Lust

Chapter 14

“Remember when we used to play GI Joes out here?” Adam asked lazily, lying back on the large, flat rock and staring up at the stars.

So he hadn’t apologized. So what? After a few days Harper’s anger had burned down to a low simmer, and with Beth back in the picture and Kaia up to God knows what, Harper didn’t have time to waste sulking in a corner. If she was going to win Adam, she was going to have to get in the game. Besides, she thought, looking fondly over at her oldest friend, lying next to her on the cool granite, it was Adam. Too dense to realize he’d done something wrong, so what was even the point in making him feel guilty? Especially when he called out of the blue with a mysterious request to meet him outside, at their place, to talk about some “stuff.” When he needed her, she was there-that’s just how it worked.

“I remember when I used to play GI Joes while you spent most of your time with my Barbie collection,” Harper teased him.

“Hey, Barbie was hot!” Adam protested.

Harper rolled her eyes. “Right, and that’s why you used to beg me to let you dress her up and drive her around in the Barbie Corvette.” She propped herself up slightly to give him a close look at her skeptical expression. “You just keep telling yourself that.”

“I slept with her, Harper.”

She froze, still facing him, and it took every ounce of strength she had to keep her face still. No eyes widening in shock or horror, no mouth turning down in disappointment, no tears or telltale blushing-she just looked at him steadily and concentrated on remembering to breathe.

“Who, Barbie?” she asked, narrowly managing to keep her voice light. She let some of the tension leach out of her muscles and sank back onto the smooth surface of the rock.

“Kaia. I’m serious, Harper. I slept with her.” He made a strange keening noise, half between a groan and a yelp. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

Get yourself checked out for STDs?

But Harper bit back the comment and was glad for the darkness-it gave her a place to hide.

So he’d slept with her. At least now she knew.

Though she wished she didn’t.

“So that’s why we’re out here?” Harper asked. Though she’d suspected as much. The rock bridged the boundary line between their two small backyards and had been a favorite spot for years-it was here that he’d told her, just after moving to town, that his parents were divorced, here that she’d confessed her seventh-grade terror of having no friends, here that, at twelve, they’d shared their first kiss. It was where they ran to when they needed to run away, where their most terrible secrets lived. It was their place, the only thing in the world they truly owned-and they owned it together.

But they hadn’t needed their rock in a long time.

“Well, what do you want to do?” she asked simply.

“That’s all you’re going to say?” He rubbed his eyes furiously, like a little boy trying to rub out his tears. “Don’t you want to tell me what a disgusting pig I am, or something?”

“I think I’ll let Beth have that honor, if she ever finds out.” And Harper almost immediately began sifting through her options-maybe she could play this to her advantage after all. If she could find the right angle, if little Bethie heard the news in just the right way è

“Oh God,” Adam gasped, his voice filled with horror. “Do you think she will? What am I saying, of course she will. And then è”

“Adam, chill out,” Harper advised, trying to keep her voice steady. “She probably won’t find out-I’m obviously not going to tell her, Kaia has no reason to tell her-and I assume you’re not going to tell her?”

Though the spineless brat would probably take about five seconds to forgive you,Harper thought with disgust.

“God, no. Unless-should I? Harper, I’m so screwed up. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“So, like I said, what do you want to do?” Harper repeated. “Ball’s in your court, Ad.”

She shivered. It was a cold night, a brisk wind blowing through the yard, and she was dressed in only cords and a lacy tank top. Before she could even say anything-not that she would have said anything, nothing could have forced her to interrupt this train of thought-Adam pulled off his sweatshirt and tossed it to her. Beneath it, she noticed, he was wearing a vintage Transformers T-shirt she’d bought him for his birthday last year.

“What I want?” he mused, as Harper zipped herself into the cozy red fleece. “I want to go back to the beginning of the year and start over, do everything different.”

“Not an option,” she pointed out. “Try again.”

He was silent for a moment, and Harper wondered whether it was time for her to take a harder line. If he didn’t know what he wanted, well, maybe she should just enlighten him.

“Remember when I kissed you out here?” he asked suddenly.

“Barely,” she said casually, hoping he couldn’t hear the heartbeat pounding in her ears. “Our braces got stuck together and you accidentally stuck your tongue up my nose-but other than that, it was a success.”

They laughed quietly together.

“Everything was easier then,” Adam finally said softly, his voice almost carried away on the wind. “I miss it-you and me, just having fun, being together.”

“We hated it,” Harper reminded him. “We were bored out of our minds. We just wanted to grow up.”

Adam sighed. “Yeah, and look where that got us.”

Harper watched his silhouette in the moonlight and then, because it felt right, and because she wasn’t scared anymore, she took his hand. His fingers curled around hers, and she squeezed his hand gently. He gave her a quick squeeze back. They lay together on the rock, side by side, connected. She hadn’t felt so close to him in a long time. This was it. This was her moment.

“Adam, maybe-maybe it’s not supposed to be so hard,” she suggested hesitantly. “Maybe being with Beth should be easy. Maybe if it’s not-well, maybe you don’t really want to be with her. Maybe you want-”

He pulled his hand away from hers and sat up.

“That’s not what I was saying at all, Harper,” he said hotly. But the sudden anger, the quick retort-maybe, Harper realized, he knew she was right. “I love her,” he insisted. “It’s not supposed to be easy.”

“I know… but this?” she pushed. “Fighting all the time? Sleeping with someone else? You have to admit-it doesn’t really sound like a good, healthy relationship.”

“So we’re going through a bad time,” he protested-and from the look on his face, she wondered if she’d gone a step too far. “You don’t just walk away when things are tough.”

“Adam, I just-”

“Or maybe that’s what you do,” he said scornfully, leaping off the rock. “And maybe that’s why you’re always alone.You’re so used to being alone, I don’t even think you realize it-but maybe if you did, you wouldn’t even care.” He turned his back on her and walked inside.

Harper lay on the rock, perfectly still, watching the stars and listening to the silence of the night. She pulled Adam’s sweatshirt tightly around her and breathed in the smell of him, still lingering on the soft fleece.

She did know, better than anyone. And she cared.

There are times when a girl just needs to be alone.

This was not one of them.

Harper hit the speed dial and waited impatiently for Miranda to pick up the phone. Finally, on the fourth ring, just when she’d almost given up hope, salvation arrived.

“911, Miranda,” she said, by way of greeting. “This is an emergency situation. We’re going out.”

“Harper, I’ve got a test tomorrow, I’ve got to study, I-”

Harper wasn’t listening. She was too busy digging through her closet, searching. She needed the perfect outfit for a feel-good, look-better night on the town. And there it was. Spangled tube top-green, to match her eyes; skintight miniskirt-black, to match her mood. The strappy silver stiletto heels she never got the chance to wear. And a black beaded choker, to dress her naked neck. She pulled her hair back into a loose, low chignon, making sure that a few curly tendrils hung down over her eyes. It was a definite look. A little sweet, a little sassy; slightly slutty, but not too skanky. Basically-hot. Maybe a little out of place in the low-rent nightlife options Grace provided her, but if she got whistled at by some drunken trucker or hit on by a Hell’s Angel, well, so much the better. It would be a reminder that plenty of people out there wanted her-more than half the high school, for one (99 percent of the male half, with a few alterna-females thrown in for good measure, or so she’d been told). And tonight, she could use all the reminders she could get.

Miranda was still babbling on about a test, and some bio lab that needed to be written up.

“Miranda, listen to me,” Harper cut in impatiently. “SOS. Seriously, drop what you’re doing-were going out.”

It took some persuading, some wheedling, and eventually a promise from Harper that she would treat Miranda to a manicure in time for the formal that weekend and would finish burning all the CDs for the after party on her own. Still, Miranda hedged-it was late, she was tired, she was in her pajamas, her parents would be suspicious…

But Harper was nothing if not persistent-and Miranda was nothing if not loyal, and so, finally, she hung up the phone and answered the call.

As far as their parents were concerned, Harper was sleeping at Miranda’s house and Miranda was sleeping at Harper’s. All thanks to a supposed late-night cram session for an imaginary chem test. (Harper’s parents foolishly thought that Miranda was a good influence, and as far as Miranda’s mother was concerned, Harper was the golden child. It was almost too easy.) Later they’d sneak into Harper’s house to get some sleep, knowing that her parents, always up and out by five a.m., would never know they’d been there.

As for the night’s real entertainment, they settled on the Barnstormer, a seedy ribs joint on the north side of town that attracted a reliable clientele of truckers, motorcyclists, and a few regulars, who, by the time they passed through the red wooden doors, were already too drunk to pass along any information about their station in life (or possibly even to remember it themselves).

It was dark, smoky, and crowded, the perfect place to lose yourself and your problems. A sober observer would have spotted Harper and Miranda immediately-the two young girls, dressed to kill, were several decades younger and several layers of dirt cleaner than the majority of patrons. But by eleven p.m. on Rodeo Night, the only sober observers available were the waitresses, who, spending most of their time fending off wandering hands and cleaning up patches of vomit, had little inclination to bother the two girls from the slightly less wrong side of the tracks.

Feeling cloaked by a powerful haze of invisibility, they grabbed a small table in the dark recesses of the bar and, carefully avoiding any sticky spots, flagged down a waitress. Their order:

Two baskets of chicken wings.

One basket of ribs.

Two pitchers of beer.

It was going to be that kind of night.

As the twangs of country-and-western music blared in the background, Harper and Miranda spilled out their problems to each other, becoming increasingly incoherent and increasingly convinced that their problems could be easily solved by the elimination of all men from the face of the Earth. But, it seemed, nothing short of that would help.

A few years ago, the owner of the Barnstormer-a quietly practical middle-aged woman who had moved to Grace after the sudden death of her husband and concluded that the only money to be found in a town like this was in providing its population with food, drinks, or women (she’d hit the trifecta)-had hung a large piece of driftwood over the inside entrance. The red paint scrawled across it offered a legend to all who passed beneath: EAT TILL IT HURTS, DRINK TILL IT FEELS BETTER.

By midnight Harper and Miranda had done both.

Long years of practice had taught Harper and Miranda that the quickest way to feel better was to remind themselves that other people were so much worse. And Rodeo Night at the Barnstormer provided them plenty of opportunity.

“Check out the guy in the cowboy boots,” Miranda crowed, almost spitting out her mouthful of beer.

“Which one?” Harper asked, rolling her eyes. “They’re all wearing cowboy boots.”

“Yeah, but most of them are wearing a little bit more than that,” Miranda pointed out, nodding her head to the right, where an overweight, middle-aged guy had stripped off his shirt and climbed atop the bar, gyrating and bouncing in time to the Garth Brooks jukebox beat and the hoots of the crowd.

They dissolved into laughter. This town was filled with enough losers to cheer them up well into the next decade.

“How about the Lone Ranger over there?” Harper snorted, pointing in the direction of an old man decked out in a fifties cowboy costume, complete with mask and capgun.

“God, we have got to get out of this town before we turn into one of them,” Miranda declared. She grabbed the last barbecue wing and stuffed it into her mouth, then downed the rest of her beer.

“Tell me about it,” Harper agreed, finishing her own. They poured themselves more from the pitcher and sloppily toasted, clinking their overflowing glasses.

“To us!” Miranda crowed.

“To getting the hell out of this place!” Harper added.

“Tb living fabulous lives-”

“Without shitty guys dragging us down!”

“To being wild and crazy-”

“And independent, on our own-”

“Together!” Miranda finished triumphantly.

And they drank up.

Beth had stayed home from school that day. She’d told her mother she was sick, and her mother had no reason not to believe her. For why would Bethie lie?

She’d spent the day in bed, and it was almost as if she were sick-she was immobilized. Normally unable to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, her mind always on fire thinking of the next task to be done, the next mission to accomplish, she’d spent the day tucked neatly under her covers staring aimlessly at the TV and flipping between channels.

Talk show.

Soap opera.

Dora the Explorer.

Soap opera.

It was all the same to her.

She knew she couldn’t hide in her room forever, battering herself with accusations and regrets, if only’s and what if’s.

If only I hadn’t gone to the meeting.

If only I hadn’t flirted with him.

If only I’d known what he wanted from me.

What if I wanted it too?

She’d have to leave her sanctuary someday. She’d have to face her life, face him, and soon.

Just not today.

There was a knock on her door.

“Beth? Honey?” Without waiting for Beth to respond, her mother opened the door a few inches and poked her head through the gap. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Her face was filled with concern, and Beth felt a momentary stab of guilt for lying, but beneath that, a warm glow of pleasure-her mother was usually too busy to remember that Beth existed, much less worry about how she was doing. In fact, Beth realized, this was the first time in months that her mother had even set foot inside her room.

“I’m okay, I guess,” she said listlessly, not bothering to look away from the TV.

“Are you feeling up for a visitor?” her mother asked, glancing over her shoulder into the hallway.

Beth sat up in bed and looked over at the clock. It was almost eleven-who would be visiting her? Usually she wasn’t even allowed to have guests in the house this late-her parents were afraid it would wake up the twins.

“I know it’s late,” her mother added, “but he says he brought you your homework, so I thought just this once it would be okay.”

He?

Beth nodded weakly, and her mother swung open the door all the way-revealing Adam, standing in the hallway with his hands behind his back and an adorable smile on his face.

As her mother disappeared and Adam came into the room, Beth panicked briefly, running her hands through her tangled hair and looking down at her ragged pajamas-she’d been in bed all day, hadn’t brushed her teeth in hours or brushed her hair since yesterday. She was a total mess, and for a second, she was tempted to hide under the covers until he went away, but then he came and sat down on the bed next to her and all she could think was: He came. For me.

“Claire already called to give me all the homework,” she told him-and then realized that she hadn’t even thanked him for coming. She’d only just gotten him back, and now, if her scarecrow appearance didn’t send him screaming in the other direction, her rudeness probably would.

“I know she did,” he said, before she could say anything else.

“Then why-?”

“I wanted to give you something,” he told her, brushing a lock of hair off her forehead. “Well, two things, actually. First, this.”

He leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips-and if her parents hadn’t been on the other side of the paperthin walls, Beth would have been tempted to wrap her arms around him and throw him down onto the bed beside her. But instead, she just kissed him back gently, breathing deeply. He tasted like cinnamon, and she knew it was probably because he’d just finished a pack of the cinnamonflavored gum he was addicted to. And she loved that she knew things like that about him. No matter how bad things got, she still knew him. And he knew her, better than anyone else.

“That’s not all,” he said, pulling away. She wrapped her fingers through his, and he squeezed her hand gently, and with his other hand unzipped his backpack, pulled something out, and presented it to her.

It was a red rose, beautiful and perfect. And it was threaded through a pink plastic flower ring-an exact match to the one he’d given her so long ago, just before their first date.

Beth laughed, and it felt like the first time she’d laughed in years.

“I’m still not marrying you, idiot,” she giggled. But she took the giant ring and slipped it onto her finger.

“I thought we’d start slow,” he said, just as he had all those months ago.’One date.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, inhaling the sweet fragrance of the rose. It was almost overpowering.

“Come to the formal with me,” he asked.

Beth shook her head in confusion. “I’m already going with you,” she reminded him. “You asked me weeks ago.” She’d been saving up to buy a new dress, actually, but then they’d been fighting so much and had stopped speaking and eventually wasting all that money on a dress she might not get to wear hadn’t seemed like such a great idea. But now, looking into his earnest blue eyes, now she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do more than look beautiful for him. To turn back time and forget about everything that had happened this month-everything. This weekend, this dance, it would be just the fresh start they needed.

“A lot’s happened since then,” Adam explained. “I’ve been an asshole since then,” he added.

“No, it wasn’t you, it was just-”

“Let me finish,” he interrupted quietly. “I’ve been a jerk, and now I know it, and I just want us to start over again, fresh. Just pretend the last few weeks never happened. So, Ms. Manning, will you do me the great honor of going to the dance with me?” He pulled the rose from her fingers and played its petals gently across her lips.

“Well, I’ll have to think about it for a second,” she began with a frown. His face crumpled, and she rewarded him with a bright grin. “Of course I’ll go with you.” She moved the rose out of the way and put her arms around him, cradling his face in her hands. She pulled his face toward her and kissed him, wishing that she could freeze this moment, that they really could pretend that the last few weeks had never happened and that the future would never come. That there would be no more arguments, that the tension that crackled between them would just disappear and things would be sweet and easy again, like they were tonight. And, she realized, she knew how to make that happen.

“I love you, Adam,” she whispered, her lips still just barely touching his.

“You too, Beth. Only you.”

And even though it was late and her mother could burst into the room at any minute, Beth kissed him again. The moment couldn’t last forever-but she wasn’t ready to let it end.