Tangled (3 page)

“We can tell you a few things
about crass, right Kitty cat?” Tristan winked.

Ill-concealed snickers met
the not so secret revelation. Kitty’s features reddened behind wide-framed
sunglasses. “I'm getting another daiquiri.” With studied grace, she floated to
her feet and sounded the retreat.

“Well played, Tess,” Tristan
grinned at her. “I missed your feistiness.”

“And I missed your...you,”
she ended purposefully on a lame note.

He winced, palming his heart.
“Words hurt, you know.”

Cameron threaded his fingers
through hers before she could respond, rerouting her attention. “If we had
another year of prep school, I daresay you would’ve dethroned her royal
highness,” he whispered with a sly smile.

“What can I say? I learned
from the best,” she recited his earlier words and teasingly pinched his thigh.

Something fired behind his
expression. Before Tess could make heads or tails of it, he abruptly stood,
pulling her with him. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What? But you just got
here,” she said, warmth skittering from her hair follicles to her toenails.

“And I’m already over it.” His mouth
caught her ear. “There’s only one person I want to spend time with tonight.”

Chapter 2

Of
course those words had been purely platonic.

Tess
didn’t know if she was more crestfallen or relieved. They touched on everything
that’d gone down in the last few months. She leeched off his every word, not
only because it was
him
, but because she hungered for
the details of a world so far removed from her own.

“I’ll
take you there,” he proposed. After grabbing a bite to eat, he’d angled his
silver Audi near the edge of a scarp. They perched on the hood, stomachs full
and windshield cradling their backs. Below, the ocean contracted with obsidian
swells. A soupy haze of light smeared the horizon. “You’d love it. The history,
the music, the food,” he groaned. “Authentic Indian, there’s nothing like it.
Even in the city.”

It
took Tess a moment to recover from the single-most sexiest sound ever. "I
don’t know, Cam.” As much as her heart longed to embrace the high-rolling
lifestyle, her brain knew better. She’d spent the bulk of her summer holding
down odd jobs to meet the cost of living expenses and textbooks.
 

“You
won’t have to pay for anything,” he said, plucking the misgivings from her
mind.

“I’ll
think about it.”

Cameron
knew her well enough not to push. Sighing, he allowed his head to fall back
against the car’s roof. “I wish you would’ve come with us.”

“Is
that your subtle way of telling me you missed me?” she cooed, curling into his
side.

“Do
you even have to ask?” Her breath caught as his lips hovered close.
Anticipation segued into dismay as he planted a chaste kiss on her forehead.

Stupid.
She should be used to deflating the air from hope by now. “So, you ready for
class on Monday?” Tess chirped a decibel too high.

“At
least I’m already packed,” Cameron remarked dryly. “I bet you haven’t even
started.”

“Of
course I have!”
Not
.

“I
call bullshit.” His husked laughter rumbled through her midsection. “What time
do you want me to pick you up tomorrow?”

“Around
two is fine.” It only took an hour and some change to reach their school. She
had plenty of time to stuff her closet into a few suitcases. “Isn’t your family
upset you didn’t spend any time with them this summer?”

“They’ll
be alright,” Cameron drawled without warmth. “They’re just glad I did that
internship at my grandfather’s law firm before doing my own thing.”

Tess
failed to get his family. Their place in Nassau was more like a mausoleum than
a home. Cold and polished with everything in its proper place, Tess had visited
homier cemeteries. His parents, while nice, were polite to the point of
painfulness. Not once had she seen them display affection toward their son or
each another.

No
wonder Cameron feared giving away his heart. Apparently the Reynolds considered
love a bad four-letter word.

“Have
you decided on a major yet?” he asked.

“I
was leaning toward pre-med.”

“Really?
I didn’t peg you for the physician type.”

“And
why not?” she struggled to bar defense from her tone.

“Do
you remember Bio when we had to dissect that pig?”

Tess
remembered all right. She'd projectile vomited all over the cadaver and her
teacher. Luckily she hadn't been the only one to regurgitate her overpriced
lunch, thus saving her from a failing grade. “Ok, so I won’t be a surgeon.”

“And
that time you babysat your neighbor’s kids?” he pointed out.

The
spoiled brats had done nothing but whine and cry and pitch tantrums. One hour
into it and she’d been ready to lock them in the dog crate. “I don’t have the
patience for pediatrics anyway.”

“I'm
not saying that to discourage you.” He linked their fingers. “I'm just saying
don't rush into a major. Explore your options first.”

“I
don't need options. I know what I want.” She didn’t have the luxury of time or
resources to be taken by flights of fancy. Logically people would always get
sick and die, so she would always have a job and financial security. What more
was there to consider?

“Alright,
just know med school’s not cheap. My cousin went to Stanford and by the end of
his residency, he owed close to three hundred grand.”

Although
she’d done the math, the figures still induced a mini anxiety attack. She was
already waist-deep in debt. And that was with a grant covering half of her
tuition. “Most likely I’ll take a year or two off and save up. I might rent a
room somewhere cheap so I can claim myself come tax season and score more
financial aid.”

“You’ve
given this a lot of thought,” he said, amused.

“Trust
me. I’ve got this covered. I didn’t graduate third in our class for nothing.”
Tess tapped her chin. “What were you again? Eighth? Tenth?”
 

She
laughed as Cameron dragged her into a headlock and
noogied
her head. “Something you’ll never let me live down.” He slid off the hood and
offered his hand. “Come on. Let’s roll.”

He
didn’t have to ask her twice.

They
spent the remainder of the night orbiting Long Island before submitting to the
hypnotic tow of the city. Although nothing important came to pass, Tess
relished her time with him nonetheless. There was something so effortless about
their relationship. Easy. They could talk for hours about everything and
nothing.

She
didn’t drag herself out of bed until eleven the next morning. Gritty-eyed and
empty-stomached, Tess gnawed on a granola bar while picking through belongings
that merited transportation to her dorm room.

Four
hours of flattening her wardrobe into too small suitcases, Tess wheeled them
two at a time to the foyer.

Her
brother stuck his head out from the kitchen as she walked past, a roll of deli
meat hanging from his mouth. “
Yo
, you need some help,
little T?”

He
towered over her by one measly inch and never tired of rubbing it in her face.
“I’ve got it. And close your mouth when you’re chewing.” Dumping everything in
the foyer, she returned to her room for the last trip.

Tony
followed her anyway. He picked up a scrap of material and snickered. “What the
hell is this?”

Tess
snatched it from his grasp and stuffed it into her bag. “It’s called a shawl.”

“I
know what it is. Why do you own one?”

“Unlike
some people I can’t just show up anywhere dressed however,” she said, sensitive
about her wardrobe. He didn’t know the laborious hours she’d put into
cultivating her look.

There were few things she and her brother didn’t share. Commonly
mistaken for twins despite the two-year age gap, both had been graced with their
mother’s fair complexion, a handful of freckles, a mop of auburn locks, and
hazel-green eyes.

Personality-wise, they couldn’t have been further apart. While
Tess endeavored to keep their impoverished roots buried, Antonio embraced their
‘heritage’. In prep school, she spent hours facing the mirror until her rounded
vowels blended seamlessly with her classmates’ clipped, Upper East Side
enunciation. After a crash course in fashion courtesy of the style network, she
spent months scouring thrift stores and flea markets for pieces that best
aligned with her new, vintage look.

Tony chose the opposite. He wore whatever he wanted, spoke however
he wanted—at times exaggerating the stigmatized Brooklyn accent—and
became all the more popular for it.

She guessed social acceptability wavered at the gender line.

“Whatever.”
Her brother sifted through the outfits she’d laid out for the first week of
class. “I don’t get why you wear shit you don’t like.”

“What
are you talking about? I’m fine with my wardrobe,” she said impatiently.

He
snorted his disbelief. “Don’t lie. You know you’d rather be crushing skulls
with your Docs in the middle of a mosh pit than pretending to be an heiress.”

She
hated being reminded of what she’d given up. She’d by no means subscribed to
the stereotyped classifications of
metalhead
,
emo
, and the like. Tess merely enjoyed being a part of a
subculture that cared nothing for fads or commercialized tastes; where the only
important thing was the music.

But
that was a long time ago. She had bigger fish to fry and Tess would be damned
if she returned to squalor because she didn’t know how to set childish things
aside. “That was a phase, Tones. This is who I am now. Now are you going to
help me with these or what?” She shoved the rest her clothes into a duffel bag
and hitched it onto his shoulder without asking.

He
grunted. “What do you have in here? Bodies?”

“Maybe
if you actually completed your coach’s workout regimen instead of bullshitting,
you’d be in better shape,” she said sweetly.

“Maybe
if you joined me you'd lose that flabby stomach.” Snickering, he dodged her
fist.

She
hit the
elevator’s
down button and double checked her
belongings. “Crap. I forgot my purse. Take these down to Cam, will you?”

“So
now I'm your bellhop.”

“Love
you.” Tess doubled back. She opened the door and almost collided into her
mother.

“Were
you trying to sneak out of here without saying goodbye?” Maia inquired, arms
crossed.

In no mood to argue, Tess skirted the woman en route for her room.
“Not at all.”

To
her everlasting dismay, Maia trailed after her. “You can’t hold the past over
me forever, Tess,” she said, her voice one part earnestness, another
irritation.

“Oh,
don’t worry, Mom.” She spread her arms with a flourish. “This totally makes up
for a decade and a half of parental negligence.”

“How
many more times do I have to apologize for something that was out of my
control?”

Tess
rolled her eyes.

“Criticize
me all you want, but I was depressed. You don’t understand what it was like not
having the energy to get out of bed every morning,” she said, bitterness
threading her tone.

“That
wasn’t depression. That was a perpetual hangover.”

“Tess-”

“I
don’t want to do this right now.” Tess angrily stuffed her keys and wallet into
her purse.

“If
not now, then when?” Exasperation colored her words. “We can’t go on like
this.”

“You’re
right. Lucky for both of us I’ll be gone for the next few months. Take care.” She
maneuvered around her mother and out the door.

It
wasn’t that Tess hated her mother. On the contrary, had Tess dropped out of
school to run away with a businessman she’d known for all of four months at the
tender age of seventeen, Tess would’ve probably faired the same. Too bad said
businessman turned out to be a married father of three, who’d wanted nothing to
do with his bastard spawn, and relocated his legitimate family to the West
Coast.

As
a consequence, Maia spent the majority of Tess’s formative years either
declaiming her woe-is-me soliloquy, ad nauseam, or
drinking until she could barely pick herself up off the floor.
Tess credited the woman for supplying a roof, shitty as it was, over their
heads and throwing them a few dollars as needed.