Lust

Chapter 7

Harper picked up the phone on the second ring. Thanks to caller ID, she knew it was him and-irrationally-felt the need to smooth down her hair and do a quick mirror check before saying hello. As if he would be able to somehow hear her beauty through the phone. Ridiculous, she knew. But still-every little bit helped.

“Adam, what’s up?” she greeted him, lying back on her bed and relishing the sound of his musical voice in her ear.

“Great news-I think I may have found a spot for the party. I just need to drive over and check it out.”

It was just what she’d been hoping to hear. She and Miranda had already spent hours burning CDs (no way were either of them risking their personal CD collections on a roomful of drunken teenagers), and Kane had promised them that the drinks, courtesy of his older brother-and a number of mysterious other “connections”-were a done deal. But all the beer and hip-hop in the world wouldn’t be enough to make this party work if they didn’t find somewhere to hold it, and so far every possibility-the golf course, the gravel pit on the edge of town, some kid’s dingy basement-had been a major bust.

Harper knew she should have been somewhat worried, but she had other priorities right now, and one of them-the only one, really-involved getting some quality alone time with Adam. So if he’d found some suitably large, deserted outpost with ample facilities for drinking, dancing, and doing… whatever, it seemed only right that in her capacity as leader of this little party squad, she help him with his final investigations. And whatever else he might need help with, of course.

“Cool,” she said, as nonchalantly as she could. “Do you want me to-”

“Kaia and I are heading over tomorrow afternoon,” he added.

Oh.

She should have known. Since when did Adam go anywhere without Kaia by his side? She shut her eyes tight and tried not to picture the two of them creeping through a deserted building together, hand in hand. She supposed that she should be able to assure herself that Adam was too much of a stand-up guy to ever cheat on his girlfriend-but it was a little late to make that case, given that she’d spent the last couple of months convincing herself that, under the right circumstances and with the right girl (read: Harper), he’d have no trouble doing exactly that.

“So, should we all meet tomorrow night?” Adam continued, after it was clear that Harper wasn’t going to be squealing in enthusiasm any time soon. “Hopefully, we’ll have some good news.”

We. Great.

Harper sighed quietly and sat up in bed, digging her day planner out from beneath a stack of books and papers on her night table. Saturday night was free and clear-plenty of time for sitting around, staring at Adam, or aiming death glares (or at least some finely honed sarcasm) at the girls who kept standing in her way.

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “IVe got this thing… but I guess I can move it.” Not for the first time, Harper gave thanks that video phone technology had never really caught on. Adam always claimed he could tell when she was lying, something about the way she narrowed her eyes or played with her left earlobe. She didn’t really buy it-but still, better safe than sorry

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t want to deprive some lonely guy out there his long-awaited chance to-”

“Shut up,” she said irritably. “First of all, this is more important. Second of all, there is no lonely guy-I don’t do desperate. Third of all,” she added, figuring it couldn’t hurt to appear a little in demand, “he can wait.”

“If you’re sure…”

“Positive,” she assured him, wondering how it was that she’d become the one talking him into this little shindig, given that it was really the last place she wanted to be. “How about eight?” she suggested, trying to muster up some fake enthusiasm.

There was a pause.

“Maybe a little earlier?” he requested. “I have to be out of there by nine-I promised Beth I’d go give her some moral support at the diner. It’s her first night of work.”

“Beths working at the diner?” Harper asked incredulously. “Our diner?” She smirked, imagining the preppie princess decked out in the Nifty Fifties tack costume (pink tank tops and poofy fluorescent green skirts with crinolines underneath), smeared with ketchup and barbecue sauce and smelling like stale pickles. This day was looking up.

“Yeah, her last job wasn’t really paying enough,” Adam confided. “You know, her family…” his voice trailed off, but he didn’t really need to continue. Grace was a small town, and even before Adam and Beth had started dating, Harper had known exactly how that story ended. “Her family…” was packed like sardines into a tiny ranch house in a squalid development one step up from the trailer park. Her parents worked three jobs between the two of them and still struggled to buy new clothes every year for their swiftly growing twin sons. Her family’s one car, a fifteenyear-old station wagon, broke down more days than it ran. Beth’s family, in essence, worked on a simple principle: Ask not what your family can do for you, but what you can do for your family. It seemed that Beth was stepping up to the plate once again-and Harper supposed that she should dig down inside herself and find a little sympathy, or at least a little respect.

On the other hand, there were a lot of things she should do. “Should” didn’t have much of a hold over her these days. “Could” was, after all, so much richer in possibility.

“So I think it’s a great idea!” Harper enthused, as a plan began to form in her mind and a dark smile crept across her face.

“What idea?” Adam asked, confused.

“Your idea, genius. Moral support-we’ll just have our meeting at the diner, and then we can all cheer her on. It’ll be such a great surprise.” As in: Surprise! Devoted boyfriend that I am, I brought along all my friends to watch you serve and clean and grovel for tips, and basically humiliate yourself in front of everyone you know on your first day of work. Don’t you love me, baby?

Plus, added bonus, Harper realized: a new locale for the meeting would guarantee a nonrepeat of the hot tub incident. Party planning in an empty mansion with plenty of drinks and a giant hot tub had seemed like a good idea at the time-but Harper still shuddered at the memory of the half-naked Kaia rubbing herself all over Adam. Oh, you look so tense-do you want a massage? Please, who knew people still used that line? (And why hadn’t she thought of it first?) It was a mistake she’d vowed never to make again.

“I don’t know,” Adam said doubtfully. “She might not want us all there-not on her first day and all.”

“Hey, we’re her friends, aren’t we?” Harper wheedled, twirling the phone cord around her fingers and hoping he would take the bait. “Come on, you’re a guy, what do you know about what she wants? Speaking as a girl, I can assure you that she’ll be totally grateful.”

“You think?”

Eyes narrowed, Harper smiled.

“Trust me.”

Late Saturday afternoon, Adam pulled the car into the empty parking lot and the two of them stared up at the dark, abandoned building that loomed before them.

“It’s perfect,” Kaia breathed.

And it was. The old Cedar Creek Motel (no creek in sight, of course-only a moldy drainage pipe and a dirty concrete pit that had once served as the “swim at your own not insignificant risk” pool), covered in dust and exuding a stale aura of hollow disrepair. A tilted sign with cracked neon tubing hanging over the entrance hailed the wreck as GRACE’S FINEST LODGING, complete with REAL COLOR TV and 100% REFRIGERATED AIR. The two-story motel, a fiftyroom complex on the outskirts of town, had once been painted a proud flamingo pink, standing as a boldly fluorescent oasis amidst the desert wasteland; now the grayish husk of a building, sallow weeds nipping at its foundations, effortlessly faded into its environment, an overgrown concrete cactus. Unlike the empty, gutted storefronts that littered the main streets of Grace, the Creek stood whole and complete-no boarded-up windows, no graffiti covering its walls, no garbage strewn across its empty parking lot. But it had been abandoned for months.

Not surprising-Grace didn’t have much of a tourist trade. There was no reason to pull off the interstate and drive twenty miles down a bumpy local road, just to stay in a dilapidated no-tell motel. Tourists had better things to do with their time-and those truckers who did pass through town usually took one look at the Creek and decided they’d be better off sleeping in the cab of their trucks.

Kaia and Adam approached the lobby door-locked, but not boarded up-and Adam pulled out the set of keys he’d snagged from his mother’s real estate office. She’d been trying to unload the place for months with, unsurprisingly, no luck.

They stepped inside-and the normal, in color, living, breathing world outside disappeared.

“It’s like a ghost town in here,” Kaia whispered in wonder. “As if everyone just picked up and left one day, just disappeared-and no one’s touched it since.”

And it did seem as if the lobby had sat frozen in time since the day the motel’s owners had skipped town, a few steps ahead of the bankers trying to collect on a year’s worth of missed mortgage payments. A thick layer of dust covered everything, but the furniture, the dingy carpeting, the vintage seventies wallpaper, was all still intact. Preserved. And waiting.

“No one wants to spend the money to clear it out,” Adam explained, stepping behind the reception desk and smearing a track through the thick layer of dust with his index finger. Even the reservation book (no newfangled computer system for this motel) still lay open atop the desk, he marveled. He flicked the light switch on the wall behind him-nothing. No electricity, but that wasn’t a problem; the afternoon sun filtered in through the lobby’s small windows. It was dim and shadowy, but they would be able to see. “They’re just waiting for someone to buy it,” he explained to Kaia, enjoying, as he often did when he was with her, the unusual sensation of being an expert; she knew so much, but nothing about the West, about life in a small town, about anything that mattered-really, she needed him. And she seemed to know it. “Then the new owners will figure out what to do with all this stuff,” he continued, gesturing toward the vinyl chairs and woodpaneled coffee table to their right. “Or maybe they’ll just tear it down. Cool, huh?”

“I think it’s creepy,” Kaia said in a hushed voice, pressing close to him.

Adam had grown up amidst the ruins of Grace’s past-playing spies in the empty shells of old factories, hunting for buried treasure around the abandoned mines. But he put a comforting hand on Kaia’s back-of course she wouldn’t be used to that kind of thing, he reminded himself.

“Come on,” he said, leading her through the dark lobby. “Let’s take a look. It’s perfectly safe.”

She stayed by his side, and they crept down the hallway, explorers in a lost world. Not that there was much to explore. The surprisingly spacious lobby, a narrow hall with peeling orange wallpaper and a long stretch of numbered bedroom doors, a cramped staircase leading up to an identical hallway on the second floor (though here the wallpaper was green and purple-or had been, until all the colors faded to gray). And that was about it.

“This is the place,” Adam said with confidence, as they surveyed the “courtyard,” a paved area by the empty pool with some plastic tables and chaise lounges-he could already picture the scene, drunken seniors spilling outside, dancing in the moonlight, hooking up in the shadows. It was perfect. “It’s on the edge of town, so no one will notice us here, it’s big, it’s dark-this is the place.”

“We should check out a room first, before we decide, don’t you think?” Kaia asked.

“Aren’t you scared?” Adam teased. “Ghosts of truckers past, and all?”

“I think I can handle it,” Kaia said with a smile. “Just stay close.”

They chose a room on the first floor, at the end of the hall. Adam pulled out his mother’s skeleton key and turned it in the lock (Cedar Creek was a bit behind the motel curve-the electric key card craze had passed them by). They stepped inside.

The room was musty and dark, and just as frozen in time as the rest of the building. But it was a motel room nonetheless-bathroom, chair, TV-and queen-size bed.

What more did you need?

“I have to admit,” Kaia began, “it looks-aaah! What the hell was that?” She squealed and threw her arms around Adam as a grayish white streak raced across the floor and disappeared into the far wall.

“Did you see that?” she asked between rapid, panicked breaths.

“It’s just a mouse,” he assured her. “No big deal.”

“It practically ran over my foot!” Her arms still around him, she squeezed tighter.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s gone now.” He rubbed her back for a moment until her chest stopped heaving and her muscles unclenched. “It’s okay now,” he repeated. She closed her eyes and slumped against him, leaning her head against his chest. He stared at the wall over her shoulder, trying to focus on the complicated pattern of flowered diamonds, on the large spiderweb dangling from the upper right-hand corner of the ceiling, on the critique his swim coach had given him yesterday after a subpar performance in the butterfly heat. On anything but the body quivering in his arms.

Kaia looked up at him, his face only inches from hers.

“Good thing you were here,” she said softly. “I’m terrified of mice-but with you here, somehow I feel so safe.”

Adam blushed and mumbled something incomprehensible.

“It’s funny,” Kaia said, leaning closer and tightening her grip. “I’ve only known you for a few weeks, but I just feel so close to you. Sometimes I think…” Her voice faded away, and then she tipped her face toward him and closed the narrow gap between them, pressing her lips to his.

For a moment he responded, pressing his body to hers, pulling her tight, his lips opening slightly, his tongue gently running along her lower lip, tasting her-

And then he pushed her away.

“What are you doing?” he asked harshly.

A look of surprise and what might have been anger flickered across her face. And then she crumbled.

“I-I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I don’t know what I was-you brought me here, and we’re all alone, and then you brought me to the bedroom, and-”

“We’re scouting locations for a party,” he yelled, backing away from her. Overreacting. (Had he been sending out some kind of messages? Hadn’t he, in fact, kissed her back? But he cut off that line of thinking before it could go any further. He couldn’t afford to go any further.)

“I know, I’m sorry-I told you, I don’t know what I was thinking. I just-got carried away.”

She raised her hands to her face and turned away from him.

“I’m so embarrassed,” she said in a muffled voice. “I’m sorry.”

Adam instinctively reached out a hand to comfort her, to still her shuddering shoulders, and then, on second thought, let it drop to his side.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “Don’t be embarrassed. If I-if I gave you some kind of wrong idea, I’m-it’s just, you know. Beth. And I-”

“Can we just go?” Kaia asked, turning around again, her eyes dry. “I think we should just go now.”

The awkward pause lasted all the way out of the building, across the parking lot, and throughout the interminable ride back into town.

Kaia leaned her cheek against the cool glass of the car window and sighed, remembering when seducing a guy meant slipping into some sexy lingerie, crawling into his bed, and waiting for him to come home and get his surprise. Either that or, if she was feeling lazy, just grabbing the nearest hot guy and pulling him into a lip-lock. No questions asked.

Things were so much simpler on the East Coast.

Okay, so seducing Mr. All America was somewhat more interesting-but it was also turning out to be a lot more work.

She darted her eyes to the left, admiring his profile; he sat rigidly in the driver’s seat, hands at ten o’clock and two o’clock on the wheel, eyes resolutely focused on the road. This guy had by-the-book written all over him. Well, that’s why she’d picked him, right? She liked a challenge. And even if his heart was still totally committed to Beth, she now had some concrete evidence that his body was less than hopelessly devoted. No, his body seemed to have some ideas of its own.

They hadn’t spoken since pulling out of the motel parking lot, and Kaia had plenty of quiet time to plan her next move. She just wasn’t sure what it should be. She’d come so close back there, with the ridiculous mouse scare-and damsel in distress had certainly seemed the right way to go. But she was getting a little tired of waiting around for him to sweep her onto his white horse and off into the sunset; maybe it was time to be a little less subtle.

Adam parked the car in the diner lot and hopped out. Kaia waited a moment, and when it became clear that he wasn’t planning on opening her door for her (as he usually did), she got out as well. They walked together toward the entrance, Adam careful to keep at least a foot of space between them. Kaia could feel the guilt coming off him in waves, and she made sure to compose her face into the perfect combination of embarrassment, rejection, and vulnerability.

Just to rub it in.

Before they stepped inside the restaurant (undeserving as it was of the name), he pulled her aside, grasping her wrist to get her to stop-then dropping it quickly as if the touch of her skin had burned.

“Listen, Kaia, I’m really sorry-again-if I sent you the wrong signals or something,” he stammered, rubbing his temples and looking down at his feet. “I don’t want you to feel like, well-” He paused and finally looked up, meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he finished lamely.

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him. “It’s totally okay. I’m okay.”

But she averted her eyes and let her voice waver, and she knew he didn’t quite believe her.

Good.

“Here they are,” Adam said, in a light and brittle voice. He waved frantically toward the silver Camaro pulling into the lot. Harper and Miranda hopped out and jogged toward them, Kane loping behind at a more leisurely pace.

“Well?” Harper asked, before anyone had a chance to say hello. “Did you find a place?”

“Impatient much? Wait until we sit down “Adam told her, visibly relaxing now that it was no longer just the two of them. Kaia suspected that with all the excitement, Adam had almost forgotten their original reason for visiting the motel, or the triumph he’d felt when declaring it the perfect spot. He caught her eye, and the tips of his ears turned a bright red-was he thinking not of the motel’s ample party space or conveniently out-of-the-way location, but of the feel of her skin beneath his wandering hands, the touch of her warm breath on his face? She gave him a cryptic half smile-and he quickly looked away.

The group crowded inside and grabbed a booth next to the jukebox. Kaia would have sacrificed a few quarters to save herself from the tedious Ricky Martin song currently booming through the speakers positioned over every table, but she’d taken a quick look at the playlist last time she was there. If you weren’t an NSYNC fan and didn’t want to groove to the sweet sounds of Britney Spears or the Beach Boys, there wasn’t much there. Kaia grimaced, wondering how much she’d have to pay to get them to turn the music off.

As the rest of the “gang” bantered back and forth, Kaia quickly scanned the menu, reconfirming for herself that there wasn’t a thing on it she wanted to eat. She certainly wasn’t going for the “Sushi Special,” the mere thought of which filled her with nausea. (They were five hours from the nearest ocean and no freshwater in sight; the fish on the menu might very well have been, as advertised, the “catch of the day”-but which day? And in which year?) She did her best to suppress a sudden pang of homesickness-there was a little place in the West Village that served thirty different kinds of sushi, all better than anything you could get in Japan (which she knew from personal experience). She and her friends had made it a policy to stop there at least once a week-and the secluded park just down the street made the perfect spot for a picnic, as she and an incredibly hot NYU student had discovered one night. He’d satisfied her craving for sushi, and she’d satisfied his for something equally fresh and spicy. One of those perfect New York nights. It all seemed a very long time ago-and very far away.

Thankfully, before she could spiral downward into a cesspool of nostalgia and self-pity, the waitress showed up to take their order-and the shock of it was enough to slam Kaia back into the present. She was surprised enough by the quick service, but she was even more surprised that the waitress, beneath the tacky spangled tank top and gaudy makeup, was Beth.

Beth, her hair pulled up into a high side ponytail and garish blue eye shadow smeared across her lids, looked even more surprised to see them. And not in a good way. She fumbled with the small notebook she used for taking orders and dropped her pen; as she was bending down to pick it up, she came within a few centimeters of smashing her head into the edge of the table. Finally, she stood again and waved a feeble hello, trying to smooth down the wisps of blond hair that had escaped from her ponytail and shifting her weight back and forth from one foot to the other.

“Hey, honey!” Adam said giddily, oblivious to his beloved’s disarray. “Look-I brought everyone down to cheer you on. How’s the first day going?”

“Yes, tell us, Beth,” Harper added. “We’re all eager to hear about your adventures in food service.”

Beth flushed and shot a nervous glance over her shoulder, where a rotund middle-aged man was giving her the fish eye from behind the counter. Kaia guessed he must be the manager, or perhaps the owner-either way, she shuddered at the thought of his greasy hands coming anywhere near her food. Good thing she hadn’t really been planning to eat.

“I-uh, hey guys,” Beth said finally, with a weak smile. “Adam, why didn’t you tell me that everyone was coming?” she added, glaring at her boyfriend.

Kaia could easily pick up on the thinly disguised hostility in her voice. The people across the restaurant probably picked up on the hostility in her voice. But Adam, unfortunately for his peace of mind and fortunately for everyone else’s entertainment, did not. (Was he still too shaken from the afternoon’s events to participate in normal human interaction? Kaia hated to give herself too much credit… but on the other hand, she knew she was pretty damn good.)

“I wanted to surprise you, Beth,” Adam said, grinning.

“Well, you definitely did,” she acknowledged through a gritted smile.

Before she could say anything else, the greasy manager guy with the bad comb-over strolled by.

“Back to work, Manning,” he ordered Beth. “You’re on a shift, not a date.”

“Yes, Mr. White “Beth said meekly“! was just about to take their order.”

“That’s a good little girl,” he smarmed, nodding his head sharply.

Beth blinked her eyes furiously for a moment, then whipped out her notebook and drew back her lips in a poor imitation of a smile.

“So, uh, what can I get for you all?” she asked in a coolly professional voice.

“How about the 411 on where I can find an outfit like that for myself?” Kaia asked sarcastically, gesturing to Beth’s bright green poodle skirt.” Its just stunning.”

Everyone laughed, including-Kaia was pleased to note-Adam. A bit of the frustration of the afternoon slipped away, and Kaia suddenly realized this dinner might be a lot more pleasant than she’d thought. Goodbye damsel in distress, hello other woman.

After they’d downed their drinks and scraped the bottom of their ice-cream sundaes, everyone left-except Adam, who waited dutifully for Beth to finish up her shift. He liked watching her work-she was so efficient, every move measured and practiced, as if she’d been behind the counter for years, rather than hours. As the restaurant emptied out, he followed along behind her as she wiped down the tables and collected the bills from a few final lingering customers, trying to keep her company, but she refused to give him more than one- or two-word responses to his steady stream of chatter.

“Can you just let me finish this up?” she finally said sharply, as he traced his hand down her back. She shrugged him off. “You don’t have to wait around for me-just go home if you want.”

“No way,” Adam protested. “Of course I’m waiting.” They’d planned a night out on the town to celebrate her new job-and although the options open at this hour ranged from a stale cup of coffee at the imitation Starbucks to a greasy slice of pizza at Guido’s, he was determined to give her a stellar night and make the most of the little time he was finally getting to spend with her. Not to mention, make up for whatever it was she thought he’d done. (And to make up for what he had done-though Beth could never find out about that.)

Her shift ended at eleven, and she disappeared into the back to clean up and change. Adam fidgeted as he waited, fiddling with the jukebox, studiously ignoring her manager’s glare, and reading the newspaper headlines and vintage movie posters hanging on the wall. Revenge of the Forty Foot Woman, read one. Her love will move mountains… and her wrath will crush cities. Adam shivered-he could relate.

Beth eventually reemerged and, hesitating for a moment, made her way toward the door, gesturing to Adam that he should follow her.

“Hey, you did great!” Adam said, hurrying over and throwing his arms around her. Maybe if he ignored the tension, it would just go away. “How was it?”

Beth extricated herself from his grasp.

“It was fine,” she snapped. “No thanks to you.”

Here it came. Adam ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “What are you talking about?”

“Let’s just get out of here” she muttered, brushing past and stalking out of the restaurant. She walked briskly to the beat-up Chevy, one of the only cars left in the lot, and stood silently, arms crossed, waiting for him to unlock the doors.

“So, where to?” he asked, opening her door for her. She climbed past him without a word and tossed her backpack into the backseat. “Coffee? Ice cream? Beer? All three?”

“You know what?” she said irritably. “Just take me home.”

Adam climbed into the car and slammed the door behind him, feeling an immediate spasm of guilt-after all, it wasn’t poor Bertha’s fault that Beth was throwing some sort of PMS shit fit. The old car couldn’t take too many more fights like this.

“What’s your problem?” he asked, hostility seeping into his voice. He put the key into the ignition, but paused before turning the key. Better to finish this. Now. “I’m trying to be nice here,” he pointed out. “I thought we were celebrating. And you’re being a total-” He stopped himself just in time.

“What? I’m being a total what?”

“Forget it,” he said in a softer voice. “Seriously, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” she screeched, her voice rising in decibels with every word. “What’s wrong is that I was just totally humiliated in front of all of our supposed friends, and you just sat there and watched. No-no, better, you helped!” A few tears leaked out of her eyes, and she angrily wiped them away.

“What are you talking about?” he asked helplessly. “I was trying to be supportive. We all were.”

“Yeah, thanks so much for the support,” she drawled. “You bring them all here, without asking me, without even telling me-like it’s not bad enough it’s my first day at a new job, I have to serve my friends. Did it ever occur to you that might be a little embarrassing for me?”

“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t-you should have said something,” he stammered.

“Said something?” she asked, her voice choked with emotion. “When? When you didn’t tell me you were bringing them? Or when Kaia was making a fool out of me and they were all laughing at me? When you were laughing at me?”

Adam looked down-there was too much pain in her voice, in her eyes.

“Should I have said something when Kaia dumped her milkshake on the floor and I had to get down on my hands and knees and clean up her mess? Adam, how could you not know that would be horrible for me?” she pleaded. “How could you, of all people, not understand that?”

“That’s not fair,” he protested, holding his hands in front of him as if to stem the torrent of accusations. “First of all, that milkshake thing was an accident-”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?” she asked incredulously. “You’re defending her? I’m sitting here telling you all this, and I’ve had the worst night ever, and-and all you can do is tell me I’m being too hard on Kaia?” She shrugged and turned away from him. “I guess it’s good to know where your loyalties lie,” she told him in a muffled voice.

“What are you even talking about? I’m so loyal to you that I-” He cut himself off. Somehow, he didn’t think it would help his case to point out the temptation he’d valiantly resisted this afternoon. But his anger rose, throbbing beneath the surface, as he thought about the beautiful girl he’d pushed out of his arms, about everything he had given up, was still giving up, all for Beth. And did he get any credit for that? Any gratitude or understanding? Anything?

“You know what?” she asked, when it became clear he was never going to finish his thought. “That’s not even the point. I just can’t believe you thought this was a good idea. I mean, it’s like you don’t even know me at all. How is that even possible?”

“If this is the way you’re going to be, maybe I don’t want to know you!” he shouted back, his temper finally snapping.

She burst into tears-but he was far too angry to care.

Harper was tired. Tired of the whole hidden unrequited love thing, tired of being consumed by bitterness and jealousy and paranoia, tired of feeling bested by other girls-blonder girls, bitchier girls, lamer girls, and most of all, tired of sitting around waiting for something to happen.

She wasn’t that kind of girl.

Not usually, at least. And not tonight.

So after the meeting in the diner (and Harper had at least derived a measure of pleasure from watching Beth twist in the wind, as Adam cluelessly dug himself into a deeper and deeper hole), Harper had decided she needed a break. A vacation from this unsettling and ineffective good girl version of herself that was trying to forge some kind of honest emotional bond with her oldest friend. A return, if brief, to reality.

Enter Derek.

Derek was blond, built, brainless-and had been chasing after her for months. A few dates with him had been all she needed to deem him more irritating than nails scraping on a blackboard, but tonight? Tonight he had seemed just what she needed.

So here she was, an hour after her unabashed booty call, tangled up in his idiotic arms. It hadn’t taken much. She’d washed off the diner grease, slipped into a red camisole and black faux leather skirt, applied a fresh coat of makeup, and been more than ready to go fifteen minutes later when his black SUV pulled up to her house and honked until she emerged from the front door. Derek had, of course, been all over her the moment she stepped into the car-or, as he preferred to speak of it, his “love machine”-but after a few slobbery kisses, she’d suggested they stop off for a drink. If she was going to make it through a night with Derek, sober just wasn’t going to cut it. (Though she knew from experience that drunk was an equally unwise way to go; when dealing with Derek “Magic Fingers” Cooper, it was best to keep your wits about you. Moderation, that was key.)

So-one drink. One long drive down a dark road, hiphop blasting from the speakers, Derek keeping one hand on the wheel and the other massaging the contours of her inner thigh. Harper let her hand creep across into his lap, returning the favor-after all, he was incredibly hot, and with the music blaring, it was too loud for him to say anything dumb that would spoil the pretty picture.

Ten minutes more and they were there. “Lover’s Lane”-in this case, a quiet stretch of back road with plenty of cactus tree cover and open space for the picnic blanket Derek “just happened” to have in his trunk. They lay on the scratchy blanket and groped each other, with plenty of heavy petting and heavy breathing. Soon Harper was sprawled out on her back, wearing nothing but a pair of violet satin panties. She was also bored out of her mind.

“You’re so hot,” Derek said, stroking her breast with his meaty hand and then leaning in to plant a slobbery kiss on it. “I mean, really hot,” he added, coming up for air.

“Mmm-hmm,” Harper agreed as she shifted position, searching for a comfortable spot on the gravelly, uneven ground. No luck. She shivered-September wasn’t such a great time to be out at night with no clothes on, she supposed. On the other hand, she thought, her mind wandering as Derek kissed (or, judging from the feel, licked) a path across her chest, at least the stars were beautiful. She’d never been one for star-gazing, but she needed something to do.

“You’re hot too,” she added mechanically, after it became clear that Derek was waiting for something of the sort. And was that the Big Dipper? she wondered idly.

It had been like this for the whole tedious, predictable night. Sure, at first it had been good to be reminded of how desirable she was, but it had gotten old. Fast. Or maybe she was the one getting old-because, for whatever reason, she just couldn’t get into things. In the past, she would at least have had a little fun before drifting into boredom. Put her brain to sleep and let her body run on autopilot. But now, it was like she couldn’t stop herself from thinking.

And thinking and Derek? Not a match made in heaven.

Not that he wasn’t a pretty perfect physical specimen, Harper conceded, running her tongue along the outline of his ear and then kissing her way down his neck. She’d give him that.

No, she wouldn’t be lying here naked in an abandoned field on a ratty blanket with some guy who couldn’t cut it on the A list. Ripped chest, deep blue eyes, cut biceps, adorable dimples on his face (and butt)-he certainly wasn’t getting through life on his wits.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you look just like Lara Croft?” he asked, rolling over on his side and gazing at her with an adoring look that made her cringe.

“Who?” If, in the heat of passion, he was comparing her to some ex-girlfriend, he was even dumber than she’d thought.

“You know, Lara Croft. Tomb Raider.” Derek paused in his inch-by-inch examination of her body. “It’s kind of lame, not as good as Madden NFL or Grand Theft Auto-but dude, she’s hot.” He went back to work. The guy was industrious. “Mmm, not as hot as you, babe.”

Okay, Harper decided, enough was enough. Seriously-video game chick? Even an ex-girlfriend would have been better than that.

Harper abruptly pulled away from Derek and began collecting her rumpled clothes from where they’d fallen during his hasty scramble to strip her bare.

“I’m a little tired, Derek,” she said, squeezing into her strapless bra and pulling her top over her head. “Can we head home now?”

“But I told you, I’ve got protection,” he protested, confused. He tugged lamely at her shirt, trying to pull it off again; she wriggled out of his reach. “We were just getting started!”

“Well, now you can get started getting dressed,” she informed him, throwing his pants in his face. “Because I promise you this-it’s not going to happen.”