About That Night (19 page)

His answer? A shrug.

Had she really thought he was nice?

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Trying to engage him socially. She should have stuck with her instincts, the ones telling her they were from two different worlds. But something told her he had a reason for not acting like himself.

She pursed her lips. Narrowed her eyes and studied him. She was used to boys and their sulks. Her brothers’ moods tended to shift dramatically from hour to hour, situation to situation. But she didn’t like thinking Luke was like that. Didn’t want him to pout when he was upset or throw things when he was mad.

Well, she thought in exasperation, what did she want? For the boy to be a robot, humorless and emotionless? Jeez. Talk about unfair. Why couldn’t she give him the same chance she gave everyone else? No judgment. No snap decisions.

Why was she still letting Andrew and what he’d done to her control her thoughts? Guide her choices?

“Have you started the AP English work yet?” she asked. The other day they’d talked about the reading they needed to do over the summer for their advanced-placement class.

Staring somewhere over her shoulder—she guessed, it was hard to tell with those sunglasses—Luke shook his head.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Your neck is getting red,” she blurted. “I’ll get you some sunscreen.”

“I don’t want it.”

She blinked. Not because he didn’t want to protect himself from possible skin cancer, but because his voice had been so rough. So angry. “Late afternoon is the part of the day when the sun’s rays are strongest,” she told him. “You need to apply sunscreen and reapply it after swimming or sweating.” Which he was doing. Profusely. “Even though we’re young, we can’t ignore the statistics about skin cancer and how to prevent it. At the very least, you’ll be saving yourself from a painful night battling sunburn.”

He clenched his jaw. “I said I don’t want it.”

Her head snapped back at his harsh tone. But she lifted her chin. Kept her own tone cool. “Fine. Then I’ll just let you get back to work.”

She turned on her heel. Heard him mutter an expletive under his breath but didn’t stop, just walked in calm, measured steps back toward the house.

“Gracie,” he called. “Wait.”

She shouldn’t. She owed him nothing. He was the one always talking to her, trying to engage her in conversation, telling jokes and asking questions. All she’d done was be nice back.

But when he caught up to her, gently touched her arm and said “please,” his voice low and gruff, she couldn’t do anything but stop.

He took his hat off, hit it against the side of his leg. “I’m in a rotten mood, and I’m taking it out on you, which is just stupid. I’m sorry. Really.”

She wanted to believe him. Guess they were both stupid. “You don’t have to say that,” she told him. “I’m not going to tell Fay or anything.”

He frowned. “I’m not apologizing so I don’t get in trouble, Gracie,” he said quietly. “I’m apologizing because I was acting like an ass.”

She swallowed. “Oh. Well.” She didn’t know what to do with her hands. She wanted to cross her arms, but she still held the glass with the quickly melting ice. “It’s okay. We all have bad days, right?”

He laughed, but the sound held no humor. “Right. Thanks. It’s just...” He shook his head, took off his glasses and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his shirt.

She was so mesmerized by the ridges of his exposed stomach that he was already putting his sunglasses back on before she noticed the bruise. “Oh my God,” she breathed, tugging the hand with the sunglasses down. “Are you all right?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Thank goodness, because it looks really, really bad.” His eye was swollen almost shut, the skin around it a dark purple. “What happened? You don’t have to tell me,” she added quickly when he averted his gaze. “Unless...did your dad hit you? Because if he did, we have to tell social services and the police.”

His lips twitched, as if he was fighting a smile. “My dad didn’t hit me. It was nothing like that.”

“Oh, well, that’s good. I’m sorry if I offended you—or your dad, who I’m sure is a very nice man. It’s just I watched this fascinating documentary last week about domestic violence, and most people still believe it’s a problem only for those with lower incomes, so I didn’t want to assume that your family could be immune to it. Not that I’m assuming your dad is the kind of person to hit his family or anything, either.”

She caught her breath. Most people interrupted her, but Luke waited her out. It was nice, knowing he was listening. That he didn’t want her to just be quiet already.

“My dad is a nice guy,” Luke assured her. “He’d never hit me or my mom. Or anyone.” He gestured to his black eye. “Drew gave me this.”

“Andrew?” That didn’t make sense. “It must have been an accident. During football practice or something?”

Luke hooked his sunglasses on the collar of his T-shirt. “Not during practice and not an accident. He punched me.”

“Why would he do such a thing?”

Another shrug, this one irritable. “Probably because I punched him first.” As if reliving the memory, he flexed and straightened the fingers of his right hand. “Broke his nose.”

“You... Why...?” She couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t even imagine them fighting like that. “Is he all right?”

Luke’s good eye narrowed. “He’s great. Why shouldn’t he be? He’s screwing my girlfriend, after all. I mean, my ex-girlfriend.”

Gracie went cold all over. Which was so weird, considering the sweat forming between her breasts, the sun burning her forearms and shoulders. “Andrew and...Kennedy?” She shook her head. “No. No, he wouldn’t do that.”

“He would and he did.” Luke shoved a hand through his hair, then put his hat back on. “I caught them. They were at her house last night. In her room.”

“You...you caught them...having sex?”

He shook his head. “They’d just finished. He didn’t have a shirt on, and her hair was all messy, and she was in shorts and her bra.” He gave another of those harsh laughs. “At first they tried to tell me nothing happened, but then Drew admitted they’d been hooking up behind my back for a while now. So I punched him. He got one in, too, but his nose was bleeding so badly and Kennedy was freaking out...so I left.”

Poor Luke. Gracie gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”

Sorry his girlfriend was such a bitch. Sorry his best friend had betrayed him. Sorry he was hurting.

He turned his hand, linked his fingers with hers and squeezed back. “Thanks. I just... I feel like such an idiot, you know? For not seeing the signs sooner. For being so clueless. I had no idea. Pretty stupid, huh?”

He wasn’t the only one who’d been fooled. If anyone had thought something was going on between Kennedy and Andrew, word would have gotten back to Luke. Even after Kennedy had treated Gracie so badly in front of Andrew, Gracie had never considered the other girl’s meanness was due to her and Andrew hooking up behind Luke’s back.

She should have, she realized now. She should have guessed that the reason Andrew had pretended they barely knew each other was that he didn’t want Kennedy to find out they’d hooked up. That the reason Kennedy had been so rude to Gracie, had called her a freak, was that she was into Andrew.

“You’re not stupid,” she told him softly. “You trusted them.”

Just as she’d trusted Andrew.

Luke’s smile was small and incredibly sad. “That’s why I feel so stupid.” He rolled his head side to side. Sighed. “I’d better get back to work. Thanks for the lemonade. I’m sorry for acting like a jerk.” He took a step away but stopped. Cleared his throat. “Do you want to hang out sometime? It’s cool if you don’t or if you’re busy,” he said, his words rushing together, color flooding his cheeks. “I just thought it’d be...you know...nice to...hang out.”

She opened her mouth to say no. Why would they hang out? They barely knew each other, and she doubted they had anything in common.

Except they did. They’d both been betrayed and hurt by people they’d loved.

Besides, he needed someone to be there for him. To help him get through this. And she couldn’t turn away anyone in pain.

“I’m actually not doing anything tonight.”

“Yeah? Me, neither. We could watch a movie at my house. My parents will be home. I can pick you up around eight?”

Her inner voice screamed at her to take it back, tell him that she changed her mind. But he looked...well...not happy. Hard to look happy the day after discovering you were playing the part of King Arthur in the whole Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot love triangle, but at least he didn’t look so sad. So lonely.

“Sure,” she said. “Eight works for me.”

She went back inside, her words to him echoing in her head.

You’re not stupid. You trusted them
.

She wished she’d meant them. Wished she could believe them.

* * *

I
VY HAD LUCKED
out and gotten an after-hours appointment with Dr. Conrad late that afternoon. Now she and Clinton were in the small exam room. Clinton, she noted, was taking everything in.

“First time in one of these?” she asked as he frowned at the table complete with stirrups.

He nodded, his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “It’s...different from how I imagined it.”

Ivy hopped onto the table. Might as well do it now. In a few months, any hopping would be impossible. “Yeah? How so?”

“I thought it would look more like some sort of torture chamber. But that’s only because I accidentally overheard my mother talking to one of her friends about her annual pap exam when I was a teenager. Scarred me for life.”

Ivy couldn’t help it. She smiled. He looked so out of place, and he winced when he told the story, as if just remembering it was painful. “It’s not all that bad. And there will be no torture involved this time. The doctor will come in, squirt some gel onto my stomach and use her magic wand to bring up a picture of the baby.”

“You’ve already had an ultrasound done?”

“My first appointment. But it was hard to tell what was what. The doctor explained where the head was and everything, but it all looked like a blob to me.”

She’d felt like a failure, as if she’d gotten a big fat F on her first test as a mother, but the doctor had reassured her that she wasn’t the only mother not to be able to make out her baby’s head from its bottom at this early stage.

Dr. Conrad, a tiny, compact woman with silver-streaked blond hair, came in and introduced herself to Clinton. “Ready for this?” she asked Ivy.

“You bet.” Ivy undid the button of her shorts, unzipped them and wiggled them down just past her hips. Clinton, she noticed, averted his eyes.

“Here we go,” Dr. Conrad said as she squirted the thick gel onto Ivy’s stomach.

Ivy watched the screen on the monitor. She wasn’t sure why she’d brought Clinton here, except there had been something in the way he’d admitted this was all new to him that had made him seem not quite as dangerous. More human. Approachable.

As approachable as someone that wealthy could be.

But now she watched his expression as the picture formed on the screen and Dr. Conrad pointed out what was actually baby.

Awe. Pure, unfiltered awe.

And terror.

Welcome to her world, buddy.

“Everything looks great,” Dr. Conrad said, still moving that wand over Ivy’s stomach. “Would you like to know the sex of the baby?”

“No,” Ivy said at the same time Clinton said, “Yes.”

Dr. Conrad smiled and put the wand away. “Why don’t I step out for a moment, give you time to decide?”

Ivy wiped the gel off her stomach, slid to her feet and pulled her shorts back up.

“You don’t want to know if you’re having a boy or girl?” Clinton asked.

“Nope.”

“If you find out, you can be better prepared. Clothes. Nursery colors. Names.” He paced, looking too big, too masculine for the room, with its posters of pregnant women and babies. “You’ll have time to adjust to having either a son or a daughter.”

“I don’t plan on buying many clothes beforehand, just the necessities like onesies and pajamas. They don’t have to be gender specific. As far as the nursery, I live in a one-bedroom apartment. The baby will be bunking with me for the foreseeable future, and if he or she doesn’t like the color, he or she will just have to live with it. And I’ll come up with a name for each. As far as adjusting, I’m not sure what sort of adjustment I’ll need to make. Seems to me, you have a son or daughter, and you love them just the same.”

“You really don’t want to know?” he asked again, looking as if she’d told him she wanted to go in for elective surgery without knowing what it was for.

“There are too few surprises in life. Why would I want to ruin one of the biggest ones I’m ever going to have?”

“Seems to me this whole pregnancy is a surprise. Should be a big enough surprise.”

“Believe me, it was. But while it wasn’t all that happy of one, this one will be.”

He frowned. “I want to know.”

“Too bad. We’re not finding out. If you find out, you’ll slip up and tell me. And you don’t want to ruin it for me, do you?”

“Fine,” he said. “We won’t find out.”

She blinked. Shook her head. “I’m sorry, but did you just give in to me without trying to charm me, intimidate me or buy me off?” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re being nice. I don’t like it.”

He grinned, slow and easy and sexy enough to make her knees weak. “Darlin’, I’m very nice.”

“No. You’re not. You’re charming, yeah, but that’s not being nice. I know the difference. You’re only giving in to me now so you can use this against me later.”

“I’m not going to use anything against you later. If it’s that important to you not to find out the baby’s sex, then we won’t find out. I’m not a complete ass, Ivy,” he said softly.

She needed him to be. It was easier to keep her distance, to not count on him when he acted all bossy and arrogant. “Thank you.”

The door opened then, and Dr. Conrad came back in as if she’d known how long their conversation would take. “Have we decided?”

“We’re going to wait to find out the sex,” Ivy said, in case Clinton was tricking her.