Josie and Jack

Josie and Jack by Kelly Braffet Page B

Book: Josie and Jack by Kelly Braffet Read Free Book Online
Authors: Kelly Braffet
Tags: Fiction
with it the clear tang of water. I envied Kevin sitting by himself in the truck bed.
    I moved Jack’s jacket around me. His scent surrounded me like an aura.
    Amy said, “So we’re all of thirteen years old, Lisa’s parents are right upstairs, and Mr. Smooth Moves in the back, there, decides that it’s time for his first makeout session and pulls her into the bathroom.”
    T-shirt said, “This is so classic.”
    “Like you’re any better, Mr. Back-Seat-of-the-Bus—during a band trip with six sets of parents in the front and everyone we know watching.”
    “All I’m saying is, I didn’t get caught.”
    Amy shook her head dismissively and turned back to me. “Anyway, so naturally Lisa’s mom comes downstairs to see if we want more chips or something like that. And she’s like, ‘Where’s Lisa?’ and we’re like, ‘Uh, we don’t know, Mrs. Nath.’ And Lisa’s in the bathroom with Kevin, listening to all this, so of course she opens the door and comes out, like, ‘I’m right here, Mom,’ like nothing’s going on. And Kevin follows her.”
    The two of them burst into laughter. I wondered who was watching the road.
    “What?” Kevin called through the sliding panel in the back window. “What’s going on?”
    They only laughed harder. They were still laughing when T-shirt pulled into a parking place in front of the coffee shop and turned the engine off. “Caught!” he said, too loudly in the sudden silence. “So caught! ”
    “I guess that pretty much did it for the party, huh?” I asked.
    “That party and every other party from now until we’re all dead,” Amy said as she climbed out of the truck after me. “Lisa still has to swear in blood, practically, just to get out of the house, and it’s three years later, for God’s sake.”
    Kevin jumped down from the tailgate. “What are you guys telling her?”
    “Oh, nothing,” T-shirt said. “Only the legend of the Bathroom Bandito.”
    Kevin blushed. “Yeah, well, I was thirteen.”
    “You were a dork,” Amy said.
    “You still are,” I said. Kevin’s eyes darted toward me, and Amy crowed with delight.
    “See,” Amy said. “She’s a smart one. She knows the score.” She threw her arm around my shoulder. “They’re all dorks, aren’t they, Josie?”
    “Not my brother.” I reached up to adjust the collar of Jack’s jacket and make Amy move her arm.
    “Jack’s cool enough,” Kevin said carefully.
    “My older sister used to see him down at Eide’s all the time,” she said. “She says he’s the coolest guy she’s ever met. Smart and funny and just awesome .”
    “Jack worked at Eide’s?” Kevin asked me as we entered the warm coffee shop.
    “For about fifteen minutes.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “It was literally about a week.”
    “What happened?”
    They had asked for a social security card and a driver’s license, and Jack had neither. “He didn’t like it,” I said shortly. T-shirt and Amy were ahead of us, following the waitress. I moved quickly to catch up.
    “Ask him if he remembers my sister,” Amy said as we slid into the booth. “Beth Furlough. She had a huge crush on him.” Amy’s words were authoritative, as if she were repeating Delphic prophecy. “She used to say that she wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be someone special, like a rock star or a secret agent. Something.”
    “Okay, we get it.” Kevin looked disgusted. “Jack Raeburn is good-looking. So is his sister. Can we drop it?”
    “I was just saying.”
    “And saying, and saying, and saying,” T-shirt said, rolling his eyes.
    She sniffed. “Not my fault if he’s the only interesting thing in town.”
    I hugged his jacket closer as the waitress came to take our order. The others ordered coffee and French fries and hot fudge sundaes. I got coffee.
    They were capable of amazing amounts of talk, those three. On and on and on they went: about Amy’s boyfriends, about T-shirt’s girlfriends, about what a drag living

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