Elliot’s wordskeep bouncing around my skull as Jackson and I push through the door of Groovy Threads, a thrift store on the outskirts of Berkeley Shore.
“Holy shit,” Jackson breathes, taking in the aisles upon aisles of vintage everything. “I’ve stepped through a time machine.”
There’s no one else here except the cashier, who’s absorbed in a Stephen King paperback and couldn’t care less about us. There are no phones pointed our way, no whispers, just Jackson and me, surrounded by decades of questionable fashion choices.
“Come on.” I grab his wrist and pull him toward the first rack, which appears to be dedicated entirely to eyesores. “We need to find something that screams, ‘I’m here to win this disco competition and look fabulous while doing it.’”
The overhead speakers crackle to life, and the unmistakable opening of A-ha’s “Take on Me” floods the store. Jackson’s entire face transforms, his eyes widening and his lips parting in pure, unguarded delight.
“Oh, this is happening.” He grabs a hot pink feather boa from a nearby display and drapes it around his neck with the confidence of a runway model. “How do I look?”
Ridiculous. Adorable. Like someone I want to kiss senseless.“Like a flamingo had a baby with a Vegas showgirl,” I say instead, snatching a purple boa for myself. “Work it, Jacky.”
Jackson strikes a pose, one hand on his hip, the other twirling the end of the boa. The fluorescent lights catch the feathers, sending little pink wisps floating through the air. His brown eyes are bright with mischief, and that crooked smile of his is doing things to my insides that should be studied.
“We need accessories,” he declares, already moving toward a spinning rack of sunglasses.
I follow, watching the way his shoulders move under his jacket as he reaches for a pair of star-shaped glasses in electric blue. His fingers are long and elegant, built for precision and control. I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about those fingers. What they’d feel like tangled in my hair. Wrapped around my?—
“Drew? You okay?”
I blink, realizing I’ve been staring at his hands like a creep. “Fine. Great. Just looking for the perfect eyewear.”
I grab the first pair I see—heart-shaped lenses in neon orange—and shove them on my face. Jackson bursts out laughing, the sound echoing through the empty store and mixing with the music’s frantic beat.
“You look like a reject from a Cyndi Lauper video,” he wheezes.
“Girls just wanna have fun, Jacky.” I strike a pose, holding up two fingers and pouting my lips. “And that’s all I really want.”
He’s still laughing as he puts on his star glasses, and something in my chest cracks open a little more. This is the Jackson I don’t get to see often—the one without the weight of expectations, without the careful quarterback composure. He’s loose and silly and so goddamn beautiful that it hurts.
We work our way through the store as though we’re on a mission from the fashion gods themselves. Jackson finds a pair of roller skate earrings and holds them up to his ears, waggling his eyebrows. I counter with a bedazzled headband that reads “Disco Queen” in rhinestones.
“You have to get that,” Jackson insists.
“Absolutely not.”
“Drew. Drew, look at me.” He grabs my shoulders, his face deadly serious despite the ridiculous star glasses. “You are a disco queen. Own it.”
His hands are warm through my jacket, and I can feel each finger pressing into my muscles. My brain short-circuits for a second, caught between wanting to lean into his touch and wanting to run screaming into the sub-zero cold.
“Fine,” I hear myself say. “But only if you wear these.”
I grab a pair of dangly lightning bolt earrings and hold them up. Jackson takes them, examines them with mock gravity, then clips them onto his ears.
“How do I look?” He tilts his head, and the lightning bolts swing against his jaw.
“Acceptable.”
The song hits its chorus, and Jackson starts doing this ridiculous shoulder shimmy that shouldn’t be attractive but absolutely is. His whole body moves with the music, loose and unselfconscious, and I watch the way his shirt rides up slightly when he raises his arms.
“Come on!” He grabs my hand and spins me. “Dance with me!”
I should say no. I should maintain some semblance of cool. Instead, I let him pull me into the aisle. We dance ironically between racks of vintage clothing while A-ha wails about taking on someone in a day or two.
Jackson’s laughter is infectious, and I realize that I’m laughing, too, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep in my chest.
He pulls me close for a dramatic dip, and suddenly his face is inches from mine. The star glasses have slid down his nose, and his brown eyes are right there, crinkled at the corners with joy. His breath is warm on my lips.
