Caught Up in You (10 page)

“You couldn’t have made that much in tips,” Lia says. “So just take it.”

“Are you sure?” the server asks, concerned.

Solemnly, Lia nods. “I’m sure.”

“That was nice,” I tell her as we walk outside. Alex is impatiently waiting next to a blue sedan—which I presume to be Lia’s—with her arms crossed.

Lia shrugs again. “It’s the least I can do for them. It’s not their fault the place is dead.”

I open my mouth to ask her why business is so slow, but I’m interrupted by Alex demanding the car keys from Lia.

“I can drive,” I offer.

“No,” Alex insists, holding out her hand. “You’ll just ask me for directions anyway.”

Lia’s gaze flicks my way as she passes the keys to Alex. Yes, I could fight it. I could tell Alex I
want
to drive. Because it makes me feel like I’m contributing. Because it’s the chivalrous thing to do. But I know which battles are worth fighting with Alex, and this isn’t one of them.

But also I wanted to drive so that I’d have something to think about that
doesn’t
involve the image of Lia’s skirt riding up to her mid-thigh as she sits down in the back seat and I close her door.

Instead, as I lower myself into the passenger seat, I force myself to think about the day we first met. To hold
that
girl in my mind. The one with the braces and the oversized men’s basketball shorts and the knobby knees poking out from under them. But one glance over my shoulder erases all of that in a flash.

Lia is staring out the window, lost in thought. My eyes immediately zero in on a light pink bra strap that’s peeking out from under her tank top, threatening to plummet down the delicate slope of her shoulder. 

Oh God.

There goes the blood from my brain.

Why does it have to be pink?

Why can’t it be black or red? Black I can handle. Black says, “I like men to look at me. I like being on top. I like being in control.”

Black says Alex.

Pink says, “I don’t know I’m sexy.”

I face forward and squirm in my seat like a little kid.

Alex flashes me a look of annoyance. “What’s wrong?”

I don’t meet her eyes. “Nothing. I’m just tired of sitting.”

“Well, relax,” she tells me. “We’re almost there. You’ll love Union Grill. It opened after we left for college. It’s my favorite restaurant in town.”

I know this is a direct jab at Lia and all the work she’s done keeping her mother’s restaurant open this past year. But I’m too busy attempting to subtly hide the bulge that’s forming in my pants to worry about Alex’s insensitive remarks. Apparently, though, I’m not subtle enough because I watch Alex’s gaze drift down toward my crotch. I suck in a breath.

This could be bad.

Very. Very. Bad.

I brave a glance in her direction and am surprised to see a mischievous grin creeping over her face. “Already?” she whispers. “I thought the bathroom on the train would have tided you over at
least
until tonight.”

I exhale softly, feeling like I just dodged a bullet drenched in Alex venom.

Of course, she thinks this is for her. Of course, she wouldn’t suspect anything. She thinks of Lia the same way I think of Lia (or
did
until thirty minutes ago). As her dorky kid sister.

I force out a sheepish grin for Alex’s benefit. It feels fake and slimy on my lips. But fortunately she buys it. She rests her hand on my leg—close to my groin—and squeezes.

The blood instantly flows back into my brain.  

This is going to be a long night.

I glance out the window and catch sight of the sign for Union Grill. Alex pulls off the road and into the parking lot.

I seriously consider bowing out. Faking sick and escaping to the house.

I really need to take a cold shower. Run a marathon.
Something
.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I try to think about the black smudge of ink on Lia’s left hand. The metallic glint of her braces when she used to laugh. The white lilies on the table.

But for some reason, all I see is pink.

Four

Lia

I can remember the night Alex lost her virginity better than the night I lost my own. This is pretty par for the course when it comes to my sister. Everything she does is naturally more memorable than anything I could ever do.  Even sex.

I can still hear the heavy breathing through my bedroom wall and the gentle creaking of my sister’s bed that increased in speed and intensity as Grayson moved from tentative to eager to climactic. And, despite the fact that I
knew
Alex had never done it before, I couldn’t help but remark how confident she sounded. How perfectly timed her moans and gasps and sharp inhales were. She sounded almost identical to the girls we used to watch on the cable channels that my parents kept locked with the easiest, most hackable password ever: “Password.”

I can even remember the tender affections they shared before, during and after. His deep voice, with a faded Southern accent, slipping through the air like a lullaby.  Although I couldn’t make out every word, the inflections and sweet airiness of the whispers were enough to infer.

If she was in any pain, she hid it well. But knowing Alex, her body was most likely just
built
for sex. She was probably
born
without a hymen. Inherently ready and able to please a man the moment she turned sixteen.

My first time, on the other hand, was messy and painful and clumsy. And the boy I finally decided to give it up to at age eighteen finished less than two minutes after we started and was never heard from again.

And the whole time, all I could think about was Grayson. I pictured him moving on top of me. I pictured his bare chest rubbing against the lace bra that my so-called “partner” never even bothered to take off. I pictured his hand cupping and caressing my face as he came. His hot breath in my ear telling me how amazing it felt to be inside me. How he wanted to stay there forever.

I never envied my sister more than during those two awkward minutes. I couldn’t help but think how magical it must have been for her. How lucky she was to be doing it with someone like Grayson Walker. Someone who cared about her. Not some drunk frat boy she met at a spring break party who smelled like a carnival.

But by then, I had already started to come to terms with the fact that
everything
was more magical for Alex. That’s just the way it was. She was superior to me from the very beginning. I never really stood a chance. While she was born happy and healthy at eight pounds and two ounces, I was born three years later, premature, sickly and stuffed in an incubator for the first three weeks of my life. While Alex excelled at school and sports and just life in general, I’ve never really had a serious boyfriend, and barely managed to pull a C average all through high school. While Alex is living the glamorous life in New York City as the highest-grossing account executive her advertising firm has ever seen, I now live at home, with an unfinished art degree, a dozen sketchbooks full of random drawings and story ideas that I swear I’ll turn into a graphic novel one day, and a father and a restaurant who are both still mourning the mother who left us.

But now suddenly Grayson Walker is here again. Sitting next to my sister at the table she reserved at the poshest restaurant in town. Staring lovingly at her while she talks.

His delicious scent lingers in the air. His deep, slightly accented voice echoes in my ears. His eyes repeatedly flicker to me and then away again as Alex relays the story of how they found each other in the city. How they reconnected during a long, romantic dinner, how they worked out all their past “issues,” and how happy they are now.

“And what made you decide to move from Washington, D.C. to New York?” my father asks, relishing the story as though it were a made-for-TV movie.”

“He got promoted,” Alex answers for him, pride overflowing in her voice. “They clearly sees his potential. He’s on his way to running that company one day.”

Dad beams, über-impressed. “Wow. An investment banker and an ad executive? You two really are the New York power couple, aren’t you?”

I can tell from Alex’s ear-to-ear grin that this is
exactly
what she wanted to hear. “That’s the plan, anyway. Right, baby?”

Grayson nods, taking a bite of his bread.

“I told you that Business degree would pay off one day, didn’t I?” Alex strokes his arm.

“That you did,” he replies between chews.

I reach for the bottle of wine on the table. The earlier news of their glorious reunion completely sobered me up, washing away all my hard work from before.

Grayson notices and makes a move for the bottle, offering to pour it for me. A jolt of electricity shoots up my arm as his fingers graze against mine. He gives me a quick wink as he pours, and I have to look away for fear of forgetting how to breathe correctly.

Calm the fuck down
, I tell myself.

This is nothing new. Grayson was always flirty like that. Never in a torrid, I-wanna-rip-your-clothes-off-and-sprawl-you-across-this-table kind of way. But in a brotherly way.

I gulp greedily at my wine.

“How long are you staying?” I practically shout after I’ve come up for air. I hardly even noticed that I’ve interrupted Alex mid-sentence and she shoots me a vicious glare.

Grayson hides a smirk behind a sip of wine. 

“Just until the end of Labor Day weekend.” Alex replies. “This time.”

“This time
?” I repeat, doing little to hide the discontent in my tone.

“Well.” Alex dabs her mouth with the tip of her cloth napkin, “I was going to wait until dessert but I suppose now is as good a time as ever.”

My father visibly perks up. Alex glances briefly at Grayson who nods in return. “It looks like we might be making a few more trips into town in the following months.”

That sick feeling is instantly back in my gut, and something tells me I’m not going to like what’s coming next.

“Oh really?” Dad says, grinning at me as though I shared his enthusiasm.  

Alex clears her throat. “Yes. We already have a few preliminary appointments lined up but—”

“What kind of appointments?” My father inserts a forkful of meat into his mouth.

“Well,” she continues, her face glowing, “we’d like to meet with a few wedding planners while we’re here.”

My fork drops with a clank against my plate. The room is suddenly spinning. And I can’t tell if it’s because of the wine or the monstrosity of what’s coming out of my sister’s mouth.

Wedding planner?

As in marriage?

As in till death do us part?

I think I must have blacked out for a few moments because when I come to, there’s a blindingly huge sparkling diamond on my sister’s finger (which I assume she must have been hiding in her purse until now). My father is shaking Grayson’s hand and giving him a manly
pat pat pat
on the back. And is that a bottle of champagne that has just appeared out of nowhere?

“You should have seen the first one he picked out,” my sister is yammering on about the ring. “It was...” She lets out a low whistle. “Well, it was pretty awful.” She turns and flashes Grayson a smile. “No offense, baby.”

I hold my head in my hands, attempting to keep the room in one place. But it’s no use. I feel like I’m on a carousel that just keeps getting faster and faster and faster.

“So, of course, as soon as I said yes, we went straight to the jewelry store to exchange it for something more...wearable.”

This isn’t happening. This
isn’t
happening. My sister can’t marry Grayson Walker. She just can’t. They were supposed to be finished! It was supposed to be over! And it was over! For four years. Who gets back together after four
fucking
years

“Lia, are you all right?” I pick up my head to see Grayson’s liquid brown eyes stationed right in front of me. They’re narrowed in concern. And they’re doing that thing again where they
search
me. Where they penetrate me. Where they mine me for secrets. Secrets that I’ll never be able to reveal to anyone now that he’s going to be my...

Brother-in-law.

I feel the bile rising up in my stomach, stinging my throat. I launch out of my seat and dart toward the restroom. I don’t stop running until the door is bolted behind me, until I’m crouched over the toilet, vomiting up the bitterness of a desire that’s been rotting inside me for eight years.

Table of Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Epilogue

Don’t Miss...

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four