The next morning we were heading to Chicago. As if I wasn’t nervous enough around Ezra, I had to come to terms with meeting his extended family. Ezra and I hadn’t gotten back to the room until well after midnight. We’d found Kai asleep, so we did the same. Well, at least Ezra did, I think. I stayed up until two in the morning replaying everything Ezra had told me over and over, then fantasizing that our conversation had ended differently than just sliding off the hood and getting in the car. Instead, I imagined Ezra taking my hand and holding it. That’s all I wanted to do. Just hold his hand.
Needless to say, waking up at six to get ready was kind of a drag. Me no likey four hours sleep.
I whined when Ezra leaned over me and nudged my shoulder. “Leave me here,” I said and rolled over, tucking the pillow over my head.
“Get up, Jupiter,” his soft voice uttered.
“Five more minutes, Mom.”
“More like Daddy,” he teased.
I laughed into the mattress. “Ezra, you’re a dirty old man,” my muffled voice told him.
I pulled the pillow down so only one eye showed.
“Get up, please,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. The mattress sank a little and I slid into his side. The heat of his body made my heart race.
“Turn around,” I ordered.
Ezra laughed. “What? Why? You’re fully dressed. I saw you climb into bed last night.”
My face grew warm, and I hoped he couldn’t see my blush. “I-I know, but, uh, I don’t want you to see me.”
Ezra’s face sobered. “Why?”
My face grew impossibly hot. “Because, I, uh, my hair probably looks crazy and I don’t have makeup on.”
Ezra pitched over me. He brought his face close to mine and searched my eyes. “What would you care if I saw you that way?” his deep voice asked. His question spilled over me, syrupy sweet and stunning.
I swallowed hard. Oh, dear God. How to answer this question. “Only, well, it’s a little embarrassing.”
Ezra sat up, gave me a coy smile, and said, “More embarrassing than falling on your face?”
That face grew so hot, I thought it would melt off. “Oy vey!”
I bolted up and hit him upside his head with the pillow I’d been holding. I drew back to hit him again but he maneuvered away quickly, yanking the pillow away with one swift movement. I grabbed its mate and swung at him. He ducked, so I missed, then he came up and knocked me in the side. We sparred back and forth, jumping from bed to bed.
Kai walked through the door as I was yelling I was going to annihilate Ezra, and we both dropped our pillows, standing on the beds like idiots.
“Oh, hello, Kai,” I said, winded. I ran my hands over my insane hair and stepped off the bed.
I calmly walked toward the bathroom, both boys watching me. Kai’s expression looked knowing, and he winked at me. I ran my thumb across my throat in warning. I grabbed my bag and made my way to the bathroom to shower. I closed the door and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair stuck out at wild angles, of course, my cheeks were flush from the effort of our pillow fight, and my eyes as round as saucers. I looked like a giant Blythe doll someone had left under the bed for two years and forgotten about.
I ran the water and hit the shower, getting ready quickly and analyzing what had just happened between Ezra and me. Was it flirting? Or was it friends messing around? Was it friends flirting, but innocently? What was it?
When breakfast was over, we loaded up the trunk.
“Kai, I need you to drive,” Ezra told his cousin, surprising me.
“Yes!” was Kai’s immediate reaction.
“I’m only letting you drive because my legs ache from yesterday’s fiasco and, frankly, I’m too tired.”
Ezra tossed his keys at Kai and we all piled in, with Ezra in the back this time. Kai maneuvered us out onto 65 toward Louisville, Kentucky. I’d called my sister after breakfast and needed to text Frank.
Loser, I wrote.
Yes
What are you doing?
Waiting with baited breath for your text, of course. My whole life revolves around you
Shut up lol and it’s bated not baited
Thank you Miss Mirriam-Webster you gigantic nerd you
You’re welcome
So did you kiss him
Jeez louise Frankie! Stop!
Pause.
Is pillow fighting considered flirting, I asked.
Does Carrot Top need to lay off the eyebrow waxing?
Stop, I’m being serious
Me too. It’s too much. He overarches
I fought him with a pillow
Carrot Top!?
Lord help me with you, Frank
Okay, I’m serious now. were they feather?
I sighed. I don’t remember what does it matter
Feather pillows weigh more and they land harder
Okay so?
I was just curious
Yeah but why?
Making conversation
I groaned. One of these days, Frankie! One of these days!
The truth is i don’t know Jup I wasn’t there so I didn’t see what does your gut tell you?
It says “stop eating hamburgers, Jupiter, I can’t take it anymore”
Nice. And what does it say to you about Ezra?
It says “that boy is whiplash personified” one minute I feel like he digs me but the next I feel like he barely notices me
Guys are strange, buttercup. If it isn’t obvious to you, Jupiter, then maybe…
Maybe?
Maybe it’s time to, you know, get over the high school crush thing
I felt my stomach plummet. Was she right? Frank, in all her surface idiocy, was usually pretty spot on when it came to boys, to many things, actually. I couldn’t be friends with someone who didn’t have depth. She had a sort of no-nonsense approach to boys. She’d always say if they were into you, their actions would let you know, and if they weren’t? Again, their actions let you know. She didn’t wait around, never pined, and she didn’t tolerate boys who kept her hooked. If they didn’t dedicate themselves, she cut the line. I’d always admired that about her, and she always encouraged that mentality in me.
“Letting a boy drag you along does nothing for you, which is the point, isn’t it? It kills self-esteem and self-worth. If they don’t bow at your feet, kick ’em to the curb, baby,” she said time and time again to me.
I didn’t respond to her. Better to put it off until later. Why resolve things in the moment when you can wait? That was my motto. Wait until your problems compound and then rashly solve them. It always works. Mostly. Well, sometimes it works. Actually, it never works. Huh.
While I procrastinated addressing my issues with procrastination, I was drawn toward the cars we were speeding by, a cartoonish zipping sound enveloping the cab.
“Scooby flipping Doo, Kai!”
“What?” he asked, smiling.
“Slow down!”
“Can’t. Life in the fast lane.”
I turned around and addressed Ezra. “Ezra, you’re okay with this speed?”
Ezra smirked and shrugged. “I know it sounds crazy, but Kai is a better driver when he speeds than when he doesn’t. He’s never once had an accident.”
My hand went to the dash and I yelped as we narrowly swung around a slower driver. “Kai!”
“Listen, if you’re too scared, you’re welcome to sit in the back with Ezra. I’m sure he’ll protect you.”
My face flushed. Both Ezra and I gave Kai looks to kill, but all he did was laugh in response. I wished I had the ability to strike real fear over people. I’d seen Frankie do it at least a hundred times, but I could never quite accomplish the task.
“Just ignore him,” Ezra told me. “He’s an idiot.”
Why? I thought, because you don’t want me back there? Or because you don’t want me to feel uncomfortable? Why?!
Kai whipped so closely around a man driving a pickup I could actually see individual hairs in the driver’s stubble.
“Gah!” I screamed, as a very fitting “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” played through Ezra’s speakers. “He had spinach for lunch!” Without thinking, I unbuckled my belt and tossed myself over the bench into the back with Ezra.
Ezra looked terrified. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I situated myself behind Kai and with trembling hands tried to buckle myself in. Third time’s the charm, it hit home, and I cinched it tight. I look wildly at my right only to notice Ezra laughing at me.
“This isn’t funny!”
“I beg to differ; it is just that.”
I bit my lip to keep it from noticeably trembling. Ezra’s eyes flicked toward my mouth before his expression softened. “Aww, I’m sorry, Jupiter, but—” he said before his body slid hard into mine with an audible “umph” then back toward his side of the car, “he really is not a bad driver, as strange as that may seem.” He said all this while casually holding his body stiff against the back of his seat to keep from sliding back and forth with each rapid jerk of the car. “Try to relax.”
Deadpan was the look Ezra received. Dead by a pan was the punch I wanted to give Kai. And dead in a pan was what I would be when he finally crashed and we were all flattened like its namesake’s cakes.
“Just wait ’til we get outside the city; it’ll seem normal then,” Kai offered.
“Oh my God!” I screamed. “The shoulder is not a turning lane, Kai!”
“It is in my world,” he explained, one hand perched on the steering wheel as if he was on a leisurely stroll.
For fifteen minutes, we swerved in and out of lanes, round and around traffic, leaving their honking behind us in a blur of furious sound. My hands found the back of the front bench seat and stayed there the entire time. Occasionally I’d let out a small whimper of incredulity, making Ezra smile.
Eventually we found ourselves on the outskirts of the city and stuck between a staunch bit of forest flanking both sides of the highway. Apparently it was a soothing enough sight that it lulled me into a false sense of security. Not without incredible fight, trust me, I found myself drifting off, my forehead finally resting on the seat ahead of me, and that’s the last thing I remembered.
Adrenaline is a sporty punk. She’ll wear you down. I had no fear of becoming a junkie. No, ma’am.