The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove (3 page)

He was standing in the doorway, wringing out of his rain-soaked football jersey, but when I started skivvying out of my damp jeans—just slowly enough to give him a little show—I could see his reflection in the window perk right up to attention.

“Define
foulest,
” he said, taking a step toward me. The room was dark except for the warm glow of his bedside lamp and the diffused white light coming through the window from the golf club down below. Mike ran the back of his hand up the length of my leg and gave me a sexy half smile. “Food-poisoning-from-Waffle-House foul, or just slightly more dire than yesterday’s
foulest
day ever?”

“You’re mocking me,” I moaned, pulling away to face the manicured green of the thirteenth hole and the lush rolling tree line beyond the course. Clots of greenish clouds churned overhead, ready to turn to rain again any second.

“You’re too clothed to be taken seriously,” Mike said, pulling my attention back indoors and my body back to his. He tugged at the tight black turtleneck I was still wearing. “Aren’t you the one who suggested the rule?” he teased, kissing my neck between each word. “Total. Naked. Honesty?”

I rolled my eyes but grinned as I pulled my shirt over my head. The room was cool, and I felt the prick of goose bumps rise along my arms. I stretched out diagonally across the king-size waterbed in my lucky black-bra-and-underwear set, then rolled over onto my stomach so Mike would have to climb on top of me to find a spot.

“Honesty later,” I said, gesturing at my neck. “Kneading now. I’ve got a knot the size of Georgia right . . . yes,
there.
”

Mike had stripped down to his tartan boxers and assumed the masseur position over me. I let myself close my eyes and really breathe for the first time all day.

After finding out from Tracy how close we were to certain victory, I’d fidgeted through the rest of my classes, getting more and more anxious to plot something to ensure our win. By now, it was all I could think about. But there was something about Mike’s hands on my neck, how powerful and strong they were. They made me let everything go.

I remembered the first time I’d seen his hands—strong, tan, gripping a baseball bat, definitely a force to be reckoned with. Since Mike’s bedroom overlooked the ritzy Scot’s Glen golf club, where kids from the other side of town—the wrong side of town—got their kicks by sneaking onto the course to chuck golf balls at the mansions. Totally adolescent, yes, but it’s not like there was much to entertain a trailer-park kid on the Cawdor side of the bridge. It was part of the fun that the rich kids kept arsenals by their back doors to chase off the vandalizing have-nots.

Sure, I’d had a few good times with exactly those wrong kinds of guys, always in and out of juvie, often with names like Junior Junior. My old friend Sarah Lutsky used to say nothing heated up a redneck romance like a run-in with the law. But right around the time I met Mike, I’d decided to turn over a new leaf.

It was September fifteenth, freshman year, and I had just transferred over to Palmetto. My mom had recently remarried,
again,
finally accomplishing her life goal of moving us over to the right side of the bridge—and into the Palmetto school district. So when my golf ball sliced through Mike’s bedroom window, it was—for a change—completely accidental. Not to mention the end of my very short golf career.

It’s crazy to think about it now, but I’ll never forget how, when Mike came out of the house swinging his baseball bat, wearing only a pair of crisp khaki shorts, my first instinct was to run. Sarah’s take on getting caught had always been, “When the going gets rough, swim home.”

“Hey, wait,” Mike had called out, jogging after me. “Hang on, I thought you were . . . someone else.”

I froze, standing by his pool in my brand-new golf polo and pleated white miniskirt—a gift from my new stepdad and the most expensive thing I’d ever owned. Right then I realized, for the first time in my life, that I had a right to be there. All I had to do was choose to own it.

Mike still didn’t know exactly how influential that first meeting was. He liked to think our little make-out session by his pool shack was what made me remember the day so fondly and insist upon celebrating its anniversary every month. But we’ve been going strong for more than three years now (way longer than my mom’s third marriage lasted). At this point, I figured, when it came to certain parts of my past, the whole “total naked honesty” thing only really needed to go so far.

As Mike went to town on my neck, I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into relaxation mode and let out a contented sigh.

“Hey, I know that sound,” Mike leaned into my ear to whisper. “You’re falling asleep. Don’t forget you’re not the only one in the world who needs a little after-school stress relief.”

My eyes shot open, and I sat up on the waterbed, causing it to jiggle.

“Do you mean you’re worried about Palmetto, too?” I said quickly. “I thought it was just me, but you must have seen all the posters today, too. Do you think we put enough up? Do you think we look better than everyone else?”

“Way to kill the mood,” Mike joked. He rubbed his hand down my side. “I just meant I could use some . . . ahem . . . general stress relief . . . hint hint.”

“Oh,” I said, reaching over the edge of the bed for my bag to pop a piece of Juicy Fruit in my mouth. “That.”

“Yeah,” he said. “
That.
Don’t sound too excited.”

When I met Mike’s eyes, I realized how stupid I’d sounded. I didn’t even mean it. Being this close to his body always made me want to rip his clothes off. It wasn’t that I’d lost sight of that; I just had the Ball on my brain.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I said, burying my face in his chest. “That’s not what I meant. You know I can’t get enough of you.” I started kissing my way down his stomach, which always left him paralyzed. I hovered right above his boxers to look him in the eye. “It’s only that I want the whole school to want you just as badly . . . serving as their Prince.”

He moaned and stroked my head. “I’ll settle for
your
endorsement.”

I ran my thumbs inside the waist of his boxers and clicked my tongue. “Uh-uh, that’s not enough. You know I want to celebrate our status . . . with crowns.”

“Why?” he whispered. “What status? Who cares about anything besides you and me?” He tried to pull me up to him, and I could feel our bodies fitting into their natural groove. I had to will myself to pull away.

“
I
care.”

“Nat,” Mike sighed. He sat back up and combed his fingers through my hair. “I know you’ve been fantasizing about the two of us getting crowned at the Ball for, like, our entire relationship, but you do know there is life after Palmetto Court, right?”

Mike was smirking at me the way that he did when I started to get carried away. His deep-brown eyes got all crinkled up, and his dark wavy hair flopped over his forehead. I’d have to remind Binky, his housekeeper, that his hair was about three, no, more than four days away from needing a trim—though it looked pretty cute for now.

Still, cute wasn’t going to win us anything at this stage in our lives. Why was I the only one in the room who seemed to be aware of it? It was times like these when I realized Mike had no concept of what it meant to work for something. It was almost like, if he didn’t already own it, or couldn’t buy it with his charm, he had no use for it. Sometimes I wondered whether he was even capable of
wanting
something that was hard to get.

Now he leaned in for a kiss, but I held him back, pushing on his chest with two fingers. He was inches away from my mouth.

“I will die if Justin Balmer walks away with your crown,” I said.

Mike sighed, collapsing back on the bed.

“I’m not getting into J.B. with you again,” he said. He stared up at the glow of the solar-system stickers we’d stuck on his ceiling back when we’d first gotten together, back when Palmetto Court dreams seemed as far away as the stars outside.

“I can’t believe how little you care about how much I care about this.” I banged my fist down on the bed, making more waves. Then I quickly shoved it into my other hand to keep myself still. “Have you even
ordered
my Jessamine yet?”

Note: In case you’re reading this from another planet, the Jessamine is not just the South Carolina state flower; it’s also the longtime corsage of choice for Palmetto High School dances. Of course, somewhere along the line, the tacky southern flair for design infiltrated that tradition, and today’s Jessamine is like a nouveau riche distant cousin of its former self.

In the old days, guys just picked fistfuls of the golden wild-flower and pinned them to a brooch. But today’s Jessamine can only be ordered from the Duke of Jessamines, and all the flowers look like they’re on steroids. They’re silk, about the size of a Frisbee, and decorated with all the bells and whistles (and ribbons and stickers and photo buttons and school spirit emblems—and I swear I saw one last year that lit up and played music) that your date can afford.

Guys custom-order them weeks in advance, and girls sport their Jessamines to school on the day before the dance. It’s the only time of year you’ll see cheerleaders in overalls—the denim bib holds up the weight the best. Jessamine Day has gotten to be so huge that if you’re unlucky enough not to get asked to the Ball, you basically call in sick. It’s better to flake than to show up flowerless.

I know it sounds intense. The Duke of Jessamines even has to hire a team of seasonal employees to help him make the corsages this time every year. Which is how my mother got her current job—and her current benefactor . . . I mean, boyfriend.

“Nat?” Mike brushed his thumb on my cheekbone, interrupting my thoughts. “I said I was going to order it tomorrow.”

“MIKE!” I jumped up in horror. Picking out the right Jessamine was the biggest, most public display of commitment a guy could make toward his girlfriend. “The dance is a week away! You know they run out of the best flowers.”

Mike wrapped his leg around me. He tried again for a kiss, but I sucked in and pursed my lips.

“Have I ever let you down?” he asked.

I crossed my arms, and I couldn’t decide whether I was fake-pouting or real-pouting. “Not yet,” I responded.

“I never will,” he said.

“I’ll believe that when you beat J.B. for Prince.”

Mike rolled his eyes and grinned. “Your one-track mind is very sexy. But I’ve told you, Balmer’s cool now. He was just showing me his costume for the party this weekend.”

Oh my God, in all the excitement, I’d completely forgotten about Rex Freeman’s infamous Mardi Gras soiree.

It was the one time a year when every kid at Palmetto, save a few of the most self-righteous youth groupers, cut loose and got a little crazy. All the typical girls would be wearing feathered masks and fishnets, but I was determined to come up with something that stood out in the crowd of wannabe sluts. The boys would be all Panama hats, flasks in their jackets, and barely buttoned French-cut shirts. Often, they ended up looking more scandalous than the girls.

I did love to pick out costumes for us to wear every year, but I think my favorite part of Mardi Gras was seeing everyone all showered and appropriate at church the next morning, when you’d still be picturing them flashing for beads. It was something I looked forward to every year, but today, the thought of Rex’s party was just one more thing getting under my skin.

“So what?” I asked Mike huffily. “You and J.B. were swapping beads in the locker room?” Mike and I had already agreed to keep our costume concept this year a surprise until we showed up at the party.

“Course not,” Mike shrugged. “Just his. Dude’s gonna wear a feather boa. It’s hilarious.”

“I doubt it,” I said. The mental image of J.B. stumbling around drunk in a hot-pink feather boa did nothing for me—unless that feather boa could be used to publicly humiliate/ annihilate him.

Then Mike put his thumb on my lip. “Hey,” he said softly. “If I promise to get you the Jessamine to shame all other Jessamines, will you kiss me already?”

I leaned into him and tried to gauge the look in his eyes. He looked totally earnest. I wondered if that would change if I clued him in on a few unsavory details about J.B. That would involve divulging some information about my past that I’d banished to the recesses of my mind, but you know what they say about desperate times.

“Come on,” he coaxed again. “Kiss me.”

I pulled Mike to me so that our lips just barely brushed when I spoke. “If I kiss you, will you promise to keep your costume plans a secret from J.B. until Saturday night?”

Mike’s brow furrowed the way it did when he couldn’t quite keep up with my logic but trusted me enough not to question it. His strong hands folded around me, and he pressed his lips to mine. His tongue parted my mouth, and when I opened up to him, I could feel a new kind of power moving in.

CHAPTER Three

W
hen you’re dating southern royalty, always pack a change of clothes.

There’s the daytime getup (string bikini and gauzy black cover-up) that you bring to your boyfriend’s bayside villa for the after-dinner jaunt on his state-of-the-art cigarette boat . . . and then there’s the lavender-jersey tennis dress and impeccably white cardigan that you threw in your bag in case his blue-blood parents pop by the house unexpectedly for dinner . . . again.

“Look who’s in the neighborhood!” Diana King trilled as she stepped into the foyer of the King family’s weekend house. I listened for the
thwunk
of her alligator-skin duffel landing on the Persian rug in the middle of the massive foyer. Then I heard the rapid-fire clicking of her stilettos on the opalescent marble as she beelined up the stairs toward her youngest son’s boudoir door, on which she patently refused to knock.

“That’s my cue,” I groaned, rolling off of Mike on the navy quilted bedspread. It was a sure bet that she’d be up here sniffing around before Mike could even collect himself after all the hard work I’d been doing.