Chapter 13 #2
Looking at the two, it was easy to see how Stella had won the heart of the music industry’s most notorious player. They fit together perfectly, all dark clothes and wild hair, prince and princess of punk.
“You two are as bad as this music,” JJ said.
Stella looked up, eyes ablaze, but then she spotted Alec. “Alec! You made it!” She dropped the handful of unplaced silverware and threw herself at him. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“It’s only been a month,” he said, but it was obvious from the smile on his face that he’d missed her too.
I snuck a glance at Oliver, who’d moved over to the oven.
He had a wooden spoon in his hand and was checking whatever was simmering in the huge pot on the stovetop.
He seemed unconcerned by Alec and his girlfriend’s open affection, so I tried my hardest to ignore the rock in my stomach as Alec wrapped his arms around her.
“Yeah, but fall semester starts soon, and then I won’t see you guys until Christmas break.” I didn’t know much about Stella, but at one point during the drive, Alec had mentioned she was studying photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
“You could always hang a poster of us in your room,” JJ suggested, which earned him a withering look from all his friends.
“I’m sure we’ll be in New York for some reason or other,” Alec assured her.
“So what are you doing in Oregon? Oliver said you were on a road trip or something.”
“Yeah, we’re going to Seattle.”
“We?” She glanced over his shoulder and finally noticed he wasn’t alone. A wide smile stretched across her face when she saw me. “Felicity? Oh my gosh, hi! I’m so glad I actually get to meet you.”
“Hey.” I was thrown by how happy she sounded, like she was as excited to see me as she was Alec. She quickly closed the gap between us, wrapping her arms around me. And holy crap, could the girl give a hug. She squeezed me like we’d known each other forever.
After releasing me, she scolded Alec. “Why didn’t you mention you were bringing anyone?”
He shrugged. His gesture was causal, but from the glint in his eye, I could tell he’d wanted this to be a surprise and he enjoyed catching his friends off guard.
I fiddled with my watch, not sure what to say or my place within the conversation.
There was a level of comfort among Stella, Alec, and the rest of the band, the kind that made water gun ambushes one hundred percent acceptable and could only be achieved by spending hours of time together.
It made me feel like an outsider, despite the warm welcome I’d just received, and I found myself inching toward my own source of comfort: Asha and Boomer.
Asha, however, didn’t seem intimidated by the tight-knit group.
Or the fact that she was standing in a room with her favorite band.
She tossed her braid over her shoulder, stepped passed me, and held out her hand to Stella.
“Hi. I’m Asha.”
“Stella,” Stella said, slipping a hand into Asha’s. “You were on the Skype call yesterday, weren’t you? Nice necklace, by the way. Love the hearts.”
Asha’s fingers brushed over the delicate chain at her throat, rattling the cluster of silver heart charms hanging from it. “Yeah, and thanks. Felicity made it for me.”
“Wow,” Stella said, her eyebrows jutting up. “You made that? You’re really talented.”
“Thanks.” Pride warmed my cheeks. I peeked at Alec, who was smiling and twisting his own piece of my jewelry around his wrist.
A quick pause in the conversation gave Boomer the opportunity to sidle up beside Asha. “Hey, I’m Boomer.”
Stella’s eyes went wide as she craned her neck. “Hey, nice to meetcha.”
“Be careful not to crack any height jokes,” JJ said, spinning around on his bar stool. He pointed a finger a Boomer. “That one has a very short sense of humor.”
I took my bottom lip between my teeth and tried not to laugh.
Boomer wasn’t the most patient person in the world, and JJ clearly enjoyed pushing anyone and everyone’s buttons.
I anticipated a scowl or some type of comeback—which, from someone as tall as Boomer, often came off more threatening than it was meant—but instead, he let a breath hiss past the half smile on his lips.
To no one in particular he said, “He’s relentless, isn’t he?”
The remaining three Heartbreakers chimed in at the same time: “Yup!”
JJ grinned like he’d won a prize.
Asha opened her mouth again, presumably to barrage the boys with praise and questions, but she was interrupted by a rapid clicking noise.
It sounded like a large, clawed monster was charging down the hall in our direction, and I turned in time to see a gray mass gallop into the kitchen from a second entrance.
It was a dog, the largest I’d ever seen, and I took a startled step back, accidentally slamming into Alec’s chest. He put a steadying hand on my shoulder as the monster-dog hybrid came to a stop in front of us and promptly started barking, the thundering sound reverberating throughout the room.
Oliver turned from the stove. “Poseidon, no barking!” The wooden spoon in his hand was coated with tomato sauce, which splattered on the floor, and in a flash, Poseidon was across the room and cleaning up the drippings.
“Whoa, he’s huge,” Boomer said. As soon as the words left his mouth, JJ pressed a fist to his lips to contain his amusement.
“Yeah, he’s a Great Dane,” Oliver said, scratching the dog behind its ears. “Sorry about that. New people intimidate him.”
We intimidated him?
After a few more minutes of friendly chatter, dinner was ready.
Oliver had made spaghetti and meatballs—who’d have guessed he could cook?
—and Stella added three more place settings to the table for Asha, Boomer, and me.
Everyone sat down to eat, and Xander surprised me by dropping into the spot on my left.
“Hey,” he said in a tone equally as excited as Stella’s had been. “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself before. I was on salad duty. I’m Xander.”
I offered him a warm smile. “Felicity.”
Xander Jones instantly put me at ease. He was different from Oliver and JJ in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Maybe it was because he seemed more normal—like I could show up for school in August, and he would be sitting in my biology class.
His smile teemed with goodwill and friendship, instead of charm and the promise of a wild night.
“So I hear you guys are driving to Seattle?” he said.
On my right, Alec passed me a bowl of steaming noodles.
“We’re trying to track down my sister,” I answered, scooping a portion onto my plate. When I offered him the serving bowl, he declined with a quick headshake.
Even though he was seated on the opposite side of Alec, JJ must have been listening to our conversation. “How is it possible to lose one’s sister?” he blurted out.
Both my mouth and thoughts froze at the gall of his question, but before any awkward silence built, Oliver said, “Didn’t you lose Jenny in a grocery store once?”
JJ scoffed. “That doesn’t count. She ran away from me so I’d get in trouble.”
The two proceeded to bicker about the incident, and the discussion quickly developed into an argument about which of JJ’s siblings was most annoying. From the way they listed off names, he had a lot.
I glanced at Asha. She was mesmerized by the conversation—an exclusive glimpse into the private lives of the Heartbreakers—and Boomer had to nudge her shoulder a few times before she realized he was holding the bread basket for her.
I was grateful the boys’ attention was no longer directed at me, because there was no way to answer JJ without the situation getting uncomfortable.
I didn’t blame him though. He couldn’t have known Rose had run away.
“Have you ever been to Seattle?” Xander asked, picking up where we left off while expertly steering away from further tension. “You’ll love it. It’s one of my favorite cities…”
But I wasn’t listening. My mind had shifted to my sister again, and all the pain that came with thinking about her.
What if we couldn’t find her tomorrow? Or what if we did, and she refused to see me?
The possibility was so terrifying my heart felt like it was burning, but not from the searing pain of flames.
This was the slow, nerve-tingling ache of frostbite.
A warm hand brushed against the bare skin of my knee, rescuing me from my what if, what if, what if.
“Fel?” Alec said softly.
“Yeah?” I asked, and he gestured to my other side with his chin.
I turned. Xander was holding out the salad for me to take. His entire plate was filled with lettuce, so there wasn’t much left for me, but I accepted the bowl and emptied the scraps onto my own.
“Thanks,” I said, and then without thinking, “Are you on a cleanse or something?” Hopefully he wasn’t dieting. The guy was skinny enough as it was.
“No.” He laughed. “I’m allergic.”
“To what?”
He glanced down at my plate, considering. “Pretty much everything. Well, not the spaghetti sauce, but it’d be weird if I ate that without the noodles and meatballs, dontcha think?”
“Allergic?” I repeated, not because I didn’t understand what he meant by it, but because the thought of not being able to eat pasta sounded like a nightmare. Mac and cheese—or any kind of boxed noodle, for that matter—was cheap, which made it a dietary staple in my house.
“Yup. I can’t have gluten, nuts, soy, or seafood,” he said, ticking each item off on his fingers. The cheer in his voice was alarming. “I’m not actually allergic to red meat, but I try to stay away from it.”
“What do you eat?”
“Lots of things. Chicken, eggs, fruit, vegetables. I make a mean smoothie.”