“No, it’s not that.” A dull laugh escapes me. If only it was that. “Harper and I sort of got in an argument the other night. She took off with her brother and sister. Lucky says she went home, but wouldn’t tell me where home was. I finally got it out of Lawson yesterday. I made three trips out, but the fort her mother owns is impenetrable. I don’t know what to do short of sitting in the driveway. She may not come out for the rest of the summer.”
“And in the meantime, you self-destruct. So, what really happened? How did this dream girl of yours get so ticked she doesn’t want to speak with you? And more important, if the shoe were on the other foot, would you want to speak with you?”
“No, I wouldn’t.” I didn’t even need a minute to think about that one. “I’ll be honest, I’m not ready to talk about it. I’m in deep shit. I’ve got myself in one hot mess, and I can’t for the life of me find the exit.”
“Does any of this have to do with Janelle?” Rex asks softly as if with kid gloves. Rex has known Jen as long as I have. He knew how deep in I was, or at least I thought I was.
“It has everything to do with her. And”—a wave of nausea mixed with guilt washes over me for a moment—“I’m not ready to go there with you.” It’s still too fresh, too fucking unbelievable. Once I say it out loud, it will become real, and real is one thing I’m not ready for.
“Fair enough.” He squints out onto the field and watches the guys wrestle until they land in a heap at the twenty-yard line. “Look, I don’t want to say anything negative about your ex—especially in the event you get back together—but just know that sometimes things aren’t what they seem. Sometimes people get desperate. If Jen’s trying to reel you back in, just know she’s running on empty, as frantic as they get. People get downright dangerous if they think they’re about to lose what they really want. Desperate and dangerous is a poisonous combo. I’ll find you later tonight to check up on you, but in the meantime—tread lightly, would you?” He slaps me over the back before taking off for the field.
Tread lightly—but what I heard was watch your back.
A thought comes to me.
Maybe it’s time to manipulate the manipulator.
I text Jen and ask if she’s up for coffee, and sure enough, she answers with a gleeful hell yes.
Perfect. Meet me at Hallowed Grounds in an hour.
She texts right back. I wouldn’t miss it. I wouldn’t dare miss another moment in this life with you.
I stare down at her words a moment. I can smell the desperate and dangerous. Neither one is a good look on her.
I’m off to hit the shower, then the drugstore.
I’ve got a hot date with Janelle Wahlberg.
And if I’m lucky—it will be the last one ever.
Hallowed Grounds has always given me a natural high the second I walk through the door. The heavenly scent of slow-roasted beans lies thick in the air and hypnotizes my senses. I’ve never bothered making a single cup of coffee on my own because I could never get it to taste this great, and each and every time I’ve ever set foot in this place, it’s put a smile on my face no matter how shitty my day’s been. With the exception of today, of course. Not even the scent of great coffee makes up for the fact Harper is pissed off at me. It’s been a long, grueling week, and I’ve had about enough of this silent treatment. And, I’m hoping that this little get-together with Jen will prove to be the catalyst that ends the drought in my life. Harper is the one I’m thirsty for, the one I would give anything to be here with—but today’s shitty facts say otherwise.
I nod over to Jen, already at the pickup counter with two large iced coffees.
She trots over in her tight little black dress, her sky-high heels, and that bright orange smile that’s always eaten away at me for some reason. Now I know why. She’s spent the last half a year essentially laughing at me.
“Your favorite.” She hands me the iced mocha, and I follow her to a window seat. I know why she chose it. She wants the whole world to see us together. And as much as I cringe at the thought, I comply. If this afternoon is about anything, it’s about complying.
“So, this is like a real date?” Her lashes flutter a mile a minute, and I feel the desperate breeze.
“As real as it gets.” I stop shy of calling it a date. I can’t for the life of me verbalize it. “So let’s start from scratch. It’s been a rough year, and I’m ready for a do-over.”
“Oh my God!” Her eyes enlarge as she leans forward in her seat, that sugared innocence veiling the truth about her. “Yes! I can’t believe this.” Her hand touches her heart as if to hold it in, only a part of me doubts it was ever there to begin with. “So, you really forgive me? We can really push past all that bullshit?”
“Yes.” I close my eyes as I hiss out the word because I actually believe it. The sludge that I’ve been dragging around with me wasn’t doing me any favors. “It’s done. I forgive you.” I look right into Janelle’s eyes and mean every word. “This is a new day, and I think we’re both ready for it.”
She chokes on her next words. “I can’t believe this. We’ve overcome so much. We’ll have quite the story to tell our grandkids one day.” I flinch as if she cut me. “A story of love, of forgiveness, of redemption and caring, and it all circles right back to love. This entire mess with Justin and Harper has galvanized us.” My heart sinks because the last thing I associate Harper with is a mess. “And just because we’re off to a fresh start doesn’t mean we need to completely let go of the past. I mean, it wasn’t all bad, was it?”
My stomach turns in its own boiling juices. How do I tell a girl that I’ve spent the last two years of my life with, that someone else is a far better fit for me? Jen is acting as if I’m the great love of her life, and if that’s true, I feel sorry for her.
“It wasn’t all bad.” A deep sigh expels from me. “Your family has always been great to me.”
“Speaking of which. My father really wishes you were interning for him this summer. Maybe next summer? I know for a fact he’s gunning to retire in a few years, and he sure would like someone in the family to take over.” She bites that bottom lip of hers as if to stop herself from outright saying the obvious. Jen has always hinted for me to put a ring on it. “You’ll be able to put that business degree to good use. Once my father opens up a few more stores, he’ll start accepting franchisees. You can be head of the entire So Shoe Me empire.”
I’ve never really seen myself as the captain of the So Shoe Me empire. Trixie has made countless cracks about the name and the Wahlberg family in general. A red flag should have gone off for me two years ago when Trix was never quite on board with the two of us. Although if she never gave Harper and me her blessing, I couldn’t care less. Harper and I are happening no matter what the outcome of today’s little date is.
“It is tempting.” I lift my drink to mock toast her, and she sucks down a fourth of her coffee. “But what about your brother? He’s into the business, isn’t he?” Jen’s brother, Gerald, has always been the black sheep of the family. Not sure why her father never seemed to embrace him the way he did me.
“Are you kidding? According to my father, he’s a chronic disappointment. He’s a mathlete. You’re the athlete. He’d rather read a book. You’d rather hang out with his favorite daughter.” She gives a hard wink. That, right there, is why I’ve always been put off by her father. If I had kids, there’s no way I’d berate one just because they decided to make different life choices. My stomach sinks to my feet at the thought of kids, so I change the subject.
“So, how did it end with Justin?” There. A part of me wants to know if there’s still a snowball’s chance in hell that those two cheating, lying hearts could melt over one another and make something happen.
Jen leans in with a devilish look in her eye. “With a bang.” She lets out a raucous cackle, and just as I’m about to say something, a familiar perfume swoops between us.
I look up to find my sister good and ticked. “Hey, Trix.” Crap. Sh
e’ll either blow this, make it worse, or perhaps something so inconceivably horrible I don’t have the balls to think about.
“Having a good time, are we?” Her eyes grow wild as she inspects Jen who’s dabbing the corners of her eyes with her pinkies from laughing so hard at her own double entendre.
“Yes,” I say it defiant, glancing over at the full drink in front of Jen. “You got a problem with that?” There’s no way I’m letting my sister ruin this moment. Everything is riding on what happens next, and Trixie just isn’t a part of the plan this afternoon.
Trixie grows pale, and for a second I almost ask her to sit down before she passes out. “Are you even sane right now?” The hurt in her voice guts me. Trix and I have never been good at keeping secrets from one another. Not to mention the fact our bullshit radar is on par twenty-four seven. If she hangs out another minute, she’ll call BS on this entire charade.
“I’m sane. Why don’t you take off? We’ll have dinner.”
Jen kicks me from under the table. “You’re having dinner with me. I’ve been craving a fried chicken sandwich from the Chicken Bucket back home. I think a drive through Bel Terra is exactly what the doctor ordered.”
I blink a smile at my sister. “Guess you lost your dinner date.” I hitch my head to the door, hoping she’ll take a fucking hint. “We’ll touch base.”
“God,” Trix pants as if she’s about to be sick. “I think I liked the other bimbo better. You really do need to get your head checked out, and I’m talking about your wanker. This is some seriously disturbing shit going on right now.” She shakes her head at me. “Maybe don’t call me. I’ll call you.” She takes off without bothering to get her favorite drink, and I feel a little bad about that. But it warms me to the bone she likes Harper better. I do, too.
“So let’s relive the good parts of the past.” I lift my drink and toast Jen once again. “I’ll start.” I talk and talk and talk until I can’t stand the sound of my own voice, but I know if I let her talk she will never finish her drink and all of the energy I put into this little plot would have been for not. I talk about how we met, what I thought of her in those first moments—a stark contrast to what I thought about Harper. I thought Harper couldn’t be real, and I thought Jen was the real thing. That right there, my friend, is irony. I talk about the countless football games we’ve been a part of, about prom, about the countless shopping trips I’ve accompanied her on, the time I drove her to Florida so she could get her hair cut at some fancy studio that some celebrity she idolizes once went to. In all honesty, her hair looked the same to me even if it was five hundred dollars later.
An hour drifts by, Jen has long since finished her drink, and now I’m just buying time, shooting the breeze as if I actually had something to say.
Jen talks about everything from the color of her nails to the next car she’s about to have Daddy purchase.
“You know”—she reaches over and claps my hand in hers—“when the time is right, Daddy said he’d buy us our first home. Nothing like the hovel you’re living in now. I’m talking a home we can raise our children in.” She looks down and places her hand over her stomach. “Starting with this one.”
Crap. The world wobbles around me once again. It hasn’t stopped doing this since she let me in on her—correction—our little secret.
“I hope it’s a girl who looks exactly like you.” She sighs—momentarily forgetting the fact she has put down Trixie for years. Yes, a little girl who looks just like me would be the exact representation of my sweet sister. “I’m going to hit the little ladies’ room. Maybe we can go to the student store afterwards and pick up a little mini Whitney Briggs T-shirt?”
“Sounds like a great idea.” My gut grinds as I push the words out. “But before you go… About the baby—” I pull the box from the little brown bag I’ve hauled in with me and slide the pregnancy test across the table. The girl at the drugstore said this would read positive even if she hadn’t skipped a period yet, and according to Jen, she’s nearly skipped three. She promised me it’s mine. Not sure how she could promise me anything like that, but she shook me to my core. My head hasn’t been the same since that day. “I need you to prove it to me.”
Don’t Mess with the Girl in the Red Dress
HARPER
Whitney Briggs University is bustling with life at this, the tail end of a long, hot, exasperating summer. School starts up in two weeks—which means if I don’t score student housing, I’ll be left to scan the outskirts of campus for an apartment, and as much as I might be afraid of heights, I dread the thought of living isolated from campus just as much. I suppose I could wrangle up a roommate on short notice, but I’m two for two as far as rotten roomies go. Knox was a great roommate until he made me feel like someone who invited herself to the party. For as much as Knox made me feel loved, he made me feel that much more horrible. It’s as if a weight—as heavy as the world—was tied around my waist and I can’t stop sinking into this dark pit. I know I’m not supposed to give other people the power over my happiness and all that other psychological bullshit, but Knox made me happier than I’ve felt in years. He filled something in me I didn’t know was missing. I thought Justin came close, but he wasn’t even in the same solar system.
I make my way out of the student relations center after placing myself on the waiting list for every single dormitory on campus and scan the area. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for anymore. Am I looking for Knox in hopes he’ll find me? In hopes I can steal one more look at that hotter than hell body, that face that can set off an entire angelic choir? Or am I looking for signs of Justin so I can avoid him like a kangaroo wielding a chainsaw?
I strut my stuff over to Hallowed Grounds and turn a couple of heads in the process. In an impromptu moment of mild regret, I chose to don a tight little red dress as if to tell the universe you might steal my sanity, but you can’t steal my sense of style. It used to be that a bright dress had the power to cheer me up, but I’m quickly discovering that fabric-based placebo isn’t at all the panacea I thought it could be. I used to secretly love it when I got the attention of a boy. I used to let it inflate me unnaturally—inadvertently giving those boys more power than I should have. But the thought of them looking at me, gawking at me like some piece of meat almost makes me want to flip them off. What gives them the right to accost me with their eyes? Okay, so that’s probably taking things a bit too far.
I set foot into the coffee shop, and the scent of fresh-roasted beans automatically gives me a contact high. I swear, half the time I’m coming in for a cup of coffee, it’s just to inhale all the slow-roasted goodness this place has to offer. But today, not even the scent of all things delicious has the power to cheer me up. The truth is, I miss Knox. He was the other side of my coin, me in male skin. I’m sick that we crashed and burned the way we did. I wish I never got involved with him to begin with.
I put in my order and head to the left, waiting with the hordes of others to pick up their drinks.
“Harper?” a light voice calls out from behind. “I thought that was you!”
I spin to find Laney Capwell with her hair in a bun, sunglasses on, and she looks great per usual. She offers me a quick embrace as she whips her glasses off.
She pulls back and winces at me as if she were in pain. “Knox told us what happened.”
“Really?” I’m almost amused by this. “That’s funny because I don’t even know what happened.”
She ticks back a notch. “He said you had a blowout. He also said it was over a misunderstanding, and that you’ve been playing hard to get in the communication department.” They call her name and she steps forward to get her drink. “Look, I gotta run, but you have to promise me you won’t let another day go by without talking to that boy. He’s just sick without you! If you let it go too long, an entire year can slip by. I should know. It happened to me.” She shakes her head with a look that screams don’t follow in my footsteps. “I really hope things will work out between th
e two of you. You were the cutest darn couple I have ever seen. I’ll be across the street at the bar if you need me. Don’t be a stranger.” She hooks me into another quick embrace and whispers, “Above all, be true to yourself. I know you’ll find your way back to one another. I can feel it.”
She takes off and I’m momentarily boosted by her positive attitude, but soon enough, reality hits and I’m right back to feeling like crap.
They finally call my name and I take up my drink. No sooner do I spin around than I bump into the one person I could go a lifetime without ever seeing again.
“Oh, it’s you.” I scowl up at my ex. I used to live and die by the intervals of time when Justin and I could finally be together, and now I’m slightly repulsed by the sight of him.
“Hey, did you get a load of who’s sitting over there?” He hitches his thumb behind him and I glance back, nearly falling through the floor. It’s dizzying seeing the one you love sitting with the one they love, and it isn’t you.
“Oh my shit!” I jump just as Knox glances over, and our eyes lock. A current as heavy as the ocean travels between us—magnetically charged, electric, and maybe even fatal. It snaps and sizzles and threatens to explode the entire building to smithereens with all the sparks it’s putting off.
“What’s he doing with her?” Justin gruffs it out as if the sight pisses him off as much as it does me. “Never mind. It looks like she got her way. She always does.”
Knox winces at the two of us, then proceeds to glare over at Justin. And in a moment of insanity, I realize what I have to do.
“Come here.” My arms wrap around his back so fast that my drink nearly goes flying. I take my free hand and smash his head to mine until my lips find his, and it’s all I can do not to throw up. I’ve kissed these lips a thousand times, and never before have they repulsed me, but right now I’d rather be kissing a raccoon’s bunghole while having my eyes scratched out with its razor sharp claws. But this? This is a necessary evil. Then in a moment of spectacular, heartbreaking clarity, I realize I am kissing someone who was once my boyfriend to make someone else who was once my boyfriend jealous—a bizarre role reversal from the last few weeks, and an all-around mindfuck. I’m kissing Justin to make Knox insane when just a few short weeks ago I was kissing Knox to make Justin lose his mind. I think it’s safe to say the only person who has lost her mind is me.