28. Perfect
PERFECT
PRESENT
The sticky note may have been tucked back into my clutch over an hour ago, but I’m still calm.
Wes’s parents eventually left, letting things proceed as normal.
He’s been a gentleman, I haven’t made too much of an ass out of myself, and we’ve shared a few laughs.
Now, as Wes pulls into my driveway, I can safely say this was nice despite its bumpy beginning.
“Once again, I would like to sincerely apologize for my family,” Wes says for the hundredth time, though at least now he’s smiling when he says it.
He wasn’t during the first fifty. “I’d like to say that won’t happen again, but sadly, I can’t promise anything.
You still haven’t met my siblings…or extended family. ”
“Again?” He’s not the only one smiling. “Does that mean you’d like me to meet them?” I tease.
“If you haven’t been too horribly scarred by this evening, then yes.
Preferably not for a while, though. I’d like for you to get to know me a bit better before you start judging based on how crazy my family can be,” he laughs.
“What do you say? Would you kind of, maybe, sort of be interested in giving this another shot?”
I nod, and like the gentleman he is, he leans in slowly, giving me enough time to object if I wish before he brings his lips to mine.
And…
It’s nice.
Good technique. Not too much, not too chaste.
But there aren’t any sparks, which doesn’t make sense.
I’ve gotten borderline giddy every time I’ve seen him these last nine months.
He makes me laugh, and I always have a stupid smile plastered to my face after walking away from him.
He makes me happy. He fills my stomach and chest with the best kind of butterflies. At least…until now.
Before I even left the house earlier, my head was elsewhere, and I want to kick myself for it.
Wes should have gotten my undivided attention tonight.
Instead, someone else kept creeping into my thoughts.
And I can’t blame this on Jase’s note. When I was uncomfortable at the restaurant, I should have confided in Wes.
Instead, I fled to a bathroom stall, needing to hear a certain someone’s voice that didn’t belong to my date.
Wes clears his throat, and I’m suddenly petrified. Had he asked me something and I completely spaced because, again, I was thinking about Jase?
Focus, Ali!
Thank God when I look up at him, I see he’s staring out my window and not at me. His question, however, does nothing to alleviate my nerves as he asks, “Got another hot date lined up for tonight?”
The tone of his voice suggests he’s kidding, but there’s still a degree of trepidation in it. I whirl around and look out the passenger window to see someone sitting on the porch, his silhouette illuminated by the wall sconces positioned beside the front door.
Even without the glow of the cell phone screen across his face, there would be no mistaking the broad shoulders and tapered waist for anyone else.
“We live together,” I clarify, only to watch Wes’s eyes widen in confusion. “No, not like that! His sister’s marrying my brother. He’s just staying at my parents’ place while he’s in town.”
“And he’s…waiting up for you?”
Yeah, the playfulness in his tone is nowhere to be found. Wes just sounds skeptical and a bit weirded out. Can’t say I blame him. Even at a quarter to ten, it’s still almost ninety degrees with the heat index, and the loud chorus of cicadas plaguing our street sounds just like that: a plague.
Why on earth would Jase just be sitting around out there? Is he seriously waiting for me ? Can he see us in here?
“He’s probably just locked out,” I say, using Jase’s excuse when he climbed through my window. However, since we can’t seem to call or text each other, I am a little worried. What if something happened, and he couldn’t get a hold of me? Something bad ? “I should get going.”
I lean over and give Wes a quick kiss on the cheek, again wanting to kick myself for the absolute nothing I still feel.
That guilt only doubles on itself when I climb out of the car and make my way across the lawn to the front porch.
Jase’s easy smile assures me nothing’s wrong and, almost instantly, the nerves seizing every muscle in my body give way.
Why couldn’t I feel like this three hours ago? Or even three minutes?
Because you’re an asshole, that little voice in my head whispers, and she’s not wrong.
I want to kick Jase in the shins just for the fact that I’m physically incapable of kicking my own. At least not properly.
“Slaying vampires during the apocalypse?” I ask instead, nodding to his phone. An incredulous look skitters over his face, and I have to clarify, “ Crimson Oath .”
It does nothing to alleviate his expression.
“It’s a video game everyone’s obsessing over,” I try again. “Half the guys in town have been playing it this summer. Figured you joined in on the fun.”
He grins. “Yeah, I haven’t exactly had time to play video games lately.”
“I can see that.” I do a theatrical survey at the absolute nothing going on around us. “Very pressing matters, indeed.”
He reaches into a plastic snack bag and playfully chucks something tiny at my chest that I manage to catch, seeing it’s a gummy bear. “The deadlatch is back in place.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“Oh, it gets better.” Though, the smile he’s wearing assures me it doesn’t. “It’s also in place on the back patio door.”
“And you didn’t feel like climbing through my window again?”
“More like I couldn’t .” He stands up and strolls around the front of the house, directing me to the side of the property where I can see that, indeed, the window to my bedroom looks to be closed.
“It’s still open, just a crack at the bottom,” I say, but Jase is already shaking his head.
“Trust me, it’s not. I already tried it. The window’s closed and locked.”
Thank God for the garage. I head back over to it and punch in the code to raise the door.
Only, it doesn’t. Instead, the keypad makes a sharp noise as the buttons are all highlighted in red, signifying their rejection. I know I didn’t forget the code. We’ve used the same one for the past ten years. Punching it in more slowly, I try again, only to get the same result.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I’ve only had to use the remote in my car or the button in the garage, and if the keypad code was changed, nobody said anything to me about it.
Sure, my car is parked down the driveway and the remote is still inside, but the doors are locked and the alarm is set.
That wouldn’t be a problem if I had my keys, but I don’t.
They’re currently in my purse, which I don’t have.
All I have is a clutch barely big enough for my phone, lip gloss, and wallet.
The last thing I want to do is ask anyone in my family for help, but the house is pitch black, and no one answers the door after I ring the bell half a dozen times. With no other option, I shoot Vanessa, Blythe, and my dad all text messages, asking for the keypad code.
And then we wait. And wait. And wait.
Nothing.
Jase and I polish off what little is left of the gummy bears he has on the porch, still not getting an answer from anyone.
To my utter embarrassment, my stomach grumbles loud enough for him to hear, making a furrow appear between his eyebrows. “Didn’t you just come back from dinner?”
I level him with a look that only makes him laugh.
“Ah, they were serving ‘rich people’ food.” A.k.a. tiny, absurdly expensive portions.
It doesn’t help that I haven’t eaten much since breakfast. With how nervous I knew I would be, I didn’t want to risk upsetting my stomach before going out on my date.
I look at my phone, practically strangling the life out of it as I pray for a text message to come in.
All I want right now is sustenance. Actual sustenance.
“Were you planning on going out after this?” Jase asks, motioning to my prim and proper getup.
I shrug. “Maggie mentioned something about a party, but I didn’t say whether or not I would go. Why? You got a hot late-night date you need to clean up for?”
Thank the baby Jesus that it comes out teasing when I say this, but why does a pang of something rather unpleasant ripple through my stomach that has nothing to do with the absence of food?
I try to shake away the memory of what he said when he answered Natasha’s call outside the dress shop, to no avail.
Of course, she has to have a hot girl’s name. It couldn’t be something like Gertrude or Helga.
What the hell am I thinking?
I can’t seriously be jealous. I just came back from my own date, after all!
Gee, hypocrite much, Ali?
Thank God Jase isn’t privy to my internal monologuing.
He just consults the clock on his phone before looking southbound at the fireworks display far off in the distance.
“I’ve got time to kill. What do you say we get some food in you?
” He doesn’t wait for an answer. He’s already up on his feet, extending his hand to me with a smile that should alarm me.
“But first, we need to make a pit stop.”
Given that the sun had set long ago, there’s no way Jase would take the chance riding through the woods in the pitch black, so I’m not too concerned when Jase drives us on his motorcycle to a trail that dirt bike riders utilize not far from town.
That one reassurance is enough to make me cave and not question what he has planned.
Yeah, I immediately regret that decision as Jase pulls back onto the road and proceeds towards the beach.
“No,” I say. “No way in Hell .”
That mischievous grin on Jase’s face shows no sign of wavering, and its boyish quality as he bats his eyelashes at me somehow only makes him more adorable. “You said you wanted to try it.”
“No, I said it looked like fun. And I said it after I had been drinking, for the very first time in my life, mind you.”