He's So Not Worth It

I needed to see Jake.I knew it as soon as Sha

“I can’t believe you made me watch that crap,” I said. But smiled.Chloe held the glass door for the people behind us—a mother and daughter—which was who made up most of the audience for the awful movie we’d just seen. Every girl walking out was snorting and sniffling. I didn’t get it. The whole thing was about a love triangle, and at the end, one guy ends up killing the other and the girl ends up alone. What’s the point of that?I’d spent half the movie wondering if Ally would have ever made me waste my time on something like this, and the other half trying not to check out Chloe from the corner of my eye.“Are you kidding me? It was so romantic!” Chloe protested. She tugged a tissue out of her little bag, which was on the crook of her arm.“Romantic? Murder is romantic now?”We moved a little farther out onto the sidewalk so the rest of the crowd could get out. I spotted one other guy, a dude in a Valley baseball T-shirt with a weeper on his arm. We exchanged a look. I feel ya, man.“But he did it for her!” Chloe said, turning her palms up.“Great. So now he gets twenty to life and she gets to have conjugal visits with a psychopath. Sweet.”Chloe whacked me with the back of her hand, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh. I took a breath and looked up and down Orchard Avenue. It felt kind of good to be out. Like I’d just been released from a twenty-to-life sentence. The air was warm, but clear. A rare nonhumid night. At the restaurant across the street couples ate at the outdoor tables. All around us, people talked and lingered. It was like no one wanted to go home.“You want to get some ice cream or something?” Chloe asked.It was like she read my mind. She lifted her light brown hair over her shoulder, and I watched the way it fell softly back down against her skin. I had this urge to touch it, but didn’t.“Sure.”We turned and walked up the street together toward Scoops.

“Why did I have to take Orchard Avenue?” Hammond moaned, revving the engine at the corner of Walnut, like a warning to the dozen pedestrians in the crosswalk. We caught derisive looks from a middle-aged couple strolling by and I looked away. “It’s Friday night. What was I thinking?”“That some of the guys from school might see you in Gray’s classic ride?” I said.“Oh,” Hammond said with a grin, waggling his eyebrows at me. “Right.”There was an opening, finally, and he lurched ahead. He was right about Friday nights in Orchard Hill, of course. There were benefits and drawbacks to living in a town with more than fifty restaurants, a theater, and a ton of shops that stayed open late on the weekend. The benefit was, everything you wanted was within walking distance. The drawback was everyone else in Bergen County had to drive to get there.“So, did you call Jake to tell him you were coming?” Hammond asked.I looked down at my lap. “Not exactly.”He started to make the turn at the top of the Avenue, but then slammed on his brakes. My chest pressed against my seat belt and then it flung me back against the seat.“Hammond!”“What the fuck is this?” he said through his teeth.I looked up, my heart pounding. Walking across Orchard on the other side of the intersection was Jake. He looked amazing. Tan and tall and filling out that light blue T-shirt like it had been sewn just for him. I had this odd feeling in the center of my chest, like I hadn’t seen him in years, instead of weeks. He was walking with someone, and when I saw who it was, I stopped breathing.It was Chloe. Chloe with date-hair in a date-dress carrying a date-purse. And was it just me, or had their hands just grazed?“Drive,” I said.“What? They’ll see us.”“Just make the turn. Go! Before someone honks at you!” I felt like I was going to hurl. “Go!”Hammond cursed under his breath and hit the gas. He almost ran over a Lhasa apso and its owner, but swerved at the last second. I raised an apologetic hand and Hammond gu