Scars and Songs (28 page)

Lea stepped up, “No way…”

Blake cut her off, “Well, that sounds like a plan then. If you’d like, I can stay behind and keep you company, and make sure nothing else happens.”

Not a chance
.

Grace snapped her head in Blake’s direction; her eyes widened a
bit, as she looked him over. 

Oh, hell no, why the hell was she looking at him like that
?

He stood leaning his back casually against the countertop watching her. Grace stared back at him fixating on the asshat’s blue eyes.

What.  The.  Hell?

“Hi,” he said with his cheeks turning bright red. “I’m Blake, Tucker’s cousin.”

Grace looked like she was having trouble breathing.  My heart felt like it was ripping out of my chest. 
Why the HELL DID SHE LOOK AT HIM LIKE THAT?

Tucker shot up and leaned into the space between Blake and Grace, folding his arms.  His face was tight and possessive.  “Thanks,
cuz
, but I don’t want to be responsible for your brand new truck,” he said eyeing Blake.  “Besides, Grace doesn’t even know you, so I don’t think she’d be that comfortable driving with you, since her feelings for her safety have been in question lately.”

I acknowledge now, that it was all kinds of fucked up that I wanted to kiss Tucker at that moment.   I didn’t though, then Tucker would get all Bad Bromance on me, yet I was grateful
for his big lawyerish mouth then.

Blake pushed himself off the counter and looked down at Tucker as if he was trying to scare him.  Tension filled the air.  Everyone in the kitchen had stopped talking and watched the exchange between them.

Alex chuckling low in the corner was the only sound in the room.

I toyed with the idea of letting them kill each other and get all the competition out of the way.  Instead, I jumped off the counter and strolled past them as if nothing was going on.  “Wow, this is like mating season at the zoo.  Why don’t I go with Grace later after she picks up what she needs?  After all, everyone knows there will
never
be anything between Grace and me. 
Ever
.”  I leveled my eyes at her and her cheeks flamed.

Tucker backed off, but Blake was humming with angry energy.  He charged towards me, but I sidestepped him and ignored the advance.  I walked over to Grace and gently
escorted her out of the kitchen and back down the hallway to my room, “You have a strong effect on people, don’t you?”

She said nothing, just followed me into my room.

Lea walked in right after us and shot Grace a wide-eyed look that expressed her concern about what had just happened.  “What in the world was
that
about?”

Grace grabbed at her hands and whispered, “Did you see the color of his eyes?”

The freaking color of his eyes?  What, drug addict blue?

Grace glanced at me and moved closer to Lea so I wouldn’t hear,
“He has the exact color that I’ve been looking for.”

I heard anyway. 
What the hell was this about?
  Oh, hell I was going to be asking Lea later.

“Are you
effing serious
?  Are you positive?”  She started pacing and dancing around.

“What are you two whispering about? What have you been looking for?” Conner asked walking in. 

Neither of them answered.  They just gawked at him as if they were waiting for him to leave.  Well,
I
wasn’t leaving. 
This was my damn room, and I wanted to know what the hell was going on
.

Conner nodded at me, “Someone has got to talk to Tucker, he’s obsessed.  And did you see him and Blake? Dude, I thought it was going to come to blows.”

I didn’t bother to answer him.  I just watched Grace.  Her eyes locked on mine and a sadness spread across her features, like whatever was bothering her could hurt me.

Then a small smiled appeared on her lips, but never reached her eyes.  “I just think that everyone is a bit nervous and out of sorts because of what’s going on, that’s all.  Everyone’s on edge, so we definitely should get out of the city and up to Tucker’s as soon as we can.  It’ll make everyone relax and we won’t have to look over our shoulders for a while.”  She watched me carefully looking lost and defeated.

“Do you want me to stay here and drive up with you?  It’s up to you, nobody should make the call for you,” I said.

“That’s fine,” she answered.  She gave Lea a smile, “I’ll just run to the store quickly. I promise I’ll be right behind you guys.”

Conner and I left the girls to their girly talking and helped pack up the cars.  My mind kept wandering back to the words Grace said to Lea when she thought I couldn’t hear. 
Did you see the color of his eyes?  He has the exact color that I’ve been looking for. 
Look, I know some women have those stupid checklists with all the traits a perfect guy has to have, or a dumbass test
Mr. Perfect
has to pass to prove he
is
the real freaking Mr. Perfect.  But if Grace’s only
thing
is the color of the jackasses eyes, then that’s just messed up and shallow.  Besides, his eyes are blue like mine.  Does the color of his hair, light shit brown, make him more attractive to her than my dark hair?  What the hell is wrong with women? 

I watched Grace closely as everybody trudged through the snow and got in Blake’s grotesquely enormous black Cadillac Escalade.
She couldn’t take her eyes off Blake.  She kept twisting the hem of my tee shirt that she was still wearing like she was nervous or anticipating something big.  It made me insane.  She just met this guy. When she finds out what an ass he is and the bad crap he’s messed himself up with, she’s going to hate him. 
I hoped
.  I wanted to scream out that Blake used to be Shane’s dealer.  I wanted to let her know what a junky, lowlife piece of trash he was.  I wanted to, and I freaking should have, but I knew she’d fight me on it and I couldn’t stand the thought of us fighting anymore.

Dressed in my
leather jacket, tee shirt, boxers and a pair of Lea’s sneakers, we treaded through the snow across the avenue to a department store that was empty (thank God) because of the snowstorm.  Grace didn’t even bother to try anything on. She just told me her size and asked me to help her grab as much crap as I could.  Yeah, so I picked up some sexy underwear and low cut shirts.  I made her laugh every time I brought something to the register that was
revealing
, yet she bought it all.  Thirty minutes later, we were back at my apartment.  That had to be some sort of women’s shopping record or something.

Grace started throwing everything she bought into a backpack she also purchased at the store, when her phone started ringing.  She ran into the bathroom with it immediately.  Feeling a little jilted, I sat on the couch and flipped on the television.  Every station I turned to had news on about the blizzard that was about to hit the city.  It looked like it was going to be a bad one too. There was already a decent amount of snow on the ground and the weather center was saying the storm hadn’t even hit us yet.

My phone alerted me to a text message.

Conner: Blake and Tucker are dicks

Shane: Y?

Conner: They r in car placing bets who can bag Grace first

Shane: Serious?

Conner: Up to $1000

Conner: Lea is showing Grace now

Shane: Showing?

Conner: Lea got whole convo on vide
o


Shane: I have to see it

Conner: Sending you two videos we just sent Grace

Conner:  Alex and Ethan are throwing crap at them as we drive

My phone alerted me to a new multimedia message.  A video.  Lea had recorded some of the conversation in Blake’s truck.  The conversation was between Tucker and Blake placing bets on who would
bag
Grace first.  They were fighting and shoving each other in the front seat as Blake drove through the snow. 

It was pretty damn comical.

The next multimedia message wasn’t.  Before I saw anything, I heard Grace playing her guitar.  The camera phone scanned across the studio from Grace to me.  My expression was complete and utter awe, and I was on my knees.  The camera focused in on my face and tears welled in my eyes.  Conner had recorded the night of the auditions, when Grace played to me the very first time.  I clicked the phone shut instantly.  I didn’t want to watch the expression on my face when I was falling in love with her, not now, not when I’d never know if she’d ever be mine.  And this is what she’s in the fucking bathroom watching right now, Blake and Tucker placing bets on her and me falling on my God damn knees in front of her.

Kill me now
.

I banged on the bathroom door.  I needed to see her face; I needed to see what the fuck was going on in her head.

Grace flung the door open with red teary eyes.

“Aww, Grace.  Are you okay?” I asked raising my hand to reach out for her.

“I’m fine, but I really have to go now. I’ve wasted way too much time and waited too damn long.”

Waited too long?  Wasted too much time?  What the hell was she talking about now?
 
It’s been like forty-five minutes
.

She squeezed my hand as she walked past me, grabbed her backpack from her bedroom and jingled her keys.  “I am so ready for this to be over,” she said.

But the tears still poured down her face.

I brushed off the snow that had collected on the front and back windshields of Grace’s Jeep, amazed how this city sparkled under the foot of snow that accumulated over the past few days.  The news said that the snowstorm would reach us in about an hour, and that no one should be driving in the city unless it was an emergency.

Grace flung the driver’s side door open and threw herself in the Jeep like a mad woman.  Yeah, I think getting away from Carl Sumpton was definitely an emergency.

I opened the passenger side door and knocked my boots on the side of the well, spraying snow all over.

She glared at me.  “Hurry up, just get in, I want to get out on the road ahead of this storm if we can.”

I rolled my eyes.  “We could just stay here, Grace.  We don’t have to go to Tucker’s.  I promise, I’ll keep you safe.”

“Shane, I’m going.  If you want to stay, then stay.”

Grace shivered, turned on the heat and defrost, and tried to blow some warmth into her hands.  She plugged in her GPS system and keyed in our destination.  Outside, the snow fell faster.

I pulled my door closed and the bang echoed through the silence of the night.  She stomped on the gas before I could even get my seatbelt on.

She pulled the Jeep over the snowdrifts in four-wheel drive; the wind howled against the car.  “Looks like the angels are having one hell of a pillow fight,
” she laughed nervously.

“Pillow fight,” I whispered.  I cringed inside myself.
Why did humans believe that angels had pillow fights?  Why did they even think that they acknowledged humans any longer?  This earth had long been forgotten about.  I was once one of their kind, and even I was forgotten about.

“Yeah, it’s an old saying, but Conner said it when it started to snow the other night.  What’s wrong?  You don’t believe in that stuff or just not in old wive’s tales
?”

She stopped at a red light and looked at me for my answer.

I shrugged and looked out the snowy window.  “I don’t give much thought to angels,” I said. 
They are mean, greedy, selfish beings.  Trust me, I knew
.

She took the Lincoln Tunnel and emerged into a wintery wonderland worse than what we came from, nothing
on that side of the tunnel seemed to have been plowed.  I finally buckled my seatbelt, but still sat at the edge of the passenger seat; knuckles white and clutching the dashboard.  I seriously thought she was trying to kill us with the sliding and driving she was doing.  I kept asking her if she’d like to stop and go someplace safe until the storm was over, she ignored me.

My cell phone rang.
Conner
.

“We made it here without Tucker and Blake getting throttled by Ethan or Alex.  I swear, I think Ethan is really going to kill them both.  But, for now, we’re all safe out of the storm.”

“That’s good; we just got out of the tunnel, so we aren’t too far behind you guys.”

“Shane, they are talking about white out conditions on I-80.  Maybe you guys should stop somewhere.  It’ll give you a chance to talk to Grace about stuff.  Tell her how you feel.  Lea really thinks you should. Something is going on with Blake and Tucker, and Lea is freaking the hell out.  If you really have feelings for her, dude, you really need to step up to them, man.”

“I wish that I could, bro, but she won’t stop.”  I glanced at Grace, who was leaning at the edge of her seat trying to see through the front windshield.  “I think this is her way of offing me.  I’ll see you in a bit, hopefully.  Later.”