Chapter Twelve
Jonah drove me back to Laynie’s after the pancakes. I still had a sour stomach about talking about my dad and my grandpa all in the same story.
Jonah grabbed my hand in his. “When I was little, I had this imaginary friend named Edgar, and I took him everywhere with me. I remember one time, I had a dentist appointment and we were running late, and my mom was telling me to hurry up. So we got in the car and she was about to pull out but I started screaming because Edgar was still in the house and he didn’t know how to turn the doorknob. My mom was just going to leave him so I screamed even louder and threatened to bite the dentist if she didn’t go back inside and get him. So she went back to the house, unlocked the door, and called for Edgar to come back inside.” Jonah looked at me to see if I was listening. I was holding back a rush of giggles.
“So my mom was getting back in the car and I started screaming again and she turned around and asked what the hell was wrong with me now, and I told her that clearly, since Edgar couldn’t open doorknobs, he wouldn’t be able to open a car door either. So she rolled her eyes and got out of the car again to open up the backseat and let Edgar in. And then I started yelling again because she hadn’t buckled Edgar in.”
“You were such a demanding child!” I yelped.
“I was not! I didn’t want Edgar to get hurt if we got in a car accident!” Jonah looked at me with a mock astonished expression.
“When I was about ten, my family lived in Missouri, and my brother used to take me out back to catch frogs with him. And then he’d stick fire crackers up their butts and light the fuse. And I thought that was pretty fun.” Jonah started to laugh uncontrollably for a second as I stared at him in horror, my mouth hanging open.
“It gets better.” He continued. “But we had these really big fire crackers that my dad had gotten that he told us to save for the Fourth of July, but my brother and I stole one of them and went out back and caught this nasty old cat that always hissed at us. And I stuck the fire cracker up its butt and lit the fuse.”
“What?” I shrieked. “You killed a cat? That’s the first sign of being a serial killer!”
“I didn’t kill it! The cat scraped its butt against the ground a ton and got it out. At least I think it did…” Jonah kissed his teeth, trying to remember what had happened. I scowled at him. “You’re a ridiculous human being. Did you know that?”
“Aw, am not. I was a strange child. There’s a big difference.” Jonah continued to laugh as I sat there trying to hold back my giggled. “And I’m from Missouri! So that means I have some sort of excuse.”
“Ha! That’s totally not excuse.”
“You’re just grumpy because you have no excuse for being pale because you’re Italian.” Jonah sneered.
My jaw dropped. “I am not pale! For your information, I’ve darkened two whole shades since summer started!” I growled
“So you went from being corpse white to pancake batter?”
I whacked Jonah on the arm with a teasing hand. “Jerk!”
He stuck his tongue out.
“My grandpa used to let me watch dirty movies with him when I was little. I just wasn’t old enough to remember any of them.”
I laughed so hard that I began to cackle, a light throaty sound that frightened me a little. “That’s really weird.”
“With that, we’re tied.” Jonah pulled into Laynie’s driveway, my shoulders slumped. The drive had gone by so fast that I hadn’t even known we were so close to Laynie’s.
Jonah leaned over in his seat and kissed me on the cheek. “Laynie’s probably freaking out in there, so you should definitely go in there and ensure her that you’re okay.”
I walked in to Laynie waiting for me by the door. “Before we can discuss the good things, I need to tell you something now. Shit has hit the fan.”
We sat down on the couch. “Hannah called Megan at two this morning. And then Megan called me to tell me that Hannah has gone off the deep end.”
“Meaning…?” I questioned.
“Meaning she called James after she’d gotten off the phone with Jonah and she told James that you and Jonah had sex last night.”
I sat there dumbfounded for about a minute before the information sunk in.
“Did you and Jonah have sex?”
“No!” I yelped. “I mean, we slept together. But we didn’t sleep together!”
“Okay. Well, regardless of the details, Hannah is shoveling shit into the fan and James has been blowing up my phone all day. I locked my fucking doors, Tide. They’re both insane! Hannah came here at the crack of dawn banging on the door. She’s lucky she didn’t wake my mom up, my mom would’ve come out swinging.”
“Hannah came here?” I couldn’t believe it.
“Yup. And there’s something worser than her just coming here.”
“What could possibly be worse?”
“She called you a boyfriend stealing whore. So I punched her.”
“You what?” I shrieked.
“I didn’t really mean to. It was a reflex. But jeez, she treats Jonah like shit, then gets mad because he decided that she wasn’t worth his time, then she gets pissed because he’s happy with you so she calls James to mess everything up more than it already is? I was like, no sir, so I popped her a good one.”
I hung my head in my hands. “You are the craziest best friend I have.” I said. “Well, maybe not, Jonah stuck a fire cracker up a cats butt when he was little.”
“No way! Same here!”
“What is it with you people?” I laughed, rolling back on the couch and flipping on the TV to watch the toons, hoping that the recent drama would subside.
After a few episodes of Tom and Jerry I turned up over to look at Laynie, who was laying next to me on the mattress intent on watching Tom smash into walls.
“What do you think is going to happen?” I asked. I tried to hide the fear in my voice but failed miserably.
Laynie turned to me. “Here’s what I think is going to happen. James is going to flip shit, and bad things are going to happen. There is not avoiding that. But you have me and Jonah, and both of us will protect you, no matter what. I don’t care if we have to hide you in some random person’s basement. We’re going to keep you safe to the best of our ability. And then, you and Jonah are finally going to tell each other that you love each other, because clearly you both do. And then everything is going to be okay. Because it has to be.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
I believed her when she said these things, but there was still this tiny fluttering in my stomach that told me that someone was going to get hurt. And I’d have to be dead before I allowed that person to be Laynie or Jonah.
“But no more of that negative stuff. Tell me what exactly happened for you to end up staying the night at Jonah’s house.” Laynie smiled, tapping me on the arm.
“Well, I don’t know how it happened!” I blushed. “One second we were on the floor laughing about how ridiculous Hannah was being for calling him at one in the morning wanting to have sex with him. And I don’t remember anything after that.”
“So you could have had sex?” she questioned.
“No, Laynie.” I laughed. “We had just fallen asleep. I was fully clothed when I woke up.”
“What about him?” Laynie countered.
I blushed even deeper, a rosy crimson.
“Was he neked?” Laynie shrieked.
“No.” I groaned. “He just didn’t have a shirt on.”
“He took his shirt off. While lying next to you. That’s some steamy stuff.” Laynie teased.
“You are the nastiest virgin I know.” I rolled my eyes.
“Hey. That’s a sensitive topic.” Laynie said with mock sadness.
We laughed together.
“So what? You just woke up next to him and realized that you’d stayed the night? What did his parents think about seeing you leave?”
“That’s exactly how it went.” I laughed. “His parents are in DC with his sister for a few weeks.”
“You’re staying there again. Like. Soon.” Laynie said, seriousness written all over her features.
I rolled my eyes. “Watch cartoons.” I said, shoving a pillow at her.
We rolled back over to catch the end of Tom and Jerry, followed by The Kids Next Door.
The day went by with relatively little drama. Laynie kept her phone on silence and at the end of the day she tallied up how many calls she had gotten from both Hannah and James, both trying to get a hold of Jonah and I.
“Twenty six calls from Hannah.” Laynie said, annoyance scribbled in the way she held her limbs. “Do you want to take a guess at how many calls from James there are?”
“Twenty three?”
“Higher. Way higher.”
“Thirty six?”
“Higher.”
‘How can it be higher? Thirty six is a ton.”
“Seventy three.” Laynie looked at me. “Seventy three calls and fifteen texts.”
“What do the texts say?” The acid in my stomach jumped at the thought. Ice spiders prickled on my neck.
“Most of them are telling me to have you call him. A bunch of them say that he loves you, blah blah blah.”
“We have to tell somebody about this, Laynie. He can’t blow up your phone like that.”
“I’m telling my mom when she gets home from work.”
“I’m really sorry, man.” I apologized.
She rolled her eyes and gave me a stern look. “Don’t feel sorry for any of this. It isn’t your fault he’s a drunken drug addict loser that can’t get over the one good thing in his life that he gave away.”
I quieted, walked back in the living room.
Laynie followed after me.
“What have you eaten today?” she asked. “I think I forgot to feed you.”
“I had a pancake this morning.” I offered.
She handed me a piece of peanut butter toast. “I think I’ve forgotten to feed you a lot here lately. Sorry.”
“No, its fine. I’ve forgotten about it too. Jonah fed me a whole bunch of stuff the other day. I thought I was going to go into a coma.”
“No kidding.” Laynie said, taking a small bite of toast. “Bryce did that the other day too. When he came back over last night after you and Jonah had left he brought an entire bag of junk food with him.”
“I love our boys.” I laughed.
“Same here.” Laynie blushed. “I mean, even if Bryce and I don’t last forever, I know that I’m not going to regret any of it. We were really good friends for years anyway, just like you and Jonah, so it’s like, no matter what I know I’ll always have him as a friend.”
“I feel the same way about Jonah.” I nodded, taking another bite of toast.
Laynie sat her toast down, laughing a little and then looking at me. “That boy has been crazy about you since the moment he met you. That boy isn’t going to leave until you order him away.”
I blushed, taking another small bite, swallowing.
I fake yawned. “How about we go back to being lazy now.” I suggested.
“Good idea.” Laynie said, marching back to the couch and falling down on her stomach, leaving her peanut butter toast to the flies.
