A kind of melancholy set up camp, heavy in my chest, but I ignored it.
“Is set design the kind of career you’ve always seen for yourself?” I asked.
“I think so,” he said, turning the corner to where his car was parked. “Maybe on a Broadway set or in a smaller production around here.”
I couldn’t imagine Blake leaving his family to seek out Broadway any time soon. Maybe we’d keep in touch after our project was over with. I’d like that.
We lapsed into a comfortable silence, each lost in our own head. I looked at my phone and saw two missed calls from my mother and was transported back to reality too soon.
“Thanks for a great night,” I said after he drove me to my car, which was still parked in front of Threads. “Next time it’s my choice—you get to come see a classic movie with me.”
Heat crawled up my neck. I couldn’t believe I’d voiced that hope out loud. Without practicing how it would sound first.
“Deal,” he said without any hesitation.
And a couple of nights later that was exactly what we did. We saw the ten o’clock show at the Cedar Mountain Theater and ate buttery popcorn while I explained how much I loved all the vintage clothing in those productions. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow at me.
Every time his thigh brushed against mine, I felt the urge to turn and practice one of those old-fashioned kisses that I was so fond of in these movies.
In fact, during the kissing scene, I held my breath as my imagination took over. In my side view I noticed how Blake’s gazed skimmed over my face and then landed on our hands, which were so close together I could feel the electricity between our skin.
But it was so ridiculous to have those fantasies when our lives were so different—so scripted by our families, in completely different ways.
I’d even seen one of my mother’s society ladies near the concession stand before the movie. I immediately pulled out the notebook I carried everywhere, just in case, and fabricated the idea of a class project. I told her the assignment involved the study of costumes and that we were meeting more of our classmates near the entrance, the exact place where Blake had set up residence.
He pretended to study the door in order to spot our friends arriving and didn’t even question me about it afterward. It was as if we’d come to an understanding that our time together wasn’t real; it was just the tucked-away moments we shared while working on this project and there was no use wasting time discussing it any further.
chapter seven
Blake
By the following week our space already looked fairly put together. All of the lumber had been stained and the shelving units created. The only two tasks that remained were the staging and decorating. I’d finished building days ago and I didn’t need to help with anything else, but all I wanted to do was steal more moments with Chloe in the pop-up shop.
Even though our time together had an expiration date, this project felt as much mine as hers and I wanted to see it through. Plus it kept my mind off what was bothering me at home.
My mother was beginning to act strange—like she was hiding stuff from me. I’d been through this too many times to count and knew all the signs of someone heading down that dark road again. All I could do was make sure my brother’s life wasn’t disrupted. Thankfully he had a full schedule of school and sports activities to keep him busy. But he wasn’t stupid—he knew the score as well as I did.
I was pretty sure Chloe figured out that I didn’t need to hang around anymore, either, but she never said a word. Every day that I showed up, she looked grateful. And happy to see me. And that kept me coming.
“Can you hoist the tape over the top of this pipe? I can’t reach,” Chloe said.
“Bet you’re missing those heels,” I said, grabbing the roll of filament from her grasp.
“Bet you are, too,” she countered, arching a playful eyebrow.
We’d been doing this a lot more lately—flirting with each other. It made me nearly desperate for the opportunity to touch her.
What that meant exactly, I wasn’t sure. We were great in our confined space together. I was fairly certain that she didn’t let anyone else know what we were up to, besides my aunt Jaclyn—and especially not her overbearing mother. Nor that we had hung out a couple of times. That bothered me at first—really bothered me. But now I got it. She had been kept on a short leash and pretty sheltered.
After hanging a few of the silver movie reels on opposite walls, I said, “Truth or dare?”
She seemed so at ease tonight, it actually surprised me when she said, “Truth.”
Darn. I had hoped I could convince her to go somewhere with me on a dare. I’d have to try a different approach.
“Hmm . . . if I asked you to come see my friend’s live band at Club Utopia . . . would you say yes?”
She immediately began twirling her hair around her fingers and I almost regretted trying to persuade her into going out with me at all.
It felt like an entire minute had passed by before she finally agreed. “Yes.”
I appreciated that she was remaining open to ideas and I really liked seeing that fire in her eyes—that small flicker that was awakened when she took a chance and tried something that was outside her comfort zone.
As we made our way to the door, she swept her hands down her clothes as if to smooth them out and said, “Is this okay—what I’m wearing?”
She had on a vintage Coca-Cola T-shirt from my aunt’s shop, tight jeans, and her pink Converse sneakers. I reined in my dirty thoughts about how amazing her breasts looked beneath that thin cotton material and how the denim stretched over her womanly hips.
“Actually it’s perfect for where we’re going.”
I could practically hear her gulp and that made me grin.
When we got inside the club, she nervously looked around the lively joint. The opening band was hard rock, the speakers were blaring, and the floor was packed with fans trying to get as close to the stage as possible.
“Can I . . . get you something to drink?” I said, against her hair. She shivered, as if I’d surprised her by being so near.
She placed her mouth next to my ear and I nearly crawled out of my skin. Her lips were warm and as she spoke they buzzed against my flesh. “I don’t really drink. I don’t like—”
“Feeling out of control?” I said, finishing her sentence.
She nodded, biting her lip, as if I’d think she was a freak of nature, when in actuality I admired that type of self-discipline. How could I not? “No biggie. At all.”
I’d actually been nervous about becoming an alcoholic myself, but after reading all the literature and going through this with Mom too many times to count, I knew that I could stop after one or two beers. That was the difference. Now I just needed to keep a close eye on my brother.
“Can I just take a couple of sips of whatever you’re having?”
“Sure.” We moved over to the bar, where I ordered my beer. She took two grateful swallows for some form of liquid courage and handed it back. She seemed to have no problem placing her lips where mine had just been, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her mouth—especially her full bottom lip—as I sipped from the bottle after her.
My friend Nick, the drummer for the headline band, sought me out in the back of the bar and clapped me on the back. “Thanks for coming, man.”
When I introduced Chloe, she politely said hello, but I got the impression that she wanted to disappear from his scrutiny.
After he left to begin his set, I said, “You feel out of your element here, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Kinda. Sorry.”