Ripped

  He’s handed a towel, which he drags over his built chest as he shakes his head, raking his fingers through the beautiful buzz of hair on his scalp as he tries to get all the shit off his head. His silence and the thoughtful lines on his face render me beyond nervous and edgy.

  Fuck, I don’t like that he’s taking control of things now.

  I don’t like the effect he has on me.

  The ways he could torture me.

  The power he has over me, knowing how I’m privately afraid of my own mother—he’ll fucking know I will do anything to keep her from finding out.

  As he’s about to speak again, Lionel says, “Kenna, a word.”

  Mackenna heads over to him, the twins joining the little circle. The twins look like Vikings, and Mackenna a pirate who steals and deflowers girls like me. I can feel them watching us as they speak. Mackenna trails his eyes over my body as he listens. He doesn’t even seem to realize how blatantly he’s checking me out. Checking me from the top of my pink-streaked hair down to my badass boots.

  Finally, he looks into my eyes, narrows his own, and shakes his head angrily. “No fucking way.”

  “Yes fucking way,” Lionel counters.

  Sighing over his front man’s stubbornness—which is a palpable thing, as big as an elephant in the room—Lionel ushers out the Vikings and the pirate, the door slamming shut behind a cursing Mackenna.

  Melanie and I remain there for what feels like forever, exchanging a what-the-fuck glance.

  The two guards stay in the room, watching us—watching me, especially—while little pieces of tomato slide down my face.

  I want to punch something.

  Something with gray eyes and a buzz cut.

  Mackenna returns and grabs the towel again, the rest of the guys shuffling in behind him. “Just let her apologize to us and clean up her mess, then she can go.” He lifts the towel in the air and signals at me to come over, curling his finger in a mocking way.

  “Fuck. You,” I breathe, suddenly seething.

  “Mackenna,” one of the guys groans, laughing in an Are you fucking kidding me? She’s got you this worked up? way.

  “You two look like nice girls. Well, at least one of you does.” Lionel smiles benignly at Melanie, then takes in my Angelina Jolie attire before scowling and adding, “Look, we can put you both in jail. Even a day can haunt you. Is that what you want?”

  “Pan, don’t even listen. Grey will make sure—”

  “No, Melanie, this is my problem.” I shake my head stubbornly. It’s not like her boyfriend and I get along that well anyway. Hell, I’m not on good terms with any man, so fuck that. I don’t need rescuing. I’d rather stew in jail for a couple of nights. At least before my mother officially kills me.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” the twin with the tattoo says—Jax, I think. “Just tell her the deets, Leo.”

  “No, thanks,” I interrupt before they can even say what they want. “I’d rather do jail time than do him.”

  A muscle works angrily in the back of Mackenna’s jaw as he slowly crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s assuming you could turn me on.”

  “Kenna, shut up,” Lionel growls, then he turns to me again. “We’re currently filming for the Crack Bikini movie. Did you know?”

  “The whole world knows. I’m just glad you’re not filming now.”

  “We were filming during your little shenanigan.” He gestures at Mackenna’s ripped chest. “We’re wrapping up at Madison Square Garden, and now that your existence has been revealed . . .” He looks accusingly at Mackenna, then at me. “Now that we know that there is, in fact, a human Pandora whom our lead may have based his lyrics on, we want you in the movie.”

  “She’s not going within an inch of those cameras,” Mackenna grits out as he charges toward the door.

  “Jones, listen to me. This is brilliant. People will eat this up with a fucking spoon!”

  Mackenna angrily swings the door open. “I’m not interested, so you might as well leave her out of this.”

  “Like you left me out of your stupid song, huh, jackass?” I suddenly explode. “And I’m not interested either!”

  “I’ll pay you enough to interest you,” Lionel calmly tells me.

  Mackenna stops at the threshold, and that glittering serial-killer look in his eyes makes me want to agree just to spite him. God, I hate him. So much so that I feel spikes in my stomach from my rage. But it doesn’t feel like his glower is for me. It almost feels as if it’s for his manager.

  Who continues on with building his case. “Look, you two can fight or not, I don’t care. All I care about is that at the final concert, when Crack Bikini performs, you two will be up there and you’ll kiss in tribute to our number one hit—‘Pandora’s Kiss.’ ”

  Mackenna laughs, the sound making me feel like someone just crawled over my fucking grave. All the little hairs on my arms are standing on end.

  “Lionel, we’ve got this. We don’t need her. The fans want us, not her.” He points at me, then runs his hand all the way through his head to the back of his neck in sheer frustration. Then he storms out through the door, calling with deadly authority, “Leave her out of this or I promise someone will have hell to pay, Leo!”

  I don’t know why, but I don’t like him having the last word.

  I don’t like feeling as if he’s protecting me from the cameras.

  I don’t like any of it, and before I know it, my voice stops him. “Ha! Like your promises ever mean anything, dickhead!” As I speak, I tear free the ring hanging from my necklace and chuck it at the open door.

  Time stands utterly still.

  Deathly slow, Mackenna steps back into the room to where the ring lies on the floor.

  He looks at the small white-gold band with the sparkly diamond resting at his feet, and his expression changes from surprise to anger, then to something I don’t comprehend. He lifts it and looks at it for the longest moment of my life, then he lifts his head and stares at me with an expression that wrecks me on the inside. He clenches his jaw, turns around, and slams the door shut.

  I’m trembling.

  Battling with the urge to run after him and . . . and what?

  I hate that I can still feel the warmth from his hand when he used to hold mine. I hate that the memory of his mouth on mine still wakes me in the middle of the night. I feel a dull ache at the loss of the ring I’ve been hiding under my tops, and I ache at the sound of his voice and the sight of his face, and I hate that I don’t know how to stop it.

  When I press my lips to my talisman bracelet as I try to hold myself together, fighting for those in the room not to notice how easily Mackenna gets to me, Lionel steps forward and takes my arm. “Dear, you wanted his attention?” he asks me, both amused and confused.

  “I don’t want his attention. I don’t want anything from him!”

  “You’re getting a lot of him, whether you two want it or not.”

  I yank my arm free. “I’m not for sale. There’s nothing you can say or do to convince me to do this.”

  “How about . . .” He leans over and whispers a very long, very big number into my ear.

  TWO

  THE WITCH FORGOT THE BROOM BUT NOT THE FUCKING TOMATO BAG

  Mackenna

  “She’s doing it, Kenna. You’ll be surprised to know it didn’t take all that much. I tell you, these new college grads will work for shit these days.”

  As I step out of the shower, grabbing the plush terry robe and sticking my body inside it, I find Lionel in my room, beaming at the news.

  “You can’t be fucking serious?” I demand, rubbing my head with a hand towel. He looks deadly serious, and I shake my head as I grab some clothes. “Lionel! I snorted fucking egg yolk up my nose. I think I’ve still got some in my ear.” I hold the towel against my ear and jump up and down, shaking the water out.

  “You little shit. You said she didn’t exist,” he growls.

  I toss my scattered wigs into their trunk and
slam the lid shut. “She doesn’t,” I grit out. So what if I had to tell myself she didn’t exist? For six years, it worked. But now she’s here. Like some demon—some poltergeist—reminding me of what I wanted as a teen and could never have. Reminding me what I lost. What I’d do to get it back.

  Pandora.

  My nightmare, my dreams, my walking, talking fantasy.

  Here.

  Flinging my ring.

  My own fucking ring right in my face. My mother’s ring.

  What an irreverent little minx!

  And what’s with those fucking boots? Jesus, all she needs is an axe and blood dripping from her fingernails. Or a broom and a cauldron.

  God, that woman . . .

  Something kicked me on the inside when I heard her. Her smooth voice, flat but not quite. Her voice, unique in the world. It’s like a song that makes you feel like shit. Makes me feel . . . like that worthless teen who craved her like a drug.

  The teen who loved lyrics, songs, drums, pianos, melodies, whatever made me feel my life didn’t suck. Songs make friends irrelevant. Songs made me remember her, but also forget her. I love songs. Music saved my life and now it’s become my life. But no song’s ever been as good as hearing her. And no song’s ever been as bad as seeing her there, taunting me, challenging me with that endless black gaze.

  “I thought you were singing about a fictional woman,” Leo continues, and when I settle on a T-shirt with a skull on it—to fit the mood that bitch has put me in—I turn to see Lionel’s eyes. They’re glassy and deranged, like they are when we get a record deal, a movie deal . . .

  Or when he thinks we’ve just struck gold.

  But Pandora is an endless dark mine with no diamonds for me. I want to forget I’ve just stared into her face, but it’s branded into my retinas and she’s all I see. That angry little shrew frown, those dark black lips, that ridiculous pink streak, the boots. I can perfectly picture her straddling a man and hooking those boots around his hips. Yeah, I want them around mine.

  Fisting my hand around my mother’s ring, I lift my head in the direction of the door, my voice low. “Where the fuck is she?”

  “Waiting. I’ve summoned the lawyers, and I’ve already texted Trenton.”

  “The fucking producer? You get her in the movie, she’ll be the target of a million angry fans, don’t you get it? They’ll know her face. They’ll know she was mine, and she’ll never be safe again in her life!”

  “Ahh, protective, are we? I like this side of you, Kenna. Never seen it before. Hell! All the more reason we want her in! We want whatever it was that happened just there.” Lionel signals to the door that leads to the Meet and Greet hallway. “We want that. And we want a kiss-and-make-up scene at the Madison Square Garden concert. For the public, and for the camera. Next, we want her at the premiere, on your arm, before we make up a fine breakup story that leaves you home free.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Lionel!”

  “Whoa, my ass! I saw how she rattled your cage. I saw drama. I saw more than what we have for this fucking movie, which is mostly you boys drinking and getting laid. I saw an opportunity, and as your manager, you pay me to cash in on such opportunities.”

  “No,” I say.

  “Listen, Kenna, all I need from you is a couple of good scenes, a make-up scene near the end of the movie, and her on your arm at the premiere. Give me this, and I’ll give you what you asked for.”

  “You’re finally caving?”

  “Yep.”

  I start pacing, considering his offer. I get what I want, what I have long been asking for. And I also get to have her close. Talk to her. Maybe I can’t tell her the truth, but I can win her back if I want to.

  And fuck, I not only want to, my pride demands I do.

  Once, her mother told me I wasn’t good enough for her. I vowed to her that in a few years I was going to be good enough for any woman’s daughter . . . especially hers.

  “You’re the best singer, and the prime attraction, but let’s face it, Kenna, you’re the shittiest actor among you three. But with this . . . it’s brilliant. With her, you won’t even have to act.” He grins. “Now go out there and finish the Meet and Greet. I’ll take care of your girlfriend.”

  “My girlfriend,” I sneer, “is a pervy, tomato-throwing man-eater who seems only too delighted with the opportunity to hang around to give me hell!”

  “Yep. That’s good stuff.”

  THREE

  LOOKS LIKE I’M GOING TO HAVE TO KISS THE FROG

  Pandora

  “It’s a lot of fucking money,” Melanie says as we ride back home.

  “Melanie, I fucking robbed them. I would’ve caved for half. Hell, I’d kiss a hippo’s ass for half!”

  What just happened?

  I’m still trying to grasp the fact that I just signed my life away. Or more exactly, three weeks, a kiss, and a movie premiere appearance away.

  I’m on my way back from the most surreal couple of hours of my life. In the space of ninety minutes, I met Trenton the movie producer, a bunch of lawyers, and a big, fat check.

  Now we’re riding in the back of a limo provided for Princess Melanie by none other than her very own Mr. King. The driver is apparently her boyfriend’s driver. I tell you, being with her lately is giving me a fucking complex. Especially after your ex just looked at you the way Mackenna looked at me. Like he wants to murder me, slowly, and then chop off my body parts and hide them in a box. So the legend goes—Pandora in a box, not Pandora’s box.

  Melanie raps manicured nails against a crystal glass she’s lifted from the minibar inside the car. The letters on the nails spell G-R-E-Y with a heart on her thumb.

  Ridiculous.

  Both my friends are in committed relationships with men who’ve proven themselves true by doing the unthinkable—leaving their lives for them. I loathed Melanie’s playboy because I thought he wasn’t right for her, but it turned out he was exactly what she’d dreamed of and more. Hot, protective, dangerous, and alpha to the max, he’d do anything for Melanie. And Brooke? Brooke is already married to her guy—no, he’s not just a guy, he’s like a beast. A tall, lean, muscled, dark-haired, blue-eyed, sexy beast—who looks at her like he lives for her.

  I don’t tell Melanie how it hurts when Greyson shows up at the office to steal her away for the day, or how it hurts to see Brooke and her husband instinctively nuzzle each other when they talk. Maybe it’s because I feel uncomfortable letting anyone see that I notice that shit. But I do. I notice it like I’d notice that I’m missing a limb, or like I’d notice slamming into a tree branch and having it stick out of my torso.

  Yeah, I notice how Greyson looks at Melanie, and how Remy looks at Brooke. Only a few months ago Brooke and her husband were in town with their baby, and I saw the way he smiled at her across the room. How they each sought out the space in the room where the other was. How, when they were close, he put his hand on her hip, a huge hand, and ducked his head to her, so near that his lips moved against her ear, his lips curled, his eyes twinkling down at her. I noticed Brooke’s smile, almost shy, and the way she turned her body to his and cupped his jaw. You could feel the love in the air, and I almost felt like I was intruding on something intimate and special. Seeing them, I scowled down at my lap, because I couldn’t take it.

  And Melanie? She was probably wishing on some stupid star, hoping that one day that would be her. And now, guess what? It is her. Her fucking boyfriend dotes on her. She’s found genuine love. Love that I won’t ever let myself wish for because I will never have that with anyone. I will never duck my head shyly or be the kind of girl who inspires a man to protect her the way my friends’ men protect them. I will never inspire a man to want to change for the better because of me. Because I’m not inspiring. I’m the bitter one nobody likes to hang around with for too long.

  All because Mackenna wrecked me.

  He fucked my brains out and then he fucked with my heart and what was left of my brains, and I was too young to ge
t over it. Now, after looking into those eyes I absolutely cannot stand, I would rather die than back out on a challenge from him. He doesn’t want to see me? Well then, I’m going to plant myself in front of him so that he has to. I’m going to make his life a living hell, like he did mine. And best of all? I’m getting paid for it. I think I might just be enjoying my first stroke of luck since . . . my birth date.

  “Yes, Trillion, it went amazing!” Melanie cries excitedly into the phone, checking her nails to make sure they’re perfect. She calls her boyfriend Trillion sometimes, saying it’s because it was the highest number she could think of. I don’t get it, but she told me not to worry, because he does.

  Whatever. Melanie’s just . . . Melanie.

  Now she’s dropping her voice even more for him. “Yes, I thought of you . . . I need you more. I’ll tell Ulysses to step on it. No, it won’t be a risk if he steps on it. I need you.” She’s blushing like her boyfriend has just whispered something filthy he plans to do to her. She bites her lower lip like a young girl and cups the receiver and whispers something, then laughs and hangs up.

  “You look like a simpering virgin, Melanie,” I say bitterly.

  Her eyes twinkle, almost as if her guy just made love to her on the phone. “So what? He makes me feel shy when he describes in detail what he’s going to do to me.”

  “Dude, you have his name on your fingers and hearts on your thumbs. Men like your man like challenges. Careful, or he’ll think you’re a sure thing and dump you.”

  “I am a sure thing, and he’s my sure thing. We love each other, we’re getting married, you dodo.”

  Fuck, I’ll be the only singleton of the three. Even our closest guy friend, Kyle, has a girlfriend now.

  Fuck me standing and with my boots on. Ugh.

  We fall quiet the rest of the way home. Melanie is now texting, maybe with her guy or maybe with Brooke. Melanie always keeps her up to date.

  “Will you tell me how you two met?” she demands, looking up from her phone. I’ve been reluctant to talk about Mackenna for ages.