Page 18 of Feint

“I’ll try. You’re right. I need to move on with my life. I don’t want to sit here years from now and wonder where my life went. So, starting tonight, I’m making the decision to live my life to the fullest each and every day and to stop wasting time thinking about the past!” I exclaimed, and I meant it.

It was time to put AJ in the past. Kordell and my job at Dad’s custom shop were my future.

Jayden looked at me and smiled. “Well, I have one more thing I wanted to talk to you about tonight. Well, show you, actually.”

He reached over and opened his glove box. Sitting there was the notebook he’d had since he was in high school. The one he wouldneverlet me look inside, no matter what I tried. He grabbed it and put it in my lap. I reached down and picked it up.

“So, you’re finally going to let me look in the notebook you always kept in your car?”

I ran my fingers over the front. It had a lot of creases from the years of being opened and bent as he wrote inside. This was something I had wondered about for years now. I looked back over at Jayden, who nodded. He was watching me, almost nervous-like.

I turned my eyes back to the notebook and gently flipped it open. I started reading. Words after words scattered the edges of the pages, things crossed out, and then rewritten, and then I started getting to real verses and bars. Honestly, I was shocked. Jayden had written some pretty deep stuff. Some stuff was just silly or weird, making me giggle, to which Jayden glanced over tosee what I was reading, and I could see a smile on his lips as he kept facing the sea. But other things pulled at my heart a bit. One bit hit me hard. I knew it was about the night he had found me in the alleyway and I had some tears fall down my cheeks that I quickly wiped away.

I took my time flipping through the rest of it, then closed it. Turning toward him, I held it out. “This is seriously one of the coolest things I have ever seen, Jayden. You are totally going to kill it as a rapper. I have complete faith in you!” I nodded with my enthusiasm. I meant every word I said.

He reached back out toward the book and grabbed it. I let go, and he held it in the air above him and looked up at it.

“I’m going to be the best rapper that LA has ever seen, Rosalie. No one is going to stop me.”

As I sat there in the car with him, his eyes were so full of determination and energy. I smiled and leaned over and hugged him. And he lowered his book and chuckled and reached one arm around me and hugged me back.

“You are going to be AWESOME, Jayden! I can’t wait! Don’t forget your favorite twin sister when you are big and famous now.” I pulled back. “You know, this has been some of the most fun I’ve had in a while, Jay. Thanks for asking me to go out! I miss hanging out with you.” I smiled at him.

I really did love my brother. Before the last year of high school, we always got each other. Sometimes without even saying a word, Jayden would know that I needed a hug, or he would throw together a playlist for me to listen to. And even though, lately, we hadn’t been doing as much together, seeing that he still got me… well, it was really nice.

“It was. I know. I’m gonna work on it, all right? I’ll be at Dad’s Flywheels event. I probably won’t be racing, but I’ll be there. But it’s getting late. We should head back. Still gotta get some stuff and gas on the way.”

Jayden turned on the car again, and we made the drive to the convenience store. He started to pump gas, and I walked inside. I knew he would come in when he was done. I started browsing the aisles, looking for some good snacks, when I rounded the corner and went right smack-dab into the chest of a man whose voice I instantly recognized.

CHAPTER 8

ROSALIE

I never expectedto see the man who went simply by T today. Nope, if you’d told me that making a quick stop at a random store would lead me to meet someone fromhisworld, I would have laughed at you. But there he was, with a girl on either side of him. And he definitely recognized me because his smile grew..

“YO! I know you! You’re AJ’s girl!” T exclaimed.

I shifted on my feet uncomfortably. I glanced around for Jayden, but it looked like he was still outside, filling up the car. I gave them a small smile.

“Ummm, hi! You’re T, right?” I asked.

I awkwardly put out my hand for him to shake. Instead, he lowered his arms from the shoulders of his two girls and pulled me in for a tight hug. And I swore when he pulled away, his hands went over my ass.

“Indeed, I am. The one and only, in the flesh! So, where’bouts you and AJ been? Haven’t seen him in ages. Been meaning to track him down and talk about the winter circuit since he said he was takin’ the year off in LA to hit some other cities’ scenes up. He back yet?” T wrapped his arms around the waists of the two girls again, and they giggled, and one even kissed his cheek. “Notnow, baby girl. Daddy’s workin’. Get whatever you want, on me.” He smacked their asses, and off they went down the aisle.

Ouch, that hurt to hear. He’d messaged T. So, his number was never disconnected. He just blocked me. My face must have shown how much that bothered me because T made a small tsk sound with his lips.

I tucked my hair behind my left ear before replying, “Sorry, I don’t really know anything. We broke up before he left. So, I haven’t…” I stopped because if I kept going, I was going to open the floodgates and bawl my eyes out in front of all these people in the middle of the store. Not ideal.

He seemed to get my hint. “Ahh shit. Sorry to hear it. He don’t know what he’s missing. If you were one of my girls, ain’t no way I’d ever let you go, baby.”

He stepped closer, and then the doors opened, and Jayden walked over. He stopped on the side of us and looked between me and T before speaking.

“T, what business do you have with my sister?” His voice was passive-sounding, but his eyes were anything but.

I tugged on his sleeve.

“T was saying hi and asking if I knew how AJ was doing. I told him we broke up, and he was just saying bye. It’s fine, Jayden, really.” I didn’t want to be in the middle of some big thing. I just wanted to finish buying what I needed and go.

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