Hotbox (50 page)

When the morning rush had subsided a little, Matt and I were both sitting on stools at the back of the garage, taking a break.

“So I have some news for you,” I told him.

“Yeah? Does it include finishing my Camaro for me?”

I laughed. “I don’t know. I’m in pretty good spirits; you might talk me into it.”

With a smile he looked me over. “Good spirits, huh?” Then his face changed. “
Wh
- wait.
Is…is Jayden
pregnant
? You’re gonna be a dad!”

I scoffed. “
No
. Traditionally there’s something that comes
before
that. Well, at least for some of us.”

“You two are
getting hitched?” He looked genuinely surprise
d when I co
nfirmed
with a nod
. “Wow. That’s great. I
mean for
you
. It’s not something I would ever do,” he laughed.

I took it with a grain of salt. Matt was very honest with how he felt about marriage.

“Do you have a date set?”

“First weekend in November.”

He paused for a moment. “Of
this
year?”

I laughed. “Yes, of this year.”

“And she’s
not
pregnant?” He laughed when I rolled my eyes at him. “Okay, it’s Jayden we’re talking about here. She’s been pretty set on having a normal family life—husband, kids, dog—for quite a while now. As much as I knew it would happen, it’s just weird to think
that the time has finally come
.”

“How come?”

He shrugged. “
All these years she’s insisted that her life is going to go a certain direction, and now it’s actually going to happen.
She’s just one of those people that’s…so damn interesting. She would make it big so easy
…
She has so much to offer the world
.
”

“So you think she’s wasting her talents if she gets married and has kids?”

“Hey, man,” h
e replied, holding up his hands.
“I’m not saying that at all. She can have a family and still make it big. It’s just not what she wants.
It’s hard for me to understand.
Shawn works his butt off to attain something that would come overnight for Jayden, and they have completely opposite desires. How does that work out?”

“Background.
Character
. You see how opposite their personalities are.”

“Yeah, I know
.”

“And it’s not like Jayden hasn’t worked hard on her
music
. She may not work h
ard to get recognized, but she
still put
s
in the time to get as good as she is.”

“
Yeah, you’re right.” He was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “
I can’t believe she turned
Nick
’s manager down.” I obviously had no idea what he was talking about and the look on his face confirmed it. “Oh, I just thought… Sorry man, I thought she told you?”

“Well she didn’t, so I guess now
you’re
gonna tell me.”

He looked uncomfortable for a second, but then he shrugged. “Well, Rod wants Shawn’s band to sign…but only if Jayden is a part of the package.”

I raised my eyebrows
at the news
.

“She’s one of the most talented guitarists out there,
Ty,
and she’s
female
.” He paused to let that set in. “Do you know how
special
she
i
s? And you’ve seen them perform.
You know their b
and is amazing—all of them just
mesh—but you know it wouldn’t be the same if you took Jay out of the eq
uation, right? It just wouldn’t
be the same.”

I completely understood what he meant. Shawn, Mac, and Josh were great together, but there was something about the chemistry of the performance—and the entire night—when Jayden was on stage with them.

“And e
ven when Camryn plays with them,” he continued.
“
Man, I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s amazing. Jay and Cam together…” He whistled. “Sorry, but they’re both pretty hot.”

“Never mind their talent, right?”

“You
know what I mean
,” he chuckled
.
“
The entire group is incredible.”

I nodded my agreement. “Does Shawn know all this? About the offer to sign?”

“Oh, hell no. On the phone Jay told Rod Halverson to sign Shawn without her—that it would completely be worth every dime—but he was really hesitant.
But not because he doesn’t want Shawn—he really does—but
I think he’s looking for the double kill, you know?
So
guess what?”

I shook my head, not even knowing where I would start guessing.

“Rod asked J
ay if he could be her manager to sign her f
or a
solo
project
.
And Nick sweetened the deal by offering his name to produce her.
”

Okay, now I was completely blown away. Why didn’t Jayden tell me any of this?

“She turned
them
down?” I asked. Matt nodded, but I was shaking my head. I really didn’t know what to think about it. “There’s no way she’d let Shawn find out,” I sighed.

Matt’s look agreed with me, and it made me feel bad for the situation she was in. She didn’
t want a career in music—a
t least that’s what she said. She turned down the opportunity to do a solo album, which totally did not surprise me. She would freak out at the idea of going on stage without Shawn. But she had also turned down an opportunity to sign as a band
with
Shawn. I really didn’t know what to say.

“Well, what about Camryn? Would that be a possibility?”

Matt kind of shrugged. “I think she’s kind of in the same boat as Jayden.”

“You mean she wouldn’t want to tour?”

“Mmm, I mean…” He paused for a few seconds. “Her personal life. I guess she’s engaged now. Her goals are kind of like Jayden’s. She wants to get married and have a family. I think a professional career in music is the furthest from her mind.”

I let the information settle. “Wow. Does Shawn know she’s engaged?”

He nodded. “Yeah. But he kind of played it off. It’s hard to tell what he thinks because he won’t allow himself to look soft, you know? And if you ask him straight out, he won’t give you a straight answer.”

I felt bad for Shawn. The one thing in the world that he wanted was a career in music. It was coming along slower than he’d hoped, and I knew he was frustrated with it. Now Camryn was engaged, a girl he cared about as much as
his
music
.

Matt and I talked about Shawn’s situation for a few minutes until our conversation drifted back to Jayden.

“
You’ve heard all her talk about
divine
providence and stuff, haven’t you?”
he asked me.

“You mean that she believes in God?”

He
shrugged. “Anyways. That’s where all her decisions come from. She feels that certain choices that she makes have been divinely
guided
somehow.”

“And you don’t believe that?”
             
He laugh
ed. “I guess I
might
believe in God, a
nd I guess Jayden’s a pretty spiri
tual person, s
o m
aybe she really is in tune with that kind of stuff.”

“Well, she’s definitely more in tune with aspects of
my
life than I’ve ever been,” I admitted.
“
I truly feel that she was placed in my life for a reason.”

“Yeah, so we can all see what demonic losers we are when we’re graced with her angelic presence.”

We both laughed at that. Sometimes I actually felt that to be true.

“But I understand what you mean
,” he continued
.
“
I truly do t
hink she has some sort of gift
, and I think I met her at a time
when
I
really needed her. I was this
longhaired
, foul-mouthed skate punk when I first met her. I drank all the time and did drugs… She was a freshman taking sophomore English—and I was
a j
unior,
there again because I’d flunked it—so we were in the same class together. We had assigned seating and she ended up sitting right behind me. I thought she’d be this stuck
up, little miss
know-it-all
—girls like that don’t really talk to
guys like me—but man,
I was so wrong. The teacher of the class really rubbed me the wrong
way
. She already hated me from the year before, so I was really intent on being an ass again, you know?” He laughed and shook his head. “But Jayden… If she hadn’t been in that class, I’m sure I would have flunked it again and I would have never finished high school.”

“Did she tutor you or something?”

“No. I actually got decent grades when I
wanted to. But Jayden was just…
hilarious. She’d say these comments and stuff from where she sat behind me—things I never expected to come out of her mouth
. I
ended up really liking the class, and because I looked forward to seeing her every
day, I actually
made
it to class every day.”

I smiled because
I could definitely see the motivation.

“The day she invited me to go riding with he
r
and her
friends
was the day I stopped doing
drugs and drinking
. I even cut my hair,” he
smiled
.

“Why?”

“I have no idea.
I think it was just to
show
myself that I had come across something better. I don’t know. But the next day in English—it was first period, so I tried to get there early sometimes just so I could talk to Jayden more—no one even said anything about my hair. It was certainly noticed, but most people really didn’t talk to me much. I was told I was a little scary,” he said, making a sinister face.

“But anyway, I was expecting Jayden to tell me it looked nice, or something. She’s always polite like that. But instead she says, ‘It’s missing something.’ She hollers at Shawn—he was in the class, too—to toss her some hair
gel.
The guy carried it around with him,” he chuckled.
“
So she puts some in her hand and goes to work on my hair, putting
the top of it into a two-inch
faux-hawk
. Mrs.
Morton
begins class and Jayden’s stuck with leftover gel in her hands, so she shrugs her shoulders and starts running the rest of it through her own hair. The teacher notices the gel on her desk and snidely asks, ‘Ms. Adams,
would you like
a mirror?’ Jayden smiles at her and in a sweet voice replies, ‘Oh, I’m fine. But thank you for asking.
’
”

Matt was laughing at the memory and it made me laugh, too.

“Oh, it was great. Mrs.
Morton
didn’t take crap from anyone. She seemed to know that Jayden was being facetious, but Jay was such a ‘nice’ student, I don’t think she knew what to say.
When the teacher turned her back Jayden threw the gel across the room to Shawn.
There were actually lots of mome
nts like that.
Anyways, I could go on and on about her. She became
my best friend
that year. I never had a sister and she was the closest thing I had to one. Chris was the same way
with her
—until he wanted to date her a year later.”

My interest was piqued with that one, but our break was over when the next car came in. However, Matt picked up right where he left off as we got to work.

“Chris used to pick on Jayden like crazy. Kind of how Shawn
still
does
now. I think Chris always liked her, but they had been friends for so long… Maybe he saw that Shawn had asked her out, and even though they didn’t
exactly date
, they still remained friends. I think the problem was that Chris and Jayden were
too
close. She had only known Shawn for about a year and they started playing music together, so maybe it wasn’t so risky to her then, you know?
But
when we
were
senior
s
—she was a sophomore—
Chris
asked her to the prom. It wasn’t even a big deal because they were best friends and everyone knew it. I knew he l
iked her more than that, though—h
e told me—a
nd he ended up telling
her
that. I think she was a little freaked out, li
ke he worried she would be, but
they ended up dating for a while after that. They agreed several times that they should just be friends, so they were kind of off and on. I think Chris’s biggest regret was that he
didn’t
agree with her, but
he
went along with it anyway. H
e didn’t want to push her away,
you know?
”