Junk Miles (35 page)

“
Look at this.” He opened the fridge, and there was a tray of lasagna that could have fed a small army.

“
What’s that?” My lips curved up in response to his proud smile.

“
A friend of mine gave me her mom’s lasagna recipe. I got all the stuff to make it and cooked it last night. We just have to put it in the oven, and it will be ready for dinner.” He held the tray out proudly. “I grated cheese for this. Like, a lot of cheese.”

I got up, took the tray out of his hands, and set it on the table next to us. I wound my arms around his neck and just looked at him for a long minute.

“
I love you, Jake.” I had said those words before, but I wanted him to understand how much I meant them, with every breath I took and every beat of my heart.

“
It’s just a lasagna.” He was trying to joke, but I could see the worry that clouded his eyes.

“
I’m really sorry for everything. Honestly, I screwed up big time.” I kissed him softly. He kissed back hungrily and soon I was pressed against the kitchen counter, and Jake’s hands were everywhere at once.

He finally pulled back, panting. “I’m going to put that lasagna in the oven. You wait for me in my room, okay? I’ll be in, five seconds.”

I kissed him, grabbed my backpack, and headed down to his sterile little room. My hands brushed over the bangles on his desktop, and I felt a smile tug at my lips. I turned to the bed and I felt a little clutch of panic.

The last time I’d seen that bed, it was in a picture Jake posted. With a condom wrapper on it.

I knew everything had been washed and changed since then, but it still felt alien and dirty, somehow.

Jake skidded down the hall and burst through the door, then stopped and looked at me looking at the bed. He looked back and forth between me and the bed. “Bren? Is something wrong?”

“
Uh, it’s just…you know, the last time? It was you and…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Jake pulled me into his arms and kissed my lips. “She didn’t mean anything, okay? It was stupid. The only reason I did it was to make you jealous, and it was still a dumbass move. Do you believe me?”

I leaned my head on his chest and nodded. He scooped me up and dropped me on the bed with a bounce, then climbed on top of me and boxed me in with his arms as I giggled and squirmed.

“
This is our space. This is our night. We both did things that were dumb, but let’s forget them for a while.” I stopped giggling and he lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me softly. “I’ve been waiting to get you alone since the minute I left you in your driveway before you went to Paris. I missed you so damn much.”

I pushed my mouth back up, close to his and we kissed and held each other first sweetly, then with a more powerful need. Soon we were surrounded by discarded items of clothing and toppled pillows, our hands and mouths grabbing greedily at that feeling we had both needed from each other for the time we’d been apart. When we were finally satisfied, Jake kissed my shoulder, pulled his shirt on, righted his pants, and pointed down the hall.

“
I can smell the lasagna, so it must be done. You hungry?” His hair was tousled, his eyes were hooded and heavy-looking, and I wanted to crawl into his arms and never come back out again.

“
Starving. I’ll be out in a minute?” He whistled down the hall and into the kitchen, and I called my mother to check in. She asked how the night was going and complained about her students’ inability to follow very clear instructions, then we exchanged good nights and clicked off. I let out a sigh of relief and headed to the bathroom. I searched for a brush, but only managed to find a comb, so I did the best I could to my wild hair and headed out to the dining room.

Jake had the lasagna on the table, which was set with plates bordered with olive, orange, and gold tulips, mismatched plastic cups and paper napkins from Dunkin Donuts.

“
Dinner is served,” he announced solemnly. I sat across from him and watched as he shoveled an enormous amount of layered pasta onto the plate.

I took a bite and closed my eyes. “This is amazing. I had no idea you were such an awesome cook, Jake.”

“
I was thinking about shaking up my weekly dinner menu a little. But maybe I have to make a little less next time. I think this lasagna will last a whole month.” He motioned to the enormous dish in the center of the table.

We laughed and joked through dinner, and I helped him portion some of his delicious lasagna to freeze for later. We did the couple of dishes we made side by side at the sink and had a soap sud fight that left us breathless and necessitated getting out the mop.

“
I should invite you over more often,” Jake commented as I sopped up the last of the water. “Awesome dinner and a spic and span kitchen?”

“
The dinner was all you. And I only mopped because I feel bad about how totally soaked you got. I didn’t want to be a sore winner.” I shrieked when he came at me, his fingers bent to tickle my sides.

When we were done in the kitchen, it was only eight.

“
Wow.” Jake stretched and yawned a huge fake yawn. “I’m ready for bed.”

I felt a sudden flurry of nerves. “Um, you want to go to bed?”

He started down the hall backwards and crooked his finger at me. “Yep. C’mon. It’s chilly. I need you to warm me up.”

I swallowed hard. “What if your father comes home soon?”

“
Pool and darts tonight. He’ll be in after midnight, and he’ll go straight to bed. C’mon.” He was at the door of his room now. He crooked his finger again, and I followed like I was connected by a string.

He shut the door and we tumbled back on his bed in his dim room.

“
What do you usually do on Friday nights when we don’t go out?” I ran my fingers through his hair.

“
I wait for you to call me. Or I play video games.” He looked at me and smiled. “Wanna play?”

“
Okay. But I don’t want you to be a big baby if you lose.” I sat, cross-legged, and waited while he flipped on his PS3 and opened a dresser drawer full of games. He took out one and held it front forward, his face serious.

“
This is
Little Big Planet
. Have you ever played this game?” I shook my head. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “This game is the most amazing game in the world. This game will change your life. Are you ready to play this game? Brenna, stop laughing. Are you ready?”

I smoothed my mouth out and tried to be as serious as I could. “Okay.”

He put the game in, set up the remotes, and explained the directions. Which weren’t all that specific, since the point of the game was basically to create worlds that you could play in. Our Sackpeople flipped and whirled through cities and around fantastic gardens of our own creation. We engaged in friendly battles, met other Sackpeople, and explored the graphics and world possibilities. Jake and I made an amazing team; he was careful and thoughtful, I was experimental and fearless and our world grew and expanded like an amazing Wonderland. We got so sucked into the game, I had no clue at all how much time had gone by, but I couldn’t contemplate stopping. Before we knew it, we heard the roar of an engine outside, and Jake’s father was home. I froze, and my Sackgirl’s menacing high kick fell short of Jake’s Sackboy’s karate slash.

“
No worries.” Jake rubbed a hand on my arm. “He’s not even going to stop in here.”

I heard his father put his keys down in the kitchen, then listened with dread as his heavy boot-steps echoed down the hall, closer and closer to Jake’s door. I was positive he’d stop and poke his head in, especially since the light from the television was still on, but he didn’t. The master bedroom door opened and snapped shut.

I let out a huge breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding in.

Jake put an arm around me. “He wouldn’t care if he knew. I swear.”

I felt a hot prickle when I realized that Jake was saying it because he was positive about it. Because he’d had other girls over and his father hadn’t cared.

Jake put the controls away, flipped the TV off, and put an arm around me again, but I brushed it off. “Don’t be so worried,” he crooned in my ear.

“
I’m not.”

“
What’s wrong?” He put a hand on my chin and rubbed it gently with his fingers. “Brenna? Tell me.”

“
Was she here? Did she stay over?” It was stupid to ask. We were trying to forget that it had all happened, not keep dragging it out over and over. Especially since I was the one who broke up with Jake and fooled around with Saxon.

“
Do you want me to answer that? Really?” Jake’s voice was hard with frustration.

“
I guess you already answered.” I looked around his cramped, bland room, so foreign in the dark. It was weird to think that this was the exact place Jake sat when we had our marathon phone conversations. I decided to focus on those thoughts and how generally good the night had been instead of pointing fingers. Especially when I really had no business pointing out anyone else’s mess ups. “It really doesn’t matter. I’m ready to go to sleep now.” I smiled.

Jake’s return smile was cautious. “Do you need to wash your face and all that?”

I nodded and grabbed my overnight bag, feeling weird and shy suddenly. “Okay, I’m going.”

“
Okay.” He laughed and fell back on the bed. “I’ll be right here.”

I changed in the bathroom and spent a long time washing my face and brushing my teeth. I snuck back in the room and found Jake dozing. I poked him awake, and he stumbled across the hall. I snuggled under the covers while he was getting ready, and his pillow felt uncomfortable under my head, but smelled perfectly familiar, just like Jake.

He opened the door softly and closed it behind him. He pulled off his shirt and let his jeans drop, then yanked off his socks, balled them all up and threw them in the hamper in the corner of his room. He stood for a long minute, so handsome in just his boxers, in front of the bed, then slid in next to me. His body was long and warm next to mine, and I rolled into his arms, where I fit snug and tight as a key in a lock.

He looked down at my face in the dim flow from the streetlights that shined in his window. “I love how you look when you have no makeup on.”

“
What? I spend a lot of time getting makeup on when I know I’m going to see you! I won’t do it anymore if you’re going to be unappreciative.” I leaned up and kissed his chin.

“
You look great no matter what, but I love you without makeup on. You look so beautiful and, I guess I feel like I get to see you in a way no other guy gets to.” He pressed his mouth to mine.

“
I love you so much,” I whispered when he pulled away.

“
I love you.” His arms clamped around me tight. “More than anything in the world. Don’t forget that. I know I tried to be all cool with it, but it broke my heart when I thought I lost you.”

I held him tighter. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

He held me close and whispered. “Forget it. It’s just you and me, no problems, doing this thing together. We’ll be unstoppable.” His voice dropped off sleepily. A few minutes later, he was snoring softly, and I was still locked safe and sure in his arms.

Chapter Eighteen

After that night, life went back to something like the normal it had been before Jake and I broke up, but it wasn’t exactly the same. For one thing, my cross country glories meant that our team kept going and going, and the season stretched out all the way to states. Once Mom gave her okay for me to run again, I was as fast as ever. I had been a little nervous that with no craziness to worry about, no stresses to work out on the track, I’d just stop running. But that didn’t happen. In fact, I ran faster, the buzzing in my head gone and replaced with calm focus.

Jake made every big meet with my parents. He and Mom had come to an uneasy truce.

“
Bren, don’t you think that dating a little more would be a good thing?” she had asked the night before I went back to school.

I’d said it before, and I would say it again; my mother was the best mother on earth, but she was no dummy. She had seen most of the whole sordid thing unfold right in front of her eyes, and she was dead set on milking the momentum of it.

“
I will,” I said honestly. “If I meet someone great, I will hang out with him. I promise. But, Mom, I have to say this; Jake is awesome. It sounds like the biggest teenage cliché, but you don’t understand what he’s like.”

Mom sighed a long, tortured sigh. “Jake is a great guy,” she said with no real conviction. “But that doesn’t mean you two have to be joined at the hip to be happy.”

“
I hardly see him,” I protested. “We only see each other for a few hours in school, and he works a lot. Plus that I have cross country, and I’ve been seeing Kelsie more.” Kelsie and Chris decided to spend more time with friends, since they’d been practically living together and getting on each other’s nerves. I was glad that she reached out to me. “I’m not exactly weeping every minute I’m not with him.” Though I did get sad without him. Especially when the panic of our breakup rushed over me once in a while.

“
I just want you to keep your options open,” Mom said, and then she said a few more things that were basically along the same line of the first statement, and I listened respectfully, but as soon as we were done talking, I gave her a kiss and when she left my room, I called Jake. I did not tell him what Mom and I talked about.