“Some one-on-one thing with her and the new adviser,” Adam explained. “To discuss the ‘new direction’ or something.”
“One-on-one with Jack Powell? Lucky bitch,” Miranda sighed.”! guess there’s some benefit to being editor in chief after all.”
“Hear that, Adam? Looks like you’ve got some competition,” Kane smirked. “And from what I hear, you and James Bond aren’t even playing in the same league.”
“Whatever,” Adam growled. “Can we just get started?”
Harper perched on an ottoman at the end of the room and pulled out a checklist. She loved being in charge, all eyes on her. (And she was studiously ignoring the fact that two pairs of those eyes kept darting glances over to a certain raven-haired beauty at the other end of the room who’d splayed herself out along a black leather couch like a particularly flexible cat.)
But even though Harper was in charge and thus had a power trip to keep her awake, and even though they were planning what Harper was determined would be the best—or at least most entertaining and depraved—after party yet, the meeting was boring. As all meetings inevitably are.
Logistics, list making, blah, blah, blah.
It was hard to keep her mind on topic—and neither the rum and Coke nor Adam’s distracting grin were much of a help.
Decisions, decisions.
Miranda would handle music.
Kane—unsurprisingly—volunteered to take care of alcohol and “miscellaneous substances.”
Adam, son of the area’s most successful—and most absentee—real estate developer, would scout locations.
And Kaia would help, because, “Wow, what a great way to get a better sense of the town!”
Harper thought she might throw up.
Mission eventually accomplished, an afternoon’s worth of diversions beckoned.
“What do you say, guys?” Kaia asked, rising from her sprawl and flinging open the glass doors that led out to the deck. “Should I turn on the hot tub?”
Kane, who—bored out of his mind—had been moving at half speed all afternoon, sprang off the couch and tore off his shirt.
“Just show me the way” he said, grinning.
Miranda smiled at the sight of his bare chest, then blushed and quickly darted her head around to make sure no one had noticed. Harper may have been right about Kaia. She might be a “skanky, superficial bitch” (Miranda, for one, felt it was slightly too soon to tell, but she wasn’t about to get in the way when Harper went into battle mode), but there was now at least one reason to be thankful for her arrival in town. Actually, plenty of reasons—Kane’s six-pack abs, his bulging biceps, his taut back muscles, and the adorable indentation that dipped beneath his waistband …. Miranda said a silent prayer of thanks and followed Kane, Kaia, and the rest of the group outside, where a large Jacuzzi was embedded in the hardwood deck.
“My father’s midlife crisis has been very expensive for him,” Kaia explained, “and very fun for me.” She flipped on the jets.
Stripping down to his fitted black boxer-briefs, Kane eased himself into the steaming water with a satisfied moan, as the rest of his friends looked on in envy and amusement.
“Now this is what I call a meeting,” Kane murmured to himself, raising his glass and toasting the empty air. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the marble lip of the hot tub, taking deep, measured breaths, shutting out the world.
Kaia turned to Harper and Miranda, beckoning them toward the door back into the house. “Girls, I have plenty of bikinis upstairs, if you—oh,” she stopped herself, giving Harper a none-too-subtle once-over. “Actually, I guess none of my suits would fit you, Harper,” she said loudly. “Sorry.”
Miranda sucked in her breath. Most guys ranked Harper’s delicately curvy body somewhere between Angelina Jolie and Catherine Zeta-Jones (pre- pregnancy and gross marriage to Michael Douglas, of course). But curves were curves—something that the willowy Penelope Cruz clone Kaia distinctly lacked. And not in a bad way.
Harper visibly tensed, and Miranda waited, as if watching a wild animal poised before potential prey—would she recoil, or attack?
After a measured pause, Harper did neither.
Instead, she merely smiled gracefully—and pulled off her shirt.
“No problem,” she assured Kaia sweetly. “I think I can take care of myself.”
And, stripped down to a satin black bra and matching panties (the latest from Victoria’s Secret—mail order, of course, since the only underwear within a decent drive of town came from the Wal-Mart off Route 53), Harper strolled slowly across the deck toward the hot tub.
Kane favored her with a long, low whistle.
“Looking good, Grace,” he crowed, as she slid into the churning water and took a spot beside him. Even Adam, still fully clothed and pressed against the wall of the deck, flushed a bit and gave her an appreciative smile. Harper shot a triumphant glance at Kaia and then let herself slip deeper into the water, finally submerging herself completely. She burst through the surface, face dripping, hair glistening, and then leaned back against the edge, her slender neck in perfect position to be pummeled by the massage jets, her long, bare legs swung over Kane’s lap.
Kaia just shook her head. “Miranda?” she asked. “How about you?”
Miranda looked longingly at the hot tub—and, more to the point, Kane’s supine figure stretched out along its width, his head now leaned back, eyes closed once again, arms splayed out along the edge. The Greek god of cocky laziness.
But consider her options:
Borrowing a suit from Kaia—who towered over her by a foot and differed in several other, far more crucial, measurements as well.
Or the Harper approach. Except that Miranda’s underwear of choice today was baby blue with yellow polka dots and, in fact, recently purchased from that Wal-Mart off Route 53. As would likely be immediately clear.
Add to this the fact that, much as she was enjoying the chance to examine and memorize every tiny detail of Kane’s mostly naked body, there was no way she was going to give him the same opportunity. He was taut perfection; she was, drawing from her always at-the-ready mental list of imperfections, stomach fat and arm flab and thigh cellulite and—well, suffice it to say, she was amply flawed.
“No, thanks,” she simply said to Kaia. “I think I’ll just sit on the side and gawk at all this partial nudity. Teen depravity, et cetera.”
“Yeah, I’m quite the turn-on, aren’t I?” Kane called to her, eyes still closed.
“You know I can barely keep myself from tearing off those boxers,” Miranda called out sarcastically, pulling off her shoes. If he only knew. She sat on the edge of the hot tub, dangling her bare legs in the steaming water, fighting the urge to lift one leg and begin lightly running her toes up and down his tantalizingly close bare skin. Instead, she flicked a foot sharply in his direction, splashing him with a torrent of hot water. “Somehow I think I’ll manage to restrain myself.”
Kane opened his eyes, lifted his head, and, steadily holding her gaze, wiped the drops of water off his face. He squinted at her, then shook his head and let it gently drop back down. “Do your best,” he warned her in a low voice, “but I’m irresistible—one of these days, Stevens, you’re not going to be able to stop yourself from tearing off all those clothes and jumping in.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Miranda said sharply, hoping that he was right, that someday she’d find the nerve.
But today?
Not gonna happen.
“Hey, how’s your meeting going?” Adam pressed himself against the back wall of the deck, the only spot he’d been able to find with good reception. He cupped a hand over the mouthpiece of the cell phone, to prevent the splashing and cackling from the hot tub a few feet away from drowning out his low voice. “Is it over yet?”
“No, we’ve still got a ways to go,” Beth told him. “We’re going to be here for a while.”
“That sucks.” He pictured her in the sparse newspaper o
ffice—really a spacious former supply room that Beth had commandeered her sophomore year to serve as the headquarters of the Haven Gazette. Despite the old editions hung proudly on the bulletin board, the short row of outdated computers lining the wall, and the ever-present stack of reporter’s notebooks and old tape recorders available for loan, the room still looked—and smelled—like exactly what it was: a dark, dank basement cave. A flickering overhead light, a fraying couch probably infested by termites, a tiny window that looked out onto a ventilation shaft—Adam couldn’t stand to spend more than five minutes there, but Beth loved it. She said it made her feel like a “real” journalist.
“No, it’s actually really great,” Beth protested, her bright smile so present in her sunny voice that he could almost see it. “Working with Mr. Powell is going to be so much better than last year with Donovan. He actually wants to listen to my ideas. In fact, you’ll never guess …”
Adam sighed good-naturedly as Beth began to chatter about her plans for the paper. He hated how busy she always was, but he loved her earnestness, her passion. The way she threw herself into what she loved.
He grinned—the way she threw herself at him sometimes didn’t hurt either.
“Anyway, I think we might work through dinner,” she finished apologetically.
“What? I thought we were having dinner together,” he complained, annoyed as quickly as, a moment ago, he’d been aroused.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry—I was just about to call you and—”
He stole a glance at the hot tub, where Kane was now flailing his arms wildly as Harper and Kaia struggled to knock him off balance and submerge him under the water. Kaia let loose a laughing shriek as Kane grabbed her wet, squirming body and tossed it away from him with a loud splash. Adam shook his head in exasperation. Kane was basically beating them off with a stick, and meanwhile Adam was getting stood up by his own girlfriend. It was more than frustrating, it was humiliating. “Beth, we practically haven’t seen each other all week!”
“I know.” She lowered her voice into a sexy whisper. “Look, I promise I’ll make it up to you. This weekend we’ll—oh, wait, hold on.”
Adam waited, his annoyance mounting. In the background he could hear distant voices and the familiar melody of Beth’s laughter.
Finally: “Sorry, Ad—Mr. Powell needs to go over something with me and the sooner we get through this, the sooner I can get out of here.”
Adam made a noncommittal sound. It was better, he knew, to say nothing than to voice the bitter thoughts pounding through his brain.
“So we’re okay then?” she asked, sounding worried.
And so he gave in, as always unable to resist the sound of her voice.
“Of course we’re okay. Go show him how brilliant you are.”
“Thanks!” she chirped. “Talk to you tonight.”
“Love you,” he told her.
But she’d already hung up.
Adam sighed and stuffed the phone into his backpack. Now what?
He supposed he could go home and sulk, have dinner with his mother—or, more likely, order a pizza with the guilt money his mother had left before leaving on some date with the flavor of the week. Watch TV, wait for a phone call that might never come.
Or …
Kane was once again stretched out in the water, letting the jets pummel his upper back and lazily tipping the last few drops of his drink into his mouth. Harper, looking—he had to admit—totally hot, was flicking water on a squealing Miranda.
And Kaia was sporting a barely-there white bikini, which, set off against her perfect tan, made her look like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. She floated against the side of the Jacuzzi, her chest to the wall and her chin propped up over the edge on her delicate, slender arms. Her hair fanned out behind her, floating atop the water like a cloud of India ink. She was staring right at him.
And that was definitely what his mother’s trashy romance novels dubbed a “come hither” smile.
Enough was enough. Adam began peeling off his clothes, hoping he wouldn’t have to take too much shit for the cartoon hearts that decorated his boxers (last year’s Valentine’s Day gift from Beth). He could already imagine how good that water was going to feel as he slid in, right between Harper and Kaia.
So, yeah, he’d been stood up—but was he supposed to complain about getting to spend the evening surrounded by beautiful half-naked women?
Maybe the whole thing was, in the end, for the best.
A hot tub, after all, is a terrible thing to waste.
“Sorry about that,” Beth said, snapping the phone shut and slipping it back into her bag. She turned back to the table, where a pile of old Haven Gazettes lay haphazardly in front of her, all flipped open to the articles she had deemed the best—and worst—of the lot. They were conducting a systematic investigation of everything that was right and wrong about the school paper, and at the rate things were going, it was going to take all night.
“I hope I’m not keeping you from something important,” Mr. Powell told her, looking concerned.
He looked so—dashing was the only word for it—when he was concerned. Who knew that there were real-life British people who looked like they came out of a Jane Austen novel? Or, more accurately, a Jude Law—Christian Bale Hollywood remake of a Jane Austen novel. But here he was, sitting only a couple of feet away, poring through the old newspapers along with her, actually listening when she talked, actually seeming to care what she had to say. Not that it was easy for her to make much sense, not when she couldn’t take her eyes off the curly brown lock of hair that kept slipping over his left eye no matter how many times he impatiently flicked it away. She wanted to reach out and smooth his unruly curls, straighten the silk tie that was loosely knotted at a rakish angle … she just wanted to touch him and assure herself that he was real.
“What?” she asked, suddenly realizing that he had asked her something and was, apparently, waiting for a response.
“I said, if you’ve got somewhere else to be …,” he repeated.
“No, don’t worry about it,” Beth assured him quickly.
“This is the most important thing right now” She tossed one of the old editions of the paper away from her in disdain. “It’s like I’ve been saying, I really want to make this paper something. I want us to publish regularly and investigate stories and challenge people’s preconceptions—I want it to be more than just a few pieces of paper that the kids laugh at and then use as a place mat on a monthly basis. And I think that—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Powell cut in, laughing. “You’re preaching to the choir here. Aren’t I ordering us some food so we can get to work and stay at work on this thing? Trust me, you’ve sold me.”
“Sorry,” Beth said, blushing. It was easy to get carried away—she’d never had a teacher like Mr. Powell, so young and energetic and—well, she didn’t even know that they made teachers like Mr. Powell.
“I hope I’m not keeping you from something important,” she said, suddenly realizing that a guy—man—like that probably had a number of better things to do.
He laughed again and began ticking off Grace’s social limitations on his fingers. “Let’s see. I’m new in town, don’t know anyone, and from what I’ve been able to tell, tonight’s social options range from Wet T-Shirt Night at the local bar to Bingo Night at the local church.”
Beth sighed quietly in relief and tried her best not to picture Mr. Powell parading across a makeshift stage wearing only a clingy wet T-shirt and a pair of boxers. Her best was far from good enough.
“I suppose you should be very honored I’m willing to pass it all up for you,” he continued. “So, what’ll it be? Chinese? Indian? Thai?”
Beth rolled her eyes.
“You are new in town,” she scoffed. “The only place that delivers around here is Guido’s Pizza Shoppe—where the pizza’s guaranteed to come in fifteen minutes or ‘whenever the hell Guido feels like bringing it.’”
“S
ounds like a real customer-friendly operation,” he said. “I’ll take it. A medium cheese should cover us, I think—do you know the number?”
“Yeah, it’s in my phone.” Beth pulled it out and made the call. “Thanks again for working with me on this, Mr. Powell,” she told him once Guido had answered and, with a surly growl, put her on hold.
“It’s just wonderful to have a student who’s so engaged,” he told her, briefly placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m here for whatever you need.”
Beth flushed with pleasure. “Thanks, Mr. Powell,” she mumbled, dipping her head and tucking her hair behind her ears.
“I should be thanking you—you’re saving me from Wet T-Shirt night, after all.” He winked at her, then turned back to their stack of work, all business once again. “Oh, and Beth?” he asked, after they’d spent a quiet moment sorting through the papers.
“Yes?” she looked up and, despite the temptation to dart her eyes around the room lest he read her expression and the embarrassing thoughts that lay behind it, met his gaze.
“It seems like we’re going to be spending a lot of time together this year, working pretty closely and all—so at least when we’re out of the classroom, why don’t you just call me Jack.”
chapter
5
“Remind me again why I ever agree to drive you anywhere?” Adam asked, bemused, as Harper flung herself into the car, still bleary from sleep and clutching a cup of coffee as if it were a life preserver. Two weeks into the school year, and dragging herself out of bed each morning still took every ounce of willpower she had. Some mornings—the ones where she showed up at school two hours late with a forged note about a lingering migraine or unavoidable dentist appointment—it took more.
“Because you love me?” she suggested sweetly, buckling herself in. “Because you can’t get enough of me?”
“Because I’m an idiot who keeps forgetting that you’re incapable of being on time?”
Harper gave Adam an affectionate slug on the shoulder.