Just a Crush Page 8

  I present both palms, fingers still shaking. “Got it,” I say.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  “I’m ready.”

  “You sure?”

  I laugh. “Yes!”

  “All right...”

  Jonah slowly hands me the guitar, keeping a tight grip on it until we’re both sure I’ve got it. I carefully rest it face up on my lap and admire the gentle imperfections from years of play.

  “Wow,” I whisper. “Jonah Botsford’s guitar. He wrote Down Down Baby on this thing,” I murmur.

  “I know. I was there.”

  I look up and cringe at myself. “Right. You. You wrote Down Down Baby on this thing.”

  Jonah takes a knee in front of me and looks up through the spiky tips of his bangs pressed down by his navy blue beanie. I hesitate to look back, knowing his expression has certainly morphed to judgment by now, but I can’t help myself. I look at him and he silently smiles through a nervous gaze.

  “What?” I ask, equally as uneasy.

  He inhales. “I’m about to show you something,” he says.

  “Okay...”

  “I’ve never shown it to anybody before.”

  I swallow hard. “Uh...”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Nope.”

  Jonah laughs and reaches behind him. He pulls his notebook from his pocket, the one I noticed him scribbling in throughout the evening, and holds it out to me. “Here,” he says.

  I slowly shift the guitar off my lap and abandon it on the bed behind me. “What is it?” I ask as I slowly take the notebook. It doesn’t seem very old but it’s heavily used and practically falling apart. I hold it loosely, scared to make it worse.

  “It’s my idea book,” Jonah answers. “Or... something. I’m not sure what else to call it.”

  “And... you want me to read it?”

  “Honestly, no. Not really,” he says. “But I just feel like you should.”

  I nod before slowly flipping the cover and scanning the first page. It’s dated with a day back in February with lines of words I can barely read but I make out a few with a similar, punchy structure.

  “Song lyrics?” I ask.

  Jonah stands up and paces the carpet by the window. “Attempts at them,” he says. “I have dozens of notebooks just like it in a box at home. It usually takes less than a few weeks to fill one cover-to-cover but this one...”

  “Eight months,” I say with a nod.

  “Exactly.”

  I turn the pages, doing my best not to disturb them with rips or skin oils. Most pages contain crossed-out lines and doodles. Others have lyrics I recognize from old songs, perhaps from some attempt to kickstart his creative energy with words he already knew by heart. March passes. April. May. The summer months on tour. One long, seemingly endless drought until autumn. Until two days ago.

  Now, the pages are completely filled from top-to-bottom, starting with one bolded word written in all caps.

  UTOPIA.

  “Wow,” I say, peeling my eyes up to Jonah again. He’s standing still now with one shoulder slunk against the window and his stare directed at the streets below. “You got Unique Utopia from that one conversation with me?” I ask.

  Jonah nods. “That’s never happened to me before.”

  “And you think that if we hang out more, it’ll keep happening?”

  He pushes off the window. “That’s the theory.”

  I squint. “Seems… plausible, I guess.”

  He grabs the chair by the writing desk and sets it down in front of me. I quickly realize that I’m barely breathing as he sits down, our knees just inches away from touching.

  “Guitar, please,” he asks, extending his hand.

  I twist to grab it, carefully clutching the neck and body as I hand it to him again. “So, how does this work?”

  “Well…” Jonah balances the guitar on his knees, “when you pluck the strings, it makes a sound. Like this.” He strums a chord, smirking at me.

  I scoff. “I meant writing a song.”

  “I know,” he says with a laugh.

  “Do you start with a title?” I ask. “A lyric? A chorus? Or do you write the music first and put words to it later?”

  “All of the above, honestly,” he answers. “There’s no wrong way to do it. Knox, for instance, usually figures out a rhythm first. I’m more a words first kind of guy.”

  I pick up the notebook. “Hence this thing.”

  “Exactly. My songs come from images, feelings, that sort of stuff.”

  I scan the top page again. “This sounds hard,” I say.

  He smiles. “It can be.”

  “Like… how do you know which image or feeling to chase?”

  “Welcome to the struggle.” He chuckles. “Sometimes Jordan will tell us to do more love songs and that narrows down the creative pool a bit, which can be helpful. Restrictions aren’t always a bad thing.”

  “Should we do that then?” I ask.

  “A love song?”

  I swallow hard. “I meant… narrow the pool. Not specifically a love song, but if you had ideas for one then I don’t see why not…”

  Jonah sits still. His eyes study mine as his fingers lightly brush along his strings. The rest of his body doesn’t move an inch and I begin to wonder if someone hit the pause button on our world.

  I shift slightly. “Jo?” I ask.

  “Why not,” he murmurs.

  “What?”

  “Say that again.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t see why not,” he says.

  “I…” He plucks a string and I flinch. “I don’t see why not.”

  He doesn’t blink. “Slower.”

  “I don’t,” I slow my voice down and he plays another note, “see why not.”

  Jonah smirks as he softly strings a few notes together repeatedly. “Again.”

  I lick my lips. “I don’t see why not.”

  “You say so long,” he sings quietly.

  “You say we’re wrong.

  You say we can’t spend this night together

  but I don’t see why not.”

  My jaw sags open wide. I’m officially the first person in the world to see that, hear that, experience that.

  Jonah points at the notebook in my lap. “Can you write that down for me?” he asks.

  “Oh— uh.” I blink out of it and slide the pen free from the spiral. “Yeah, sure.”

  As I scribble it down, desperately trying to remember every word that just came out of his mouth, I notice the pen and I smile. It’s the same one he borrowed from me the other night at the desk. He must have used it to write Unique Utopia and now we’re using it for… whatever the hell is happening here.

  Jonah stretches his neck and settles in with a fresh brightness in his eyes. “Read that back to me,” he says. “Slowly.”

  I smile as I glance at the notebook. My hands are noticeably shaking and my throat clenches open and closed. Blurred vision and dry mouth. My heart pounds against my ribs so loudly I can barely hear the guitar at all now.

  Jonah stops playing. “You okay, Marla?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yeah, I—” I choke. I sigh. “That was fucking awesome.”

  He laughs and takes the notebook from me to playfully wave it in my face like a fan.

  I crack up and cover my burning cheeks with my hands. “Sorry,” I say, wincing.

  “Hey, take a minute. Trust me, my ego loves this.”

  I snatch the notebook from his hand. I straighten up and shake off the last of my jitters before setting pen to paper and nodding. “Okay,” I say, clearing my throat. “You ready?”

  Jonah rests his fingers on the strings again and smiles. “Ready.”

  Eleven

  Marla

  Even after a few hours, my entire body is a jittery mess.

  I couldn’t stay seated for very long. I got up to pace around the suite, an action that Jonah didn’t seem to mind very much. He hopped up every so
often and left his guitar behind to stare out the windows at the Las Vegas Strip, the two of us muttering associated words back and forth to create the next lines of our “masterpiece.”

  I flip through his idea book with his permission, putting fresh eyes on words and phrases that he long abandoned as trash, but I love every syllable of them.

  “With hair like fire and eyes like rain…” I pause my constant stride. “She’s cold as ice…” I look up and around for Jonah, who somehow relocated to the bed without me noticing. He’s lying down with an arm casually draped over his eyes, looking worn out. “Is this from tonight?” I ask.

  “How’d you tell?” he asks.

  “Well, it’s on the last page after the ones about Utopia. And I saw you scribbling downstairs, so…” I swallow. “Is this about me?” I ask.

  “Heavily inspired, yes.”

  “I’m cold as ice?”

  Jonah lowers his arm and sits up. “No,” he says. “But you do have hair like fire. The ice bit was just a visual association.”

  My lips twitch. “I have hair like fire?”

  He nods.

  “Is that good?” I ask.

  He nods again, his warm eyes drifting along the crown of my head.

  I close the notebook and strategically tilt away from him as I feel my cheeks start to pink. “Cool.” I scan around, quickly locking on the digital clock by the bed and my gut jolts slightly.

  It’s after midnight already?

  I check my phone in my pocket to be sure but nope, it’s accurate.

  Damn.

  “Anyway,” I clear my throat as I turn toward Jonah again, “I need to get going.”

  “Already?” he asks. “We just really got going.”

  “Yeah, the buses are gonna stop running soon,” I explain. “And I have classes tomorrow morning, so…”

  Jonah raises his brow and stands up. “Buses?”

  I nod. “Buses.”

  “You’re taking the bus home?”

  “I took the bus here,” I answer. “I always have.”

  “At this hour?” he says, his eyes on the bedside clock.

  “I’ll be fine.” I breathe an awkward chuckle. “I do it all the time.”

  I retrieve my jacket from the closet and by the time I’ve got it over my shoulders, Jonah is by the writing desk.

  “I’ll drive you home,” he says.

  I pause with my arms hovering over my head. “Oh, no. No. Really. You don’t have to—”

  “I want to. Vegas can be dangerous out there at this hour.”

  I pull my jacket on the rest of the way, feeling absolutely torn in half. On the one hand, Jonah wants to make sure I get home safely which makes my heart go totally thump-thump. He cares about my well-being enough to inconvenience himself, even if it’s only a little bit.

  On the other hand... he wants to take me home. To my house.

  I shake my head as I keep my expression light. “Jonah, you really don’t—”

  “Marla...” He smirks at me through the mirror ahead of him as he pulls open the top drawer of the writing desk and scoops out a car fob from the front. “I’m going to drive you home now.”

  I grow tense. His voice is laced with such authority, making it very clear that I do not have a choice in this matter.

  So very Botsford.

  “Okay,” I say.

  We ride the elevator down to the first sub-level just beneath the lobby. I’ve seen the parking garage maybe one or two times total; never had much of a reason to venture down here since I took public transport to and from work every day.

  The moment the elevators open, I stifle a gasp. I step off, following closely behind Jonah’s wide gait, and it feels as if I walked onto the lot of some very fancy car dealership.

  “This is me,” Jonah says at the end of a long line of luxury.

  I stop beside his car and swallow hard. “Whoa...” I say.

  The car sits low to the ground, wheels emblazoned with shiny, custom silver rims. Two doors, tinted windows, and the most gorgeous shade of blue I’ve ever seen.

  Jonah opens the passenger side door and holds it open for me. He says nothing, merely gesturing once with his hand to signal me to get inside.

  “You drive a Porsche?” I ask, still admiring the exterior.

  “Sometimes,” he answers.

  “Sometimes? So... some other times, you drive an entirely different car?”

  He shrugs. “Sometimes.”

  I chortle as I step toward the open door. “Okay.”

  I lower down into the car and Jonah makes sure I’m fully out of the way before closing the door. I immediately look around, admiring the leather seats and spotless floorboards and that eternal new car smell.

  Fancy.

  Jonah hops down into the driver’s seat and reaches for his seatbelt. “Do you have a music preference?” he asks as he pushes the ignition button on the dash.

  “You know...” I play with the buttons on my door until the window opens a crack. “I wouldn’t mind silence for a bit.”

  Jonah smiles. “Buckle up.”

  I do as he says, fastening myself in tightly as he revs the engine once. We ride along the loop of the garage toward the exit and I feel myself smile as we pull right onto the Las Vegas Strip. It’s strange. I grew up in this city. I’ve seen these views enough times for them to be common and boring but now, all of a sudden, I’m seeing beauty in new places.

  And the silence? Not as silent as I thought it’d be with my heart pounding in my ears and the frequent roar of the engine as Jonah speeds us from corner-to-corner. Every few streets, I speak up and tell him where to go and my pulse pounds even harder the farther we get from lights and luxury and into the land of darkness and penny-pinching. Soon, he’ll see me for what I really am but at least I had this night to remember for always.

  “Take a left here,” I say, clearing my throat. “Last house on the right.”

  Jonah obeys, slowly turning onto the dark street. I squeeze my fists so tightly, my fingernails dig into my palms. I hold my breath and I close my eyes.

  Well, it was fun while it lasted.

  The car comes to a complete stop and I open my eyes again. The porch light is on, the only one along the entire block, making our bungalow stand out like a sore thumb against all the others.

  I grab the door handle. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Hold up,” Jonah says. He rests his hand on my left forearm, sending a bolt of freezing lightning to my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, fingers lingering on the handle.

  “Then why aren’t you looking at me?”

  “I looked at you all night.”

  “Marla.” He chuckles. “Come on, what’s the hurry?”

  I let my hand slide off the handle. “There’s no hurry.”

  Two strong fingers pinch my chin. I bite my cheek as Jonah gently guides my head to face him. We make eye contact and I swoon beneath his soft, brown stare.

  “You didn’t want me to see this, did you?” he asks.

  I inhale sharply but what can I even say?

  Yes. Yes, I’m nothing more than a serf in your family’s golden kingdom.

  When I don’t answer, he sighs and releases my chin. “Marla, if you thought this was going to make me think less of you, then you’re very, very wrong.”

  My breath hitches. “I didn’t…” I deflate, too tired to lie to him. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t forget where I grew up,” he says with a laugh. “Can’t believe I’m about to say something positive about my father here but he purposefully hires a large percentage of his staff from below the poverty line. Used to tell my brothers and me that it doesn’t matter where they come from or what car they drive to get to work, if they wear blue and gold, they’re family.”

  I smile. “Sounds like him.”

  Jonah tilts his head. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you quit?” he asks.

  “Why did I quit?”


  “The hotel.” He treads lightly. “It just seems like that you had a good thing going there. You loved the job, said so yourself. You got college credit and decent pay in the work-study program. I’m just curious, why’d you quit?”

  “Oh. Um...” I pause, biting my lip and thinking hard on exactly how much to say. “I have two little brothers, as you know,” I begin. “They’re twins and it was getting difficult to take care of them with my school schedule and my work hours, along with my mother’s work schedule and multiple daycares raising their rates on us. Something had to give and it’s important to her for me to stay in school. That’s why I quit, so I could be home more often and give her a chance to pick up more shifts. We think it’ll help her chances for a raise, maybe a promotion.”

  Jonah nods. “And it’s just the two of you? With your dad…”

  He doesn’t finish, obviously regretting the question.

  “Right.” Words build on my tongue, willing and eager to spill out after being held in for so long. “After my dad died, we found out that he had a mountain of credit card debt that he never told my mom about. We ended up selling almost everything we owned to try and pay it down, took on as many odd-jobs as we could, and after a year or two, things really started looking up again. She began dating this guy and that was going great for a while. Then, as it goes, she got pregnant, he moved in, they started talking about getting married and all that stuff.”

  Jonah frowns. “This isn’t gonna end the way I want it to, is it?”

  “Nope.” I shrug. “Mom went into labor and we couldn’t find him. Still can’t find him to this day. Just... vanished without a trace.”

  “He’s missing?”

  “Not really. We’re pretty sure he knows exactly where he is because he drained our bank accounts on the way out of town.”

  The edges of his cheekbones stick out as he bites down. “Jeez...”

  “So, after all that work we did to turn our lives around, we now had to do it all over again with two newborns who began their lives five-figures in debt thanks to our insurance company deciding not to pay out.”

  “I can’t imagine how hard that was,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  I smile to try and lighten the mood. “We manage, though. You just get used to the idea that as long as you can make it through this moment in time, you’re okay.”