Pride

  “Oh, we’ve gotten to know each other really well these last few days,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Powell. “We’ve gotten very close.”

  “I should go,” Reed said, disengaging himself. He pocketed the money Harper had given him for the pizza and took a step backward.

  What’s wrong with him? Kaia thought angrily. Can’t he see that I’m throwing myself at him? What is this, performance anxiety? He’s only into me when we’re in some freakish, secluded spot all by ourselves?

  She shivered at the memory. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t think of those nights again.

  Focus, she reminded herself. And don’t let him go.

  “Reed,” she called sweetly, and he turned around again to face her. “You forgot your tip.”

  She stepped toward him and gave him a soft, chaste kiss on the lips.

  Behind her, she heard a gasp. And knew without looking that it wasn’t Harper. Perfect.

  Then Reed put his arms around her and pulled her closer, and their chaste kiss turned into something else. Long, deep, his fingers crawling down her back, their bodies fusing—and then it was over.

  Reed walked away, into the shadows, and Kaia watched him go. Watched long after his figure had disappeared.

  Eventually, behind her, Jack Powell cleared his throat.

  Kaia had almost forgotten he was there.

  chapter

  9

  “Come on, Kane, where are we going?” Beth peered out the window at the desert landscape speeding by as if the bumpy, arid land on either side would offer some kind of clue. But there was nothing out there but scraggly Joshua trees, distant hills, and the occasional billboard for an XXX strip club a mere fifty miles away.

  “How many times have you asked me that?” Kane asked, glancing over at her with bemusement and then turning back to the road.

  Counting this morning, when he’d begged her to ditch her applications for the day and take a road trip? Counting the hour in the grocery store buying water and picnic preparations, and then the hour and a half on the road?

  “About thirty,” she guessed, blushing.

  “Add another zero and you’ll be closer,” Kane said, shaking his head. “And what have I told you each and every time?”

  “‘It’s a surprise,’” she quoted dutifully.

  “So? Can’t you come up with a new question?”

  “Okay.” Beth smiled mischievously. “Are we there yet?”

  As the sound of laughter filled the car, Beth leaned her head back against the leather seat and closed her eyes. Maybe Kane was right and she should just relax, see where the day took them. She’d never been very good with surprises—but, thanks to Kane, she was learning.

  “Patience,” Kane counseled. “All good things come to those who wait. At least …” he put his hand on her leg and began rubbing her inner thigh. “You did.”

  Powell’s apartment was worth about what he was paying for it. Which meant it was slightly cozier than a soggy cardboard box, with better insulation. The rusted aluminum siding covering the face of the house was slathered with peeling grayish-yellow paint—and the inside wasn’t much more appealing. Powell’s tiny monthly rent check paid for a bedroom about twice the size of his bed, a bathroom (leaky shower, no tub), and a living room-dining room-entry hall-kitchenette area that offered slightly more elbow room than the front seat of a car.

  In only a few short weeks, Kaia had memorized the shape and position of every water stain on the avocado green wallpaper, and every crack in the vomit-colored ceiling. The only thing she wasn’t sick of yet was the view, and that was only because she’d never seen it—Powell made her stay away from the windows.

  Or, at least, he had in the past. Lying back on his bed and watching him pace angrily back and forth across the small room, Kaia could almost feel the balance of power shifting in her direction.

  “A pizza boy, Kaia?”

  He couldn’t get over it. Not just the idea of her in someone else’s arms, but the idea that he’d been sharing her with a delivery boy, of all people. Powell was a snob at heart. It was something they had in common.

  “A ski bunny, Jack?”

  “So this is revenge, then? A little juvenile, don’t you think?”

  Kaia just shrugged. “Not everything I do is about you,” she pointed out. “Sometimes I like to have a little fun.”

  “I told you, no high school boys,” Powell snapped. “We agreed on that at the outset.”

  Kaia sat up and leaned forward, and in spite of himself, Powell’s eyes followed her cleavage.

  “You want me to go?” she asked, pretending to gather her belongings. “Fine with me.”

  “I suppose”—Powell sat down beside her—“I could be persuaded to give you a second chance.” He began kneading his hands against her bare shoulders, exploring the contours of her neck, her back. “Provided you give up your pizza boy.”

  “And you?” Kaia asked, walking her fingers lightly up his bare arm. “Will you be giving up Snow White?”

  “That wasn’t part of our deal,” Powell said.

  Kaia slowly unbuttoned her shirt, revealing a lacy red bra. “New deal. You play, I play.”

  “I don’t like to share,” Powell said in a low, dangerous voice. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and squeezed tight. Almost too tight.

  “What a coincidence,” Kaia whispered, leaning her head back against him so that her lips were nearly pressed against his face. “Neither do I.”

  Harper didn’t believe in failure. So when her parents took off for a day of antiquing (read: spending too much for other people’s discarded clutter at roadside flea markets), she was ready. Without a job to stand in her way, she had all the time in the world to set things up—and when Adam finally showed up, she knew he’d be blown away.

  “Uh, Harper?” he asked, hesitating in her doorway. “What’s going on?”

  “Do you like it?” she asked eagerly, stepping aside so he could get the full view. “I did it for you. Well … for us.”

  “It’s, uh … wow.”

  With only a few hours of hard work (Harper’s least favorite kind), the living room had been transformed into a winter wonderland. The electric fireplace roared and crackled as if it held a real pile of logs, the walls were dotted with crudely cut paper snowflakes, and Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” blared from the stereo. (Good thing her parents were addicted to cheesy holiday music—they had a whole shelf of this crap.)

  “But … why?” Adam asked as Harper guided him to a couch piled high with blankets. She’d turned the air conditioner on full blast, and offered him a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

  “I thought we were just hanging out, Harper—you know, low-key After last night at the game—”

  “Oh, don’t think about that,” Harper said quickly, ruffling his hair. The last thing he needed now was to dwell on his inadequacy.

  “I thought we could both use a little treat,” Harper explained. “After all, the ski trip”—how to put it delicately?—“didn’t really go as planned. So I thought we could have a do-over.’”

  “A ‘do-over’?”

  “You remember, when we used to play four-square in the driveway, and you’d try to cheat—”

  “I never cheated,” he protested indignantly.

  “Whatever you say,” she said, leaning against him. “Anyway, if something, or someone, interrupted normal play, we’d just forget it ever happened and start that turn all over again. A do-over.”

  “Have I ever told you you’re adorable?” Adam asked, and she knew she had him.

  “Not nearly enough.”

  It was the romantic getaway from hell. Or rather, to hell, if hell was anything like the dark, cluttered space with half-empty pizza boxes dotting the floor, also known as Kane’s brother’s apartment. Aaron Geary and a few of his friends sat around the room on makeshift chairs—mostly milk crates and rusty lawn furniture—while Kane and Beth shared a sagging beanbag that was leaking
tiny white plastic beads all over the floor.

  What more could a girl ask for?

  “No thanks,” she said firmly as a giant bong—the first she’d ever seen in person—was again passed around the circle. Beth had been trying all afternoon to breathe shallowly so as to ingest as little of the pot fumes as possible. Still, the smoke was giving her a raging headache. And her patience was wearing thin.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” she hissed at Kane, who was bopping his head along to the Jimmy Buffett sound track—on an endless loop—totally oblivious to her discomfort.

  She pulled him up off the beanbag chair and led him down a dark hallway into Aaron’s bedroom.

  “Have fun, lovebirds!” Aaron shouted. “I just changed the sheets!”

  What luck.

  Beth grimaced and tried not to touch anything in the room—a thick layer of dust covered everything, from the rickety futon to the dilapidated dresser. A few empty vodka bottles served as the only decoration.

  “Having a good time, babe?” Kane asked, leaning in to her. Unsteady on his feet from an afternoon overflowing with beer and pot, he almost toppled over.

  Beth recoiled from his touch and turned her head away from his foul pot breath. “No, I’m not having fun,” she informed him testily. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “What do you mean?” Kane sat down on the futon and tried, unsuccessfully, to pull her down onto his lap. “It’s a road trip—it was supposed to be fun.”

  “Kane, you dragged me out here into the middle of nowhere to waste the day in your brother’s pit of an apartment with his burnout friends. How, exactly, was that supposed to be fun?”

  “Lighten up, Manning—do you always have to be so uptight?”

  From the look in his bloodshot eyes, she could tell that it had just slipped out—but she could also tell that he’d meant it.

  Kane stood and tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away.

  “I’m leaving,” Beth said, with as much dignity as she could muster. “It’s obvious you’ll have more fun without me.” She meant it to sound cruel, angry—but maybe it was true. Maybe she was uptight. Hadn’t Adam always implied as much, even if he’d never come right out and said it? Why couldn’t she just hang out and enjoy herself for a few hours, turn her brain off, relax?

  “Beth, wait,” he begged, grabbing her arms and pulling her toward him. “Don’t—I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

  “I didn’t. I love spending time with you. Of course you’re fun.”

  “Yeah, right.” Kane was a champion sweet-talker, but it was going to take more than charisma to fix this.

  “Look, to be honest, I knew this wasn’t your thing,” he finally admitted, sitting down again. “You can go, if you want. I wouldn’t blame you. I never should have brought you out here.”

  It wasn’t the words so much as the uncharacteristic note of sincerity—and, more than that, vulnerability—that gave her pause. Made her stay. She sat down beside him. “So why did you bring me here?”

  He looked down at his hands, which were playing aimlessly with the fraying edge of his brother’s comforter. “It’s stupid.”

  “Too bad,” she said, relishing the rare sensation of having control over the conversation. “What’s going on?”

  “I just … wanted you to meet my brother,” Kane mumbled. “I wanted to show you off to him,” he added, putting an arm around her. Beth didn’t resist. “To show him …” His voice drifted off.

  “What?” Beth asked gently. She took his hand.

  “You’re the first girl I’ve ever introduced to my family. I’m … proud of myself, I guess you could say, for dating such an amazing girl. That someone like you would be with me.”

  “Kane …”

  “I sound like a total loser.”

  “No!” she protested. It was possibly the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her—and to think she’d almost walked out before giving him a chance. It was just like her, Beth berated herself—always judging, always planning, never willing to take things at face value, to just relax into the moment. The only good news was that it was never too late to change.

  “We should get back out there,” Kane suggested, obviously embarrassed.

  “What’s your hurry?” Beth asked, pulling him toward her into a kiss. Suddenly she didn’t care about the dirty comforter or the sagging futon, the spiderwebs in the corner of the room or the deadbeats eavesdropping on the other side of the door. She only cared about Kane—and she was ready to show him just how much.

  Adam tried to remember what the Web site had cautioned him about calming down, releasing his stress.

  Relax, he told himself. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy Harper.

  So he tried. He kissed her, rubbed her back, closed his eyes, and pulled off her shirt. She was beautiful, she had an amazing body—but it just wasn’t … it just wasn’t happening. The whole thing felt so fake and scripted: put this hand here, that hand there, think sexy thoughts. And the damn Christmas music in the background wasn’t helping.

  “Mmm, Adam, I love the smell of your hair,” Harper mumbled, her face buried in his neck.

  It was the same thing Beth always used to say.

  And that was all it took—her face, unbidden, swam up in his mind’s eye, smiling mockingly at him. And there was Kane, suddenly next to her, kissing her, both of them laughing at Adam, at his stupidity, his weakness. His inadequacy.

  Get out of my head, he wanted to scream, feeling like the walls were closing in. He hadn’t slept the night before, going over and over the game in his head, seeing Kane’s face as he scored the winning shot while Adam rode the bench. All he’d wanted to do today was get away, forget all his problems. But here was Harper, pushing him, reminding him of everything he couldn’t do, couldn’t be … it was all too much—

  “Stop!” he finally said harshly, pushing her away, feeling like his head was going to explode.

  “What is it?” she asked, lightly touching his cheek. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s all this, this shit,” Adam said, throwing wide his arms to encompass the decorations, the music, all of it. “This is the last thing I want to think about, Harper—I thought we agreed to just forget that night ever happened. And then you go and throw it in my face?”

  “I just thought, if we tried again….”

  He wasn’t angry at her, he knew that. But he was too ashamed to admit it—too ashamed to admit that he’d failed her once again. What kind of teenage guy was he? Where were all those raging hormones when you needed them? Instead, here he was, stuck with a horny girlfriend, lukewarm hot chocolate, and a limp dick.

  “I have to go,” he said quickly—and it was, suddenly, a physical need not to be there anymore, not to have her look at him with those pitying eyes. He was too proud to accept her pity—and too terrified of what would happen when her pity turned to scorn. What if, after a few days of this, a week, she got sick of it? Of him? What if she told her friends?

  This is Harper, he reminded himself. You can trust her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. But he couldn’t touch her. “I really am. I’m not mad. I’m just—” He stood up and backed away. “I just need to go. I’ll call you.”

  He was out the door before she could say anything.

  True, it was Harper, and he could trust her more than anyone—but how much was that?

  After Beth, after Kane, he wasn’t sure he believed in trust anymore. And if betrayal was inevitable, maybe it was just better to be alone.

  She’d bought it. He’d known the family card was just the right one to play—and once again, his instincts had proven infallible. Poor Kane, so reluctant to open up, so eager to show off his beloved girl to his beloved brother. All they’d done in Aaron’s room was kiss, but Kane wondered. If only he’d thought of the teary-eyed routine back on the ski trip, when they’d had a room to themselves
and all the time in the world.

  And yet—it hadn’t been a total He, had it? Why else had he brought Beth along on this little excursion, knowing ahead of time it would likely be more trouble than it was worth. Wasn’t he trying to show her off to his brother, prove that Kane had managed to get something Aaron never had?

  Kane shrugged it off—he didn’t care to plumb the depths of his subconscious. Leave that to the ladies.

  “We can take off in a minute,” he whispered to her. She was pretending to be deeply engrossed in his brother’s explanation of the differing merits of Grand Theft Auto and Gran Turismo 4. What a girl.

  She nodded slightly, and Kane patted her on the shoulder before standing up and catching the eye of one of the guys across the room—a lanky, scraggly haired college dropout who went only by the name of “C.” He jerked his head slightly toward the door and headed outside, knowing C would follow. Time to accomplish what he’d come for.

  “Yo, Kane, good to see you,” C said in a raspy voice, once they were alone. He bumped fists with Kane, then frowned. “I’m just sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kane had, after much thought, come up with the perfect present for Beth—something to make their New Year’s Eve a night neither would soon forget. And C had promised that, as always, he’d be able to hook Kane up.

  “Man, sorry, I thought I had enough, but you know how it is.”

  “No, I don’t know how it is. You couldn’t tell me this before I drove all the way up here?”

  “Forgot.” C shrugged. “What can you do?”

  “You’ve got nothing?” Kane asked in frustration. “Absolutely nothing?”

  “Well”—C’s mouth widened into a rat-like grin—“you gotta keep a little something, just in case.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “No way, man, that’s my emergency supply.”

  “Double the usual price,” Kane suggested. This was an emergency.

  “No deal. It’s not about the money, bro. It’s not for sale.”