Wreckless (12 page)

The phone was silent for a long moment. “Well, I think that's good.”

I closed my eyes. I didn't know what I thought she'd say. The first year I'd refused to cut it, she'd asked every month. And every month I'd refused. It had been one of the things I could control then. One thing I had say over. One thing that didn't have to change.

Only everything did change, and now it was, as Jake had said, long enough to pee on.

He was so classy.

“I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I snapped the phone shut and turned to see Missy standing at the table, arms crossed, one eyebrow lifted.

“This looks a lot worse than it is.”

“It looks like you just lied to your mother so you can spend the night with my cousin.”

Yeah, it did look like that, didn't it?

“Well, technically, I don't know if I'll be spending the entire night with him.”

I realized how that must have sounded when Missy's jaw dropped open.

“I mean, not that I'm going to spend it with someone else. I'm not looking to spend the night with anyone. And I'm definitely not
spending
the night with anyone. I'm just not going home. Which is a completely different situation to…you know.”

“No. What do I know?” I couldn't tell if she was giving me a rough time or not.

“You think...” I glanced back out the window to where Jake sat on the back of his truck, the dog curled beside him on the tailgate, his head happily being stroked. “You think I'm going to…?”

Well, I think we could safely say there was zero chance of me losing my virginity if I couldn't even say…oh, jeez.

“I think you're going to sneak out to a field somewhere after whatever party you two are going to and have sex with my baby cousin.”

Wow. That was blunt. And embarrassing.

And kind of complimentary.

Because, there was no way a guy like Jake was going to be interested in a girl like me. Even for one night.

“Um. Yeah. No.” I handed her back her phone. “Tonight I caught my boyfriend cheating on me with my best friend and then I didn't have a way home, so Jake was going to drive me and then we got in this fight about how boring I am and I made a list and now we're just doing the whole list.”

“And sex is on the list?”

“Sex is
definitely not
on the list. It's nowhere near the list. If it were on a list, it would be its own list. Way far,
far
away from my list. Like, in a different notebook.”

“Okay. Got it. No sex with Jake.”

“Right.”

We stood there, staring at each other across the table, her still trying to figure me out, me trying to stop blushing like a stoplight.

“You're saying you don't think he's cute?”

Was she trying to kill me?

“I don't think
cute
is really the right word for him. He's more...”

More. Period. End of sentence.

Missy was grinning at me again and I had zero idea what to do.

“Alright. I'll leave you alone. No sex. Nothing for us to talk about then.”

I don't know what was getting into me, but my eyes welled up a little at that. I hadn't realized it was
me
she was looking out for. Like a big sister. That was something I could use right now.

“Come around to the sink and we'll wash out that coloring.”

I stuck my head over the sink and she used the sprayer to rinse the smelly stuff out, shampooing and conditioning my hair quickly.

I was amazed how fast she did it. I was going to save hours with shorter hair.

We toweled my hair and she pulled the end forward enough so I could see the light lavender tinting the very edges in the back.

“Nice.” She grinned. “It's like an angel dipped in lilac juice.”

I laughed, handing her the towel. This was my least angelic night. I'd
stolen
. Okay, I'd stolen an ex-friend's key. But still. That totally counted.

We went to the bathroom so she could dry my hair, having me flip my head over to blow it out upside down. She swore that with how thin my hair was it would give it a tiny bit of body.

Yeah, I really wasn't buying that one.

“Alright, take a look.”

I flipped my hair back over and checked it out in the mirror. She'd given me choppy layers around my face, and the longest bit was in the back. And bangs. I hadn't had bangs since I was five. It completely changed the look of my face. It was…amazingly cute. I looked really different with it.

I kept waiting to hate it, but it was like Reese Witherspoon’s but with some color added.

“Thank you so much.” I ran my fingers through it one more time, shocked at how light I felt. “This is really cute.”

Missy was grinning. She seemed pleased with her own work, too.

“I should pay you, right? I mean, I don't know how much a haircut even costs.”

She was shaking her head before I was even done. “That was too much fun. Besides, we never charge people donating hair. Just enjoy it.”

I really thought I would.

“If you change your mind about the color, come on out tomorrow evening and I'll strip it out or trim it before you go back to school.”

“Thanks.” I glanced in the mirror one more time, glad to see that even with such a different look, I still looked like me…just with some extra color.

“Why don't you head down?” She started tucking things away. “I just want sweep up.”

I wove through to the front of the house, Jake’s deep voice echoing down the hall.

“No, man. You saw it. Are you kidding me, that's as much as you're getting... Yes. Hot. Very.” He looked up and froze. “I gotta go.”

He was looking at me like he didn't recognize me. Like I was a different person. I was feeling like a different person. But he was making me really nervous with the whole staring thing.

It wasn't like I'd had a huge makeover and looked completely different or anything, but this was a big change for me.

“I heard the hairdryer.”

Well, that was…vague.

I suddenly wasn't sure about the color or the cut or the whole darn thing.

“Do you like it?” I pulled the lavender tips around to show him.

And waited. And then gave up.

“Oooohkay.” I guess he wasn't loving the hair. Or the lavender. Or both.

“Jake Whitney Moore, what is wrong with you?” Missy gave him a smack upside the head like only a relative can.

I guess his middle name
wasn’t
Trouble. Or at least not that she knew of.

“No. Sorry. It's just so different. It looks really good. I just didn't know girls’ hair could look so different.”

I had no idea what that meant, but I figured half of what he said was beyond me.

“R
eady
to go?” I really needed to get us going so everyone would stop looking at my hair.

Jake took in my outfit and shook his head. “Bridget, you're not going to the party dressed as a kindergarten teacher. Plus, you don't match your haircut.”

I looked down. What was wrong with what I was wearing?

I glanced at Missy, who was obviously trying not to look all judgey about my clothes.

“Are they really that bad?” I asked her.

“Well, they aren't that
good
.” Missy eyed me again. “You're tiny. If my clothes fit you, I'd loan you something. I mean, you're wearing gym shoes with a sundress.”

Okay, when near strangers were offering to loan you clothes, it was worse than you thought, especially if you didn't think it was very bad.

“So what can I do?”

Jake looked at me like I was a lost cause.

“What size shoe do you wear?” Missy asked.

“Six.”

“Perfect. I wear a seven. I have a pair of sandals I was going to donate because I bought them a size too small.”

She took off before I could say anything.

“That will be better, right? Shoes?”

“Yeah.” Jake did a lap around me. “Better. But you're going to have to lose the t-shirt under the dress.”

“I don't think so.” I ran my hand down my sides, trying to smooth out the ridges the t-shirt was creating.

“Why the hell are you wearing that thing anyway?”

I had no interest in mentioning my bra in front of Jake, so I just kind of shook my head.

“It doesn't look right without the t-shirt.”

“Bridget, it doesn't look right
with
the t-shirt. It's a dress. It's supposed to look like that.” He crossed his arms. “Take it off.”

“Excuse me.”

“You heard me. Take. It. Off.”

There was no way, in the middle of his cousin's living room with all the lights on and not three feet from him, that I was taking my clothes off.

“What's the matter, darlin’? You feeling a little shy now?”

I'd been feeling shy my whole life. This was something completely different than that. Take shy, multiply it by seven, square it, and then do that twice more. That's what I thought about Jake seeing me out of this dress.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

“You're not wearing that to the party.”

“I'm not stripping for you.”

Jake stalked the three steps to me, his voice so low I wouldn't have heard him from where he'd started. “You did already once tonight.”

He was so close I had to look up to see him, his jaw cutting across my view. “That was different.”

“Was it? You're less daring inside?”

“I'm less daring when you can see me.”

“Maybe it's my turn to peek.”

I suddenly wanted to be that girl. I wanted to be the girl who was daring. I didn't want to strip, but there had to be something in between.

“Turn around.”

He just shook his head.

“Turn around so I can take the t-shirt off.”

There had to be nine other rooms in this house, but something in me wanted to do the thing he didn't expect. I wanted—for once—to be the one pushing myself.

He took a step away and turned his back. I reached behind me and lowered the zipper, the metal of the teeth sliding apart echoing in the room like a muffled typewriter.

I rushed through the movements, yanking the t-shirt out from beneath my dress without really taking the dress off. It was a girl gift—like putting one shirt on under another.

I zipped back up and straightened the top.

“Okay, you can turn back around.”

The look he gave me when he turned my way wasn’t the relieved one I expected. “Bridget.”

I couldn't believe the tone of his voice. Like he was completely exasperated with me. “What?”

“What's with the bra?”

Oh my gosh. Was nothing sacred?

“That's why I was wearing the t-shirt. I should put it back on, shouldn't I?”

Not only could you see the straps, but when I looked down, it was clear the bra was cut way too high in the front for this dress.

Upstairs, I heard something fall over, then a distant, “I'm okay,” and wondered where exactly Missy had put those too-small shoes.

“No. You should not put it back on. You should take the bra off.”

My hand flew to my chest. There was no way I was taking that bra off.

“Don't look at me like that, darlin’. I'm not telling you to get naked. Again. But—and don't take this the wrong way—doesn't that dress have one of those built-in bras?”

I nodded. It was true.

“And—this is the part you can't get upset at—you’re not exactly a chesty girl, are you?”

At just over one hundred pounds and five-foot-four, I counted myself lucky to almost fill out an A-cup.

I was embarrassed to admit it, but I shook my head. No. No, I wasn't a chesty girl.

“So that built-in bra should pretty much do whatever it was built in there to do just fine, right?”

I hated that he was right, but I hadn't left the house without a bra since I was thirteen.

He looked at me like he could read my mind and then almost had me convinced he could.

“Isn't the bra
in
the dress as good as a bra anyway?”

I really just wanted him to stop saying
bra
at this point.

“I guess.” I shouldn't have said that. It was like admitting defeat. Jake just turned around and waited. I rolled my eyes at him even though he couldn't see me.

Unzipping the dress just a little again, I reached back and shifted to unclasp the bra and pull its straps down my arms. As I was pulling the second one down, I glanced up and caught Jake's gaze in the window.

“Are you watching me?” I sounded horrified. And really ticked off.

He turned around, crossed the room to me again, and leaned down to whisper, “Turnabout's fair play.”

We stared at each other, neither of us letting the other off the hook, the heat of my anger clashing with the warmth I could feel coming off him.

“I found the shoes.”

Chapter Ten

“Are you nervous?” Jake asked as we pulled up to a house not far from his high school.

I wanted to say,
Are you here
? Because every time I let my guard down with him, I was breaking a law or taking my clothes off. So yeah. If he was within a twenty-mile radius, I was probably nervous.

Instead of owning up to that, I settled for nodding.

“It's just a party. We'll make a little time, then we'll take off.” He parked behind a beat-up Ford Focus and shut the truck down. “Who knows, you might even have some fun.”

He opened the door and hopped down, putting his hand out for me to slide across the bench.

I took a deep breath then slid over, letting him ease me to the ground next to him before reaching back for my sweater.

As I pulled it on, Jake rolled his eyes toward the heavens like there might be some help coming.

“Is that a cardigan? Hell no, Bridget.”

I tugged the sweater around me tighter. Not because I was cold, but because I knew he was going to tried to take it away from me.

“Unless you're off to Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, you are taking that thing off right now.”

“It might be cold in there.”

“There has never been a house packed with partying teenagers that was less than ninety degrees.” He glared at the sweater. “And I am getting entirely too tired of forcing clothes off your body without there being any type of actual visual payoff. Darlin’, you will take that thing off before we go in or I will take it off you myself.”