VIP (Rock & Release, Act I) (6 page)

"You got more use out of it than she would have." Jared's sitting at a dark wooden dining table, off the kitchen. I hadn't noticed him—but a split second flashback to last night has him in it, laughing with us in the cab and then…paying the driver, maybe? After that, all I see is Gage. Jared stabs a plate of eggs with a fork, muttering something I don't quite catch.

Vera flashes him a look before responding to me. "It's cool. I'd forgotten how comfortable my guest bed is anyway."

"Can't say the same for your
couch
." Jared shoves away from the table, grabbing his mug, and helps himself to a refill from her coffee pot.

"Let's get this girl some eats." Gage cuts in, tugging me toward the kitchen and ignoring the tension between the other two. Or maybe he doesn't notice it. Guys can be so oblivious. Must be nice. I shoot Vera a look of concern, but she just rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

A moment later, I'm at the dining table with Gage, scarfing down scrambled eggs and toast and a fresh cup of coffee, the other one left forgotten in Vera's bedroom, and I couldn't care less about tension. I don't care about anything other than the food hitting my belly. "This is the best breakfast I've ever had."
 

"The secret's in the bacon fat," Vera says.
 

The thought of bacon fat though… I have to pause and take a few deep breaths. "Let's just let the ingredients stay secret."

She laughs, turning a page. "Got it."
 

"So then," Gage pushes a strand of messy hair back from his forehead, the corner of his mouth twisting into half a smile, "you probably don't want to think about…say…a greasy pork sandwich?"

"Oh God. Stop." I put my fork down, my stomach rolling.
 

"Not even one in a dirty ashtray?"

"What are you
doing
?" Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. In the nose. Out the mouth. I glare at the grin he's wearing.
 

"Couldn't resist." The grin tilts into a disarming smile. "Old habit with my college roommates last year. Watching each other suffer hangovers was a bit of a sick pleasure."

"Didn't you get enough pleasure last night?" Jared smirks over his coffee.
 

"Dude, don't be a dick." Gage rubs the back of his neck in short jerky motions. Feigned nonchalance even though the way he narrows his eyes gives away his irritation.
 

I don't bother pretending to be cool. "Gross, Jared. Didn't we discuss you being sleazy yesterday? Because clearly it didn't sink in."
 

"Sorry, sorry." Jared raises his hands in mock contrition. "Just trying to get my fill, since
somebody
let me down last night."

"Enough." Vera stands, her magazine dropping to the floor. "God, Jared. Just enough. Maybe if you didn't make comments like that—they wouldn't be needed."

"Not that they're ever needed," I add.
 

"What?" He looks back and forth between us, pointing at Gage. "He can tease you but I'm not allowed to joke around?"

"Grossing me out to mess with my hangover is
cruel
," I bump my knee against Gage's under the table, "but he's kidding, and you're just being disgusting."

"Exactly." She drops into the open seat at the table, scowling at him. "Maybe you should just go."

"Okay, I get it. My bad." Jared takes a bite of toast and, when nobody says anything to him, sighs. "I'm an idiot sometimes. You know I don't mean it." The last part's directed to Vera, whose expression softens slightly.

Acknowledging that you act like a misogynistic ass (or, as Jared calls himself, an idiot) doesn't count if you don't do anything to stop it. But I bite the retort on my tongue, and instead say, "If anyone should go, it should be me. I need to get home."
 

I stand and take my dish to the sink, holding my breath to keep from thinking about what it means to go home.
 

"I'll take you," Gage says, following with his own plate.
 

"You don't have to do that."

"I want to."

"Maybe I live an hour away." I don't actually think I do.

"Maybe that gives me more time to hang with you."
 

Excuse me while I melt into a puddle here on Vera's kitchen floor.

"This," Vera says, reaching across the table and shoving her finger into Jared's shoulder. "This is the kind of teasing that's okay."

"Where's your car?" I ask.

"Here. My roommate dropped it off last night—I texted him before we left. He met us here with it and took our cab back."

"I have zero recollection of that." I try to laugh it off, but I can't believe I let myself go so far.
 

"That's because the only thing you were looking at last night was Gage." Jared smiles a sleazy little smile.
 

"That reminds me—you dropped your keys on the floor last night. I put them on the entryway table," Vera says.

"Thanks." Gage leans in close, whispering, "You were the only thing I saw, too. I only remembered about my car because he texted this morning that I owe him forty bucks for the cab ride."

Warmth winds its way up my neck. "Sounds like you have a thoughtful roommate."

"When he's around," Gage says. "Which is pretty much never."

"Have you seen my phone, or, even better, my purse?" I ask Vera. "They weren't in your room."
 

"They're on the couch." Jared points to the sleek plum-colored couch in the living room, across from the striped armchair. "Your phone was going off like crazy last night."

"Sorry if it bothered you. It was probably Teagan."

"Yeah, it was." He shrugs when I ask how he knows. "I was trying to silence it—and then I just went ahead and put my number in there for you."

"Why?" Disdain fills my voice a little stronger than I mean for it to.
 

"So you can tell me whether or not you want the job."

"Huh?"
 

He laughs. "You don't remember?"

I jog my memory, coming up with nothing. "Remember what?"
 

"Last night. You won Zach over with all that Franklin Charles talk. You won
me
over with it first—but you probably remember that part. I offered you a job."

"Doing what?"
 

Zach… I remember Jared mentioning him—but I actually met him? I dig through the hazy waters of my memory and come up blank.
 

"Working with me," Vera says, "and Gage, too." She lifts an eyebrow. "Obviously, you should say yes."

Gage stays silent, watching me with an expression I can't read.

"I have zero recollection of that, either."

"Well, you said you needed a few days to think about it."

"I have an internship that starts in a week."

"That's why you said you needed to think about it. You didn't…" Vera drifts off. "Sorry. None of my business."

"I didn't what?"

"You didn't seem like you wanted to do the internship."

"It's an awesome internship." My response is knee-jerk and canned, though, and I know it. Guilt follows a second later. I was excited about this summer at first. A chance to put my education toward something in the real world. A chance to make my parents happy. A chance for us all to move forward from what happened six months ago.
 

I don't know what changed.
 

"That frown on your face makes it seem like you're really excited for it," Jared says.
 

"Just mentally cataloguing," I lie. "I have so much to do before next week."

"I should get you home, then," Gage says.
 

I grab my purse and send another half-wave to Vera. "Thanks so much for letting me crash here. I had a lot of fun—or, I'm pretty sure I did—hanging out with you last night."

"Here." She walks me and Gage toward the door, stopping at the entryway table. She hands Gage his keys and scribbles her number down on a piece of paper. "I'd love to hang out again—call me sometime."

It's the easiest friendship I've ever made. "I will."

Jared calls, "Put a password on your phone if you don't want people to go through it."

"How about just don't go through phones that aren't yours?" Vera says to him as the door closes.
 

"Exactly," I mutter. Sunlight blinds me for a moment, and a headache pulses sharply behind my eyes. The heaviness of reality settles across my shoulders. "Right. Okay. Back to real life."

But Gage grabs my hand, weaving his fingers through mine on the way to his car, a black shiny thing, and…maybe reality is okay after all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Once I figure out where we are, I tell Gage we're less than fifteen minutes from my house. "Lucky you. You don't have to drive an hour out of your way."
 

He shrugs. "I wouldn't mind."

"Less time to have to scramble for things to talk about," I say, expecting him to laugh. But he doesn't. He's quiet during the drive—he's been quiet ever since Jared brought up the job offer. Does he not want me to take it? I should ask him but can't get the words to form. Not that it matters anyway.
 

The road hums by outside my window and even that has me closing my eyes for a moment against the way it heightens the tension of my headache. I'm grateful Gage hasn't turned on the radio, even if it makes the lull between us more profound.

I check my phone—seven texts from Teagan asking where I am, each more demanding than the last. The most alarming reads:
If I don't hear back from you in the next twenty minutes, I'm calling your parents
.

Shit. I check the time she sent it—seventeen minutes ago, thank God. I shoot her a reply that I'm fine and on my way home, shaking my head as I hit send. "And not a single apology."
 

"From your friend?"
 

Oops. I didn't mean to mutter my thoughts aloud. "It's…whatever. She'll get there eventually. She almost always does."

He nods and drums his finger on the steering wheel in a rhythmic beat.
 

I smooth out the paper Vera handed me with her number and copy it into my phone contacts.
 

I twiddle my thumbs.

I false start about thirty different conversations in my head.

Maybe it'd be easier if every ten seconds I wasn't hit with another flashback from last night. His tongue. His hands. My moans. Everything comes in bits and pieces—and that does absolutely nothing to make any of it less hot to remember.
 

Which makes the silence between us feel even colder.

As we get closer to my parents' house, I can't stand it anymore. "You don't have to worry about me taking the job."

He glances at me, brows furrowed. "What?"

"I just…you got quiet when Jared was talking about it. I'm not going to take it—I have the internship." I stammer on, my nerves and my hangover combining in the most horrible, jumbled way. "It'd be weird to work together after last night and I don't want you to think —"

"Cassidy." He puts a hand on my knee to silence me. "If you didn't have the internship, I would tell you to take the job at BackBar. I'd have fun working with you.
Especially
after last night. Trust me."

"Oh."
Oh
. Stolen kisses around the corner flash through my mind. Me and Gage this time, instead of Nicole and her mystery man. A little shiver works its way up my spine. "Then why have you been so quiet?"

He runs a hand through his hair, making it even messier and—if it's possible—sexier. "I've just been trying to figure out how to ask… Do you want to talk about your brother?"

I stare at him, my mind stuck on the ridge of the dichotomy between the heat of us working together and sharpness of my brother's death. "How do you…"
 

Another flashback, this time to the bar last night.
Tears stinging my eyes, my head turned against Gage's shoulder. Jason's name on my lips.
 

"He was funny," I confided. "And he was smart. God, he was so smart. He just got things. Right away… He made these clever little jokes. Mean ones, but even as they'd cut you in two, you'd be cracking up… I can't believe he's not here to laugh with anymore."

I swallow around the sudden ache in my throat, while invisible razor-sharp twine crisscrosses across my chest and lassoes my wrists down to my lap. It pulls, cutting deeper into me with every breath I take. "I'm sorry if I was a mess about it. About him."

"You were sad." He glances at me, holding my gaze for a moment before turning it back to the road. "It seemed like maybe you didn't have anyone else to talk to about him. I wouldn't mind, if you—"

"Thank you." I smile, trying to force it to show in my eyes. I can do this. I went through four months of therapy to be able to do this. To be able to smile. To be able to be normal. "But I'm okay, really. It was just the alcohol bringing up old emotions." Deep under my ribs my heart is screaming
traitor traitor traitor. He was your brother. He's everything
.
How dare you play it off like this?
 

"I thought you said it's only been six months."

"Time heals." I force the words out as light as air, while digging my nails into my thighs so hard there will probably be bruises. But it eases some of the heaviness in my chest. "It's sweet of you to offer."

I want to ask how much I told him. How much I revealed. But I bite my tongue. Last night with Gage was my break,
my pause
, from everything else. I don't want him to get lost in the mixture of reality. I want his place to stay exactly where it is, a beacon of happiness in the darkness of my mind.
 

When we pull in front of my house, I struggle with what to say, wanting to leave things on a better note—but he solves everything and pulls my head toward him, wrapping me into another kiss.
 

His lips are just as soft as before, but he's pressing them against mine with an urgency I immediately respond to. I open my mouth to his tongue and taste him with my own. His hand slides up, through my hair, and he deepens the kiss. I lean in, further out of my seat, and—
ouch
. I break the kiss and rub my smarting hip.