Chapter 18 – Mr. Nigel’s Grandson
Sunday
“Axel is clearly in love with you,” Sophie said as she picked pepperonis off her pizza. “Why did my parents order this nonsense? They know I don’t like pepperoni. I’ve been eating exclusively sausage recently.”
“Would you keep your voice down?” Sophie and I were hiding out in the kitchen, but my whole extended family was in the other room watching football.
I’d forced myself to come to the Giants viewing party because I’d desperately needed to talk to Soph about Friday night.
“And he isn’t in love with me. If he was...
why would he want a vow of singledom? Why wouldn’t he just ask me out? ”
“I don’t know. Such high school boy games. Which is why I prefer older men.” She’d finished taking off the pepperoni and took a bite. “Delicious.”
I felt like it was delicious partially because of the pepperoni grease that had soaked into the cheese. But I didn’t care about Soph’s weird ordering of the week. “Sophie, what do I do?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” she said through a mouthful of pizza.
“No. It isn’t.” Nothing was obvious at all.
Jacob was in the other room ignoring me.
And I was having a hard enough time trying to exist in his orbit.
I could barely operate. I’d been doing my best to avoid Aunt Brooklyn and Uncle Matt.
But Uncle Matt kept giving me this sympathetic look.
And that was somehow worse than the wrath I expected from him.
“Yes, it is. At the beginning of the school year, we had a whole plan...”
“Operation Too Hot to Handle failed epically.”
“Did it though?” She set her pizza down. “You got a boyfriend out of it. I think we need to reinstall it.”
“Soph.”
“Scar. It’s practically a do over from the first day of school. Axel is single again. You’ve got another shot. Let’s just retry the operation.”
“The operation involved me getting contacts and wearing a short skirt and heels. Axel said he liked my glasses. And my dad will kill me if I show up in a short skirt and heels again to school.”
“Yeah, I mean, obviously we have to alter the original plan a bit. But I think Operation Too Hot to Handle Two is a go.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
“I know. Let’s just do Operation THTHT.”
“Very hard to say. And it’ll never work. Axel doesn’t like me. He’s basically told me that a million times.”
“Okay, better name. Operation Sadie Hawkins Dance.”
I just stared at her.
“You gotta ask Axel to the dance.”
I shook my head. “You’re making this seem so easy. But it’s not. I wanted to go to the dance with Jacob.” I pictured the smile on his face when I’d asked him. And I just wanted to cry.
“I don’t want to say I told you so, but I did tell you that asking him a month in advance was a total jinx.”
I groaned and put my forehead down on the counter.
Sophie rubbed my back. “The only person that hates Jacob more than you right now is me. I’ve been thinking of an epic prank...”
I lifted my head. “I don’t hate him, Soph. I love him.”
Her eyes softened.
“Maybe I should ask him to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Maybe he’ll give me a second chance.”
“He humiliated you in front of the whole school. Why would you want to give that asshat a second chance?”
“Because I was the one that messed everything up.” I think. I didn’t even know anymore.
“I say screw Jacob. I’m Team Axel.”
I laughed. “You flipflop so easily.”
“Me? You’re the one that fell in love with Jacob when you were trying to get Axel to fall in love with you.”
I sighed. “I’m a mess.”
“A beautiful mess who’s going to ask Axel to the Sadie Hawkins dance.”
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can. Scar, I’ve been through a million breakups. The best thing to do is start dating again, trust me.”
I didn’t trust her. Because like Axel, she was the one that was always doing the breaking up. I don’t think anyone had ever dumped her. No one had ever told Sophie that she wasn’t their type. She had no idea how hard this was. I hadn’t stopped loving Jacob. He’d stopped loving me.
“This conversation is ridiculous,” I said. “I still like Jacob and Axel doesn’t like me.”
“Axel was your first love. That doesn’t just go away.”
I picked up a piece of pizza and took a bite.
“And don’t pretend for a second that you haven’t liked him being in your bed again.”
“I have liked that. But he’s made it very clear it’s just a friendship bed thing.”
“Has he pushed that narrative? Or have you?”
I finished my bite. “Honestly, I have no idea at this point. But he definitely started it. There’s no reason to ask someone to the dance that doesn’t like me like that.”
Sophie sighed like I was exhausting her. “So are you saying that you’re not going to ask Axel to the dance unless you have proof that he’s into you?”
“Yes,” I said. Because that would be the end of that. There was no proof. Other than the things I made up in my head about how Axel looked at me.
“Well, did you ever figure out what that countdown in Axel’s notebook was?”
I shook my head. “I looked at it a few times, but I couldn’t figure it out. And then I started dating Jacob...”
“Yeah. Screw him. Okay. Let me see it.”
I unlocked my phone and handed it to her.
She plopped her chin in her hand as she stared at the picture of Axel’s notebook that we’d snapped. “Okay, yeah, I have better things to do than solve this nonsense.” She hopped off her stool and walked out of the kitchen.
Where was she going? I shook my head and took another bite of pizza. Wait. She wasn’t just going to ask Axel, was she? Crap!
I got off my stool and started to run out of the kitchen, but Sophie appeared with RJ in the doorway. “What is happening?” I asked. “You didn’t ask Axel, did you?”
She laughed. “No. RJ will figure it out. He’s great at puzzles. Loop him in.” She handed RJ my phone.
“I really hate involving RJ in my love life,” I said.
RJ smiled. “Baby doll. Don’t you trust me?”
“No, not really.”
He laughed and sat down in the stool I’d been sitting in. “So...what am I looking at exactly?”
I walked back over to the kitchen island. “Remember when I snuck into Axel’s room?”
RJ nodded. “Yeah, and needed my help breaking back in.”
“Right. Well, the first time we snuck in, I found one of Axel’s notebooks with some weird countdown.” I pointed to my phone.
“Is this all of it?”
“No?”
“No? Why did you answer that like you were asking me? It’s a yes or no question, Scar.”
I sighed. “No, it’s not all of it. It was just the day he was currently on.”
RJ shook his head. “Well, I can’t solve it if I don’t have all the facts. Plus there might be some other kind of clue in the notebook for deciphering this nonsense.”
“Can’t you just give me your best guess? We think it’s a countdown to a certain day.”
“Well, when did it start?”
Sophie and I looked at each other. I couldn’t remember the original number. So I just shrugged.
“It was over 2,000 days ago,” Sophie said.
RJ made a face. “A countdown with that many days? That’s psycho.”
“Focus,” I said.
“Okay. When did you take this picture?”
“Um...”
RJ sighed and stared at the picture on my phone. He opened up the details to see when I’d taken it.
“So...best guess?” I asked again.
“I don’t know. This whole thing feels very serial killer to me.”
I laughed. “Axel isn’t a serial killer.”
“We won’t know until I look at that whole notebook. Which means we need to break into his room again. And all that is going to cost you.”
“You want me to owe you another favor?”
RJ nodded.
“How many do I owe you now?”
“Aren’t you keeping track?”
I shook my head.
RJ smiled. “Well, I am. And it’s a lot. Do we have a deal?”
“Yeah, whatever, fine.”
“So how did you break into Axel’s room the first time?”
“Parker had a key,” I said.
“Great. Let’s go loop her in too.” He handed me my phone back and walked out of the room.
I looked at Sophie.
She looked at me.
Crap. Was he going to loop Parker in right now? In the family room? We both ran out of the kitchen after RJ.
I watched as RJ lifted Parker off the couch and walked over to us.
“Why are you acting like a sack of potatoes?” RJ asked.
Parker’s body was completely flaccid in his arms. And a scowl was on her face. “Why are you carrying me like a sack of potatoes?” she countered.
“Touché, little one.”
“I’m not little.” She kicked his shin.
RJ yelped and dropped her.
Parker smoothed down her Eagles jersey like the whole ordeal had wrinkled it, even though she’d been dead weight in RJ’s arms. “What do you want?” she said up to RJ. “Because I’m busy.”
“The Eagles aren’t even on.”
“No, but the Giants are losing and I like to watch that.”
RJ rolled his eyes. “The Giants are going to win.”
“The Giants suck.”
RJ actually looked shocked. “Twerp.”
“Idiot.”
“What is wrong with this twerp?” RJ asked me.
Parker kicked his shin again.
RJ cursed under his breath and grabbed his leg. “Stop it.”
“When you stop calling me a twerp, idiot.”
I laughed. “Parker, we need your help.”
She glared once more at RJ then turned to me. “With what? Girls night?”
“No, but it will be fun.”
“What are we doing?”
“I actually need help getting in your brother’s room again.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I want to look at his notebook again.”
“Didn’t you take a picture?”
“I did,” I said. “But I need to take pictures of all the pages of the countdown.”
“Well that was silly that you didn’t do that in the first place. How are you supposed to decipher it without all the pages?”
“That’s what I was saying,” RJ said.
Parker ignored RJ. “Why do you want to figure out the countdown?”
“I...um...” my voice trailed off. “It’s...”
“Just tell her the truth,” Sophie said.
“Yes, the truth,” Parker said. “Why do you want to look at Ax’s notebook again?”
“I want to know if he likes me,” I said.
Parker smiled. “Do you like him?”
My heart was broken. But Sophie was right. My feelings for Axel hadn’t just gone away. And Axel bulldozing himself back into my life the past few days had been a reminder of that. “I do.”
She squealed. “He likes you too. You can get married now.”
“What? No. I don’t know that he likes me...”
“He talks about you all the time. And his other girlfriends suck. I want him to marry you. Pleeeease.”