Spring Unleashed (The Summer Unplugged Series) (2 page)

Chapter 3

Bentley yells my name from twenty feet in the air. I look up and see his chubby face squished into the hole in a red tube at the McDonald’s Play Place. “This is so cool,” he squeals before ducking back into the tubing and disappearing amongst all the other kids. Jace and I brought him to lunch with us since Mom and David are shopping for patio furniture and being drug around from store to store is considered pure torture to a third grader.

I sip on my milkshake and watch the energetic blobs of children race through the ball pit and climb up to the slides. I never know where Bentley is at any given time because his messy hair blends in with everyone else’s kid.

“
You’re being quiet,” Jace says, leaning back in a swivel chair. His foot rocks him slowly from left to right. As his fingers rest in his lap, intertwining with each other, I find myself fascinated with the veins in his forearms. “Like, quieter than I’ve ever seen you.” He reaches up and pokes me. “I’m not even entirely sure if you’re conscious or not.”

I pull my gaze away
from his sexy arms and shrug. “I’m not being quiet.”

He slides back in his chair, pulling his arms up and lacing his fingers behind his head. He is so ridiculously sexy in this position and all I want to do is throw myself on his lap. Too bad there are a dozen kids and their parents around. Jace is hell-bent on continuing to talk even though I’m content with sitting quietly. “I kind of thought we’d be talking about the situation now.”

The
situation
, as he calls it, is the weird offer my mother presented to me this morning, after Jace revealed that he hadn’t talked to me about it. Apparently my boyfriend and mother have schemed against me, talked behind my back and without my knowledge and came up with what Mom considers a
great
plan for my future. That plan involves me signing up for Brazos Community College in exchange for Mom’s permission to move in with Jace.

Yeah.
Talk about making me want to crawl into a hole and die. My mother called Jace a week before graduation and basically backed him into a corner, telling him she knows I’m planning on moving in with him this summer. The thing is, I totally wasn’t planning on it! I mean, I was, but I hadn’t told Jace about it yet. I was still holding out hope that he would ask me to move in instead of me asking him if I could. And I sure as hell hadn’t told my mother about it. I guess she just guessed what my intentions were, and unfortunately for me, she guessed right.

Now I’m humiliated beyond repair.
I’m not exactly mad at Jace for taking her call and hearing what she had to say. It wasn’t his fault that she contacted him like that. But I’m upset and I feel betrayed that he didn’t tell me the moment it happened. When they sat me down in the kitchen after giving me my car this morning, Mom told me all about her plan and Jace just sat there and listened with me. I kept watching his facial expressions to see if he didn’t want me to move in with him, but he was a blank slate.

Anyway, I don’t want to go to college. I don’t want my mother telling me what to do. And in case she forgot, I am eighteen now and I sure as hell don’t need her permission to move away from home. Of course, I don’t want her to hate me either. Now I’m stuck with some stupid plan my mom made for me, and a boyfriend who hasn’t implicitly told me if he’s okay with it or not. Hell, I’m not even okay with it.

So when Jace tells me I’m being quiet, I don’t even know what to say.

“Sorry,” eventually comes out of my mouth.

“You don’t need to be sorry, babe.” Jace waves at Bentley, who has his hand shoved through the netting in the ball pit, waving at us. “I understand that the kids’ area of a McDonald’s isn’t exactly the best place to discuss our future. I’m just anxious for your decision.”

“
My
decision?” I snap. “I don’t think you and Mom left me room to make a decision.”

“Baby, don’t be like that. This is your life. It’s our life.
What you want matters.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “Then why is my mother involved?”

Bentley reeks of sweat as he comes crashing into me a split second later, knocking the breath out of me. He crawls into my lap and grabs a handful of fries. “Those boys keep using the slide over and over,” he grumbles, shooting a glare toward a group of older kids who probably shouldn’t be on the playground at all.

“Want me to beat them up?” Jace
asks. Bentley breaks into an evil smile but then shakes his head. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

Jace smiles at me and I smile back, our universal gesture for
This isn’t over yet, but we can’t talk about it now
. That’s fine with me, of course. I’m not sure I want to talk about it at all.

Chapter 4

The sound of whipped cream spraying out of an aerosol can makes me turn away from the first episode of Supernatural on the television. It’s Monday afternoon and Becca and I have decided to spend our summer rewatching all of our favorite shows from start to finish. She doesn’t know that I might be moving out soon, and at this point I’m not even sure if I know what my plans are. The frothy sound comes again and I glare at her.

“You’re holding out on me, jerk.” I laugh and steal the can of whipped cream from her. She nods to the fabric shopping bag she brought over
from her house. “There’s another can in there. I know I can’t trust you to use it sparingly. I also brought sprinkles?” she says as if it’s a question. “I’m not sure if we’re too old for sprinkles on our ice cream now.”

I dig into the bag of ice cream and syrup
toppings, pull out a plastic jar of heart shaped sprinkles and scatter them on top of my oversized bowl of ice cream. “If we ever get too old for sprinkles I want you to kill me.”

Becca rolls her eyes and settles next to me on the massive bean bag couch in front of the television in my room.
“Yeah right. If I killed you then Jace would kill me.”

As we settle in to watch our show, I eat my ice cream and try to think of a way to bring up the stuff I need to talk about with my best friend. The whole moving in with Jace thing and the college thing and the stupid nagging in the pit of my stomach that’s telling me he doesn’t want me living with him since he never actually asked.

This whole past weekend was muted with my feelings of worry and anger with my mom for letting Jace in on a matter that should have been a private one between him and me. It was, hands down, my least favorite weekend with my boyfriend. Nothing was bad—we didn’t argue or anything—but I just felt like a total loser around him. I kept waiting for him to ask me to move in and he never did. Just the thought of bringing up this subject with Becca makes me lower my head and dive my spoon back into the ice cream.

Becca interrupts my thoughts with one of her own. “One thing we have to do this summer is throw some kick ass parties at your boyfriend’s apartment.”

“Definitely,” I say with a smile. “If I get my way, I won’t ever be leaving his apartment.”

Becca’s eyes widen. “Are you moving in with him?”

I shrug. Now is as good of time as any to tell her about my situation with Mom and Jace. Becca’s expression flickers from surprise to mortification as I tell her about my secret desires to have Jace ask me to live with him and how Mom totally ruined it by getting to him before I did and demanding that I attend college.

“That is so rude and annoying,” Becca says after my ten minute long rant on my mother. “You’re a legal adult now. I can’t believe she would butt into your life like that.”

“TELL ME ABOUT IT,” I say before instantly realizing that Mom might hear me from the other room if I don’t stay quiet. “It was so embarrassing! Jace and I haven’t even had the official talk about moving in yet.” I run my hands through my hair, balling them into fists at the back of my head. “We have had talks about how I’m free to stay with him whenever I want to. Plus I have a lot of my stuff at his place already. I just can’t believe my freaking mother beat him to it before I did.”

“Don’t get pissed at me for saying this,” Becca begins, “But why don’t you just go to community college and move in with Jace? I mean, I don’t even understand why you refuse to go to college in the first place.”

My shoulders sag as I let out an exhausted sigh. “Because I’m not smart, Becca! I can’t take stupid college classes. I suck at math and would have to take remedial courses before I can even take the ones you get credit for.” I lower my forehead into my hands and stare at the carpet below my feet. “Jace doesn’t have a college degree and he does just fine.”

Becca places a reassuring hand on my arm. “Not everything requires lots of math classes. Do what I’m doing and get a certification for something.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I say just to shut her up about it. I know that college is important for a lot of people but it isn’t important for me. All I want is a fun job that makes me happy. One that doesn’t require math. If only there were paid professions that involved watching Jace work in the hot sun with his shirt off at the motocross track. Hey, a girl can dream.

“So how’s the fancy new car?” Becca asks during a particularly boring part of the episode where Sam and Dean aren’t on screen.

“It’s pretty amazing but I’m starting to wonder how I’ll ever fill it up with gas or pay the insurance without a freaking job.” Yeah, job searching was promptly put on hold since Jace was with me all weekend. Guess I should start looking first thing tomorrow morning.

“I wish you would come get a job at the pharmacy,” Becca says. “We’re still hiring and you and I could totally work the same shift together.”

“But it’s the evening shift,” I whine and reach for the can of whipped cream. “Evenings are the only time I can hang out with Jace.”

“Blah
blah blah,” she says, flapping her fingers and thumb as if they were my mouth. “I’m Bayleigh and all I care about is my hot famous boyfriend.”

“You’re damn right I do,” I say as I toss my head back and empty the rest of the whipped cream into my mouth.

“My college classes don’t start until August but even I know that shit will rot your teeth,” Becca says as she watches me look like a chipmunk with my cheeks stuffed with delicious sugary goodness. She’s studying to be a dental hygienist and I am so not ready to be lectured by her.

I point my spoon at her in an accusatory way.
“If you’re suddenly all about dental health then why did you bring over this bag full of cavity causers?”

She shrugs. “Bayleigh
, do you think I’m too bossy?”

I lift an eyebrow and look away from the television. “No, I knew you were joking about the teeth thing just now.”

She shakes her head. “No, I know. I just mean in general. Am I a bossy, nagging bitch? Do I think I’m better than everyone else and use my supposed superiority to look down on others?”

I grab the remote and
press the pause button, causing the characters on screen to freeze while in the middle of a life-threatening fight. “Where the hell did that come from?”

She looks at her hands and shakes her head. “It seems like every guy I date ends up telling me that at some point in our relationship. Do you remember Blake?”

I nod. How could I not remember Blake? He’s a year older than us and up until two weeks ago, he and Becca were in the tangled web of sort-of-dating-sort-of-not-dating. She got so sick of me asking what was up with them that I finally just let it go, despite being desperate to know what happened. The dejected look on my best friend’s face tells me that I finally get to discover why they quit talking.

“I thought things with Blake were good and that they were moving in the right direction. I mean, I thought he would ask me to be his official girlfriend any day and then he just blew up at me and yelled that I’m too pushy and intrusive and bossy.” She takes a deep breath and stares at the paused screen on the television.
“I don’t know why I can’t keep a freaking boyfriend. Hell, I can’t even get a boyfriend. Apparently I’m good enough to have sex with but not good enough to be in a relationship with.”

I slide over on the massive bean bag and lay my head on her shoulder. I’ve known Becca long enough to know that she doesn’t
like making eye contact when she’s upset about something. “What happened to make him blow up at you?” I ask. I’m not exactly an expert at relationships but maybe I can help her figure out what went wrong.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she mumbles.

“Nope,” I snap. “You do not get to bring up a subject like this and then not talk about it, missy.”

She snorts at my stupid nickname and shakes her head. “It’s embarrassing and stupid and I don’t want to tell you.”

“Okay now you have to tell me.”

She shakes her head again. I lift my head and turn toward her, putting on my pretend serious face. Except I suck at looking serious so it’s really just an expression of
me holding back laughter while staring wide-eyed at her. “Don’t make me kick your ass. Tell me what happened.”

She lets out a sigh and plays with the drawstring on her pajama shorts.
“Fine. Just…don’t make fun of me.”

I roll my hand, signaling for her to continue. She takes a deep breath. “Blake was just like every other asshole guy and he had a lock on his cell phone. I hate how they do that. He claimed he didn’t have anything to hide and that he wasn’t dating anyone else, but if you have nothing to hide then you don’t need a password, you know?”

I nod, mentally wondering if Jace has a lock on his phone. I don’t remember ever paying attention to it. “So what happened?”

Clearly something happened, because she looks really freaking embarrassed. Her fingers twine together and she stares at her lap the entire time she talks. “It really bothered me that he would get a ton of text messages when we were together, and it just seemed like such a hassle to type in the four
digit code to open his phone and read the text each time. I started getting like, obsessed with figuring out his code. I didn’t think I’d actually snoop through his phone but…I don’t know, maybe I would. So started watching when he typed his code and I finally figured it out. It was zero four zero one which is his birthday.”

“Did you find something bad on his phone?” I ask. She shakes her head.

“I never got that far. One day he got a text and it made him laugh when he read it, so I kind of hovered next to him trying to seem casual so I could peek at who was texting him. Well when he went to unlock his phone again, the code wasn’t the usual numbers he always did so, like a freaking idiot, I blurted out, ‘Hey you changed your lock code.’”

My lips squish to the side of my mouth.
“Uh oh.”

She bites her lip and nods.
“Yeah. It was bad. He got really pissed and accused me of spying on him. Then he said I was too bossy and intrusive and that this is why he didn’t want to date me because I was a shitty person who wanted to control him.”

“Becca, I’m sorry.” I try to picture the scenario she just explained. Other guys
from my past, like Ian, probably would have reacted the same way. But when I mentally put Jace into that situation, I can’t see the same outcome. Jace doesn’t yell at me like that.

Becca sets her empty ice cream bowl on the floor and rolls herself out of the bean bag. Her hands rest on her hips as she walks to my bedroom window and stares out of it, deep in thought. “I bet Chase wouldn’t react like that,” she says, referring to my neighbor whose bedroom window is visible from her viewpoint. She’s had a crush on him since he moved in last winter, but he doesn’t feel the same way about her.
She throws her hands up in frustration. “Who am I kidding? I bet he would. All guys are assholes and they’re all so damn secretive with their stupid phones. I guess I should just get over it if I ever want to have a boyfriend.”

“You’ll find someone who isn’t an asshole,” I say, wishing I had better words to comfort her. A year and a month ago before I met Jace, I might have felt the same way in thinking that all guys were jerks. But I got lucky enough to find my soul mate and I know Becca will too.

“How do you manage it?” Becca turns toward me, her hands still on her hips. “How do you put up with never knowing who Jace is talking to or what kind of secrets he keeps on his phone?”

I shrug. “I never thought about it. He doesn’t keep secrets from me.”

Becca lets out a snort of laughter. “Wow, Bay. That’s like the biggest lie ever.” My eyebrows shoot up in surprise at her accusation and she quickly adds, “I mean, I love Jace. I totally do. But you can’t say he doesn’t keep secrets from you. He’s just another guy, after all.”

Now
my
hands are on my hips. I’m trying not to get offended because I know she’s just mad at her own situation, but it’s hard not to want to take someone’s head off when they insult my boyfriend. “I have no reason to think that he keeps secrets from me. He tells me everything.”

“Really?”
Her voice drips with sarcasm. “Remember just a few months ago when you were constantly freaking out about his Facebook and all those parties he went to and all the girls he took pictures with? You can’t possibly think that there aren’t any questionable text messages on his phone he doesn’t want you to know about.”

“Well I sure as hell didn’t snoop through his phone to find out,” I say, entirely too defensively as I sink back into the bean bag. The reason I never snooped through his phone was because the idea didn’t occur to me. I’m not an obsessive phone-snooper like Becca is. A lump forms in my throat.

Jace doesn’t keep secrets from me.

But what would I have found if I did look through his phone?