Jeremy checked the time on his cell phone. “I’m late. Roy’s gonna kill me.”
Well then, this was the perfect secret to share.
“I always wanted to be your friend,” Regan said. “Bet you didn’t know that.”
He stood stunned, his mind flooded with a trillion questions and no time to ask them. She did it on purpose! He looked down the sidewalk toward the garage. And then he looked back at Regan helplessly.
“Don’t you need to go to work now?” she asked.
Her face was unreadable, allowing him no further insight into her claim. What the hell was she trying to do to him? If this was a joke, then he’d label it the worst kind of bullying—emotional torment that does permanent damage.
“You know I have to,” he said slowly, never taking his eyes off her face.
“Then I guess you better go,” she said just as slowly.
He stormed off, muttering under his breath. He was over it—over her little game. She always wanted to be his friend? Bullshit. There were plenty of opportunities, but she chose them. Even now, she couldn’t or wouldn’t break free from them. That made her one of them still, and he couldn’t be friends with his enemy. He knew it was paramount to try—even if he had to fake it—but he didn’t want to share her. He shouldn’t have to! And, anyway, she still owed him. She owed him all her feelings and a better fucking apology. And while they were at it, her body, too. Yeah. That’s right. She had no problem touching him without permission—tactlessly poking at his scar. Maybe he ought to poke her and see how she liked it.
God, he wanted to back her into a corner—smash her right up against the goddamn wall—hold a gun to her temple, then kiss her lips gently. I love you. I hate you. The image didn’t even bother him. He found pleasure in the fantasy of tasting her tears while his tongue explored her mouth. I love you. I hate you. The pendulum swung. Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Right. Wrong.
Victim. Vigilante.
Sanity.
Slipping.
***
She parked her mother’s sedan in an empty space beside the blue-gray building. She sat for a moment practicing breathing exercises for cardio endurance, imagining running up and down the field with Jeremy chasing after her. Heart palpitation. And another. She fixed her eyes on the faded plastic business sign—Roy’s Body Shop—with patches of red missing from several letters.
You wanted to be friends, her brain reminded her.
She nodded and glanced at the cupcakes sitting in the passenger seat.
And he did say to bring cake.
She grinned, peeling back a stray hair that was plastered to her cheek. Her sweat dried earlier, making everything around the perimeter of her face crusty and dry.
“Why didn’t I shower first?” she said aloud. “I’m revolting.”
But she knew why. She barely let Coach Allan finish her end-of-practice speech before booking it to the car for her special errand—cupcakes. It was the only thing on her mind all day, and every stolen glimpse at Jeremy served as mini tests of her patience. By 6:15 she had none left.
She breathed deeply one last time and exited the car, walking slowly around the corner to the front of the garage where the doors stood wide open. Four bays. Two empty. One was occupied by an old Camaro and a shirtless boy—shirtless! Icing on her cupcake day!
The words “Oh my” slipped soundlessly from her lips as she gripped the pink cupcake box tighter. She gulped down the view, thanking all the gods in the history of every religion on earth for delaying the fall weather. Summer continued to sizzle, even at the end of September, and the heat mixed with a broken air conditioner was responsible for her delicious, decadent visual treat.
His back was to her, and she reveled in her voyeurism. She noted his broad shoulders, defined by what she could only imagine was a strict weight lifting regiment. Strong shoulders. Sculpted back that highlighted every muscle, tapering in a V-shape to his waist. Slender and athletic, like a basketball player. She never thought of herself as a visual person. She thought of herself as more of a words person. But in that moment, she would have been fine to stare at him indefinitely without a single word uttered between them.
And like all the heroines of any great love story, she was a sucker for tattoos. She would never brand herself with one, but she liked what she saw on him. She squinted to read the scripted words spanning his upper back, starting below his left shoulder blade and arching up and over to his right: Fiant sicut paleae ante faciem venti. Black ink. No images. Just words—dark and bold against his fair skin.
She quietly pulled her cell phone from her pocket and typed the words one-handed into her “Notes” app. Her thumb flew around the keypad with ease—a special skill only teenagers of the Disney Channel generation possessed.
On my to-do list for tonight, she thought, if Jeremy was unwilling to explain his tattoo. And he probably would be. After all, he wasn’t the sharing kind unless he was scribbling his feelings in a notebook.
“What are you doing?”
Her face flew up as the cell phone crashed to the ground. It bounced once and cracked open, battery spilling out beside her feet.
“Oh, shit!” Regan spat, bending over to retrieve all three pieces—front, battery, back cover.
“Were you taking a picture of me?” Jeremy asked.
“Are you crazy?” Regan replied.
He blushed and clenched his jaw.
She approached him and shoved the pink box in his hands, shooting a stealthy glance at his bare chest.
“Here. Take your cupcakes,” she barked, putting her phone back together. And then she muttered, “If I lost all my freaking pics . . .”
“You did take a picture of me!” Jeremy cried. “What the fuck?”
Regan held up her hand, demanding his silence. He complied. She turned on her phone and opened her picture gallery. Every shot accounted for. And then she relaxed, looking him in the eyes.
“I did not take a picture of you, you conceited ass,” she said. “I was typing something.”
“What were you typing?” he asked.
“None of your business.”