Boy Shopping (13 page)

“Man, you guys just can't shut up,” the waiter teased. “I can tell you guys have been going out forever.”

Jacob gave him a look that made him take a step back and begin stammering an apology.

“Forget it, man.” Jacob handed him a credit card without even glancing at the bill. The waiter scurried to the back of the restaurant so fast the other diners probably thought Jacob had threatened him.

It took all of three minutes to walk from La Rosa to the Maze, though Kiki wouldn't have wanted to walk it by herself—it was on a sketchy corner near the edge of downtown. She had no fears walking with Jacob, though. It amazed her how he could say more with a look than someone like Mark could say with a hundred three-syllable words.

Inside the club, Triple Threat had already begun. The cinder-block walls were thumping with complex beats overlaid by honey-sweet vocals and samples from what sounded like a string quartet.

“The acoustics here are better than you would think,” Kiki said.

“It's not the building. It's the speakers. They've got Khartoum speakers, this German company that makes movie theater sound equipment, and triplex placement.” Jacob went on, but that was the only part Kiki understood. And she wasn't dumb about sound systems—after more than three hundred sound checks, you learn a thing or two about music amplification. But Jacob was an expert. He may not have normal conversations but he could definitely lecture her about various amps. Not that she minded—it was a subject that interested her almost as much as it fascinated him.

Kiki was about to ask him if he knew what kind of equipment was necessary to pull the morning announcements prank at school, when they got to the head of the line and flashed their fakes. Kiki almost never used a fake ID, since most bouncers in Nashville knew exactly how old she was and were willing to let her in anyway, but she didn't make it to the Maze often.

“You want a drink?” Jacob asked.

“Not really.” The Maze had beer, but no hard liquor. Kiki would drink a beer if it was cold enough and she was thirsty enough, but she would rather have Jack and Coke, or even a glass of water.

“That's cool.” Jacob bought two bottles of water, handed one to Kiki, then headed further into the dark, twisty halls that gave the club its name. To keep up with each other they had to hold hands, and from there the next step was dancing. Kiki had never danced with anyone who moved like Jacob. It figured, since his mother had danced in videos back in the '80s—that's how she met his father. But there was a world of difference between what Mrs. Young did in the background of Madonna videos and how Jacob moved across the Maze's main dance floor. It wasn't anything flashy or crazy—he didn't crowd the other dancers, or make Kiki look like she was dancing by herself. He just always knew the right way to move: when to step right, when to pause, when to press Kiki so close she could feel his heart slamming against his ribs, when to give her a little space.

Soon all of the little worries that had been knocking around Kiki's brain—was Jacob too shy, too quiet, too weird?—were lost in the beat that moved Kiki, Jacob, and everyone else in the club. They danced through the end of the first set, danced to the recorded tracks that were played while the second group set up, and through the entire second set. They definitely didn't need words for this kind of communication.

Sweat glued dreads to the back of Kiki's neck, and even after she finished off her bottle of water, she felt like she was overheating. Grinding against Jacob for the full six minutes of “Demonology” would have overheated Kiki in a walk-in freezer, much less in a hot, smoky club.

“I think I need some air,” Kiki said. She had to repeat herself twice, she was so breathless.

After making sure they hadn't sweated their hand stamps clean off, they threaded their way back out of the Maze and into the parking lot.

“‘Demonology' is such a great song,” Kiki said, fanning herself with her empty water bottle.

“It's their best, except maybe for ‘Talking Pictures,' on
Fictional
. That whole album drops it.”

“You like it better than
Triggerfinger
?”

“Too different to compare.”

Jacob had as much to say about music itself as he did about sound systems, and not just hip-hop and trip-hop. He knew plenty about the local rock scene, and knew the Temporary Insanity playlists almost as well as Kiki did. She couldn't stop smiling, even though Jacob hadn't lost the closed-off look he'd worn all day. They really did have a lot in common. They really did understand each other. And if dancing with Jacob in a room full of people was enough to make Kiki light-headed, she couldn't imagine what it would be like to be with him behind closed doors.

Kiki was trying to maneuver the conversation from the show to where they might find a little privacy afterwards, when she heard giggles coming from somewhere nearby, probably behind a car, followed by three very familiar voices, raised in chorus.

“Kiki and Jacob, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Kiki with a baby carriage!”

“All right, get out here,” Kiki growled. “Jazz, Sasha, Camille. I know it's you.”

The three of them, emerging from behind a VW Bug, were red as pomegranates, laughing so hard Kiki thought Jasmine might collapse.

“How nice to see you, ladies,” Kiki said, making her friends laugh even harder. “Enjoying the show?”

“The show hasn't even started,” Jasmine gasped between giggles. “We were going to wait for you to make out, but we didn't think you would get it on in the parking lot.”

“Very mature, Jazz. Thanks.” Kiki rolled her eyes at Jacob, making a face, but he didn't smile down at her. Instead, he glared at the Pussycats, giving them the same look that the old man in the Cadillac had given Kiki and Jacob earlier, then he turned and stomped off.

“Are you guys done?” Kiki asked her friends.

“We didn't come here to spy,” Sasha insisted. “We just wanted to catch the show. We didn't expect you and Jacob to be out here.”

“Could you please, please find someplace else to go?”

“Sure, sure,” Camille said, grabbing Jasmine's elbow firmly. “We're out of here.”

“Look, I'm sorry,” Kiki said when she caught up with Jacob just outside the front door. She dragged him around to the side of the building—there was no need for every trip-hop fan in Nashville to witness this scene. “They can get a little silly.”

“A little silly? Those girls don't have the sense of a dumb kitten.”

“Those are my friends you're talking about, and they're not stupid. They just like to have fun.”

“That's it—fun is everything to them.”

Kiki stood as tall as she could, since she was half a foot shorter than Jacob, and put her hands on her hips.

“What's wrong with having fun? What else are they supposed to be doing?”

He laughed at her. It was the first time Kiki had heard him laugh since grade school, but she was not amused.

Jacob shook his head, as if he felt sorry for her friends. “There're all kinds of things they could be doing. But all they do is take up space.”

“Well, they're my best friends, so I guess I'm just taking up space too.”

Kiki spun and tried to march away, but Jacob grabbed a belt loop and hung on.

“You're different. You're special. And you know it.” He was purring right into her ear, but that didn't mean she had to listen.

“Because I know how to hit a drum and think up words that rhyme? In this town everyone and their brother can do that. Let go of me!”

“You know as well as I do that there's a world of difference between you and those girlfriends of yours, and not because your skin is brown either. You're an artist. You can see things they don't see, and understand things they can't even imagine.”

Kiki shut her eyes. That struck a chord. She knew her friends had no idea how it felt to come up with just the right words to reduce a feeling to a rhyme, or to have the power to make crowds scream your name. But she wasn't going to let Jacob win this one.

“What makes you think you know what I can and can't see?”

“I know because I see it, too, in every song you ever wrote. I know it because I know you. Your friends can't even tell which songs are yours from listening to the lyrics, can they? They have no idea what's really going on inside you.”

Part of Kiki wanted to defend her friends. Part of her wanted to scream at Jacob for imagining that he understood her when they'd had all of one conversation in the last two hours. And part of her couldn't ignore the truth in what he said, that the Pussycats had no idea what was going on inside her—even Mark didn't really understand the first thing about her feelings. And, beneath all her thoughts about friendship and understanding and loyalty and love, Kiki could not ignore Jacob's breath on her neck, or the way his thumb was pressing into the small of her back, an inch away from the black lace edging her thong.

“What makes you think you understand the first thing about me?” she asked, turning back toward him. She meant to stare him down. Instead, she found herself drowning in twin pools of gold, as Jacob stared at her as if she were the only woman left in a world of shadows. This was passion. It had nothing to do with the friendly hookups Kiki had shared with Jason, or the slow-burning tenderness she felt for Mark. Jacob was looking at Kiki as if she was the light after a year of darkness.

Inside, the final band had taken the stage, and the Maze thudded with relentless bass. Kiki leaned against the rough wall and shut her eyes, trying to remember that she wasn't sure what she thought about Jacob. But despite the conflict in her mind, her body didn't mind at all when Jacob leaned in to whisper, “I am part of the beat. I am the dark and the heat. The pulse in your wrist. The dance in your feet. A shot of musical whiskey served up neat.”

Kiki felt dizzy, almost drunk: pressed between Jacob's heat and the cold wall, Kiki wasn't thinking at all, her mind awash in sensations as he kissed her. His stubble burned her cheeks and chin, but his lips were soft and insistent. She almost didn't recognize the pulse of her cell phone in her back pocket.

She broke off the kiss and said, “I've got to go home.”

“You don't have to do anything you don't want to do,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss her again.

She gave him a firm shove. “Seriously. I have to go home.”

He gave her the golden stare again, but she resisted this time. She had too much to lose to risk missing her curfew.

“Okay. If that's what you want.”

Without another word, he headed for his car. Kiki followed him, still feeling more than a little shaken. The ride home was silent, except for the wind roaring in Kiki's ears. Once they got to her house, he kissed her again, and she had to tear herself away. She climbed out of the car quickly. It was too easy to lose herself in his passion, and her curfew was just minutes away.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked her, his eyes catching the light from the dashboard.

“I'll be in the studio until ten forty-five, and I told Laura Keller I would go to her party.” She almost asked if he was going, then remembered that Jacob never went to Wentworth parties. He even skipped their Sophomore Soirée, though there were girls who would have cut off their little fingers to go with him.

“Catch you there.”

“Really?” Kiki was trying not to sound shocked, but she was.

He nodded once, as if it was no big deal, then roared off into the quiet streets of Belle Meade.

Kiki was not surprised when her phone rang ten minutes later. The Pussycat Posse knew her curfew very well.

“Yes, Camille?” she answered, wriggling out of her jeans with the phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear.

“Dude, I cannot believe what a dick Jacob was. What's his issue?”

“Well, you guys were being complete idiots,” Kiki reminded her. “Come on! We were on a date!”

“What kind of baby just stomps off and has a temper tantrum?”

“What kind of baby walks around singing that stupid song? How old are we, Cam?”

“But we've known each other forever. It's no big deal, singing a song. How much did it bother you?” Camille asked her.

“I wasn't happy about it, for the record. I mean, he'd only just started talking to me. Really talking.”

“And you guys went out at seven?” Camille asked. “That's a little weird.”

“Seven-thirty. And I think he's a little shy,” Kiki admitted. It was strange, thinking of someone like Jacob as shy, but what else would you call someone uncomfortable talking with people, no matter what he'd said about Holden and Jane in
Catcher in the Rye
?

“If he's your soul mate, he can't be shy. You're not shy. You're the opposite of shy,” Camille insisted.

“The word is ‘extroverted,' and I don't see what that has to do with anything.”

“Kiki, he doesn't talk. He flips out over nothing. He's a creep. I know the packaging is nice, but we can totally find you something better.”

“You don't know anything about him, Cam.”

“And don't you think that's a little weird? I mean, we've been going to school with him for eleven years. I think you should drop him.”

Kiki had finished undressing and had shrugged on an old Pink Floyd T-shirt by then, but Camille's suggestion put all thought of sleep out of her mind. Camille gave everyone a chance—well, everyone but Franklin, and only because Kiki had told her exactly how slutty he really was. If anything, Kiki thought Camille was a little too open-minded when it came to guys, and she had a lot more dating experience than Kiki.