Envy - 2 (6 page)

She didn’t know the half of it.

“I just ran into Kane and Beth at the coffee shop,” she continued, “and figured you might need someone to play with.” Adam’s stomach clenched, but he forced himself to ignore it. He also forced himself—and it took a significant mental and physical effort—not to request any details. So what if his girlfriend and his best friend were getting cozy over coffee while he played couch potato?

“She’s tutoring him for the SATs,” Adam explained gruffly.

“I heard that,” Harper said in a perky voice. “It’s so nice of her—I know how
busy
she always is. It’s great that she made the time for him.”
Drive the knife in a little deeper, why don’t you
, he thought, but struggled to keep his irritation in check. After al it’s not like any of this was Harper’s fault.

“You know Beth,” he offered half-heartedly.

“She just can’t say no,” Harper agreed.

Interesting choice of words
, Adam mused. Lately, it seemed that “no” was the only word in Beth’s vocabulary. At least when it came to him. When it came to the questions that counted.

But that, too, wasn’t Harper’s fault.

“So I’m bored,” he admitted. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Funny you should ask….”

Freshly showered and changed from his ratty Lakers shirt and boxers into jeans and a slightly less ratty Red Sox shirt, Adam met Harper in his driveway, and they drove to the 8

Bal , a pool hal on the outskirts of town. The place was reliably empty on a Sunday afternoon, except for a few die-hard pool sharks and a deathly pale, spiky haired bartender with a thick snake tattoo coiled around the length of his right arm. He waved at Harper as she came in, and Harper grinned back, giving him a sly wink.

“You
know
that guy?” Adam asked. But she’d already left his side, flitting over to the bar to order them a pitcher of beer. With a bemused shrug, he fol owed behind and slid into a seat at the bar next to her as she poured them both a mug of Pabst. It was crap, but it was also five dol ars a pitcher—three on Sunday afternoons. The large wooden sign on the wal read CONSERVE WATER: DRINK BEER—and Adam was only too happy to oblige.

“So, you come here often?” he asked Harper, leering as if it were a pickup line.

“I get around,” Harper, reminded him. Like everyone else she knew, Harper had a fake ID—not that you needed one in a place like Grace. It was one of those towns where everyone knew everyone else—which meant every bartender in town knew Harper and her friends were underage. Fortunately, it was also one of those towns where none of them cared.

“I just had no idea this was your kind of place,” he admitted, raising his glass to her (once he’d managed to peel it off the mysteriously sticky tabletop).

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she pointed out, laughing. She downed her beer, then leaped up and tugged him toward one of the pool tables. “Come on, hotshot, time to show me your moves.”

“I don’t know … ,” Adam hedged. Harper in competitive high gear wasn’t a pleasant sight to see. (After losing a close game of Monopoly in third grade, she’d accused him of cheating, then stuffed two game pieces—the metal thimble and top hat—up his nose.)

“I’l go easy on you,” she promised. “What—are you afraid of losing to a girl? Chicken?” She started clucking and flapping her arms, and soon the couple next to them—Adam assumed it was a couple, though he couldn’t tel the man from the woman—turned to stare.

“Enough, woman!” he roared in mock anger, throwing his arms around her from behind in a tight bear hug. “You asked for it.” He lifted her off the ground easily and carried her over to one of the pool tables. She squealed and kicked her feet in the air, but it was no use.

“I’l only let go if you promise to behave,” he warned her, depositing her in front of one of the tables.

“As if I’d ever promise to do that,” she giggled, and despite the fact that her arms were pinned to her sides, she began to tickle him—after years of practice, she knew exactly the right spots. Adam shivered with laughter and let go immediately, backing away. She smacked him affectionately on the butt and grabbed a pool cue.

“Enough playing around, mister. Let’s get down to business.”

Harper leaned over the pool table, drew the cue back, and, in a single, graceful sweep, knocked it into the cue bal , hitting it dead center. She paused, her chest grazing the soft green felt, her ass only a few inches away from Adam, who hovered behind her waiting for the shot and, she hoped, admiring the way she fil ed out her dark, snug jeans. The cue bal slammed into the eight bal and sent it skidding across the table into the far corner pocket, exactly as she’d planned.

Victory!

She spun to face Adam, who shook his head in rueful defeat.

“I give up, Harper,” he said, throwing his arms up in surrender. “Three games in a row? You’re clearly a better man than I.”

“Let’s not forget the two darts games in the middle,” Harper pointed out. One of the things she loved about Adam was that he knew how to lose (of course, another thing she loved was that it was a skil he didn’t need to use very often). “What can I say? I came, I saw, I conquered.” And this was different from the rest of her life how? “You came close in that last game,” she conceded, softening a bit.

“Yeah, real close,” Adam said sarcastical y, rol ing one of his striped bal s into a corner pocket. There were stil four left on the table.

“What? Can I help it that I’m a natural?” Harper asked with a grin.

“Yeah, yeah, come on, champ—let me buy you a victory drink before I take you home.”

He grabbed her hand and led her to the bar, and Harper took a deep breath, glad he was a step ahead and couldn’t see the way her face lit up at the touch of his fingers on hers. They’d had such a long, amazing afternoon, laughing and bickering and horsing around. Not flirting—for how could you flirt with someone you’d known your whole life? Flirting required some air of mystery, the sense that you were hiding more than you were revealing, the possibility that a look, a word, a touch al meant more than you were wil ing to admit. With Adam, everything was transparent, every move anticipated and understood.

Not that she didn’t have her secrets, of course. There was the smal fact that she was hopelessly in love with him. The smal er fact that she was conspiring to send his girlfriend into the arms of another guy.

But when they were together, and things were going wel , stuff like that disappeared. It was like she could stop hiding, stop strategizing, stop anticipating, and just
be
. Not “be herself,” because who was the “real” Harper Grace after al ? Who knew? Who cared? No, with Adam, she didn’t have to worry about being herself—but she didn’t have to be someone else, either, like she did for the losers at school. Being popular was like a 24/7 game of Let’s Pretend. It didn’t matter to them who she real y was—al that mattered was who she needed to be. Who she
appeared
to be.

With Adam, it was different.
She
was different. She was, they were, Harper-and-Adam, a seamless organism different and somehow better than either one alone. And there were times, when she caught a look in his eye or felt the comfortable weight of his arm around her waist, that she knew he felt it too. She could read him like that. Completely.

They were, thus, way beyond flirting.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Chip, the scrawny bartender-cum-bouncer-cum-heavy-metal-wannabe-boy-toy grinning at her from behind the scratched-up bar.

Chip was cute enough, and useful—one of the reasons she’d gotten so good at pool was that Chip could always be counted on for a few free drinks, making the 8 Bal a perfect late-night pit stop. Once, in a fit of alcoholic gratitude, she’d even agreed to a date. Big mistake. Now he couldn’t stop leering at her, and unless she wanted to start paying for her beer, she couldn’t afford not to flirt back. Besides, how painful could unadulterated adoration be? And if Adam happened to notice how easily she could turn a guy on? Wel , so much the better.

When they reached the bar, Chip ignored Adam, who was attempting to order. Beer for Harper, soda for him—he was too conscientious to drive drunk. Such an adorably good boy. Chip eventual y nodded absentmindedly in response to Adam’s request, and fil ed a glass with beer, never taking his eyes off Harper.

“How you doin’, beautiful?” he asked, grazing his fingers along hers as he handed her the glass. His eyes dipped down from her face to her cleavage, blatantly enough that even Adam noticed—she could tel by the way he stiffened next to her. She loved it. He was priming himself to defend her honor. Perfect.

“Better, now,” Harper replied, taking a demure sip and smiling up at Chip through lowered eyes.

“You’re looking better than ever, I’l tel you that much.”

Harper flicked her hair away from her face and giggled. “I bet you say that to al the girls.”

“Can I get that soda now?” Adam cut in.

Chip studiously ignored him. “So, when you gonna let me take you out again, gorgeous?”

“Sooner than you think,” Harper said playful y, noting the horrified look Adam shot her. “When Prada goes on sale at Wal-Mart” would have been a more accurate response—

Harper shuddered, remembering the hot blast of Chip’s garlicky breath on her neck—but that was no reason to spoil al the fun.

“Seriously, my soda?” Adam growled.

“Dude, tel your
friend
here to chil out,” Chip complained. “What are you doing with him, anyway? Sweet piece of ass like you shouldn’t be wasting your time with Joe Quarterback.”

Adam jumped off his stool and took a menacing step toward the bar, where he loomed over the twerpy Chip, who, even in his pseudo-hip platform sneakers stil looked about as tal as his name implied. “What did you cal her?” Adam asked dangerously.

Chip seemed too stoned—or too stupid—to notice the tone. Harper smiled and sat back, ready to watch the show.

“What, you tel ing me you don’t want to hit that?” Chip asked, gesturing toward Harper. “I know I did—and let me tel you, once isn’t enough.” Adam opened his mouth and shut it again, whirling on Harper.

“Are you tel ing me that you and, and this—” He turned back to Chip, groping for the right words. Harper could have supplied a few choice ones, al accurate—pipsqueak, mouthbreather, pencil dick—but this was Adam’s show.

“Look, asshole, say something like that about her again, and I’l —”

“Like what?” Chip sneered up at him. “Like what a luscious body she has? How good she looks in those jeans? Or how good she looks
out
of them?”

“That’s it. We’re getting out of here.” Adam pul ed Harper off the stool with one hand and grabbed his wal et with the other. He tore out a five-dol ar bil and threw it down on the bar.

Chip slid it back toward him roughly.

“Oh no, my treat.”

“Take it,” Adam growled, pushing it back toward him.

“I
said
, it’s on me.”

“You know what? Have it your way.” Adam grabbed the bil back and lifted Harper’s half-ful glass of beer in a mock toast. “It’s on you.” And he dumped the beer on Chip’s head, grabbing Harper and pul ing her out of the bar before the dim-witted loser’s reflexes had time to kick him into motion.

“What the hel did you just do in there, Ad?” Harper asked, gasping with laughter, once they were safely out in the parking lot. “I can never show my face in there again!”

“He was asking for it,” Adam said, stone-faced. “And you!” He shook his head. “I know you’ve dated some losers in your time, but this guy?”

“Wel , Chip’s an idiot,” Harper admitted, “but he’s got a few other things going for him.”

“Stop.” Adam lightly covered her mouth with his hand. “Please, I don’t want to hear it.”

She batted her eyelashes up at him. “What? Jealous?”

“Oh, please,” he scoffed. “Just get in the car.”

She laughed, and did as he said. She didn’t have to press the point—because she knew she was right.

He’d fought for her honor.

He’d been jealous, jealous of the idea of her with another guy.

Which meant that somewhere in that thick and oblivious head of his was buried the knowledge that she real y belonged to him. That somewhere beneath al those layers of puppy dog love for Beth and al that “just friends” bul shit he reserved for Harper, he wanted something more.

He wanted her.

She knew it.

He just needed a little push in the right direction. And he was about to get it.

Kaia skipped lunch on Monday. It was no big loss. After a month in this hick-fil ed hel hole, she’d learned that the less Grace-produced food ingested, the better. Besides, Kaia had other things on her mind. One in particular.

He wasn’t in his classroom, but she found him a few minutes later in the so-cal ed “faculty lounge,” real y a dark, oversize closet with a few threadbare couches and a malfunctioning coffee machine.

Students weren’t al owed in the room—it was to be a sanctuary for the underpaid burnouts whose snoozing students failed to see the applicability of algebra to a future career in tractor-pul ing, or the ability of Shakespeare to improve their application to the beauty academy. Two years ago the teachers had gone on strike, demanding shorter hours, fewer students per class, more pay; they’d received a faculty lounge.