Chapter Eleven
“My bandmates are my ride or die, I’d do absolutely anything for them.
Except for heat tea water in the microwave—that’d be sacrilege.
Or willingly watch American football. Or learn Fahrenheit.
Oh, or be on the same continent as them if I don’t have to.
But I’d take a bullet for those boys without hesitation. ”
—Phillip Maan for LAD
The cash register was glitching.
Again.
It had started freezing and not adding up totals before Mom’s accident. She wanted to buy a new one, but, you know, surgery and bills are kind of distracting. I thought maybe it’d be fine until fall, when business would hopefully pick up and she could afford one.
But, no, it was not fine. As of now, the register was frozen and wouldn’t stop showing that the total was $180.
A slight problem, since I’d simply been trying to sell a single plain old croissant for $1.
80 when it broke, and not, in fact, a croissant handmade by the esteemed owner of a French patisserie, encased in gold leaf, and personally flown in from Paris on a private jet.
Which was why I was currently in the cat room, sitting cross-legged under a fake palm tree with Rumple, and searching Cash register not working.
I studied the search results.
How to reboot stalled cash register by yourself, I tried again, before tacking on, fast.
I was two seconds away from also typing in Please help I’m crashing out when I spotted the trending searches.
livie x jake
Jake and his ex? Why were they trending? On instinct, my finger moved down, hovering over the search.
I shared a sidelong glance with Rumple. “Should I?”
Tired of being involved in my questionable life choices, Rumple turned around so his butt was facing me, then went back to sleep.
I ignored this omen and tapped on the search anyway.
Exclusive! Reality Star Livie Morris Speaks Up About Her Breakup with the Bad Boy: “Jake walked out when I needed him most!”
My lips twisted down.
Jake was my best friend. Livie inspired “Lovely, Aren’t Ya.” He abandoned us both.
I never imagined the old Jake turning into this. Why were the two versions of him so different?
“Hey.”
Jake’s voice came out of nowhere.
Startled, my pulse leapt into my throat like I was going up a roller coaster and about to be spun upside down in a loop. I swiped the tab away and turned my phone off.
Then flipped it over against the leg of my embroidered jeans for good measure.
I looked up at Jake. “Hey.”
He stared back at me. “Hey.”
“You said that already.”
“Yeah.”
A long, drawn-out beat passed. I waited for him to speak, but instead he stayed silent.
I thought about pulling my phone back out to search How to reboot stalled conversation.
I took another look at the boy in front of me. Fast.
Did Jake not know what to say? He was the one who sought me out; surely he wanted something.
It felt like when Rumple or one of the other café cats would come sit in front of me and just stare, while I tried to decipher what they were trying to tell me.
Turns out, humans did the silent staring thing too. And it felt even more awkward.
I cocked my head to the side, the summer scarf I’d tied my hair back with this morning brushing across my shoulders. “Did you want something?”
“I— No,” Jake said, shaking his head. His brows furrowed for just a minute, like he was trying to figure out how to phrase something correctly, then just gave up and blurted out, “Your mom was bragging about your scholarship. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I tensed. Mom stopped by for five minutes today before she went to PT. She must’ve said something to Jake then.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said tersely.
He gave me an unimpressed look. “Come on. You know it is.”
“It’s not.”
I pushed off the floor and started walking out of the cat room and toward the faulty register.
“Seriously?” Jake questioned, hot on my heels.
Why was he following me? “I mean, the scholarship was why you were always studying so hard, right? So you could afford to go to college? Your plan was to get a bachelor’s in biology, since that was a lot of veterinarians’ preferred study, then go to vet school.
You researched all about how to do it. Even back in middle school—”
“Stop.” The reminder of just how much I’d pushed myself made something clench inside my chest. I didn’t want to think about it. “It’s not that great.”
“You’re way too smart to be this stupid.”
“Just leave it,” I snapped, whirling around. “I’m not even going anymore!”
Jake stopped dead in his tracks. “You’re not?”
“No.” I shut my eyes. I hadn’t officially turned it down. I still couldn’t quite bring myself to give up yet. Not when we were so close to making the livestream work and everything working out. “I mean, yes. I am. Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Hopefully.”
I felt the tension drain out of me. I was too tired to try to hold up the brick wall around my heart.
I could let Jake in, just for a minute.
I opened my eyes to find him watching me. “Mom won’t be healed by the fall. And with the way things are going, we can’t afford any staff,” I told him. “If I leave right when she needs help and this place is hanging in the balance, it could be the end of everything.”
What kind of person would that make me, if I left? Mom dropped out of college to be there for me. Shouldn’t I return the favor to be there for her?
Wasn’t that what love was?
“You should go.”
My eyes jumped to Jake’s. “What?”
“You should still go. You always wanted to become a vet. It’d be wrong for you not to go after everything you put in,” he told me bluntly.
I felt the wall going back up. Jake’s sixty seconds were over.
He had a point, I know he did. I’d studied extra hard in biology and math, since vets needed to be strong in those subjects.
I’d pulled all-nighters to perfect my application essay.
I’d maintained a perfect GPA. It was just worries that literally had nothing to do with what I wanted that were stopping me from actually attaining it.
But still.
This was the Jake Moody who walked out to pursue his own dream and ghosted me. I glanced down at my phone. The same Jake Moody who apparently walked out on his girlfriend and former muse right when she needed him most.
You should still go seemed like a typical Jake thing to say, and I didn’t think I should be taking any advice from him.
“Just don’t back out yet,” Jake told me. “All right?”
“All I need is for the livestream to work out,” I said quietly. “If we get enough business, it’ll save The Tiny Tiger, and Mom will be able to afford help so she won’t hurt herself. My whole future depends on it.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded resolutely. “We’ll get you that livestream, then.”
Just like that?
I looked up, my eyes meeting his. For a moment, as Jake stood in the café, dressed in his regular-guy clothes, it was easy to imagine that Jake never ghosted.
That he grew up here, with me, and there was never a rift that left me constantly wondering whether it was safe to build a bridge over it or not.
How did these two Jake Moodys in my mind mesh together?
I drank him in, and he opened his mouth to say something . . .
And then “Lovely, Aren’t Ya” started playing.
“Ah,” Jake said, flatly—a little too flatly for the way he jabbed his finger over at the speakers. “Look at that. It’s the song of mine you hate.”
“I don’t hate it,” I bit out. It’s just that I have a weird relationship with it because the song makes me miss the old you for three minutes and twenty-one seconds straight, and oh my God, do you have an idea of the size of the crush I used to have on you?
Of course you don’t, dummy. That’s why your stupidly pretty love song’s making me look like that. “I’m serious.”
“Right,” he said, monotone. “You’re literally making a face now.”
“No, I’m not!”
“You definitely are,” he muttered. “Anyway, what I originally came to tell you was that I got a business meeting on Zoom with Phillip tonight. Want to come?”
“Business meeting?” I questioned, wrinkling my nose.
“Phillip changed his number again. He does that whenever he’s sulking. So all I have is his ‘professional number,’” Jake said, rolling his eyes and putting air quotes around his last two words.
“And you have to set up a meeting instead of just texting or calling?”
Jake stared at me for a beat, then, not saying a thing, pulled out his phone and hit redial. Without breaking eye contact, he held it up to my ear, his fingers brushing warmly against my cheek.
After several rings, a recording of a smooth British voice started speaking.
“You’ve reached the business associates and professional inquiries line for Phillip Maan, the classiest member of US.
If you’re one off his non-annoying friends, please contact his personal line, a number you’d have if you’re really one of his non-annoying friends.
” My eyebrows went up. Playfully, Jake mirrored my expression.
“If you’d like to submit a business proposal and arrange a video conference, please fill out the form on my website or press one.
If you’d like to request an autographed headshot, please press two. If you’d—”
“What’s the number to press if I want to slap him upside the head?” I asked, already done listening.
“Not on the option list,” Jake replied, pulling his hand back and hanging up. “Which is amazing, really, considering he has seven options.”
“Do I want to know what they are?”
“That depends. Would you like to join his exclusive fan club?”
“Not really, no.”
“Even if he sends out monthly motivational newsletters?”
“Oh, in that case, definitely no,” I said, making Jake snort.
“His bookings,” Jake said, pausing to roll his eyes a second time, “are in London time, so I guess he went back home for his vacation. I scheduled a meeting for tomorrow morning UK time. That’s twelve a.m. for us, if you want to be there.”
“Yeah, I’ll come,” I said. “Can we have it at your hotel, though? Mom usually likes to be in bed by then.” She used to be a night owl, but that had changed too since the accident. Though she was recovering well, she was still more tired at the end of the day.
Jake nodded. “Sure.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you at midnight, then.”
“It’s a date.” Jake gave me a roguish half grin. It’s the kind I recognized from his closeups—where his lips curved up on one side and he had a look in his eyes that said I know something you don’t. It was the kind of smile designed to make you lose your mind.
Which I did not intend to do, by the way.
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.”
And I pretended my traitorous heart didn’t beat faster.