Chapter Seven #2
Well played. Stubbornly, I cinched the trench’s belt tighter around my waist. Maybe I’d come back and buy it if the café did better next week.
“Pick at least one other color,” I told him.
Jake shrugged, and reached for a dark-gray shirt.
Be patient, I reminded myself. He’s not used to getting to choose things.
Actually, maybe that was the problem. People kept looking over his shoulder and hovering while he made decisions and not letting him hear his own voice.
As much as I didn’t want Jake to pick out the same clothes, I didn’t want him to judge everything based on my opinion either.
He had enough people telling him what to do.
“Listen, I’m going to go look over there for some non–international thief fashion for myself,” I said, pointing toward a rack of clothes by the dressing room doors. “We can meet up after you pick something out and try it on.”
Ten minutes later, Jake was in the dressing room trying on something that hopefully wasn’t all-black or all-black with a hint of gray.
While I waited for Jake to finish changing, I inspected a row of dresses, the metal hangers making a skittering noise as I imperiously passed judgment like a famous judge on Project Runway and not just a teen girl in a thrift shop.
I liked dressing up as a kid, and I learned to thrift for quality pieces I’d never be able to afford otherwise once I got into high school.
Recently, I got even more into figuring out my style.
Mom’s physical therapist always had fashion magazines in the waiting room.
Every week, I pored over each glossy photo, absorbed in the clothes.
Vintage looks that took me back to another time and place.
Silk dresses printed with Van Gogh’s Starry Night that turned you into a walking painting.
Gowns made for places far fancier than I’d ever set foot in, but I could dream about.
I got lost in the way fashion became fabric artwork, how it told a story.
How it could lie.
If my outfit looked put together, with my hair sleek and pinned back just so, it looked like I had it together.
That I felt unworried about leaving everyone I cared about behind and heading off to college in the fall.
That the cat café was not in danger of shutting down.
That Mom would be okay. That I was confident in everything and not just in over my head and trying to think my way out.
I pulled a floor-length, filmy pink dress off the rack. What could this one say about me? Would I feel light if I put it on? Bubbly instead of—
“Lucy?” Jake called from somewhere behind me.
I turned, curious to see what he picked out for himself.
Surprisingly, he was not all in black. Instead I took in sturdy tan boots. Faded fitted jeans. A plain tee beneath an unbuttoned plaid shirt in shades of brown and green, like a forest of moss and pine.
The shades in the shirt made me notice the warm tones in Jake’s hazel eyes—the oak-brown and the sparks of bright copper, like embers in a softly burning winter’s fire. I swallowed hard. Jake looked—
“Normal,” I said out loud, instead of good or cute or anything else that I’d rather eat an entire alligator belt than tell him. I chewed my stick of gum harder. “You look normal.”
I gestured at his outfit, trying to play off what I’d almost let slip and how flustered I felt.
“This works. Most people who think Jake Moody automatically imagine a really specific look,” I pointed out. “They’re expecting something dark and dramatic. If they’re looking for that, they’ll miss—”
“The real me.”
I cocked my head, curious about the way he phrased that, but before I could ask what Jake meant, his gaze landed on the dress in my hands and he looked up at me curiously, like it reminded him of something.
“Did you go to prom?” he asked.
I nodded, wondering if it was weird for him to know what it feels like to do something so rare like walk the red carpet, but be completely clueless about normal things like school dances. “I did. Ryan—”
“You have a boyfriend?”
What’s the tone for?
“Not anymore. Ryan asked me,” I finished. I gave Jake a sideways glance. “‘Lovely, Aren’t Ya’ was part of his promposal, actually.”
Jake looked like he didn’t know whether to start laughing or just die right there in the middle of the thrift shop. “No way.”
“Yeah.” I grimaced at the memory. Ryan asked me right at the beginning of Jake’s first solo verse too.
Nothing like a guy asking you out by playing a song with your OG crush’s voice. Of course I’ll go with you! I’d enthused, taking his hand and . . . grabbing his phone out of it so I could forcefully shut off Spotify.
The song played at prom anyway.
Twice.
“Wow,” Jake said, watching me. “You must really hate that song.”
“I don’t.” It’s the opposite.
“Then why are you making that face?”
“I’m not making a face.” I turned to the mirror, inspecting my reflection.
“Yeah, you are. Like a cat right before it hacks up a hair ball.”
“People have got to stop saying that. It’s weirdly specific.”
“Wait, someone besides me said it?”
I pretended I didn’t hear him and made a show of trying on a leopard faux fur coat instead of the Carmen Sandiego one. Maybe I could actually pull it off. It said, I am edgy and eccentrically stylish and am not bothered with trying to figure out how to answer these little questions of yours.
And also, I am perfectly okay with looking like a walking Build-a-Bear.
“All right, sorry I mentioned The Face,” Jake said. I thought that’d be it, but then he continued, “So you broke up with Ryan after prom?”
I frowned, blindsided by the sudden question. “Yeah? I’m not sure I counted it as a real breakup, though. Or him as a real boyfriend. We only went on a few dates.”
“What happened?”
“He’s leaving for college. So am I. I don’t really do long-distance.” I glanced over at Jake. “I don’t exactly have a good track record with staying in touch.”
Jake looked stricken for a moment, but to his credit, he didn’t avoid my gaze or flinch like a coward.
I cleared my throat, not wanting to stay on the topic. “Did you find everything you need?”
“Yeah, I found a couple shirts, a jean jacket, and some other stuff. It should last me the whole time I’m here since I’m not staying very long.”
Right. The week would be over before I knew it, then I’d probably never talk to him again.
Jake gestured back to the dressing room. “I’m going to change back so I can take everything to the register.”
He disappeared inside the dressing room again. A minute later, a brunette came up next to me, holding an armful of clothes, and pointed to the door. “Are you in line?”
“Oh, no, you can go next, I’m just waiting for my friend while he changes.” I glanced down at the pieces she’d chosen. “That black dress is really cute. Very vintage. You’ll look just like Audrey Hepburn.”
“Thanks.” She beamed at me before glancing around at the fairly empty store.
“Hey, is the friend you’re waiting for the guy who tried on the leather jacket?
” I nodded, forcing myself to keep my face neutral, finding it funny she assumed Jake was trying on the jacket, not that he already owned it.
“He helped me get a hat off one of the higher racks like ten minutes ago. You should tell him to buy the jacket.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “It makes him look a little bit like that one Usual Suspects guy. The mysterious one.”
My heart sped up.
“You know,” she continued, completely oblivious to the way her comment put me on high alert, “the J-name one.”
I scanned her face, looking for a wink, or a sign she was trying to get information out of me, but none came. It seemed to simply be a compliment, like when I told her she’d look like Audrey in her outfit.
I was beginning to see what Jake meant when he told me that even if people think someone might look like a celebrity, most don’t believe it’s actually them. After all, what would a singer like Jake Moody be doing in a thrift store in some unimportant town?
“Jake. Yeah, I can kinda see that,” I answered. “He doesn’t really look like him without the jacket, but we’re going to a costume party.”
“Oh, that’s cool! Who are you going as?”
“Uh . . .” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jake open the dressing room door and step outside. Once he got within earshot, I said, “I thought about going as Leon. He’s my favorite US member.”
“He’s mine too,” Jake chimed in, coming to stand next to me, the leather jacket off and slung over his arm, hidden among his other items. “Leon’s verse in ‘Hypersonic’? Blew my mind the first time I heard it live.”
“Oh?” the girl questioned politely. “You saw US in concert?”
“Uh . . .” Jake trailed off. “In one of their livestreams.”
“Yeah, they do a lot of those.”
“She thinks you look like Jake,” I informed the guy who was, in fact, actually Jake.
He pretended to look quizzical. “Jake from US?”
“No,” I teased. “From State Farm.”
Jake nodded solemnly. “I get the Jake Moody comment a lot. It’s nice, I guess? Only I’m much better looking than him.”
The girl scoffed. “In your dreams.”
I pressed my lips together tight, then took a deep breath so I wouldn’t laugh. I turned to Jake, poking his bicep in amusement. “Yeah, in your dreams, Sylvester.”
“No offense,” the girl clarified, eyes widening, like she just realized how it sounded. “I just meant that Jake’s a celebrity. He’s verifiably hot. It’s a job requirement.”
“Definitely,” I echoed, having too much fun.
Jake’s eyes flickered back to me. “You think Jake’s hot?”
“I might,” I replied flippantly. “Don’t you wish you were him?”
“Sometimes.”
I gestured at myself. “I don’t think Jake Moody could handle all of this, though.”
Jake met my eyes again, and for the second time since he arrived, I saw him genuinely smile.
And it was directed at me this time.
“Probably not,” he said. “You’re definitely out of Jake’s league.”