My Sweet Escape

  “Let’s just say I went through my wild-child phase.”

  “You don’t seem like that now.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve gotten wiser in my old age.”

  She snorted in disbelief. “Dude, how old are you?”

  “Eighteen. I started college when I was seventeen. My birthday’s in a month and a half.”

  “Baby. I’m already nineteen, so I am both older and wiser.”

  “So what advice do you have for me, oh wise one?”

  “Always drink less than you think you can, trust your gut, and the next time you see Dusty Sharp, you’d better make a move.” She gave me a big smile.

  “That’s not really what I meant.” I hadn’t told her about the little moment, if that’s what you could call it, that Dusty and I had last night in the car. It was so minor I would have felt stupid bringing it up.

  We’d talked. We’d both been awkward. The end.

  “I am going to have to have an intervention with you two, I swear. He likes you...you like him. The equation is pretty simple, and I kind of suck at math. You plus Dusty equals...” She waved her hand in a circle, searching for the right word.

  I was pretty sure it was disaster.

  She snapped her fingers.

  “Sexplosion.”

  “Really? You spent all that thinking and that’s what you came up with?”

  “You’re just mad that you know I’m right and you don’t want to admit it.”

  “I am not, and you’re not. Right, that is.”

  “Oh, sure, sweetie. I believe you.” She patted my arm. I chucked my straw wrapper at her, and she laughed. Her smile fell as she saw someone across the dining room.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Her demeanor had completely changed. I searched and saw a table of guys looking over at us. They weren’t even being stealthy about it. They could definitely take some lessons from Dusty. One of the guys said something to the others and they all laughed. Well, it didn’t take a genius to put those two things together. Most of them didn’t look familiar, but I’d definitely seen at least two of them at the party.

  Hannah tipped her head forward and her hair fell in front of her face like a mane on a depressed lion.

  “So I need your help,” I said, turning so I blocked Hannah from the view of the other table, and blocked her view at the same time.

  “With what?” She kept her head down. I wished I could get the whole story from her, but I knew if I pushed she’d close up like a steel trap. I knew that because I’d do the same thing.

  “I really want to get a job, but I don’t want something that’s going to suck, so I need help thinking of a job I could have that wouldn’t make me want to slit my wrists.”

  “I think I’m up to that challenge,” she said, finally lifting her head. I had no idea if the guys were still looking and laughing, but Hannah raised her chin and flipped her hair back so her scar was completely visible. It was a totally “suck on that” moment. Yes, there was a reason I was friends with her.

  We spent the rest of our time brainstorming ideas. Some were ridiculous, like selling my organs online, or finding a potato chip that looked like the Virgin Mary, but some weren’t. The campus radio station had paid positions, I knew, as did the student newspaper. The library was another option, and I already had connections because Taylor and Hunter worked there.

  “They pay ten dollars an hour for nude modeling in the art department. It’s not really that bad,” Hannah said, as if she was commenting on the weather.

  “You’ve done it?” I nearly walked into the trash can as we left the Union.

  She nodded.

  “Here and there. I’m not ashamed of my body.” Her words were sharp, as if she wanted to pull them out of her mouth and hurl them like knives at the group of guys who had been so obviously talking about her. I bet she could if she wanted to.

  “Well, I don’t know if I’m that destitute, but I’ll put it in the maybe column.” It seemed like a weird note to leave on.

  “You know, if you ever want to come over to hang out or study, or whatever, you’re welcome. I have, like, a whole man cave right outside my room.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll text you, okay?”

  “See you in bio.”

  She walked away, her shoulders a little hunched, but that might have been because of the cold.

  * * *

  Dusty’s Golf was parked outside when I got home that afternoon, along with Hunter’s rust bucket. The other cars were absent.

  “Hey, Jos!” Hunter said when I walked in to the sounds of his guitar and Dusty’s beat boxing.

  I wrote that I was home on the chart and set my bag down, noticing that the girls had written out on the chart. “Hey, Hunter. Where is everyone?”

  “Um, I think Renee kidnapped Taylor and Darah to go look at wedding stuff. Or something. I sort of tuned it out. Mase is at the gym and Paul had a lab.” Weird.

  “Hey, Jos,” Dusty said, giving me a sort of half smile. It wasn’t his full-on grin, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

  “Hey. What are you doing here?” I went to the kitchen and grabbed an apple.

  “Just thought I would swing by and see how everyone was recovering.”

  Hunter looked a hell of a lot better than he did in the morning.

  “I’m shocked they went shopping even though they were all hungover,” I said, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch from Dusty.

  “They bounce back pretty quick. They’re young,” Hunter said with a smile as he strummed his guitar. “Requests?”

  I shrugged.

  Hunter put the instrument back on the little stand he had in the corner of the room. “Something wrong?”

  “Not really. Just... I don’t know.” I risked a look at Dusty, and he had his hands in his pockets. “Did Hannah seem weird last night?”

  “No, why?” Dusty said.

  “I don’t know. She was acting weird, and then today I saw some of the guys from the party at the Union, and it was almost like they were laughing at her or something. I may be just reading too much into it, but she got very...un-Hannah-like afterward.”

  “Did somebody say something to her?” Hunter leaned forward, ready to get to his feet and go after whoever it was.

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. I probably should have kept it to myself. Please don’t say anything to her.” Dusty and Hunter nodded and shared a look. I could just picture the two of them, grabbing their swords and saddling up their white horses. They were cut from the same cloth.

  “Who’s in charge of dinner?” I said to change the subject.

  “Well, that’s also why I’m here,” Dusty said, clearing his throat. “Hunter has informed me that it’s your turn for dinner and I just happen to have volunteered my culinary skills to assist you. If you will have them.”

  I had no idea if he could cook at all, or if he was just screwing with me. I also had no idea what was really behind him being here, because he obviously had a reason.

  “Don’t you have your own home?”

  “Yeah, a shitty apartment. Why would I want to be there, when I could be here at the Ritz?”

  Yellowfield House was pretty nice. Oh, who was I kidding? It was freaking sweet, as houses went. I mean, not only was it nice, but it was so damn clean. Darah was like a fairy godmother who flitted around and made sure there were absolutely no cobwebs or dirt or anything that resembled dirt.

  But still. Why was Dusty here all of a sudden? I mean, how stupid did they think I was? I mean, you wouldn’t even be able to put this past a six-year-old.

  “Fine. You can help me, but we’re making what I want, and if I tell you to get out of my way and let me do something, you do it. Understood?”

  Dusty lo
oked at Hunter, who looked like he was holding back a laugh.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said as we moved into the kitchen.

  I’d planned on making lasagna, since I had everything for it. I’d never gotten to cook when the house was so empty, so it would have been nice, but I had a tall and lurky shadow.

  “What can I do, oh kitchen goddess?” He held out his hands as if he was waiting for me to put something in them.

  “First of all, you can get out of my way.” He moved aside as I assembled the ingredients. I was going to make it with pepperoni, but figured I could skip it and then Taylor wouldn’t have to worry about trying to find the pepperoni-free sections after I’d baked it.

  “Here. Chop.” I handed him a knife and a bag of fresh spinach. I figured he could at least do that much.

  “Cutting board?” I got it out and handed it to him as I mixed the rest of the cheeses together.

  It was clear after a few seconds that Dusty had only rudimentary culinary skills. Jesus, he couldn’t even hold a knife. Once again, if this were a movie, I’d come up behind him, put my hand over his and show him how to properly use it. During which he would turn slowly, the knife would clatter to the floor and he would sweep me up in a passionate embrace.

  What really happened was that I started laughing at him as he mangled the spinach.

  “I can hear you laughing at me,” he said, not turning, but putting down the knife. “I’m sorry. I’m used to either ordering out or nuking something in the microwave. This is not in my wheelhouse. At all.” He stared at the spinach as if it was out to get him.

  “Then why did you agree to help?”

  He turned around and faced me. “Because I wanted to spend time with you.”

  “You did.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Believe it or not, Red, I enjoy your company.” He gave me a smile as if to say, what do you make of that?

  “Even when I’m constantly insulting you?”

  Pushing himself away from the counter and toward me, he said, “I especially like that.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t into me.” When did swallowing become so hard to do?

  That stopped him from his advance across the kitchen.

  “I’m not. Can’t I just want to hang out with you? Are you one of those girls who think that guys and girls can’t be friends without one of them falling for the other?”

  “No, actually, I’m not.” I’d already proved that not to be true.

  He nodded. “Neither am I. So, with that said, would you please finish this so I can stop screwing it up?”

  I rolled my eyes and went to take the knife from where he’d set it on the counter.

  “I can’t believe you don’t know how to chop. You’re hopeless.”

  “But now I have you to teach me, Red.”

  I put the knife in my hand, showed him how I gripped it and chopped a few pieces.

  “It’s like a teeter-totter. Back and forth.” I held out the knife to him and supervised him from a few feet away until he had it. Sort of. Once he was done with that, I tossed the spinach in the bowl with the cheese mixture and made him use those arms to good advantage by opening the jars of sauce.

  I let him layer the noodles and sauce and then it was time to shove the thing in the oven.

  “Do you seriously not cook?” I said as I set the timer.

  “I seriously don’t.” He hopped up on the counter and started making a drumbeat noise. He was like Hunter with his tapping. Nervous, the pair of them.

  “Well, if the zombie apocalypse happens, I guess you’re going to have to learn.”

  “That’s only if my cooking skills are needed. It’s far more likely my zombie-slaying powers would be needed.”

  Okay, he had a good point, and he knew it.

  I just rolled my eyes again and went to the fridge to get the garlic bread. It was premade, so I only had to stick it in the oven with the lasagna at the end so it would get warm. We needed a side dish, but we were out of lettuce, so I found a bag of broccoli in the freezer and put it in a bowl to steam in the microwave.

  “Well, if you keep coming here more often, I’m sure Taylor or Darah would rope you into helping with the cooking or baking. They’re big on baking.” Taylor didn’t let a week go by without some form of delicious something getting put in the oven, and Darah was just as bad. They took domestic to a whole new level.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” he whispered after dramatically looking around the room. Yes, we were still alone.

  “Yeah, sure.” I needed something to do, so I wiped down the already-spotless counters.

  “You promise to never, ever reveal this information to anyone at any time for any reason?” He was making a big deal out of this.

  “Cross my heart,” I said, making a crossing motion over my chest. It wasn’t my imagination that his eyes went to that area when I did it and lingered longer than they should have.

  He hopped off the counter and crooked his finger at me to lean in. I crossed my arms over my chest and turned my ear toward him.

  “I’ve never baked anything in my life,” he said, and I almost jumped out of my skin because he was so close to me. His cologne messed with my senses and overwhelmed the smell of the baking lasagna.

  My brain stuttered like a freezing car engine in January.

  “I—I won’t tell anyone,” I said, stepping away from him and pretending I had something really important to do in the sink.

  “So I think the first time I bake something, it should be special. With someone I trust. I don’t want to bake with just anyone.” Why did I have the feeling we weren’t talking about baking anymore?

  I knew when I turned around from rinsing the sponge in the sink I would find him there, and I was right.

  Even though my hands were wet, he grabbed both of them and knelt in front of me. Jesus H. Christ.

  “Will you, Joscelyn Archer, be my first?” I was so, so glad he couldn’t hear what my heart was doing, because it definitely wasn’t beating in a normal fashion.

  “Baking, you mean?”

  Rising to his feet, but not letting go of my hands, he started to smile.

  “What did you think I was talking about, Red?”

  Not baking, that was for sure.

  Why wouldn’t he let go of my hands? Also, why were his so big? They completely encompassed mine.

  The door slammed and Dusty dropped my hands like they were on fire.

  “What smells so good?” Renee said, her arms weighed down with bags from the mall. Darah and Taylor were right behind her, equally as burdened.

  “Lasagna,” Dusty said, since I seemed to have lost the ability to form words with my mouth. I swallowed a few times and coughed.

  “Clearance sale?” I finally said.

  “Yeah, sure,” Renee said, her eyes not meeting mine. Um, what?

  “Why are you being weird?” I said, moving away from Dusty. “Are you hiding something from me, big sister?”

  “Absolutely not,” she said, hiding the bags behind her back. “Be right back.” She dashed up the stairs and the other two followed. Hmm. If I had only one guess, I’d say it had something to do with my upcoming birthday, but maybe I was just being too self-centered.

  They came down a little while later, and Paul and Mase were home a few minutes after that. No one seemed surprised to find Dusty with me in the kitchen, which also led me to the conclusion that the reason he was here was some sort of weird way to distract me while they all went out shopping. My birthday had never been a huge deal, being from a family with a lot of kids. It was bigger when I was younger, but of course I didn’t remember a lot of those birthdays. They only existed now in pictures.

  Maybe Renee felt shitty about being so strict with me so she was throwing me a bi
rthday party to make up for it? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I couldn’t think of any other reason she’d be hiding things like this from me, or why Dusty had suddenly decided to cook dinner with me, seeing as how he couldn’t cook at all.

  But of course, I pretended that I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. I’d play along.

  Dusty stayed for dinner and I was also shocked to discover that he’d brought homework, as well. Call me crazy, but he just didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would do homework. I mean, he’d have to because he’d managed to make it through one and a half years of college already, but I just couldn’t picture it.

  Everyone claimed a piece of real estate, and I ended up sitting on the floor of the living room with my laptop on the coffee table and my books on the floor.

  “Is this area taken?” Dusty parked himself next to me and set a stack of books on the table.

  “I guess it is now. It’s kind of catch as catch can around here for study space.”

  “I see that,” he said as everyone else spread themselves out in various places and positions. I skimmed the titles of the books he’d set down and was a little surprised. Calculus, music theory and several that looked like they were for education.

  “Music education, like Hunter,” he said to my unanswered question. “Surprised?”

  “I knew that already.” Not exactly, but I could put two and two together.

  “Hey, Hunter, do you still have that Praxis study guide?” Hunter had taken the first set of the tests he needed to pass to become a teacher a couple of weeks before and was still waiting for his results since he had to pass the first test to take the second part. It sounded like the SATs only way worse.

  Hunter looked up from whatever he was immersed in, his eyes taking a second to focus.

  “Yeah, sure. You want to borrow it?”

  “Just the practice tests. I just want to make copies, if you don’t mind.”