The Sound (26 page)

‘Sure,’ Mr Thorne says with a smile. He hands me the phone and I quickly dial Carrie.

I tell her that Mr Reed is dropping me home and then I say bye to Mr Thorne, who is still looking at me with a concerned expression on his face. I contemplate telling him what an utter shithead
his son is (actually what utter shitheads all three of his children are) but decide better of it.

I climb into the car in silence. It has a very plush interior that smells of chemicals and leather and I can’t relax. I find myself sitting rigid, staring straight ahead. Mr Reed glances
over at me as he pulls out of the drive.

‘Have fun tonight?’ he asks.

‘Not really,’ I answer, not taking my eyes off the road.

I can feel his eyes still on me and I slide a hand over my knee, trying to tug my dress down.

I keep staring out of the window, flashbacks of the last half an hour racing through my mind. I cannot believe how spectacularly contrary to expectations that night turned out. Right now I could
be losing my virginity and thanks to Jesse Miller I am not. And I feel nothing but relief. Total and utter relief.

That’s when I realise that we’re not on the normal route that Jeremy takes to get me home. It takes me a while to realise it and I twist my head left to right trying to figure out
where we are, panic beginning to flutter in my chest. But then I recognise a bush. I fell off my bike here. And then I see we are passing by Miller’s Bike Store and notice the light is still
on inside.

‘Stop!’ I shout. ‘Can you stop the car?’

Mr Reed brakes and pulls over. The road is empty. ‘I thought you wanted to go home?’ he asks.

‘No. I want to get out here,’ I say.

He glances out the window and notices Miller’s.

‘Here?’

‘Yes. I need to talk to someone.’

‘Someone who?’ His tone is unmistakably dark.

‘Jesse Miller,’ I answer, twisting in my seat to face him. I couldn’t care less what he thinks of me. I am getting out of this car right now. I reach for the handle.

‘Mike and Carrie are waiting,’ Mr Reed says, in a voice I assume he reserves for his opening statements in court.

‘That’s OK,’ I say, ‘I’ll call Carrie and let her know.’ As I say that, I realise that I have no phone, but I’m not about to let on. I just want out the
car.

‘Ren.’ His hand comes across me, catching my wrist. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

My chest feels petrified, encased in stone. I back myself against the door, my other hand scrambling to free itself and reach for the lock. ‘I want to get out,’ I say.

He lets go slowly, studying me. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Fine. If you want to get out, get out.’

My fingers find the lock, my breathing coming in shallow gasps now. I need my inhaler. I reach for my bag, which is by my feet, and grab it. I tumble from the car, then watch as Mr Reed drives
away, my heart pounding furiously. My imagination is running wild, that’s all. Mr Reed is not the Nantucket Nanny Serial Killer. And neither is his son. I almost laugh at my panic. He must
think I’m totally mental.

I wait until his tail lights disappear around the bend and then I walk slowly towards Miller’s. The wind has picked up and I wrap my arms around me as I walk, looking over my shoulder
every so often. The roads around here are deserted and my imagination is still in overdrive.

The door to Miller’s is locked. I push on it but it doesn’t give. I bang on the glass and start praying that Jesse, or anyone, even Mr Miller, is there, because I am starting to
panic that I will be left standing on the road by myself with no mobile phone and no way of getting home other than walking down dark streets frequented by a serial killer. I start to wonder what I
was thinking of getting out of the car.

But then I see a shadow fall across the wall and Jesse appears from out of the back room and I almost fall against the door I’m so happy to see him. He walks around the counter slowly, his
movements cautious. His eyes are narrowed at the door. Probably, I guess, because he can’t see me out here in the dark. I wave like a drowning person. He realises that it’s me and jogs
straight to the door and pulls it open.

‘Ren,’ he says, half smiling, half frowning. ‘What are you doing here?’

I push past him into the shop and wait for him to bolt the door shut behind me.

‘Are you OK?’ he asks, turning to face me.

I can’t answer. I’m fumbling in my bag. I need my inhaler. I can hardly breathe. The adrenaline is catching up with me. My hand closes around the plastic tube and I pull it out and
am about to take a puff on it when I realise I’m holding the can of mace that Carrie gave me. I drop it back in the bag, my head starting to feel all foggy and my hands shaking.

‘What do you need?’ Jesse asks and I catch the note of worry in his voice as he prises the bag from my hands.

‘My inhaler,’ I manage to gasp.

He rummages through my bag and pulls it out, handing it to me. ‘Here,’ he says.

I put it in my mouth and take two puffs, inhaling the sweet chemicals that will open my airway and let me breathe. It works almost instantly and my head starts to clear.

‘Thanks,’ I say, taking back my bag, breathing deeply. Every time after I have an asthma attack I suck in air as though it’s going out of fashion, almost unable to believe
it’s that easy to breathe again, it feels like such a luxury.

Jesse’s hand is on my shoulder. ‘You OK?’ he asks again.

‘Yeah,’ I say, glancing out at the street. I look back at him – he’s still staring at me intensely, his eyes wide, as though he’s worried I’m going to keel
over and die in front of him. ‘I’m fine now,’ I say and I even try to smile.

He shakes his head, crossing his hands over his chest. ‘Why are you here?’ he asks, irritation replacing the concern.

‘I – I wanted to see you. I wanted to explain . . .’

Jesse holds up a hand. ‘Ren . . . you don’t need to explain. I’m sorry for bursting in on you like that. I reacted. I
over
-reacted. I don’t own you. You can
sleep with whoever you like.’

I flinch at his words. ‘I didn’t sleep with him,’ I say, anger biting at me. ‘I haven’t slept with
anyone
. As in –
ever.
I don’t sleep
around.’
Unlike some people
, I want to add.

His eyes go wide. ‘Ever?’ he asks stunned. ‘Oh.’

That shut him up
, I think.

He looks at me, sheepish all of a sudden. ‘Can I admit to being glad about that?’ he asks with a half-smile.

‘What? Glad that I’m a virgin?’ I ask, almost laughing at the turn the conversation has taken.

‘No,’ he says, his cheeks flushed. ‘That you didn’t sleep with him. You deserve someone better. Your first time, especially, it should be with someone who loves you,
someone that you love.’ He takes a breath and a minuscule step towards me. ‘And with someone who’ll take care of you, who’ll put you first.’

He is right. And even though I know he isn’t implying that he is the one who would treat me this way, my body, disobedient as ever, reacts regardless. His words speak to a part of me that
I was trying to ignore when I was with Jeremy. I do want my first time to be special – for it to be with someone I love and who loves me right back. And Megan will take the piss out of me
about it but as I look at Jesse I’m suddenly more grateful than ever that he burst in on me and Jeremy because otherwise I’d be sitting on the side of that double bed right about now
regretting what had just happened. I know it. Relief makes me light-headed until I remember that Jesse still saw me with Jeremy, half undressed, and that makes me want to dissolve into the
ground.

I can barely look at him as I mumble, ‘Thanks. I mean—’ I break off. ‘Um, I can’t believe that you came and that you did that – but I’m glad that you
did. They’re arseholes. All of them. You were right.’

He has the decency to not look smug.

‘I’m sorry,’ is all he says.

He’s standing there, with his hands stuffed into his pockets, and he’s looking at me with such protectiveness and with so much tension running beneath his skin that it makes my legs
feel somewhat jelly-like. I don’t get him. At all. One minute we’re just friends then we’re fighting. And then he’s acting as though he likes me as more than just a friend.
And I have to remind myself yet again that he’s made it
emphatically
clear to me on more than one occasion that he does not.

‘Why did you tell me you had a boyfriend in England?’ he asks now. ‘Is it true?’

Oh God, he had to bring that up? I squint at the floor and rock back and forth on my heels. Oh crap. I decide to just be honest. ‘No, it’s not true.’

‘So, why’d you lie?’

‘You laughed.’

‘I’m sorry?’ He looks completely lost.

‘You laughed when that girl asked if we were on a date.’

He shakes his head, confused.

‘At the gig? Remember?’

His eyes suddenly widen as he recalls the night.

‘And it just came out. I mean. I’m not sure why. I just—’

He is shaking his head. ‘But the whole time you were hooking up with Jeremy Thorne?’ He winces at the name. As though Jeremy is tainted just by association with Tyler Reed. Which,
now I come to think about it, doesn’t seem so far from the truth.

I shrug. ‘Kind of.’

‘Kind of?’

I shrug again in answer.

He blows out a loud breath of air and turns his head to the wall. I can tell he’s biting back his next sentence.

‘I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t tell you – there’s a difference,’ I say quietly.

He turns instantly back to me. ‘A small one,’ he says.

‘Don’t give me that. You don’t tell me anything!’

His mouth opens, he’s ready to argue, but then he shuts it, obviously remembering that I’m totally right. He walks over to the counter and leans against it, rubbing his hands over
his face and then back through his hair, as he pushes it off his face. And he looks so goddamn beautiful and I think,
God, why did I come here? What do I want from him?
Clearly something I
am never going to get.

‘How about this for the truth, then?’ he says. ‘I like you. I like the way you say asshole – it’s incredibly sexy, you have no idea how sexy. I like the fact you
don’t take any crap from anyone. I like the way you wrinkle your nose when you’re thinking hard, just like you’re doing right now. I love how you write, and how you dance and I
even love how bad you are at playing guitar but how hard you try anyway. That enough truth for you?’ He sounds angry, but I didn’t process much after the word
sexy
. What
exactly is he trying to say? Is this
like
he keeps repeating the italicised kind or not?

‘I don’t get what you’re saying,’ I mumble, hoping and praying, with my stomach squeezed small as a peanut, that what he’s saying is that he
LIKES
me and
that I’m not just projecting my fantasies.

He winces at me as though he’s in pain. Then he laughs under his breath, turning his head so I see him in profile, see him swallow. He’s nervous.

‘I like you,’ he says, staring me straight in the eyes as he speaks, and there is absolutely no way of misconstruing his meaning. ‘I’ve been trying not to. Even when you
told me you had a boyfriend . . . even after I find out you’re dating that loser Thorne . . . I still like you. And it’s been driving me crazy not being able to tell you.’ His jaw
tenses angrily. ‘I can’t think about anything but kissing you . . . about being with you . . .’ He shrugs. ‘There, I said it. Need me to say it one more time?’

‘No, I got it,’ I say in a weak voice.

He glances up at me then, his eyes narrowing with a question. He’s caught my tone and possibly, just possibly, he has seen the expression on my face which I’m guessing is hovering
somewhere in the facial expression dictionary between wanton naked desire, extreme happiness and utter shock, and is evaluating the meaning behind it.

‘Shit,’ he says.

That is not the word I am looking for right now.

‘What?’ I stammer.

‘Shit,’ he says again, running his hands through his hair some more, not looking at me.

‘What?’ I say, even more anxiously.

He looks up at me then, and his expression reads like someone just told him zombies ate his cat. ‘Do you like me?’ he asks.

‘Yes, of course,’ I answer.

‘No. I mean, do you
like
me?’ He emphasises the like.

‘Um.’ I hesitate before I decide to man up and take this italicised
like
by the balls. ‘Yes.’

He doesn’t look happy about this, which confuses me, given his speech a few seconds ago about not thinking about anything other than KISSING ME. This isn’t how it normally pans out
when two people discover they both like each other in
the same way
.

Jesse turns around to face the counter and then he kicks it. Hard. I’m so confused that I start to wonder if the champagne I drank earlier was laced with something. Jesse leans over the
counter now, resting his palms on it. His head is bent. He’s taking deep breaths.

‘Jesse,’ I say, stepping forwards. I place my hand on his back, just below his shoulder and I feel his body relax and then tense as he springs around. I step backwards quickly.

‘You’re not meant to like me back,’ he says angrily. ‘Damn, I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. Shit.’ He kicks the counter again. ‘I thought my flirting
with you had put you off. It was meant to put you off. To make you think I was a player . . . ’

I stare at him, not sure what I’m supposed to say. Usually boys flirt with girls they want to like them. Don’t they?

‘I can’t be with you, Ren,’ he says. His expression is hard, slaying.

‘Why not?’ I ask, stumbling back. ‘You just said you wanted to kiss me.’
You can kiss me
, I want to yell.
KISS ME
. But I don’t.

‘I can’t be with you or kiss you or do anything with you.’ And here I see his hands are fisted at his sides, his jaw clenched.

I raise my eyebrows. My confusion just went up a level. ‘OK,’ I say, blood flying through my veins along with several pints of happy, still thinking that Jesse Miller
likes
me and wants to kiss me and do
anything
with me. Why is there a CAN’T in this equation? ‘You’re not making any sense,’ I say, trying to keep the hysterical out of
my voice.