“You want to come back to my place?” Adam asked his girlfriend. “My mom’s probably out for the night ….”
There was a long pause, and Beth looked over her shoulder and glanced at Kaia. “I’ve got a lot of work to do,” she said eventually. “And, you know, curfew.”
“I just thought that—”
“Why don’t you drop me off first,” Beth cut him off. “I’m on the way.”
Trouble in paradise? Kaia wondered. Interesting.
Adam just grunted and turned off onto a side street. He pulled up in front of a squat ranch house, sandwiched between a row of identically impersonal boxes. A tricycle lay on its side in the middle of the small front lawn, which looked as if it hadn’t seen a lawn mower in years. The cramped patch of overgrown weeds was the perfect companion to the house itself, with its peeling paint job and rusted aluminum siding. Home sweet home.
Adam turned off the car and unfastened his seat belt, but Beth stopped him with a quick kiss.
“You don’t have to walk me in,” she whispered. “I’ll just see you tomorrow.” She kissed him again, this time long and hard, and then got out of the car and raced up the front walkway, a narrow path of loose gravel and chipped cement. She paused in the doorway, fumbling in her purse for the key, then, finally, pulled open the door and slipped into the house, the slim beam of light cut off as she closed the door behind her.
Adam was still for a moment, watching her figure disappear into the darkness. Then he twisted around in his seat and grinned at Kaia.
“Why don’t you come sit up here?” he suggested, patting the seat next to him.
Perfect. Kaia hopped out of the car and switched into the front seat. As she fastened her seat belt, she lightly brushed his hand, which rested on the gearshift—he tensed, almost imperceptibly, and she knew he’d felt the same electric charge of excitement that she had at the touch.
She ignored it, however, and began playing with the radio stations, searching in vain for something that was neither country-and-western nor fire-and-brimstone.
“Not much to listen to out here, is there?” Kaia complained, as Adam started the car and pulled back out onto the road. She flicked the stereo off in disgust. “Not much to do, either.”
“No,” he admitted. “But it’s a good town. Good people, you know?”
Could this guy be any more of an all-American cliché? She didn’t know they made them like this in real life.
“Anyway,” he continued awkwardly, “I’m sorry again about before, in the diner—Harper’s just, well …”
“An acquired taste?” Kaia suggested, faking a smile.
“I guess you could say that,” Adam admitted. “See, the thing you’ve got to understand about Harper is …” His voice faded off, and he squinted his eyes in concentration, trying to find the right words.
“Her bark is worse than her bite?” Kaia offered.
Adam laughed ruefully and shook his head. “No, I’d watch out for her bite, too.”
Good to know, Kaia thought. “Then what?” she persisted. “I mean, you seem like such a nice, genuine guy, and I guess I’m just surprised that you’re … that not all of your friends are … I’m just a little surprised.” Kaia guessed there was no particularly polite way to say, So, your friend is an überbitch. Hopefully she’d made her point without doing major damage to her mission.
“Look, I know Harper can be kind of—”
“Harsh?”
“Kind of a bitch, basically,” Adam acknowledged. Kaia suppressed her laughter—good to know he wasn’t totally blind. “It’s not something I love about her,” Adam continued with a sigh. “But the thing about Harper is, well, things come pretty easy for her. She gets bored—and you can see why.”
“Bored? In this town? No,” Kaia drawled sarcastically. How could you be bored when the bowling alley was open 24/7?
“No, it’s not just that,” Adam clarified. “It’s not just that it’s a small town. It’s Harper—she just—doesn’t belong here, somehow. She’s better than this place.” He shook his head ruefully. “And the problem is, she knows it.”
“It sounds like you—” But Kaia cut herself off almost as soon as she began. No reason to put ideas in his head. If he was too dense to figure it out for himself, she certainly wasn’t going to help him along.
“I what?” he asked, confused.
“Nothing.” Kaia paused, watching the dark shadows of parked cars, deserted buildings, flat, arid land speed by. The emptiness was endless. “Have a lot of respect for her, that’s all,” she finished feebly.
“Well, I’ve known her a long time,” he explained, pulling onto the empty highway. “She was the first friend I made when I moved here. I trust her—and whatever else she’s done, she’s never betrayed that. She’s the same with Miranda. When Harper decides you’re worthy of her time, she’s actually the best friend you could have. Loyal as a pit bull.”
“Which would explain both the barking and the biting,” Kaia pointed out.
He laughed. “Exactly.”
They were both quiet for a moment, and Kaia realized that this was the most she’d ever heard Adam speak. He hadn’t said much during dinner, and even when Beth was in the car, he’d mostly been listening to her prattle on about her day. The strong, silent type, Kaia decided. Likes listening better than talking—so maybe she should give him something to listen to.
“Well, pit bull or not, you don’t have to worry about me,” she assured him. “I can handle myself. You have to be tough when you …” She let her voice trail off and looked down at her hands. Would he take the bait?
“When you what?” he asked, sounding concerned.
Score.
“It’s just—you know, it’s hard, bouncing from school to school, always being the new kid, knowing that neither of your parents want you around ….”
Amazing how truth can sometimes be more effective than fiction.
Kaia let her voice tremble, just a bit. “And people assume things about you, you know, treat you in a certain way, like you’re this person, this person who has nothing to do with who you really are ….”
Adam took one hand off the wheel and rested it on her shoulder; Kaia suppressed a grin.
“Hey, we’re not all like that,” he assured her.
Kaia laughed, shakily.
“Listen to me, ‘poor little rich girl.’ And I don’t even know you.” She wiped an eye, hoping he wouldn’t notice the lack of a tear.
“Can we just … just forget I said anything?” she asked.
Adam nodded—but he kept a firm hand on her shoulder.
They drove in silence down the empty highway for several miles, until Kaia pointed to the shadowy silhouette of a mailbox, the only sign of civilization along the dark stretch of road.
“Turn up here, I think,” she said, and the car swung left, up a long gravel pathway, arriving at the foot of a large house of glass and steel.
“Whoa,” Adam murmured softly. “Unbelievable.”
The house—more of an estate, really—gleamed in the moonlight. Its sleek modernity would have been utterly out of place amidst the age-encrusted remnants in the Grace town center, but out here on the fringe, the elegant beast seemed a perfect fit with the harsh aesthetics of the dessert landscape. Stark steel beams, giant windows, a jigsaw puzzle of smooth surfaces—it was like no house he’d ever seen.
“This is where you live?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“Like I said,’poor little rich girl,’” Kaia quipped.
Adam turned off the car and hopped out to open Kaia’s door for her.
A total gentleman.
“Listen, Kaia,” he said as they walked up the long, narrow path toward her door. “Obviously we don’t know each other that well yet, but I just want you to know—if you ever need anyone to talk to, you know, I’m around.”
Brushing away another fake tear, Kaia threw her arms around Adam and hugged him tightly to her.
What a body.
/>
“Thank you,” she whispered into his ear, making sure to graze his cheek with her moist lips. “You’ll never know how much that means to me.”
She let herself into the house, pausing in the doorway to watch him walk back to the car. Even his silhouette had sex appeal.
This is almost too easy to be worth my time, she thought.
Almost.
By the time Adam got home, it was too late to call Beth—and besides, what would he say? “In case I didn’t make it clear to you before, I’d really like to sleep with you—and even though I am the perfect PC boyfriend and will stand by you no matter what and don’t—I swear to you, don’t—just want you for sex, I think it’s natural for me to want that, too, especially since I’m probably the only eighteen-year-old homecoming king virgin this side of the Mississippi”?
Yeah, that would go over really well.
He sounded like one of those Neanderthals in the teen after-school specials they played on local access TV and occasionally showed as a precautionary measure in health class: “But gee, honey, I have these urges …”
No, best just to wait it out.
It hadn’t always been like this, of course. Back in the beginning, she couldn’t get enough of him—they couldn’t get enough of each other. He would come over to her house after school and they would try to do homework together, and after a few minutes she would tire of aimlessly flipping through the pages of her history textbook, and he would give up on furiously writing and erasing and rewriting wrong answers to the same trig problem over and over again, and that would be it. He would look up, she would look up, their eyes would meet, and they would be on each other, kissing, stroking, fumbling with buttons and bra straps, desperate to drink each other in, to find every one of their bodies’ hidden secrets, to touch, to meld. Sometimes all it took was an accidental touch—sitting across a table from each other, his hand would brush against hers, and it was like a stroke of lightning, a bolt of charge between them, and he would have to have her. And it wasn’t just him. There were times … that day last spring in the empty hallway when he’d given her a quick peck on the cheek before going off to practice. He’d turned to leave, and she grabbed the back of his shirt collar, pulled him back to her, back into his arms. Then Beth—practical Beth, shy Beth, tentative Beth—had pushed him up against the wall and dug her body into him, sucking on his lips and kneading her fingers into his muscles. Not caring who saw. In the beginning it had been like that.
Not in the very beginning, of course. At first they’d done nothing but talk. Which, to be honest, was the exact opposite of what he was used to. They talked and talked—on their first date, they talked through dinner, through dessert, late into the night, until Beth realized her curfew had long since run out and, like Cinderella, she’d fled off into the night. He’d never really talked to a girl before (except Harper, and that didn’t count), but then he’d never met a girl like Beth, who really listened. Who really seemed to want to know him—not the all-star jock, not the homecoming king, but him. On their second date they’d talked even more. About everything—families, school, religion, what they loved, what they wanted. They’d talked, and talked, and that was all. As he walked her to her door, he’d hesitantly taken her hand, and she’d let him. They’d stood in the doorway, her hand warm in his, and he’d slowly lifted his other hand to her face, touched her chin, but before he could lean in, close his eyes, bring his lips to hers, she’d pulled back. Jerked her hand away and slipped inside the house, without a word.
It was on the third date—the date he’d figured would never happen after she’d run away from him on date number two—that he knew. They’d stood in the park, looking up at the stars—Mars and Venus would be spectacularly bright that night, she had told him. And with any other girl, that would just be a tactic, a ruse to get him somewhere dark and alone. But Beth just wanted to show him the stars. They’d stood close together, his arm brushing hers, their necks craned toward the sky.
“It’s so beautiful,” she’d said in a hushed voice.
“Yes,” he’d whispered. But he was looking at her. He put a hand on her waist, another on the back of her head, on her soft, blond hair, and drew her face toward his. And their lips met, their bodies came together. She’d been so hesitant, so scared and tense, almost pulling away. And then she took a deep breath—he could feel her chest rise and fall in his arms—and her arms wrapped around him, her fingers running through his hair and caressing his neck. When they finally broke away from each other, she didn’t move away, but stayed close to him, her arms loosely wrapped around his shoulders. At first he’d thought she was crying—but she was laughing.
“I had no idea,” she’d told him, when he asked why. “All this time, and I just—I had no idea.”
But she wouldn’t explain, just kissed him again.
That was the beginning of everything. They had still talked, all the time, for hours, but they talked in quiet voices, their lips inches apart, their bodies wound together. It seemed like it would last forever—but here they were, or rather, here he was, alone.
It was all different now, now that there was this thing in their way that they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, talk about. And that was the problem. It wasn’t about what he wanted or what she didn’t want—it was about what neither of them could say. She was tense again, scared, hesitant, but this time there was no endless conversation, no soul baring. After all they’d had together, she wasn’t turning to him, and he was afraid to push—afraid that this time, if she ran away, she might not come back.
He stripped down to his boxers, fell into bed, and, as his tired mind began to wander, pictured himself back in bed with Beth, curled up tight against her warm body.
Except—
Except that Beth didn’t have long black hair that cascaded down her back like a shimmering river, or eyes of deep green that you could lose yourself in for days. Glistening, full red lips and a mischievous smile. And she didn’t cling to him, didn’t lean on him—didn’t need him.
But someone did.
chapter
4
They decided to meet that week to discuss logistics for the party. An anti-Dance Committee committee. Kaia had offered her place—though it was a fifteen-minute drive out of town, on a deserted stretch of broken-down highway, it had plenty of space and came with a guarantee of no parental supervision. And by Grace standards—both Grace the town, whose mining elite had had neither the time nor the inclination to build grand estates even when there was money to do so, and Grace the family, whose four-bedroom house, a holdover from the good ol’days, may have been on the right side of the tracks but was in dire need of a fresh paint job and a new roof—it was a palace. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms, maid’s quarters, a shiny stainless steel kitchen that would have been at home on the Food Channel—and the crowning glory, a capacious living room that took up half of the ground floor and was walled by floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the wide desert expanse. Kaia’s father had flown in an architect and designer from Manhattan, and the two had guaranteed that every detail—from the moldings to the banister of the spiral staircase, from the towels in the pool house to the sterling silver cocktail shaker on the fully stocked bar—worked in concert, creating a pristine world in which everything had its place. (Everything except Kaia, of course, who hadn’t been prescreened and carefully selected for her ability to match the wallpaper—and, mainly out of spite, never used a coaster.)
Pool table, hot tub, open bar, an inside glimpse into the lifestyles of the very rich if not so famous? It was an offer even Harper couldn’t refuse.
After all the oohing and aahing had ended—quicker than might be expected, since Adam had already seen the place from the outside and he’d had plenty of time to imagine what wonders the inside might hold; Kane’s excitement was rarely roused by anything he couldn’t smoke, drink, or snort; Harper would rather have died than admit even a fraction of the awe and envy that struck her as she stepped through the door
way, and Miranda loyally followed Harper’s lead—they got down to work. Almost.
“So, what’s this I hear about a hot tub?” Kane asked, sauntering through the large living room and pausing before one of the oversized windows that looked out over the pool deck.
Harper cleared her throat in exasperation and waved her notebook in the air. “Forget the hot tub, Kane—we’ve got work to do. Remember?”
Kane spun around to face the room, a slow grin creeping across his face. “Yeah, yeah, work beforeadviser,” Adam play,” he allowed. “But …” He strode to the edge of the room and squeezed himself behind the mahogany bar. “Rum and Cokes before work—don’t you think?” He cocked an eyebrow in Kaia’s direction—the closest Kane ever got to asking permission.
“Be my guest,” she said, shrugging. “That’s what it’s there for.”
“Harper?” Kane asked, brandishing an empty glass at her and temptingly dangling a bottle of rum over its rim.
Harper sighed and tossed her notebook down on one of the leather couches. “Okay Fill ’er up.”
She was only human, after all.
Delighting in his favorite role, Kane began to dole out the drinks—vodka cranberry for Miranda, beer for Adam, dry martini for Kaia, and, of course, rum and Coke for Harper. Finally, Kane poured himself a glass of single-malt scotch, then stepped out from behind the bar and suggested they get started. He was already getting bored.
“So Beth’s definitely not coming?” Miranda asked, catching Harper’s look and trying not to laugh as her eyes practically rolled out of their sockets.
Adam shook his head. “She’s got some meeting for the school paper,” he said, frowning. “She told me to say she was sorry she couldn’t help out, though.”
“Now, how could I begrudge her when she’s devoting her time to the worthy cause of Haven High investigative journalism?” Harper asked.
Miranda and Kaia snorted in sync.
“I’m on the paper,” Miranda commented. “There was no meeting scheduled for today.”