Reckless Hearts (11 page)

Worst Christmas ever.
Those are the words that went through Elena's mind, over and over again, as she stood on the grass at the edge of the lawn watching the police wrangle Matty down the front walkway and into their cruiser. First Jake—poor Jake—had proclaimed his love for her and she'd inadvertently broken his heart. Now this.

Her father was there, too, fists on hips, his usually perfectly greased-back hair hanging in wet spikes down over his forehead. He shouted an unending string of curses at Matty in Spanish, punctuating them every once in a while with an accusatory jab of his finger toward the cop car. “How dare you!” he shouted. “How dare you steal
from me! You think I don't notice what's going on in my own house?!”

She should have seen it coming. This morning, before she'd skipped out to see Jake, she'd noticed that her father had been brooding like a king, growing brittler and barkier by the hour. Three or four days were about as long as Matty could last before everyone got fed up and wanted him gone. Whatever he'd done this time, she was sure, he deserved this.

The saddest part was that Nina's clothes and hair products and personal accessories were strewn all over the lawn and she herself was slumped on the concrete lip of the porch, sobbing her eyes out. Elena didn't have to be told what must have gone down—she didn't
want
to be told; it was too depressing. Nina pleading with her father, pulling on his arm, begging, lying about how Matty would make it up to him, maybe even claiming that it was her who'd been stealing. Her father looking at his pregnant daughter and giving her an ultimatum.
Either stop covering for him, stop enabling him, or you can leave with him. It's your choice.

And Nina, being Nina, rising to the bait because no one, not even her father, got to speak to her like that without a fight. Then the inevitable moment when Dad goes to slap her and, seeing her pregnant belly, stops himself in horror. Everyone jumping and banging around the house like firecrackers, popping off in a cacophony of
noise. Dad ripping the drawers out of Nina's dresser and dumping her stuff out the front door.

Worst Christmas ever. No doubt about it.

Elena couldn't help but wish that Jake could see this scene with Matty and Nina, this constant craziness and resentment, everyone yelling all the time, unable to control their passions, unable to stop themselves from hurting one another. Maybe then he'd understand why she couldn't seriously consider him romantically. She knew she could be as hotheaded as the rest of the Rios family. Why would she ever want to subject him to this?

She tried to make herself small. She crouched under the magnolia tree at the edge of the property and hoped they didn't see her. But inevitably, they would, no doubt about that.

Crawling away, she darted around the bush that marked the edge of old Mrs. Rodriguez's property and then she popped up and raced down the block.

On another day, Elena would have called Jake. But she couldn't do that. She didn't want to do that. It would be cruel. It would be like she was rubbing his face in it somehow.

She dialed the number she had for Harlow. It didn't even ring. Straight to an electronic auto-message. “The caller you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time.”

It figured.

His words from yesterday echoed in her head. “Where
are we going?” she'd asked. And he'd responded, “Anywhere. Everywhere.”
Yes, Harlow,
she thought.
That's a great idea. Let's run away.

Race-walking up the street, barely looking where she was going, she checked her AnAmerica account on her phone. Maybe she could reach him that way.

One new message. It was from Harlow. Just the sight of his flaming motorcycle glyph evoked the thrilling sting where he'd bitten her lip.

“Hey, babe, sorry I had to jet like that yesterday.”

“It's cool. Shit happens,” she wrote. “Is everything okay?”

“Nothing I can't handle. You miss me yet?”

“I was just thinking about you, actually,” she responded. Then, because she needed someone to tell her she was good, she typed, “And you? Do you miss me?”

“Sure.”

He was playing it cool. Or maybe he just
was
cool. But she'd take what she could get from him right now.

“I think we've got some unfinished business, yeah?”

“Definitely,” she typed. Then she added, “My lip still hurts.”

“Good pain or bad pain?”

She imagined Harlow's voice whispering in her ear and a flash of heat rushed up her neck. It felt slightly dangerous. It scared her a little.

But not enough to make her stop wanting him.

“Good pain.”

Romance was a treacherous game. All the more proof she could never get involved with Jake.

Another message came in from Harlow. “You around New Year's Eve? Wanna go to a party?”

“Maybe.”

This seemed like a good place to break it off. She slid her phone into her pocket, abruptly ending the conversation with Harlow, thinking,
Two can play this game of cat and mouse
.

Plopping down cross-legged on the grass, Elena watched the colored lights strung around the archway over the door of the house on the corner blink on and off and on and off and on and off. Jake's song floated through her head. The one he'd written for her. It really was a beautiful song.

She thought about how vulnerable his face had looked as he'd sung it and she felt guilty about the way she was drawn to Harlow. It didn't seem fair. She hadn't chosen to feel the sparks with him. It had just happened. And she couldn't help resenting Jake for putting her in a situation now where just by being herself she'd inadvertently become the kind of callous, soulless, selfish girl that the two of them had always hated.

Even as he
knocked on Arnold Chan's bright red front door, being careful not to jar the wreath that had been loosely mounted on it, Jake told himself he shouldn't be doing this.

He'd been bouncing back and forth between deep, drowning sadness and a frantic anger—at himself, at Elena, at Harlow, who, he'd decided, must be the real reason Elena had rejected him.

He knew this was crazy. He knew that the situation was much more complicated than Elena just liking some other guy. But he had to blame someone and he couldn't blame himself and to blame Elena hurt his heart too much. So why not blame Harlow? The guy—or whoever
it was catfishing Elena—wan't just hurting her. He was hurting Jake, too, now.

His adrenaline rushed like a waterfall. One word and only one word reverberated in his skull.
Harlow. Harlow. Fucking Harlow. Harlowharlowharlow.
How dare this guy take his Elena away from him?

He heard shuffling inside. Then the door opened a crack, pulling against the chain lock, and Arnold peered out at him under his side-parted hair with one bleary eye.

“Jake!”

Arnold shut the door again and unlatched it. Then, throwing the door wide, he gazed out at Jake with an overeager smile.

“I can't believe you're here. Wow.” Arnold's expression went vacant, like he was starstruck. Then he said, “Wow. You want to play Xbox?”

Even though it was winter break, he'd covered his doughy body with his usual uniform of pleated tan pants, gray polo shirt, and rumpled Windbreaker, the same exact thing he wore every single day.

“I need your help, Arnold,” Jake said, struggling to play it cool. He was conscious of the fact that Arnold fell somewhere mildly on the autistic scale and he didn't want to upset or overly excite him. He knew from experience not to make any promises he couldn't keep. To do so risked confusing and agitating the kid.

“Okay,” Arnold responded, much too quickly.

“Do you want to know what it is first?”

Arnold thought about this for a second. “Yeah. I should know what it is, shouldn't I? But I want to help you, Jake. How cool would it be to be able to help you?”

“Well, first, how about we go inside.”

“Oh. Yeah. Good idea.”

Arnold stepped back from the stoop and let Jake enter the meticulously tasteful foyer with its pale-blue-and-yellow striped wallpaper, its polished mahogany table and antique mirror, like an imitation of a Victorian drawing room.

“Are your parents home?” Jake asked.

“Yeah.”

Jake glanced up the stairs and into the fully dressed dining room, seeing no one. Still, he didn't want Arnold's parents to know what he was up to, so he said, “Should we go somewhere private?”

“We can go to my lair,” Arnold said.

He led Jake down the carpeted stairs to the basement, and then through the unfinished space to a dark room at the back where he'd set up his electronic command center. There were three computer screens lined up side by side. On one, Arnold was streaming a Civilization V mod. On the next his Second Life avatar appeared to be sleeping. On the third, he'd been playing some sort of medieval strategy game with a timer saying he had
8.4 hours to wait before his next move. They sat down on the metal folding chairs in front of these screens, and Arnold, still awkwardly eager, still a little too pliant, gazed at Jake, waiting to be told what to do.

Jake took a deep breath. He felt weird using Arnold's adoration like this. The guy had a hard time of it. He'd had his one moment of notoriety, after inadvertently being responsible for projecting that Jules Turnbull sex tape at graduation last year. For a while people had made fun of him for this, until they went back to ignoring his existence, and Jake had always felt distantly protective of him. But he didn't know anybody else who could possibly help him.

“So,” he said. “We might be breaking the law a little bit. You know how to hack?”

“I think so,” Arnold said shakily.

“I need you to find out everything there is to know about somebody. Anything incriminating. Anything I can use against him.”

“Why?”

“I can't tell you.”

“Oh,” Arnold said, not challenging Jake any further.

“He lives in Dream Point,” Jake said. “Or near Dream Point, anyway. Driving distance. His name is Harlow. I don't know his last name. And he hangs out sometimes on the website AnAmerica. Is that enough to go on? Can you help me?”

Arnold's brow pinched slightly for a moment and he glanced at his various computer screens. Jake wasn't sure if he was concerned about doing something illegal or about letting him down. He reminded himself that Arnold's greatest pride was his external hard drive full of stolen movies.

“Arnold?” he said, feeling like an asshole. “I really need the help. I'll owe you a huge favor.”

Arnold blushed and rushed his words. “Will you write a song about me?”

“Uh, sure,” said Jake.

“Wow,” Arnold said. “Wow. Okay. Wow.” He furrowed his brow, and then, in that abrupt, awkward way that always sounded nervously half-rehearsed to Jake, he said, “I can track down this Harlow character for you. He must have done some very bad things to get on
your
wrong side. We'll track him down and hunt him like the dog that he is.”

Ever since Harlow
had picked her up, Elena had been feeling surges of light-headedness, like she'd drunk too much champagne or floated too high into thin air. She felt it speeding around the corner as they raced away from her house on the motorcycle. She felt it at the stoplight on Pelican, where he'd twisted back and given her a peck on the cheek. She'd felt it the one time she'd dared to loosen her grip on his waist enough to lean back and gaze up at the stars streaming past above them. It wasn't that she was drunk—she was stone-cold sober—more like, she was overwhelmed by the heady fact that this day she'd been dreaming of for a whole week now had finally arrived.

She felt it again now, as they rolled into the packed parking lot of StarFish, the newest, coolest hotel on the strip. The slick, black facade of the hotel glowed purple and green from the artful night lighting. The place seemed like a magical palace, like everyone who set foot inside would be transformed into a refined, sophisticated, infinitely more interesting person than they'd been before they arrived.

“I feel like I'm in a movie,” she said as she stood on the tarmac of the parking lot and waited for her legs to adjust to being on solid ground. “Like I've been taken from my life into some other one where everything is ritzier and more elegant.”

“It's not Paris,” Harlow said, “but it's the best I could do on short notice.”

He held the crook of his arm out for her and she slipped her hand through.

Harlow was wearing a tailored midnight-blue suit that, with his slicked-back wavy hair and his vintage skinny tie, made him look like a 1950s movie star. Elena hoped the festively printed cocktail dress she'd chosen (it had belonged to her mother) held up next to his outfit.

As they headed toward the glass front doors of the hotel, she tried to play it cool, but it was hard to do in the heels she was wearing instead of her usual Doc Martens. She feared she might be outclassed, not just by him, but by everyone else who'd be thronging StarFish's
second-floor dance club, SeaHorse, for the New Year's Eve party tonight.

Harlow must have noticed because just as they reached the curb that led up to the entrance, he leaned over and said, “Don't worry. The other girls here are all going to be wishing they were you. You're beautiful. You'll see.”

She slipped her hand down Harlow's arm and laced her fingers through his. It might not be as classy as walking arm in arm, but it was more comforting.

They wandered through the frosted glass doors and into the lobby with its plush dark carpet and its industrial steel-and-chrome details, heading straight toward the staircase leading up to the club. She felt like she was in a movie populated with people who were all hipper than she was. The one person she recognized was the concierge: a guy named Peter Talbot whom she remembered having starred in school plays when she was a sophomore. Instead of the Justin Bieber cut he used to have, he'd let his lax bleach-blond hair grow down to his shoulders and he looked different than he used to, older, more cosmopolitan somehow, like someone who knew how important he was.

He went by in a blur and then she and Harlow were inside the dance club, gyrating and popping alongside what seemed like a thousand other people to the pounding beat of the music. Harlow moved like a dream, with
none of the awkward hopping and flailing she expected from guys. He had footwork, and as she twirled and swayed, she felt charged by the way his body seemed to anticipate and respond to her movements. She entered an altered state in which the world seemed to disappear and all that existed was his physical presence interacting with hers: the way he kicked his leg, the way he turned his head, the way he found the soft spot at the base of her spine and held one finger there like an acupuncture needle. It was all so intimate and yet so public, like they were inventing a secret language together, a code that contained all their deepest secrets.

Harlow leaned in after a while and shouted something in her ear, but the music was so loud she had no idea what it was. He grinned at her. He winked.

She just smiled and nodded, pretending to understand.

Taking her hand, he led her through the throngs and out into the lobby. She saw from the clocks on the wall behind the check-in desk that an hour and a half had passed, though it had felt like ten minutes tops while it was happening. It was eleven already. The new year was only one hour away.

“You want to go on an adventure?” Harlow whispered in her ear.

He led her through the lobby toward the elevators and pushed the up button.

“Tell me you didn't get a room,” she said.

“Ha. I can do better than that,” he responded. His lip twisted mischievously. “I've just got something to show you. I think you're going to like it.”

“What is it?”

“Can't tell.”

They stepped into the elevator and he pushed the button for the top floor.

She wanted to tell him she wasn't the kind of girl who just went along wherever the guy told her to go. But she didn't know how to say this right now because she
did
want to go wherever he was taking her. She
did
like the thrill of not knowing what he'd do next.

They stood silently side by side watching their reflections in the mirrored door as the elevator rose to the top of the hotel.

When they exited, he put a finger to his lips and motioned for her to take her shoes off. They tiptoed down the velvet-lined hallway, past the two suites that occupied the entire floor. Then he opened a door in the wallpaper—she hadn't even realized it was there!—and escorted her into a hidden stairway. Motioning her to follow him, he made his way up the stairs—one flight, two flights. She wondered how he knew about this place, how he could navigate through its secret hidden areas so easily.

“Are we allowed to be here?” she whispered.

He shot her that grin again, not answering, and climbed another flight of stairs. Finally, they reached a door with an emergency exit bar across it. Harlow took out a silver flask and twisted the cap off. He downed a swig and held it out to her.

“Fortification,” he whispered.

She took a small tug off the flask and the vodka inside burned in her throat.

Harlow untwisted a paper clip and slid one end into the lock on the door, turning and jiggling it until the door opened.

“You ready?” he said.

The mystery of the moment and the trust she had to place in him thrilled her.

“I'm ready.”

He pushed the door open and the brisk air hit their faces and Elena could see that they were at the tippy top of the hotel, standing at the edge of a helipad. The lights of Dream Point spread in a fan around one side of them, and on the other side she saw the darkness of the ocean. She'd never been up so high, and the mixture of romance and transgression contained in the moment brought that feeling of light-headedness she'd had earlier in the evening rushing back.

“Happy New Year,” Harlow said. He wrapped his arms around her waist. She could feel his finger pressing into her belly button.

A charge ran up her spine like an electric wire had sparked in her. She felt something spinning inside her skin—so this was what a swoon felt like. The only way to quell the feeling was to kiss Harlow.

So that's what she did. She turned and she pulled him as tight to her as she could and she found his lips with her own, running her hands along his back, excited at the feel of his own on her hips, on the side of her rib cage, on the back of her neck—they seemed to softly flow everywhere, across her body.

The kiss went on and on. She wanted it to never stop. And as they kissed, Harlow walked her backward out of the doorway, onto the cement platform of the helipad.

Surges, like waves, crashed inside her. No matter how close she held him, how deeply she kissed him, she couldn't get close enough to him.

They were down on their knees. They were down on their sides. Still kissing. And then their clothes were coming off. It felt inevitable. Like the only thing that could be done. She'd never wanted anyone or anything as much as she wanted Harlow right that minute.

His hands and his lips seemed to know just where to go and what to do.
So this is what it's supposed to feel like
, she thought. The two guys she'd had sex with in her life had both been clumsy, inexperienced, unsure of themselves. She'd thought it had been her fault, like she'd been somehow doing it wrong, but now, here, with
Harlow, she understood, it had been them. Definitely them.

Harlow had his fingers tangled in her hair, and suddenly, without warning, he pulled her head back, hard, twisting her neck.

She gasped.

For a moment, she felt like she'd lost all control, like he might really hurt her, but then he kissed her neck and released her head and she felt the force of his passion tumble over her fear.

Afterward, as they lay naked and curled together on the chilly cement, she remembered what he'd said on the beach that day. “Where are we going? Anywhere. Everywhere.” They really were. She felt reckless and free and far away from all the conflicts that filled up her life.

Something in her itched to tell him how hard she was falling for him. To say,
You're like a dream I never dared to dream. I'd do anything for you if only it meant we could stay like this forever
. But she resisted. She was afraid that revealing herself like that would chase him away, and that was a thought she couldn't bear.

So instead, she held him tight and listened to his breathing, slow and even. He seemed lost in thought. Folding her hands on his chest so she could rest her chin in them and gaze at his face, she asked him what he was thinking.

He looked into her eyes for a long moment and she
felt like his soul was spilling into her own. “I was just thinking how you're the only person in the whole world I feel like I can trust,” he said.

Her heart ached for him and all the troubles he kept hidden from her. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. You can trust me. I promise.”