Chapter Sixteen
AJ
Hollie Palmer’s walking away from me and I feel powerless to stop her.
My plan to play it cool just backfired.
I’m a fucking jerk.
‘She is not at all how I remembered,’ Nicole says when I go over to the barrel and pull myself up a bar stool. ‘She’s a regular sweetheart. With a cute British accent.’
Reyes and Chase are tryna flirt with some college chicks.
‘And we were dicks to her in high school,’ I comment.
‘Y’all were dicks to her, AJ, not me.’
‘You went along with it. Just like I did.’
Nicole looks pissed. ‘I’m so glad I shed my high school skin.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ I ask.
‘Shoot.’
‘You were at that graduation party, right? In Electric Hills.’
‘Amber Bradshaw’s? Holy shit, we went skinny dipping in her pool that night. That party was off the hook.’
‘I played a game. Up in Amber’s parents’ room with a bunch of them cheerleaders and jocks.’
‘What game?’
I wince at the memory, because now it seems so dumb. ‘Amber puts a blindfold on a guy. They go stand in her mom’s walk-in closet. Amber sends in a girl, and after, the guy has to guess who he’s kissed. Shot of tequila if you guessed wrong, and so on.’
‘Amber had you play that?’
‘I kissed a girl in glasses. Amber’s wearing sunglasses, right, and she claims she’s the one who I kissed. Only I kiss her after, and I can tell it’s not the same girl from the closet.’
Nicole draws her brows together. ‘Who’d you kiss?’
I check where my boys are at. ‘I heard somebody say it was Hollie Palmer. But I don’t know for sure.’
‘So, go ask her.’
I wince. Rub my fingers through my hair. ‘Can’t.’
‘Why? You too chicken?’
The crowd cheers loudly when Def Leppard blasts over the sound system. I say nothing.
‘You’re pathetic, AJ Callahan,’ she says, finishing her beer. ‘I gotta get back to work.’
We kick the college kids off the pool table after Nando finds us some more quarters. I spend the next hour with my buddies.
Except I’m thinking about Hollie.
Nicole is right.
I am chicken shit.
And when I think about what I’m afraid of, I guess it’s finding out that she wasn’t the girl in the closet that one time, and somebody made that shit up. Or that she doesn’t feel the same way about me as I now do about her.
I look at Reyes and Brennan. Am I gonna spend the rest of my life skulking around a shitty bar with these two clowns?
I crane my neck, trying to see if I can see her, only I can’t see shit for the number of bodies in here.
My brain is screaming at me. Grow a pair.
‘Where the hell you going?’ Chase hollers after me when I walk away.
‘Gotta go see about something,’ I tell him. ‘Catch you later.’
I make my way through the crowd. I don’t recognize these people. Then I set eyes on her, in the corner, near the dance floor, the neon light bouncing off her pink hair.
When I reach her, she’s not expecting to see me, though she doesn’t smile neither. I grab her hand and bring my lips close to her ear.
‘Can we talk outside?’ I ask over the music.
I pull back. She stares at me, then nods her head. I keep hold of her hand, our fingers entwined as I lead her from the dance floor, through the crowd to the door.
In the night air, I lead her around the side of the building, toward the base of the outer steps that lead up to my room, the music inside the building still thrumming.
I’m nervous. My heart is pounding somethin’ furious. I let go of her hand.
She stands there, saying nothing. I should have thought this through, because right now, my thoughts are mixed up like snakes in a barrel. ‘I, uh—’ I begin, and run my fingers through my hair. ‘Echo said you got a wristband.’
She’s pissed at me. Her face is in shadow but it’s obvious. She makes it worse by crossing her arms over her chest. ‘As you can see,’ she says.
‘So, I just… I just wanted to say I’m sorry again,’ I say. ‘For leaving you behind in Roswell.’
She shakes her head. ‘Whatever makes you feel better, AJ. And you’re only apologizing because Echo told you to.’
This is worse than I thought. ‘That’s not true.’
‘You couldn’t wait to get out of there. Noah was gone, you didn’t need me and my poor excuse for a car holding you back. I mean, god forbid.’
‘Echo was gonna fire me.’
She raises her voice. ‘Why would Echo fire somebody he moved into a room above his bar and went out of his way to look after when you went off the rails? And, yes, AJ, Noah told me what happened to you after Mo passed away. So, your decision to leave me in Roswell – oh thanks by the way – had nothing to do with keeping your job. I’d just served my purpose.
I’m so stupid that I didn’t realize it sooner. ’
Her words are a gut punch. And I’m not mad at Noah for telling her shit about me, but she’s got it all wrong.
That’s when I hear it. A low, distant pulsating thrum on the warm air. At first, I think it’s the music coming from inside Scotch & Smoke.
‘Hollie, I’m grateful for what you did. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about how I reacted after Mo died, all right, it’s not exactly my finest moment.’
She covers her face with her hands and lets out a growl of frustration.
‘Why am I even here?’ she says, more to herself.
‘I am trying really hard not to like you right now, because, hey, been there, done that, didn’t get me anywhere!
And I was done, you know? I’d managed it!
I barely even thought about you anymore…
’ She turns her back on me, her hands sliding away from her face.
‘I need to go home. I need to stop clinging to this place. I have to stop waiting to start living my life!’
She’s ignited something deep inside me. ‘Hold up… you like me? Since when?’
Around us, the sound intensifies. I hear sirens.
Hollie whirls around. ‘Since I got here! In high school! And the worst thing? I couldn’t even bring myself to hate you, even though you sat back and let Chase make my life hell! And then I find out Amber Bradshaw was your girlfriend—’
‘—Nah-uh, Amber pushed herself on me—’
‘Of course she did, AJ! Oops, you just fell on her tongue! You were just too dumb to realize—’
‘Realize what?’
Light and noise flood the sky. A helicopter above our heads.
‘That it was me!’ she hollers back. ‘I kissed you in that fucking closet at that stupid party! And I walked away because two minutes later, you had your tongue down Amber’s throat!’
It’s another smack in the mouth. My breathing is erratic. It was her. All this time, it was her. I knew it, I fucking knew it.
I’ve never seen Hollie Palmer this mad. But I can’t think straight because there’s a police chopper above our heads, floodlights filling the sky.
We both look up, squinting into the glare, the dust kicking up violently all around us. Up above, somebody is hollering through a megaphone, but I can’t make out the words.
We face each other. Hollie looks at me, her eyes wide, but the white light gives away her tears. She turns and marches away.
‘Hollie!’ I yell, but she’s already gone.
I follow. We round the corner and come to an abrupt halt.
A convoy of about six or seven Canyon Police Department squad cars have pulled up around the entrance to Scotch & Smoke, together with county sheriff patrol cars, the whole area lit by their beamed headlights.
Behind them, further down the street, two full-sized battered silver coasters are also pulling up.
The sheriff and other officers enter the bar. Within seconds, the rock music from inside has stopped dead and they’re using loudspeakers inside the building.
‘Exit the premises immediately!’ a voice is saying. ‘All Canyon residents will have their names taken and be transported back to the city.’
‘What’s going on?’ she asks.
I can take her upstairs. We can escape all of this.
I put one hand on her upper arm. I can’t have her getting caught up in all this, because I’ll warrant her stepmother has everything to do with it. ‘Stay with me,’ I say.
I see college kids filing out of the premises, some of them shaking their heads.
We watch as Echo comes out the front entrance and begins arguing with the officers.
‘Cool it, Echo,’ I mutter under my breath.
The two antiquated coasters are driven closer, engines rumbling. I watch as people are lined up. An officer with a clipboard takes their names and checks IDs before they are herded onboard.
‘I should go,’ she says, and pulls away from me.
‘Hollie!’ I say after her. ‘Hollie, don’t go. Come back.’
But she’s already gone.