Page 79 of Jaked

Chapter 29

It was the summer I turned seventeen.

"You're not actually gonna do it?" Lizzie said.

"Oh yeah?" I said. "Just watch me."

We were standing on the darkened alley behind Razer's, a hometown pub that had dancing on Saturday nights. Jake was inside. I was sure of it. I'd seen his motorcycle outside, along with the bikes of two of his closest friends.

Lizzie looked up toward the small window. "How do you know it goes to the rest room?" she asked.

"Selena told me," I said.

"Your sister?" Lizzie said. "But she's not twenty-one either."

It was true. Selena was nineteen, two years older than me, but still two years away from the legal drinking age. Yet somehow, she'd gotten a fake ID, probably courtesy of her boyfriend, Jake's brother, who had some interesting connections that Selena rarely discussed.

Looking at the window, I wondered if I'd be able to fit through it. From down here, the window looked tiny – just a thick, horizontal slab of hazy glass, propped open by some unseen mechanism.

Too bad I didn't look more like my sister. I'd have simply borrowed her ID and gone straight through the front door. But I didn't. So instead, I was standing underneath that foggy window and wishing I knew for sure what exactly was on the other side.

Supposedly, Lizzie and I were spending the night above my Mom's coffee shop, just a few blocks away. In reality, I was making good on a dare. That was the official reason. Unofficially, I was determined to dance with Jake Bishop, just like I'd always wanted to.

"He probably doesn't even dance," Lizzie said.

That's where she was wrong. I knew him. He was the kind of guy who was up for anything.

Most of the guys that I knew hated to dance. Probably, they were afraid of looking stupid. But Jake, he never cared what anyone thought. And no matter what he did, heneverlooked stupid.

"He will if I ask him," I said, sounding a lot more confident than I felt. Every once in a while, he'd let me hang on the fringes with him and his friends. Sometimes, I felt like their mascot or something, like a kitten or a puppy, too eager to please and too inexperienced to fully fit in, no matter how hard I tried.

Funny too, because I tried like crazy.

Maybe I amused them. Or maybe I got a pass for being Selena's sister, not thatsheever hung with that crowd. But as for me, I loved almost all of them, especially Jake. He was a twenty-two-year-old bad-ass with a terrible reputation. Until now, I'd been the kid who adored him. But I wasn't a kid anymore, and it was time for him to see that with his own two eyes.

I looked down at my skimpy black top and short black skirt. "How do I look?" I asked.

Lizzie grinned. "Slutty."

"Hey!"

"It was a compliment," she said. "Honest."

"Oh. Then, uh thanks." 

Near the delivery doors, we'd found a rickety old ladder, along with a few empty crates. I'd skipped the crates and gone straight for the ladder, dragging it underneath the window, where it now stood waiting.

I reached into the tiny pocket of my skirt and handed Lizzie the key to my Mom's coffee shop. My heart was hammering, but I couldn’t help but smile. "See you later on," I said.

"Wait," she said. "After you go in, should I move the ladder? Or leave it?"

I gave it some thought. If things worked out tonight, I'd definitely be needing that ladder again in the future. No need to give the pub-owners a heads-up. "Can you put it back where we found it?" I asked.

She nodded, and then paused. "But if the ladder's gone, how will you get out?"

"Easy," I said. "I'm gonna walk out the front door."

And if I was really lucky, Jake would be joining me. For once,Icould be the girl on his arm. As long as I'd known him, he'd never had a serious girlfriend. But he had girls. Lots of girls. And I heard things too.