Jack holds my gaze before letting it go. “Oh, same old shit but a different day. Once you get old like me, not much changes from day to day.”
My eyebrows lift. “You? Old? You’re not old, Jack!”
He side-eyes me with a chuckle and another swig of his beer. “I’m thirty, which is a lot older than you. That makes me old.”
“You don’t look thirty. I can promise you that.”
Jack leans forward, his forearms resting on his knees, turning his head to give me an almost boyish grin. “There yougo with those compliments again. They are going to go to my head. You’re not staying for the party? I thought you might have changed your mind about them.” All playfulness fades and his jaw tenses. “Maybe changed your mind about that boy.”
My heart leaps.He notices me.“Boy? You mean David? No way.” I glance back at my house. “Nah, I still can’t stand Austin and his friends. My friend Rachel and I are going to catch a movie and come back after.”
Jack scratches his five o’clock shadow.
My eyes catch his busted-up hands, and I shriek. “What happened?”
There is something on the tip of his tongue, but he decides to let it go. “Nothin’ you need to worry about. Have fun and be careful. I’m right next door if you need anything.”
CHAPTER 12
JESSI
My conversation with Jack delays my arrival to Rachel’s by a few minutes. The image of Jack’s split knuckles flash in my mind.Would he really knock someone out for disrespecting me?
When I finally arrive, Rachel is standing outside tapping her foot.
“Where were you?” she asks as she climbs into my car. “We’re going to be late, get terrible seats, and probably miss the previews. That’s the best part!”
“Well, hello to you too,” I say, frustration nipping my tone. “I was sidetracked because David decided to hang out with Austin tonight.”
Rachel snaps on her seat belt. “Ooo! Did you finally agree to date him?”
“No,” I say. “He was his usual annoying and creepy self.”
“Come on, Jessi. Let loose. Have some fun. You’re young and beautiful, and soon enough, you’ll be old and wrinkled, and no one will want to fuck you! So, enjoy being adored while you can!”
I don’t know why her brushing me off or invalidating my feelings bugs me so much, but it does. I don’t want to ruin the night, so I let it go. “Whatever. You can let loose for both of us.”
Rachel’s gaze flicks my way. “I might if David is still there when we get back to your house. He’s hot.”
I try to decipher if she is serious as I floor it to the theater before she gets crabbier. “So, are you over Austin?”
“Yeah. I want a more assertive guy. David sounds like that kind of guy. He has that hot hacker thing going on too. Did you hear that he ended up landing a scholarship for computer science at Stanford? You don’t care, do you?”
I stare at her, my mouth hanging open. “No, I don’t care about David or what he does, but why would you want someone like that? He’s a scumbag underneath all his brains, Rachel. He literally wants a career in invading people’s privacy, and probably doing much worse. You forget that I’ve heard Austin and David talk about spying and hacking and getting paid for it. They deal drugs out in the open. I don’t even want to know the extent of the shit they have gotten themselves into.”
She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Well, we only live once. Like I said, David’s hot. I’m not trying to marry him. I just want to have some fun.”
It’s barelyafter midnight when we pull into my driveway. There are still a lot of cars parked out front, and the music is blaring. I chew my lip. I knew this was going to be a long night.
In true Rachel fashion, she runs to the door, yelling, “Hurry up! Before the cute guys leave.”
I clench my fists. I want no part of this. “Go ahead,” I tell Rachel. “Have fun. I’m going to call it a night.” She pretends to pout for all of twenty seconds before she closes the door behind her, leaving me standing on the porch.
I sneak a peek at Jack’s house. All the lights are off. I hope he sleeps like the dead and doesn’t have to hear the stupidity next door.
After a few more minutes of solitude, I drag myself inside. Everything reeks of stale beer. I stumble over solo cups and sidestep around people making out on my way to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. The kitchen counters are covered in half-empty or spilled glasses, with what I can assume are multiple types of alcohol dripping onto the floor.
The meal-prep containers that I carefully organized in the refrigerator are tossed all over the counter, some half eaten. His friends are disrespectful animals—actually, animals would be cleaner than this. “What the hell, Austin?” I yell, but he is nowhere to be found.
