“Okay?”
He sighs, and his glasses slip to the tip of his nose as he stares down with an exasperated look. Can’t you sound a little more enthusiastic about his awesomeness?
“Yippee?”
No. Try ditching the question at the end.
I give him my best you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look. “Jace is awesome. Hooray.”
Much better! Now add some excited arm flailing.
Jace strides out of the kitchen and turns to me, a frown on his lips. “Why are you talking to yourself?” he asks, and heat floods my cheeks as I realize how crazy our half-typed conversation must sound. Then Jace sees Killer and the messages on my screen. “Oh.”
Killer waves him away. “I’m just teaching Ali how to get excited over something,” he says out loud. “I don’t think she’s quite grasping the concept, but with a little coaching, she’ll have it down eventually.”
“I’m sitting right here, you know,” I snap. “And I can read lips.”
Killer winks at me, his mouth lifting in a playful smile that tells me he’s just teasing. Oh. I try to smile back a little, making the expression apologetic. I might have good reason for mistrusting guys, but I guess I shouldn’t assume Killer is the type to intentionally cause harm.
Jace’s chest moves up and down in a groan. “Excuse him,” Jace says to me as he strides over to the desk. “Killer is socially inept and an idiot and very rude to company.”
I cross my arms over my chest and look Jace right in the eye. “I like him.”
“Well, then you can keep him,” Jace says. “Seriously, keep him with you when you get to New York. It’d solve a lot of problems.”
Killer turns to rattle off some retort. I can’t see his lips from this angle, but judging by Jace’s amused expression, Killer’s language is getting pretty colorful.
Turning back to the computer screen, I leave the two to their bickering. I close the text document and the Internet browser, before Jace can read anything and start asking why I’m so interested in his lyrics. Not that I’d answer him. It’s like I keep finding a little piece of myself in each of his songs, and some part of me thinks that maybe if I read all his lyrics, then I’ll understand myself. But that sounds stupid even to me, and I’d never admit anything like that out loud.
As I click out of the browser, I find myself staring at Jace’s desktop background again. When he asked me not to change it, I figured it would be some sentimental picture. I should have known better. Instead of a picture, the desktop is a plain white box with the words Serva me, servabo te written in it.
“What does that mean?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“What does what mean?” Jace asks.
I point to the computer. “Your desktop. What do those words mean?”
“It’s an old Latin saying,” Jace says. Then he hesitantly adds, “My mom used to always wear this locket with those words engraved on it. It was a family heirloom. My dad lost the locket, but I like to keep the phrase around.”
“But what does it mean?” I insist.
He bites his lip and stares hard at the screen. Then he murmurs, “It means hope.”
Okay, that’s not exactly helpful. But I just shrug, like I really don’t care about his cryptic explanation, and turn to Killer.
“Are you going to stick around until the next rest stop?” I try to keep my tone neutral, and not at all pleading. But if Killer stays, then I’d have someone to talk to and help fend off my boredom. I’ve given up on engaging Jace in a conversation that’s not awkward and stunted.
“We’re not heading to the next rest stop until tomorrow,” Jace says. “We’re done driving for the day.”
“What?” Killer says. “But I thought Tony wanted us to get to Albuquerque by tonight.”
Jace shakes his head. “Check your phone. He just texted. One of the trucks is having engine troubles, so we’re stopped until that gets fixed.”
Killer curses at this news, and then says to me, “Sorry, sweetie, but you’re on your own with Jace for the evening. I promised I’d spend some time with Arrow.” He offers me an apologetic smile and adds, “We’ll catch up tomorrow, okay?”
I have no idea what we need to catch up on, but I nod anyway, even though I don’t plan on doing any hanging out tomorrow. By the time we get to Albuquerque—hopefully in the late morning—I’ll have hundreds of miles between me and Los Angeles. It should be far enough away to make it safe to find an airport and travel the rest of the way by plane. No one is going to know to look for me at an airport in New Mexico, and if I have Jace buy the ticket under his name, it should be completely safe.