Equilibrium (16 page)

Aidan shook his head. “Uh-uh. You know what I concluded from all these really deep thoughts?” He turned toward her, pressed his palm to the edge of the counter, and his bicep stretched the sleeve of his T-shirt. He lowered his voice. “The second thing I concluded is that you were the unsung genius behind the writer.”

“Oh, no, no. I untangled Jack’s rambling overwriting, made sure the story structure was sound, did some light line editing. Nothing more.” At least that’s how her job had started. In recent years, Jack had come to rely on her for heavy revisions, a close cousin to cowriting. Another of their little secrets.

Aidan looked to the ceiling. “Unbelievable. I just called you a genius, and that’s all you’ve got to say for yourself?”

“If that was the second thing you concluded, what was the first?”

“Oh, that,” he said, and a little-boy-devil grin washed over his face. “The first thing I concluded when I read your writing was that I wanted to do this.” Aidan cupped her face in his warm hands, and those dark-chocolate eyes melted her. He leaned in. Touched his lips to hers. Took a tentative taste. His mouth parted from hers, and he licked his bottom lip.

They stood, forehead to forehead, grinning in the stove hood’s golden light. “Can’t lie,” he said. “I’ve wanted to do that since the day I moved in.”

Laura’s heart battered against her chest. She closed her eyes, and the space between them vibrated with . . . joy.

Aidan’s breathing deepened. His breath fell across her lips, and her hand found the back of his neck. Silk overlaid strength. She kissed him, hard, swallowed the candied ginger taste of his mouth. Her hips rose in the vibrant space between them.

His tongue explored her mouth with unnerving slowness and, dear God, she groaned, surprising herself with the sound of her own need. Aidan took his lips from hers, traced her jawline with his mouth. The edge of the countertop cut into her back, and she didn’t even worry that they were making out in the kitchen like horny teenagers.

She didn’t even worry.

She could reach for him, unzip his jeans, and open herself to him. She could let him inside of her. She could—

Answer the ringing phone before it woke up the kids!

She dashed across the room. “Hello.”

“May I please speak with—?” Laura took the receiver from her ear. Aidan’s ex-girlfriend, still snuffling after all these weeks. Laura stripped the affect from her voice. “It’s for you.”

She wanted to bash the receiver against the wall, smash it into smithereens, and crush the sharp-edged remains under her bare feet. Instead, she handed the receiver to Aidan, her dignity bruised, but intact.

She turned to leave, and Aidan grabbed her by the hand. He waited till she met his gaze. And then, without covering the receiver, he spoke loud enough for the caller to hear, “Don’t go.”

Chapter 19

E
xactly at midnight, right when Darcy was about to call Nick, the phone rang once.

Darcy sat on her bed, listening for the sound of her mother’s telephone voice, eyeing her clock’s moonbeam face, and rubbing her belly. She’d shaken off the queasiness hours ago, but a bloated hollowness remained.

Silence from Mom’s room convinced her the single phone ring she’d heard had been either a wrong number or an electrical burp. For cover, Darcy selected her ocean sounds album and upped the iPod’s volume. She could explain needing the lullaby of waves and whales.

An overheard phone call? Not so much.

She switched off the light in case Mom happened by her bedroom again. Faking deep sleep during Mom’s earlier drop-in had required Darcy’s practiced acting skills. Even now she wondered whether her mother had known she was really awake. Why else would Mom lean close and whisper her enduring loyalty, after everything Darcy had done? Troy might’ve inherited Daddy’s bipolar, but she shared a deeper connection with their father. Sometimes what you didn’t tell caused the most damage.

After the great cookie tossing, she’d hastened to bed with her Webster’s dictionary and flipped to the word
love
. But the definitions made no sense at all, lying flat on the page and failing to explain Daddy. Her fingers flipped past the glossy black-and-gold indented letters and found the word that explained her father:
insidious
. Every single definition related back to Daddy. Treacherous. Having a gradual and cumulative effect. Drugs that destroyed the young.

Turned out, a slow-acting drug was growing inside of her, masquerading as loyalty. Reject all that Daddy had taught her, all that she’d promised him, and she rejected him, too. Reject her father, and where did that leave her? Her fingers tightened against her thighs, her nails digging into the flesh before she could stop herself. She rubbed at what she knew would turn black and blue, then nabbed twin tension balls from her desk drawer and squeezed until her hands ached.

With a slow, skilled hand, she lifted the phone from the cradle. If her penny-pincher mom would spring for a cell phone, Darcy wouldn’t have to deal with this game. She held the receiver to her face. A woman’s wavering voice tickled her ear, and Darcy’s eyes widened in the dark. At first she mistook the incoherent whining for Elle, and then Aidan interrupted the whimpering.

“I don’t want to hurt you. I really don’t. No matter how many times we talk, no matter how you frame it, I’m not going to change my mind about us. Okay, Kit?” A big exhalation from Aidan inspired more female crying. “We’re wrong for each other, so it’s over. There is no
us
. There just isn’t.”

A high-pitched wail made Darcy reposition the receiver a couple of inches away from her ear. “You hate me!”

“I don’t hate you. Why are you making this so difficult?” He paused. “Finn shouldn’t have given you this number. And you can’t keep calling my cell every night. Don’t call again.”

The crying stopped, as if Aidan had sprayed cold water through the phone line. Two clicks ended the conversation for good. Darcy couldn’t tell who’d hung up first, but she suspected it didn’t really matter.

Darcy pressed the receiver button and waited for the dial tone before tapping out Nick’s cell number. The phone didn’t even ring on her end, letting Darcy know Nick was waiting by the phone. “Hey, Darce,” Nick said in a whispered shout. “What’s up?”

“How’d you know I’d call?”

“You said you’d call, and you haven’t lied to me yet. Wait a second. Have you?”

Smiling, Darcy sped through her Nick memory bank, seeking fibs and omissions. Nope, no lies to date. Nick wasn’t like other boys; she didn’t have to lie to impress him. Just being herself was good enough. “No lies.”

“All rightie then. So, um, what are you doing?”

She clicked through the still frames in her mind from when Nick had dropped her off through discovering Mom knew all about the sicko Daddy poem, and the sharpness of wanting to cry kept her quiet. She would not turn into one of those girls, like the spineless loser bawling over Aidan.

“I’ll go first then,” Nick said when she was silent. “My dad called today. He wants to see me.”

“I thought there was a restraining order out against your dad. Like, he can’t see you, even if he wants to.”

“Yeah, well, he can see me all he wants. The restraining order’s between my mom and him. He can’t get within spitting distance of her, but me, he can spit at plenty.” Nick laughed at his own joke. “Pretty messed up, huh? He can beat up my mother, then I’m supposed to go out with the guy for a burger and fries. Act like we’re buddies, you know? Like I don’t wanna kill him.” Nick’s voice muffled, as if he were cupping his hand around the cell phone. She imagined him turning away from his bedroom door. “I do want to kill him.”

Darcy’s heart tumbled at the base of her throat.

On the day Daddy had died, she’d tried to run into the house, and Officer Holmes had caught her in his arms. She’d pounded her fists against his solid chest, trying to explain how she needed to get inside and talk Daddy out of what she knew he’d already done.

But wanting and doing weren’t the same. Plenty of boys joked about wanting to kill their parents, a stupid thoughtless expression they didn’t mean. If Nick were serious, he wouldn’t have told her. He sure hated his father though.

Darcy reached for the tension ball next to her thigh, and her hand wavered, like when she’d slide a bagel from the glowing-red toaster oven. She clenched the ball. “Making you see your dad if you don’t want to can’t be legal. We’ll find a lawyer. There are lawyers who represent kids, I think, stand up for them in court. You have rights. I know you have rights. We’ll figure it out together.”

In the silence, whales called to each other over the sound of crashing waves.

“You are so damn cute. You know that, Darce? You’re like no girl I’ve ever met before.”

“Nick—”

“No, let me finish. I’ve been thinking on this a lot lately, and I’m really glad we didn’t do it. I like that you’re a virgin. It makes me crazy, you know. I can’t stop thinking about getting inside you.”

Nick had it all wrong. He was already inside her.

“Nick—” The line beeped. “Hang on, okay?” She checked caller ID. Heather’s cell phone. Darcy put the receiver back to her cheek. “I don’t believe her. Heather’s calling in. I’d better pick up.”

“She’s trying to get you in trouble.”

Another beep. “No. I don’t know. I really should—”

“Okay. I’ll hang on.”

“Thanks.” Darcy pressed the flash button. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry. Is your mother asleep?” Darcy wouldn’t have recognized Heather’s whispered voice without caller ID.

“I sure hope so.” Darcy grimaced, wishing Heather could see her expression through the phone. If Heather were trying to get her into deeper trouble, this would be the way to go. Mom’s creative punishments during groundings were the absolute worst. Last time, Mom had made her do Troy’s chores, taking out the bottles, cans,
and
the gross compost.

Heather’s silence brought on the guilty gremlins. Nick was wrong. Her best friend would never try to get her in trouble. “Actually, you’re totally in luck. I’m on the other line with Nick, so the phone didn’t even ring. No harm done.”

“I just wanted to let you know I’m coming over.”

Either Heather was joking or Darcy was even more tired than she’d realized. “Do you mean Sunday night? That’s fine. You can probably even sleep over, if you want. Mom’s extra easy after a punishment, like she feels bad she’s such a sergeant and—”

“Right now. I mean, I’m already
over
. Look out your window.”

Darcy tiptoed across the room and pulled aside the heavy insulated drapes left over from the winter. Heather’s blond hair shone, reflecting the half-moon. She waved, and her arm gleamed, too.

Darcy threw open her window—glass plate and screen—and gave Heather the one-minute signal, not knowing whether she could see her from the unlit bedroom. Darcy jabbed the flash button. “Nick? Heather’s here. Now.”

“So tell her you’ll call her back later or see her in school Monday.”

“No, I mean she’s standing outside my window, at the bottom of the fire escape.” If Mom weren’t so predictably neurotic, she would’ve dismantled the escape hatch as part of Darcy’s punishment, instead of giving her another chance.

“Are you shitting me? That’s just all wrong. First, you’re gonna get in worse trouble. And second, I should be climbing in through your bedroom window, if anyone. Tell her to get lost. Tell her I said so. Tell her—”

The fantasy that Nick and Heather could become friends died a quick death, reminding Darcy of how Daddy would suddenly need her mother whenever Elle or Maggie called.

Heather needs me, too.
“I promise I’ll call you back later,” Darcy told Nick. “This won’t take long.”

Nick wasn’t even listening. “Tell her to fuck off. Okay, Darce? Can you do that for me?”

She could almost understand Nick getting jealous of boys calling to her from a car. But Heather was her best friend. She wouldn’t give up Heather, not even for Nick.

She couldn’t imagine her life without Nick, either.

“I’ll call you back.” She hung up the phone, then stared at the receiver.

Darcy locked her bedroom door and switched on her desk lamp. Heather climbed through the window and sat on Darcy’s bed while Darcy shut the screen.

“So what’s up?” Darcy said, borrowing one of Nick’s favorite expressions. She didn’t need a mirror to know her face looked like her mother’s, pale with nerves and worry. Pale with trying to please the world.

Darcy sat down beside Heather on the bed, feeling as if a third person were in the room—the problem Heather had been hinting at for months. Darcy had thought she was acting as a friend by not pushing Heather too hard. Now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe she didn’t really want to know.

Heather drew a breath from her toes, and then turned to look Darcy in the eye. “Don’t bother talking to Stevie. I’m not going to the prom with him.”

That was what Heather had walked half a mile in the dark to tell her? Darcy blew out a breath. She’d forgotten how sensitive Heather could be, how relatively small issues could blow up blimp-sized unless Darcy diffused them. “No problem. I haven’t talked to him yet, and I won’t.” Then Darcy’s whole body smiled, and she laughed. “It’s Cam, isn’t it?” She should’ve known Heather would finally take a page from the Darcy rule book and play hard to get.

“It’s Amy.”

“Who?” Heather must’ve said
Andy
, but they didn’t know any Andys, except for the band kid with the acne problem.

“Amy. A girl.”

Was some girl named Amy going after Cam? Heather wasn’t looking directly at her anymore, but Darcy noticed the way Heather was staring sideways, and her eyes lost focus. A smile tugged at the corners of Heather’s mouth.

Darcy went across the room and flicked on the overhead light. The brightness woke up her sleepy brain, flashing the face of a girl she and Heather had met last summer.

“Amy from the party?” Darcy asked, even though she must’ve already known the answer. Why else would her voice quaver? Last summer, she’d left Heather talking to Amy and had gotten in line for the bathroom, even though she hadn’t really needed to go. Darcy couldn’t shake the feeling Amy was peering through a very feminine mask with the eyes of a teenage boy and checking out the girls.

Heather nodded. “Yup. We’ve been talking since last summer, and she’s really helped me understand some stuff.”

“What
stuff
?” Since the summer, and Heather hadn’t told her? What could she talk to a stranger, this Amy, about that she couldn’t discuss with her best friend? Besides, Darcy was reasonably sure Amy was gay, so—“Oh, my God!” Darcy said, automatically lowering her voice to a whispered shout. “You think you’re gay?”

“I don’t think it. I know it. And Amy made me feel better about it.” Nick was right. She should’ve locked her window and told Heather to come back on another day. A day when she wouldn’t claim something that simply was not true. Heather had always been susceptible to suggestion, a follower rather than a leader. But if Amy had gotten into her head, this was going too far.

“You are so not gay. What about all the boys you’ve gone out with, all the boys you’ve kissed?” Heather’s kissing list that had suddenly and inexplicably halted almost a year ago.

Heather shook her head, frowning. “It just never felt right. It’s, like, remember that caviar we had at the freshman dance? The teachers kept swearing it was a delicacy and that we should like it. So I tried it, kept trying it. And each and every time, I kept thinking,
Yuck, fish eggs
. Even if I’d tried it twelve times, it still would’ve tasted disgusting.”

Twelve boys on Heather’s kiss list, and each one of them she’d found as unappetizing as fish eggs. Fish eggs!

“Are you sure?” Darcy asked.

“Pretty sure.” The hazy, dazed daydream smile. Heather had a crush on Amy.

God, this was so weird. Darcy looked at her best friend as though she’d just met her. Maybe she’d never asked Heather the right questions. “Does Amy know? I mean, that you like her?”

“Oh, I think she has a good idea.” Heather wasn’t wearing any barrettes, and her usually smooth hair was standing up at the back, the way hair complained if you mussed it before it dried completely. The way hair complained if you’d lain down on a wet head.

“You’ve been, like, dating her?” Darcy asked.

“Tonight. First date, first kiss.”

She’d trusted Heather not to keep secrets from her, and Heather had taken her for a fool. What if Heather had already joined the gay-student alliance? What if she’d come out to other kids at the high school?

What if Darcy was the last person on earth to find out?