Double Clutch - Реинхардт Лиз - Страница 23

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Hey,

Thanks for the make out session in the car. Don’t sweat it, Blix. I won’t tell a soul. Did you listen to the CD? I didn’t think so. Do yourself a favor. Folly’s cool, and you’re about to clothe their groupies.

Later, friend,

Saxon

His note, was, of course, designed to make me sweat it. How could it not? It was like he had something to hold over my head, and, boy, was he ever going to hold it over my head. I thought about writing him back when my phone vibrated. I didn’t recognize the number, but it wasn’t like I was expecting another call.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Jake said, and I felt a little tightening in my stomach, but in a good way, hearing his voice again.

“How was work today?” I lay back on my mattress and wondered where he was. If he was in his room, I wondered what it looked like.

“It sucked. Especially after I saw you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

His laugh was hushed. “It sucked because it was like a tease, Brenna. I spent the rest of the day wishing I could hang out with you.”

My heart picked up, beating hard and fast. “Sorry. I was busy today anyway.”

“How did your shopping go?” His voice was warm, kind. It was easy to drift away on it and forget all of the things I’d seen on the internet and Kelsie’s rumor-telling.

“I think it was good. My mom is going to help me redo my room as a birthday gift, so I have all the raw stuff, and we just have to put it all together tomorrow and see how it goes. As quiet as I tried to keep my voice, it bounced off the stark walls in a series of echoes.

“I bet it will look great. I wish I could come over and help you. I’m a really decent painter.” I felt a stab of panic. I didn’t really want to let Mom and Thorsten know anything about any boys at all. But he wasn’t really asking, because he said, “But I have work this Sunday.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle my sigh of relief. “That’s okay. I’m sure we’ll be fine. There are three of us and my room isn’t very big.”

There was a fairly long stretch of silence. I could hear Jake lean back and get comfortable, and it was weirdly intimate to hear it all but not see it.

“So I guess I have some explaining to do,” he finally said.

“Not really,” I returned, and even I could hear that my voice was a little prim and prudish. “If you don’t want to tell me about the pictures, you don’t have to.”

I could hear him draw his breath in and push it out slowly, like he was preparing himself for something difficult. “Even if you didn’t see something that made you suspicious, I would have eventually told you all about myself. It’s just not the first thing I like to talk about. Like…” He stopped for a minute. “It sucks to say, ‘Hey, I’m Jake and I’ve screwed up a lot.’”

“Everybody’s screwed up,” I said diplomatically. I waited a few long seconds.

“Maybe not like me.” His words had a dark, ominous ring to them, and I forced my mind to shut down and stop imagining the possible extent of his screw ups. “I’m not going to cry on your shoulder, but I’ve had a weird upbringing.” He paused. When I didn’t say anything, he went on, “My mom died when I was seven and my dad started to drink. A lot.”

“I’m sorry.” Sympathy radiated out of me and I willed him to feel it across the distance between us.

“That’s okay,” he said automatically. “My dad totally stopped drinking a few years ago. And even though I hated when he did it and hated how it made him act, I started to drink when I got into high school. As much as Dad ever did, and maybe more.”

“Oh.”

“I was really messed up. I was running around with some wild kids, a lot of them already out of high school, and we were just getting smashed every weekend.” His breathing was unsteady. “Sorry. This is just really weird. I’ve never talked to anyone about this, and I really didn’t want this to be one of the first things we ever talked about.”

“I’m glad you’re telling me,” I reassured him, though I wasn’t sure if I was. An obnoxiously persistent voice in my head kept telling me to tell him to stop. I didn’t want to hear anything else that would make me feel bad for him or regret liking him. But it was brave of him to tell me, so, against all better judgment, I said, “You should tell me everything.”

He let out a long whoosh of air, like he’d been holding his breath, waiting for my answer. “Alright. I, um, I don’t know how else to say this, so I’ll just say it. I’ve slept with a lot of girls. I was drunk most of the time. Not even one was a girlfriend. A lot of time it was older girls I met at parties. I had, kind of, a reputation?” he said uncertainly. “I’m really not proud of this,” he added.

“It’s okay.” My entire body trembled, but I managed to keep my voice perfectly steady. “Just tell me the rest.”

“One weekend I got really, really drunk.” His voice pitched hollowly. “I woke up in some girl’s bed. I couldn’t find my shoes. I didn’t know where I was. And my tooth was chipped. I had no idea why. And that was it. I was done with it. I stopped drinking that weekend. That was a year and four months ago.”

Even his adorably chipped tooth was part of this mess. I felt like all of the energy had run out of my body, like my muscles and bones were just congealed mush that left me limp and powerless. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“Please,” he begged in a ragged whisper, “say something, Brenna.”

I managed to piece together something neutral and not nearly strong enough to convey all the words and emotions that crashed and exploded in my brain. “Thank you for telling me.” My voice was as hollow as his had been.

He cleared his throat. “I pretty much screwed up any chance of us, you know…”

“What?” I knew it was torturous even as the word left my mouth. He obviously felt like crap and I wasn’t helping. But I didn’t want to, suddenly. In a sick way I liked hearing him suffer; it let me know he really felt terrible about all those girls, all those times he was with them.

“For us to go out. Man, this blows.” He laughed, but there wasn’t an ounce of happiness in that laugh.

“You didn’t lie to me. And I would never blame you for something that you did way before we met.” Or even many, many someones he did. He was right. This blew.

“God, Brenna.” His voice was cracked and raw. “I feel like I had this one bad year and that’s my real life. I can try as hard as I want, but that terrible year is what’s in store for me. I won’t do better.”

“Jake, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You made some mistakes. So? Big deal. Of course I would still be willing to date you.” The words popped out of my mouth, mixed in the tumult of anger and frustration and attraction that swirled like a whirlpool in my head.

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