I think she nods and whispers, “Okay.”
And though I’m not sure if she really did answer or it’s just my imagination, I slide my arm around her waist and hold her tight.
SEVEN
BIG DOSE OF REALITY
Pandora
The big dose of reality hits me when I wake up and he is sprawled, in all his muscular glory, across my hotel bed. It takes a second for me to remember that I, uh . . . I let Mackenna stay over?
I groan and slap my palm against my forehead. Fuck. Why, why, why does he weaken my willpower? The mattress squeaks as he shifts in bed, one arm reaching out as he mumbles something in his sleep and seems to search for me. I roll away quickly and watch his hand settle on a pillow.
“Mackenna,” I say, toeing his side with my foot. “Mackenna!” I hiss.
He rolls around and sits up, and thank god the covers are halfway around his waist because if I see one more inch of bare flesh I might explode from the heat spreading through me. I feel myself blush even deeper when his muscles bulge as he pushes himself up with his arms. His eyes adorably heavy, he blinks to adjust to the light, his mouth as perfect and generous as it was yesterday. And then he looks at me. That gaze is softer silver in the morning, not as sharp or as intimidating, almost . . . intimate when he sees me. Glimmering playfully.
And too late, I realize why he’s fucking grinning. My T-shirt got caught on the waistband of my panties. And he’s taking me in, in one quick sweep. “Well, fuck, someone woke hungry this morning,” he says, his voice bedroom sleepy as he looks at me, and I grab the pillow to cover myself.
“I’m not hungry,” I say.
“I was talking about me. Come over here.”
“No, Mackenna! Come on. Get out of my room already. I told you to leave!”
He grins and gets up, and I toss the pillow and flush as I pull down my T-shirt while he heads to the bathroom. It takes him only a minute to come out. Not enough to comb my fingers through all the tangles in my hair. If I were into that and cared what the asshole thought. Which I don’t.
His eyes run up the length of my legs, continue from the hem of my T-shirt to my neck, then land on my head. “Leave your hair, it looks all right,” he says huskily, stopping to loom before me.
Heat flows through my body as he looks down at me with blatant need. What is wrong with him? With us?
“Nothing’s wrong,” he murmurs.
“I said that out loud?” I groan.
“You’ve been . . . vocal, all night. I quite like it.”
God. I dreamed. I dreamed . . . I’m not even sure what. I dreamed about the closet again. I dreamed we were in bed. I dreamed he tried to kiss me, and when I turned away, he sent a thousand shivery kisses up and down my neck.
The memory makes me flush cherry red. Did that happen during the night? By the intimate way he looks at me, I think he wanted inside me real bad. I didn’t let him, thank god. He fingers the collar of my tee, then watches me as he slowly drags his finger up my neck, his thumb caressing my bottom and top lip. Even though his hold is loose and he’s not physically holding me down, I feel trapped. His gaze alone holds me motionless.
He used to look at me with this same proprietary gleam when he was my boyfriend. My secret boyfriend, who nobody knew about . . . except me. I guess, in the end, my mom too.
But while it lasted, we hid in the janitor’s closet in school and made out until I could hardly walk, my legs unsteady as I headed for class with his taste in my mouth, the scent of his soap clinging to my clothes.
I’m fighting the urge to smell his neck now. It’s a war to just stand here motionless, tracing every inch of his masculine face with my eyes when I want my fingers to do the same. The years become nothing.
The hum between us is just like in the old days, when I was the center of his galaxy. When the girls in school would stare longingly at him when he walked past my locker, having eyes only for me. Sometimes, when the halls were vacant enough, he quickly leaned over me and kissed every part of my body, from my toes up to the back of my ear. I’d grow hot, and the place between my legs would start pulsing.
Too easily I remember coming home and squealing.
Me—squealing.
I would play love songs, only to replay the words he said to me and the ways he touched me. I would shower, eat, and sleep Mackenna Jones. . . .
But deep down, my mother’s bitterness and my father’s infidelity poisoned me. I kept all these feelings to myself—kept them from my mother so she wouldn’t take Mackenna from me. But because I didn’t want to lose him, because I feared it wasn’t real, I also kept my feelings from him, and now I’m used to saying nothing. Keeping it bottled up.
Why do I feel like I’m about to burst now?
“Don’t, Kenna,” I say when he uses his thumb to open my lips. He stands dangerously close—his height, his breadth, his size, his do-me-now-woman sex appeal intimidating the hell out of me.
He grins wickedly and strokes a hand over my hip.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not going to happen,” I say breathlessly.
“Yeah, it will.” His smirk says, It definitely will.
He pats my butt slowly, and the familiar way he brushes his lips over mine brings my temper to a boil. Who does he think he is? Does he think because we made out by mistake he gets to play my boyfriend? When I growl and slap his hand away, he chuckles and heads back to the bathroom.
Ohmigod, I cannot believe I let him put his filthy paws on me in that closet—and stay the night over!
Soon I hear the shower, the sound of the water slapping his delicious man-flesh. Then I hear him hum a tune, a tune I’ve never heard before. My chest moves when I remember he used to do that when we were teens. God, no, stop thinking of those moments. It hurts. Truly it does. Think of the bad ones. When he left. When he left me on my own after making me need him and believe I couldn’t live without him.
Refusing to get all sappy with memories, I grab my phone and think of Melanie.
She’s probably at the office, missing the delightfully bitter morning company that is me.
I quickly text, I kissed him
Every second I wait for her answer, I feel worse and worse, not only about the closet incident but also about falling asleep with him around. When I woke up, the bastard was almost spooning me.
Melanie: What?
Me: I kissed the bastard! He spent the night. Oh god!!!!! This is suicide!
Melanie: Why? Was he into it? You know what they say about where there was once fire . . .
Me: He was into the kissing, into using me for his selfish reasons and I was selfish too.
Melanie: So what’s the problem?
Me: The problem is he’s going to think he WON!
And he will. He really, really will, because he’s so full of himself I’m surprised he fits inside this building. How can I even explain to Melanie, who’s happy and carefree and innocent, that when a douche bag breaks your heart, you cannot let him have it again, you cannot let him touch you again. I’m about to try when she writes, Look, Maleficent, if he’s being a dick let me tell Greyson to send someone to rearrange his face—stat.
I blink.
Me: Melanie your new bloodthirst scares me
Melanie: Heee! :)
The thought of someone hurting Mackenna makes me sick. Only I get to hurt him. Damn it!
I toss my phone aside and breathe in and out, remembering my tricks from anger management. Then I force myself to think of Magnolia and my mother.
Mags.
I left my poor Mags alone with my mother, who’s even less merry than I am because I was determined to find closure and save all this fucking money to have some freedom in the future, for me and for Mags. Closure to me equaled Mackenna realizing that leaving me was the biggest mistake of his life. And how did I plan to do this? By getting involved again?!
We can’t get involved. We can’t be buddies—especially not fuck buddies.
 
; Can we?
No, we can’t, because I’m too wimpy to survive him twice. Because even if he likes me a little bit once more, he won’t like me for real when he learns what sort of secrets I hide. You get struck by lightning once and survive, lucky you, but you won’t survive twice. That’s for sure.
How can I make it clear that the closet and a sleepover do not make us friends?
Remembering what he said on the bus about giving me a chance to redeem myself with a song, I grab a pen and start writing. I’m growing madder by the second. So mad it’s like I’m not writing words on a piece of paper but chiseling them into a slate.
Soon he steps out of the shower, strutting like he’ll have me yet. Yeah, he’s good. All wet, with droplets of water sliding down his golden flesh. His silver eyes meet me with quiet assessment—like he can sense the shift in the air. Well, at least he’s smart.
With a fake smile, I walk over and hand him the paper. “Your song,” I say.
His eyebrows fly upward in surprise, then he reads the words out loud.
Mackenna’s mouth
Spits all lies
A sewer tastes better
He looks at me in pure, undisguised amusement. “Seriously?” he prods.
“Go on,” I say through my teeth.
I can smell his shampoo. Hate it.
He continues reading.
A donkey’s ass is sweeter
I hate Mackenna’s mouth
And his fucking lies
He can kiss my ass
And it will taste better than his fucking mouth
He lowers the piece of paper, and before I realize it, he’s caught me by the back of the neck and kissed me flat on the mouth. Then he yanks back and strokes his knuckles across my wet lips, still grinning.
I wipe my mouth to get rid of the tingle his touch leaves. “I’m still working on it. Just thought you might like to start thinking of a tune,” I say, scowling.
“Why let me pick if you’re on a roll, baby? Let’s just use the background music for Jaws.”
“Stop kissing me when you feel like it, Kenna.”
“Stop opening your mouth and sticking your tongue at me when I do, Pink.”
“I didn’t . . . ugh.” I flip him the bird and feel entirely too warm when he heads for the door, taking my song with him.
“Thanks for this.” He grins like it’s a love sonnet. “Glad to see you’re making lists again.”
“It’s not a fucking list.”
“Well it’s not exactly a song either, Pink.”
Suppressing the urge to kick the door when he leaves, I decide to go cool down and take a bath.
“I hate you,” I mumble, just to get it out of my system as I undress.
But the worst part of it all is that I’m starting to wonder whether I truly mean it.
♥ ♥ ♥
AFTER A BATH, I’m calmer when I drop on the bed. The covers are rumpled. The room smells a little bit like him. I let him . . . hold me? Why’d I go and do that? I felt him slip in behind me. I felt the mattress give in to his weight and then I felt all his warm muscles surrounding me. I pretended not to notice because I didn’t want him to go.
I groan and bury my face in my hands.
God. What have I done?
I’m not letting him get through my walls—protective layers it took me years to mend. But I’m wandering right into the most painful moments of my life, and I already feel a little bit too rumpled. Like the bed he slept in with me. The rumpled feelings crawl their way into my chest, and I try to perk up and think of the future Magnolia can have with all the money.
I sit down and check the clock, then mentally go through Magnolia’s schedule. Since it’s summer, she must be home.
I dial from my cell, and all my pain and confusion ease when I hear her little voice answer.
“I miss you, Panny, I have thirty-eight things we’re going to do when you get back!” she proclaims.
“Wow, you’re going to keep me busy, huh?”
“Yessss! Guess which is number thirty-three?”
“Hmmm. Let’s see now . . .” I pretend to think until I hear her practically panting. “We’re going to lay around in pajamas all day and play board games.”
“No! We’re going to make a lemonade stand and sell orange juice.”
“What? Whoa, wait. You can’t sell orange juice at a lemonade stand—it needs to be an orange juice stand.”
“Yes you can! Why not?”
I’m so exhausted by last night, I can’t even think right this morning. So I backpedal. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s break the rules. Everyone who sells lemonade at a lemonade stand has no creativity like we do.”
“And we’re gonna add water so we get more orange juice to sell.”
“What? No, oooh no no. I’m drawing the line there, Mags. We are not watering down the orange juice. That’s for complete delinquents.”
“Delinquents! I wanna be a delinquent with you!” she squeals, and I grin like a dope and stare at my bracelet as she starts telling me about what she’s done. The bracelet has little gem charms, colorful and rugged in texture. They’re supposed to protect all my loved ones from wrong. I don’t ever wake up in the mornings without rubbing it.
I don’t like that Mackenna made me forget until now. So I brush my thumb over the rocks, letting that simple movement ease me like Magnolia does.
Little did I know I’d especially need as much calm as I could muster this morning.
♥ ♥ ♥
SO, THERE’S BAD news. Not surprising. I expected this trip to be a disaster from start to end, so I shouldn’t be in full panic mode. I already woke up with Mackenna in my bed, so now? Now, the interstate highway is closed due to construction, and the ever-efficient Lionel has chartered a plane to fly us all to the next location. But then again, that isn’t just bad news.
That is a disaster.
I am not a tactile person, but I desperately need to hold someone’s hand when I fly—desperate as in I’m-afraid-I’m-going-to-yank-off-an-armrest-or-something-now-that-Melanie-Brooke-Kyle-my-mother-or-Magnolia-aren’t-here.
But . . . sigh . . . I’ve got meds, right?
And meds make the world go round, so . . .
And at least I wasn’t forced to ride alone with Mackenna to the airport. I took the same coach as the dancers, and Lionel didn’t have time to protest before we were on our way. True, they all gave me enough evil eyes to give me a lifetime of bad luck—but it’s not like I’ve enjoyed much great luck in the first place, so I might not even notice the difference.
Once we shuffle into the airport, the Viking twins keep staring at me. Their expressions are curious more than antagonistic, and I briefly wonder what Mackenna has told them about me.
This girl not only throws a good tomato, but I popped her cherry when she was seventeen too . . .
“Hey,” one finally says.
“Hey,” the other follows.
They’re both smirking now, big and blond, and worst of all is that, like Mackenna, they reportedly have brains too. From the clothes they wear, to the carefully calculated appearances for the paparazzi, Crack Bikini is a meticulously plotted piece of merchandise. Mackenna’s wigs, the Vikings’ chains, tats, and nipple rings are all part of “the look,” though today, Mackenna wears a black T-shirt and jeans and a cap on his buzz cut, plus aviators. The twins are dressing the part of rockstars to a T. Chains hang around Jax’s neck, while Lex wears a spiked choker.
“ID?” Lionel asks, and I hand it over as he checks me in.
Mackenna joins his two boys and the guys stare in my direction. All three of them.
I hate how his energy pulls on mine. He’s the only person in this world I can actually feel spiking my adrenaline. He has a way of making me feel supercharged—as if my own body pumps extra hormones when he’s near.
Jax surveys me with quirked lips. “Kenna didn’t tell us much about you, you know.”
My eyes slide to Mackenna, and my tummy di
ps for some reason when I see he’s not smiling but watching me intently.
“Except that I was a witch?” I quip.
Lex laughs. “Not in those words.”
“Well, tall, dark, and mean is just part of his charm. Isn’t it?”
They grin at me, and I slide a look at Mackenna, my tummy dipping again when I see him looking at me as if there’s an intense pondering session going on in his brain. Lionel comes back with my ticket, and suddenly it’s real.
This flight is real.
There’s no way I will allow myself to be weak and vulnerable in front of Mackenna, but my nerves skyrocket as we head toward our gate.
I’m acutely aware of him silently walking next to me. One thousand percent bad boy rocker, with lazy swagger. With a sidelong glance I check out the tattoo on his forearm, the one thousand leather bracelets on his wrist, and the silver ring on his thumb. The memory of that ring on my skin when we went a little bit too far in the closet skims through me.
And what does that tattoo say?
Several men in suits walk with the group and attempt to keep people away from the main men. The guys have always been an entity—like two balls and a dick.
“You okay there?” Mackenna asks me.
“Dandy.”
Relax, Pandora. Just take a pill, take a whiskey, and knock yourself out.
I repeat it as a mantra as we board the plane. The scent of airplane is suddenly choking me.
Mackenna is talking with the guys. Lionel greets me with a huge smile as he lightly guides me into first class. A group of dancers start chatting up the guys. As I put my bag in the overhead compartment, I watch Mackenna. All the guys seem bored with the conversations, but not Mackenna. Ohhhh, no, not player Mackenna. He smiles and teases the girls, stealing little touches on their arms.
God, he’s unbelievable.
Scowling, I slide into my seat and pray for a smooth landing, breathing in and out as I check—for the tenth time today—the pillbox in my pocket. If a piece of metal can fly, then I can fly in it, safely, like everyone says.
But as I strap on my seat belt, I remember how my father died. He died this way. I picture that plane lurching and crashing. I picture him going numb. Thinking of Mother, of me. I wonder if the others screamed. It’s a fear that’s grown with me through the years as I’ve lost my innocence and become more cynical and, at the same time, more vulnerable and therefore more guarded. Fear bubbles and fizzes in my stomach as I try to stop thinking about that flight. How my father’s last goodbye was truly a goodbye. How no one survived.