17. Autumn #2
We continued toward our next destination with Pop Rocks, Nerf guns, and a disturbed hedgehog in tow. Campers were weaving in and out of the shops, with big grins and vivacious laughter, and it was like music to my ears.
I reached into my bag and fished out the weird little hedgehog. “This made me think of you.” I mimicked a cartoon character and presented the cute little toy to a laughing Jack.
“Is my hair that fluffy today?” he asked, scooping the little guy up.
“It’s always fluffy.” I ruffled my hands through his hair, which always annoyed him. “What should we name it?”
He lifted it so that they were eye to eye. “Her name is Pearl. She’s an old soul.”
He squeezed it, and a sappy part of me wondered if she would be something to remember me by. I wanted to know, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Of course he’d be back. This was as much his family as it was mine. Jack wouldn’t leave us like that.
“Go wild,” I told Jack, knowing he tended to ooh and aww at everything in the Treasure Trove, a mishmash antique and secondhand store located down a side street. He always found something, even if a fair chunk of the goods came from past campers’ lost and found items that had never been claimed.
My bestie grinned at me, heading for the back corner where a painted pink dresser and sticker-covered filing cabinet leaned next to one another, along with paintings framed in large brass frames and, oh, the musical instruments.
Jack began playing with some bongos before spotting a harmonica, but we knew what we were looking for: the same mythical item we’d looked for every Town Day since Leo got it in his head that he’d be a one-man band.
Today was made of gold and dreams and maybe even a little magic because there it was, nestled between a leaning keyboard and a kid’s guitar with missing strings: a foot tambourine.
I’d never heard of one before Leo had painstakingly and lovingly described it. He was going to flip his shit.
Jack halted his steps as he listened. His Cheshire Cat smile had me quaking with excitement. “No way.”
I took my foot out of the contraption and handed it to him. He lifted his foot to his hip as he stuck his shoe in the curved thing.
“How did I not know you were this… Bendy?”
“Because you’re not my girl, Autumn.” He winked.
“Shut it,” I told him with a playful shove. “I’m no one’s girl.” The words twinged with a surprising sadness.
Then why did Jamie’s annoyingly handsome face pop into my head?
“You’re about to forget all of that when you hear—” He stepped gingerly, and there it was: tambourine music? Noise? Whatever you wanted to call it.
I couldn’t wait to see the look on Leo’s face when we came back with this little beauty.
“This place is a national treasure.” Jack’s voice had no trace of sarcasm.
I looked around in the middle of this thrift store among broken and discarded things and wondered how one could even say that. But Jack was more of a romantic than I was.
He shook his foot again. And again. And again. The shop manager looked at him with a sharp eye, and he shot her his most ridiculous smile, the one that let him get away with way too much.
Then I heard it, the deep rumble of Jamie’s laugh, the way it floated over me, delighting me. That laugh had always brought out my own just under the surface, one tiny nudge and I’d be giggling right along with him.
I pulled down my very inconspicuous, heart-shaped sunglasses and ducked behind a mannequin facing the aisle that Jamie, Ren, and Grant had just walked down. I glanced around it to get a peek at what they were doing.
“Hey, Jamie, what do you think about me wearing this?” Ren gleefully held out a beret. It was unconventional, but he could pull it off.
“That’s perfect. It looks like something my nemesis would wear.”
“No. Hey. We’re nemeses now?” Ren gasped in mock shock.
“You know what you did.”
I quickly went back to my hiding spot to avoid being seen as Jack picked up a ukulele and strummed a chord beside me. I put my hand on his forearm to stop him from drawing attention to us, but his phone vibrated, and we both looked at his pocket.
“Is it Gia?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Leo took gas back to the boat, and now it won’t start. That man could touch bulletproof glass and it would break. You need anything?”
“I’m good.”
He hit Leo’s contact as he handed me the ukulele. “What did you do?” he said on his way out the door.
As he paced back and forth in front of the store, it was the best time for me to make my escape. Then Jamie approached Jack outside. So much for that. And why was Jamie talking to him anyway?
“Isn’t he the best?” Ren’s voice startled me. He popped up behind where I was still ducking behind the mannequin. Busted. His grin told me he wasn’t the least bit surprised I was here. Ren wore the strangest mashup of clothes: some parachute pants, a leather jacket, and a beret.
I cracked a smile and shook my head at his ridiculousness. “Who?” I asked, remembering almost too late that Ren had asked me a question.
“Jamie. He’s matured so much since high school, hasn’t he?”
“You didn’t know him then,” I pointed out, but Ren was unfazed.
“Maybe not. But I do know that he is the most loyal man I’ve ever met. And he’s reliable. If I need something, he’s the first one I call. And there’s no way he looked that good when he was fifteen.”
Loyal? If he was so loyal, he wouldn’t have ditched me the second he went off to college.
But I didn’t contradict Ren, no matter how I felt about Jamie. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think there are still feelings there.”
And just like that, it was as if a bomb had gone off in my stomach. He wasn’t pulling any punches.
I hesitated for just a moment, hoping I hadn’t given him too much ground. “I think you’re reading too much into this. I’m just his ex. I’m sure he’s got a list a mile long of women he can date.”
“And if he actually dated, I’d agree with you. But I’ve never seen him light up the way he does when he talks about you, and you know what that says to me? You should give him a chance. And something in your eyes tells me that maybe you want to.”
Was I that transparent? And what would a chance even mean?
Because Jamie Davis had been trouble for me all those years ago. Now, all that trouble had only amplified. Because now I imagined dark, knowing eyes, and his sure-as-steel grip pulling me against him. The way he would have held me again, had we just…
No, I shook away those thoughts for the millionth time. No matter how sexy his laugh was and how intensely I could feel his eyes on me, that man was trouble for my heart, and I couldn’t start anything with him ever again.