twenty-one

                                    

                                          
Isaac slammed the car door shut and shot Jared a smile over the bonnet, twirling the keys on his finger before dropping them in his jacket pocket. And suddenly he looked his usual bright self. If Jared hadn’t just spent forty-five minutes in the dark with him listening to gloomy hipster music, he might’ve missed the slight emptiness to his grin now, the way it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
                          
    “C’mon then,” said Isaac. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
                          
    “You’re literally the geekiest person I know,” Jared muttered, trying not to think about how fucking good Isaac was at appearing okay. It was like a switch had flipped from Isaac exposed to Isaac-complete-with-public-face. How many times before had he been dealing with dark-blue-CD Isaac without even realising?
                          
    “I’m awesome,” retorted Isaac, and entered Ed’s house.
                          

                          
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     Later on and slightly tipsy – not having seen Isaac since they arrived – Jared caught sight of him across the room, cheeks flushed in the heat of the house and talking to- shit. Willa. Shit fucking fuck. Isaac looked up and waved, grinning stupidly and motioning for him to come over… and then Willa was looking at him too, smiling teasingly, and he found himself gravitating towards them.
                          
    “I didn’t know you had friends like Isaac,” was what Willa greeted him with. His drink-addled mind was so not up to working out what that meant.
                          
    “I don’t,” he said. Isaac rolled his eyes.
                          
    “Yeah, you don’t. You have one friend like Isaac.” His voice turned into this stupid mock whisper and he leaned towards Jared conspiratorially. “It’s me, by the way.”
                          
     Willa was laughing. Maybe pixie was her type, thought Jared rather jealously, as a loud Katy Perry song came on the speakers. Willa herself was looking pretty hot, he had to admit, in ripped skinny jeans with a black cami and leather jacket. She grinned at him, raising one eyebrow.
                          
    “Isaac’s a shit liar,” she told him conversationally. He wondered briefly if she’d say that if she’d seen him fix that smile on his tired face like a fancy-dress mask. “And I may’ve asked him why he never called. You know, what happened to that book? So, apparently someone borrowed it?”
                          
    She smiled evilly at Jared, and he blushed, grateful for the way the darkness hid his red cheeks as he realised she knew exactly what’d happened to Isaac’s Catcher in the Rye. Isaac gave a sort of apologetic shrug.
                          
    “Willa’s horrible at extracting information,” he said, not sounding that bothered. Jared wouldn’t’ve been surprised if this was all part of Isaac’s plan. “I tried my best.”
                          
    “You tried,” agreed Willa, patting him on the shoulder in a way that was deliberately patronising. He only grinned back, and she turned her gaze back to Jared. “I find it kinda cute though, and well,” – she gave an exaggerated bat of her eyelashes – “you know how it gets me going when a guy talks J. D. Salinger to me.”
                          
   “Fuck off,” Jared grumbled, but he was still fucking blushing even as she made fun of him. Isaac threw his hands up in the air.
                          
    “I am the best wingman ever,” he sing-songed. “Now if you’d excuse me-”
                          
     He was gone before they saw Ari making his way towards them, in hot pursuit of Isaac and his dimples and his stupid schemes for helping people.