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“You honor me with your trust.” I return the gesture.
Her grip on my finger lingers for a few seconds. Heat floods my face and neck. What the…? A pinkie touch and I’m losing my mind? I held her in my arms earlier this evening, and I was fine. It was an emergency move, I suppose. Yes. Right now everything is voluntary.
Laurel’s eyes stay focused on our hands. “How is it possible that we’ve never met before?”
“The world is small but also busy,” I say. In a way, she’s wrong. We’ve kind of met, if I stretch the definition ofmeta whole lot. “Our paths have crossed, I’m sure.”
My hint seems oh so clever at first, but when Laurel looks up at me, nervousness attacks me. I don’t think she’d like knowing I’m a regular at her place. It could feel like an invasion, a breach of trust even. An outright lie.
Laurel drops my hand and sits on the floor, looking around again. Her posture and attitude lose even more of the earlier sharp edges. She draws a deep breath through her nose and holds it, then exhales with her eyes closed. Her fingers fly over the Blondie’s neck as they dance through several scales, and when she steals another glance at me, her eyes are full of cautious joy. “Don’t tell Hal. He’ll tell Dad, and then— Just because I’m playing with you doesn’t mean I’m ready to go back.”
Not ready to go back? She didn’t say she didn’t ever want to go back. That’s intriguing. I sit in front of her. “Do you want to perform again?”
She hugs my Blondie. “It was such a mess last time. Most days I dread the idea, but”—her voice drops to the quietest of whispers—“of course I want to play with my dad. I love hearing my songs out there, seeing people’s reactions, taking them on emotional journeys. But I can’t bring myself to actually do it. The pressure is too much. Why can’t music be for fun only? Why the contracts, basking in the spotlights, and the need to breathe the worshiping? Since when is plain air not enough?”
“I get it. I promise. You need your freedom. I have a question though. Have you lost a knife?”
Laurel frowns, confused. “What?”
“It’s in my back.” They should give me an official award for the worst joke of the year. “I live under a contract, and I love my fandom. Plain air is truly not enough. It tastes like tap water.”
Laughing, Laurel almost falls onto her side. “I can’t decide whether you’re a complete jerk or if joking is your coping mechanism.”
“Oh, why choose?”
Wiping under her eyes, she sits up and adjusts her guitar strap, then plays another song. I told her. As soon as she’d get into it, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Music knows how to weave its way through sorrows, reservations, and the deepest of fears. Keep playing, Laurel. Keep playing.
Track 12
Be My Rebound
Jace
We stay up until three in the morning. After playing for a couple of hours, we shift to watching the Tube videos of our favorite performers, then to hilarious nonsense that glues one’s eyes to the screen with no hope of ever quitting.
We lay on our stomachs on the floor, taking turns showing each other silly reels on our phones. Laurel laughs at my every other sentence as though I’m the funniest person ever, and I can’t stop teasing that laughter out of her.
Laurel’s head dips to the floor. She rests it on her arm, eyes closed, ready to drift off into sleep. Up until now, all I thought about when it came to her was her music, her past, and her sweet glares. The lines of her resting face remind me that she’s beautiful on top of being intriguing. Her hair tangles in wild, loose curls over her shoulder. Her parted lips entice—
I turn away. “I’ll take you home?”
She springs to her feet with the speed of someone over-caffeinated, not a girl who was seconds away from hibernation. “Yes. Please.”
Her peppiness fades the moment I start driving—Laurel nods off, head slumped against the window. My phone buzzes in my pocket with a barrage of messages. I don’t know what’s with my cell carrier or my phone, but now and then several hours will go by in blissful peace, then a message dump occurs. I stop at a red light and skim the texts. One of them is from Juliette. The preview offers me the top line of her message:Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t stopped by yet…
I grind my teeth, certain her Snake Boy had something to do with it. Checking the light—still red—I tap the rest of the thread open.
Juliette: Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t stopped by yet. It’s been kind of crazy around here. And I’m sorry, but I can’t come to kung fu anymore. I really want to and I miss it, but Shane will have a fit if I set one foot at the kwoon. He thinks I won’t be able to resist messing around.
I knew it. It’s his doing.
Juliette: It’s a temporary break. I’m not quitting. I just need to be extra careful for the next five months. [a blushing emoji]
Another message sits underneath that last one, but I’m not sure I need to read it. It’s impossible to piece togethertemporary+careful+five monthsinto anything other than Juliette being…
Juliette: Brace yourself, Jace. You’re going to be an uncle.
I stare at the screen. The light is green, but I stay put. There are no other cars in the intersection anyway. I can’t seem to absorb the news.
