Jace truly didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life; he only knew he didn’t want to do it in Stratton. Some kind of job that allowed him to travel, even as a big rig driver, was better than smothering slowly to death in Smalltown, USA. The only thing that came immediately to mind was working on a cruise ship, but Jace didn’t think he could be cooped up on a boat for four months a year.
Too bad he couldn’t buy a car, climb in, write about the places he traveled to, and have someone actually pay him for the articles. Did people do that? Buy stories written by nobodies about the places they went to? He didn’t know. He liked to write essays and generally got good grades in English. Maybe he should start small and make a blog first, before jumping into the deep end of the pool. Maybe Gavin could go with him and sketch a few places so he’d have something more interesting on a blog than words alone.
The idea of them traveling together, working together, made Jace grin.
“Hey, Jace,” Rachel said from somewhere behind him. “Look who accepted my invite.”
Jace pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against and turned. He faltered at the sight of his Temple roommate, Ben Sanders, standing next to his sister. He and Ben always got along, and they respected each other’s privacy, but they weren’t best buds, and he hadn’t even known that Ben and Rachel were friends. “You invited him?” he asked dumbly.
“Well, sure.” Rachel’s look clearly said he was an idiot. “We talked yesterday, and he said he’d be up this way visiting family over New Year’s. I said he could stop by if he wanted to hang.”
While there was nothing technically wrong with anything Rachel had said, Jace stayed stuck on we talked yesterday. Why and about what? They were standing at a respectful distance from each other, sharing no conspiratorial looks, so he didn’t think they were secretly dating. Rachel hadn’t been interested in dating anyone since the spring. And Rachel dating Ben would be some sort of horrific, cosmic joke considering Jordan was—
“Ben, this is Jace’s friend Gavin,” Rachel said, introducing the warm body that had come up behind Jace. “Jace and Ben are roommates at Temple.”
Jace bit back an instinctive “were”. He hadn’t made an official decision about not going back to school, and he’d rather avoid the drama tonight.
“How you doin’, man?” Gavin said, extending his hand past Jace’s shoulder.
Ben shook it. “Good. Cute town.”
“He’s from Pittsburgh,” Rachel said, like it explained everything.
The conversation was a little too surreal for Jace, and he was contemplating a discreet exit strategy when a new voice stopped him cold.
“There you are.”
Every muscle in Jace’s body pulled taut, including his lungs, and he stopped breathing in the middle of the living room. Jordan Burns stepped up behind Ben, and everyone else at the party melted away when he met Jace’s eyes. Utter lack of surprise danced behind Jordan’s superior smirk—not the “I’m good looking and we both know it” smirk that he used to see when he looked at Jordan, but a brand new, just for Jace, “I own your ass and we both know it” smirk.
People were talking around him, maybe even to him, but Jace wasn’t listening. He couldn’t hear anything over the dull roar in his ears, the anger and fear that battled inside of him, and the intense need to flee. To put distance between himself and Jordan before something terrible happened. Before Jace said something that ruined himself and Rachel. Before Gavin saw him for the coward he was.
Someone, maybe Gavin, gave his shoulder a gentle shake. The skin on the back of his neck crawled. He had to get out of the room. He mumbled something, an apology or excuse, he didn’t know the words. He only knew that he needed to go.
Gavin stared in the direction Jace had gone, utterly dumbfounded by the sudden departure—or the way he’d reacted to Jordan’s appearance at the party. Ben introduced Jordan as his cousin from Philly, who occasionally hung out with him on and off campus. All that told Gavin was that Jordan and Jace had probably met before. And the black-haired kid seemed unthreatening enough, even if he’d looked at Jace like he wanted to take a bite out of him—and not necessarily in a sexy way. It was unsettling.
Ben and Rachel gave each other blank stares. Jordan looked way too innocent.
It hit Gavin in the chest like a hammer: Jordan and Jace had a history.
“Well, that was weird,” Rachel said.
“When you gotta go, you gotta go,” Jordan said in an annoying deadpan.
“Is that what he said? I couldn’t hear him.”