Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз. Страница 34

“Where are you again?” I searched my memory for the name of the little Jersey town he’d been sent to rot in. “Oh, Lodi, right?”

“That’s it,” he said, his voice so sunny and happy I was a little freaked out. “Well, I’ll call you, okay, babe?”

“Um, alright, Saxon.”

The connection clicked off, and I was left staring at my cell phone wondering what had happened to Saxon in the matter of a few weeks. I had already talked to Evan and was completely ready for bed when the phone rang again, and I dove for it, thinking it had to be Jake.

“Hey Blix,” Saxon said, and I could hear the smile around the new sound; was it worry?

“Hey Saxon.” I snuggled under the blankets. “What’s up?”

“How’s life with my big-shot grandma and her league of extraordinary assholes?”

I laughed at that. “It was hell on earth. Then your dad got a little frisky, and Jake punched him in the face. So we kind of got voluntarily booted out.”

“Jake punched Gerald?” Saxon crowed.

“Oh yeah. Knocked him on the table.” I couldn’t keep the admiration out of my voice. Wow, did Jake Kelly ever find new and awesome ways to turn me on.

“That little fuck,” Saxon grumbled. “He’s punch happy! I wish I could have seen it. Shit, I wish I could have thrownit.”

“It was pretty deserved.” I bit my lip, remembering the creepy scene that led to the whole debacle. “Sorry I didn’t call sooner. Your family’s place is like a huge dead zone.”

“In so many ways,” Saxon drawled. “It’s cool, Blix. I’ve been kind of screwing things up with this really cool girl I met. So, since I’ve already royally screwed up any chance of romance between us, I thought you might be the girl to help me.”

“How about the fact that there’s hardly anyone who will talk to you anymore?” I laughed, but Saxon was strangely quiet. Much as he gave off the whole tough persona, it was sometimes depressingly easy to bring Saxon down, and I always hated myself for doing it, no matter how unintentional it might have been.

“That’s no joke.” His voice clanked out, heavy and sad for a minute. Then he switched gears. “So, you know I’m not going to throw that toxic-ass ‘L’ word around. It gives me the fucking heebie-jeebies. But say I might be hedging right around something kind of like it with someone smart and funny and really, really hot. But she likes an older guy who’s all those lame things girls go for.”

“What lame things?” I asked, unable to keep the grin off of my face.

“You know, he’s nice and has a job and doesn’t deal or do drugs and goes to college,” Saxon rattled off, and I could practically hear him rolling his eyes over the phone.

“He sounds perfect. Tell her to date him and leave her alone,” I told him. Again, no joking back or laughter from Saxon.

“Blix, I reallylike this girl.”

“Wow.” I sat up in my bed for a minute. “You don’t just want to get in her pants?”

“Probably won’t. She’s under lock and key by her crazed parents. And she’s a Catholic school girl. I can’t remember, do they uphold the stereotype or defy it?”

He was trying to be cute and funny, but I could hear the underlying desperation in his voice.

“This is real?” I asked, my voice a little shaky.

“Yep.” He popped his lips around the word. “As real as anything I’ve ever felt.”

“Saxon!” I said and stopped because I just wasn’t sure what else there was to say. A teeny tiny part of me felt a little jealous that he’d moved on to someone else. Despite my constant gripes about him, I had always had an extra soft place in my heart for Saxon. A bigger part of me felt like this was a really good thing and exactly what I’d been waiting for since our final relationship fracture. “This is a big deal. This is real!”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “And, if you can believe it, my natural charms just aren’t cutting it with her. I’m going kind of bat shit over it. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” I was still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of Saxon in love. Saxon. In love. With someone who was not me. Despite the prickle of weirdness, this was…good. And I was so curious. “Tell me about her.”

I heard the creak of bedsprings. I wondered what his room at his aunt’s looked like. He breathed a long breath out. “First of all, she works so hard, it’s almost sick. She’s a roller-skating waitress and she makes it all look figure-skater easy, but it’s hot, heavy, thankless work, and she does hours on end, no complaints. She took her skates off yesterday and her socks were bloody. Her feet were blistered and broken open from breaking in new skates. Can you imagine that?” he marveled.

I couldn’t. It seemed incredibly painful. But more difficult to imagine was Saxon feeling so much sympathy and admiration for a girl he liked. This was huge and all the details only excited my curiosity. “Tell me more.”

He was in the swing now. “She’s smart. I mean, life smart and generally smart. She reads a lot and gets good grades. She wants to go to college, but her parents’ place is on its way to tanking, so who knows. She has this great hair. It’s so dark brown, it’s almost black. And it smells so fucking good, Blix. And her tits--”

“Hardy har,” I interrupted and he laughed.

“Sorry. Listening to myself being all mushy gets old fast. I have to keep it real.” I heard him jangling something in the background.

“What’s that sound?”

“Sorry. My keys. I’ve become a fucking fidgeter.”

“Shouldn’t you start chain smoking right about now?” I leaned back on my pillow and imagined Saxon with his mouth quirked in a half-smile, blowing out a long, steady stream of bluish smoke.

“Are you encouraging me?” His laugh was a happy rumble. “I think Aunt Helene is a little allergic to smoke, so I won’t do it around her or at home. And at work, I don’t get a fucking second. Goddamn slave drivers,” he harped cheerily. “So I’ve hardly been able to get through a pack this entire week.”

Wow. It was like Saxon had gone into his own little cocoon and was coming out a healthier, happier, less grumpy butterfly. “What’s her name, Saxon?”

“Cadence,” he said. “Cadence Erikson.”

“Did you try just asking her out?” I suggested, nestling my arm under my head and cradling the phone closer to my ear. He had practically turned my knees to jelly when he asked me out the first time.

“She’s kind of with the college guy. They aren’t right for each other, though,” he said confidently.

“Is he nasty to her?” My fingertips traced the seams of my pillowcase.

“Nah.” Saxon’s admission was flippant, like that didn’t matter one way or another. “I mean, he’s perfect as far as meat-head assholes go. He’s just not it for Cadence, you know?”

“No, I don’t.” I laughed softly. “Maybe you should just let them be.”

“Nope.” Saxon’s voice snagged with an edge of determination I’d never heard before. “This ain’t love I’m busting in on, Bren. With you and Jake…” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “With you and Jake,” he started again, “I was crashing a party I had no business being at. With Cadence, I’m the one she’s gonna love. Once she realizes that I’m not a total asshole.”

“What do you need?” This was real, I realized. I didn’t know if it was real for Cadence, but it was for Saxon. A little part of me wondered what kind of girl she was if she wasn’t attracted to Saxon. I knew it wasn’t just me. He was like a wild animal you saw and had the overwhelming urge to tame.

“I need help, Blix. And I don’t have a damn soul to turn to. I only have you.” Saxon’s voice was worried.

I knew how he felt. Alone. Out of place. Put down. I knew it all. “I’ll figure something out. I promise. Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I go into work around noon.” I could hear the relief in his voice.

“Sweet dreams, Saxon.”

“You have no idea.” he laughed softly.

We clicked off and I stared up at my ceiling, my thoughts running like crazy. How was I going to get to Saxon? What could I do to help him? Did I even want to?