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“Should you be driving?” Perish called as I moved down the steps.
“I didn’t ask,” I admitted, shooting him a ‘what are you gonna do about it’ look over my shoulder.
He smirked in response.
“Good for you. I’ll keep an eye on your place while you’re gone.”
“You don’t need to. It’s been days. No one has shown up.”
“Just in case.”
“And to get Brownie points with the club?” I asked, letting out a little laugh before making my way down the front path, and into my car.
“Fuck,” I grumbled to myself as I turned over the car.
Carl was right.
I needed to get out of my funk.
No, I was never really the ‘make tons of friends’ type of girl. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have experiences. That I couldn’t be in the company of like-minded people.
With that in mind, I turned onto the highway, going across the bridge that rose over the Navesink River, then into the town full of shops I used to walk endlessly around when I was younger.
How long had it been since I’d done that?
Too long.
Maybe Lottie and Carl were right about me needing to get a life.
But that was a problem for another day. Today was all about finding some hidden gems inside Jake’s.
I once threatened to toss a mattress in a back corner of the store. And had only been half-joking.
“There’s my girl,” Jake, a tall, skinny guy with white hair, greeted me behind the check-out counter. “Got new pins in!” he said, waving toward the fishbowl full of band pins. I already had too many. But you bet your ass I would be shuffling through them to find something fun for myself.
“I’ll be all over that,” I assured him. “You got anything new for me to find and fall in love with?” I asked.
“Get drop offs every week,” he said, waving toward the shop as a whole.
Jake’s was, essentially, a treasure hunt. Sure, there were vinyl, CD, and cassette sections. And, yeah, those were broken up by genre. But from there, it was a free-for-all. People were constantly shifting shit around, so there was no way to keep it in order. You just had to warm up your fingers, and start flipping.
That was exactly what I planned to start doing when I turned to find someone staring at me.
No, not just someone.
Him.
Finn.
My occasional text buddy.
The star of my ever-kinkier dreams.
“If it isn’t my music dealer,” he said, giving me this lopsided smile that was so unexpectedly open and charming that for a second I thought I’d imagined his standoffishness and low mood.
“This would be one of those ‘fancy seeing you here’ moments if this wasn’t practically my home away from home.”
“No work today?” he asked, making my eyes slit. “Wrong question, I take it.”
“My boss is forcing me to take two years’ worth of vacation to recover,” I told him.
“Paid?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice.”
“Not nice,” I grumbled. “Unnecessary. Overstepping. Annoying.”
“And by ‘nice,’ clearly I meant ‘what a dick,’” he said with that charming, almost boyish smile again.
“Thank you,” I said with a nod, my own lips twitching. “Alright. What do you have there?” I asked, making my way over toward him, and gesturing toward the records in his hands.
“I have no fucking idea,” he admitted.
“Going in blind is half the fun sometimes,” I said as I flipped through what he had. Which was a mix of rock—both old and newer—, Nu metal, and some classics that every collection needed—Beatles, Hendrix, Sinatra, The Doors. “I didn’t know you had a record player.”
“I don’t,” he admitted, looking sheepish. “And I don’t even think I can bring these home on my bike.”
“Men, am I right?” I asked a woman nearby. Dressed all in black, covered in ink, with micro bangs and a septum piercing, she looked like someone who hung here often. “Never thinking ahead,” I added.
I got a nod and eye roll from her that said she had far too much personal experience with men like that.
“I didn’t plan on coming here,” Finn admitted. “I was… working nearby. And happened to see the store. Decided to come in and look around.”
“Okay. Well, you can’t just look around. Because, one, the music comes to you when you need it,” I said, even if that was a little woo-woo for me.
“And two?” he asked.
“This is an independent music shop. As in, in the digital music age. As in, no one is paying for their music anymore and the industry is dying. So you see stuff you like, you buy it. Them’s the rules.”
“You are clearly the expert. I have no choice but to listen to you. But the transportation problem persists.”
“I’ll drive your shit to your house,” I offered.
“Yeah?” he asked, brows raised.
“Yeah. Your house or the clubhouse. Whatever.”
“In that case, this place have any carts?”
“This place is a clear fire hazard and you want to further block the aisles?” I asked. “No, just give Jake your shit. He will keep it behind the counter. Right, Jack?”
