My Online Crush Swore He Wasn't the Idol, Then His Song Sang My Secrets novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not Him

The stranger says he's Jay, Jasper Larkspur's paid double, and they talk until dawn, but Brynn has traced his rental car to the lake cabin and is driving out tonight with her camera.

I read the three messages until the screen went dark.

Then I tapped it awake and read them again.

My thumb hovered over the block button.

I typed instead.

"Who is this?"

He answered in under a minute.

"The guy in row F. Seat 7. Sorry I made you lose your line."

"You didn't make me do anything."

"I watched it happen. You looked right at me and your whole face went white."

"Because you look like somebody."

"I know who I look like."

I sat cross-legged on the bed with the quilt around my shoulders.

The window was open and the orchard smelled sweet and rotten at the same time.

"Prove you're not him," I typed.

"I can't prove I'm not somebody. Nobody can."

"Then tell me who you are."

There was a long pause.

The three dots came and went twice.

"My name's Jay. I'm his double."

"His what?"

"His stand-in. His photo double. When Jasper can't be somewhere, they send me in a hat and a jacket and nobody looks too close. Airports. Hotel lobbies. Getting out of cars."

"That's a real job?"

"Every big act has one. Ask your friend with the poster."

I stared at that.

"How do you know my friend has a poster?"

"The girl on the curtain rope. She had a Northline pin on her collar and she screamed your name like a fire alarm."

I laughed out loud, alone in my room.

Then I stopped, because it was midnight and a stranger was making me laugh.

"So why are you in Millbrook, Jay?"

"After the awards show, they didn't want anybody photographing his face anywhere. Including mine. So they shipped me out of the city for the summer. I'm renting a cabin and I'm not allowed to do anything interesting."

"You went to a community play."

"That was the interesting thing. I've been here a week and it was the only light on in town."

He was right. It was.

"What did you think of it?" I typed.

"The stationmaster can't act. The lemonade is apple juice. The girl who plays Rose is the reason I stayed through intermission."

My face went hot, alone in the dark.

"You left before the curtain call."

"People were starting to look at me. I've learned to leave before that happens."

Then he asked me something nobody in Millbrook had ever asked.

"What does Rose mean? When she says she's waiting to see who gets off the train?"

I thought about it for a long time.

"She means she's not leaving," I typed. "Everybody thinks she's scared. She isn't. She just wants the world to come to her for once."

"Is that you?"

I didn't answer that one right away.

I got up and closed the window.

"I've never been past the county line," I typed. "Not once. It's eleven miles south. There's a green sign with a bullet hole in it."

"Why not?"

"My dad left in a blue truck the summer I was nine. He drove south past that sign and he never came back. I guess I figured somebody should stay."

I sent it before I could stop myself.

I had never told anyone that part. Not even Gwen.

The dots came and went for a long time.

"Thank you for telling me that," he wrote at last.

That was all. No advice. No pity.

We talked until four.

About the Juniper, and how the bank wanted to sell it for a discount store.

About peaches, and how you know one's ready by the smell at the stem.

About his job, which he said was mostly waiting in cars.

At four my alarm went off and I was already awake.

I had not slept at all.

I didn't care.

At seven I carried two crates of peaches into the Blue Plate for the pie case.

Gwen was behind the counter in her uniform, holding her phone up to the owner like evidence.

"Lena. Listen to this. Northline's label says Jasper is 'resting.' Resting! Nobody has seen him in thirteen days."

"Gwen, do famous bands have doubles?"

She blinked at me.

"Like stand-ins? Obviously. Jasper has a guy. The fan accounts found him last year. Same height, same hair. They use him for airports."

My heart did something stupid.

"Why?"

"No reason."

The bell over the door banged.

Brynn Gildersleeve came in, still wearing her Millbrook Inn name tag.

She marched straight to the counter and put her phone down on it.

"Guess what a tabloid pays for a verified Jasper Larkspur sighting?"

Nobody guessed.

"Ten thousand dollars."

Gwen's mouth fell open.

Brynn looked right at me and smiled.

"A guy checked into the Inn last week to pick up keys for a rental car. Cap, sunglasses, paid cash. I wrote down the plate. That car is parked at the lake cabin on Route 9."

The diner had gone quiet.

The owner had stopped pouring coffee.

"You're going to stalk a stranger?" I said.

"I'm going to take a picture. Of a man who's either Jasper Larkspur or nobody."

She picked up her phone.

"I'm driving out there tonight. With my good camera."

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