Winter Untold (Summer Unplugged) (2 page)

Chapter 3

“Having you here is so much better than talking to you on the phone.” I wrap my arms around my boyfriend’s neck and pull him closer to me as we stand blocking the doorway of my house. It’s Sunday afternoon and he just got back into town from Anaheim. When I had asked him how long he gets to stay here, he told me I didn’t want to know the answer to that question. He’s right; even if he stayed a thousand years it wouldn’t be long enough.

“I missed you baby,” Jace whispers into my ear. Chills prickle down my body at the feeling of his warm breath on my skin.

“Okay guys, that’s enough.” Mom taps her foot much louder than necessary from the kitchen. “Jace honey, I’m glad you’re in town but you two are going to make me throw up with all the lovey crap.” She waves her hand dismissively at us. “Take it to your room.”

I smile at Jace and he gives me a sinister grin as his hands slide down my back and squeeze my hips. “I agree with your mom,” he tells me. “Let’s take this to your room.”

We make out for half an hour. There are so many things I want to tell him, like funny stories that happened while he was gone, or random thoughts I got in the middle of the night, but I can’t bring myself to pull away from his lips long enough to get any words out. By the way he’s hungrily pressing his mouth to mine, I’d say he feels the same.
And that’s fine with me.

When my lips are numb and my neck hurts from my strained position of hovering over him, I relax and rest my head on his chest. “I miss you more every time I see you.”

He sighs. “I know the feeling.”

He turns to face me, gripping my cheek in his hand. His eyes trail from my eyes to my lips and back up again. “You look ridiculously beautiful today,” he says, ending his compliment with a light kiss on my forehead.

I smile and stare into his bloodshot eyes. Now that I’m paying attention to him up close, it looks like he hasn’t slept in days.

“No offence babe but you look like shit.”

He laughs. “I’d say I feel like shit, but seeing you makes up for it.”

“Were you really busy in Anaheim?”
I ask.

He nods. “You have no idea. I spent hours on the track and when I finally finished with lessons, some Team Yamaha high roller would take me to dinner and expect me to drive their drunk ass home at midnight. The best sleep I had all week was on the plane ride here.”

I snuggle up closer to him. “I’m sorry. Let’s take a nap.”

“Sounds like a great idea.” Jace stretches out his arms and relaxes on my bed. He winces in pain and then lifts up on his side and shoves his hand in his pocket. “Forgot about this.” He hands me a round metal magnet, pink with glitter encased in resin. It says
Hollywood Princess
with a rhinestone crown on top.

“
Nice,” I tell him as I take the magnet and place it on my nightstand.

Jace closes his eyes and buries his head into my pillow. “I know you’re not big on princesses,” he mumbles, wrapping his fingers around mine, “But you love glitter and pink…” His voice trails off and becomes a wave of steady breathing as he falls asleep.

It’s only seven in the evening and I’m not even a little bit tired but I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of him. I’d rather go to see a movie or get ice cream or just sit around and watch TV, but if the only quality time I can get with him between his business trips involves sleeping, I’ll take it.

Jace’s iPhone has an alarm ring that could wake the dead. The sound of it, going off at four-fifteen in the morning, startles me out of my dreams. Jace doesn’t budge. I shake him a little bit, hoping he’ll wake up from his deep sleep and turn off the freaking alarm. The sound blares from his pocket so I reach inside and run my fingers over the phone until it finally shuts off.

Jace yawns. “What’s going on?”

“Your alarm just went off.”

He opens his eyes, blinking a few times. “It did?”

I roll my eyes and lay back down. “You were sleeping like a freaking zombie. That thing was loud. I bet it woke up the whole house.”

He stretches out his arm and wraps it around my shoulders. “Sorry, babe. Guess I was passed out.”

I tilt my head up for a kiss and Jace kisses me back but doesn’t pursue it much farther than a quick peck on my forehead. Which I guess is fine because I’m sure we both have morning breath. That logic doesn’t stop me from getting my feelings a little hurt.

The hurt feelings only intensifies when Jace stands up a few minutes later, running his hands over his clothes and then through his hair. He checks the time on his phone and then glances at me, sliding his lips to the side. “
Whelp, I’m out of here.”

I practically jump off my bed. “What? It’s four-thirty in the morning!”

“And I have a six a.m. flight to catch,” he says with a frown that looks a little bit forced.

I feel like stomping my feel like a child but I hold back my bratty behavior just enough to say, “Why did you bother coming here if you could only stay a few hours?”

“Because I had a few hours. Why wouldn’t I spend them with you?”

Damn him. Always saying the right thing when all I want to do is be mad at him.

His arms slide around my waist a second later, warm and strong as they pull me close. He rests his chin on top of my head and I close my eyes, pretending that just for a few seconds, he’s not about to leave me for work again. “I love you, Bayleigh.”

“I love you more.”

He shakes his head. “You wish.”

By the time we tip-toe our way to the front door so as not to wake up my brother or mom, I’m feeling a little less bitter about the whole situation. He came to see me, after all. I should be happy about it. And I am happy about it. I just wish it w
as a longer stay.

Waking up to one alarm in the morning is annoying, but waking up to a second one just three hours later really sucks. No one should be woken up from a blissful sleep twice in one morning. Especially when the second time you wake up alone and realize it’s a school day.

Screw Mondays.

After throwing on the first halfway decent outfit I could find, I head downstairs and root through the pantry for something that even remotely resembles breakfast food. If I leave within five minutes I’ll get to school early enough to hang out with Becca before first period. Monday mornings are gossip catch up mornings. Hell, who am I kidding? Every morning is gossip catch up morning.

I shove a brownie in my mouth, sling my backpack over my shoulder and head out the front door. I’m staring at my cell phone when something soft crashes into me.

Then it talks. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

I look up to find myself facing my new neighbor, who’s wearing a puffy winter coat that’s a little too warm for
mild Texas winters. I take a bite out of the brownie and take the rest of it out of my mouth. “Um, hello. What are you doing on my front porch? And why are you dressed like an Antarctic explorer?”

Chase
slips his thumbs under the straps of his backpack. “I came to take you to school, and it’s cold outside so I’m wearing a jacket.” He points to the thin sweater I wear over a t-shirt. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Hardly. It’ll be hot as hell by noon. Where are you from, anyhow?”

“Missouri. This is the lightest jacket I have.”

“Ah,” I say, since his overdressing all makes sense now. “Well you won’t need that around here. It never gets too cold. It hasn’t snowed once in my entire life.”

“Good to know,” he says. “So your mom suggested that I drive you to school since you were going to show me around anyhow. She said you normally walk when you can’t borrow her car.”

Ugh. Thanks a lot Mom for blabbing about my entire life to the new neighbors who don’t need to know that we’re too poor to own more than one family car. It hasn’t escaped me that my new neighbors own three vehicles.

Chase holds up the remote on his keychain, points it at a newer model Jeep in the driveway next door and presses a button. The engine roars to life.

“Show off,” I mutter.

He laughs. “Remote start is nice in Missouri winters.”

I want to tell him that he can take his fancy jacket and expensive vehicle and drive himself to school, but I swallow my annoyance because it is cold outside and catching a ride with a stranger sounds better than walking two miles and freezing my ass off.

The high school secretary is happy to welcome Chase to Lawson High, and she’s even happier to volunteer me to be his personal guide through the school, for as long as he should need. Her words, not mine.

I’m a little annoyed at being assigned the babysitter to an eighteen year old senior who seems smart enough to navigate the hallways of our small school w
ithout someone holding his hand. I guess my new responsibility isn’t so bad. He is incredibly hot by Lawson High standards, and I’m his first friend, which means girls will be flocking to me asking me to put in a good word for them.

Like that girl with the anchor tattoo on her arm who hasn’t stopped giving me dirty looks in the hallway ever since she discovered that I’m dating Jace Adams.
I can’t wait to see the look she’ll give me when I’m walking with a hot new guy.

Unfortunately, getting his schedule and signing in takes a lot longer than we thought and by the time we leave the office, first period has already started an no one lingers in the hallways to see me walking with my new acquaintance.

“I have yearbook for first period,” Chase says, reading over his newly printed class schedule. I hold out my hand to stop him from walking head first into a concrete column in the middle of the hallway.

“I have yearbook too. It’s this way.”

A grin lights up Chase’s face. “Really? How crazy is that?”

“It isn’t that crazy. Only seniors can be in the yearbook class and it’s a really small class this year so it only makes sense that they’d throw you in it.”

“Good point, but I requested this class. I love photography.”

I snort. “Sucks for you because yearbook is a lot more than photography.”

“Geez, girl, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.”

“Something like that,” I say, not bothering to tell him that the way I woke up this morning, suddenly blasted awake by Jace’s alarm only to have him leave me for the airport, is exactly why I’m in such a crappy mood.

“Luckily other people’s sarcasm and general assholery does not affect me, so even though other people might find you hard to be around this morning, I want you to know that I am still in a great mood.”

I cock an eyebrow and stop in front of the yearbook classroom. He laughs and pushes open the door. Ugh, that boy really annoys me.

Ms. Jennifer, our yearbook teacher, spends the majority of all classes sitting in the back of the room, huddling over her cell phone, smiling in this creepy sort of way that makes me not want to know who she’s texting or what they’re texting about. She’s in her mid-twenties and the rumor is that she’s not even certified to be a teacher but she had a degree in journalism and our school was desperate. All I know is that her apathy makes this the best class ever.

Chase finally leaves
me alone in favor of chatting up the yearbook editor, a senior named Eric. I work on my page layouts, choosing to use pictures of students who are my friends even though we’re not supposed to be biased. I don’t just use pictures of friends though. If someone is a bitch to me, you can bet I’ll find the most unflattering photo of them and make sure it gets a spot in the yearbook. That’s pretty much why the girl who talked shit about my best friend Becca will be featured on page sixty-four, smiling in the hallway with a shadow casting on her pants exactly in a way that makes it look like she pissed herself.

Whoops!
is the caption.

I’m starting to get tired of peeking into my backpack to see if my phone has a new text from Jace. He was in such a rush this morning, I didn’t think to ask where he was going or how long the flight would take. Thanks to my forgetfulness, I’ve now become a phone-checking zombie, desperate for some kind of attention from the guy I love. Seriously. How the hell did people date each other before there was instant digital communication?

“Bayleigh, if you’ll stop staring at the phone that you are totally not allowed to have in class, maybe you would be able to answer me?” Ms. Jennifer hovers over my desk, hands on her hips.

“Shit,” I say, before dropping the phone back into my backpack and sitting straight in my desk. She’s cool and she won’t take away my phone, but still, no one likes to be given
the stare
by a teacher. “I’m really sorry, it’s a…family thing,” I say in a quick scramble to come up with an excuse that will keep me out of trouble.

The look on her face tells me she doesn’t believe my made up excuse. “I asked if you will be attending the town’s Winter Festival?”

I nod and she smiles and tosses a camera bag on top of my desk. “Awesome. You’ll be our second photographer.”

“Wait, what?” I put my hand over the bag, wishing I could give it back. “I can’t take photos for the yearbook on that night. I’m—I’m busy.” Jace flashes across my mind. If he doesn’t get out of work then he won’t be able to come with me to the festival and technically, I won’t be busy. I’d have the whole night free to take as many photos as she wants, but I can’t let her know that. And I can’t think that way. Even though the chances are slim, I have to believe that Jace will make it for the festival. For my birthday.