soars. “And what else?”
“What do you mean?”
“Earlier, you said I am something. Besides killing you, that is.”
He thinks for a second. “Besides killing me, is there anything good left to be?” He smiles his big, cheesy smile, but I shake my head like that’s not good enough, so he says, “Okay, how about this? You’re a ‘bud of love,’ Jailbait. ‘By summer’s ripening breath.’ ‘A bud of love.’”
“Huh,” I say, satisfied, even if I have only the faintest idea what he’s talking about. He’s quoting something. A sonnet. A poem. Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson, or someone.
“Shakespeare,” he says, not waiting for me to guess and get it wrong.
I lay my cheek on his chest, and listen to his heartbeat. “Tell me more.”
He strokes the side of my cheek with his thumb. “Okay, fine. How fares thee, my JL? ‘That I ask again; For nothing can be ill, if she be well.’”
I smile, my cheek warm under the touch of his thumb. “What’s that from?”
“Guess.”
“Romeo and Juliet?”
He nods. “Very good! Butchered pretty bad, but still. Jesus, don’t you kids read at all anymore?”
I kick him playfully, and roll away from him, onto my back. “I read,” I say. “Plenty. Just not Shakespeare. Yuck. Can’t understand a word of his.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I say. “Who even needs to?”
“Everyone, Jailbait. Do you know how many modern musicians sample Shakespeare or retell his stories in song? The Beatles. Radiohead. Iron Maiden. Metallica.”
“Who?”
He shakes his head. “Okay, here’s one more your speed: Taylor Swift.”
“Does not.”
“Does too. ‘Love Story.’ Total rip-off of Romeo and Juliet. And I think a few others of hers, though I’m not really a Taylor Swift fan.”
“Oh, you’re right,” I say. “I remember the video now. You sure do know a lot about Taylor Swift for a biker dude.”
He laughs, and rests his hand on my head, his fingers tangling with my hair. On the ceiling above us, there’s an X-shaped crack. I reach up and follow it with my finger as I’ve done a hundred times before, this time taking it as a sign: X marks the spot where I’m here with Max Gordon. Just like I’m supposed to be.
“How do you know all those poems you quote?” I ask. “The plays. All the stuff in Hankins’ lit class?”
He shrugs. “Not all of it. Barely anything, really. But I will one day. I’m on a quest to read it all.”
“You are?”
He untangles his fingers, rolls onto his back, and pulls me decisively on top of him. I must look concerned, because he says, “Don’t worry, I just want to talk to you. Not do anything. But, yeah, Jailbait, I’m on a lot of quests, and, I won’t lie, you’re one of them. But in a good way. I like you. A lot. So, I want to touch you. I want to feel you. And, yes, I want to sleep with you—make love to you.” He makes a face at his words. “I want to be inside of you because I want to know every inch of you there is to know.” My stomach lurches, but he quickly adds, “Don’t worry. I don’t mean now, this second. But I’m a big boy, and you’re a big girl, right? And the things I want to do with you, they’re natural. They’re fun. I promise you that. And, it’s just skin. Fingers. Body parts. I want mine on you. In you. I want to make you feel good.”
His words take my breath away, make my cheeks burn, my heart race, and my insides melt and float away.
“I want that, too, Max,” I say, but who knows if he hears me. That last part is barely even sound.
About the whole “Jailbait” thing, Aubrey, let’s get that out of the way.
I know you thought it was crude, but he was only being funny, teasing because I was younger than him. A simple play on words.
It started because he was singing this song called “Jolene” that apparently Miley Cyrus sings. Except it’s not her song, but someone else’s, and really old. Anyway, at first he was singing it the right way, and then, instead of singing her name—Jolene—he started to sing mine, JL. “JL, JL, Jay-ay El, jay-ell”—like that, with a country twang, and he realized it sounded like “jail.”
“Hey, that’s what you are,” he had said, winking. “Jailbait. Since you keep reminding me how young and innocent you are.”
“I’m not reminding you,” I’d said. But, of course, I constantly did.
And you know the funny thing, Aubrey? Regardless