Page 47

Andrew Smith was slumped over the table in the farthest corner of the bar, head tucked into the crook of his elbow, passed out. People moved around him, talking, laughing, like the drunk man in the corner was invisible to them.

Jet hung back as Billy approached the table to return Andrew’s keys, carefully sliding them into the pocket of his jacket, hanging on the chair.

Billy didn’t come back, not right away; he went to the bar first, grabbed a glass, and filled it with water.

Left it there on Andrew’s table, for when he woke up.

Such a Billy thing to do. Jet smiled to herself, watching him just be Billy, walking back over to her.

He didn’t make it again.

‘Billy!’ Allison called from behind the bar.

Billy made a face just for Jet, then turned, nodding to his boss. ‘Allison.’

‘You told me you were sick. That’s why you’ve missed your shifts this week. Don’t look sick to me. Saw you buying a beer earlier.’

Billy didn’t say anything, hid his hands behind his back.

‘If I can’t rely on you to turn up to work,’ Allison said, pursing her lips, ‘then I’ll have to hire someone else, you know that.’

‘Sorry.’ Billy nodded, eyes like he meant it. ‘It’s just … I have something, m-more important.’

Allison’s hands went to her hips, widening her eyes, a question in them.

Billy didn’t answer it, didn’t even try.

He walked away, pressing one hand against Jet’s back, guiding her toward the door.

‘Billy,’ she whispered, something tightening in her gut. ‘You shouldn’t get in trouble for me. I won’t be here –’

‘– Maybe it’s not for you,’ he said softly, holding the door open for her, the breeze snatching Jet’s hair, throwing it across her eyes.

Billy rounded the corner, following the street, heading for his apartment.

Jet stopped, that thing in her gut pulling her the other way. She caught Billy’s arm.

‘Can we just …’ she began, feeling stupid, trying not to feel stupid. ‘I don’t know … walk?’

Billy turned, one thumb over his shoulder, pointing toward the stairs. ‘You don’t want to read more of Emily and Nina’s messages?’

‘We’ve looked for hours,’ she replied. ‘We’re not going to find anything. And I don’t think learning that Emily’s first kiss was with Chris Allen is going to help me solve my murder. I think … I want to walk.’

‘Oh.’ Billy took a few steps, back to her side. ‘You want to go talk to your mom now? Ask her what Emily overheard? I guess it’s late but –’

‘– No.’ Jet sucked in the air, filled herself with the darkness, breathed it all out.

‘I think I just want to walk. People do that sometimes, don’t they?

’ She turned, slowly, heading back beyond the bar.

‘Don’t need a reason to, or a place they’re going, or a dog to tire out. They just walk … for them.’

Billy walked beside her, a smile, its edges turned down, both confused and amused. ‘Yeah, people do do that.’

‘Doo-doo,’ Jet snorted, waiting for a car to pass.

‘I just thought you’d be worried … about not having time.’

Jet thought she’d be worried about that too, but her gut had other ideas – her heart too, picking up against her ribs, a different kind of song.

‘I have time,’ she said as they crossed the street.

They walked, just walked. Like people did.

Billy on her left side, two of Jet’s steps for every one of his, arm nudging against hers.

Jet breathed in the night air, spiced with autumn and the first falling leaves, the earthy smell of half-rotting pumpkins on people’s doorsteps.

Jet looked at the jack-o’-lanterns, but she didn’t glare back, didn’t feel like it anymore, almost smiled instead.

‘This way,’ she said, following her gut, crossing the street again, toward The Green in the center of the oval road. Patches of grass trampled into mud from the Halloween Fair, six days ago tonight.

They walked under the burnt-orange trees, sugar maples, branches shivering but not cold, and not scared, even though it was late and Jet and Billy were the only ones here.

Jet looked up, spotted it just in time. Reached out with her hand, her only hand. The falling leaf whirled, sailing the breeze, round and round and down, falling into Jet’s open palm.

She closed her fingers around it, a perfect amber leaf.

Billy grinned. ‘That’s supposed to be good luck,’ he said.

Jet grinned back. ‘Then you keep it.’ She offered it out.

Billy wouldn’t take it, shook his head.

So Jet didn’t give him the choice. ‘Please,’ she said, sliding it into his pocket.

Billy patted his jacket, a silent kind of thank you.

Jet looked up again, beyond the leaves, to the dark sky above. Not really all that dark, actually, little silver pinpricks of stars winking down at her.

‘What are you looking at?’ Billy craned his neck. ‘Trying to catch another one?’

‘Well, you’re gonna need all the luck you can get, Billy, without me here to look out for you.’ She sniffed. ‘Actually, I was looking at the stars. People do that too, huh? No reason. Just nice to look at.’

‘Yeah,’ Billy said, but he wasn’t looking at the stars, he was looking at her.

Jet didn’t warn him. She dropped down, sat back, the grass wet through her jeans.

‘Whoa, you OK?’

‘Yeah.’ She went all the way, legs out, resting her head back on the grass, not too hard against the bandage and the throbbing inside. ‘I’m just laying here,’ she said.

‘Why?’ Billy said, immediately joining her, his head close to hers, legs pointed the other way. Their own little mismatched triangle.

‘Because I wanted to.’ Jet stared up. Could you always see this many stars here? Jet had never bothered to really look up before, to try counting them, just because.

‘I was thinking,’ Billy said. ‘Nina said it was a secret that Dianne knew but her family doesn’t, so maybe it wasn’t your parents Emily overheard but –’

‘– We don’t have to talk about it,’ Jet spoke across him.

‘What?’

‘ That. ’

‘OK.’ Billy nodded, grass blending with his dark hair, too straight among the curls. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘Anything. Anything at all.’

Jet counted the stars.

‘Why didn’t you want to marry JJ?’ Billy asked, voice small, barely making it through the darkness.

Jet’s chest contracted, ribs closing into a shield. Well, she did say anything. And this was Billy. She trusted him, with her truck, with her life, and maybe something else too. Her chest opened up and she sighed.

‘I used to think JJ was good for me. He pushed me, said I should be the best version of myself, dream even bigger. I think that’s who he loved: the best version of me, the one with the big ideas.

He would have resented me eventually, when none of it worked out.

And nothing ever works out. I give up, so I gave up on him.

I think he thought he was settling with me, and maybe I thought the same too.

Because there had to be someone better for me, someone perfect – not here, maybe in Boston – once I’d fixed my life, become that better person.

And what was the other choice: I marry him and get stuck here in Woodstock forever? Become my parents? Or Luke and Sophia?’

Billy pulled out a handful of grass. ‘You wanted to leave?’

Jet tilted her head, glanced over at him.

‘Don’t you? Don’t you ever think about it?

Somewhere new? Maybe a lot of somewheres.

Not the place that’s supposed to be home, but the place that feels like home.

Find other bars to play your music in, make lots of people smile, because you make everyone smile, Billy.

Live out of a truck and have dirty socks and cold beers and sit under new stars every night?

Don’t plan, or worry about the time. Just … be.’

Her eyes prickled, a new sheen, made the stars even brighter.

‘Yeah,’ Billy said. ‘I’ve thought about leaving, I have.’ He glanced over at her, Jet saw in the corner of her eye. ‘But there was always something keeping me here.’

Jet sniffed. ‘Not realistic anyway. Life can’t be about that, about wasting time. Has to be about something bigger, doesn’t it?’

Billy shrugged, not so easy lying down. ‘I don’t know, I think it might be simpler than that.

I think life is about finding your person, your one person.

’ He paused. ‘And you better make sure that they really love you back, so they don’t just pack their bags one night and abandon you.

They have to love you back. That’s it, I think. ’

Jet looked over at Billy, hair and grass bunching, tickling her neck.

Should she just tell him about his mom? Did she owe Billy that, before the end?

But it might change things and Jet didn’t want this to change, didn’t want Billy to look at her any different, that sparkle behind his pale blue eyes.

If Jet had time, she wanted it to be like this. Just this.

‘Look.’ She pointed up at the sky, drawing a shape with the stars. ‘Do you see it? No, look this way, Billy. Yeah. That’s its eye, that’s the other one. It’s a frog, see?’

Billy laughed. ‘Of course you see a frog. You love frogs.’

‘You don’t see it?’

Billy breathed out, looked at her. ‘If it’s a frog to you, then it’s a frog to me.’

‘It’s a frog.’

She dropped her arm to the grass. Turned to smile at Billy.

‘Soooo … are you cold too?’

‘Absolutely freezing,’ he laughed, teeth chattering. ‘And I’m soaking wet.’

‘Me too. Shall we …?’

‘Yeah.’

Billy stood up, towering over her. He bent down, reached out, offered her his hand.

‘Err, Billy,’ Jet said, dragging her head up, pushing her neck into folds. ‘Wrong hand.’

She waved with the working one.

‘Shit, sorry,’ Billy hissed, switching hands.

Jet snorted, eyes finding Billy’s. He snorted too, and that fucking did it.

Jet exploded with laughter, couldn’t hold it in, rolling onto her side, ribs against the ground, dead arm somewhere beneath her.

Billy laughed too, hard, harder, weaving in and out of Jet’s whistling old-man cackle.

‘Why are we laughing?’ Billy laughed, bent double, tears in his eyes.

‘I don’t know.’ Jet struggled to speak, to breathe. ‘It’s not even funny.’

But it was, it was the funniest thing in the world and all the stars, and they laughed and they couldn’t stop.

Not when Billy found the right hand this time, pulled Jet to her feet.

Not as they stumbled away, crashing into each other, laughing too hard to walk straight.

Jet’s stomach ached with it, and she forgot about the worse one in her head.

Billy would try, swallowing the laughter, his after-sigh setting Jet off again, because it was catching, and they both had it.

Red-cheeked and snotty-nosed and scrunched-up eyes.

They walked and they laughed.

This. Just this.

Jet lay in bed, too awake, staring up at the ceiling. There were no stars here, but they weren’t far away.

She was smiling.

Her cheek hurt, just the one side she could feel, because she couldn’t stop smiling.

Couldn’t fight it, didn’t really want to try.

‘Good night, Billy,’ she called first this time, through the half-open door.

‘Good night, Jet.’