B00AAOCX2E EBOK (34 page)

“Oh, I didn’t realize. We hadn’t exchanged names, yet.” He held out his hand. “Nice to officially meet you.”

Amery smiled up at him, taking his hand. “Same here.”

Chelsea suddenly laughed, a high and squeaky peal that was so artificial, I almost cringed. “Isn’t this funny?”

“Hilarious,” Amery said, while Jayden dug his hands into his pockets and laughed uncomfortably.

“Amery, can I talk to you?” Chelsea asked, still in the same chipper voice.

“Of course.” She smiled warmly at Jayden. “Thanks for the dance.” The smile she gave me was marginally cooler. “I’ll see you later.”

“Sorry,” Jayden said when they had walked away. “She just sorta grabbed me. I told her I had a date.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. Hey, you want to get some food? I’m told there’s a great spread out on the back patio.”

***

My eyes kept moving over to where Ian lounged on a chaise on the far end of the pool. His arms were crossed over his chest, but his eyes were completely flat. Nothing really changed from minute to minute, but I couldn’t stop looking. For the half-hour Jayden and I had been out there, Mallory (why she was there, I didn’t know) had been trying to wrangle him into conversation but even she had given up when he failed to engage. He didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. Just staring at the pool.

I’d never seen him like that before. If I could just talk to him, maybe…

“Did you hear me?”

I pulled my eyes away from Ian to look at Jayden. “What?” I winced and sighed. “Sorry, I’m distracted.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” His eyes darted in Ian’s direction. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

“Not really.”

“Are you sure? I can be a pretty good listener.”

I gave him an appreciative smile. “I’m sure you can. Look, I’m here. My attention is all yours.” Out the corner of my eye, I saw Ian rise and walk through the sliding glass door. “Or it will be in a couple of minutes. I’ll be right back.”

I entered the house just in time to see Ian stalking through the crowd. People parted to let him pass as he made his way to the front door. Hoping to catch up with him, I dodged and dashed through the bodies in the living room, making it out to the door just as he was mounting his motorcycle. “Ian, wait!”

His head rose but he looked back down when he saw it was me. “What do you want?” he asked when I approached.

“You’re leaving?”

“I’ve made my appearance.”

“Your appearance?”

“Well, with my list of friends down to only Casey, I didn’t want to burn any bridges.”

“I’m your friend, Ian! You know I didn’t mean what I said. I was upset. I don’t want…” I trailed off, considering my words, but he didn’t give me time.

“That’s the problem with you, Ivy. You don’t know what you want, and I don’t have the strength to wait around for you to figure it out.” He slid the key into the ignition. “We deal with each other on the show from now on, and that’s it. Otherwise, I don’t want to know you.”

“You can’t mean that,” I said, but my voice was drowned out by his motorcycle roaring to life. He revved the engine twice and, without sparing me another glance, sped away.

I stared after him, open-mouthed, then kicked my foot on the ground and spun around to find Jayden standing just outside the doorway, watching me. Signing, I wrapped my arms around myself and walked over.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m…” I glanced up and trailed off. While his face was blank, his eyes were questioning and concerned. “We’re just fighting. It’s what we do.”

He nodded. “Would you like me to take you home?”

I nodded slowly. “Thank you. Just give me a couple of minutes to say goodbye to my friends.”

“How about I pull the car around?”

“Thank you.”

We parted ways and I sought out my friends. I found Casey, Carrie, and Chelsea right away, but had a harder time tracking down Amery. I was just about to give up when I finally found her in the kitchen, where she was cleaning up, of all things. “Didn’t you hire people to do that?”

“I just felt like doing it, okay?” she said, her voice brusque. She stacked several dirty plastic cups together and shoved them into the trash.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Well, I’m taking off.”

“Goodnight.”

I frowned. “What’s wrong with you?” Was she mad about Jayden?

“Nothing at all,” Amery said, her features remaining stiff until the last moment when she looked up and presented an artificial smile.

I wanted to pursue it, but Jayden was driving the car around. I couldn’t leave him idling in the street. “You’re still coming over tomorrow, right? For Jane Austen night?” We could talk then.

Amery continued to give me the artificial smile. It was a little freaky. “Yep. See you tomorrow.” The dismissal in her voice was clear.

“Okay. Bye,” I said, giving her one last searching look before I left.

“What is it about Mr. Darcy that’s makes women love him so much?” Chelsea asked from her makeshift bed on the floor, two hours into “Pride and Prejudice.”

“Easy; he’s hot,” Amery’s brows wagged.

Chelsea rolled her eyes. “I’m not talking about the actor. I’m talking about the character of Darcy.”

“So am I,” Amery said. “Don’t they mention in the beginning how handsome he is?” She pulled apart the two halves of an Oreo and licked the creamy center with the corners of her mouth pulled up into a smile.

“Yes.”

“There you go, then.” Amery giggled, lifting her Oreo up in triumph. The glimmer in her eye indicated she was teasing.

Chelsea threw a wadded-up chocolate wrapper at her. “Looks aren’t everything.”

I unwrapped my own mini-chocolate bar and popped it into my mouth. “That’s for sure.”

Amery threw the wrapper back at Chelsea. “They don’t hurt, though.”

I grinned. “That’s for sure.”

Chelsea laughed. Amery rolled her eyes at me and turned her attention back to the television. Whatever had been bothering her at the party the night before was still bothering her. I was guessing it had to be about Jayden, though that seemed weird. She’d never struck me as the jealous type.

Chelsea moved onto her back on the floor and gazed at the ceiling, pondering her own question. “But what is it that’s still melting the hearts of women two centuries later? I mean… he’s rude, stubborn, emotionally unattainable, and it goes without saying, proud. Is it the transformation we see him go through that makes him so ideal?”

Amery slouched further on her end of the couch. “Well, we find out he’s a good man, who will go to any lengths to ensure the happiness of the woman he loves.”

Carrie spoke up from where she was lying on her belly near the TV. She’d been so quiet most the night that I’d almost forgotten she was there. “I think it’s what he represents that really speaks to our hearts. We’re offered a rare glimpse of a man who
is
so unattainable, brought to his knees by his ardent love for one woman. Who doesn’t secretly desire that? To be the one woman in the world to capture the heart of a man so completely?”

“Especially knowing others have tried, and none have succeeded,” Amery mused.

“Exactly,” Carrie said, looking her way. “There’s been a shift in control. Everything he valued before, he’s willing to sacrifice for her. She has tamed the once untamable.”

Chelsea made a thoughtful noise. “He loves her as she is – flaws and all.”

“And it’s a passionate love.” Amery smiled wistfully at the ceiling. “The best kind of all.”

“Passion isn’t everything,” I muttered, turning my attention to my freshly-painted purple toenails. I thought of my night with Ian, the intensity in his eyes, getting swept up in the passion of the moment. “You get caught up in the moment and it clouds your mind, making your forget the reality of your situation.”

Amery made a snorting sound. “Who wants to be in a passionless relationship?”

“No, really,” I said. “There are more important things. What about comfort? Trust? Communication?”

“What about rip-your-clothes-off sex?” Chelsea asked.

I cocked a brow. “When have
you
ever had rip-your-clothes-off sex?”

She shrugged. “A girl can dream.”

The longing in her eyes took me back, and for the first time, I wondered if there was another side to Chelsea, just dying to get out. Shaking it off, I returned to my point. “All I’m saying is that there’s more to a relationship than heat. Think about it. You have two relationship options. The first one is hot and passionate, and the feelings are really intense, but you’re never truly sure where you stand with that person. There’s no open communication, so there’s no grounds for trust. The second relationship option lacks those intense feelings, but there’s a fair balance of what you need for the long term: comfort, trust, and communication. Wouldn’t you choose the second?”

Amery made a sound of disgust. “Since when are those two options mutually exclusive? It is possible to have both.”

Not in my world.

“If you’re lucky, yes,” Chelsea said. I looked down to find her watching me with understanding clear in her eyes.

“But if you don’t have those things in the first place, what are you left with when the passion dies?” I asked.

Chelsea sat up. “Ivy, you
had
a lot more in the first place.”

I fidgeted in my seat and glanced over to see Amery watching me closely, a hint of a sneer on her face. My eyes darted away and landed on the near-empty popcorn bowl. Wanting to escape, I went into the kitchen to heat up another bag in the microwave.

When the first kernels in the bag began to pop, the air in the room changed, telling me I wasn’t alone. Turning, I found Amery holding the bowl.

I gave her a faint smile. “Hey.”

She put the popcorn bowl down on the counter and leaned forward. “Do you really think it’s some big secret that you and Ian had sex?”

Yeah, I kind of had. I gave her a weak shrug.

“It was pretty obvious after last Tuesday’s show,” she said. “I’ve been just waiting for you to tell me. So, why haven’t you?”

“I haven’t told anyone.” It wasn’t a lie.

“You’ve talked to Chelsea about it. You’ve talked to Casey about it. So why not me? Didn’t you think that maybe I could have offered some advice?”

“I wasn’t looking for advice.”

She knocked her knuckles on the counter. “Well, maybe you should have been, because you’ve done a real bang-up job of handling things on your own.”

My temper sparked at the bitchiness in her tone. “Pick a reason why I didn’t come to you, Amery. Maybe I didn’t tell you because you like to gossip. Maybe I didn’t tell you because you told me you fantasize about him when you’re getting yourself off.” Amery pushed up into a standing position, her eyes bulging. “And maybe, just maybe, I didn’t tell you because it’s none of your goddamn business!”

She stared at me for a long moment, an ugly scowl on her face. “You know what? None of that hurts, because it’s true. And I’m a big fan of telling the truth.”

“Are you saying I’m not?” I asked, wondering what she was getting at.

“How truthful are you being with Jayden? That’s what you were talking about in there, right?” She jabbed her finger in the direction of the living room. “You lack deep feelings for him, but you like him because he’s easy. Don’t you realize how selfish that is? You’re standing in his way of finding someone who could feel intensely for him, so you don’t have to deal with your feelings for Ian. Don’t you think you owe him the chance to find someone who’s interested in him, instead of letting him be the person someone’s just settled for?”

“Oh, and let me guess, you think you’re the right person for the job?”

Amery didn’t even flinch. “More so than you. I’d never use him. You, on the other hand, are using this guy to do what? Make Ian jealous?”

That was so not true. Until the night before, I didn’t even know Ian knew about Jayden. I sure wasn’t flaunting him in Ian’s face. I smirked at her. “Jealous, huh? I bet
you
know just how that feels.”

Amery slammed the bowl down. The metal clanged against the ceramic counter and echoed in the room, drawing both of Chelsea’s and Carrie’s attention. Neither of us acknowledged them, although I was acutely aware of their scrutiny.

“You self-righteous bitch,” Amery bit out, her eyes spitting sparks.

I lifted my chin.

Amery opened her mouth, preparing to say something else, but she changed her mind and shook her head. She spun on her toe and walked around the couch. “I’m leaving,” she said to Carrie. “If you still want a ride, you better come now.”

Carrie jumped to her feet. I saw her exchange a look of confusion with Chelsea, then slide her flip-flops on and thank us for having her over.

The slam of the door moments later made me jump.

“Shit,” I muttered, dropping my head down on the counter and running a shaky hand through my hair. My eyes closed with a sigh. That was not the way I wanted things to go. But Amery had been out of line. To accuse me of using Jayden just because she was interested in him herself was just low and pathetic.

I heard the TV go off in the living room, followed by the soft shuffle of Chelsea’s feet against the carpet as she joined me in the kitchen. Though she didn’t push – unlike me, it wasn’t her style to force someone to talk – I could feel Chelsea’s questioning gaze on me.

My eyes opened as the acrid scent of burning popcorn filled the room.

“Son of a bitch!” I shrieked with more emotion than the event warranted. My hand jabbed at the door on the microwave. I pulled the bag out and threw it into the empty bowl. My nostrils flared as the smell intensified. “Great, now the whole apartment smells like ass.” I kicked the cupboard, then lifted the bowl to take it outside.

“I’ll open the windows,” Chelsea said.

I dropped the bowl outside the door. I’d take it to the dumpster after I was sure Amery was completely gone. I opened the door wide and went into the kitchen to get a towel.

“She accused me of using Jayden,” I said as I fanned the foul air towards the door.

“I heard her,” Chelsea said. She pushed on the lower pane of our up-slide window. “Are you?”