Chapter 153
Layla's POV
"Bro, how rich are you? Goddamn. Why haven't you bought me an actual working phone or some shit by now? Do you want me to become a gold digger or something? Is that what this is?" I said to Jessica, my eyes wide and staring at the jeep in front of me. He chuckled.
"Trust me, this thing was dirt cheap when I bought it. It couldn't even drive. Me and some friends fixed it up and made it actually functional again," he strolled over to it and patted it on its hood as if it were an old friend.
Allow me to catch you up to speed. So, Jessica convinced me to skip school and spend the day with him so that he could essentially be my chauffeur around town... I guess my company is just that good... anyways, he claimed that he wanted to give me the "full highschool-Jessica-Parker experience", and that he couldn't do that in his nice car (which also happens to currently be my car).
So, here we were, in the middle of the fking woods at a sketchy warehouse that he claimed was 'his spot' back in the day.. also known as less than a year ago. He explained that his parents would never allow him to get any of the things he wanted to because they weren't 'respectable' or 'elegant' enough, so whenever he'd buy something he knew they wouldn't approve of, he would bring it here.
From what I could see from where I was, this included some records next to an old record player, some beer, a surf board, and oh right, the fking Jeep he just so happened to have.
"Her name's Bella," he told me, and I chuckled.
"You named your car?" I asked, walking up to the passenger's side.
"Of course," he responded, hopping in the driver's seat.
It was one of those Jeeps that didn't have any top to it, or any doors- it was basically just the cage. The color was an army green, and I honestly really liked how it looked- even with the few rusted parts. Jessica usually looked so put together- per his parents- so seeing him in this warn down car with a huge smile on his face made me smile. He felt back in his element, and I could tell.
"I'm assuming you got sent to some fancy college where everyones last name is long and profound?" I asked, and he rolled his eyes in response.
"Yup.. they told us at orientation that we're expected to wear a tie to every class. A tie. I don't know what the girl equivalent to that would be but I can assure you it's torture," he complained, putting the key into the ignition and twisting.
"Oh, girls have many equivalents that we have to wear every day, anyway," I replied. He raised his eyebrows, not quite believing it but knowing better than to question me.
The engine practically roared alive, and I could help but let out a giggle. It wasn't that anything was funny, but in that moment I was so weirdly excited. I didn't even know what about, but I was.
"Are you ready?" He asked with a grin in my direction as he buckled his seat belt. I smiled back at him, genuine excitement coursing through my veins.
When he started driving, I looked around and buckled myself in. When we finally got to an actual street, I let out a happy 'woohoo' and stuck my hands up into the open air as it whooshed around me. I thought I heard him chuckle at my kid-like excitement, but I was too focused on laughing and holding down my hair to look over at him.
I had taken off the cute clothes I was planning on wearing to school... or well I guess you could say that Jessica took them off for me... and changed into a pair of Jean shorts, high-top vans, and a cropped tie-dyed hoodie. Finally looking over at Jessica, the smile remained on my face as I watched him focus on the road with a grin on his face. The jeep was stick-shift, and needless to say watching him drive it was attractive as hell.
"Tada," he said as he pulled into a parking lot. It was the ice cream place that Asmodeus always went to.
"Dude, I've been here many-a-times," I told him, and he furrowed his brows in slight confusion.
"Ohhh right.. I forgot how much of a whore for ice cream your brother is," he realized and I chuckled. "Alright, well, plan b." I let out a laugh at how fast he whipped back out of the parking lot.
One thing that I remember about my dad was that he's always get us ice cream every time we were in a bad mood. Genuinely every time. Even when he was in the hospital, he'd always ask the kind nurses to bring him some so that we could bring our own and eat some ice cream with him.
Even on his last day, a point he kept making sure to say to the world before he couldn't anymore, was that whenever we'd feel sad he wanted us to eat ice cream and that he'd be eating it with us, just in a different place. He told us to always eat enough for him, too.
Asmodeus ate way too much ice cream at first, after our dad was gone. So did little Jake, who didn't know why eating the ice cream wasn't working- why he still felt sad. Asmodeus did, though. It's because my dad wasn't there eating it with them.