Year Four/Week Thirteen – Present
I’d never seen Jace drive before.
What a sight.
Maybe I was the type to romanticize every little thing, but Jace, wearing his black ballcap and a dark thermal, his long, slender fingers wrapped around the wheel… I just about melted.
Winter’s Lodge was roughly an hour drive away, far enough that conversation was a necessity, but close enough that it could be superficial.
I wanted none of those things.
I wanted Jace to prove what he said in that message.
Imagine the things I could do in person, he’d typed.
One thing I hated about men was how they were all bark and no bite. The ballsiest promises could be made over text, but face-to-face, no moves were made.
If Jace was like that…
His fingers scratched my knee, slow and calculated, before he removed his hand. “Warm enough?”
I blushed, staring at his angular side profile.
Jace was definitely not all talk.
Pushing my legs closer together, I shook my head. “I could be warmer.”
He picked up my insinuation almost immediately and shot me a lazy smile, cranking up the heat setting to three.
“Is this your car, Jace?” Fawn asked from the backseat.
“No darling, it’s his mom’s,” Bryce answered for him.
“Darling?” Jace laughed, taking a left turn. “Stealing my lines now?”
Darling.
The way Jace said it felt like smooth velvet. Only he could make a word sound so alluring, so sultry.
Maybe that’s how Fawn saw it with Bryce. After all, when you liked someone, everything they did became attractive. Nothing could put you off, nothing could shift the pedestal you placed them on.
That was the problem.
That was always my problem.
I took a sip of my water just as Fawn released, “You know Jace, you and Blu would look good together.”
My face burned with fire. He chuckled, his gaze fixed on me for a moment before turning to the road. I didn’t want to look at him. Instead, I stared at Fawn in the rear-view mirror, glaring with daggers.
“Oh yeah?” Was Jace’s response. Diplomatic, per usual.
“What do you think, Blu?” His hand was on my knee again, squeezing once before retracting. “Do you think we’d look good together?”
Stop it, I wanted to say. Don’t start something if you have no intention of finishing it.
“Dye your hair blue and then we’ll talk.” My joke was the only thing that could straighten out my senses. I didn’t know where we stood.
“You want to match?” he asked.
“Why not? We could be like The Smurfs.”
“I don’t think I’d look good with blue hair, darling.”
You’d look good with anything. “No, you really wouldn’t.”
It was shameful, how good I was at lying to him; how much I could conceal to save desperation. Every part of me wanted to beg for a sliver of emotion, to acquire a secure answer that would never make me question. But I had no right to look at things this introspectively.
Jace wasn’t mine.
And if he wanted to be, he would be.
“Can I connect my music?” I asked, removing my phone from my pocket.
“Yeah,” he nudged his head forward, “Just turn off my Bluetooth.”
Clicking open his lock screen, I caught a glimpse of an unanswered text. A girl. Tara.
I wasn’t going to say anything, shutting off his Bluetooth and connecting mine, but the curiosity was baiting me. I opened my mouth.
“Someone messaged you.” My voice was nonchalant, but my thoughts were buzzing with insecurity.
He reached for his phone and clicked it open, reading the name with a straight face before placing it back in the cupholder.
“Just a girl from school. I’ll answer later.”
My nails bit into the creases of my palm. “Which girl?”
“Uh, she’s got long brown hair. The one who sits near the front in Flowers’ class.”
Girl-next-door.
Girl-next-door.
My mind raced like a fucking stallion. My jealousy tipping between sanity and insanity. Why would she be texting him? Why would he be texting her? I’d never even seen them talk, not once. Not fucking once. When did this happen?
The rest of the way, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust myself to be centered, calm. My alternative music played as Bryce and Jace talked about the World Cup and whatever the hell else boys talked about. Fawn saw my anger through the mirror. She texted me not too long after that.
12:11pm – Fawny: You okay babe?
12:12pm – Blu: Remember the girl who kept looking at Jace in class? The girl-next-door I was telling you about?
12:12pm – Fawny: Oh no. She was the one who texted him?
12:13pm – Blu: Yep.
12:14pm – Fawny: Ugh that’s so annoying. Did you see the message?
12: 14pm – Blu: Nope. I’m so annoyed right now Fawn.
“Fast texter,” Jace poked my knee. This time, I moved away. He probably realized. I didn’t care.
“Something going on?”
“Just talking to my mom,” I lied.
I hadn’t told Jace anything pertaining to my family so it was a solid excuse. Mom probably didn’t even have my number saved. He didn’t need to know that.
At this point, did I even want him to discover those parts of me? If I was so insignificant, why should I care to prove my position in his life? Why should he get the opportunity to know me?
After another half an hour of gruelling silence, we arrived at Winter’s Lodge. Garland lights hung around the neatly trimmed hedges and cascaded down the rooftops like loose ribbon.
“Beautiful, right?” Fawn beamed, making her way to my side as the boys retrieved the bags from the trunk.
“It is,” Jace added. “Thanks for inviting us.”
She waved him off and linked her arm with mine, pushing me towards the entrance. “We’re going to the bar tonight,” she winked.
I knew her reasoning behind telling me that. I knew what she wanted me to do.
“There are so many cute guys at the lodge, Blu. If Jace is texting other girls, flirt with other guys. It’s fair game.”
But that’s the thing – I didn’t want to play games. For once, I just wanted something normal, something easy. At twenty-three, it didn’t seem appropriate anymore. But that little voice kept coming back. The voice that told me I was nothing but an option of convenience to Jace.
After seeing Tara’s message on his phone, all I wanted to do was infuriate him. I needed to know he cared.
I needed to know I was desirable.
“Did you bring any dresses for me?”
She grinned, nodding fast. “Blu Henderson, only the best for you.”
I glanced back to find Jace on his phone, probably responding to girl-next-door.
The fury returned. The cord snapped.
If this was how it had to be, then game on.
