Echoes of Us (8 page)

“Holy shit,” Jade said. “What smells so good?”

“Dinner,” I said proudly. I set the hot food on the table and watched Jade.

“Wow, Rylan, this looks awesome. Thank you,” he said.

I found a bowl and took the baked potatoes out of the oven, then grabbed the sour cream and butter before I brought everything to the table. Jade’s eyes widened.

“I will do your laundry forever,” he said, spearing a chicken breast and scooping out a large serving of green beans.

“You’re on,” I said.

After Jade and Maggie cleaned up the kitchen, we piled on the couch and spent the rest of the evening watching some vampire show Maggie swooned over. Jade laughed and teased her about drooling over dead guys. I kept my mouth shut, because I liked the show. Especially the hot vampire brothers, but Jade didn’t need to know that, so I laughed along with him and teased Maggie until she pinched me and kicked Jade in the shin.

The entire evening, I was acutely aware of Jade’s knee pressing into my thigh and his ankle hooked around mine. Eventually Jade’s eyes drooped, and he excused himself, stumbling off to bed. Maggie was next, and I sighed, trudging to my room.

I wasn’t sure how long I stared at the ceiling, wishing for sleep to take me away so I wouldn’t think about Jade. The harder I tried not to think about him, the more his face filled my head. I needed to talk to Maggie. She would put me in line and help me get a grip on these horrible feelings bubbling up inside me. And by getting a grip, I mean squish the life out of the feelings.

I opened my bedroom door and saw Jade stalking down the hall, clutching a guitar. Instead of calling out his name like a normal person, I watched him. He paced around the living room before he slid open the back door and went out on the deck.

I waited in the shadows until he jumped off the deck and did a few laps around the yard. Mrs. Morgan’s light came on, and she stepped outside and stared into the darkness. Jade was on the far side of the yard, so I carefully slid open our patio door.

“Is that you, Jade?” I heard Mrs. Morgan ask.

“Uh, yeah. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t. I’m a night owl and, well, a day owl too, I guess. I don’t sleep much anymore,” she said to Jade.

She met him at the fence and stared at the guitar in his hand. I slipped outside, trying to stay hidden in the dark of the night. I could barely hear what they were saying, so I took a chance and crawled across the deck, hiding behind a lawn chair.

“I was trying to find a place to play without waking everyone up. I should have asked Maggie and Rylan before they crashed,” Jade said.

“You’re welcome to play at my house,” Mrs. Morgan said.

Jade chuckled. “Really? Aren’t you scared I’m going to hurt you or something?”

“Are you?” Mrs. Morgan asked.

“No, but you don’t even know me,” Jade said. “Most people wouldn’t invite a stranger into their home.”

“You’ve already been in my home. I’m a good judge of character, and I know enough about you, Jade,” Mrs. Morgan said. “You did my grocery shopping and left my change on the bench when I told you to keep it. You’re a college student, and I know money must be tight.”

Jade shrugged, and I watched as he stared at the small woman standing in front of him. Her wavy short hair was almost entirely white. Her face wore the passage of time, but she was still beautiful, and her green eyes sparkled when Jade smiled at her.

“That would be great. I just need to unwind and music helps me. Things have been a little intense the past two weeks, and I haven’t had a chance to play much,” Jade said.

“Change can do that to a person,” Mrs. Morgan said.

He nodded in agreement and followed her into the house. I jumped off the deck and crept across our lawn, acting like a proper stalker. Mrs. Morgan pulled the screen door shut. I lost sight of them when they walked into the kitchen, but the light turned on in the room where her baby grand piano was located. I casually strolled to the side of her house, thankful the window was cracked.

“Do you play?” I heard Jade ask Mrs. Morgan.

“Yes, but we’ll save that for another day. I want to hear you play,” she said. I readily agreed with her. She was a wonderful pianist, but I was interested in Jade. I leaned against her fence and sank to the grass.

When I played for her, she would sit in one of the wingback chairs. If I played the piano, my back would be to her, but if I played the guitar, I sat on the piano bench and faced her.

Jade plucked the strings, making sure the guitar was in tune before he started to play. When he strummed the first chords of the song “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You,” I could almost hear Mrs. Morgan sigh, or maybe it was me.

The moment he started to sing, I lost my breath. His voice captivated me, pulled me into the lyrics, and made my heart pound like crazy against my ribs. I’d heard the song a million times by a lot of different artists, but his version made me want to believe in the existence of love. I wanted him to love me. The thought scared me, shocked me, and made me feel totally psychotic. Like the song said, only fools rush in and fall in love.

Several songs later, Jade quieted the strings. I almost leaped to my feet to beg him for one more song.

“Sing one more,” Mrs. Morgan pleaded. I wanted to kiss her.

He sang a song called “Stars
.
” I think I swooned.

When it was over, I felt like I was floating across the sky.

“Thank you, Mrs. Morgan, for letting me hang out with you,” Jade said.

I’m pretty sure I could hear her smiling. “Thank you for letting me listen. And please, call me Beth. You have a very lovely voice.”

The piano bench scraped against the floor, and I knew Jade had stood up. I jumped from my hiding space and raced for my door, then quickly got inside.

“What are you doing?” Maggie asked.

“Holy shit!” I shouted, clutching my chest. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

Maggie had the fridge door open and was looking at me over her shoulder. “I’m not the one creeping around in the middle of the night.”

“I wasn’t creeping.”

“Mmmhmm,” Maggie said. “So, where’s Jade, then?”

The sound of his footsteps walking up the steps to the deck set off my panic alarm. “He’s coming,” I said, then grabbed her arm and yanked her down the hall and into my bedroom.

“Rylan, let go of me,” she said. She tried to wrench her arm free, but I wrapped her in my arms to quiet her. “Were you spying on Jade?”

“No,” I said. She gave me a strange look, and I caved. “Okay, yes. Shhhhhh.”

We both stilled when we heard noise in the hallway. His bedroom door closed, and I let her go and sank down to the floor.

“Are you certifiably crazy?” she asked.

I buried my face in my hands. “Yes.”

“What’s going on?”

“Can I plead the Fifth this time? It’s a new semester, so it’s a clean slate.”

Maggie and I had this thing where every semester, we had three plead the Fifth cards we could use when we didn’t want to tell the other something. I always seemed to use mine before the second week was over. She stockpiled hers. But that was only because she told me everything, even things I didn’t want to know.

She pursed her lips, thinking about it for a few moments before she decided to let me off the hook.

“Okay, but you’re down to only one plead the Fifth card left for this semester.”

“Why?” I protested.

“You pled the Fifth with the Jeff thing and the Jesse thing.”

“I did not,” I whined. How did she remember all this shit?

“Rylan,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “You’re lucky I’m combining them. I could tell you that you’re out of Fifth cards for the semester, and I have a feeling you’re going to need them.”

I huffed and folded my arms over my chest, scowling at her.

“And you’re cooking dinner again tomorrow night,” she added.

“Fine,” I answered. She could have asked me for a week of dinners, and I would have agreed. I wasn’t ready to spill my stalking secrets yet.

N
O
ONE
was around when I rolled out of bed the next day. It was a little disappointing to run without Jade, but after my stalking incident last night, I needed a little alone time to clear my head.

They still weren’t home when I got back from my run. The house remained empty after my shower and after breakfast. I frowned and checked my phone for the millionth time, but there was no message from either Maggie or Jade. It was a bit silly to think that Jade would check in with me. He’d never asked me for my phone number.

I finally decided it was stupid to worry about those two. If I really wanted to know where Maggie was, I could call her. I did peek into Maggie’s room just to make sure she wasn’t hiding, but her room was empty and neat as a fucking magazine layout.

Jade’s door was closed, and I stood in the hall, arguing with myself. I had no right to snoop, even though I was dying to look. To ease my nosiness, I locked myself in my room and turned on some music.

I was lying on my bed twiddling my thumbs when something I hadn’t felt in a long time sparked inside my head. At first, I was afraid to move, because it could be a false alarm, but after several more seconds, I gave up and jumped out of bed. I held my breath as I snagged a notebook and a pen, doing a belly flop back on my bed.

The blank page nearly blinded me, but slowly I started scribbling words. The words turned into sentences, and they didn’t stop until I was looking at the lyrics to an entire song filling the once blank page. It had been two months since I’d written anything, and now words were flowing like someone had turned the water faucet on full blast.

Three songs later, I heard the front door open.

“I don’t smell any food,” Maggie yelled.

“Oh shit,” I groaned and rolled off my bed. Maggie was already standing in my doorway with her arms crossed. “I’m sorry.”

“Were you writing?” she asked.

“Yeah, I lost track of the time,” I said, holding my notebook open so she could see there were actual words and not only doodles on the pages. She snagged it out of my hands and flipped the pages as she read.

“Holy shit, Rylan. These are awesome,” she said. She tackled me on the bed, pressing her body into mine and pinning my arms over my head. “I’m so happy for you.”

The door banged open. “Oh, sorry,” Jade said and quickly shut the door.

Maggie burst out laughing and shouted, “Jade, get back here!”

A red-faced Jade opened the door a crack. “I didn’t mean to… well, you said we were having dinner, and I heard you laughing, and, oh shit, I’m going to leave you two alone.”

Maggie rolled off me and laughed. “I’m not sleeping with Rylan.”

The door opened wider. “Sleep wasn’t what I was thinking,” Jade muttered.

This time I laughed and smacked Maggie on the ass. “She’s not my type.” I wanted to add that no girl was my type, but Maggie shouted that she was hungry and all of us raced to the kitchen.

She pretended to complain and feigned dying of hunger, but she quickly forgave me when I whipped up omelets for everyone. She even let us eat in the living room in front of the TV. I was acutely aware of Jade sitting next to me, because for some reason, his knee rested against mine the entire time we were eating.

We played rock, paper, scissors to see who had to do the dishes. Maggie lost, so she took our plates and disappeared into the kitchen, grumbling loudly. Of course, when Jade turned his head, she winked at me, so I think she lost on purpose. The girl was clearly nuts.

Jade leaned back and patted his stomach. “That was great. You’re good at that cooking thing.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for doing my laundry. You’re good at that folding stuff.”

Jade snorted. “Oh, I forgot to give this to you yesterday. There’s no book for your class, but Maggie picked up some notebooks and these pens she said you liked.”

Jade picked up a bag sitting by his feet and pulled out a pack of my favorite pens. I moaned when he handed me the package.

“Do you have a pen fetish or something?”

I laughed. “No… well, maybe. These are the best in the world.”

“Are you a writer? I heard you telling Maggie you’d been writing this afternoon.”

For some reason, my face flushed. I didn’t think I’d ever said the words out loud before. “Um, I suppose I am a writer. I mess around with song lyrics. Sometimes, I try to write short stories. That’s why I’m taking summer school. It’s a creative writing class where I’ll be forced to write different things.”

“You write lyrics,” Jade said, sitting up. “I mess around with music, but the words I write always sound so lame. Could I see some of your songs? I mean, only if you want to show me. No pressure.”

“Only if you promise not to laugh,” I said.

“I’ll be right back,” Jade said. He jumped off the couch and ran down the hall. I was trying not to bounce off the couch with excitement because I might get to hear him sing again.

Jade returned with his guitar. Watching him sit down next to me with that guitar made me break out in a sweat. When he ran his fingers down the neck of the guitar, all I could think about was what his calloused fingers would feel like against my bare skin. I shuddered.