Riding With Brighton(43)
From here I can just stare at him—appreciate how sexy he really is. He’s more laid-back than the Jay I used to know. It might be that he’s wearing my jeans that aren’t as crisp, clean, and trendy as his own. It could definitely be the fact that he’s wearing my Equality Rocks shirt, which, like all my shirts, is a little too tight on him. He didn’t bother using any of my products after his shower and his hair looks lighter than it usually does, and the messy way pieces of it are hanging in his eyes is damn cute. But mostly it’s the eyes. They’re shining and bluer than ever. The words my blue jay float through my head, but I quickly shake it off. It’s way too early to be calling him my anything, and we’re months away from nicknames.
Jones and some of his other friends are by his side. When they talk to him, he leans to the side to listen, then yells his response, but his eyes never leave mine. And like this, it’s almost like we’re the only ones in the room. Plus, I’m playing my guitar, which is a natural sedative, so by the time we take our first break I’m feeling chilled out and back to normal.
I set my guitar in its stand, down my bottle of water, and towel my forehead off, stalling because I don’t want my euphoria to go away when I have to go back to Jay’s doppelganger.
But then I feel a set of large hands rubbing my shoulders and warm breath on my neck. “You’re sexy when you play your guitar,” he whispers in my ear, and I have to stop myself from turning around, backing him into a wall, and kissing the life out of him.
I turn around, and his hands drop off me. He shoves them in his back pockets, and I shove mine in my front pockets. “You’re sexy when you watch me play my guitar.”
“You guys are good. I almost thought about dancing.”
I laugh. “Thanks, but really, I have nothing to do with the band. It’s all Molly and Shaw. Her words, his music….”
He nods. “I’m sorry about earlier. You were right—I’m letting her get to me, and it’s turning me into a total jackass.”
“I’m serious—you just have to try and ignore her.”
“Yeah. I’m starting to get that. You want to go outside, get some air, before you gotta start playing again?”
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
As I turn to follow Jay, I feel someone staring at me. I look over and see Mack and his friend Brian eyeing me and Jay. Shit. Jay was just rubbing my shoulders and whispering in my ear, so I expect them to start shit with us immediately, but we manage to make it out the back door without incident.
I suck in a lungful of the night air and follow Jay up the sloping hill of Jones’s backyard. Eventually he stops when we’re far enough away from the general crowd, and sits down on the grass.
“Shit, there’s a lot of people here,” Jay says as we stare at the crowded backyard and into the windows of Jones’s walk-out basement.
“Looks like the whole school turned out,” I agree.
“I don’t know why I thought these things were fun. I mean, that doesn’t look like fun to me.”
Everyone already seems hammered, and even from this distance I can see at least a dozen people doing things they’re gonna regret in the morning if they have any conscience at all.
“I’m guessing you’re usually hammered like everyone else. It probably seems a lot more fun like that.”
He lets out an unamused laugh and says, “Yeah, you’re right. Just one more thing on the list of the many reasons why my life sucked before you came into it.”
“I bet you’ve had some good times with those people.”
“I suppose. I don’t really know. Everything just looks so different now. Like I’m looking back on a life that someone I don’t even know lived. Someone who’s not me.”
“Must have been the life of Jay Hall,” I say, referencing the asshole Molly thinks he is.
He laughs at my imitation. “No offense, but God can she be annoying.”
“I’m not blind. When it’s just us, though, she’s a totally different person. She’s one of the smartest people I know. I could talk to her for hours about pretty much anything.”
“I could see that. I genuinely wanted to get to know her last year when we had class together, but she made it so damn difficult. Why is that? I never understood that.”
I shrug. Maybe one day Jay will get to know her and he’ll understand, but it’s not my story to tell. “She’s had a pretty shit life. She generally assumes the worst about people, and I can’t say I blame her. She refuses to let anyone in, outside of her small group of friends.”
“I wonder how many of those kids down there are just like me and Molly—pretending to be something we’re not in order to cover up something painful.”
“Probably about 80 percent of them. At least.”
Jay shakes his head. “It’s kind of fucked-up. People always say high school is the best time of your life and you need to enjoy it before you have to grow up. But I think just about all of us are pretending to be someone we’re not and confused about absolutely everything. Does anyone really enjoy this shit? I mean, besides you?”
“I don’t enjoy that shit.” I stutter a laugh. “I know I do an excellent job of smiling and schmoozing, but I’m not comfortable in these situations or at school. It still feels like I’m constantly having to defend who I am. I still hear words like fag, queer, cocksucker, and homo every day, and it still hurts.”