Chapter 13
Easton
Birds—Imagine Dragons
It’s late by the time I drive Rayne back to school in the rattly old van that my dad gave me for my seventeenth birthday.
That was right before the guys and I had our first gig and we needed a way to transport our instruments, especially Jax’s drum kit.
The van wasn’t in the best condition even then, and now it’s almost falling apart, but somehow it still drives.
Rayne and I didn’t talk much more after she told me everything; we just lay next to each other on my bed and listened to music.
At some point we ate the ice cream. It was already half melted, but that didn’t bother us.
The silence between us wasn’t uncomfortable, but somehow companionable. It didn’t need to be filled with words.
“See you tomorrow morning?” Rayne looks at me questioningly, one hand already on the door, ready to get out, when I stop the van in the parking lot in front of campus.
“If you come to class, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She smiles almost imperceptibly, and I can’t help but hope that I’ll see a real smile on her face soon.
“See you then.” She opens the door and a burst of frigid air rushes into the car. Rayne makes a face. “It’s too cold in Boston.”
I can’t disagree with her. It really is much too cold right now. But she probably feels it even more acutely compared to the warm Southern California winters.
“But spring is beautiful here.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t comfort me at all.” She shivers and hunches her shoulders. “That’s not for ages.”
“About two and a half months.”
“Then it’ll be March. How warm is it here in March?”
“Hmm. Around forty-five degrees?”
A look of horror crosses her face. “That’s still way too cold!”
I have to laugh. “The right clothes help. You’ll get used to it.”
“Somehow I doubt it. It’s nice and warm in LA right now.” She sighs wistfully, and suddenly she looks sad. It’s clear she’s missing more than just the warmer temperatures.
“But it doesn’t snow in LA.”
She glances meaningfully out the windshield. “It doesn’t here, either.”
“Yes, but it will soon.”
“You sound pretty confident, considering the fact that it’s been raining for the last few days. The rain here is horrible, by the way.”
“I won’t argue with that. But it’s going to snow at some point, I promise.”
“If you say so.” She’s about to get out, then changes her mind.
Before I can react, she leans over the center console toward me and her lips touch my cheek, just for a moment.
It’s so brief that I almost think I imagined it when she quickly pulls back.
But the touch is enough to send small, very unexpected shocks through my body.
“Thanks for listening. Good night, Easton.”
I clear my throat, but my voice is still hoarse when I reply. “Sleep well, Birdy.”
This time she actually gets out, closing the door behind her quietly and carefully, not like Beck and Colin, who always slam the door so hard it feels like they’re going to tear the van apart every time.
Rayne’s shadow blends into the darkness, and I wait until she’s walked through the gate before I put the van in gear and drive out of the parking lot.
When I get home, Beck and Colin are in the living room. They’re sitting on the sofa watching some Netflix series I don’t know.
“Where were you?” Beck doesn’t even look up when I enter. He knows it’s me, anyway.
“I took Rayne home,” I say, and my best friend turns to look at me so abruptly that I hear his back crack.
“What? She was here?”
“Who’s Rayne?” Colin only looks up from his phone briefly before he goes back to texting.
He’s so clearly distracted that he must be talking to Emma.
They’ve been together since high school, but since Emma started college at Stanford, they only get to see each other every few weeks, and they communicate by text because Colin hates talking on the phone.
He was the only one of my friends who didn’t make fun of me last year when I spent almost every free minute on my phone texting Birdy.
“Text Girl,” Beck explains, and Colin actually puts his phone down. His pierced eyebrow rises in disbelief.
“The girl who’s been ignoring you for the last six months?”
“She wasn’t ignoring me.” Sighing, I collapse onto the sofa next to Beck.
“Um, yes she was?”
I shake my head. “No, she wasn’t. She’s just been going through a lot,” I reply.
I haven’t told Colin or Jax who Birdy really is.
The opportunity didn’t come up in the last few days, and it didn’t feel right to tell them.
I’m not sure why. Beck only knows because he was the one who recognized her at the record store.
“Text Girl is Rayne Bellamy,” my best friend says promptly, as if he’s reading my mind.
I give him a dirty look, but he just shrugs and grins. So what? They would have found out sooner or later anyway, his eyes seem to say. He’s probably right, but I would have liked to make that decision for myself.
“Rayne Bellamy? What does that have to do with—” Colin breaks off, blinking frantically. “Wait. Rayne Bellamy? As in Liam Bellamy’s daughter?”
“Exactly.” Beck sounds way too excited.
“What the hell was Liam Bellamy’s daughter doing here? And why didn’t I know she was Text Girl?”
I groan. “Because I only found out three days ago.”
“How did you find out? Come on, don’t make me drag it out of you.”
“I didn’t know you were so nosy, Colin,” I say dryly.
“I’m usually not. But you were texting Liam Bellamy’s daughter! I think that deserves some curiosity.”
“Her name is Rayne,” I say, because it bothers me that he’s only talking about her in relation to Liam. She’s more than just his daughter.
“Yes, I know. Pretty name.” Colin waves it off, and I roll my eyes. “Why was she here? How did you meet?”
“Where’s Jax?” I ask, rather than answer his questions.
“Fucking around somewhere. No clue. It doesn’t really matter right now.”
It does. Since things ended between him and Skye, Jax has hardly been home at all. They weren’t even really together—Jax kept saying it was just sex—but now I’m not so sure anymore.
“Just tell the damn story, East.”
“I don’t want to have to repeat everything two or three times.” I try to talk my way out of it, but I should have known that it wouldn’t work. Colin can be pretty stubborn when he wants to be.
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell him,” Beck offers. Helpful as usual.
I give in. It’s pointless to resist, anyway. My gut tells me that this won’t be the last time Rayne comes over, and it would be nice if my friends behaved themselves when they see her.
So I tell Colin about Rayne’s visit to the record store—if I didn’t, Beck would probably feel compelled to fill him in anyway—and how we ran into each other again at the New England School of Ballet.
I give them the short version, without mentioning Rayne’s breakdown or anything else she told me. That’s none of their business.
Still, Colin looks serious when I finally stop. He’s always had a knack for reading between the lines, and since his dad died when he was thirteen, he’s probably the only one of us who can truly understand Rayne’s pain. “How is she?”
I shrug and sigh. “Not good,” I answer honestly. Just because I’m not telling them the whole truth doesn’t mean I want to lie to them.
None of us speaks for a few minutes, and the only sound is the voices on the TV.
“She’s not Text Girl anymore?” Beck finally asks.
“No, she’s not.”
“And now you’re . . . what, friends?” Colin pushes back his reddish-brown hair and looks at me curiously.
I don’t know why I blush. Maybe it’s because I have to think about how her lips brushed my cheek and it triggered something in me that I definitely didn’t expect.
“Of course, what else?” I make an effort to keep a neutral expression on my face, but when Beck begins to laugh quietly, it’s clear that I didn’t do such a good job of it.
“Oh boy,” he says, and even though it doesn’t really mean anything, at the same time it says far too much.