Rhythm & Clues: A Young Adult Novel (24 page)

I nodded without hesitation, forgetting about the envelope, about anything that didn’t involve his lips. Everyone was acting strange but this was the most normal thing I had to cling to, Gavin and me.

He didn’t move. “Listen, just please…pretend like nothing strange is going on. It’s safer if they think you’re oblivious.”

“Safer?” The severity of his words was like cold ice on my spine.

He tried to downplay it with a forced shrug as he pushed open the door. “Just being cautious.”

Josephine sat at the mahogany kitchen table, her head drooped in her hands while Chuck perched on a stool next to the sunflower-colored wall, stabbing his fingers on laptop keys with the force of a punch. Neither glanced up at us, and I only had a quick view of the cheery kitchen before Gavin led me toward a set of stairs, but it was enough to send my stomach flipping.

Gavin opened the door to the basement.

I risked speaking despite flattening myself against the wall and trying to stay as unobtrusive as possible. “Your room is downstairs?”

He looked confused for a second. “Oh, right. I forgot you haven’t been here.” He shut the basement door and changed directions, leading me down a long, narrow corridor that lined the kitchen. “I’ll show you that first.”

How could he have forgotten something like that? Had Isla been here so often in the last two weeks that Gavin associated all other friends with her level of familiarity of his house? Her level of clearance?

Flipping on the hall light, he led me up the stairs, and we passed an open door that had to be Sabrina’s room. A large, frilly canopy shaded a lavender bedspread, the quilting ornate.

Gavin pushed open the next door and gestured for me to enter. My eyes flew to his bed, his blue comforter made up to hospital standards, no creases in the entire blanket. A wooden chest and bureau lined the pale blue walls, not an object resting on top, only the gleam of Pine Sol shine.

Every item had a place. No dust. No life. No personality. This wasn’t Gavin’s room; this was an extension of his parents’ strict reign.

“And here I thought you’d have posters of scantily glad girls.” I flourished my hand toward his bare walls that looked so depressing even with the pop of color.

He let out a sharp laugh. “I lost the decorating battle with my parents and that one didn’t seem important enough to pursue when I could be fighting for things like school.” He inched toward me, and I caught a whiff of sea salt and coconut sunscreen. “I never really thought I’d have a girl in here.”

A nervous flutter warmed my belly. Did that mean that Isla wasn’t in here?

Before I could ask, or even think about that more, he opened the drawer next to me and extracted a sharpie marker from a shoe box inside. “The walls have been empty too long. Leave your autograph.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he uncapped the pen and inscribed the walls with the same song lyric he wrote on Krystal’s cast. They were small and huddled just above his bed but already they made the place feel like home.

I waggled my fingers for the market and added a new lyric beneath that I composed on the spot.

These words erase / This barren, empty space.

I didn’t tell Gavin how I hoped the lyrics applied more to the distance between us these past few months than the room itself.

Gavin took the marker from me and set it back on his desk. “I have something I want to show you, and I don’t want to waste any time.” He patted the his pocket. “In case the phone rings.”

We crept down the carpeted basement staircase, which opened into a makeshift classroom, complete with two desks, a blackboard, several shelves filled with textbooks and notebooks, and a couch in the back. Cozier than any classroom I’d ever been in. My throat closed with something that could only be described as jealousy.

“I got the idea from Harry Potter,” he explained, even though I didn’t know what he was talking about until we rounded a corner and he opened a door on the side of the staircase. A closet under the stairs.

I blinked at him. “Your parents let you read Harry Potter?”

He laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t say
let
so much as
didn’t know about it
. Why do you think I loved going to the library?” He removed a large white tub from the closet and set it outside the door. “Okay, come in.”

I crawled inside, my knees depressing fluffy pillows.The ceiling looked like stairs in reverse, made out of wood. The walls were white and unimaginative, a blank canvas. He shut the door but didn’t turn on another light, caging me into darkness. The glow seeping in from beneath the door created the eerie halo of him lying down.

“I come here to get way.” Hands gripped my waist and tugged. I toppled down, landing with a splat on Gavin’s chest before rolling over next to him. My heart thudded as he said, “Sometimes this feels like my real room.”

I stretched out my legs and sunk into the comfort. The place smelled like it was freshly painted. “Did your dad renovate this recently? It smells new.”

“That’s just because you’re here.” He trailed his fingers along my forearm, releasing waves of tingles.

I closed my eyes, relaxing, my heartbeat slowing under the lull of his touch.

“This is what I wanted to show you.” Gavin shifted, ripping his fingers from my arm. I could only make out his vague silhouette moving to the far end of the closet. The blankets rustled, and he plucked something out from under them that banged against the wall with a hollow sound. His body returned beside me, radiating heat. The tinny sound of a music chord strummed, along with the metallic scrape of strings. They squeaked as his fingers fumbled for a new key.

I ran my fingers over the smooth wood of an acoustic guitar. Smaller than normal. A ukulele probably.

“I have to play quietly. Even with all the freedom going on here, I’m not sure my parents would approve of this.”

A
secret
ukulele apparently. “Your parents are weird.”

“Maybe, but I think I understand where they’re coming from now.”

“Really?” I started to sit up, desperate to know what was going on. Why he suddenly had so much power over his parents. What phone call he was waiting for.

“Shhh,” he whispered. And I wasn’t sure if he was referring to his parents overhearing or because he didn’t want me to ask anymore questions. Instead he said, “I don’t know many chords, just a few, really. I can only play this one song.”

He played slow and methodically, and I recognized that he was playing the make-shift ballad we’d first created in the warehouse and then revised at the Mermaid Lounge.

Remembering the lyrics all too well, I sang in a whisper, not wanting to break the moment. The song flowed through me like a bridge, connecting the two of us. Gavin messed up a few times, changing to the wrong chord, hitting the wrong note, but it didn’t matter. It was still our song. And we were playing it together.

It’s the process that counts. The notes all start with silence, a puncture of a chord bringing sound to life. The words become the glue, making everything seem whole.

Gavin stopped playing, his fingers sliding off the eyes. This time the silence didn’t feel awkward but charged, the music still playing in my ears, our breaths reciting the notes. He reached for my body again, his fingers accidentally grazing against my bare sides where my shirt flipped up. I giggled, flinching at the tickle that erupted. He jerked away, startled, but I wrapped my arms around his neck and tugged him back down. reached for him. His body settled over mine, his weight feeling amazing as we scrambled to tangle every inch within each other, legs wrapped like a pretzel, arms entwined. His breath and my heartbeat mixed to create their own harmony of music.

He brushed his lips against mine a few times before parting my mouth with his tongue. Warmth spread across my collar as I arched my back into the kiss. His mouth moved against mine, passionate and deep. I raked my hands through his soft, willowy hair. Being with him felt amazing and I tried to push away my old worries knocking against my skull:
did we just ruin everything?

He pulled away, breath heavy. “Hold that thought one second.” He slid out his phone and the glow illuminated his concerned face.

My stomach dropped. While we were kissing, he must have been thinking about the call…not about me.

“What’s your number?” I croaked out.

I couldn’t see his face anymore as he rattled off a string of numbers. I punched them into my own phone.

A faint vibration rattled in his pocket.

“You should take that,” I said. “It might be the important phone call you’re waiting for.”

He laughed and accepted the call, a faint blue glow illuminating his face. “Hey, can I call you back? I’m kind of busy.”

I flipped onto my side and stared at him, able to make out his features more clearly with the illumination from the phones. He did the same thing so we both were talking with our cells pressed to our ears, gazing at each other.

Into the phone, I asked, “We’re still friends, right? Best friends? I don’t want to ruin that.”

“Of course. No worries.” The pause between this real life conversation and the one that came out of my ear created an echo, a carbon copy of what he’d just said.

“That’s good, because if we’re best friends, we shouldn’t hold anything back from each other.”

He paused before nodding, probably worried I would ask about his family secret.

“I wanted to tell you some juicy gossip.” I paused. “I hooked up with the cutest boy today.”

A smile stretched his lips. “Yeah? Tell me about him.”

I thought for a moment, pressing my finger to my lip. He laughed. “He’s sweet, and sensitive, and I know he’s not going to hurt me like everyone else in my life. I trust him. And that’s really hard for me.”

“He sounds like a really great guy. And he’d be stupid to hurt you.” He shifted his body, leaning on his elbow, staring at me as he twirled a piece of my hair in his fingers. “Oh hey—I didn’t tell you, did I?”

“What?” The word came out as a breathy gasp, desperation evident in my tone.

“Remember that girl I’ve been in love with all summer? You know, the one who turned me down every time I tried anything with her?”

In love
? The statement left me breathless. “Yes,” I squeaked out.

“She kissed me today. Out of the blue. I’m not sure why.”

All along, I’d been denying it to myself. Running from the truth. I was the biggest hypocrite of all, accusing everyone from running away from me, but never realizing I was the main culprit all along. “Maybe,” I finally said. “She kissed you out of the blue because she finally opened her eyes and realized she’s in love with you too.”

He leaned in and cupped his hands around my chin, bringing my face toward his. The phones were still pressed against our ears, echoing the sounds of the kissing. His fingertips trailed along my sides. “You’re not ticklish anymore.” He sounded disappointed.

“I’m full of surprises today,” I joked.

His fingers started moving more quickly, and I felt the familiar itch beneath his hands.

“Hey, don’t press your luck,” I said before the giggles took over.

He moved faster, torturing me. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t tell him to stop, and he kept going, laughing along with me.

I gasped out desperate breaths and he finally ripped his hands from me.

“I take back what I said. I don’t like you anymore.”

In a flash, his fingers were back, stronger, more aggressive, but still playful. I liked being so close to him, liked how he was handling me, testing me, not letting me get away with anything. I thrashed beneath him, my legs kicking, my breath gasping. I kicked too hard, and my foot went through something. Something loud. Something wet and sticky. I jerked upright, and aimed my phone at the accident. A large hole gaped in the wall, wet plaster dripping from it. “What was that?”

A door slammed above us and stomping followed, along with muffled arguments.

Sabrina.

Gavin dove in front of me, blocking the hole with his body. I didn’t understand what had happened. I pulled my foot out of the wall and a milky white liquid coated my shoe. That explained the new paint smell.

Before I could make sense of anything, he picked me up and carried me to a bathroom across the hallway. My foot dripped onto the carpet. He set me down, yanked a few paper towels off the rack and headed for the sink, but the buzz of his vibrating phone distracted him. “Crap. The phone call!” The paper towels fell to the floor, and he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

I stumbled to the water in a daze, wiping off my shoe, still very confused about what had just happened.

By the time I got my shoe clean, Gavin came back to the bathroom, his face pinched in a sour expression. “Is your foot okay?”

I crossed my arms. “Why was the wall wet?”

“I’ll walk you out,” he said instead of answering.

His words were like a punch to my gut. “I’m leaving?”

“I have to clean this up before my parents…” He spun on his heels and left the bathroom. That was apparently the only answer I would get. I followed behind, keeping my pace quiet as if there was a ticking bomb here and I might be the one to set it off.

Josephine and Chuck sat at the kitchen table, their hands clasped in front of them as Sabrina showcased various outfits she pulled out of shopping bags, holding them up against her chest.

Gavin and I trudged down the front steps like two cars passing on the street, strangers except for the shared road. I tried to think of something to say. Anything. “I’m really impressed with your guitar playing.” I knew my words were trite. This was so minor compared to whatever the phone call was about. But I need to say
something.
How had the best night of my life turned into the most confusing? “How long did it take to teach yourself that song?”

“Oh.” He stole a brief glance in my direction. “Only a week. Isla’s been teaching me.”

My chest tightened. Isla, of course. She’d been in the closet with Gavin. I wasn’t the first. Sure he said he loved me, but would he have gone to Isla if I hadn’t kissed him first? I’d been hoping he brought me there to show me his secret lair, reveal a part of himself that only I knew about, but obviously that wasn’t the case. I was just the next number in a queue for his attention, my ticket called at the deli line.