Blowback (2 page)

“What kind of nasty things?” I asked, mildly intrigued by whatever taboo thing he’d wanted to do. I hadn’t even kissed a boy, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in the things people do in private.

“I don’t know. Butt stuff I think.”

My mother poked her head into my room with a cheesy grin spreading over her face. She stood there silently peering at us like a lunatic.

Sophie and I looked at each other with widened eyes, wondering if she’d heard our conversation.

“What?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face. My mother was sometimes prone to acting goofy, so it was entirely possible she hadn’t heard a word that we said. I always found myself prepared for the unexpected with her. This time, though, she delivered exactly what I’d been expecting for two weeks.

“Oh, not much… Just some boy at the door asking for you. Those are some of the most interesting gray eyes I think I’ve ever seen. The guy-liner really suits him.”

“Oh my God,” Sophie exclaimed. “I only know of one boy that fits that description.”

I couldn’t find the words to express myself, so I sat there, unmoving, as her words sank in. At least my best friend was there to deliver the excitement I felt.

“Is this
the
flavor of the week? Mr. Dreamy McHotPants?”

“Mom,” I said, giggling. “He’s just someone I go to school with.”

I finally found the strength to stand, making my way to the bedroom door.

“Uh, huh… Well, he’s very handsome, but he looks like a smartass,” she said, putting her hand up on the door frame so I couldn’t leave the room just yet. “Don’t take any shit from him, you hear me? And take this one with you,” she said, tipping her chin to my best friend, who now stood at my side. “Don’t let her go stupid when she looks at him,” she said to Sophie.

My mom dropped her arm and went down the hallway to her office. The two of us headed down the stairs. The journey from the top to the bottom progressed in slow motion, each step taking an eternity to complete, like my legs each weighed a ton and it took every ounce of force I could muster to move them. A million thoughts ran through my head, all muddled together into one big ball of static, but there, in the middle of it all, was Jet Flanagan in all of his sexy, bad-boy glory. The only thing he was missing was a bad-ass tattoo or twenty.

He stood on the other side of the screen door with his arms crossed, peering out into the yard, seemingly oblivious to me approaching. But then, that was one of the things that always fascinated me about him. He rarely seemed to care what was going on around him, living in his own mind most of the time. I wanted to crawl inside him just so I could hear what was going on in his head, secretly hoping I made regular appearances there.

I turned to Sophie, and whispered, “Do I look okay?”

She nodded and gave me a nudge forward. Opening the screen door must have caught his attention because he turned to me, and the butterflies in my stomach started up full force. The corner of his lip turned up and fell back into place as his gaze shifted past me and onto Sophie.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you had company… I’ll go,” he said, taking a step off the front stoop.

“No,” Sophie exclaimed.

“You aren’t interrupting anything. We’re just hanging out,” I added to her outburst.

“You sure, darlin’? Cause I can go,” he said, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder. He’d only called me that three times in the short amount of time we’d been talking, but there was never a word to set my heart beating like the way it sounded when it passed over his lips. Really, he could’ve called me just about anything, and I would’ve thought it was wonderful as long as he meant it in a nice way.

His eyes met mine, sending a plethora of tiny little sparks dancing over my skin. It was amazing to me how just one look from him could make me feel.

He stood there in silence, his gaze turned toward the ground. I took a deep breath and tried to search for something—anything—to say, but my mind came up blank. All my hopes for what would happen if he ever showed up at my house were dying by the second. My careful planning of just how it would go and what brilliant and witty things I’d say faded. If I didn’t pull us out of this awkwardness, it’d all be over before it started. He’d never come back, and he’d probably never speak to me at school again.

“You didn’t bring your guitar,” was all I could think to say.

“My guitar?” he asked, his eyebrow cocking as he looked at me as if I’d spoken a foreign language.

“Yeah, you said you could show me how to play.”

“I guess I forgot to grab it. Don’t really need it though as long as we have yours.”

We.
I loved the way that word sounded falling from his lips.

“I’m not sure today is a good day for it anyway. I mean, we aren’t busy, but I’m sure it’d be boring for Sophie. She’s not into the music we like.” The word was just as grand coming from my mouth when referring to the two of us.

“No problem. I can come back another time.”

“You guys can go ahead and do that. I don’t mind,” Sophie said, nudging me in the ribs with her elbow.

“You wouldn’t be bored?” I asked and gently swiped my hand over my side where she’d poked me.

“Nope, not at all. Leslie is outside. I’ll just go see what’s up with her for a little bit. You can come and get me when you’re done.”

Leslie was a year behind us in school, but since she was my neighbor, we hung out with her from time to time. I didn’t see her outside, and I was pretty sure Sophie made the whole thing up to force Jet and me into being alone. I didn’t know whether to strangle her or give her a hug.

Before I could open my mouth to protest, Sophie was already cutting across the yard to get to the neighbor’s house.

“Um… I just have to go inside and get it. I’ll be right back.”

I headed up to my room as fast as I could, grabbing my guitar before returning. Stepping through the door, I let it slam behind me. My heart sank when I realized Jet was nowhere to be found. He’d left just like that. Tears instantly stung my eyes and my lip trembled. I felt like such a baby right then, but the shock of him being gone so quickly had punched me right in the gut. Why had he even bothered to show up if he was just going to leave without a word like that?
What a jerk.

A moment later, movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention.

“There’s some shade over here. Might be the best place to chill,” he said and disappeared around the side of the house.

I exhaled and almost began to laugh at my stupidity, but then, that’d just draw attention to the fact I’d been ready to bawl my eyes out seconds before. I truly did think he ditched me in that little bit of time, and it had crushed me. Luckily, I recovered quickly.

It was funny to look back at that incident. As an adult if I thought someone ditched me like I thought he had, I’d say, “Well, fuck you, too,” and be on my merry way. Just another way Jet’s influence had ultimately changed me and the person I became.

We sat down on the ground, and he asked to see my guitar, so I handed it over without hesitation. The body of the cherry-red instrument looked good against his dark shirt. His fingers worked over the strings of the neck as he strummed something that sounded vaguely familiar. I couldn’t recognize it, though, due to my haze-filled, love-struck mind, but I’m fairly certain it was a song by one of the bands that made regular appearances in our conversations. Jet playing was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my entire life, but I suspected anything he did would be perfect to me. What could I say? I had it bad.

He handed it back to me a few minutes later and said, “You picked a good one.”

“Thanks, but my grandparents actually picked it out. I had nothing to do with it.”

He nodded and sat there without saying a word for what seemed like hours, but it wasn’t awkward like it had been before. I tried to look at him without him noticing, but I didn’t want to stare either. I had to be content with glances here and there. His hair was mostly what I got an eye-full of, but that was good enough. It just made me want to run my fingers through it that much more than I already thought about a hundred times a day.

“Should we get started?” I finally asked.

“Yeah, but, um…” he stammered and leaned forward, his brow furrowing for a second.

Was it possible that I made
him
just as nervous as he made me? Surely not.

“It’s just… I didn’t really come here for that today.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, putting the guitar on the ground beside me. “I just thought—”

“I know. I should’ve remembered I told you I’d show you how to play, but, honestly, I forgot.”

“No worries,” I said.

“I just wanted to get away from my house for a little bit. My old man can be a real dick sometimes.”

“That sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Why? You have no control over what he does,” he said, pulling a piece of grass from the ground and tossing it aside.

“This was the first place you thought to go?” My heart pounded so loudly I feared he could hear every beat it made. He hadn’t said much, but even at that age, I understood he’d come to me for a reason. Whether it was because he thought of me as a good friend or because he wanted more from me, I didn’t know.

“Yeah… I mean, you’re cool, so why not?” he asked. “It’s not like I have all that many friends, especially since Big moved up to Oakton.”

He leaned into me a little as he settled his back against the house, but it wasn’t an obvious or deliberate motion. It was subtle, for sure, but when he did, his arm brushed against mine.

If when he looked at me felt like tiny little sparks peppering my skin, his touch was like fireworks popping and sizzling all over my body. Glancing down at my arm, I half expected it to be smoking.

“Do you get to see him anymore?”

“Sometimes. His old man brings him when he comes to buy some shit off mine.”

“What does your dad sell?” I asked, curious to find out anything I could about his life.

“Nothing,” he said before sitting straight up. The absence of his arm against mine left a cold spot that ached to be warm again.

“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“You’re fine,” he said. “I really should get going, though. Let you and Sophie get back to whatever girly stuff you were doing.”

“Okay. I’ll see you at school?”

“See ya Monday.”

I spent the rest of the weekend with Sophie, poring over every single detail imaginable about that short interaction. Why had he come to me to get away? Was his dad really a dick, and if so, why? What kind of things did he do to make Jet feel that way? And just why did his hair look so damn silky all the time?

If only I knew then just how much time I would spend in my life trying to figure Jet out and why he did the things he did, I could’ve saved myself some trouble and backed away from it all
before
I let him change my future—before I fell so deeply in love with him that I nearly died of a broken heart when he left me. If I’d been able to pull myself away then, maybe my life wouldn’t have been turned upside down again when he came rolling back into it almost a decade after he’d gone away.

CHAPTER 2 – JET FLANAGAN

The muffled, rage-filled voice of my father boomed through the wall from the other room, startling me awake from a nightmare I’d had way too many times. I blinked as I thought about the way her eyes looked at me, pleading for me to save her as I stood by helplessly and unable to move. I’d found myself in some sort of dream quicksand, where I knew if I could just reach her, it’d all be over and we’d be free. She’d be safe, and he’d be dead. But the more I struggled to get to her, the harder it became to move at all.

“Alright, I’m up,” I yelled.

Scrubbing my face with my hands, I tried to erase the image from my mind, but I knew it would linger for a few days. It always did. And just like that, she’d be at the forefront of my thoughts, haunting me like she did every so often. I sighed the word
fuck
to myself because sometimes, that’s the only word that’ll do, and sat up, flipping the sheet away from my body.

The brightness of the midday sun radiated throughout the room, causing me to squint. Its reflection in the mirror sent a spattering of tiny, rainbow-colored drops here and there on the off-white walls. Had I not been too deep into my own shit life, I might have stopped to appreciate the view. I couldn’t even escape into my dreams like normal people could. Sometimes, they were worse than reality.

The door burst open, and my father, Niall Flanagan, barged into my bedroom. He wore his usual attire of a dark designer suit, like he was headed to some high-profile office as a big-time executive. Too bad he never held a real job in his entire life. He was a high-profile big shot and a businessman, but not in the traditional sense. He was the head of an empire that consisted of heroine, pussy, and blow, with an occasional investment in business developments so he could seem legit on the surface. He never got involved more than throwing some money at them and reaping whatever benefit he could, but they afforded him the ability to explain the money he had coming in without it being so obvious that he was a criminal kingpin.

He wore his dirty-blond hair slicked back; very rarely ever had a hair out of place. I sometimes had the urge to grab it and just mess the fuck out of it, but I’d learned early on in life not to piss him off. He looked at me with blue eyes that were cold and uncaring, just like they had always been. I didn’t look a thing like him, and since I’d never even seen a picture of my mother, I could only assume I resembled her.

I had vague memories from when I was about four years old of her and someone I think must have been her boyfriend or husband, but the details of her disappearance were fuzzy to me, and he’d never bothered to answer me when I asked what happened to her.

No, that wasn’t entirely true. He would answer me with a hard jab to the ribs or a swift kick in the ass, even when I was too small to know better than to question him. He would scream so loud it hurt my ears that she didn’t love me and had left me behind for him to raise. I was forced to learn to leave the subject alone. I wanted to be pissed at her for the abandonment and leaving me in the care of such a wretched human being, but then, maybe she had no choice. My father was the sort of man to make people disappear permanently, and I couldn’t completely rule that possibility out.