Chapter Text
As much as she was enjoying the mild autumn weather at the moment, a perfect balance of warm sun and pleasant breeze washing over her, Ruby had had enough of it. She wanted to go home; she had a lot of studying to do already, even though school had only started up again three weeks ago, as well as her daily violin practice. She checked her watch and huffed upon reading the time. Her ride was late. Again. Of course, this was partially by design, but this was an excessive amount of lateness given the circumstances. She’d been expecting five minutes, not thirty.
Oh my god, where is he . . . ? How hard is it to go around the block?!
This was the last time she was accepting a ride from him. For real this time.
She sighed again. Fuck this, she was getting a bus home. She couldn’t be waiting for him for this long. This was ridiculous.
She was just about to step off to head towards the nearest bus stop, turning to fish her bus pass out of her wallet, when she suddenly heard the familiar sound she’d been keeping her ears peeled for during the entire half hour of waiting: the sound of a surprisingly powerful V8 engine coming down the block. Turning back behind her, she watched as the car in question rounded the corner: an old-looking station wagon with tan paint, fake wood paneling, and a slight metallic rattle that came from god knows where in it. It looked for a split second like it was going to blow right by her, but the driver quickly hit the brakes when he saw her, and pulled up to the curb. A moment later, the passenger-side window rolled down all the way.
“ So . . . You wanna tell me why Temple Rodef Shalom’s youth engagement group decided to hold their meeting today at . . . the Chesterbrook Taiwanese Presbyterian Church?” Jackson asked her, peering out the passenger window, holding back a laugh at his own statement like he was the funniest thing to walk the planet.
Ugh.
She felt her eyes roll practically all the way to the back of her head as she made her way over to Jackson’s car, a 1993 Buick Roadmaster Estate, as had been hammered into her brain on repeat when it had been purchased. Having to jiggle the finicky door handle just right to open the front passenger door reminded her of its other name, as coined very quickly by her other friends: The Shitbox
(Hey, she never said it was a good name, or even an original one).
She snapped the door shut tightly, placing her messenger bag in the back. It definitely could have been in worse condition, she thought to herself, but it still wasn’t by any means a “nice” car. The tan leather seats were cracked from years of wear and tear, the wood paneling had noticeable chips and scratches, the odometer still used manually rotating numbers that were inching dangerously close to 175,000 miles driven, the air conditioning didn’t work quite as well as it should (if at all), the rear-facing bench seats were barely able to fold down all the way, there was a hefty dent in the hatchback door, and there was that mysterious rattling sound that Duncan and Jackson had, at the present, not discovered the source of. But Jackson’s reasoning for wanting the old thing, in spite of his dad suggesting a nicer (albeit still used) car, was that he “wanted to drive the gang around.”
It was certainly very forward-thinking and, dare she suggest it, kind of him to think of everyone else like that. And since it could seat up to nine people, it definitely did make shuttling the six of them to wherever they wanted to go much easier . . . and it was actually legal, unlike what they’d had to do previously (shoving four people into the back of Heathcliff’s uber-fancy, brand-new, four-door sedan and hoping no cops pulled them over en route).
But at the moment, no one else was in the car. It was just her and Jackson.
“ Took you long enough,” she told him curtly as she buckled her seat belt, making a point of not looking at him.
“Yeah, it took me ‘long enough’ because somebody decided to wait in front of the wrong place of worship. Unless you happened to discover Jesus today, and just forgot to tell me?”
“ You’re lucky we’re friends, otherwise I’d smack the shit out of you for that remark,” she told him in reply as he pulled away from the curb, beginning to make their way back to her house.
“ You’d be justified. Still, I didn’t hear an answer as to why you were waiting in front of the church,” Jackson said. She could practically see his eyebrow raise, despite the fact that she was making a conscientious effort to not look at him. “I waited for you in Rodef’s parking lot for, like, half an hour. I assumed you’d gone home earlier, since you never answered my texts.”
“ I literally told you to come around the block in my texts.”
“ First of all, that doesn’t tell me anything. Secondly, you didn’t answer me when I asked for clarification.”
“ It didn’t need clarification. It’s a pretty simple series of instructions.”
“ In case you haven’t noticed, there are multiple blocks in the vicinity that I could go around. You’re really lucky I drove the direction I chose to.”
“ Hardly.”
“ Why even bother asking me to pick you up if you’re just going to be cryptic about it?”
Ruby leaned back in the seat and huffed. “If you must know, I’m not about to risk you driving up to my synagogue blasting your embarrassing, garbage music, that I know you play to specifically piss me off, in front of all of my engagement group peers.”
Jackson started to laugh. “Oh, man, is that what this is about?”
“ Believe it or not, I don’t want you blasting Alysha Erotica tracks at full volume when you drive me around in general,” she told him flatly. “Let alone when you pick me up from, I must emphasize, my synagogue .”
“Hey, her name is Ayesha Erotica,” Jackson corrected. “Put some respect on it.”
“ I will do no such thing.”
“ You’re such a hater. Tch, you just don’t know good music when you hear it.”
“Wha — Good music?! You don’t even like her music!” Ruby found herself shouting back indignantly. She was rapidly losing another battle in the never-ending war of Jackson attempting to annoy her, she realized, but it was too late for her to de-escalate.
“Puff, what are you talking about?” he asked incredulously, him barely getting the words out due to him starting to laugh. “I’m her number one fan! I was in the top 0.1 percent of her listeners on Spotify last year!”
A tingling sensation appeared behind her ears. “Liar,” she informed him simply.
He reached over and poked her in the side of her head. “Of course. Gotta keep you on your toes,” he said, smiling at her before turning back to focus on the road ahead of him.
Agh.
“ In any case,” Ruby said after a couple seconds of silence that made her viscerally uncomfortable. “If you don’t want to have to go out of your way to pick me up, maybe don’t blast the world’s most explicit music at top volume with the windows all the way down.”
“ Y’know, you ought to answer my texts at the very least, if that’s how you’re gonna play.”
“ I ought to start refusing your rides.”
“ You won’t,” he said with a note of smugness that immediately started to piss her off all over again.
“ I will,” she retorted.
“ No, you won’t. Rodef Shalom is too far away for you to bike, and Heathcliff sucks at driving.”
“ Well, given the choice between an un-air-conditioned shitbox blasting sexually explicit music at full volume, or someone who drives five under and manages to startle me in spite of the allergies I have, I’ll fucking ride my bike if it means I’ll arrive at my destination with my sanity intact,” she told him matter-of-factly.
“ And yet, here you are,” he responded, an air of mock curiousness in his voice.
Ruby went silent, biting the inside of her cheek as an automatic stress response. She decided to look away from him and out her window. She tried to think of a witty retort to say in reply, but absolutely nothing was coming up, much to her annoyance. So she opted to keep looking out her window, like it was the most interesting thing she’d seen.
Jackson was the one to break the silence, much to her relief. “Seriously. Why won’t you let me drop you off more often? It’s a far as fuck bike ride, and you come up here regularly enough at the right time for me to do so.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “I’ve told you already. I’m not having you drop me off or pick me up at my synagogue with your music playing. I only accepted your ride today because Heathcliff’s got a dead battery and my parents are going to be out late.”
Jackson groaned. “I can’t believe you think I’d do that!” he said incredulously, like he was genuinely insulted by this notion.
The audacity.
Ruby turned and gave him what she hoped was a dirty look, and his façade dropped almost immediately.
“Okay, I will admit . . .” he told her, smiling like an idiot again. “. . . I was thinking about doing a less bad one . . .”
Of course.
“ I was thinking of using the playlist I have for Mat at one point,” he informed her.
“ You have a playlist for Matilda?”
“ Duh. What, you thought you were special in being forced to listen to bad music in my car?”
Ruby brushed off the weird pang of emotion that manifested somewhere deep in her chest upon hearing this. “What’s on hers?”
“ Nickelback, and nothing else,” he said with a wicked grin. “Man, you should have seen the look on her face when I said I had a metal playlist queued for her and then played that. Priceless.”
Ruby couldn’t help but find this funny, and she bit back a laugh picturing Matilda, probably Nickelback’s number-one hater, being forced to listen to a playlist with nothing but their songs on it.
“ You were given too much power with this car,” was her final statement on the matter, folding her arms across her chest, trying to resist laughing as hard as she possibly could, and not doing as good of a job as she could have been.
“ I agree,” he replied, grinning once again.
Jackson driving her around was, all things considered, pretty nice (when he wasn’t deliberately trying to embarrass her, anyway). Despite the age of the car, it was pretty comfortable, and Jackson was a good enough driver to not give her too much anxiety (unlike some people). And there was, of course, the fact she was with Jackson. Who was a good friend, of course.
End sentence.
“ You got any plans for the rest of the day?” he asked casually, like it was absolutely nothing to talk to her. It was almost impressive in a sense. She eyeballed him as she watched him put his cassette tape adapter into the tape deck and plug in his phone while stopped at a light. “You can ease up on the death glare, by the way. I’m gonna listen to normal music.”
He wasn’t lying there. So she didn’t say anything, beginning to answer his question.
“ Same as usual. Homework, studying, violin practice, chores. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
He nodded affirmatively at this, like it was objectively more interesting than it actually was. “Sounds fun.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “You’re allowed to say it sounds dull, you know.”
“ Psh , nah, it sounds like a good time,” he reassured, though Ruby got a feeling of slight dishonesty, which she had expected.
She moved on. “Why, what about you?”
It was at that point that Ruby noticed Jackson sit up a bit more, looking pleased.
“ I’ve got a date with Chelsea later tonight.”
Ah. Right. Of course. She’d gotten a feeling that he was going to say that, but hearing it out loud didn’t sting any less.
“ Where are you going?” she asked, examining her nail beds, even though she had no need to. She didn’t want to look at him at the moment.
“ Nowhere too fancy. We were gonna get pizza and then go bowling.”
“ Ooh, romantic. ”
“ Rude. Can’t bring her on a fancy date every weekend, or they lose their charm.”
“ Fair enough. Hope you have fun.”
“ Thanks, I will.”
Silence, the sound of Jackson’s actual, not-pissing-her-off music washing over them. His taste was definitely the most basic out of all of her friends, filled with lots of top-40 bygone hits from the 2000s and 2010s, and some newer popular tracks across lots of genres. There was lots of pop, party and clubbing hits, lots of weird electronic music from the 2000s, and some hip-hop and R&B that had charted across those decades, all upbeat. Though, he did have a couple of indie-leaning tracks thrown in for diversity, namely indie bands that were popular on social media. That’s what kind of song was playing right now. Passively listening to the lyrics revealed that the subject of the song was romance related.
Because of course that’s what she needed to be reminded of right now.
. . .
She still remembered the day last spring. Jackson had sauntered up to their usual lunch table, looking like he’d just won the lottery.
“ What’s got you so smiley?” Julio had asked, mouth full of food.
Jackson pulled a vacant chair over and sat down in it, leaning back and smiling. In spite of all the allergies she had, a result of billions of sensors programmed to detect something like this, she never could have been prepared for what came out of his mouth at that moment.
“ Guess who just got asked to the spring dance?”
The reaction was unanimous. Heathcliff choked on the bite of food in his mouth, it spilling out in a very disgusting manner, Matilda jumped up from the table, slamming on it with both of her hands, shouting,“WHAT?!” at the top of her lungs, Duncan beginning to chuckle at Matilda’s outburst, and Julio staring at Jackson in shock.
Ruby felt herself freeze, a bite of food still in her mouth.
“ No way . . .” was Julio’s comment, beginning to lean back in his chair in a perilous manner.
“ Way.”
“ Seriously??”
“ Oh yeah.”
“ Damn, never thought you had it in you,” was Heathcliff’s snide remark about the whole thing, to which he swiftly dropped under the table to avoid being hit by a crumpled napkin tossed at his head.
“ Congrats,” was Duncan’s only comment on the matter, ever supportive as usual.
“ Who is it?!” Matilda demanded to know.
Julio nodded eagerly in agreement. “Bro, who asked you out?! We gotta know!”
All eyes were on Jackson, who looked incredibly eager to talk about it.
“ Her name’s Chelsea. She’s in my chemistry class. We got partnered up for the semester, got to talking, and . . . yeah, she came up to me right before lunch and asked me if I wanted to go to the spring dance.”
If anyone was surprised or otherwise not expecting Jackson’s answer, nobody showed it, instead choosing to crowd around him as he showed them something on his phone. Presumably it was a picture of his date.
“ Oh, Chelsea Zhao? I think I know who that is. I’ve seen her around.”
“ Did you know her before she asked?”
“ Can we meet her?”
“ What did she say?! How did it happen?!”
“ Do you like her back like that?”
“ Are you, like, dating dating now?”
Ruby said nothing. She had nothing to say for the rest of the period, barely listening to Jackson recount the story of being asked out in dramatic detail and telling the details of an upcoming date to celebrate. She opted instead to hyperfocus on her food, even though she was no longer very hungry.
I should have expected this.
You knew better than that.
At some point, lunch had concluded, cutting a rambling Jackson and gossip-hungry group of mutual friends off sharply. Ruby gathered her things rapidly and was about to tear off to her next class, when a pair of blue eyes met her own as she stood up.
Fuck.
“ You’ve been awfully quiet,” he remarked casually. He didn’t sound accusatory or suspicious. Just curious. Concerned.
It was like being eaten alive from the inside.
“ Just . . . thinking about everything I need to do today,” she told him, shrugging. “A lot on my mind.”
Jackson nodded once. “Best of luck with all of it,” he said genuinely, flashing a brilliant smile at her.
In spite of feeling like she wanted to shrivel up and out of existence, she gave him what she hoped was a small smile in return.
“ Thanks. And . . . Congrats on the date, by the way.”
She’d departed without waiting for any more words out of him, her chest feeling uncomfortably tight.
. . .
“ Aw, come on, you piece of shit,” Jackson muttered, smacking the radio console with his right hand, the sound quality having suddenly dipped sharply. Ruby was jerked violently back to reality, listening to him tap on the radio. His eyebrows were together, his face scrunched up in an expression of mild annoyance. He looked cute.
Enough of this.
“ Man, I gotta talk to Duncan about helping me get this thing fixed. It’s such a vibe killer when the bass disappears from the track entirely.”
“ Would the entire thing have to be replaced?” she found herself asking. “Maybe it’s just the cassette player.”
Jackson shook his head disparagingly at the sound system. “With this old car, it could literally be anything.”
“ Maybe it’s just the adapter.” God, she was so bad with small talk.
I wonder if Chelsea is good at it.
Jackson shrugged. “God, I hope so. It’s a less expensive fix, for sure.”
She couldn’t help but smirk as a thought came to her mind. “Sounds like you should’ve listened to your dad and gotten a better car, then.”
Jackson huffed, suddenly irritated. “Hey, you’re the one that always bitched whenever we all rode in Heath’s car. ‘Ooh, this is illegal, we shouldn’t do it!’” he mocked in a piss-poor attempt at a mimicry of her. “Like we were actually ever gonna get caught.”
Ruby couldn’t help but laugh once. “Please. You did not get this just because of that, and you know it. And just because we never got pulled over doesn’t mean my point isn’t valid.”
“Oh? Then why did I get it, if you’re so all-knowing?”
“You’re not like the other guys. You’re too good for a new car, and you’re just so quirky, you just had to get the shittiest car in the lot.”
This was objectively one of the more stupid things Ruby had said during the course of her life, but Jackson snorted loudly at this regardless. “God, I should start telling people that. That’s funny.”
Ruby groaned. “Oh my god , please don’t.”
He laughed. “Come on, it’d be hilarious.”
“ It’s embarrassing enough being friends with you as is.”
“ Says you.”
Maybe she was bad at small talk, but she knew how to banter back and forth with him and make him laugh.
Clearly that wasn’t enough.
“ In all seriousness,” he said after a pause, the bass on the track crackling back to life, “That’s not a terrible suggestion.”
“ What, telling people you’re quirky?” she replied, smirking.
“ Of course,” he said, almost completely seriously. “Nah, the adapter suggestion. Though, it would suck. I just bought this thing.”
“That’s what you’re taking away from this discussion?”
“ Better that than you saying I’m embarrassing to be around. You know how to hit a guy where it hurts.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. She was pretty sure he was messing around, but just in case, she decided to reassure him. “I wasn’t being serious, you know.”
She could sense it about to happening, but she didn’t move away, feeling Jackson’s hand gently shove her head away from him. “Well, maybe I was when talking about how much of a loser you are. What then?” A look over at him revealed a teasing smirk, and she stuck her tongue out at him in reply.
If only things were easier, and could always be like it was now.
The rest of the ride was silent, except for Jackson’s music, the sound quality cutting in and out occasionally and Jackson giving it a smack sporadically in a fruitless attempt to get it to work properly. She tried not to think of the lyrics in the songs, which almost exclusively revolved around romance, love, and flirting.
Did Jackson and Chelsea listen to this music together when they went places? Did she share his taste? Could she make him laugh too? Was he as casual about touching Chelsea as he was with her, teasing her lightly with a smile on his face?
Stop it. Stop this.
They’d arrived back at her place in the blink of an eye. She didn’t want to get out, a small part of her realized as he pulled into her driveway. But, she thought to herself as she unbuckled her seatbelt and reached behind her to grab her bag, she wasn’t sure how much longer the other part of her could stand to sit in here while her mind ran through everything the two of them were doing without injecting Chelsea into her place.
You need to get a grip.
“ Thanks for the lift,” she told Jackson curtly. She was just about to shut the door when Jackson spoke up again.
“ Any time. And hey, listen, if you want to, I can help you on your new journey with Christ. Though, I’m not Presbyterian, so —”
Ruby slammed the door shut, cutting him off sharply. She flipped the bird at him as she watched him pull out, almost able to hear him laughing obnoxiously. She shook her head and sighed, but was unable to keep from cracking a smile as he waved to her as he turned out.
Why couldn’t things just be easy for her? For them?
Why did it have to be this way?
She waved back.