Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2) (11 page)

“Good. I’ll text you, and we’ll meet somewhere nearby,” I say, stepping through her door, relief washing over me when I find the hallway still empty. There’s a slight exhilaration that flies through my veins too. I’m playing with fire, and I like how it feels.

I wink at her before I turn to leave. When her door shuts, I take big strides toward the stairwell, deciding this is probably the best route to be sure I don’t run into Emma. There’s a part of me that feels lighter now that I don’t have her license on me, like I’ve gotten rid of this massive obligation. Adding the roommate into the equation was a bigger risk—the entire thing completely happening on impulse—but it also excites me. I need to know more about Emma. It’s curiosity, probably driven by the desire that she’s suffering…in some way.

One date. With a cute girl. Harmless.

I’ll learn secrets, get enough to satisfy things, enough to move on. Then, I’ll let Lindsey down easy.

I rush by the front desk when I make it to the first floor, but I’m careful enough not to draw any more attention from the doorman, who’s still talking with the group of girls from earlier. Once I’ve made it safely a block or two away, I pull my phone from my pocket and send Lindsey a text.

I’m really glad I found that license and ran into you.

I know exactly what my words are going to do to her. And when she sends me back a gushy smiley-faced emoticon, I know it worked. I send her one more message, just to cement everything in place.

Can’t wait for Wednesday.

She writes back quickly that she can’t either. Satisfied, and feeling a little proud of myself, I put my phone back in my pocket and decide to jog the rest of the way back to my apartment. I spend those few miles thinking about the perfect way to work in my questions about Emma. I think about that, and I think about how she looked on that dance floor last night, and in that picture on her ID.

I think about her eyes.

The ocean.

Lake Crest.

I think about the fact that her eyes have found their way back into my mind…uninvited.

Then I think about how good it felt asking out her roommate.

“
S
o
…it’s a little weird for you to be giving
my date
a present. I’m just sayin’,” Lindsey shouts from the hallway bathroom. I’m in the kitchen, layering the last batch of oatmeal cookies over the sheet of wax paper I’ve cut to fit perfectly in the tin.

“I know, but seriously, that guy saved me from having to deal with the DMV and lines and mean people,” I say, tucking a short thank you note under the lid before closing it. When she steps into the kitchen, I hand her my gift. “Here…you can just tell him your roommate is a nut, but she’s grateful. It’ll be an icebreaker—seriously, you could spend an hour on the topic of your crazy roommate alone.”

“Don’t I know it,” Lindsey says, her mouth twisted in a one-sided smile.

“You didn’t have to agree so quickly,” I laugh, turning back to our oven to shut everything off.

I don’t have many domestic skills. My laundry remains in the basket when its both dirty and clean, dishes are only done in our apartment because of Lindsey, and forget about vacuuming. I don’t really like cooking, either. But baking—that’s different. When I bake, I get to eat the ingredients along the way. It’s not like I can sample pieces of a casserole while I’m throwing in corn and meat and crap, but chocolate chip cookies?
Oh yeah.
Oatmeal are my favorites though—it’s the brown sugar. I could eat that stuff by the spoonful.

“Okay, enough about you. How do I look?” she asks, spinning slowly. She’s put a lot of thought into this date—blew out her hair, bought new lip gloss and I’m pretty sure she got a manicure. It’s sweet. She doesn’t go out much, even less than I do, really. It’s part of being a medical student. And I know it’s only going to get worse next year. Lindsey’s studying general surgery, I’m cardiothoracic. I’ve only ticked off three years, so only…seven left.

“You look like a total hottie,” I smile.

“Eeeek, thank you,” she squeals, before running into the bathroom one more time to check her makeup, and dashing out the door in a cloud of Victoria Secret body spray.

I shake my head, smiling at my friend, then move back into the kitchen to finish cleaning up. I run right into my tin of cookies, which stares back at me, forgotten in the midst of my friend’s excitement. I snicker quietly to myself, grabbing the tin after I finish mopping up the stray grains of sugar from the counter. I climb into the worn part of the sofa, the spot my roommate and I both refer to as
my corner,
raise the remote, and begin my big night out.

It’s the first night in weeks I haven’t been swallowed up completely with biology homework. I intend on watching mindless television until I can’t keep my eyes open, and it looks like I’ll also be making myself sick on oatmeal cookies. Glad I baked my favorites.

I make it twenty minutes into one of those shows where two people take over decorating a couple’s house when my phone buzzes with a text from Lindsey. I’m tempted to read it after I watch the big fight—the guy hates everything they’re doing to the house, but the wife loves it. But my phone buzzes again right away, so I mute the TV, brush the few oatmeal crumbs from my lap, and lean forward to read my text.

Help! Please.

I panic at her first text, getting to my feet fast and moving to the front door for my shoes as I scroll to her next one.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to make that sound that urgent. I just feel like an idiot. I don’t think this guy is going to show up. I texted him…twice. Now I just feel stupid, and I’m sitting here at Mello’s alone drinking wine like a loser.

I relax a little knowing Lindsey’s not in trouble, but I move forward with my shoes, grab my keys, and put the lid back on the cookies so we have something to share when I get to her.

On my way.

She writes back fast:
You’re the best!

Mello’s is one of those places we always wanted to try, but just haven’t yet. We spent our first three years in the dorms, and decided it was easier to concentrate in a place of our own without freshmen running around screaming and hooking up with each other next door at all hours of the night. Lindsey’s parents pay most of the rent, but I chip in with what little I earn in summer jobs and the money I get from home and financial aid.

It takes me five minutes to get to the restaurant, and I find my friend sitting near the wall by the front door the second I step inside. I brush by the host table, beelining toward her and sliding into the other side of the booth quickly so I can tuck my sweatpants and sneakers underneath.

“I didn’t really dress for this,” I whisper to her, pushing the tin of cookies on the table in front of us.

“I wasn’t planning on making you my date,” she shrugs, her lips a tight smile that I know is hiding her disappointment. She pops the lid from the tin and laughs to herself when she sees the top layer is missing. “You get hungry?”

“They’re my favorite,” I smile. “Good thing you forgot them.”

“Yeah, sorry. I was just so nervous, I left without my key, too, so I would have had to call you or ring the doorbell like mad anyhow,” she says.

Lindsey pushes half a cookie into her mouth before sighing and relaxing into the plush back of her seat.

“So he’s a no-show?” I ask, breaking one of the cookies in half to nibble on.

“Looks like it,” she sighs. “I texted him about ten minutes ago. And oh my god, Em, I sound like an idiot.”

She hands me her phone, and I read her messages that at first asks if maybe she has the day and place wrong, noticing that he texted her right above that with the exact time and place for them to meet on Wednesday—
today
. Then she tried to fix it with a:
duh, I could have just read your last text. Okay, so I’m here. I’ll just be here waiting.

I cringe when I hand it back to her, and tilt the lid on my cookies a little higher, encouraging her to take one more to console herself.

“I know, right? So bad,” she sighs, falling back into her cushion. “Do you want some of my wine? I got a whole bottle.”

“Sure,” I say, reaching for one of the upside down glasses at the end of the table. I pour a small glass, and hold it up to toast when Lindsey grabs my wrist, making me spill a drop or two on the sleeve of my favorite Tech sweatshirt. Damn.

“Oh shit! He’s here!” she whispers excitedly, immediately brushing off the front of her dress, wiping the corners of her mouth and fidgeting in her seat. I’m blotting at the now-purple spots on my super-soft, I’ll-never-find-one-like-this-again, white sweatshirt when Lindsey drops her uneaten half of a cookie back into the stash to hide what we were doing. She’s making me nervous now, too.

“Oh…crap…uh…I’ll go,” I rush, grabbing my cookies and lid and chugging my glass of wine quickly while I try to exit the booth gracefully. I don’t realize what’s happening—what has happened, what this would feel like or the fact that I could feel anything like this at all—until I stand and stumble forward, letting my hand land flat in the center of his chest.

I’m sixteen the second our eyes meet.

I’m sixteen again, and I’m right back at the kitchen table with my parents, and they’re telling me how right they were, everyone was, about Andrew Harper.

I’m sixteen, and I’m looking at the aftereffect of my lies—my omissions.

I kept my mouth shut.

And Andrew did too.

Now here we are, five years later, in a wine bar where he’s meeting my best friend for a date. Their first date. And he’s looking at me like I might be the worst human on the planet. But then, he also looks at me like he misses me. And a little like he hates me, then as if he doesn’t know me at all. It’s all in there, in that space behind his eyes. They’re swirling—his emotions.

My heart has never hurt like this. I’ve thought I saw him so many times. I never thought it was real.

I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest, my lungs are burning, and my mouth is trying to remember how to gasp for air, all of me too stunned to actually just breathe. By the time my lungs function again, I suck in air so fast it chokes me, and I start to cough. I realize my hand is still on his chest when he looks down at it, his brows raised. I pull it away quickly, balling it into a fist, because for those few seconds I had my palm on him, I swear I felt his heartbeat. It’s like I want to catch it and put it away for later.

“Emma, this is your big hero,” my friend says behind me. “Drew, this is Emma.”

The irony that she calls him that strikes fast, and I laugh once, but quickly cover my mouth because a part of me also feels like crying. I’m unable to close my mouth under my palm. That anxiety that plagued me for months after our accident comes roaring back into my being. It never truly left. The scar—the memory of that night, of him being driven away from me, the feeling in my gut at what he was doing…for me—it creeps in at night, invades my dreams, and surprises me in quiet moments. That sharp stab—it’s always really there.

What can I possibly say to him? That question etches itself into my mind all hours of the night, while I lie in bed and look out my window wishing he’d just show up, stand outside and throw a rock up to wake me. If he did, what would I say?

What can I say now?

Thank you? Thank you for taking the fall for me, for my carelessness? You may have saved my life. But then…why were you high? And…how could you? You drove like that; you could have killed me. Did I ever really know you at all?

Did I?

“It’s nice to meet you, Emma. I’m glad I was able to get your license back to you. I bet that had you worried,” he says, holding his hand out for me to shake, his eyes directing me toward it, to shake it. It’s the same smile from our youth, but…then it’s not.

“Yeah, uh…nice to meet you too,” I stammer, my voice awkward and meek. I take his lead, playing this as if we’re strangers, but I know he recognizes me. I feel my friend’s hand on my shoulder, and I jump, turning to her just in time to see her holding the tin of cookies.
Oh god, she’s giving him the fucking cookies!

“She was so grateful, she baked you cookies,” Lindsey laughs. I smile at her through gritted teeth, my brow pulled forward and my mouth aching from forcing a smile. She shakes her head at me, unsure why I look so desperate. “We…uh…well, sort of ate a few while I was waiting.”

Andrew takes the tin in his hand, and I’m glued to his face again, waiting for his reaction. This whole scene is a morbid type of irony, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to taste an oatmeal cookie again without associating it with everything I’m experiencing right now.

Here he sacrificed so much, and I’m giving him cookies.

He holds the tip of his tongue between his teeth as his mouth slides into that familiar smile, the one I was so smitten with as a teenager. It dimples his cheeks exactly as it always did, but those cheeks are now covered in stubble, and maybe a small scar on the right side. I bet there’s a story that goes along with it. I bet there are a lot of scars and stories we both have to share.

“I love cookies,” he says finally, his lips closing into a tight smile. His amber eyes burn through me, into me, and for that brief second, it’s like I can see his
him.
“I bet I’ll
really
love your cookies, Emma,” he smirks, his eyes haze, and I notice a difference in his tone and demeanor. He gives me a look that is meant just for me, and he slips it in right when Lindsey isn’t watching.

Andrew Harper has no intention of sharing secrets with me ever again.

I swallow hard enough that I fear the couple sitting at the next table can hear it. I’m showing my nerves, and it makes Andrew chuckle a little. He sets the cookie tin down on the table, then steps closer to Lindsey, tucking her hair behind one ear and kissing her lightly on the cheek.

I hate it.

“I’m sorry I’m late. I just saw your text,” he says, giving her all of his attention, along with the gentle smile that still shows up in my memories. He pulls his knitted hat from his head, sliding his other hand through his hair. It’s longer, but the same. He’s still wearing black gauges, but even those somehow look older—harder. “We weren’t supposed to practice today, but this weekend is gonna be tough, so we worked out this afternoon. Set me behind a little, but I thought I’d still be on time.”

“Oh, it’s okay. Emma came to keep me company,” she says, turning the attention back to me. I can’t look at either of them. I don’t know why he’s pretending we don’t know each other, yet I’m oddly grateful for it.

“Oh…uhm…yeah,” I smile and chew at the inside of my mouth, my face heating up and my legs starting to feel weak. I put my hand flat on the tabletop, knowing it won’t do much to keep me from passing out, but maybe it will at least stabilize me long enough for the feeling to pass.

“She was afraid you were going to stand me up,” Lindsey blushes.

Andrew chuckles, and I look at my fingers, how they’re touching the tabletop, my knuckles turning white. His voice—it’s deeper.

“Oh, I always show up when I make a promise to someone. It’s kind of a thing with me,” he says. That statement—that was for me, and when I glance at him quickly, I feel the burn of it.

“Well, I’ll let you two have your night. I’ve got a couch waiting for me,” I say, pulling my purse close around my body and tucking the soiled ends of my sleeve into my hand.

“Thanks, Em,” Lindsey calls out as I leave. I wave to the side without turning, but I know they’re both watching me leave.

I focus my attention on my feet, my steps, and the stains on my shirt all the way back up to our apartment, and when I get through the door, I rush to the bathroom and throw up.

I slide down to the floor with my back against the wall and tug the towel from the shower bar into my lap, shaking it out to cover my body so I can curl up into the corner. The tears come from a place I never thought I’d see again. All these years, I’ve always thought of Andrew, but not since those first few months did I cry for him.

I’m not even sure why I’m crying, but every time I convince myself to stop, my breath catches and my lip quivers and I can’t hold it together.

He was gone.