Desire (23 page)

20

Jace

Piper could probably use a break from them. I know I want one, and I could definitely use a dose of her. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Any minute now, she’ll show her cards and I’ll find out that she’s just like the rest of her kind. But I’ll be surprised. And extremely disappointed for whatever reason. I just want to know already. There’s no fucking way she’s as cool as she seems.

I like smart chicks, until you find out the
y’re either dumb in all the ways that really matter or whiny and pretentious. I’ve met funny chicks before, but they’re usually annoying after a while. And I’ve had run-ins with my share of angry chicks, but they’re never as level headed and so critical of themselves. Piper tries to not be a bitch, she really does. I must be channeling Isaac right now because the words Piper and bitch do not belong in the same sentence. She’s actually very kind, even sweet, as much as I hate to use that word. She just doesn’t put up with bullshit and she’s hilarious when she calls someone on it. I fucking love it. There is no category for her.

I can’t stop watching her. I really should, not be
cause Isaac fucking wants me to, even though technically I should do what he says. He is paying for this after all, I should at least attempt to be professional here. And he’s my best friend, my suddenly ridiculously happy best friend which is a major change from the angry head case I’m used to tip toeing around. Even when Oliver is right here to stare at me judgingly, I just have to flip that camera on as soon as I know she’s there.

Piper’s different when she’s not around other people. Sweeter. Girlier. Her voice is even a little higher
, especially when she talks to that stupid cat. She and Maya have been hanging out constantly ever since Isaac had to move in with the Wicked Witch. I was expecting it to be all celebrity gossip and makeup tips, but they hardly ever talk about that shit. Piper has a lot to say, so does Maya, but Piper can get really philosophical and totally dominates their conversations. Deep stuff, things I never really thought about before. She questions beliefs that most people don’t bother thinking about because they know that they’re true. By the time she’s done, I’m completely fucking confused about a lot more than her. And I can’t even jump in because I’m not actually talking to her, I’m just sitting here spying on them.

Then when we do see each other, I can’t fucking argue because I shouldn’t have heard it in the first place! It’s driving me fucking nuts! The obvious solution is to stop hanging out with her, but I just can’t make that happen. I’ve been trying to give her the cold shoulder, which I wouldn’t have to do if I wasn’t always ‘accidentally’ running into her in the hallway.
Seeing that smile fall off her face is excruciating. I always end up feeling like shit and filled with the need to make it up to her somehow.

Like now. I was a total d
ick when I saw her in the hallway this morning and now she’s sitting alone in her living room. Isaac and Maya are sequestered in her room as usual. Somehow they manage to be even more annoying when they aren’t having sex, that lovey dovey giggling is driving me
insane
. Piper just turned up the volume on the TV, she must be feeling it too.

And the constant aroma of all the delicious marijuana that permeates this entire building isn’t
exactly helping. I’m trying to grow up here. Be fucking responsible. But I’m bored out of my goddamned mind and feeling like a total ass and would
love
to have my own deep, philosophical conversation with Piper. Fuck it.

Something tells me I can knock on any door
in this place to score a bag of weed, but I’m going to take a trip up to the third floor because it smells the best up there. The guy that opens it could not be more careless if he tried. How this place isn’t raided by the cops constantly is a mystery, though all these kids are pretty well off. That was really easy, I guess I don’t look like that much of a narc.

“What the hell are you doing?” Oliver asks.

“Rolling a joint and texting Piper.”

“Are you fucking nuts? What if something happens?”

“You’ll take care of it or I’ll kick Luke’s ass while I’m stoned.”

“Dude…” Oliver laughs
. “Do you even attempt to do what we’re supposed to do?”

“Sometimes.”

“Leave one for me.”

“Are you fucking nuts? What if something happens?” I taunt him
, tossing him the first one I rolled. I’m a little rusty and Piper deserves my best work.

I sneak out of this apartment on the edge of a herd of bros, walking around the block and back into mine. Hopefully, she’ll come up, she did look pretty bored. Isaac and Oliver don’t know that I have a special monitor hidden in my closet to
creep on Piper in the privacy of my own home, so I’ll get to watch her read my text. Why am I so fucking nervous?

I set up my three joint
s like they’re a little bouquet next to a bottle of wine that I shouldn’t know she really likes, a note that says ‘Sorry’ and a box of leftover Chinese food. Teriyaki Chicken, her favorite. My palms sweat as I take several versions of the same picture until I’m satisfied and practically run into the closet.

She shakes her head dismissively when she gets the text, sitting her phone down on the couch next to her.
C’mon, you know you want to.
After five minutes I can’t take it anymore, so I call her.

“What the hell do you want?” she answers.

“To apologize for being an asshole.”

“How many times are we going to play this game?”
Why does it turn me on so much when she calls me on my shit?

“Well, I
am
kind of an asshole, so probably a few more.”

“Jace…”
Her face is finally toward the camera once she flips on her side. She’s so fucking gorgeous, especially when she’s trying to stay mad.

“Teriyaki Chicken…” I tempt her. “I got it for you last night, then I
wussed out and didn’t call you.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Yes. Come up here. I’m bored. And I saw that the Cowardly Douchebag’s around, you could use an escape.”

“I’d rather listen to the Cowardly Douchebag
plow my best friend than put up with your bullshit.” And right on cue, I hear Isaac and Maya start fucking in the background.

“No bullshit. I just want to hang.
Please
.”

“I am not having sex with you.”

“I know. Make me earn it. Come up here.”

She runs her hand through her hair and looks upwards, conflicted. “Fine. But you better have a bong.”

“I do!” I say excitedly. For a moment, I’m embarrassed until I hear her giggle.

“Give me five minutes.”

“Gladly.”

She spend
s them in the bathroom and I can’t see her. But it only takes her three. And by the time she knocks on the door, I’m so fucking excited it’s ridiculous.

“Hi, asshole,” she says, her hand on her hip with her head tilted to the side.
Cringing, I give her an apologetic smile as she shakes her head. I think she put on eye makeup. That’s a good sign, right?

“I guess I’ll break this open,” I laugh, tapping one of the joints on the end of her nose.

“Wait.” Her fingers graze mine when she takes it out of my hand. “You did such a good job, I guess I could make an exception for such fine workmanship.” Locking eyes with me, she pulls out a lighter and takes a drag. Holy. Shit. That is so fucking sexy it hurts. Literally. Her gaze drops to my crotch as I adjust myself, her eyebrows raising flirtatiously as she passes it to me.

“Why do yo
u have a lighter? You don’t smoke cigarettes.”

“You invited me up here for a joint!”
Oh yeah.
“And how do you know I don’t smoke?”

Shit.
“You smell too nice.”

She rolls her eyes and takes it back. “Thanks. But actually, I carry one all the time. Along with a pocket knife, a p
aper clip, and mini roll of duct tape. You never know what will happen. A condom too,
not
that we’ll be using it.”

“I don’t have any ulterior motives, Piper. I just enjoy your company.”

“Well, lucky for you, I could use some company too. I guess you’ll have to do.” She pokes my belly playfully. “Though honestly, the Chinese food really sold me. Let’s eat.”

She’s just too good to be true. Smart. Confident. Sexy. Funny. Interesting. Prepared.
Amazing laugh. And now I know for sure that she’s a stoner. I can’t fuck her, but I won’t be bored tonight.

21

Maya

“That was pretty fast,” I tell him as he walks in the door.

Isaac sighs. “Gloria didn’t actually give a shit about seeing the club. She just wanted to flirt with me in front of her boyfriend,” he explains, his irritation obvious.

“Oh.” I resist the urge to ask if he flirted back, focusing on how thankful I am that he even got to come back here. “Do you think she suspects something?”

“No. Sloane actually
was
there, which helped quite a bit. And she did a fantastic job acting pissed off at me.” Meowing, Junior rubs his ankles and he bends down to pet her on the head. “Hi, AJ.”

“We missed you,” I coo, scampering over to claim my proper share of his affection now that I’m sure it won’t aggravate him further.
His arms pull me into his solid body with surprising force.

“I was so afraid I’d have to leave.”
Burying his face in my hair, he breathes deeply, his hand running down my back to rest on the base of my spine.

“I could tell.”

“I fucking hate being there,” he whispers. I hold him closer, kissing his shoulder. “I don’t want you to think it’s your fault. I would be stuck there anyway if I wanted out.”

“I know. But you’d be able to…”

“Be able to? More like have no other choice. I doubt I would have been this creative getting out of it.” Letting out a frustrated grunt, he scoops me up and carries me to the couch, barely avoiding a collision with Junior when he flops us down.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I didn’t want to take him up on his Q&A offer until she called and my jealousy
went into overdrive.

“I don’t know. Is Piper coming home?”

“She’s working until ten.”

“So what do you
need to know?” he asks, cringing.

“I’m not really sure.” I have a thousand questions, but none that I want to say out loud.

“What bothers you the most?”

“
I have no idea what you’re doing when you’re over there. Or, more importantly, what you’re doing when you can’t call for days. That’s driving me crazy. Do you take her out?”

Considering how irritated he is, he remains surprisingly calm. “Yeah. We go out a lot.”

Ouch
. “Where do you go?”

“It’s lots of classy bullshit. Parties, charity events, ridiculously overpriced restaurants, that sort of thing.”

“Does everyone think you’re her boyfriend?”

“Sort of,”
he admits, tapping his thumb nervously against the armrest. “More like a stray she took in. A hot young guy that’s been hung up on her for years. Everybody wonders if he gets jealous when she fucks around or if he’s as cool with it as he looks. He never sleeps with anyone else anymore. It’s a scandal, it gets everyone gossiping about her. Glory loves a good scandal.”

Not when she’s in the middle of it, she doesn’t.
“Are you leading her on?”

“Yes. Definitely. I don’t touch her
very much, but I’m a bit of a flirt.”

Wow. That literally feels like a punch in the gut
, it’s hard to breathe. God, I hate this bitch
so much
. “Does she know more about you than I do?”

“Um… no, I think you know more.
She’s known me for longer, so it’s probably close, but you know the important stuff. I definitely tell you things I would never, ever tell her. You know me for real, she doesn’t.” And that bothers him. What the fuck.

“
You’re still quite emotionally attached to her, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he whispers after a while. “It’s not sexual, but… yeah, I am. I’m so fucking sorry.
The fact that I don’t want her like that doesn’t help much at all, does it?”

“No, not really.
And…” I stammer, looking down. He wraps his fingers into mine and nudges me with his forehead. “I know you used to do a lot of the creepy stuff to her, but I worry if she did any of that to you.”

He exhales loudly, puffing his cheeks and
leaning back. “She didn’t, not the way you’re probably thinking. She never hurt me like that. I mean, she’s slapped me a few times when I made her angry, but not in bed.”

“What for?”

“Antagonizing her boyfriends. Spreading rumors. Or… fucking her friends when she pissed me off.”

“You fucked her friends?”

He winces. “Pretty much every one of them, yeah. In a very short time frame. My dad was doing the same thing, we were so awful to her.”

And he feels incredibly guilty about it. Oh
my God, that pisses me off so much my ears feel like they’re on fire. “That has to be awkward,” I reply calmly.

“A little bit
. But everyone sleeps with everyone is those circles, so it’s not particularly unusual.”

“Is that what you fight about?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think she still wants anything to do with you?”

“She worries about me. She is petty and vindictive, but when I really need her she drops that shit and comes through for me. Glory has never left me hanging. I don’t know what would have happened to me without her. And honestly, it’s scary to even think about it.”

Geez, Isaac. Just a teeny bit of sugar coating, please
. “Is that why you use the word maternal when you try to explain it?”

“It’s
a lot more complicated than that.” Obviously uncomfortable, he looks up at the ceiling and takes a ragged breath. I crawl off his lap to give him some space.

“You said you were fourteen when you went to live with her. How old were you the first time you had sex?”

“A little bit before that. I was almost fifteen by the way, well, close to halfway there at least. I didn’t look like a kid,” he explains.

“Did you want to?”

“She didn’t rape me or anything, but no, I didn’t. My father… told her to make a man out of me, so she did. He watched.”
Holy. Shit.
“And then I watched him fuck her, the way she likes it so I’d know what I was supposed to do next time. He made sure I did it right a few weeks later.”

My anger takes a nosedive. That is quite a bit more complicated than I was anticipating.
What the hell do you say to that? “He watched you?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds
, I was kind of used to that part,” he says quietly, that lost little boy look in his eyes. “I didn’t hate fucking her, especially the very first time. Even when it started getting rougher… it was nice to be on the giving end of that shit for a change. Gloria absolutely, positively loves it like that, it’s the only way she can… you know. So I didn’t feel that horrible afterwards, at least at first. I mean, that’s just what I thought sex was.”

“How long did this go on for?”

“Until I was sixteen, so almost two years.”

“He watched you every time?”

“That’s the only time we had sex until he started ignoring us. We were living together and both felt abandoned, her a lot more than me, and... it just evolved from there. I mean, I
was
sixteen.”

“Yeah,” I answer quickly.

“Are you okay?”

Leave it to Isaac to ask if
I’m
okay. “I’m just struggling to wrap my head around it, to be honest with you.”

“Maya… I didn’t say that I was fourteen the first time I went to live with her, I said that’s how old I was when she took me in
after my mom died. Well, I guess I did lie, because that happened twice. The first time we lived together… I was only five.”

“Five?”

“Yeah. That’s where he took me. Illegally, I think. It’s foggy, but I remember he told me to keep calling her Mom even if it made her mad. I only spoke a little English then and she speaks Hindi, so she Americanized me, I guess you could say. We did a lot of Kindergarten stuff, colors, ABC’s, that kind of thing. She must have been homeschooling me. I lived with her for a while. Probably around a year, I’m not really sure, whenever I would bring that part up she’d get
really
pissed off. But that’s where the maternal thing comes from, on my end at least.”

“
Wow.”

“I don’t think he knew what to do with me.
I’m not sure exactly how I came into existence.”

“Isaac, is he your biological father?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Somehow my mom, his wife, found out about me. She came over to Glory’s house one day. It was really early, we were in the kitchen eating breakfast. They started screaming and it came to blows, so I ran and hid. There’s a gap in my memory so I don’t really know how, but the next thing I remember I was in a car with this woman I didn’t recognize. She was telling me not to cry, that everything was going to be okay. There was a clump of hair in her hand, which I’m assuming was Gloria’s because she stuffed it into a plastic bag. Then a baby started crying and I turned around. That was the first time I saw Preston. He looked right at me and gurgled. We went to a clinic or a lab or something like that, I’m assuming for a DNA test. It must not have been so instantaneous back then because it felt like we were there forever.”

“She was sobbing hysterically while she drove home. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t understand who she was.
I was absolutely terrified, I just wanted to go back to Glory’s. Mom sat me on the stairs right in front of the door, I was the first thing my father saw when he got home. She was so calm when she talked to him. Then she picked me up, carried me upstairs, and told me I was going to live here now with my little brother. She had a big bed moved into the nursery and we stayed there for a while.”

I blink at him, completely, entirely speechless. “Glory never let me
sleep in the same bed with her. She held me for a few minutes if I had a nightmare or something, but other than that I had to stay by myself. I snuck into her room one night and scared the shit out of her when she woke up in the morning, so I never did it again. My new mom let me crawl in bed with her whenever I wanted to. They had separate rooms. She was so nice to me, looking back, I don’t know how she did it. But my father… he was not very happy to have me in his official home with his official family. At all.” He draws in a hitched breath, staring off into the distance. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk so much before about something like this.

“There was some kind of cover story because I wasn’t allowed to go outside for a
long
time. That part was awful, but I didn’t sneak out. Then one day we drove for a while, I think to New York, and got on a plane just to fly back here. My mom carried me when we got off and there were all these photographers. My dad made this weird speech to some reporters about how proud he was of his wife for her charity work. Supposedly, I was some little Indian street orphan that captured her heart. And then I was extremely fucking confused, but they told me to look at the camera so I did. There’s this adorable picture of her holding me peeking out from under her hair with the plane in the background. I’ll show it to you someday if I can find it.”

Taking my hand in his, he finally looks over at me. “Isaac… I don’t even know what to say.”

He shrugs. “So that’s me and Glory in a nutshell. The next time I saw her, she was naked, getting on her knees and making me hard so I could fuck her. And that was… surreal. She looks so much like my real mom. You remember Miranda?” I nod. “Add ten years to her and that’s Glory. That’s his type. Tall, thin, dark curly hair, olive skin, bright green eyes. Hell, it almost sounds like I’m describing myself, huh?” he laughs. “I think that’s why he wanted her to take me at first. And why I liked being with her, it was comforting. Familiar.”

“My new
official mother was wonderful to me, she really, truly was, but there was still something missing. Maybe it was because my brothers were her real kids, or maybe it was because I was guarded because she was the third one, or because he didn’t want me there, I don’t know. Even though she was more loving, it just wasn’t the same as it was with Gloria, it’s very hard to explain. I thought about Glory all the time when I was growing up, I was starting to think she was a dream. And then she was there.” He almost looks nostalgic. “That’s about the time it became extremely obvious that I was his son. I look so much like him and Glory put together. Some of her neighbors remembered me being there. People started talking, my mom started drinking… it all went downhill pretty fast.”

“
Baby, are you alright?” I ask. He seems completely fine, tranquil even.

He nods, taking a deep breath and pulling my wr
ist to his lips. “Yeah, I am. I wish I would have told you a while ago.”

That’s my cue to crawl
back into his lap and hug him so hard he chokes for air. I kiss him over and over and over until he finally chuckles. Piper comes home a few hours later. She actually says hello and smiles at him before informing us that she is exhausted and disappears into her room. If she had been a bitch, I might have killed her.

We have a really great weekend. But this time, it takes everything I have to let him walk out the door. He asked me if I felt better about the whole situation and I told him yes. I lied. It’s worse
now, so, so much worse. I do not want that woman within a mile of him and petty jealously has nothing to do with it. What kind of person can do that? Oh, right.
Her
.