Chapter 9

As planned, Austin and I were going to go through the three music stores in town according to the one closest to where we were at the moment. After dropping Alyssa and Warren off, I surveyed the neighborhood, trying to conjure an image of the town map in my head.

I wasn't sure if it was accurate, but if I remember correctly, the closest one from where we were was that music store roughly around ten minutes away. The shop's name was Astral, and I remember going there one time with Tori when she bought a CD for her cousin's birthday.

The can of Pringles stood in the console between us. I didn't want to admit it to him, but they were slightly better than dried fruit.

"Why do you think they went to a music store?" he asked me.

I shrugged. "It was probably Idiot Two's idea."

He raised an eyebrow at the way I referred to Lewis. "Why do you think so?"

"Tori has an iPhone. Everything she wants to listen to, she can get on iTunes," I said simply. "Your cousin, however, owns Georgina, who thrives on these CDs."

"Well, what if Idiot One actually wanted a CD?"

I doubted it, so I simply shrugged. "I really don't know what's going on in that head of hers."

"You seem pretty close though."

Thinking back to that picture in the glove compartment, I replied with, "You and Lewis too."

He rolled his eyes, but there was a smile on his face. "You can kind of say that. Our..." He trailed off and I looked over at him. He cleared his throat. "Our families are really close."

That little pause was short, almost imperceptible, but it felt like something so big. I wondered what was really up with him. I wondered if it had anything to do with his family and all this little mysteries I'd seen so far.

"Lewis and I are practically brothers. We grew up together," he continued when I didn't say anything, reverting back to his normal tone. "I'm like his slightly younger but better looking brother."

If he was deliberately covering up his little slip with this cocky attitude of his, he wasn't fooling me. I could tell that he was only trying to get past the subject.

Under normal circumstances, I would have called him on it, but there was something in the way his eyes looked—guarded, wary—that made it nearly impossible for me to even question him further about it, so instead, I said, "To be honest, Lewis looks better. Way better."

"Uh, no."

"Uh, yes." I squinted in the darkness, recognizing our surroundings. "Turn left here."

I was slightly surprised when I realized we'd been talking for a while now. As opposed to how we'd been ignoring each other when the night had just started, our conversations seemed slightly less snarky now. We even had a semi-normal conversation that didn't make me want to cut off his balls.

In fact, I might have grown to hate him less, but I didn't want to acknowledge that possibility.

"You and Tori," he suddenly said, steering the topic away from him. "You seem like an unlikely pair."

"Trust me." I shook my head. "We're like the complete opposites of each other."

"So she isn't as snarky as you are?"

"I am not always snar—"

"We've been through this," he said with an exaggerated sigh, especially meant to mock me.  "And yes, you are snarky. You're snarking at me right now. See? That expression on your face can be summed up in one word. Snarky."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Snarking? That's not even a word."

"The point is," he said, "you're snarky."

I was about to say something, but he had already taken one hand off the steering wheel to point at my face.

"There. You're preparing to snark right there."

Taking a deep breath, I pointedly looked away. There was no way to win this argument over him because, honestly, I couldn't help but "snark" at him.

We were past the residential area now and we'd somehow gotten closer to the busier streets of Rivermount. There were slightly more cars here, but not as much as downtown. I looked down at my watch to check the time. It was already fifteen minutes past ten, yet we still hadn't found them.

I was beginning to wonder if this was impossible after all.

It was then that I realized we hadn't been playing anything on the stereo, so I dug through some CDs in the glove compartment and picked up the ABBA one. From my peripheral vision, I noticed him glancing at it. I looked at the CD case and turned it over, looking through the songs, and frowned.

"Don't. Even. Ask," he said just as I opened my mouth to comment on it. "Really. It physically pains me to acknowledge my cousin's liking for ABBA."

"So this really is Lewis's?"

"Don't." He sent me a withering look.  "Really. Just... don't."

Seeing his discomfort, of course, only made me smile to myself as I opened the case and took the CD out. I put the case back in the glove compartment, internally laughing as he looked over at me.

"No," he said. "No, Red."

"Yes." I put the CD on and tried not to cackle at the way his face scrunched up in misery.

"If we don't find the Idiots in any of those music stores, we could at least pick up some better CDs," he said before the first track could even play.

This was another thing bothering me. He seemed incredibly rich. It wasn't that he'd been spending a lot, but it was in the way he drew his wallet from his back pocket and fished out money with no second thoughts. Not that I was being judgmental (okay, maybe just a little bit), but I was positive that he came from a wealthy family.

Trying not to be obvious, I studied him, as if that was going to confirm my little theory.  I couldn't tell if his clothes were designer, but they didn't seem cheap either. I forced myself to look away before he could accuse me of checking him out. (Technically, I was checking him out, but not for the reasons he'd think I have.)

The last thing I needed was for him to think I was attracted to him, so I focused instead on looking out my window. After two and a half ABBA songs (which I suspected Austin secretly enjoyed), Georgina emerged into the center of the town.

"That's it, right there." I pointed at the blinking neon sign of Astral. The lights made it look more like a cheap motel from a relatively far distance.

He shifted gears and slowed down. Astral was at one corner of a four-way intersection and there were no parking lots available there, so he had to parallel park behind a pickup truck. I'd always hated parallel parking, but Austin managed to make it look easy and effortless.

We got out and locked Georgina up before wordlessly going into Astral. He pushed open the glass door and I was, for a moment, slightly surprised when he let me in first. He followed suit and let it swing shut behind us. I looked around, letting my eyes adjust to the too-bright fluorescent light inside the shop.

There was some metal music playing over the speakers. It wasn't that big of a shop, but there were three aisles that were all probably two meters long.

I didn't expect to find them here (if there was anything I'd learned so far, it was that it wasn't that easy), but I still felt a stab of disappointment when I realized that the night was far from over yet. I walked over to the counter.

A girl was working on what seemed like some Calculus homework when I walked over. She looked like a college student and was probably having summer classes. She didn't, however, seem like the type who liked metal music, but who was I to judge?

"Hi," I said as soon as I approached.

She looked up from her work and I took note of her weary green eyes. Her dark brown hair made them seem brighter. "Hey." She tried a smile but her exhaustion was obvious. "How can I help you?"

I looked over my shoulder to look at Austin, but he was already busy poring through the CD racks on each aisle. I looked back at the cashier. "I was wondering if somebody came by earlier? An Asian girl about this height"—I gestured to my shoulder with a hand—"with a guy?"

She kept her expression polite as she shook her head. She offered me an apologetic smile. "Sorry."

"Oh." I took a step back. "It's all right." I smiled at her. "Thank you."

She apologized again before focusing back on what she'd been working on.

I turned back to call Austin, but was slightly taken aback by the sight of him under the bright light. We hadn't exactly seen in each other that clearly throughout the course of the night. We always ended up in places with dim lights. Seeing him standing there, with his towering height, I was kind of surprised.

Tori and Alyssa were right. Objectively, he was kind of fucking hot.

"Hey, Red, come over here," he said without looking away from the CD he was holding.

I was sort of thankful for the fact that he hadn't caught me looking as I walked over to where he was standing. I approached with caution. "What?"

He held the CD up, the cover facing me. "What do you think of this one?"

I looked at it and my eyes immediately brightened. It was a Mayday Parade album, Monsters in the Closet, which I've actually downloaded in my phone before. "Are you going to get it?"

He smiled. "Anything but ABBA."

"You were humming along Dancing Queen," I pointed out.

"I was not."

"Dick."

"Red."

"You were humming."

"No."

I fixed him with a stare.

"Fine," he hissed. "Maybe a little."

Trying not to be obvious about being happy for making him admit that and for him getting the Mayday Parade album, I looked through the racks myself. Tori never understood how I hated anything related to romance, except songs. To be honest, I didn't either, but unless they weren't anything sappy and gag-inducing—Arctic Monkeys, All Time Low, Mayday Parade—with heavy drums and lively beats, I was okay with them.

It was something I could never explain, so I'd stopped wondering about it.

"So." I looked at him, still trying to adjust to the sight of him. His eyes flickered to the cashier before looking back at the CDs. "She said anything about the Idiots?"

"They hadn't been here." Only when I said the words did I realize how disappointed I was.

He must have picked up on it because he turned to me, looking slightly like he was trying to figure me out. I quickly looked away and picked up a random CD.

"I was wondering," he said. There was a hint of hesitance in his voice and I fought the urge to look at him, waiting for him to continue whatever he was about to say. "Why are you so intent on looking for your best friend when you can just, I dunno, go home?"

I reached for the back of my right ear—a mannerism I'd picked up over the years whenever I was in slightly uncomfortable situations—and put the CD down. "Oh."

"Well?"

Looking away from his expectant gaze, I cleared my throat and said, "I worry about her."

"Why, exactly, is there a need to worry?" He was completely focused on me now. He wasn't even pretending to look through the CDs, making me feel completely self-conscious under his calculating gaze. "She seems perfectly capable of handing herself."

"She's not," I said automatically. I winced at how sure I sounded. "I mean, she is a really strong person, but she's too... reckless. For her, getting into trouble is as easy as blinking."

He considered this silently.

I took it as an opportunity to move away from him and his intent gaze and surprisingly soft-spoken questions.

"I'll just pay for this." He raised the Mayday Parade album up and waved it slightly in the air. "Then we'll check the other music stores."

---

After leaving Astral, we headed to the next music store. It was terribly run-down and was filled with secondhand CDs and I still didn't know what the name of the store is, but I couldn't make myself care as Austin and I walked of it with slumped shoulders.

Any optimism we had left was quickly running out now that we still haven't found them at all. The possibly stoned cashier from the second music store didn't exactly help out either. He was speaking in riddles about tacos and kept laughing even though none of us was making a joke.

"All I'm asking," I said to him as I braced both hands against the counter. My glare seemed to go past his dazed expression, effectively irritating me more. "Have you seen an Asian girl about this tall and—"

Austin had to haul me away before I could punch the dude in the eye. "Let's just go."

With one last glare directed solely at Stoner Cashier, I turned and promptly walked ahead of Austin towards the door.

Austin trailed behind me as we walked back towards Georgina. I could feel both of us starting to get weary from the night and the fact that we still hadn't gotten any closer to finding them at all. The frustration was weighing down on us and sure enough, the moment we both strapped out seatbelts in, we started to lash out at each other.

"Are you sure you heard this McKenna girl right?" he said, voice clipped and considerably pissed. "What if she was just trying to get rid of you by saying that the Idiots went to a music store?"

"Look, what else are we supposed to do? I know it's not exactly fun to—"

"Run around the town without any solid clues?" he snapped.

I lifted a hand, rubbing my face with it as I tried not to let my patience run out. "I'm trying, okay? I'm just as pissed as you are and I can't be arsed to deal with your mood swings right now."

I could almost feel the charge of our argument within the car. None of us said anything as we drove towards the last music store in town, the silence occasionally broken by me when I tell him the directions.

Honestly, I was beginning to think more about this odd behavior from Tori. She never would have ditched me if she didn't have to. Unless she was planning this from the very start. I had half a mind to wonder if she'd purposely ditched me, knowing I'd be stuck with Austin, because she believed he was my "soulmate."

It could be her way of forcing me into spending time with him. If this really was her plan, there was no denying how stupid it was. How sure was she that I was going to actually look for her with Austin?

There was something I was missing here, but I couldn't exactly tell for sure what it was.

Thinking about it was giving me a headache. Dealing with Austin was mind-numbingly exhausting and searching for Tori in this wild goose chase wasn't exactly my idea of a good time.

By the time we were pulling into the parking lot of Magic 8, I was thoroughly asking myself if deciding to look for Tori had been the right idea after all.

"What's all that about?" They were the first words he'd spoken to me after the fifteen minutes we spent in silence on the way to the last music store.

I followed the direction he was looking at and noticed a small crowd of people huddled together in a small circle. "Maybe someone fell off the building, had his brains splattered all over the sidewalk."

He turned to me with a positively disgusted look. "How can you say something like that with a blank expression?"

"There's probably blood." I smiled, blinking innocently at him. "Lots of blood."

The look on his face was hilarious.

We both got out of the car and made sure Georgina was locked before walking closer to the Magic 8. Then I heard the sound of an acoustic guitar being strummed along with a deep voice singing a song I didn't recognize. I stopped just two steps from the door and looked over at the crowd.

Austin stopped just a few inches behind me and looked over as well.

"It's a street performer," he said.

I feigned a disappointed sigh, which made him eye me suspiciously. "I was really hoping to see a lot of blood."

He grunted in disgust and walked a few steps away from me, towards the crowd. "Let's check it out."

I rolled my eyes but followed suit. We fought our way into the crowd, which was easy for Austin, considering he towered over everyone. I kept up with him as we got closer to the actual performance. I stepped beside him, just to see a guy about our age with long, black hair playing the guitar while singing.

A few steps away from where he sat, his guitar case sat open with a few bills and some loose change casually tossed inside.

I looked away from it and let my gaze fall on the long-haired singer. I squinted at him. He kind of looked familiar, though his face was half-hidden in the shadow. His spot was only illuminated by the streetlight a few yards away from us. He didn't have a mic, but his voice easily carried over the crowd.

"He's really good," Austin commented beside me.

"You're only saying that because there's no blood in the sidewalk."

"No, listen. His voice is good."

"Unlike some of us."

He turned to me. "Hey, I try."

"Well, don't," I deadpanned. There was a scowl on his face, but he didn't deny it. He turned away from me and went back to watching. Austin was right about the singer's voice, though. It was good and he could actually play the guitar well, but I was getting bored.

I started to turn away, but the sudden movement must have made him look over because he caught my eye.

He definitely looked familiar. This thought made me freeze there, holding his gaze as I tried to figure where I'd seen him before.

"I think he's looking at me," Austin whispered from beside me, sounding a little creeped out.

"Idiot."

"No, really. But I don't swing that way. Really, this is—oh, wait." From my peripheral vision, I could see him looking back and forth between us. "He's looking at you."

I looked away from the familiar dude to glare at Austin. "I love how surprised you sound."

"Why would anyone choose to look at you when I'm standing right here?"

"Maybe he's staring at my perfect boobs," I said.

"Your boobs don't compare to my good-looking-ness."

"Thanks, Mr. Narcissistic."

He put up both hands in the universal sign of surrender. "Hey, I'm just being honest."

"You—"

"Reed Oakley!"

My head snapped up, and so did Austin's. Long Hair was looking at me with a wide grin. The way he looked at me, you would think we were good friends or something. Austin seemed surprised, but between both of us, I was the one who was paralyzed with shock.

"You—you know him?" he asked me.

I was shaking my head, but Long Hair was still looking at me as the crowd started talking in murmurs about the mysterious "Reed Oakley." I turned away, intent on leaving the scene before things got even weirder.

I grabbed Austin's arm. "Let's just go."

"He's looking at—"

"Reed." Long Hair's deep voice made me stop on my tracks. I looked back at him, still unsure about where I'd seen him or why he knew me. But before I could start asking questions, he already looked down at his guitar as he strummed once. He caught my eye again and smiled. "Reed, this one's for you."

"Is he—is he serenading you?" Austin asked me, just as Long Hair started to sing.

Shoot me now.