Junk Miles (36 page)

Because things with Jake were still a work in progress, which I liked, but had to be careful with.

Like I had to balance what ‘freedoms’ I wanted with what might hurt his feelings. Hence, no direct hanging out with Saxon. Who had, since our last meeting at my sick-bed, been in and out of the pants of a half a dozen girls, at least that could be confirmed. That didn’t really creep me out; what was weird was the kinds of girls he was picking; brains, cross-country runners, and artistic girls, all types that in some form or another I liked, respected, and felt a definite connection with. He only ever commented on it once, in Government.

We were viciously trying to capture more blue states in a geeky bid to control Sanotoni’s U.S. map. I said something random, and he laughed. That wasn’t that out of the norm; I had a fair ability to crack Saxon up.

He looked leaner, a new set of tattoos peeked out from under the sleeves of his
Blondie
t-shirt, and his hair was cut in a low mohawk. He also had a lip ring, which he moved with his tongue incessantly. Now he was laughing and the silver hoop around his bottom lip gleamed. “You’re damn funny, Blix.”

“
I’m glad I can amuse you.” I rolled my eyes at him, but I actually meant it.

“
It’s not as easy as you’d think,” he confessed. “I know I have a short attention span, but that’s only because I’m hard to amuse, not easy. You were the only girl I’ve ever met who kept my interest.” He grinned, a tight, angry slash of his mouth. “But you and Jake deserve each other. Don’t you?”

I looked busily down at my paper. “I’m not answering that,” I said quietly. The good mood was gone and we were back to business.

Other than Saxon, Jake and I tried to spend more time with other people, friends and in groups. My t-shirts, the fairytale ones, sold as quickly as the ones I had made for Frankford’s up-and-coming band,
Folly,
had, and without an awesome group of musicians to push them. Kelsie encouraged me to bring them to some local art fairs, and I was doing really well selling them and meeting fantastically cool people.

Like the guy who made knee-high leather boots by hand. Apparently Steven Tyler from
Aerosmith
had three pairs. I met a lady who made bark baskets based on an ancient Native American template. I also met jewelers, instrument makers, weavers, and wood carvers. It was like this whole other community within a community.

And Jake was mostly cool with it. “I want you to do your thing,” he said, as he glared at the young drum maker’s apprentice with dreads and a big smile for me and Kelsie. “I trust you.”

And that was the truth. If nothing else, Jake knew I was honest. Even if I couldn’t tell him right away, Jake knew I’d always eventually come clean. Even if my compulsion to always tell the truth had so much more to do with my inability to deal with any bottled-up emotions than a truly good spirit.

Not that that was easy. Once Jake and I had lounged around kissing and laughing for an entire afternoon, I made him tell me. Everything. I came clean too, because I thought it was important to do it. Even if it sucked. Which it did.

Apparently the condom wrapper on the bed hadn’t been a prop. Nikki hadn’t been anyone he particularly cared about, but that hadn’t stopped him from sleeping with her and easing into a casual dating relationship. Which added one more intimacy to his already overlong list.

And even though he’d slept with Nikki, he had no problem being incredibly pissed that Saxon and I had fooled around. We had found a spare, quiet afternoon to just be together in his little boring room. But we got to talking, and talking turned into arguing. Mainly about why my few sessions fooling around with Saxon carried more weight than his sex with Nikki.

“
But you
liked
him,” he argued, his face rigid with anger.

“
But you
screwed
her,” I said coldly.

We stared each other down until Jake nodded. “Fine. Can we call a truce?”

“
I don’t know. Can we?”

“
I want to.” He pulled me back into his arms and kissed me soundly. “Are we done driving each other crazy for a while?”

“
I think so,” I said. And that was the truth, too.

And it was the truth that it felt good to be back with him. I loved to hear the rumble of his truck, which now pulled right into my driveway; I didn’t want Mom and Thorsten not knowing, and they were surprisingly cool with it. Mostly because February and March were so cold they made your stomach clench when the wind blew, and the thought of me in Jake’s always-warm truck was comforting to them.

It was on the way to school one random day in March when Jake brought up the one thing I hadn’t imagined him having any interest in.

“
So
I have junior prom this year.” He flipped radio stations.

“
Oh, yeah? Do you have a hot date?” I snuggled next to him.

He laughed. “Maybe. Maybe not. My girlfriend is smoking’, but she’s this wild liberated woman. I’ll ask her, but she might shoot me down.”

“
Don’t you think a wild, liberated woman might want a poufy dress and some body glitter and a corsage?” I was already getting a little rush just imagining it all.

“
Are you saying you’ll go with me?” Jake asked.

I leaned over and kissed his neck, smooth and hot-skinned and perfect. “Of course I’ll go with you. You’ll dance with me, right?”

He blushed a little. I loved it. As I salivated over his reddened skin, he looked straight ahead wildly. “I want to. But my spine is pretty much soldered directly to my hips, Bren. I’m not really good at dancing.”

“
I’ll teach you,” I promised. Not that I was world class, but I had a few moves. And the point of a prom was dancing. “And I’m not going to be able to go to the shore or anything after prom.” Speaking of the point of the prom.

He laughed again. “Do you really think I was expecting to weasel your virginity away on prom night? Do I look like that much of an uninspired jackass?”

“
Don’t ask,” I teased. “You can go back out with your friends after you drop me, or Mom can give me a ride home.”

He shook his head. “I know you try to be all fair-minded, but give me some credit. I’m not going to split after prom without you, and I’m sure as hell not asking Mom to come pick you up.” He shivered. “That just gave me a chill. Like, an actual chill down my spine.”

“
What? The idea of leaving me after prom?”

“
No, the image of the evil shooting from your mother’s eyes when she finds out that someone is ditching her little girl.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “I have no defense against that kind of pure angry woman power.”

“
You have no defense against
any
woman power.” I grinned.

“
Hey,” Jake said as Frankford came into view. “Today started out pretty awesome. Let’s skip, I’ll take you to the new Christian Bale movie so you can squeal over him and then I’ll take you back to my place and you can calm my bruised ego. Eh? Eh?” His gray eyes were crinkled up with his smile.

Who could say no to that? My heart felt big and warm and blooming. “Let’s do it.”

Christian Bale was delicious. Almost as delicious as the mozzarella and tomato sub with extra oil and vinegar I ate after. Then we did go back to Jake’s house. We’d been taking it reasonably slow since we got back together. Part of the whole reconciliation thing involved me getting over the fact that Jake’s wrongs would just have to be more extreme than mine. I was furious that he slept with another girl, but we were completely broken up at the time. I had gone as far as I’d gone with anyone with Saxon. I didn’t love it, but I understood that making peace meant I had to let it go as best I could.

But the giddiness of the whole afternoon made us even giddier in bed. Jake stripped down to his boxers. “C’mon. Skivvies time,” he added, shaking his hips in what I know he thought was an alluring way. It made me laugh so hard, I almost couldn’t breathe.

“
I hate that word,” I gasped out when he finally stopped gyrating in front of me.

Winded, he fell on the bed next to a fully-clothed me. “What word?” he panted.

“
Skivvies. Doesn’t it just sound kind of gross?”

“
Yeah,” he said. “I think it was an old-fashioned word for men’s underwear.”

“
Well, that makes sense then. There’s nothing grosser than men’s underwear.”

“
Do you want me to take them off?” Jake asked, grabbing at his waistband.

“
No!” I laughed again.

Not that we hadn’t been naked before, but it was always a gradual kind of thing.

“
Come under the covers with me,” he coaxed. “I’m freezing.”

“
You’re the moron who just took off all of your clothes,” I pointed out.

“
So I’m dumb and cold. Take some pity on me.” He wiggled under the covers like a little kid. “I’ll beg,” he said agreeably. I don’t think he had any idea how adorable he was, his handsome, clean-shaven face, his shiny brown hair and smoothly muscled arms and chest.

“
You love begging.” I giggled.

“
Only you, baby. C’mon, Bren. I sat through that traumatically crappy movie.”

“
It was a good movie!” I protested.

“
I fell asleep twice and mostly all I could think about was this itch on my a…”

And he stopped because I had my shirt off.

“
New bra?” he croaked a little.

It was. Pink polka dots, very scantily cut with just a little lace. The underwear matched. Once I was down to them, Jake was sitting up straight.

“
Wow. I’m really glad I picked today to seduce you back to my house,” he said lowly, and pulled me down onto the bed next to him. Then his mouth was on mine, and I felt the scrape of his watch band, the watch I bought him, as he slid his hand up my stomach and cupped my breast. “Brenna,” he breathed, his mouth moving down along my collar bone and to the tops of my breasts, pushed up and out by my excellent bra. Then my excellent bra was off and on the floor and Jake’s hands and mouth were everywhere it had been.

He kissed down my ribs and along the line of my stomach, then concentrated on my belly button, and my hips. He stopped kissing me for a minute and lifted his head.

“
Do you mind if I go further?” he asked, his voice quiet in the cool of his room.

I wasn’t sure. Jake’s fingers played at the lacy waist of my underwear, tracing a finger under the elastic band carefully. He waited patiently.

“
I don’t know.” Part of me wanted it so much I was squirming for him to continue; another part of me shied away from something that intimate.

“
Then I won’t.” He said it evenly, in that sweet Jake voice that he always used with me when we were fooling around. He wasn’t about to force anything. We kissed and touched until I was warm and exhausted.

He took a long piece of my hair and held it out.

“
You have great hair.” He put it to his nose and inhaled.

“
Yeah? I was thinking of dyeing it. Black.” I looked at him from the corner of my eye.

He smiled and shook his head.

“
What, you don’t have anything to say?” I taunted.

“
No way. If I say what I think, you’ll have black hair tomorrow just to spite me.”

“
So you think I’d look ugly with black hair?” I hooted.

“
I didn’t say that. Stop putting words in my mouth!” he ordered. “I’m just saying, if I say,
Don’t do it, Brenna
, you’ll do it just to show me you can.”

“
I don’t do things like that.”

“
That’s exactly how you do things.” He ran his hand over my hair. “I like that about you. That you’ll take a challenge to the extreme.”

“
Rebel, rebel,” I muttered, remembering Saxon’s descriptions of me.

“
So, about prom,” Jake said, his voice a little nervous again. “I bought the bids already, but I have to pick a corsage. Right? So when you know what color dress you’re wearing, let me know and I’ll go get something. That matches.” It sounded like he was asking me.

“
Okay.” I kissed his nose and wiggled with excitement. “I will. Where are you getting your tux?”

He looked confused. “Do I have to wear a tux?” he asked.

“
No,” I said. “But most people do. Do you want to wear a suit?”

“
I don’t know if my old suit will fit,” he said, and I didn’t have to see it to know that it was a short, gawky, poorly-cut polyester mess.

“
Maybe, if you don’t want to rent a tux, you can go and buy a new suit.” I was desperate to keep him from what I was positive was his awful mess of a suit.

“
Don’t you want to see my suit?” he asked, his mouth curved into a smile.

“
No, I don’t.” I grimaced.

He jumped up anyway and left his room. He came back with a suit in a crinkly plastic bag. I got up and looked while he pulled the bag away.

You could tell on sight that it was an expensive suit. It was chocolate brown, three buttons, and a fabric so fine and soft it looked like it had to be made with silk. But I didn’t know for sure.