*Note: Check out the AUDIOBOOK version of this chapter voiced by Kristen Maglonzo by clicking the Youtube video above! Featuring music by Landon Pigg, Jimmy Eat World, All American Rejects, Secondhand Serenade, and The Used.

Elias

Northern Lights is packed to the doors with people. 

The FroYo line's chockfull of six-foot jocks and their spray-tanned girlfriends, while the tea and coffee side of the counter is one-hundred percent hipster. 

If Alex was as high-maintenance as that Annie chick, she'd probably ditch this place for a Coffee Bean or Starbucks down in Westwood, but she's the type to stick out a mob of a line just to finish what she started.

My kinda girl.

I grab my hat out of my backpack, and pull it down over my eyes hoping to God I can do a better job at keeping a low profile today than I did twenty-four hours ago. Luckily, almost everybody in the room's too busy staring at their laptops or drowning their mid-day exhaustion in steaming cups of coffee to notice. 

I weave through what feels like a never-ending crowd of strangers, stopping every couple seconds to search for her face in a place I know I'll find it. I open my mouth to call out her name, but my voice dies out the second I realize what I'm doing.

Shit.

It hasn't even been two days, and I'm already chasing this girl all over creation even though some part of me knows I'm out of the running.

But as pissed at me as she is, I'm still gonna put everything I can into trying to turn things around. Is it desperate? 

Fuck yeah, it's desperate.

But I am desperate.

'Cause after 365 days of waiting for God to give me a second shot at seeing her again, I've finally got it.

And I'll be damned if I let her slip through my fingers a second time.

I walk over to a dude in dreadlocks sitting at a two-person table with his feet propped up on an empty chair across from him. I tap him on the shoulder, and he lifts up one of his headphones so he can hear me.

"Can I use this for a sec? I'm trying to find a friend," I say.

He nods and then goes right back into his dubstep daze. I hop up on the seat and scan the crowd for Alex, but all I see is a room full of people I don't recognize, and people who I don't want recognizing me. 

I try to pick Alex out of the crowd as fast as I can, but there's way too many people inside. You'd think a girl wearing a sexy pink-lemonade-colored outfit wouldn't be too hard to spot, but apparently neon's super popular this afternoon.

Every other girl in the room's got on hot pink shorts, shirts, or tank tops.

Screw it, I gotta get on the ground. This whole birds-eye rescue and recovery thing only works out in video games.

I wave to dread head and subtly let him know he can have his seat back, but I don't think he notices. 

Doesn't matter anyway.

I give the coffee/froyo line one last look over before I swallow the beginnings of disappointment building in my throat and hop down off the chair.

Somewhere between me hovering mid-air and hitting the floor my nuts catch on fire.

Literally.

Ball-searing pain seeps straight through my pants and hits me so hard I fuck up my landing and crash straight into the concrete.

"Watch it, moron!"

I wrench my eyes open to see Jersey standing over me with an empty coffee cup hanging loose in her hands. I stare down at the crotch of my pants only to see the steam from her drink rising up off of the scene of her crime.

I'm pretty sure she just deep fried the Little King. My shorts are stained, my boxers are soaked, and my balls are scalded to the point where I'm contemplating crying about it.

This, hands down, is one of the worst days of my life. Real talk.

"What the hell, Jersey?!"

"Rule number one: don't ever call me that again and Rule number two: stop yelling at me!"

I choke back the urge to curl into a ball and vomit all over the floor like my body's begging me to, but I opt in to keep fighting with her instead. But hey, at least we're talking.

"Well, seeing as you just poured a pot of coffee on my nuts, you're lucky I'm not calling you anything else! What are you doing? Trying to kill me?!"

I think--I just wailed at her. Okay, maybe not wailed-wailed. But I definitely made some kind of half-crying, half-shouting noise that I never wanna repeat. It'd be one thing if she was the only one who heard it, but I'm pretty sure the whole room's quiet 'cause of me.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Are---you okay?" She asks, and weirdly enough, I think she means it.

Yep.

That scream/wail definitely freaked her out.

That's two for two, Elias. Way to go, dip-shit.

I try to pull myself together and sit up on my elbows like I'm on the road to recovery, but the second I move the world starts spinning.

Not good.

"I mean, I was okay, until you mained me!" I say.

"It's maimed, moron, and I didn't. First of all, this--

She points down at the huge coffee stain spreading across my shorts and glares at me.

"--was an accident, and second, you were the one who decided to skydive off of a chair and land on me! Now sit up and shut up, before you cause more of a scene than you already are!"

She crouches down next to me and acts like she's genuinely concerned about my injuries for a few glorious seconds. Does she actually care about me? Probably not. Is her spur of the moment saint-status a by product of people watching her? Totally. Am I gonna milk it for what it's worth?

Abso-fucking-lutely.

I lean my head against her chest and moan into her conveniently low cut tank top the way I've been wanting to since she basically set me on fire.

The only problem is, when I open my mouth to start crying/groaning it doesn't come out the way I want it to. In the handful of times I've ever heard my brother cry, he's always super manly about it. He's all quiet and cool, and people genuinely feel sorry for him.

But not me.

I kinda sound like an colicky baby/pissed off cat, and now that my chestnuts are roasting over an open fire, I'm even louder than usual.

Alex cradles my head in her hands, and it's almost perfect, until Demon Jersey comes out to play. She ever so subtly slaps her hand over my mouth and squeezes her fingers together to shut me up. Not gonna lie, if I wasn't in so much pain right now I'd probably be mildly turned on by this.

"Elias Alexander King--"

The accent's back. Yep. Definite turn on.

"--if you don't calm down in the next thirty-seconds, I swear I'll walk away from this entire situation and let your fans deal with you."

A couple of flashes light up the space between us, and I snap out of my trauma just long enough to notice just how many people have their phones out. 

Shit. 

If there's one thing I don't want, it's Jersey getting caught up in any of this nonsense publicity that keeps following me around. I don't want anybody knowing who she is, or looking into how we know each other. 'Cause if they do, they'll pick apart the real story behind that book, and then they'll go after her.

I grab onto her arm as gentle as I can, and, for a split second or two, I see the real her underneath all the anger.

"Please don't leave. I gotta get outta here, Jersey, and I can't do it alone."

Her eyes waver back and forth like she's trying to read my intentions, but I don't have any. I just need her help. I just need her.

"Fine, but you have to help me get you up. Okay?"

"Okay. I'll do whatever you want, can we go now? I'm dying here."

"No you're not. And, stop making that weird screeching sound, it's freaking me out, and people are already staring at us."

"Fine, but I'm not making you any promises."

She puts a hand on my shoulder, steadies herself, and lifts me up off the ground. If this were any other situation and she was this close to me, I'd be on cloud nine, but standing up as fast as we do sets off a bout of vertigo I'm nowhere near prepared for.

I shut my eyes as the two of us walk towards the door on the opposite side of the room, and pray that when I open them again the cafe will have stopped spinning. 

I crack open an eyelid and grab for the door handle, but it rotates out of reach before I can get a hold of it. I stumble to the side and nearly knock Alex right off her feet.

"What are you doing, Elias? Walk straight!"

"I'm trying, okay? It'd be easier if this cafe wasn't so damn wobbly."

"Are you drunk?"

I really, really, don't like that question. Especially from her.

"No. I'm in a lot of pain, I'm kinda freaking out, and I'm pretty sure I need a doctor, comprende?"

Her eyes wander over my sweat slicked face and soften a little when she sees that I'm not playing games.

"Yeah, I compren--compre--whatever, I get it. Just try to keep it together until we get to the student medical center. It's a ten minute walk from here, you think you can handle that?"

She kicks open the door and muscles me outside where even more people stop what they're doing just to stare at us. Great.

"Of course I can, but could you at least give me your backpack or something so I can cover myself. I don't want the world thinking I pissed my pants 'cause of you."

A terrible smile plays at the corners of her lips when she glances over at me.

"Nope. Sorry. You'll just have to deal with their judgement. Let's go, Elias."

I look down at my feet, and I'm pretty sure my brain told them to walk, but they're not moving.

"Uh, hello? Earth to injured boy? Are we going or not?"

I suck in a breath and try to answer her, but the muscles in my neck tighten up so badly I can't speak.

"Elias? What's wrong?"

"I..I don't...I don't...know..."

Somebody else's voice comes out of my mouth. It's slow and muffled to the point where the sounds don't even make sense.

"You're fine. Everything's fine. Just breathe. We're going to get help, okay? Just focus on me."

I can't.

I'm trying to, but I can't. 

I grab on to her shoulders and try to steady myself when everything around the two of us starts spiraling. I'm gonna pass out. I feel it. Cold numbness shoots up the back of my legs and spreads out across my whole body until it paralyzes me. 

I don't want her to see this. I don't want anyone to see this, but it's too late. My head's swimming so badly I can't even see straight.

"....I need to...to...sit...down..."

Alex tightens her grip on my shoulders and stares me dead in the eye. 

"No, you don't. You need to keep moving. C'mon, just walk, you can do it."

She's wrong. My legs won't listen.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. You just feel like you can't. Now start walking, or I'll get the water polo team over there to carry you to the medical center like a princess. Is that you want?"

I think I shoot her a smile, but my mouth's so numb I'm not sure if it turns out right.

"No, I...want you."

Her eyes drop down to her shoelaces just long enough for me to catch a glimpse of the girl I knew last summer. My heart starts racing again. But this time I can't tell if it's because of the panic or how pretty she is.

"You're--not making any sense. It's probably because--"

"---you're making me nervous--"

"--you're delirious. So just s-stop talking, and focus on walking, okay? I'm missing lunch for this, Elias, so you better be grateful."

I am, Jersey.

Believe me, I am.

(Next chapter coming up this weekend!)