Escaping Perfect (11 page)

Duncan visibly tensed. Britta, I could have sworn, choked a little bit, but she covered it with a cough. And just like that it hit me. Fiona had a crush on Jasper. Of course she did. She
always went a little bit awkward around him, always seemed to blush a little in his presence. I hadn't really processed it, or had chosen not to notice it, maybe. But now, as she eyed him hopefully, toying with the hem of her hoodie, it was completely obvious to the world.

I was competing with one of three possible friends I had in the world for the same guy.

“Really? Sure,” Jasper said with a big grin. “I've gotta be in Nashville for this thing tomorrow night, but it could be good to do something distracting in the morning. You know, kill the nerves.”

“Oh, please. You're gonna be great.”

I froze. Fiona and I had just said the exact same thing at the exact same time in the exact same tone. We stared at each other. Jasper scratched the back of his neck.

“Awesome,” Britta said, standing up straight. “This won't be awkward at all.”

She picked up her cereal bowl, grabbed a magazine from the countertop, and disappeared into her room, leaving me, Fiona, Jasper, and Duncan to sort out our quadrangle for ourselves.

Chapter Eleven

“So . . . do you want to come with me tonight?”

I looked at Jasper, shading my eyes with one hand. His convertible zipped along a two-lane road packed in on both sides by trees. Every once in a while a space would open up between evergreens, and I'd see a sliver of Lake Pleasant shimmering in the early morning sun. The air was warm and thick with the sweet and sometimes tangy scent of wild­flowers, which grew in random patches alongside the asphalt. It was so early in the morning there were hardly any cars on the road, and I stifled a yawn. After my long shift, I'd barely gotten five hours of sleep before Britta had shaken me awake, telling me Jasper was downstairs.

“Sorry if the idea bores you,” Jasper joked.

“No. Sorry. Long night,” I said. “You mean to Nashville?”

“Yeah.” He downshifted and paused at a stop sign. “I could use the moral support.”

He hooked a left, and I pressed my palm against the door as the tires squealed. Even after yesterday, after sitting so close to him while he poured his heart into his music, after being the one he'd chosen to share that with, I was surprised. Didn't he have a dozen girls lined up to go with him?

“Do you have to work or something?”

“No. I'm off all day, actually. I just . . .” The wind bounced my curls around, tickling my scalp. “Are you sure you want me to be there?”

“Wouldn't be asking if I wasn't,” he replied.

“Why?” I asked.

He glanced sideways at me and slowed the Jeep as we approached a speed bump. Up ahead I could see a wide parking lot, already dotted with cars, and a dock a few yards off where a group of guys were directing their friend as he backed his boat trailer toward the water.

“Hey, you got me into this thing. The least you could do is be there to back me up,” he said with an edge in his voice.

Okay, ouch. “Look, if you don't want to go to the audition, don't go to the audition.”

“No, it's not that. I just . . .” He blew out a sigh. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. I'm just really nervous, and honestly? I
guess I'm hoping some of your bravery will rub off on me or something.”

There he went, calling me brave again. We popped over the speed bump and my butt lifted off the seat.

“Honestly, Jasper, I don't think you give yourself enough credit,” I told him. “You can do this.”

“Ya think?” he asked, his fingers curling and uncurling on the steering wheel.

“Yes! Look at you!” I said as he pulled into a parking spot and killed the engine. “You project this total confidence at all times. You never fidget; you never second-guess yourself; you don't even care when people call you out on stuff. You're, like, Mr. Cocky.”

“There's an attractive nickname.”

He released his seat belt and hoisted himself up, resting his butt on the door frame and his hands at his sides. His tanned muscles flexed in the sun. I climbed up to sit opposite him, the two of us with our legs dangling down into the car.

“Can I tell ya a secret?” he asked, squinting an eye as he looked off at the water.

Please do,
I thought. “Sure.”

“That Mr. Cocky thing? That's just what I want y'all to believe,” he said. “Half the time I feel like I don't know what the hell I'm doing.”

He looked me full in the face. I was about to laugh at his joke, but then I saw that he was telling the truth. I was still trying to figure out how to respond when Fiona and Duncan pulled up next to us.

“Beautiful day to be on the lake,” Duncan said loudly as he climbed out of the car.

“You know it,” Jasper replied, giving me a wink.

Interrupted in the middle of a fairly deep conversation, I felt the meaning of what he'd just shared with me full force. That wasn't something he'd admit to just anyone. And the wink was him telling me that. Him telling me that for now, at least, that topic was closed. I just hoped we could pick it up again later.

“Where's Britta?” I asked.

“She was a couple minutes behind us.”

Fiona got out of the car wearing cutoffs and a blue T-shirt, the strap of a deeply purple bathing suit peeking out of the collar.

“It took her and her mom a little while to get the boat hitched up to her truck,” Duncan added. He clapped his hands and grinned at me. “You ready for your first water-skiing lesson?”

The sight of the water skis when he pulled them out of the trunk sent my heart palpitating. I was all for being brave
and trying new things until the prospect of face-planting and being dragged behind a speeding boat became an actual reality. Were skis always that skinny?

“You ever skied before?” Jasper asked, opening his trunk to pull out a sizable cooler. “On water or snow?”

“Nope,” I replied. Skiing was strictly verboten in my family after my uncle Max died in a random accident on the slopes when I was four. Not that I could tell them that.

Jasper frowned, holding the heavy cooler in front of him. “Maybe she should just do the tube.”

“She wants to ski,” Duncan snapped.

“Maybe we should let the lady speak for herself.” Jasper put the cooler down and crossed his arms over his chest.

“She did speak for herself. When we talked about it at the diner, she said she was going to try it,” Duncan said. “Right, Lia?”

Suddenly I found myself as the object of a two-boy stare-down. There was no good way to answer them. Luckily, an engine roared, and Britta's bright-blue pickup careened into the parking lot, a sleek, white boat bobbing behind it. She pulled up alongside us and leaned out the window.

“I'm really sorry,” she said.

“For what?” Fiona asked.

Then the passenger-side door opened and closed. All I
saw were a pair of heeled sandals, until the wearer of said sandals strode around the front of the idling truck.

“Hi, kids!”

Shelby. Awesome.

She was wearing a pin-striped 1950s-style halter bikini top and a flouncy white skirt, her hair done up in an elaborate topknot. She looked like a pinup poster out of some old war movie.

“What a beautiful day!” she trilled, looking out across the lake. By the grin on her face it was clear that she knew she'd just spoiled the party, and she was loving every minute of it. “You ready for this?”

Jasper looked at Duncan. Duncan looked at me. I looked at Fiona.

Suddenly I wasn't sure I was ready for anything.

*  *  *

Half an hour later I was seriously considering jumping off a moving boat and swimming for shore. I figured I had about a twenty percent chance of making it without cramping up and drowning. But even that would have been preferable to the mood on the boat.

Britta was driving, while Jasper sat on the rear bench with Shelby's legs draped over his. Fiona and Duncan were perched on the starboard side, each of them with arms and
legs crossed so tightly they looked liked they'd been cemented that way, and I sat opposite them, trying not to glare at Shelby or make eye contact with anyone.

“You're going to do so great tonight, hon,” Shelby said to Jasper, propping her chin on his shoulder and batting her eyes at his profile. “Before you know it, you're gonna be a superstar.”

Duncan grunted. Jasper stood up so suddenly he almost lost his balance, and Shelby somehow managed not to hit the floor.

“Hey, Brit! I think this is good!” Jasper shouted.

Britta slowed the engine, and we puttered to a stop. She turned around and pushed her dark sunglasses up on top of her head. “So no one's thrown anyone overboard yet? That's a good sign.”

Fiona snorted a laugh.

“Who's going first?” Duncan asked, standing up.

Now that the boat wasn't moving forward, every time someone shifted their weight it leaned and bobbed. I'd never been seasick before, but my stomach was feeling a bit iffy. Was it possible I was still hungover from two nights ago? Or was it just the tense company making me ill?

“I'm gonna take Lia out on the tube,” Jasper announced.

“What?” Shelby snapped, as Fiona sank lower in her seat.

“Yeah, what?” I echoed. “What tube?”

Jasper untied a rather large inflated yellow-and-blue tube from the back of the boat. I'd noticed it latched there but had thought it was some sort of life raft. It didn't have a hole in the middle, and the perimeter was dotted with thick blue straps. He stood it up in the center of the boat, and I dimly recalled seeing some kids at the Vineyard being towed behind a boat on something similar. This was a far better idea than trying to ski.

“Are you in?” Jasper asked, grinning.

“Oh, I'm in.”

I got up and tugged my T-shirt off over my head, then wrapped my glasses inside it. I was so excited I had to chew on the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Not only was Jasper offering to go out there with me, but going out there would mean getting off this boat, away from the silent, snorting twins and Shelby “Sexy's My Middle Name” Tanaka.

“So you're really not gonna try skiing?” Duncan asked.

“I don't think so,” I said, refusing to look him in the eye. “Don't hate me, but I didn't really think that one through.”

“Why would I hate you?” Duncan said. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Okay, so how does this thing work?” I asked Jasper, trying to get past the awkward.

“I'll show ya.”

Jasper put the tube in the water behind the boat, where it bobbed innocently, then climbed over the back of the boat onto his knees on the tube and held out a hand.

“Come on over.”

I joined him, doing my best to keep my balance, but still ended up on all fours. Luckily, my butt was facing away from Jasper when that happened.

“Now what?” I said with a laugh.

“Lie down on your stomach next to me,” he said, flattening out across the tube's surface. I did as I was told. “Now grab on.”

Jasper reached for one handle to his left and another directly in front of him. I grabbed one handle to my right and another directly in front of me. My left arm grazed his right, and Jasper smiled.

“All set!” he shouted to Britta.

I glanced up and saw Shelby scowling over the back of the boat. Then the engine sputtered to life, and the vessel moved farther away from us. On the surface of the water a long tether spooled out, gradually straightening.

“You're gonna want to hold on tight,” Jasper told me.

“I'm ready,” I replied, though my pulse was hammering.

Suddenly the rope went taut and we lurched forward. I instantly lost my grip on the strap in front of me and started
to slide backward, screaming. In a flash Jasper grabbed me around the waist.

“I gotcha!”

He laughed, but I had to gulp for breath. The wind dried my eyes out and water pelted me in the face.

My right hand shouted from holding on so tightly. Somehow I freed my left arm from beneath my weight and Jasper's and slid it up to grab the handle again.

“Is she going to slow down?” I demanded, as the tube caught someone's wake and we jumped into the air.

“Nope! I have a feeling she's just gonna keep going faster!” Jasper shouted in reply.

We jumped again, and when the tube came down, my chin slammed against the top. It was much more solid than it looked.

“I'm not sure if I like this,” I said unsteadily.

“Here,” Jasper said. “Allow me.”

With that he somehow inched over on the speeding tube and pulled me so close that the right side of his torso was overlapping the left side of mine. He lifted his right leg over my left as well, and reached his arm around me, basically pinning me to the tube. I was still able to lift my head, but when I did, our wet cheeks grazed each other.

My terrified body was now also on fire.

“Okay?” he asked in my ear, his voice hovering between amused and aroused.

“Um, yeah. Much better,” I replied.

I did feel a lot more secure, even as my mind made a mental checklist of all the many bits of our skin that were touching. Within a few minutes, though, I got used to it and started to look around. Trees whipped by, a dock, a couple of small, secluded homes. The wind tossed the curls atop my head, and I breathed in the fresh air. The sky above us was like a vast bowl of endless blue, and I realized, suddenly, that no one I'd known before one week ago knew where I was. That I was out in the world, on my own, having fun, and that I was okay.

A guy on a Jet Ski racing in the opposite direction waved at us, and Jasper lifted his hand from my back in acknowledgment. I felt a swoop of uncertainty and yelped, but then Jasper grabbed me again and we both laughed.

“That was a close one,” I said.

“Don't worry, Red Sox.” Jasper's lips grazed my ear. “There's no way I'm letting you go.”

*  *  *

Cuddled under a towel on a picnic table bench, eating fresh biscuits and fruit and sipping coffee from Duncan's thermos, I had never felt so content. It might have also had something to do with the fact that Jasper had chosen to sit next to me
rather than Shelby or Fiona. Every time he reached for something on the table, his arm brushed mine, and every time his arm brushed mine, I shivered.

“So where is this audition, exactly?” Shelby asked him, without looking up from her biscuit. She was cutting it into wedges with a plastic knife and fork and eating it bite by bite like it was steak. Her posture was so straight you could have hung a flag off her.

“At the Fairfax. I heard there are more than fifty acts trying out. It's gonna be a crazy scene,” Jasper said with that old confidence I now knew was not 100 percent real. He glanced at his phone, then popped a piece of watermelon into his mouth. “Actually, I should go. I want to get some rehearsal time in before I have to leave.”

As soon as he got up from the table, I missed his warmth. He swiped his hands across the front of his still-damp bathing suit and turned to me. “Pick you up around five?”