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I glanced down the table. The entire band was there: second guitarist Maxwell; the bass player, Oliver; and the drummer, whose name I couldn’t remember. Gavin, maybe? How was Meredith with these guys? Then I remembered hearing something at school about how Meredith was friends with some musician. I guess it was true.
Cole looked right at me. “Here. We can make room. ” He stepped away from the end of his bench and motioned me over. Me. Not Jules. “We can fit you here. Mer, make some room for her friend, will you?”
Meredith gave Cole a confused look, then scooted over so Jules could fit one butt cheek on the bench. I slid onto the end of the other bench, where Cole had been, and then he sat next to me so I was sandwiched between Cole and Maxwell. My heart was pounding. I wasn’t a crazed fan of theirs—I didn’t have any tattoos of a skeletal Elvis anywhere on my body—but this was my first run-in with a celebrity. Even my fingertips were sweating a little.
Cole held his hand out to me. It was difficult to shake because we were sitting so close, and I made it fast because I didn’t want him to remember me as the girl with the clammy hands. “Cole Stockton. ”
“Yeah, I know. I’m Nikki Beckett. ” He stared at me in silence for a few moments. I could feel my cheeks turning pink. “Um, shouldn’t you guys be in one of those?” I pointed to the booths that were curtained off.
“Oh no. Those are for famous people. ” He gave me a smile that I could’ve sold on the internet for money. He wore a few silver bracelets and a necklace with a silver cross hanging on it. Each of his fingers had a tattooed design, like a ring, and in his hand was a plastic triangular object that he absentmindedly rolled over the tops of his knuckles. A guitar pick, it looked like. I’d only ever seen someone do that with a coin. “Beckett,” he said. “Any relation to Mayor Beckett?”
“My dad. You know his name?”
He shrugged. “Saw him in the paper. ” He lowered his voice like a newscaster. “Mayor Beckett Reads Fluffle Bunny to Kindergarten Class. ”
I smiled. “Slow news day, I guess. ”
“Is there any other kind here?” He winked.
No one else was really talking. Our end of the table just watched Cole and Maxwell, as if they were waiting on them. I wondered if that was how famous people felt all the time— like everyone around them was waiting for them to perform. But Maxwell wasn’t doing anything, and Cole was only talking to me, and I was sure the music was too loud for anyone to really hear us.
Meredith’s gaze kept darting to me. She looked annoyed.
I leaned in to Cole and lowered my voice. “So, are you and Meredith…?” What would be a term a rock star would use? Dating? Together? Going out?
As I grappled with the words in my head, Cole just watched me with a smirk. He wasn’t about to help, which flustered me even more.
“… are you … you know?” I waved my hands in a circle, in what I thought was a fill-in-the-blank kind of way.
Cole crinkled his brow.
Seriously? How could I be more obvious? I sighed. “Never mind. ”
“No, don’t give up. ” Cole was definitely smiling now. “Do you mean, are we…” He held up the index fingers of both his hands, and then put the tips together and made a loud smoochy noise.
I couldn’t help laughing. “You’re making fun of me. ”
He wiped the smile off his face with his hand. “Sorry. No, I’m not with her. But Meredith and Max are…” He started tangling his fingers together, twisting them around each other. My face went red, and I covered his hands with mine to make him stop, and then my face got even hotter because I was clasping his hands.
Thankfully a waiter appeared right then with new drinks. He must’ve known the tip would be good because he kept the drinks coming—some local draft for the band and sodas for the rest of us. Over the next hour, the bouncer let more people in, but it seemed like no one was leaving. I lost count of the number of people who’d come up to our table and asked Cole or Maxwell for their autographs. These fans had more guts than I would have had.
Cole signed napkins, scraps of paper, even one girl’s arm, all the while keeping up a conversation with me. Like it was totally normal that he was asking about where I was going to college while he held another girl’s arm flat on the table in front of him, poised over it with a Sharpie.
It was all very surreal. The music and the drinks and Cole’s voice blended together, and I soon forgot I didn’t really belong here. But then a familiar man at the bar caught my eye. It was Carl Volker, the prosecuting attorney for the case against the drunk driver who killed my mom. The trial was set to start in a few weeks, and I’d been avoiding any news about it. A fresh wave of grief washed over me, and I stared hard at the shiny metal surface of the table, trying not to cry. It still surprised me how close to the surface the tears were. Whenever I was overcome with sadness—and it happened a lot since my mom died—I always tried to think of Jack and the fact that we were together now. It was my version of finding a happy place.
I pictured Jack at home, watching the game, his arm wrapped around me. I closed my eyes and smiled, and it was a few moments before I remembered I wasn’t alone. When I did, I raised my head. Cole was looking at me with a strange expression on his face.
“Whoa. You are the happiest sad person I’ve ever met. ”
“Huh?”
“Or the saddest happy person. ” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’m not sure which. ” He leaned a little closer, to the point where I could smell his breath on my face. Beer and smoke. “Nope. Happiest sad person. ”
I tried a smile, so he couldn’t see how close he really was to the truth. “I’m not sad. ”
“And she’s not afraid to lie. ”
I felt my smile drop and I turned away. The second guitarist, Maxwell Bones, was on the other side of me. I’d read somewhere that Bones wasn’t his real name, but he changed it before he joined the band.
Maxwell had an iPhone that he’d been fiddling with all night, and he was reading a message.
“What’s the news, Max?” Cole asked.
“The queen,” Max said. I could’ve sworn I felt Cole tense at this. I tried to lean a little closer to read the message, but Max clicked the screen blank. “Says we owe her. ”
I felt like I was intruding on a business conversation, but there was nowhere I could go. I looked at Cole. His lips were pressed together.
He saw the look on my face. “Our … manager. ”
“You call your manager the queen?”
He gave a short chuckle. “It’s more of a … term of endearment. ”
He and Max were quiet for a moment, making the music in the place seem even louder. Whatever the message was, whoever this “queen” was, it seemed to bother them.
“Mer!” Max called out suddenly. “To the dance floor!”
Meredith flashed a wide grin in response. I was about to scoot out so Max could pass by, but he just climbed on top of the table and held his hand out to Meredith. I guessed famous people could walk on tables whenever they wanted.
Cole nudged me with his elbow. “C’mon, sad girl. Let’s turn that frown on its ass. Dancing makes everything better. ”
The entire table got up, and we made our way to the middle of the floor. I noticed a bouncer place a RESERVED sign on the table after we were gone.
Jules and I stuck together, but after a few minutes I got carried away in the music, and the fact that I was dancing with the Dead Elvises, and it was a long time before I remembered my mom was gone and her murderer’s trial would start soon.
ELEVEN
NOW
School. Less than four months left.
I wasn’t sure how Jack would react after Cole had showed up at school as “Neal. ” I would’ve understood if he decided to completely ignore me, and maybe even ditched out on Mrs. Stone’s classroom after school.
But I was not expecting him to seek me out at lunch. I was sitting in my usual nook next to the
drinking fountain when he turned the corner. He sat down on the floor against the opposite wall, facing me.
I stared hard at my knitting needles, their frantic pace nearly making them blur. What was he doing?
“Jules told me where you’ve been eating lunch,” he said.
I nodded, but I didn’t look up.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
I wanted to say no, but that answer would have required further explanation, and I didn’t want that. So I nodded once.
We ate in silence. I worried about what we would say to each other, but it never came up. He didn’t say another word.
When I got to Mrs. Stone’s classroom after school, Jack was already there. As I sat down, he stood.
“Mrs. Stone?”
“Yes, Mr. Caputo?”
“Do you mind if I close the door? Sometimes the commotion in the hallway is a bit distracting, for me at least, and I don’t want my friends thinking they can come in here and bug me. ”
I looked up at Jack’s face, and then at Mrs. Stone’s. Jack always had a way of sounding like he was in charge of any situation.
“That’s fine, Jack. I’m happy to see you so dedicated. ” Her eyes shifted to me as she said the word dedicated. “I hope you won’t mind if I go in and out? In the course of my teacher duties?” she said with half a smile.
Jack shook his head. “No. That’s fine. ”
“Thank you, Mr. Caputo. ”
Jack went to shut the door, then sat back down, and it hit me that maybe he was acting this way because of the encounter with Cole. Was I reading it right? He was protecting me. If Cole showed up again today, he’d have to go through Jack. It made my heart race.
We worked in silence for the first half hour, but I couldn’t concentrate. Did I really think I could choose to Return and then just watch Jack from a distance? He wasn’t going to allow it. This wasn’t fair to him.
I turned toward him. “Jack, you really shouldn’t be—”
“Shush. I’m trying to work,” he growled. He kept his head down, but his lips turned up slightly.
A soft chuckle escaped me. The first in a hundred years. Jack stared at me, and I gasped.
“What’d you say?” he asked.
I shook my head, my mouth slightly open. I couldn’t have just laughed. I didn’t even have the ability anymore, did I?
“It sounded like a laugh. ”
“No,” I said abruptly. “No. It’s not funny. ”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you sure? Because it sounded almost as if you said something to me, and then I said something back that you found funny. And you giggled. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. ”
I took a few calming breaths. “No. That’s impossible. ”
“Impossible that I said something funny?”
And there it was. I laughed again. “No. Impossible that I laughed. ”
His smile widened, and I laughed some more, at first because it was obviously not impossible, and then because I knew what it meant. I’d recovered enough to laugh.
Jack seemed amazed. “I think anything’s possible, Becks. ”
And then the fleeting levity disappeared. He called me Becks. He believed anything was possible. I couldn’t let him believe that. I was being selfish.
I didn’t bother putting my books in my bag. I just grabbed them and took off. I could hear his footsteps behind me as I yanked the door open.
“I’ll just follow you. ”
This made me freeze. “You don’t know what you’re saying. ”
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me around. “I let you go once, and you disappeared on me. Without a word. I’m not asking for it to be the same as it was, but I just want to know you again. Please. Can I know you again?”
I tried to wrench my hand free, and he let go of my wrist. “Becks, what happened to you? Do you even remember me?”
At that moment, I made a decision. Jack was grasping at the faint shadow of the life we’d had before, searching for a stronghold. I could see him doing it and I couldn’t let him. I’d already hurt him enough. He said he’d moved on.
So I lied. The biggest lie ever.
“No. ” I looked at his eyes. “I don’t remember anything. ”
He glanced away and nodded. “Okay. I get it. ” A ghost of a sad smile appeared on his lips, and my heart felt as if it were being choked. I fought to keep my hands at my sides. To keep them from pulling Jack to me. Placing them on either side of his face and forcing him to look at me again.
I shouldn’t have come back, but looking at his face, I knew. Nothing could’ve kept me away. I was that selfish.
Last spring, he’d already left me before I left him. But all that mattered now was that neither of us deserved to go through it again. I had to keep him from getting close again.
Without glancing up, Jack turned and walked away. I let him go.