The Line That Binds (5 page)

Three cardboard boxes labeled “Lila” sat open in the middle of the floor with clothes spilling from them like they just barfed up designer threads. Some items were glittery enough to hurt my eyes, and others looked like business attire made for fancy offices and private under-the-desk jobs.
Doesn’t this girl own any jeans?
I could see immediately where I would have a problem getting along with her. I was pretty sure even the richest kids at school didn’t wear clothes like these.

A soft splashing sound came from the bathroom. I moved around the corner and stepped through the open door. The tub was so full of bubbles that I couldn’t see the water. I jerked my head around, half expecting someone to walk in on me standing here like a lunatic staring at the tub. When I turned back, five little toes, with chipped bright pink polish, poked through the bubble layers at the edge of the tub. I jumped back, slamming my tool belt into the vanity with a muted thud. The dull noise left the possibility for escape, until the channel locks fell. They crashed onto the tile floor with a loud enough clank to wake Janine’s ghost.

“What the hell, Gav?” LJ’s voice came from somewhere inside the bubbles. “I thought we had the talk about invading my privacy years ago. If you recall, some of your stuff disappeared during negotiations.”

I froze at her voice─delicate despite its words─afraid to make a move. My feet betrayed me as I screamed at them internally. Finally, I managed to return the channel locks to my belt and slide one foot behind my body, ready to back out.

Her head emerged through the bubbles, only a small portion of her face exposed to the air. Her eyebrows shot up as she locked eyes with me. I raised my hands in a surrendering fashion, hoping this incident wouldn’t hurt my chance to start this forced friendship, but knowing it would.

She gasped, pulling a quick breath between her teeth while her green eyes scanned me. “What are you doing in here?” Her voice was calmer than I’d expected. I was prepared to cover my ears to cut down a piercing scream, but it never came. She was different than the girl I saw four months ago. The roots of her hair were grown out dark, and she seemed younger without the heavy eyeliner dragging her light eyes down. Any skin left exposed appeared as soft as it did that day. It took every ounce of my willpower to keep from imagining how sexy the rest of her body looked under the layers of bubbles. What finally snapped me back to reality was the thought of
her
owning a majority of Stockton Estate. She, someone who barely knew Janine, who had no clue how this place ran, and who didn’t deserve to live in this house, would be the one who made all of the business decisions soon enough. She didn’t deserve any of it. Pop did. And now, if what Pop believed was true, I’d have to befriend her and possibly protect her? This was a bunch of crap.

Her eyes hardened, pressing me for an answer, for something.

I shook my head and clenched my jaw, feeling it explode from the inside for the second time today. I wanted to walk out of the room and go tell Pop to shove it. I wanted to walk away before there was any chance to be chopped down by this person, whose current stare held enough disdain to make that decision a little less complicated.

I rocked back on my boot, the weight of the “cons” pushing me toward the door.

Her eyes examined me further, replacing shock and anger with a quizzical squint.

“LJ?” I said, finally forcing something through my teeth. My confliction made her initials sound neither friendly nor hated. They came out more like a question and I had no idea why.

Why did I agree to this?

“What did you say?” I asked, suddenly realizing how naked I was under a slowly diminishing shield of bubbles. I crossed my legs, folded my arms around them, and gathered more fluffy foam to cover the top of my body as stealthily as I could. When I pulled the bubbles close, they were as high as my neck inside the deep tub, though I felt the tiny pops against my skin as more died, leaving me a little more exposed with each passing second.
I hope he can’t see anything.
I looked back up at him, waiting for him to speak again.
Why isn’t he saying anything?

I watched his full lips repeat the words. “I said your name. LJ.” They pushed far out and wrapped widely around the syllables, revealing specs of silver and several wires behind their exaggerated movements.
Is his mouth wired shut?
I stared at the soft cleft in his chin while I reprocessed his voice in my head. LJ. That’s what he said. LJ.

“Why did you call me that?” I snapped, not meaning for it to tumble out so harshly. No one had used that nickname for me in years. Not even Gavin.

“Um,” he replied. His lips pressed together like he was humming, and his eyes darted around the room. He was wearing brown work boots that were caked with dried mud. Flecks of it dropped onto the bathroom tile─that I’d just swept─as he bounced one boot heel rhythmically, nervously. His jeans looked a size too big and his T-shirt wasn’t much better. Both were ripped in random places and smeared with grease stains and dirt, and there were streaks of something blue across his left shoulder, like he’d used it to wipe his fingers clean. “That’s what Janine called you. Your initials?” he finally answered through his teeth, though he sounded unsure.

Aunt Janine had called me that when I was little, but I hadn’t seen the woman for several years before she died. I wondered why she would speak about me to anyone. Then I remembered she was crazy enough to bequeath her house to me.

“And you’re Benjamin, right?” I asked, remembering him from the will reading. We’d both stood in front of Janine’s lawyer four months ago and signed papers that declared us future owners of this property. He’d worn a cheap pair of dress pants that day and a tie that was too short for his long upper body. I could tell he was uncomfortable wearing them, or maybe just uncomfortable being there. Either way, they were probably the only nice clothes he had, and possibly one of the only times he’d worn them.

He parted his lips to respond, but closed them again and simply nodded with confirmation. There was a thick, vertical gash on the right side of his bottom lip. It was mostly healed, with new, pink scar tissue. It wasn’t there during the will reading, and his jaw wasn’t wired then either.
Had he been in a fight?
He looked like a fighting type, rough and rugged, with broad shoulders and thick arms camouflaged partially by his baggy shirt. Guys at Summerlin Prep fought, but those fights usually ended quickly. I think they were too worried they’d mess up their pretty faces or get booted from the country club. Nevertheless, what they lacked in physical fights they made up with ego assaults and head trips: who had the best car, best girl, bigger dick. Who could nail the most chicks. The testosterone flowed from them whether they sparred with their tongues or their fists, and the damage was equally bad. They were as ruthless as us girls when it came to trash talking and could ruin reputations with one well-placed rumor.

“Well, Benjamin, what are you doing
in here
?”

He lifted the handle of a large wrench attached to his tool belt. “I was told to check the water. I didn’t think any of you were here. I mean, I knocked, and no one answered downstairs, so ...”

His voice was a little clearer this time, clear enough that I didn’t need to reprocess his words. I bit my bottom lip and glanced around the room, wondering if he was going to add anything else. He didn’t speak again, but he pressed his lips tight like he was contemplating something.

“So …” I prompted, deciding to interrupt whatever internal battle he had going on, or kill the possibility of him stalling to wait for more of my bath bubbles to pop.

He turned his back to me, sliding in front of the vanity, and began to check the faucet. He caught my eye in the mirror’s reflection and turned the corners of his lips up, revealing soft dimples hovering just above his scruffy jawline. It was like he snapped out of whatever trance he’d been in. He dropped his focus back to the faucet without a word.

Oh, he is being rude.
“You already know the water works. The bath is full,” I snapped, this time fully intending for my voice to sound harsh.

“Yeah,” he replied and squatted in front of vanity. He opened the cabinets and peered at the pipes underneath. “But it’s my job to check.”

I gathered up more bubbles while he was turned. I didn’t want this perv taking advantage of the fact that I couldn’t get out of the tub. He was probably enjoying this torturous encounter. I wanted to say something mean, or scream at him to make him leave, but curiosity got the upper hand. “Why is your jaw wired? Did you get into a fight?”

Still crouched, he spun on his toes and slid the vanity doors closed behind him. He was at eye level with me, which was only comforting because he no longer had a bird’s-eye view of the tub. His brown eyes were easily the darkest I’d ever seen, and his pupils pulled them deeper still. They laced together, nearly indistinguishable. He reached a hand up to the side of his head, gliding his palm over his shaved hair, which was a lot shorter than it’d been at the will reading. He smirked to himself before looking at me straight. “No, not a fight,” he said simply. “I guess I’ll see you around, LJ.”

“It’s Lila,” I replied, irritated by his smugness, or downright disrespect. I couldn’t read him as quickly as I could some other guys. His mannerisms had literally bounced all over the emotion spectrum within the last few minutes, and it was difficult to keep up.

He stopped at the bathroom door and leaned against its frame. “What, you don’t like that nickname, LJ?” His voice was low, hypnotic. I was pretty sure he was teasing me, gauging me.

“Your last name is Shadows, right?” I asked, but I didn’t wait for the answer I already knew. “Since you like initials so much, maybe I’ll just call you by yours, BS.”

He cracked an actual grin, those mischievous dimples highlighting his amusement. “Fair enough. I won’t call you LJ anymore. I’ve got something better anyway.” He pushed the words through his teeth, then stood upright and backed out of the room. “I’ll see you around, Bubbles.”

I dropped my jaw, ready to protest, but he left before I could stutter a word.

“Whoa! What did you do to your hair?” Gavin asked when I stepped into the kitchen. He had his game propped steadily on the breakfast bar while his butt worked the swivel chair back and forth, repeatedly.

I scrunched my face at him. “I thought the black dye would make it pretty obvious what I did to it.”

“Whatever, but I think you might have a hard time finding new friends to shop with if you’re going Emo or Goth for the first day of school on Monday.”

“What makes you an expert on making new friends, huh? Besides, maybe I’m not interested in friends.”

“You? Not interested in being part of a group of fun-sucking, male-head-decapitating praying manti girls? Yeah, right.”

He knew my habits too well. Back in Summerlin, when I wasn’t watching out for him, I was shopping with my friends or spending time with my boyfriend, Mark. The same people who hadn’t called, sent a text, or emailed in at least two weeks. Most of them dipped out of my life a couple of months ago when Dad gave us the news about losing his job and our money. They wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with someone who was now considered second class. Friends?
Yeah, right.

“It’s praying mantises. It doesn’t have the same plural form as cactus.” I shrugged the rest of his words off, not wanting to explore the topic further. I was already tired of thinking about all of it, most of all the parts about starting over. We were lucky Aunt Janine left me this place, and even luckier that Simone, the manager of Stockton Estate, let us move in before my eighteenth birthday in April when I’d legally claim the property. I’d hate to think where we’d be otherwise.

“I got pizza,” Dad announced, walking into the kitchen with two boxes stacked in his hands.

Typical.
We should’ve used that money to help stock the refrigerator and pantry with essentials, but his first purchase was a quick pizza.

He set the boxes on the extended breakfast bar then shook his gray head of hair. Tiny droplets of water scattered from the short strands. “It’s starting to rain out there. I guess we all need to get used to more of that, huh?”