Hotbox (34 page)

“Those three are trouble together,” Matt said to me
, shaking his head
.
We were sitting in a pa
ir of chairs on the back patio, observing the scene.
“They attract guys like nothing I’ve ever seen. I think it’s because they’re all so different.
Cali and Stacie are loud, so they’re heard before they’re
even
seen.
Then t
here’s Jayden, whose looks could
signal
a guy a mile away. But she’s
totally not what you’d expect
. Guys think she’s hot and automatically
try their luck on her,
and girls despise her because their boyfriends
all stare at her.”

He took a drink of his beer
and then motioned to the group again
.

“
Stacie has a big mouth and could probably out-swear a trucker. She’s cute as can be, but man, don’t piss he
r off. The same goes for Jayden
,
too. She’s probably the nicest girl I know, but she can hold her own
if a guy really pisses her off.
I heard about that
putz
she decked after
the
ga
me.
That’s Jayden
for
ya. It’s hilarious because she looks
so innocent. But trust me…that guy wasn’t the first.
And s
he hits
hard
;
I should know,” he grinned. “
And
then there’s
Cali
… Cali’s just crazy.
Sometimes you can’t even joke about a crazy idea around her because she’ll actually make it happen.”

I
laughed
at that comment. Jayden had said the same thing.

“You and Jay pretty serious, though?” he asked me.

I didn’t know her friends entirely well, but Jayden seemed to really
trust
Matt. It was weird that he was kind of
a cross between Jack and Aaron.
And out of all of Jayden’s male friends, he’d been the most accommodating to me.

“Uh, yeah, we are,
”
I decided to answer.

“I’ve never seen her so…
enamored
,” he smiled. “She’s not one to date just anyone.
She likes to stick to being
just
friends
—it’s safer to her
. But
I think you two make a good couple.” He took a
nother
swig of his beer. “I know Chris can be an ass. Don’t hold it against him, though. He’s a good guy, he just… Ah, I shouldn’t talk about it.”

“I already know how he feels about her. It’s pretty obvious.”

Matt looked at me for a second and nodded his head. “
But
maybe it’s not as simple as it seems
.
I’ve known Chris since
high
school. I actually became friends with him because he was friends with Jayden,” he admitted with a smile. “But
Jayden
…she
was just a really cool chick. Even in high school
,
when we were
seniors
and she was just a
sophomore
,
she was probably the coolest girl I knew. We all lik
ed to feel tough and pretend to be
her boyfriend
,
just to ward
guys off. Sometimes it caused a lot of problems,” he chuckled,
“and Jay
just got mad at us.
She’s pretty special to us all, but Chris…he’s known her the longest
.
It’s just…complicated.
”

“Well, whatever his feelings are for her, I’m sure I could
understand
. But I don’t appreciate how he makes her feel
sometimes. He shouldn’t make her feel so bad
.”

“I agree, man. And we’ve all told him that
. He realizes it. He’
s just so overprotective of her,
wanting to make sure guys treat her right, you know? He knows he can be a jerk
. Just give him some time. He really is a good guy. He’d do anything for any one of us.”

I believed that to be true, but I didn’t have a response. It was just as well since
Jayden came over to sit with us when Cali was finished with her nails.

“How festive am I, huh?” She held out her
hands for me to see. Her fingernails were
red and each one had a blue and white star on it.

“Very nice,” I replied.

“Red?” Matt asked with surprise. “I’m shocked.”

“Well, it seems to be the color of the day,” she smiled.

“You don’t like red?” I asked her.

“
Oh,
I love red. I just…don’t ever wear it.
At least not much of it.
”

I thought about that for a second and realized it was true.
“How come?”

“Attracts too much attentio
n,” Matt
snickered
mockingly
.

“Well, if I wanted attention I would just tattoo myself up like you,” she retorted back. “Do you and Shawn have some sort of contest going on? When’d you get that one?” she asked, pulling down the collar of his shirt.

He smiled down at the top of his chest. “About a month ago
. And I’m not all ‘tattooed-up,’
”
he
protested
. “If I was
I’d look like Rick
Armstrong. You see
n
him late
ly?”
             
“Ugh! Yes.
How could anyone tattoo their
face
? It’s so ugly.”

“Well, Rick’s a pretty ugly guy. I think it was an improvement.”

“Matt!
”

“Hey,” he shrugged, “I call ‘em how I see ‘em.
Besides, this is my
third
and final
one. I don’t plan on getting any more.
”

“Wait a minute,” I
suddenly
said to Jayden. “Red attracts too much attention? Is that why you didn’t want the
red
Mustang?”

She wouldn’t answer me
,
but the look on her face said it all.

“You’re afraid of attracting too much attention in a red car?” I chuckled.

“It’s not funny!” she laughed, smacking me on the chest.

“Yeah, it kind of is,” I admitted.

“Why?”

“Because you attract attention no matter what.”

We spent another two hours at Matt and Stacie’s. I actually had a lot of fun, and I learned quite a bit about Jayden from being around her friends. They all spoke pretty highly of her, but you could also tell they had been friends for years by the amount of teasing and storytelling that took place.

As I observed each of them, I tried making my own assessment of Jayden’s friends and how they were with her.

In my opinion, I felt that Matt was more like a brother to her.
He
treated
her
well
but threw in an occasional joke once in a while that was pretty harmless.
He
seemed to regard her with the utmost respect
,
and I could tell
he was pretty protective of her
but in a
very
subtle way. I could also picture him beating the crap out of any guy that looked at her wrong, and if I didn’t know him, his looks could be pretty intimida
ting. He was
about
six-one
, with
dark eyes and
short black hair
,
and
he just had that
look
that told people he wasn’t to be messed with.
He did hav
e a few
tattoos, one on each arm
and the new one on
the upper left side of
his chest, and he also had an eyebrow pierced.
Jayden once told me she thought he was pretty cute
, but she would never admit that to him
.

Shawn was very…
quirky
. I didn’t know if it was because I already knew
he was a musician
, but he literally looked the part. His brown hair was always messy
,
and he wore
old
jeans
and odd t-shirts.
He also had a couple of tattoos on his
upper arm
, but I wasn’t sure if he had any others. To me he seemed like the kid that would tease a girl nonstop in school
if
he liked her
—b
ecause teasing kept him from having to be serious about his feelings
. But
on the other hand,
he was
sometimes
very honest and spoke his mind
. A
nd he wrote great music
.
I guess he could be
sincere when he wanted to be.

Shawn
gave
Jayden a hard time about a lot of things, but he’d also say some pretty nice stuff as well.
At first
I wasn’t really sure
why
he teased Jayden so much. S
he was so witty and facetious that everyone ended up laughing at Shawn’s expense. Then I realized
he
really
loved the
attention and practically begged to be the butt of every joke.
Although Shawn had asked her out a few times, they pretty much stuck to being friends over the years
.
Jayden was too comfortable
with just
being friends.
Plus Shawn was so goofy she never really felt
he was boyfriend material.
Besides his musical talent, Jayden
admitted that she was attracted to him because he was the first guy she ever met that had green eyes.

Stacie was loud, like Matt said, but she was
really
nice. She was a year older than Jayden and Cali
, but she actually seemed to look up to the two of them
. Her hair went to her shoulders and it was a mixture of
bleach
-blonde, brown, and pink. It made me think of Neapolitan ice cream. She had her nose pierced
with a tiny diamond stud
, and the only tattoo I saw was
a small one
on her ankle. I believed that she
probably
could
out-swear a trucker, but I had never
actually
heard her spit out much profanity. I concluded that she was a little more cautious with her language whe
n she was around Jayden
, or maybe just other people in general.
But no matter how tough Stacie was on the outside, she really was a sweet girl. Jayden loved her to pieces, and
even though they were so different,
they
were
really
close
.

Chris and Matt were
really good
friends, and it was sort of hard to believe. Even just their upbringing was about as opposite as you could get. In fact, Matt’s family was probably just as dysfunctional as mine.
He even called
himself
trailer trash.
But Chris was very clean cut;
no piercings, no tattoo
s, and I didn’t think he drank much
—i
f he did at all
.
Although I had seen him
in
khakis and a button-up shirt only once—which is how I would have guessed him to dress all the time—he actually dressed
a little more
sporty-
casual
, kind of like me
.
He had dark
brown
hair and eyes like Cali, but whereas Cali seemed fairly short, Chris was
the same height as me.
I kne
w he liked to play basketball,
but his main interest was wakeboarding, which is why he was out on the boat most of the summer.

In a million years I would have never guessed that Chris
was interning
to become
a
doctor
.
Out of all of Jayden’s friends we probably saw him the least because he was so busy
with school
, but I wasn’t going to complain about that.
And
I don’t need to get into how he treated Jayden because it’s probably pretty obvious, but from what I’ve heard,
everyone
always thought he was her doting boyfriend.