He hadn’t even called Claudia and she’d been missing for over six hours.
Scum.
After a while Claudia lapsed into silence and I glanced down to see her tearing at a piece of paper, her fingers working frantically, nervously. “It’s going to be okay,” I assured her.
She nodded but didn’t answer.
How long would it take me to drive to California? I wondered if Rick could help me commit the perfect murder.
Claudia’s phone ringing made us both jump. We held our breaths as she pulled it out of her bag. Her expression fell a little as she said, “It’s Beck. I texted him while I was waiting for you, but I thought he’d be asleep.”
“Answer it.”
She did. “Hey. Did you have a nice Christmas?” she waited and then frowned. “What? No, I’ll explain it later. I’m fine now, though, okay … no, I’m fine … Look, it was a pretty big blowout with my parents but I’m dealing … I’m here, actually. Charley picked me up at O’Hare. We’re driving back to her parents’ house … Well, because I didn’t want to disturb you … Beck, no, I’m fine … it’s nothing … Okay, I promise … yeah, I promise I’ll call you next time … I’ll tell you about it later … Yeah, my girl’s got me … I’m sure … Oh? What happened? … You’re kidding me?” I felt her wide eyes on me. “Yeah. I’ll let her know … We’ll talk later? … Yeah … You too.”
My heart was pounding as she hung up, knowing that whatever Beck had said, it had something to do with me. Claudia exhaled heavily, her long dark hair falling in front of her face. She tucked it behind her ear and I felt her eyes on me. “He’s pissed I didn’t call him to come get me.”
“Of course he is,” I muttered, beginning to lose patience with Beck’s behavior when it came to my best friend. All the caffeine, tiredness, Claudia’s shock, and the fact that I knew something had happened probably didn’t help my irritability much.
“Also … Jake broke up with Melissa the day you guys arrived back in Chicago.”
As though she’d stood on my chest instead of delivering news, I fought to breathe for a moment, my hands tightening around the steering wheel. I couldn’t speak.
“Apparently he’s been trying to contact you?”
Swallowing hard, I nodded.
“So …?”
I glanced at her expectant face and shook my head, doing my best to shove the news of Jake’s breakup and all the consequent questions to the back of my mind. “Now is not the time. You’re more important. We’re going to go home and drown your sorrows in chocolate pie. Okay?”
She continued to stare at me for a moment, her concern palpable, which was crazy considering what she’d just been through. Finally, my best friend let it drop. She nodded and settled more comfortably in the passenger seat. “Sounds good to me.”
Chapter Twenty
The overbearing nosiness, teasing, and coddling of my family helped Claudia get through the rest of the winter vacation with me in Indiana, but the hurt and confusion in the back of her beautiful eyes never quite disappeared. When she finally told Beck what happened, the guy jumped on a bus to Indiana and spent the night on my parents’ couch. To my surprise, my parents loved Beck. I’d thought he’d scare them off with his tats and his devotion to a guitar pick, but it turned out Beck was a lot like Jake. He could turn on the respectful charm in an instant.
After Beck took her for a walk around town to talk, Claudia came back with a glimmer behind her eyes. Whatever he’d said to her had her calling her parents as soon she returned. Dad was at work and Rick and Andie had gone back to Chicago, so Beck, Mom, and I sat in the sitting room pretending to ignore Claudia’s raised voice as she yelled into the phone in the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later she stepped into the sitting room with a tight smile on her face. “Well, he didn’t exactly apologize.” She shrugged but I could see the hurt she was trying to conceal. I knew by the way Beck’s fingers curled into fists that he could see that too. “But he upped my credit card allowance and offered to book me and my friends on a vacation before we return for classes.”
My mom looked horrified. “That’s … nice?”
Claudia rolled her eyes. “It’s whatever …but …” She grinned at me. “I was thinking we’ve got four days before classes begin when we get back to Edinburgh. Why don’t we all take a trip to the Highlands? I mean, we’re in Scotland and we’ve barely stepped outside Edinburgh.”
“All of us?”
I still hadn’t answered Jake’s attempts to contact me. Although I was dying to know why he broke it off with Melissa on the first day of Christmas vacation, I was also terrified to discover what he wanted from me. Confused as I was, I wasn’t sure I could handle it if he still wanted to be “just friends.” And yet I knew I wasn’t sure I could handle being anything more. The original reason for me backing off was apparently no longer an issue, but still … I was afraid to be around Jake. Me. Afraid? How crap was that?
Thus, I didn’t really want to be stuck on a minivacation with him.
Claudia nodded and hurried over to where she’d dumped her laptop. “Like a cabin or a lodge somewhere.”
Beck nodded. “I’m sure Lowe and the guys will be up for it.”
“I was thinking us, Lowe, Matt, Denver, Rowena, and Jake. I’d invite Maggie, Lauren, and Gemma, but I really don’t think we hang out enough for that not to be awkward. Plus, Maggie has a whopping big crush on Beck. It’s a little irritating to be around.”
“For who?” Beck smirked and relaxed into my dad’s armchair. “Definitely not me.”
The two of them bantered back and forth but I was too busy trying to control my racing heartbeat and the cold sweat prickling over my skin.
Okay, so I hadn’t exactly told Claudia of my plans to avoid Jake. He’d texted a couple of times since her arrival and he’d called when I didn’t reply to the texts. Claudia had been baking with my mom so she didn’t know about those, but she knew I’d been avoiding contact with him. Gauging me well on the subject, and still in turmoil over her own actual drama, she hadn’t badgered me about it.
Two hours later Claudia had found a lodge in a place called Fort William, a town on a loch about a five-hour train journey from Edinburgh. The lodge accommodated ten people and was in a place that did look beautiful and not too isolated, but I couldn’t really appreciate the beauty of it. I was too busy trying to work out ways to get out of it, even though I knew in the end, I’d go along since the whole idea had put a spark back in Claudia’s eyes.