I do. But the place I want to take you isn’t in Avenue. It’s in the next town over. And besides, I want to take you out.” I take a deep breath and blow it out, bracing myself a little. “You deserve it.”
You deserve a hell of a lot better than I could ever give you. But I’m willing to try.
“But you told me you hate dancing,” she says, but her little smile is turning full-fledged and I know I’ve got her. I knew she’d like this.
“I do,” I say. “I suck at dancing, I look like a monkey on speed. But you told me you love to dance. So you and me, we’re gonna go dancing. Besides . . . ” I move up so I’ve got her right up against me. Her body feels so good, even when it’s just barely brushing up against mine. I reach over and slide my hand around her waist, dipping my fingertips under the hem of her shirt so I can brush up against her skin. She shivers a little at my touch, but she doesn’t move away. I grin and press my face into her hair, my mouth brushing against her ear. “I kind of like the thought of you rubbing that hot little body of yours up against me as we dance.”
A full-on shiver runs down her body as I whisper to her. Then she turns in my arms, and pushes up on her tiptoes and nuzzles her nose against mine.
“I like the sound of that,” she says, and I can’t hold back any longer. I lean forward and wrap both my arms around her middle and lift her up a little bit, just so that her feet are off the ground, and I press my mouth against hers.
And, because right at that moment, I’m the luckiest bastard on the planet, she kisses me back.
