Page 39 of The Music of Us
I decided to ignore all three and chalk them up to temporary insanity due to a jingle ball concussion.
Jake gave me a worried look as I reached up to rub my forehead. “Are you—”
Amber let out a high-pitched shriek. Jake and I froze.
Amber clamped both hands over her mouth, then looked over her shoulder and down the hall toward what I assumed were concerned-looking customers.
“Sorry!” she shouted to them. Eyes wide as saucers, her head swiveled between them and Jake. “I—er—saw a mouse!”
A gasp could be heard down the hall. I winced. “Not the kind of thing you want to tell café customers.”
“A toy mouse!” Amber corrected, her voice going up a notch. “Don’t panic, it’s just one of the cat toys! The ones we have here looksorealistic!”
Jake glanced at me. “The pink polka-dotted ones?”
Unable to help it, I breathed out a laugh. The sound caught Amber’s attention, and her eyes somehow got even bigger onceshe took a better look at Jake and me. Why did she seem so shocked at—
Right. Jake was still caging me in.
I cleared my throat. “Jake?”
“Yeah?” he questioned, glancing down at me. “What—?” He seemed to suddenly realize how, if I angled my chin upward just slightly, we’d be kissing. “Oh.”
He quickly let go of the shelves, righting himself so fast he fell into me again, our limbs entwining in a tangled mess.
“Sorry,” he mumbled as the warmth of his arms pulled away.
Amber watched our interaction with fascination, before looking at me and asking, “I thought you were mad at him?”
Wonderful time to bring that up, Amber.
“I mean, every time ‘Lovely, Aren’t Ya’ comes on my playlist, you’re all like...” Amber effected a falsetto, which did not sound like me at all, thank you very much. “Ugh, hearing Jake’s verses makes me want to grab the closest item and stuff it in my ears so I don’t have to hear him. Amber, please hand me that croissant—”
“I did not say that,” I argued as Jake sent me a look. “I swear I didn’t!”
“And now you’re hiding in a pantry with him to—” Amber gestured vaguely about the position we’d fallen into. “Make out?”
I choked on air. “Excuse me?”
Jake frowned. “I’d never make out with Lucy in a kitty supply pantry.”
Amber’s eyebrows went up. “But you’d make out with her somewhere else?”
I choked on air a second time. “We weren’t meeting up forthat. Jake needed to talk to his manager about helping the café.”
“Oh!” Amber’s eyes widened. “Really? You’re going to help?”
Jake’s eyes met mine and held my gaze. I sent him a silent plea.
“Yeah,” he said, after a moment. He nodded, never breaking our eye contact. “I’ll try.”
Chapter Nine
“US is not breaking up,” Usual Suspects manager, Marie Glenn, assured worried fans after rumors of a fight within the band circulated. “The boys all love each other and hope to perform together for years to come. They’re such pros onstage that sometimes it can be hard to remember they’re still teenagers,” she reminded everyone before quipping, “and sometimes I feel more like a tired mom of four boys than a band manager.”
—What’s POPpin
After the pantry incident, Jake went to get reacquainted with the cat room while I stuck the jingle balls onto a lower shelf, not wanting to risk them raining down on me if I ended up in the pantry with Jake again.
