“No cruiser,” I murmur, and I can almost feel my whole body breathe a sigh of relief. Dad would quite literally cremate me in my sleep and flush away my ashes if I returned home with a trespassing citation.
“Yet,” Jake finishes. He lets go of my hand as he jumps down onto the road, and I follow suit, trailing after him around the corner. “We’re not clear yet.”
When we find our way back to the small parking area where we left the cars, I notice Tyler’s is already gone. Jake leads me over to his—a red Ford of some sort. “Meghan and Rach must have gone with Dean,” he says as he unlocks the car and slides inside. Tiffani must be with Tyler.
“Where do you think everyone else is going?” I ask as I settle into the passenger seat, and I can only hope that he’s a better driver than my stepbrother.
Jake shrugs as he starts up the engine and reverses out onto the road. “Who cares?” I do, I think. “What do you wanna do? You hungry?”
For a long moment, my eyes settle on his features as he drives, and I can’t help but wonder how our escape from the Hollywood Sign has ended up turning into a date. The others are gone and I’ve been paired off with Jake. But despite my doubts, I am a little hungry. “Is there any good food around here?”
“There’s a Chick-fil-A ten minutes away on Sunset Boulevard,” he suggests. “We could grab something quick.”
“Sure,” I say. “We don’t have Chick-fil-A in Oregon.”
His face falls. “What?”
“We’re not allowed to pump our own gas either,” I add, and I find myself getting distracted by the idea of home, wondering what Amelia is doing right now and if my mom is lonely by herself in our small house. “Oregon sucks.”
“So you must think LA is great,” he concludes. “We have signs on mountains and Chick-fil-A and we can pump our own gas without being arrested. Mythical.”
I laugh a little, as does he, and it’s nice to have some male company that isn’t my dad and isn’t Tyler. The two of them are far too obnoxious and grouchy.
I slump back into the passenger seat and rest my forehead against the window, glancing up to the sky to check on the position of the helicopter, but it seems to have disappeared. And so I can breathe freely again.
“So do you like the city then?” Jake asks a short while later. He increases the air-conditioning but lowers the music.
“Yeah,” I say. Admittedly, I haven’t seen much of it yet, but so far everything is pretty amazing. “More interesting than Portland, that’s for sure.”
“I’ve never been to Portland.”
“You don’t want to.” After I say this, I reconsider. “Actually, Portland isn’t that bad. We have a great indie scene, but it rains from fall until the end of spring, so that sucks, and there are a lot of strip clubs. The people are great though.” I smile only slightly as my eyes fall to my lap. “Well, most of them.”
The thing about Portland is that I associate it with so many things I hate. Portland is where my parents fell out of love. Portland is where it seems to rain endlessly. Portland is where my so-called “friends” are. Portland, for the most part, is okay as a city. But my life in that city just isn’t that exciting, or even that happy. Santa Monica is a breath of fresh air in comparison.
“Strip clubs?” Jake widens his eyes as he grins. “I really need to visit this terrible city.”
I roll my eyes. Guys are all the same. “What’s Los Angeles really like, besides the obvious tourist things?”
Jake thinks for a moment as he taps the steering wheel with his thumb. “Well, the gap between rich and poor is drastic. You’ve got all these big shots living in these huge houses and driving Lambos and then you’ve got people sleeping on the streets whose only goal in life is to survive the night. It kinda sucks. But in general, the people here are great.”
“I never thought about it like that,” I say.
We head back down North Beachwood Drive, heading straight until we pull onto Sunset Boulevard. It’s an extensive street with theaters and restaurants and a high school and a whole lot of traffic. I study everything in awe.
When we arrive at the Chick-fil-A drive-through, Jake pulls up to the speakers and glances sideways at me. “What d’ya want?”
Because Chick-fil-A is nonexistent in Oregon, I have no idea what food they serve, so I flash my eyes over the menu and choose the first healthy option I see. “The side salad.” Jake nods but keeps staring at me expectantly. “That’s all,” I say.
“Just that?” He raises his eyebrows but quickly sighs. “What is it with girls and salads?” I offer a small smile, and he turns to order. “Can I get the spicy chicken sandwich with Coke and the side salad with…”
“Water,” I say. Again, another stare of disapproval.
“With water,” he finishes for the employee nonetheless. “Thanks.” We roll forward to the window, and he reaches into his pocket for his wallet, says, “I’ve got it,” and then proceeds to pay for both our food. I say thanks.