Rock N Soul (21 page)

I waggled my finger at him. “Don’t push your luck. I might take back my offer to not call you a creeper while you watch me eat it.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, and he was grinning, and that made my toes feel warm, which was also alarming. “You’re pretty cool, you know?”

“Yeah, I’m aware.” It seemed like a good time to blow the kazoo again, so I did that. “Also, I got you presents.”

His eyes widened, and I considered for a second if I should give eyeliner another try before I remembered that I was a skinny blond dude and eyeliner always looked dumb on me. It didn’t on him, though. He was one of the rare guys who could rock eyeliner and still look like a total badass.

It wasn’t until he spoke that I realized I’d been staring. “You got me
presents
?”

“Don’t get too excited,” I cautioned him, but I pulled two wrapped packages out of the box and showed them to him.

“I wonder what on Earth they could be,” he said, and if sarcasm was a liquid he would have ruined my couch with it.

I tried to smack him with one of the packages. “Don’t be a douche. Besides, okay, they’re obviously movie-shaped, but you don’t know
what
movies.”

“True,” he said, dimple-smiling at me with one side of his mouth. “Okay, unwrap them for me. I want to see what you think I’d like.”

I put one of the packages down on the couch and started unwrapping the other one, but a weird tremor of nerves went through me before I’d torn the paper enough for him to see the title. I paused. “I didn’t have a lot of cash so they’re just used copies. But it’s the thought that counts, right?”

He nodded and met my eyes, which was definitely not going to help matters in the shower the next morning. “It’s cool. I’m sure I’ll love it.”

“Okay.” I tore the rest of the paper off and held up the case for him to see. “Ta-da! You’ve probably seen it before, but every rock star needs a copy of
This Is Spinal Tap
.”

“I
have
seen it, but it’s been a long time,” he said. “It’ll be cool to see it again.”

“And now you have your very own copy and all you have to do to watch it is harass me until I put the disc in for you.” I put the case down on the couch between us and picked up the other package. “This one I’m already regretting getting for you.” I tore off the paper quickly and held it up.

Chris let out a bark of laughter and flashed me a toothy grin. “Oh my God, you got me
The Meadow Larks
.”

“The complete first season,” I told him. “I figured you didn’t get to see the first few episodes and I thought you might like to.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to subject yourself to this crap,” he said, but he was smiling from ear to ear and my toes curled in my socks at the sight of it.

“It gives me a breather from
Supernatural
.” My throat was a little tight, and I didn’t try to think about why that might be. “So I guess I’ll survive.”

“You’re awesome, Tyler,” he said, meeting my eyes again.

I really should have looked away a lot sooner than I did, but my eyeballs staged a mutiny and ignored my brain’s commands for a full five seconds before I finally got them back under control and wrenched them back to the box of supplies. The only other thing in it was a lighter for the candles, so I pulled that out and busied myself with putting as many candles in one of the scones as I could. “I hope raspberry is okay,” I said when it got weird that neither of us had spoken.

“Raspberry is fine,” Chris said. “Hey.”

I looked over at him even though I wasn’t entirely sure that was the greatest idea ever. “Yeah?”

“Thank you,” he said again. “Really, I mean it.”

“You’re welcome.” I tried to put my attention back on lighting the candles, which more or less worked. Then I held up the plate with the scone on it and grinned at him. “Make a wish and I’ll blow out your candles.”

He rolled his eyes, but there was no real annoyance in it. “Okay,” he said after a second. “Wish made. Go ahead.”

I blew out his candles, making sure to get them all with one breath because I didn’t want to screw the poor guy out of his birthday wish. “Ta-da!” I announced. “I hope you made a good wish, because I totally rocked that candle-blowing for you.”

He shrugged. “I always make the same wish anyway. It’s never come true before, so it probably won’t now.”

“Well, maybe it hasn’t come true before because you didn’t have
me
on candle duty.” I pulled the candles out of the scone and held it up. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” He scooted a little closer to me on the couch and leaned forward to get a good view.

I put forth a massive effort and managed not to call him a creeper for watching my mouth so intently. I
had
promised, after all. I took a bite of it and chewed slowly while he kept his eyes locked on me, and I didn’t even roll my eyes when I swallowed and he watched the movement of my throat all the way down. Then he slid his gaze back up and locked eyes with me again, which was really way too much eye contact for one evening, so I got up and put
This Is Spinal Tap
in my old crappy DVD player.

When I sat back down on the couch and pressed Play, I made sure there was more distance between us than there was before, just to be safe. That didn’t stop me from watching him out of the corner of my eye for the entire movie, though, and wondering how in the hell my life had gotten this complicated. And whether I was cool with that or not.

A few days of shitty tips passed, and I’d started to get frustrated with how long the whole “saving for a plane ticket” thing was taking me. Chris was being relatively cool about the delay, but he must have been keeping a meticulous count of my income and expenses in his head because he kept updating me on my progress all the damn time, and even though flights were getting a little less expensive as the holidays ended, we were still months away from affording a ticket. Which was less of a bummer than I’d thought it would be, since I’d decided Chris was pretty cool to hang around with.

But anyway, the porn incident and the birthday party had distracted me so much that I’d almost forgotten about the envelope Grandma had given me at Christmas. I was sorting through my mail and trying to decide whether I should open my utility bill or whether I should save that bad news for another day when I came across it.

Chris was draped over my couch with his legs up on one of the couch arms while he watched a Black Sabbath documentary on TV, and the mail was doing a decent job of distracting me from how much he looked like a fucking male model, lying there with his limbs stretched out and his stupid fucking eyeliner and the way his shirt fit around his biceps like he’d had it tailored to fit them.

It had been easier to ignore this kind of bullshit when I didn’t know what he looked like naked and sexed-up. I sighed and tore open the envelope from Grandma.

“Holy shit,” I said, and Chris looked over at me.

“What’s up, buttercup?”

I shot him a Look. “Don’t call me buttercup,” I told him. “But again I say . . . holy shit.”

He sat up. “What’s up, Mr. Lindsey?” His tone would have made me roll my eyes again if they hadn’t been locked on the contents of the envelope.

“Grandma gave me
five hundred dollars
.” I held up the money so he could see it.

“Holy shit.” Chris leaped up from the couch in one obnoxiously graceful movement and walked over to me.

I examined the card, which I’d mostly ignored when the cash started falling out of it. It just said
Merry Christmas, Tyler
. No explanation, nothing. Just five freaking hundred dollars with a generic holiday message. I whipped out my phone and called Grandma’s number.

“Hello?” she said, using that questioning tone even though she had caller ID and must have known it was me.

“Grandma,” I said. “I can’t take this.”

There was a chuckle on the other end of the phone. “I guess you finally opened your present?”

“Yeah, sorry, I forgot about it,” I admitted. “But holy shit, Grandma, I can’t take this.”

“Language,” she warned. “And yes, you can. And don’t you dare use it all on bills, either. You need to have some fun. You looked very stressed at Christmas and I wanted you to have a little cash to do something nice for yourself. Buy a new computer or some sort of gadget. Take a trip. Just have fun with it.”

“You don’t have the money to just give me this, Grandma.” My voice sounded weak, but I was honestly proud of myself for not letting my knees buckle.

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I sold that old motorcycle Jane left in my garage. Turns out it was a classic or something. So this isn’t coming out of my retirement fund or my Social Security. I promise.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed into the phone. “Thank you.”

“I’m serious about the fun,” she said, and I could just picture her Serious Face over the phone. “I’m not afraid to ask you for receipts to prove you spent it on something frivolous.”

“Well,” I said, “I’d been thinking about trying to save up and fly out to California for a few days. See somewhere new.”

“Do that, then,” she chirped. “Take lots of pictures and have as much fun as you can without getting arrested.”

I laughed. “Thanks, Grandma. Really. Thank you.”

“Anything for my boy,” she said. “Don’t tell your cousins, though. They’ll all start dropping by to milk the cash cow.”

I laughed again at that and took a second to appreciate having such a cool grandmother. “I won’t tell a soul.”

“Technically I’m nothing
but
a soul,” Chris pointed out, “and I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell
me
.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I love you, Grandma.”

“I love you too, Tyler,” she said. “I have to go now, though. My show’s on.”

“Okay,” I told her. “Thank you again.” We said good-bye, and I hung up the phone and stared at Chris. “So how do you feel about a trip to LA?”

He grinned at me. “Pretty good. Is that enough to pay for it?”

I did a little mental math and then shrugged. “I’ll have to get a cheap hotel and eat off of dollar menus while I’m there, but with that and what I’ve saved up so far, I can probably swing it.”

“Awesome,” he said, pumping his fist in the air. “Let’s do it, then.”

I tucked the money into my wallet and picked up my laptop. I did a quick search and found a few flights that looked decent. “How do you feel about the beginning of February?”

“That long? We can’t go now?”

I made a face at him. “The work schedule’s already set for the next three weeks. I can’t take a vacation without paying Vic to cover my shifts. But I can ask Richard to keep me off the next schedule for a few days and that would probably be okay.”

Chris sat down beside me and looked at the computer. “That’s fine, then.”

“You’ll just have to put up with me for a few more weeks.” I ran another search on a different website, but the prices were about the same.

“I guess that’s cool,” he said. “I kind of like hanging out with you. I can do it for a while longer.”

I glanced over at him. “You know,” I said, drawing my words out a bit, “I kind of like hanging out with you too. We could wait a little longer if you wanted. Maybe go out there during the summer sometime.”

A sudden, cold rush of fear prickled my skin. My heart sped up, pounding against my rib cage, and my throat constricted around breaths that had become shallow and quick. It wasn’t
fear
, not exactly—more like dread: the feeling you get when there’s a knock on the door at 3 a.m. and you can see the police parked outside. I swallowed hard, gripping the sides of my laptop with white knuckles, and squeezed my eyes shut as I willed myself to calm down. When I finally took in a deep breath and looked over at Chris again, he was staring at me with eyes that were probably only
slightly
bigger than my own.

“I’m guessing that felt awful to you too?” he asked. His voice was rough and unsteady at the same time, and I didn’t blame him. “When you said we could wait . . .”

“Yeah.” I gave my shoulders a hard shake and tried to get rid of my goose bumps by sheer force of will. “Something out there thinks that’s a terrible idea.”

“But that hasn’t happened any of the other times we’ve talked about how I was going to have to be patient.”

I took a steadying breath. “Maybe that was because until now, we
couldn’t
go. And now that we can, we’re not allowed to put it off any longer?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I guess that’s as good a theory as any. So beginning of February?”

We both paused, muscles tensed in case the feeling happened again, but it didn’t. “I guess they—” I waved my hand at the ceiling “—are okay with that?”

“They seem to be,” Chris said. “Okay, February it is.”