Chapter Five
The lights go out
You don’t know me now
It’s all breaking down
We’re just strangers in the dark
—US Lyric Bot [@HourlyUs]
Four years ago, after Jake left for auditions, he sent me a text that said, I got in the band.
Congrats, I’m so proud of you!!!!!!!, I replied, unable to stop myself from adding at least seven exclamation points.
I won the bee btw! I told him next, keeping my promise to let him know how it’d gone, and attached a picture of my trophy. Then, in a surge of bravery, I sent, Can we talk about that kiss?
But he never replied—not until months later, when he sent a single text that read, For whatever it’s worth: I’m sorry.
That’s the last I ever heard from him.
Until he turned up here without warning and had the nerve to act all chill.
What was that guy thinking? A heads-up before he made an appearance would’ve been nice.
When I sent that email, I thought I’d only have to interact with Jake—or Jake’s publicity team—on the other side of a screen. It was supposed to feel uninvolved. Unemotional. Distant.
This was so not uninvolved and distant.
I resisted the urge to bang my head against the steering wheel horn.
I never thought I’d ever see Jake in person again.
How did he appear so unaffected by seeing me, when I felt my insides tying themselves up in knot after knot? How dare he be so casual about everything, as if he had nothing to apologize for after he ended things the way he did?
I turned my car down my block, gripping the wheel tightly and furiously chewing my watermelon gum. I needed to talk to Mom. She’d been there for me through all my ups and downs, listening to every single one of my rants and giving me advice. There was nothing I couldn’t tell her.
Okay, well, nothing except for the fact that I could possibly be ruining the one thing I was supposed to be keeping safe for her.
I spat out my gum into a wrapper, got out of my car, and started across the driveway. As I approached my duplex door, I saw Isabelle, my fifteen-year-old neighbor, sitting under the awning of our shared front porch, listening to music and holding a Munchin’ snack bag.
“Hey,” Isabelle said as she slid her lavender headphones down around her neck. “Anything new happen at the café?”
Something happened, all right.
“No news to report,” I answered. Mostly because saying it all out loud right now would cause shrieks to be heard within a five-mile radius. Half of which would be from me. For a very different reason than Isabelle’s. Keep it together, Lucy. “No adoptions today.”
Isabelle made a sad face. She loved hearing about when one of our cats got to find their family. “Have a pretzel,” she said generously, holding out the Munchin’ bag as if the chocolate-and-caramel-covered pretzels inside would solve my problems.
You know what? Maybe they couldn’t, but it was certainly a good place to start.
Reaching into the bag, I grabbed a piece and popped it into my mouth.
Then I looked down and nearly choked.
Jake Moody’s face stared at me from the Munchin’ bag.
I blinked, wondering if I imagined it, and this was merely a silly little hallucination from shock.
But no, my second look confirmed it really was Jake on the Munchin’ bag, next to Phillip, Leon, and Aspen. A snack for you, from US, the package proclaimed in bright-red letters.
Somehow, that made it even worse than a mirage. On second thought, maybe it didn’t—I wasn’t sure what it’d say about me if my brain conjured up Jake Moody all on its own.
“Go on,” Isabelle said, shaking the bag temptingly and rattling the boy band’s faces like maracas. “Have another one. You can even have the rest of the bag if you want.”
Her offer snapped me out of my daze.
“That’s really nice of you,” I said. “But I can’t take your snacks.”
“It’s okay.” Isabelle shrugged, the quick movement of her shoulders sending her curls bouncing. “I’m really not that into Munchin’. Besides, I have a whole box of these bags I bought anyway.”
I cocked my head at her, just like I did when one of the café cats did something I couldn’t wrap my head around, like chew on the baseboards.
“Why did you buy so much, then?” I asked.
Her face lit up, delighted I asked.
“Because of this,” she gushed, holding up the pretzel package and tapping on the small print by the Usual Suspects photo.
Scan the codes inside each bag to unlock prizes—one lucky winner will receive concert tickets to their upcoming Sweet Torture Tour!
“Even if I don’t win the tickets, they’re giving away other prizes too. Like downloads,” Isabelle explained excitedly. “There’s digital posters and clips of Phillip, Jake, Aspen, and Leon each singing and giving us fan messages. I’m trying to collect all of them.”
Huh. I hadn’t realized someone would do all that just for a video of US.
A door creaked, and Isabelle’s mother stepped outside.
“Time for dinner, Isa— Oh!” Her eyes landed on me.
“Hello, Lucy,” she greeted as I gave her a friendly smile.
“I was just talking to your mom earlier. She’s so proud of you for getting that college scholarship.
I am too. I know how hard you’ve worked for years.
Whenever you’re not at the café, you’ve always been out on the porch, studying. You were always such a smart girl.”
But was going off now and abandoning my injured mom and our failing café a smart decision? Or a selfish one?
What if it was both?
“You’ll be leaving soon. You must be excited.”
I forced a smile. “So excited.”
Could Isabelle and her mom tell I was lying? My stomach twisted in nervousness.
How could I tell her that I didn’t even want to take the scholarship anymore? Or, better yet, how could I change the subject entirely?
Thankfully, Isabelle did it for me.
“Here,” she said, shoving the Munchin’ bag into my hand. “Take this. You look like you need it.”
I let out a startled laugh. “Thanks.”
I waved goodbye, then unlocked my door and stepped inside.
“Oh, good.” Mom greeted me from her chair when I entered our living room. “You’re just in time for dinner.”
I stared pointedly at her crutch. Since Mom got hurt, I’d needed to make dinner, a chore I didn’t want to complain about but hated. Mom disliked being in the kitchen too, so, apparently, I inherited that from her. “You cooked?”
Tilting her head, Mom feigned thoughtfulness. “If by cooked, you mean I ordered pizza, then yes.”
“Oh, great.” I grinned. “I love your home cooking.”
“I know you do. I put a lot of effort into it.”
She leaned to the side toward the table to set down a paper in her hand, crinkling it as she stretched so she wouldn’t have to get up.
I reached for it. “I can take that for you.”
“Oh, no,” she said, quickly retracting her hand. “Don’t bother. It’s nothing. I’ll file it somewhere later. I’m fine.”
She tucked the paper between the outside of her brace and the couch cushion, but not before I caught a glimpse of it.
Overdue, I spied in red, bleeding ink.
Was that another medical bill? There were a lot after her accident, but Mom didn’t talk about it much. Was she hiding things from me, like I’d been hiding things from her?
And if she was, how bad were they?
“How was the café today?” Mom asked, distracting me.
“Great,” I lied. Only four people had come in, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Good! How— Wait, is that Munchin’? Why are you holding a bag of Munchin’?”
“Uh . . .” I blinked down at it. “I don’t really know.” I held it out for her. “Want some?”
Mom made a Sure, why not? face. “Give it here.”
“So,” I said slowly, “I need to tell you something surprising.”
Mom studied me curiously. “More surprising than my darling daughter showing up late for dinner while holding a mysterious bag of Munchin’ she’s not quite sure how she ended up with?” She eyed the package. “A bag that has a photo of her ex—”
I blushed, rushing to interrupt her. “Jake’s not my ex.”
He just kissed me once. It didn’t mean anything.
Right?
“—best friend,” Mom finished, giving me a look. “I was going to say ex best friend turned pop star.”
Oh.
“Well, it’s more surprising than that, actually,” I answered. “Because Jake’s back.”
“Back?” Mom repeated in shock. “Back here?”
“Yeah, at the café, actually.”
Mom’s eyes widened briefly before softening with concern. “How was that? I know you took him leaving pretty hard.”
“I’m . . . okay,” I said. Even if I accidentally summoned him to the café like some sort of leather jacket–clad genie in a lamp, and now I have to deal with the fact he’s actually here instead of tweeting a link from afar like the mythological pop star he is.
“And the only reason I’m okay is because he’s going to promote the café. ”
“Really?” Mom’s shock dialed up to eleven. “Why?”
Crap. I couldn’t tell her the café was doing so badly this month, I was desperate enough to write him.
“It’s for PR.” Okay, doing good! Not a lie. “He has to atone for the public fallout that happened after that fountain incident. It was the last straw, apparently.”
“Okay,” Mom said slowly, “but why here?” Great question. “Didn’t he cut all ties to Somerset? It’s not even mentioned on his Wikipedia page.”
“Exactly,” I replied chipperly. Perhaps too chipperly.
Tone it down a notch, Lucy. “He’s here to get away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi.
Also, he’s got such a rep, everyone in LA hates him right now.
I mean really hates him.” So much for toning it down a notch.
“You don’t want to know the details. His manager arranged this. ”
At least the last two sentences were true.
This whole café situation was the first time in my life I’d ever felt like I had to hide something from Mom, so I wasn’t great at fibbing.
However, considering Jake ended up in the news on a monthly basis, and was last seen treating the most expensive fountain in the United States like it was a public swimming pool at the Y, my comment actually sounded believable.
Mom shook her head. “Well, that’s something.”
She could say that again. “He’s staying at the Jackson Motel,” I informed her. “He booked his room under Sylvester.”
Skepticism colored her face. “Sylvester?”
“Yep. Sylvester.”
“What were his other picks? Tom and Garfield?”
“You know, Aunt Josie was so right when she said I get all my sarcasm from you.”
“I agree, but don’t tell her that—she’ll just get smug,” Mom said, before her gaze dropped to the photo album on the coffee table.
I hadn’t opened the book in years, but if I did, I’d find snapshots of Jake and me scattered across half the pages.
Us soaking wet and covered in suds because we’d just given a café cat a bath.
Jake lying on the floor, jotting down lyrics while I wrote up an extra credit report.
Him mid-song, me mid-laugh. So much happiness, all frozen in the past.
“I suppose coming here would make sense, considering he practically lived at the café,” Mom mused, before looking up. “So, what’s he going to do?”
“Do?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Well, Jake’s got to do something, right? Like when you get in trouble and perform community service?”
Perform.
The word struck a chord in my mind, like someone hitting a single piano key and letting the sound resonate.
I stared down at the Munchin’ bag, thinking about how Isabelle bought so many and the pure joy on her face when she talked about the videos of US singing.
A post about the café was good. Those photos Jake’s manager wanted, great. But there was something that could be even better than that. Something so attention-grabbing, it could have the power to make this the most successful summer ever in café history.
Which could be the key to fixing all the other worries I had.
“Actually,” I said, a grin crossing my face as my plan came together, “I think he’s going to do something we’ll love.”