Chasing Midnight (2 page)

Um, yeah. I’ve been at Piedmont for two years now, and I’ve never seen you before. Trust me, I’d remember if I had.
(That’s what I
want
to say to him). But my mouth produces nothing while my heart jumps and pops like fizzy soda bubbles, and I step backward at his advance, continuing to focus on those long, light eyelashes framing clear green eyes.

Who is this guy?

And why is it that when boys have long eyelashes it makes it harder to look them in the eyes?

He clears his throat, blinking his fan of lashes at me. I swallow and lick my lips, wishing I wasn’t so awkward in situations like these. “Yes, I go to Piedmont,” I finally spit out like an old wad of gum.

But then the store falls quiet again—too quiet—because that one sentence is all I have. I’m brilliant that way.

I clear my throat.

“Can I help you find something?” The only thing I can think of while the cutest specimen ever to set foot in this store continues to dance in circles around me with ease, like this whole situation is no big deal to him. It probably is.

My stomach drops at the realization.

His smile gives way to a deep laugh and he ignores my question completely, sidestepping the cassette table until he’s right beside my desk. My pulse shifts into third gear. Or fourth. He’s definitely a fourth-gear kind of guy. His sense of style needs help, but with that face he can definitely pull it, whatever “it” is, off. Don’t get me wrong—he’s not James Odera or Tanner Slade, but he’s no slob, either. Cute and hunky is
cute and hunky.

“Mackenzie Love, right?”

My book slips from my hands and drops to the floor as my heart continues to race in circles like a stupid dog chasing its
tail. How’d he know my name? I look down to see if there is some sort of nametag I don’t know about pinned on my shirt. Nope. How does he know my name?

“How do you know my name?” I ask, retrieving my book from off the floor, meeting his eyes when I stand up again.

“I’ve seen you around,” he says, sort of answering my question. But what does that mean? Like, seen me around school? Around town? Around the universe? Where’s
around?
“Cale Blackburn,” he adds, introducing himself while shooting his hand at me—the most formal thing a boy my age has ever done.

I hesitate, feeling funny shaking hands with another teenager. A guy. I almost opt for a high five instead, but he seems so sincere that I can’t leave him hanging. “Nice to meet you, Cale,” I say as my hand is instantly swallowed up in his.

He lets go too soon and scans the shelves behind me. “This is one of the sweetest stores I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even realize it was here.”

Vinyl Underground is Piedmont’s one and only record store—maybe even the only one in the whole Bay Area. You’d think people would be lined up down the street just to get in, considering it’s one of the last authentic greats. I mean, this place kicks iTunes to the curb. But nope. I’m usually the only one here while everyone else listens to their iPods somewhere else. The fact that Cale Blackburn is enamored with the place makes me like him even more.

“It’s pretty decent, isn’t it?” I squeak out.

His smile inches wider, his teeth peeking out through his lips to reveal a crooked incisor right at the corner of his mouth.

Focus, Mackenzie.

“Have you worked here long?” he asks.

“Just a few months,” I say, thinking back to end of summer when my best friend, Aly, noticed a “help wanted” sign in the front window. I never really thought about getting another job in addition to my sweet lawn-mowing career, but when I found
out about the music studio with a baby grand in the back of the store, I literally tore the “help wanted” sign off the front window and tossed it in the nearest trashcan. For three days, Aly and I fought over who got to apply for the job, but she finally gave in and let me take it. That’s just Aly.

“There must be a thousand records in here,” Cale says, flipping through a dusty stack in front of him.

“Just over three thousand,” I correct him, though I feel like a dork the second I do. Who knows a detail like that?

He turns around like he’s surprised, not turned off. “No joke? Wow.”

There’s an intriguing yet low-key vibe about him. Something that puts me at ease without even trying, that makes me feel like we’ve known each other longer than just a few minutes. I’m not sure yet what it is, but I can already feel bits of my confidence resurfacing, despite the way my heart is still drumming madly against my rib cage.

“Is there something you’re looking for?” I ask him, trying to ignore my meddlesome heartbeat. “I’m supposed to help the customers . . . well, at least that’s in my job description.”

Cale tilts his head sideways, as if considering my help after all, and then he takes a few more steps toward me. I don’t know whether to retreat or meet him in the middle. I do nothing, of course. That’s my MO.

“You promise not to laugh?” he says in a hushed tone, like he’s about to reveal some deep, dark secret.

“Why would I laugh?”

“You promise?”

“Sure,” I say, bracing for something strange or embarrassing or scandalous. What could he possibly say that would make me laugh at him?

He steps even closer and clears his throat. For a second I think he’s going to whisper something in my ear, and my stomach jumps. But, no, he remains planted in his own space a foot away from me, and—after looking past me at the closed
studio door where the muffled sounds of piano lessons bore through the walls—he lets his secret fly: “I didn’t come in here for the music.”

What? “Oh.”

“I mean, I like music and all, but I mostly get my stuff online.”

Of course he does. Everyone does.

“Why are you here then?” Whoops. I don’t mean to say it so bluntly, but somehow the words just jump out of my head into the open like a runaway train. Sure enough, my face is simmering in a slurry of heat all over again. “I mean . . . ”

“No, it’s okay. Fair question. I’m here for the art, actually.”

“The art?
What art?”
I ask, noting the lack of art pretty much everywhere I look. “I hate to break it to you, but I think you’re in the wrong store.”

“Not pictures.” He shakes his head.
“Albums.
Remember when I told you not to laugh?”

“I’m not laughing. I’m just . . . I don’t know . . . What—you like looking at the album covers?”

Now it’s his turn to blush. “Guilty,” he says, his eyes darting sideways like I accused him of looking up someone’s skirt.

“Oh. Well. I guess that’s a first. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

He chuckles.

“I can still help you find whatever you’re looking for if you want. I may not know art, but I do know records.”

“I don’t doubt it. But, mostly it’s a flip-through-until-something-catches-my-eye sort of thing, if that’s okay. I have to come up with some kind of ‘alternative inspiration’ for my art midterm,” he says, making quote marks in the air. “I thought maybe a record cover might work.”

“Huh,” I say, thinking it’s a pretty decent idea depending on what album he ends up choosing. “But don’t let me catch you looking for inspiration from some sexist rock band with bikini-clad women on the cover, or I’ll have to kick you out.”

“Noted,” he says, revealing that crooked incisor of his, tucked into the corner of his smile.

I fall back into my chair as he disappears behind a shelf, and the store grows quiet again, besides the irritating/comforting sound of piano lessons in the studio behind me.

A touch of wind meanders through the store like a sigh, just barely enough to tickle the back of my neck. And an airy, dreamlike voice floats outward, hovering in the space between me and the door. “Hello.”

I jerk my head upward to find a woman with short black hair and deep brown skin standing near the front door. She’s smiling, her teeth a shade whiter than brilliant white, and when I smile back at her politely like a good employee should, she tilts her head sideways and moves toward me, like a ghost skimming across the floor. She seems to move without even
moving,
her cobalt blue dress under a black leather jacket flowing behind her like birds’ wings, not even a tired floorboard moaning at her steps. When she comes closer I can see that her hair is tipped in gold, swooping upward into a glam, spiky Mohawk—almost like the tuft of a bird.

She stops at the corner of my desk and meets my eyes again. I glance past her to the door. It’s shut, like it was never opened at all. That’s when I realize I never heard the door open or close at her arrival—almost like she flew in through the window, instead.

Like a bird.

Like she isn’t even real.

The scent of toasted hazelnuts and cinnamon swirls around her, as if she were the Autumn Queen herself. I rise to greet her, finally locking eyes with her, intimidated already. “Can I help you?”

My gaze falls from her inky black eyes down to her collarbone, where a small antique charm with the face of a clock hangs around her neck. It even has tiny clock hands. She moves, and my gaze moves up her long neck to her glossy lips as they part into an even fuller smile. “I’ll just have a look around, if
you don’t mind,” she says, her baritone voice seeped in dreams. Already I’m imagining myself curled up in bed, listening to her tell me stories filled with magic and true love.

True love.

Visions of handsome princes and glass slippers flutter around my head as she steps around the desk and disappears behind me.

“Let me know if you need anything,” I say, almost as an afterthought, while I inhale more of that nutty, delicious aroma. It floods into my lungs like an intoxicating drug. All I want to do is close my eyes and float away . . .

“Mackenzie.”

I lift my eyes to find Cale Blackburn leaning against the edge of my desk, staring down me.

When did he get there?

“Hey,” I say, trying to wake up from my delicious coma. He’s clutching a record in his hand. “Looks like you found something.”

He flips it over, revealing a black background scattered with a group of white geometric shapes all pointing inward at a lonely, single red heart.

Wait a second.

Is that . . . ?

“No way!” I snap out of my hypnosis and jump up, grabbing the record from him. “Love and Rockets!”

“You’ve heard of them?” he asks innocently, like he has no clue what the fuss is about.

“You’re kidding, right? You are aware that Love and Rockets is one of the best eighties bands
ever?
For reals—where’d you find it?”

He points his thumb at the shelf behind him marked “1980s G–L.”

How did I miss it?

“You approve of my choice, then?” he asks, still smiling. “No bikinis.”

“Yes. Definitely. Except I still might have to kick you out.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been looking for this particular album for a
really
long time.”

“I see. Well, I hate to deflate this whole thing you have going on here,” he says, waving his hands around me like he’s a magician. “But you do realize that this isn’t their last album in existence, right? You can buy this online too, you know.”

I roll my eyes, hoping to accentuate the ridiculousness of his question. “It’s not the same when you can buy the entire world with the click of a button. What
can’t
you buy online?”

All that is true, of course, and sounds hopelessly idyllic, but what I don’t say, because it’s too embarrassing to admit, is that I can’t afford to buy whatever I want whenever I get the shopping bug the way most the kids in this town can. There’s a reason I mow lawns in addition to working here. And it’s not because I look good in motor oil, either.

“Yes, I
do
know all that. But waiting for something to show up on its own is so much more magical—you know?” I say, trying to convince myself too. “Like going on a treasure hunt, or making wishes and hoping they come true. Plus, I get an employee discount. So it’s a win-win.”

“That’s your shtick, then? You’re a dreamer but a practical one?”

“That’s not so weird. Everyone makes wishes. Don’t you?”

“How old do you think I am?”

Something about the way he says it stings. Like he’s putting me down for having hope. Like he’s calling me immature. What’s wrong with dreaming a little? I have the sudden urge to point out that his T-shirt doesn’t exactly win him points for maturity, either. I mean, what does
MONEY IS LIKE MUCH
mean anyway? Instead of attacking his fashion sense, however, I decide to take the higher road and continue to defend my dreams. “Fine. Bag on my wishes. I don’t care. A girl can always dream, can’t she?”

“Yes, she can,” he says, leaving it at that.

An awkward silence hangs between us much too long until he finally stands up, clutching the record to his chest. “You don’t remember me, do you?” he says, this time without a hint of a smile anywhere near his face.

“I don’t know . . . ” I start to say, wondering what he’s talking about. Remember him?
From what?
I feel like I would have remembered him if there were actually something to remember him
from.
But I feel stupid admitting anything at this point, so I keep my mouth shut and shake my head, hoping to be vague enough to avoid any more awkwardness.

He doesn’t say anything and, in fact, it looks like he’s about to make a break for the door, so I offer up my most suggestive smile and go for charming. It works occasionally. “Since you’re such a pragmatist yourself, why don’t you find another record online and let me take this one off your hands?” I ask.

He holds onto the record tightly, apparently unfazed by my charm. No surprise there.

“Nope,” he says.

“Why not?”

“Here’s twenty,” he says, dropping two ten-dollar bills on my desk and backing away from me like he’s afraid I’ll attack as soon as he turns around. I finger the bills as he inches up the steps.

“You overpaid by more than ten bucks,” I say. “Are you trying to buy my compliance or are you just bad at math?”

He ignores me. Just opens the door with his free hand and slips outside into the stale, copper sun.