You know those shitty high school stereotypes coming-of-age movies love to use? Jocks, geeks, cheerleaders, whatever?
Well, based on looks, I know I’d be labelled The Mean Girl. The Head Bitch. The Regina George of Harlem.
But for a long, long time, I was The Bad Kid. The Class Disturbance. The student jittering and disrupting because my thoughts moved too fast to be constrained in tiny classrooms with insipid lessons for hours on end. I didn’t, don’t, like schedules and deadlines, or rather, my brain isn’t wired to obey someone else’s, so teachers didn’t like me. And they liked me less when I finally got my diagnosis because attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? Codeword for lazy. Unmotivated. Excusatory.
That was when I became ‘Too Much.’ Too loud, too brash, too impulsive.
Too unwilling to sit on my ass and ignore the shit plaguing my mind, the intrusive thoughts designed to get me in trouble, like other people could.
I lament that quality most of the time. It’s hard, living with a brain like that. It’s tiring. It leads me to do things like slink out of my apartment dressed all in black with only nefarious intentions because I can’t stop picturing my roommate’s bleeding face.
They had a fight. Amelia and Dylan. Another loud, dramatic fight that bled through the thin walls between our bedrooms, about that damn Halloween party, of all things. Jackson’s Halloween party, I learned when I pressed my ear against the wall because it had gotten a little too quiet for my liking. When Amelia agreed to go like both Dylan and I knew she would, it just got me thinking.
Maybe, if Dylan wants to celebrate Halloween that badly, I should help him.
Hence why I’m skulking around Walmart a few minutes shy of midnight with a basket full of eggs, silly string, and spray paint. And a two pound bag of Sour Patch Kids. Because slightly villainous but definitely deserved deeds require sustenance, obviously.
My fingernails—glossy black because I take my criminal activity very seriously—tap against my basket as I debate whether an addition of something salty is necessary. Flamin’ Hot Cheetos are calling my name, and I’m reaching for a party-size pack when I get knocked off course.
“Woah.” Gripping the edge of the shopping cart attempting to mow me down, I crack a smile at the young girl driving it. “Relax, kid. There’s enough to go around.”
Deep brown eyes regard me with panic, and I lose my grip on the junk-food-laden cart as the girl stumbles backward. “Crap, I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, I’m a shit driver too. No judgment here,” I assure my weirdly familiar assailant. Not her, per se, but her face.
Her very sad face.
“You okay?” I can’t help but ask, peering around the aisle for whoever she might belong to. “Need help finding someone?”
The girl bristles in that indignant way teenagers striving for independence do. “No.”
I hum. “Someone need help finding you?”
She does a terrible job trying to hide her smirk. “Probably.”
A voice in my head makes a fond, nostalgic noise; it’s like looking in a mirror at my past, troublemaking self.
That’s not why she’s so damn familiar, though.
I can’t put my finger on it. There’s just something about her that makes me think we’ve met before.
And when a yelled, “Eliza!” rings out, I figure out why.
It should be a criminal offense for a man to simultaneously look so stressed yet so fine. Artfully mussed hair escaping from a loose braid. Furrowed brows I have the urge to call tortured. A white dress shirt with the top few buttons undone to reveal the dip of his throat and a hint of collarbone, the collar rumpled like he spent the day tugging at it.
Drooling in a Walmart. Oh, how far I’ve fallen.
“Luna,” Jackson breathes my name like it’s both a strain and a relief. He looks at me the same way, doing a quick yet thorough scan that makes me wish I hadn’t scampered out the door in fuzzy slippers and my best attempt at a cartoon robber costume. “Hi.”
“Hi, Jackson.” God, what is it with him looking surprised every time I say his name? I can’t tell if he assumes me to be forgetful or himself to be so unmemorable. When I glance at the girl beside me, I find her wearing just as funny an expression. “Eliza, is it?”
Jackson’s little sister—there’s no way that’s not his sister, they’re practically identical—nods as she looks between her brother and I. “You know each other?”
“Luna goes to Sun Valley, too.”
And I occasionally need to be scraped off bathroom floors.
Figured that bonding experience would promote a girl to ‘friend’ but apparently not.
“Really?” Eliza hums, and Jackson cringes. He grips her by the shoulders and starts to steer her away, to say goodbye, but she slips his grasp easily. “Why do you have so many eggs?”
I follow her gaze to the admittedly questionable contents of my basket. “I’m bulking.”
Both Jackson siblings arch a brow that so clearly screams ‘bullshit.’ “And the spray paint?”
“Art project.”
“Silly string?”
I wince. “Plausible deniability, kiddo”
“But-”
“Hey, why don’t you go find the others?” When Eliza whines at the command weakly disguised as a suggestion, Jackson shoves her gently down the aisle. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Reluctantly, she slopes off, waving goodbye with a crooked smile so similar to her brother’s, it’s a little scary. “She’s cute,” I start to say but the frown on Jackson’s face cuts me off. “What?”
“Are you okay?”
My eyes narrow, an instinctive reaction to my least favorite question. “Yes.”
“You look a little…” He dithers on a suitable descriptor, and I prepare myself for one bordering on an insult. You know; unhinged, unbalanced, bat-shit. Things every girl loves to be called. “Upset.”
Huh.
Okay.
Pleasantly surprising but still, I wave him off dismissively whilst making a second attempt at snatching those Cheetos. “I’m good.”
“You’re shaking.”
A single glance at my outstretched hand proves Jackson’s quiet observation correct.
Crap.
Sucking in a deep breath, I drag my palm along a legging-clad thigh. “I’m fine.”
My tight smile morphs into the beginnings of a scowl when Jackson laughs softly. “Sorry,” he coughs. “I have sisters. I know ‘I’m fine’ is bullshit.”
Annoyance—irrational but tangible all the same—straightens my spine, a huff of frustration leaving me. “To be perfectly honest,” I start, voice too sharp, too high, “I’m on my way to vandalize my roommate’s dickhead boyfriend’s house because he’s a giant piece of shit who deserves terrible things and I can’t do anything to him, but an anonymous vengeful Halloween spirit definitely can.”
Silence follows my outburst. Silence and staring, pretty brown eyes latched on me the way I naively begged for only a few nights ago. Before I knew how much him looking at me could itch.
Resisting the shiver tickling my spine, I huff, shopping basket teetering precariously as I shift to cross my arms. “Oh my God, what?”
The calmest I’ve ever seen him, Jackson glances over his shoulder. “Eliza?”
Immediately, a grinning face peeks around the end of the aisle. Not the least bit ashamed to have been caught eavesdropping, Eliza catches the wallet Jackson tosses her easily. “Stay with Lux, okay?”
A sarcastic salute, a cheeky smile in my direction, and Eliza disappears again, leaving the sound of whispering in her wake and making me wonder just how many Jackson women are lurking around the corner.
“What’re you doing?” I frown at Jackson when he advances, frowning some more when he gently maneuvers the basket from my grasp and sets it on the floor. “Hey, I’m buying that.”
Ignoring me, Jackson nudges me toward the exit. “C’mon.”
“Your sisters-”
“-are probably gonna spend the next half hour fighting over ice cream flavors,” he finishes for me. “Just come with me for a sec?”
I don’t know why but I do. Wearing the frown of all frowns and with a healthy dose of grumbling but with minimal actual fight, I let Jackson lead me outside. Apparently, my survival instincts have taken the night off. Not even when we reach a truck I assume is his do any internal alarm bells start ringing which, admittedly, for me, isn’t all that weird but still.
I don’t know where this odd inherent trust is coming from and I don’t have the time or the brainpower to question it because Jackson is unlatching the tailgate, patting the bed of his truck. I arch a brow. “This is a terrible attempt at seduction.”
Even in the shitty street lamp lighting, I see the blush I was angling for. It deepens when I hoist myself up and lie on the cold metal, legs dangling over the edge. “Really?” I sigh and shimmy in a vain attempt to get comfortable. “I’m not worth a couple cushions and a blanket?”
It must be a whole minute, how long Jackson stares at me, mouth open yet nothing coming out. When he does eventually articulate a response, I don’t hear it; it’s muffled by the truck creaking as he joins me. And then, he’s back to silence, lying on his back with his hands folded on his stomach and his eyes on the sky and I’m doing the staring, fingers drumming against my thighs.
I feel the need to whisper as I ask, “What’re we doing?”
“One of my sisters, Grace, has pretty bad anxiety,” Jackson responds, gaze remaining skyward, voice so calm it could lull a girl to sleep. “When it was at its worst, she had episodes almost daily and the only thing that really helped calm her was being outside. It’s called ecotherapy. Stargazing was one of her favorites. Naming constellations gave her something else to focus on.”
Heat crawls up my neck, my fingers balling into fists, a defense automatically forming on my tongue. “I wasn’t having an episode.”
“I know,” Jackson murmurs, quiet and calm and honest. “Figured it would help anyway.”
Oh.
Well, that’s sweet.
I’m not used to sweet.
It’s very… different.
Tilting my face towards the sky, I say, “I don’t know anything about stars.”
“Me neither. Nice to just look, though.”
“Hm.” Yeah, I suppose they are. But the twinkling lights only manage to hold my attention for a handful of minutes before it flits back to the man beside me. As I scan the unusual combination of slacks, dress shoes, and a button-down shirt, my curiosity gets the better of me. “Were you at a funeral or something?”
Jackson’s head flops toward me, an amused frown tilting his lips.
“You look nice,” I explain, and immediately amend it, “you’re dressed nice, I mean. Fancy.”
“I look nice,” I might be imagining it, but I swear, Jackson looks a little smug, “so I must’ve been at a funeral?”
“I would’ve said wedding but you look kinda stressed. And you were in Walmart bulk-buying junk food at midnight. That’s sad-person behavior.”
“As opposed to bulk-buying eggs?”
“That’s mad-person behavior.” In every sense of the word. “So? Funeral? Wedding? Baptism?”
“Grandparents visit.”
Huh. I didn’t know visits from your grandparents required such formal wear but hey, what do I know? Not like I have any for reference.
I do, however, have many, many references for the uncomfortable tension suddenly holding Jackson taut. And, like so many things tonight, I don’t like it.
So, I let my gaze rake over him, slow and purposeful, noting every detail and I hum. “It’s not a baseball uniform but you look pretty good.”
It’s an interesting juxtaposition, the doubtful wrinkles of his forehead combined with the upward tilt of his mouth, the bashful shade of red staining his cheeks and the wisecrack he murmurs. “You got a thing for baseball uniforms?”
“Everyone has a thing for baseball uniforms.”
It’s not a joke but he laughs, a familiar, quiet chuckle that I’m beginning to think might be the most comforting sound in the world. As comforting as his smile and his eyes, locked on mine with the focus of someone who’s actually seeing. He doesn’t stare. He… Jesus Christ, fuck me for saying this but he gazes.
I’m not sure who exactly moves closer. Both of us, maybe. All I know is one second, there’s a decent gap between us and the next, we’re practically sharing breath. He’s right fucking there. So close I can truly appreciate the depth to those dark brown eyes. The sun-bleached streaks in long, wavy hair. The uneven lips, the bottom fuller than the top.
In any other circumstance, with any other person, I’d be kissing those lips by now. I’d be kissing the hell out of them and hopefully, he’d be kissing the hell back.
But I think it’s been established Jackson is not any other person.
He doesn’t kiss me. Doesn’t even try. He does what could be the very opposite; he sits up, shoulders heaving as he breathes deep, and scoots to the edge of the truck bed, basically as far away from me as he can possibly get.
“Wow,” I tease quietly, blatantly ogling the muscles covered by white cotton, letting the sight of them soothe the teeny tiny sting of rejection. “I think that was a record for the whole eye-contact thing.”
Broad shoulders rise and fall dramatically once more before Jackson turns, obviously nervous yet oddly determined. “Do you have plans on Halloween?” he blurts, not giving me a chance to respond before continuing, “Because there’s a party at my place. My roommates are throwing it. And me, obviously since it’s my house too.” He laughs awkwardly, a hand rising to rake through his hair. “It should be fun and, uh, you can come.”
Propping myself up on my elbow, I cock my head. “I can?”
Jackson swallows hard enough for me to see the bob of his throat. “If you want.”
I try so very hard not to grin like a big fool, and I fail so very spectacularly. “If I want.”
He nods.
“Do you want me to come?”
“If you want,” he repeats, and that’s just not good enough for me.
My grin becomes a teasing smirk. Joining him at the truck’s edge, I elbow him gently. “It’s a yes or no question, Jackson.”
His lack of hesitation is as surprising as it is needed. “Yes.”
“Okay.” Humming in satisfaction, I allow myself another indulgent second with the warmth of him bleeding into me before hopping to my feet.
Jackson follows my lead. Leaning against his truck with his hands in his pockets and an indecipherable expression on his face, he watches as I straighten myself out. “So,” he coughs. “You’re coming?”
Biting down my smile, I shrug.
Jackson shifts, crosses his arms over his chest and coughs again. This time, when he speaks, his voice is a decibel louder, a hint deeper. “It was a yes or no question, Luna.”
I pause my oh-so-casual adjustment of my ponytail.
Interesting.
“I was always coming,” I admit, not the least bit embarrassed. “But it’s nice to have an invite from the big man himself.”
