Jex Malone (23 page)

“Let me do it. Let me cut it. Let's do it now,” Deva begs. “I'll never ask you for another thing—at least until tomorrow. Now close your eyes and sit up straight.”

And I do.

Close them.

I hear her cutting. A lot. She keeps cutting. Hours seem to pass. I feel a plop of hair hit my lap and then another.

“Not too short,” I beg, keeping my eyes shut tight. “I don't want to show too much face. I'm not even sure I like my face.”

“Quiet,” Deva says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “Almost done. Just keep breathing. Won't do to have you looking so fabulous and not breathing. Although, we could meet some very cute paramedics if I'm forced to call 911.”

“You could never explain I passed out from a bad haircut,” I say with my eyes still closed.

“Bad?” Deva says with a laugh. “You must mean bad as in good-bad, but technically speaking this is just good-good. Now, little one, take one last cleansing breath and open your eyes.”

My eyes open and my heart stops. I look like me.

The. Very. Grown. Up. Me.

She cut bangs, and the rest of my hair falls into perpetually windblown, shaggy layers that she has molded to look long, tangled, full, and pretty darn sexy. My dad is going to kill me. My mom is going to kill me harder.

I absolutely love it. For the second time today, tears come to my eyes.

“I know. It's Jex-cellent,” Deva says, doing a little happy dance. “You look old enough to sign a lease on your own high-rise condo. Now, get dressed. The other girls are gonna freak.”

“I am dressed,” I cry.

“With the new hair, those clothes won't do. You're changing!”

Deva tosses different clothes at me and then steps outside to wait for the big reveal.

The other girls are dumbfounded.

Deva is grinning like a high-fashion fool.

Like a proud mother … or should I say Style Fairy Godmother.

Inside the popcorn-scented theater lobby, I keep smoothing and resmoothing this awesome strappy black and white sundress Deva forced on me. Even though it's dumb, I keep looking at myself in the theater's huge lobby mirror.

I smile. And I shake my hair, waiting at any minute for the clock to rewind and my former mass of red curls to return.

I've never been so big on my looks, which are average at best. I guess with a cute outfit, a little makeup, and a dangerous hairstyle, I'm downright … well, downright okay.

Smiling at that happy thought, I look away from the mirror and do a quick sweep around the lobby. That's when I notice a pair of deep green eyes looking back at me. I blink once … twice … and then know that he is headed exactly my way.

Cleansing breath.

“I guess you girls don't spend all of your time mopping up spilled juice. You also have time for the movies,” says Cooper Matthews.

My lips won't work. I can't talk. My jaw has dissolved into putty. Part of the reason is Cooper Matthews's face.

He has the faint hint of a smile playing around his full lips, which are hard to miss. He's also wearing nice black jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black shirt over it. That awesome blonde hair is pushed off his forehead and falls onto his neck. Those searing eyes have a way of making you lock into them. Or at least I try to lock in when he does a full body sweep of me. Head to toe.

Breathe.

“Hot, hottie, hot,” I hear Cissy whispering to Nat.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

But Nat doesn't exactly respond. Instead, she takes one look at Cooper and then zips up her sweat jacket.

“Hey Coop … er. Cooper,” I blurt, looking into his eyes. “So you don't spend all your time entertaining out-of-towners at your home with the juice stylings of Hawaii. You also have time for the cinema.”

“No, Jessica, not exactly,” a knowing Cooper says and then he rolls his eyes, which makes him look even more devastatingly adorable.

He takes a step towards me and then leans in even closer, invading my personal space, which makes my heart thump so hard that I'm sure he will think a band is playing in there. “And by the way, I can't stand that skinny actress who is in that angel movie. But our air conditioner broke at the house and my Ma can't get it fixed until payday next week. I figure it's about a hundred and twenty degrees in our kitchen. This was one way to find some relief from the heat.”

Or not. My temperature has gone up about 150°F in the last two minutes. I feel like I'm shooting off fire from my skin.

Cooper smells so good—like freshly cut grass mixed with a little bit of Calvin Klein something. Then I flash back to his rundown house where he lives with that ma who probably can't afford much of anything in the way of extras.

I can totally relate. My mom goes through periods where we have to “tighten our belts.” I know what it means to wear clothes from a year ago or tell your friends that you can't sleepover because you can't toss in any pizza money.

Knowing that Cooper doesn't want to discuss finances, I focus on the issue at hand—and not his hand that brushes my shoulder like a bump your brother might give you. He does this after making some dumb New Jersey joke that I don't even listen to because my mind is talking louder than his mouth.

Focus.

“Your air conditioning broke. That sucks,” I say. “Once in New Jersey our air broke and my mom and I went to Dairy Queen and ate two sundaes each just to cool off.”

“Well, movies are a lot fewer calories,” Cooper says. And then he flashes me a real smile that lights up his entire face and makes his baby greens sparkle.

My breath actually hitches. So, I cover that up with a little mild cough. Cooper looks a little concerned.

And then he says the magic words. “You did something different with your hair, right? I like it,” he mentions.

RIP, Jex. Pulse at one million!

“Speak for yourself when it comes to calories,” interrupts Cissy, who is already loaded up with popcorn, Red Vines, and Junior Mints. The girl is a bottomless pit. Glad for the interruption and faced with sitting next to Cissy crunching away, I have a semicrazed idea.

“Do you maybe want to … I don't know … maybe sit with us?” I stammer to Cooper, making my words sound like I'm speaking some foreign language. “It's the least we can do after spilling all that juice at your house.”

“Although it was sorta rude of you not to offer us lunch,” Deva says and then does a little hair flip.

Noting my frown, she backs way off, although I hear her whisper to Cissy, “I've never heard him talk this much during six years of elementary school, two years of junior high, and a year of high school—combined.”

Naturally, Cooper hears it too, which is why he looks down at his shoes, but he knows it's true and allows a faint hint of a smile to play around his mouth. That flash of happiness seems to indicate that things are looking up for the Coopster. Then he confirms it.

“Well, I guess I will sit by you girls. Just so you don't get lost and decide to try any of your breaking or entering techniques on the projectionist's booth,” he replies.

“Very funny,” I say with just the right amount of eye roll, and for some reason I feel the need to jab him in the arm. I hit an arm of steel. Cooper doesn't seem to mind and jabs me back. He has a strong and very cute pointer finger.

Wait.

I'm Gonna. Have. A. Crash. This. Summer. I. Mean. A. Crush.

As predicted, half an hour into the movie, the twig-like actress-creature falls in love in heaven, but is seriously worried as she wonders if a human-angel relationship can withstand the pressures of real life because there is no texting in heaven. I'm bored out of my mind. For a few minutes, I sit there trying to guess what Miss Hollywood weighs now.
Negative ten pounds
, I figure.

I'm also trying hard not to stare at Cooper, who is only sitting mere centimeters away from me with his right leg comfortably touching mine. It's like our legs are actually spooning. It's not like I'm geeky enough to just stare at him like he's some lab specimen. I do the next best thing and look at him out of the corner of my left eye.

Before Cooper starts thinking I have some weird eye twitch, I decide to pretend to be looking for someone in the dark. When my gaze sweeps around again, I catch Cooper staring at me. Not looking around staring. Real staring. Head on.

Then Cooper leans in and whispers to me, “Why would an angel give up his powers to be with a girl who is so skinny that if she even had wings, she'd topple over?”

“She's so skinny,” I whisper back, “that if she sat on a bench, she would fall through the slats.”

“No,” Cooper whispers back. “She's so skinny that if her dog licked her, she would fall over. From the pressure.”

“No,” I whisper close to his ear. “She's so skinny that one gummy bear is an entire meal.”

With that one, Cooper laughs out loud and quickly gets shushed by someone behind him who sounds pretty upset. The curt, harsh shush slices through the air and immediately gets our attention.

Deva can't help but turn around to see who is tossing a hissy.

He's a row behind us, but I would have recognized this man anywhere. Suddenly, the smile fades from Deva's pretty face. She kicks Nat, who's sitting on her other side and the sudden tap makes her jump.

“Hey,” Nat whispers in a quiet voice. “That hurt and I was sleeping.”

“One more word and I'll call the manager. You can count on it, yes, you can!” the voice hisses.

Cissy turns around very slowly to see where the voice is coming from and instantly stifles a scream. Sitting right behind us is Cooper's neighbor.

Mr. Foster has a look of pure hatred in his eyes.

An hour later and we're outside of the movie theater on this dark night where the air is still thick and heavy from the day's heat.

Cooper and I wait next to each other by the curb for our rides home. Grabbing her cell, Deva phones the housekeeper to let her know that we're ready for a little pickup.

“We can drive you home,” Deva tosses out to Cooper, who is suddenly distant and stares into the black distance of the parking lot. I notice that his eyes are locked onto an old wiry man who has also emerged from the theater. Nat also seems mesmerized.

“That's Mr. Foster,” Nat whispers.

We watch the old man slowly make his way to his car as the crowd begins to disperse around him. Most of the kids are in a hurry; Mr. Foster just lurches along as if every step hurts. “That old whack job. Nutcase. Screw loose,” Cooper mutters under his breath. I don't miss a word.

“What's so nutty about him?” I ask him in my most fake pleasant voice.

“He's just messed up,” Cooper fumes. “Don't dare step on his grass or he'll call the cops. Can't disrupt his stupid schedule either. Mows the lawn every Sunday. Grocery shops every Thursday. And goes to the movies every Wednesday night no matter if the movie stinks or not. Don't know what the guy would do if he got off his schedule. His head would probably explode.”