Gabrielle (11 page)

I hated lying to her, but I didn't want to have another big discussion about the courtesan thing again. Not until I'd sorted and sifted it around in my mind at least a hundred more times.

In lieu of lying, I simply kissed her on the cheek and said, “I'm going to grab something to eat with Missy.”

Her eyes were sharp—as sharp as always—but thankfully, all she said was, “Have a good time. You will be home for dinner, yes?”

I nodded and slipped a light sweater on over my shoulders as I left the kitchen. After meeting with Missy, I really needed to come back and work on my songs. If nothing else, hopefully I could channel the turmoil of the past few days to come up with some lyrics and a melody that didn't completely suck.

On the walk down to TOAST, our favorite breakfast place that just happened to be located right between our houses, I tried to figure out what I was going to say to Missy. The problem was, she was just as sharp as my grandmother. If I tried to hide something from her, she'd know right away. But at the same time, not telling her about Bradley wasn't hiding anything, was it? Because he didn't mean anything to me. He was just a guy I met at some event my grandmother wanted me to attend.

A ray of sun illuminated my best friend where she sat at a table for two on the sidewalk.

More than one guy tripped over his feet when they caught sight of her long, tanned limbs. Yet again, I had to wonder, how was it that Dylan had picked me over her? Especially when I was all but certain that every one of those girls he'd slept with (and forgotten about) looked way more like Missy than me.

“Hey, gorgeous,” she called out.

Half a dozen guys craned their necks to see what hunky guy she was waving at. Of course, when they saw it was only me, I had to grin at them. Missy was bad, grabbing me and planting a kiss on my lips before I could sit down. Like I said before, there was nothing she loved more than playing guys. She definitely didn't play for the L-team, but hey, if it would give her an hour of peace from drooling guys, I was happy to do what I could to help.

“I ordered for you.”

“Thanks,” I said, even though I wasn't particularly hungry. Not for my usual stack of pancakes that were bigger around than my head, anyway. A bagel I might have been able to manage, but the truth was, my guts were still all twisted up from the night before. Heck, the whole darn week.

“So, spill it.”

I slipped on my sunglasses, glad for the opportunity to try and hide at least something from Missy. “It was fine.”

Just as I'd known she would, she leaned over and pulled my sunglasses off.

“Hey! I need those.”

“Bull.” She pointed to the sky. “That's a big cloud. We're not going to see sun again for a while. What the hell happened last night?”

Great. All I'd managed to do was arouse her suspicions. Again, I wondered why I was even trying to act like nothing of importance had happened. She'd get it out of me eventually.

“It was...” I didn't know how to put it, didn't know exactly what I thought about the evening. It had been hard, and bad, and yet great all at the same time—in some really weird way.

“You wouldn't believe the dress my grandmother brought me.” Clothes seemed safe.

“Oh yes, I can. She knows what she's doing. She's not going to send you into a party like that without making sure you outshone every single girl in there.”

“I don't know about that,” I said, even though the dress had been nothing short of spectacular. “It was pretty, though.” I paused before admitting, “I felt pretty.”

Missy smiled. “Good.” She raised an eyebrow. “Any hotties there ask you to be their babe?”

I couldn't help it, I started laughing. Only my best friend would turn a courtesan legacy into something as simple as hotties and babes. I should have been angry with her for not taking it all more seriously. Instead, I was glad that she was putting it into the—ridiculous—perspective it belonged in.

“Nope, no one asked me to be his babe,” I said, pleased that it was the full and complete truth.

“What about hotties?”

Darn it, was it too much to ask for her not to notice that I'd completely sidestepped that part of her question?

I could feel my face flush. No doubt about it, I'd make a terrible spy. Or pro poker player.

“I'll take that as a yes,” she said, grinning at me. “Tell me more.”

“There's nothing to tell.” I swore I could feel my chin jut out, like a stubborn four-year-old who didn't want to tell anyone that he'd knocked an entire container of cranberry juice onto the floor.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire.” She waggled her eyebrows. “That gorgeous, huh?”

“I'm seeing Dylan, remember?”

“That doesn't mean you're blind,” she insisted. “Did you or did you not meet a gorgeous guy last night? All I'm asking is for a yes or no.”

I closed my eyes and slumped down in the chair. “Yes.”

“Name?”

I opened my eyes again. “I thought you said I only had to answer yes or no questions.”

“Come on, Gabi,” she said. “Some of us sat at home last night and refreshed Twitter and Facebook every five. A little vicarious gorgeous-guy thrill wouldn't kill you.”

“Bradley.”

Missy tried it out next. “Bradley sounds rich.” She smiled again. “And hot.”

I was helpless to disagree with either of those assessments. “He likes Dixieland jazz, too.”

“Jesus. He's three for three.”

Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “My grandmother wants me to have him over for tea.”

“Tea, huh?” She raised an eyebrow. “Wow, so she actually is encouraging this whole courtesan thing.”

“I don't know.” But I did.

She was.

Missy, of course, immediately called me on it. “What do you mean, you don't know? She wanted you to go the party and then when you met a hot, rich guy, she's sealing the deal with tea.

What more could she do to make this happen?”

I shook my head. “I just can't believe that she'd sell me out like this. She's my grandmother. She loves me. She always raised me to believe I could do anything. And now, she wants me to sign up to be some guy's mistress?”

“Look, you know I don't think the courtesan thing is necessarily all bad. Still, the thing I can't figure out,” Missy said after the waitress put our plates in front of us, “is why your grandmother is so hellbent on you joining up?”

Here I'd been hoping to get away with not telling Missy about Bradley. Instead, I'd not only done that, but I was a breath away from telling her about
the
curse
. No, no, no. I wasn't going to say anything about it.

“Let's see, you've already told me that your grandmother was a courtesan and so was her mother and so on.” Missy tapped her fork on the side of her plate as if that would help her find the answer. “I'm assuming they must all have had good experiences?”

“I think so,” I said carefully, trying to evade her all-seeing gaze.

“Gabi, you are such a sandbagger,” she said, pointing her fork at me. “What did you leave out the other night when you were telling me about this? There's got to be something else, some reason she's riding you so hard with all this courtesan stuff.”

“Could you try not saying that quite so loud?”

She looked around us at the people shoving food in their faces—normal people who didn't have an ancient legacy and curse waiting for their eighteenth birthday to strike—and made a face. “Trust me, I could stand up and yell
My friend might become a courtesan!
as loud as I can and none of them would believe me.”

She was right. They'd just think she was trying to embarrass me—and nothing more.

Because, really, who in their right mind would ever think a normal teenage girl like me would be heading straight toward a world of courtesans and protectors?

I cut into a pancake and started to bring it to my lips, but I couldn't do it. Just as I couldn't keep something from the best friend I'd ever had. I put my fork down and muttered,

“She says there's a curse,” into my glass of orange juice.

Missy's eyes grew big. “Did you just say she thinks you're cursed?”

“No. She doesn't think I'm cursed. She believes one hundred percent that I'm cursed.” I quickly told her the story my grandmother had told me.

Missy was silent for a long time. Long enough that I said, “Say something soon, before I really freak out.”

“I'm just fitting the puzzle pieces together in my mind,” she said softly, staring down at her plate as if the answers were somewhere in the mess of eggs and hash browns. “Basically, because of how things went with your mother, your grandmother thinks she can protect you by making you into a courtesan. So instead of pushing you away from becoming some guy's mistress like you'd think she would, she's doing the exact opposite.” She finally looked back up at me. “You know, it actually kind of makes sense.”

“No,” I said, loudly enough that several people around us turned to see what my problem was. “It doesn't make any sense.”

Missy didn't say anything, didn't make one of her standard flippant responses. Instead, she was staring at me in a far too serious way. “What are you going to do?”

I frowned at my best friend. “What do you mean, what am I going to do?” When she didn't reply, I added, “Not become a courtesan, for one.”

“But what about the curse?”

“No. Not you, too.”

“Look, I'm not saying there's definitely a curse, but—”

“Don't you dare say it. My side, remember? You're on my side.”

“Of course I'm on your side,” she said. “All I'm saying is what if there is some sort of...”

She mouthed the word
curse.
“I'd really hate for something to happen to you, Gabi.”

And that was just the problem. The people who cared most about me in the world were so worried about a stupid, nonexistent curse that they actually wanted me to consider doing something awful and horrible and just plain wrong.

“Nothing is going to happen to me. I'm just like anyone else. I. Am. Not. Cursed.”

After way too long a pause, Missy finally said, “Right. Not cursed. Definitely not cursed.”

* * *

On the way home from brunch, I called Dylan's cell and asked him if he could meet me in the park.

“Hey there.” He put his hands on my cheeks and held me there while his eyes scanned my face.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You sounded funny on the phone. I had to make sure you're okay.”

So sweet, but I couldn't help but think about the family he'd grown up in. What would it do to a person to have a father who always hurt his mother?

“I'm okay,” I said, before going up on my toes to kiss him gently on the lips. “How are you?”

“Okay.”

When he didn't say anything more than that, I asked, “Anything you want to talk about?”

“No.”

He hadn't paused, hadn't stopped to give it any thought, before answering. Instinctively, I felt hurt.

Obviously seeing this, he stroked his thumb across my cheek. “I'm sorry. I'm not used to people knowing anything about me.” He lowered his voice. “Knowing what happened.”

A week ago I might not have understood just how hard it was for him to share his feelings, his demons with me. But today at brunch with Missy, hadn't I been on the verge of keeping secrets from my best friend in the whole world? She and I had been through absolutely everything together, and still, I was afraid to trust her with something that felt too dark.

“I understand if you don't always want to tell me things,” I said softly, “but I'm here if you ever do.”

“Sweet Gabi,” he whispered against my lips.

His whispered words turned into a kiss that would have shocked me if I'd been walking in the park and seen two teenagers going at it in broad daylight. When he finally pulled back, I was practically panting.

“Good thing we're in public.”

I couldn't quite get my brain to process his words. “It is?”

“I don't want to just sleep with you, Gabi.”

Still trying to get my brain on board, I said, “You don't?”

“You're not like anyone else. You're special. Sex—” He shook his head, threaded a hand through mine, and started walking. “It's good and everything, but sometimes it messes everything up.”

I didn't know what to say, not when I'd never talked about sex with anyone other than Missy. And, it suddenly occurred to me—kinda, sorta—with Bradley the previous night.

“My mother got knocked up.” He didn't have to say by whom. “That's why she ended up marrying him.” He didn't look at me, but I could hear how bleak his words were. “He was already hitting her. Even when she was pregnant.”

I wanted to say something, anything to make him feel better, but before I could even try, he was saying, “So how was your thing with your grandmother last night? It was some kind of party, right?”

Boy, that was about as abrupt a change of subject as it got. But considering how hard it was for me to talk to Missy about the whole courtesan thing, I knew how hard it must be for Dylan to talk to me about his mom being abused.

“It was fine,” I said in a careful voice. “Actually, I was telling her about you and she'd really like to meet you, maybe for tea some afternoon this week?”

“I don't know if that's a good idea. She won't like me.”

“Of course she will.”

He shook his head, pulling his hand from mine. “She won't.”

“My grandmother is awesome,” I told him in a confident voice, even though I was worried that he was right. “She's not the kind of person who judges people before getting to know them.” He hadn't forgotten that she used to be a courtesan, had he? No, my grandmother definitely wasn't going to judge anyone.