CHAPTER 2
CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS.
“No,” I groaned softly, tugging on the handle to the art store. The deadbolts offered a mere millimeter of give before locking into place. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
The square piece of printer paper taped to the inside of the door was cruel, written in a beautiful cursive font with little designs drawn on with COPIC markers. Had to be. The smoothness of the lines was too perfect. Mocking. We have beautiful tools within, the sign said. But not for you.
In the reflection of the glass doors, Jamie lifted a hand and scratched the top of his shoulder. “I didn’t even think to check online to make sure they were open.”
My forehead smacked the glass. The interior was dark, but I could see enough of the space to feel even more victimized. “What renovations?” I demanded. “There’s no construction or anything anywhere. They might as well let us in. They want to miss out on a big sale?”
Except I didn’t know how big of a sale it’d be, since I only had twenty bucks leftover from this week’s allowance. Well, fifteen minus the five I’d given Penn this morning. Spontaneity, it seemed, was not my strong suit.
I tugged the handle again, a darkness in my chest rearing up despite the high sun.
Jamie’s voice was cautious. “You’re going to break it, Daze.”
“We came all this way!” I whirled around, giving Jamie the full view of my devastated expression. “An hour and a half of lunchtime traffic because we got a late start. After you let me sleep in til eleven!”
He slipped his hands into the pockets of his denim jeans. “It was ten forty-five.”
“Eleven, Jamie. On Senior Skip Day. You let me waste three hours on sleep.”
“I tried waking you up. You were hogging the covers.”
I only believed him on about half of that. I didn’t remember ever hearing his voice, but I did remember waking up burritoed in his duvet cover. Jamie hadn’t been beside me when I’d blinked my eyes open, but had been sitting at his desk chair, peacefully reading.
The little jerk. Now I only had three and a half hours left of free time before I had to be home to get the kids off the bus, and nearly half of that would be spent on the drive back to Addison.
Jamie stepped up to me, pulling his hands out of his pockets and landing them on my small shoulders.
With him so close, I had to crane my neck back to meet his eyes, because he was so tall.
He said he was six-four, but it had to be closer to six-five, which was still over a foot taller than me.
I liked to joke that he was like the Jolly Green Giant, just without the muscles.
Jamie gave my shoulders a squeeze. “What’s our plan B?”
“Plan B?”
“The art store didn’t work out, so what are we doing instead?” His voice was cheerful. It irked me. “Because today is our day of fun, and you and me? We’re going to have fun.”
I groaned again, wilting under his grip. “You know it’s bad when Oliver Twist is being optimistic.”
Jamie’s lips twitched as he tried to fight off a smile. “Sydney Carton,” he said.
“What?”
“Oliver Twist is an already optimistic character, so your sentence was fundamentally flawed. Sydney Carton, though, was a pessimist. ‘You know it’s bad when Sydney Carton is being optimistic.’”
I stared up at Jamie for one heartbeat, then for two. “Fundamentally flawed,” I echoed tiredly. “Right. Have I told you lately that you suck?”
Now a full smile bloomed across Jamie’s lips, wide enough that it showed his teeth. A sweet smile I rarely saw, I realized now while looking at it. It even gave him a dimple on one of his cheeks. I reached for him, ready to poke my finger into it. “Have you always had—”
Jamie used his grip on my shoulders to abruptly spin me around, so my back was to him. “Plan B,” he murmured, ducking his head low until it was almost level with mine. His next words were soft on the skin of my neck, and he pointed. “How about ice cream?”
A little ways down the sidewalk and off to the right sat a walk-up ice cream parlor with a bright yellow and white striped awning out in front of the ordering window. Picnic tables were scattered in front of it, with yellow and white umbrellas above them to match.
A solid plan B, but I didn’t want to applaud him for two good ideas in a row. It’d go to his head. “I suppose it’ll…” Crap, what was the word he always used?
Jamie whispered in my ear, “Suffice.”
“Suffice. Right. I suppose it’ll suffice.” I sniffed, catching a hint of his shampoo before he leaned back. “Lead the way, Sydney Carton.”
Chuckling under his breath, Jamie came around to walk at my side.
At least it was a pretty day. The clouds were white and puffy, and the sky was beautifully blue, and my skin soaked up the vitamin D.
Despite leaving the closed art store behind us, I could practically feel the happy hormones flood my system, chasing away the heavy weight from this morning.
I closed my eyes as we walked down the sidewalk, basking in the sun and the moment.
Jamie caught my hand, fingers wrapping around my palm, jerking me to a stop. “Crosswalk sign says no, Daze.”
I opened my eyes before rolling them, making sure Jamie could plainly see. He rolled his back.
There was no one in line when we got to the ice cream parlor. Jamie ordered a cookie dough ice cream with mini M&M’s on top, and I ordered a vanilla and chocolate soft serve swirl. I didn’t like toppings, so even though it was a little plain, it definitely hit the spot.
We picked a picnic table close to the road, sitting so the sun wasn’t in either one of our eyes. “What class do you think Nellie’s in now?” I asked Jamie. “Would this be sixth or seventh period?”
Jamie swiped his spoon through his cookie dough ice cream, scooping up a few mini M&M’s for his next bite.
“It’s a little after one, so she’s probably in sixth.
Political science.” And then he picked one of the napkins up from the little stack he’d collected, offering it out to me. “Draw me something.”
“Bah. Demanding. A please wouldn’t hurt.”
Jamie spoke around his spoon. “Then I entreat you, fair artist, to grant me but a fragment of your imagination upon this humble napkin.”
I fought the smile that quirked my lips. “Loser,” I muttered, and then reached for my house keys in my pocket. I kept a mini marker attached to a keyring, and popped off the cap. “But you’re my loser, so what can I do?”
Jamie made an offended noise.
I started tracing a pattern into my napkin, using light pressure so the marker tip wouldn’t tear it. “Nellie’s in school and we’re here getting ice cream,” I said, satisfied. “Totally better than a perfect attendance award.”
Jamie didn’t respond, at least not right away. He watched me draw on the napkin, probably trying to guess the image before it truly took shape. “I can’t believe you didn’t bring your sketchbook. We went to an art store, and you left your vessel of creativity at home.”
“First of all, my vessel of creativity—” I arched an eyebrow. “—is in your car. Second of all, I can’t bring my sketchbook into an art store. What if it gets jealous?”
“What?”
“My sketchbook.”
Jamie blinked. “Your sketchbook would get jealous.” His voice was flat.
“Yeah, because there’ll be so many other pretty sketchbooks. It might get self-conscious.”
His expression was blank, some of his brown hair falling into his eyes from the slight breeze. “Have I ever told you that you’re the weirdest person I know?”
“Oh, please! Did you not hear yourself sixty seconds ago?” I scoffed hard. “I’m weird. Says the boy who carries his own vessels of creativity everywhere he goes.”
“It’s called a book, Daze. When’s the last time you picked one of those up?”
My jaw dropped, and Jamie’s neutral expression split apart into another grin. This time, no teeth, no dimple, but it still brightened his eyes. He’d successfully rage-baited me. The jerk.
“What happened to your face?” he asked suddenly.
I lifted my head, slapping my free hand to my cheek. “My face?”
“Your eye. It’s red.”
“Oh. Ha. Junie was trying out to be a pitcher. Of course there’s a mark.
Because why wouldn’t there be?” My voice lowered as I continued my muttering.
My marker tore a little on the napkin. “First, I sleep through Skip Day, then the art store is closed, then my eye is red… Or, I guess, first my eye is red, then I sleep through Skip Day, then the art store is closed—or, wait, the art store has probably been closed for a few days now…”
Jamie reached across the table, squinting as his fingertip grazed the skin near my temple. The brush was barely there, almost as if he was nervous to really touch. I shivered a little, a combination of the ice cream and the breeze. “It looks like it’s probably going to bruise.”
I scoffed, reaching for my spoon in my ice cream cup. It was melting fast, turning more into soup. “Just my luck.”
While Jamie’s fingers were near my temple, he pushed my red hair back out of my face, hooking it around my ear. “Your hair is getting into your cup.” And then he sat back, using his knuckle to nudge his glasses up his nose.
I studied him in the silence. He’d brushed his hair since this morning and put on a New York University hoodie he’d bought when we toured the facility last summer. The violet color looked vibrant against his pale skin, but pretty—and then, with that thought, my stomach tightened.
Last summer, Jamie had trailed after me while I’d practically danced all around campus, bouncing from the mere thought of attending next fall with one of my best friends at my side. He’d grinned, and he’d nodded along to my dreaming, and never once corrected me.
Even after he’d paid the deposit to Columbia, he hadn’t corrected me. He’d let me be blindsided.
College was a forbidden topic between us. An unspoken line neither of us crossed. Specifically, NYU. Ultra-specifically, Jamie’s acceptance—and subsequent betrayal—and my waitlisted-slash-soon-to-be-rejected status.
“Here.” I shoved my napkin at him. “To commemorate our day of fun.”