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But I’m not going to think about that now.
“Jett, can we go now?” says Violet in a wheedling tone, fluttering her long eyelashes, which are almost certainly fake. “It smells weird in here. I don’t want it sticking to my hair; imagine if I had to smell like thisforever.Like, well —”
She allows her eyes to flick over to me, and I have to grab onto the counter to stop myself from reaching out and slapping her.
Be good, Lexie. Be good.
Violet giggles. I take a deep breath, not quite sure whether I’m doing it to calm myself down, or in preparation for the collection of expletives that are about to come exploding out of my mouth. Just in time, though, the shop door opens again, and McTavish appears.
“Er, sorry, Mr. Carter,” he says, looking from Jett to me and then back again. “It’s just, your car’s blocking the road outside. It’s causing a bit of a traffic jam. And, well, a near riot, to be honest. If ye could maybe get yer driver to move it, then we can get ye both back to the View before it gets any worse.”
So it’s true, then. Theyarestaying in Heather Bay. I believe “fuck my life” is the phrase I’m looking for here.
“Sure,” says Jett, turning away from me without a second glance. “We were leaving, anyway. This was a mistake.”
A mistake.
That’s all I am to him now, I suppose. Someone he wishes he hadn’t met. Someone he can’t wait to get away from. Someone with greasy hair, and what feels suspiciously like the start of a pimple on her chin.
Someone who, it turns out, isn’t quite ready to accept this role she’s apparently been cast in, even though it’s exactly the one she deserves.
“Wait,” I hear myself saying, my voice sounding almost as if it doesn’t belong to me. “You should, er… you should take this.”
Grabbing a piece of the newspaper we use to wrap the fish and chips in (The Wildcat still hasn’t moved onto more modern containers. “Why would we dae that when the Gazette offices are right above us, wi’ all the newspaper we could ever need?” Ronnie asked, confused, when I suggested it.), I quickly wrap up a deep fried Mars Bar and run around the counter to where Jett and Violet are still hovering by the door.
“Here,” I say breathlessly, thrusting the already soggy parcel at Jett, and ignoring the death rays Violet’s attempting to shootat me with her multicolored eyes. “I know you liked these last time you were here. I don’t know why, because they’re absolutely disgusting, but… anyway, you should have one.”
Even without looking, I can tell Brenda’s going to kill me for this later — not only have I given out free food without asking, I’ve also described the food in question as “absolutely disgusting” — but I’ll worry about that later. For now, all I can think about is how much I want to keep Jett here for even a few seconds longer. How much I need him to look at me —reallylook at me — like I’m someone who’s not as easy to forget as he seems to think I am.
Now that I’m next to him, without the counter to separate us, I feel suddenly vulnerable. He’s almost close enough to touch; so close I have to tilt my face upwards to look at him. I’d almost forgotten how tall he is. I hadn’t, however, forgotten what it feels like to stand next to him; how it makes the room seem to shrink until there’s just the two of us in it.
He’s so familiar, and yet such a stranger that it makes my head spin.
Oh, pull yourself together, Lexie.
I’m still holding out the Mars bar — which suddenly seems like a monumentally stupid idea under the circumstances.
A deep fried Mars bar? Really, Lexie?
Just as the full horror of the situation starts to sink in, though, Jett reaches out to take it from me, his fingers brushing mine as the greasy little offering passes between us.
“Thank you, Lexie,” he says softly, looking right into my soul. “Thank you.”
And then he’s gone, sliding the Mars bar into the pocket of his hoodie as he turns to leave, with Violet as close behind him as she can physically get.
“Oh myGod,” I hear her say in the seconds before the door closes between us. “That wassocringe! Did you see the lookon her face? She mustn’t have realized how pathetic she looked, running up to you like that. What is that thing she gave you, anyway? It smellsvile. So did she,though. Poor thing.”
Jett says something in response, but the blood pounding in my ears makes it impossible to hear what it is.
Pathetic?Cringe? VILE?
Is that… is that really what I look like to them? A “poor thing”, to be pitied, and sneered at?
Yeah, I don’t think so, Violet.
Before I can think better of it, I lean over the counter and grab the tray of chips that are sitting there waiting to be served.
“Violet,” I call, flinging open the shop door and running towards them as they make their way down the now crowded street towards the car, that is, as McTavish said, blocking the entire road. “I almost forgot! I have something for you, too.”
