Wrath - 4 (21 page)

“No way!” Mini-She protested.

“You guys rock!” Mini-Me swung her pom-poms in the air, as if that should decisively settle the point.

“Stil , I bet you could give me some pointers—you know, as objective observers,” Adam said. “How ’bout I treat you both to some pizza and you can tel me what you think?”

“Us?” the Minis gaped at each other.

“
You
want to take
us
out?”

“
You
want to hear what
we
think?”

“Now?”

“Both of us?”

Adam nodded. Two girls—double your pleasure, double your fun, right?

(
This isn’t you,
a smal voice inside him pointed out.
Shut up,
he told it.)

“I’l go get changed and meet you back outside the school in fifteen minutes, okay?”

They nodded, too dumbstruck to say anything. Then, simultaneously, they turned and raced toward the girls’ locker room, ponytails and pom-poms flying out behind them.

Adam trudged back toward his own locker room and tried to think eager thoughts. But al he could think of was the looks on Harper’s and Beth’s faces if they saw what he was doing.

Beth would be disappointed.

Harper would be disgusted.

By the time he’d showered and changed, Adam was both—but it was too late to back out now. He wasn’t the kind of guy who made a date and disappeared, even if it was a date his kind of guy should never have made in the first place.

They were already there waiting for him when he pushed through the front doors, each dressed in a tight-fitting skirt he was sure he’d seen Harper wear and discard a few months earlier.

“We were afraid you’d changed your mind!” Mini-Me chirped, her face lighting up when she spotted him.

“Ready to go?” he asked weakly. Mini-Me linked her arm through his.

“Three cheers for pizza!” Mini-She squealed, and grabbed his other arm.

Too bad Adam had lost his appetite.

Beth fidgeted in her seat by the corner of the stage, fuming. When the principal had asked her, as a special favor, to participate in the governor’s assembly even though her speech hadn’t been chosen, she’d figured it was a decent enough consolation prize. Some prize.

It turned out that “participate” had meant “introduce Harper and tel the school what a wonderful girl she is.” Upon realizing that, Beth had been too horrified to back out—she’d just frozen, bobbing her head up and down in response to the principal’s babbled comments about poise and eloquence.

There wasn’t enough poise in the world to pul this off, Beth thought, glancing to her left, where Harper was playing with a long thread fraying off the pocket of her jeans. The principal had insisted on having a run-through before the main event—and it wasn’t like Beth had anywhere else to be. After al , work wasn’t an issue anymore.

Get
out,
her manager had said.
Take off your uniform, leave your time card, and get out
.

Al those months of sucking up to him, with his bad breath and greedy comb-over, al those late nights and double shifts, al wasted in a single, fatal failure of her impulse-control system. She’d trashed everything just because Kane Geary couldn’t leave her alone and, for once in her life, she couldn’t just grin and bear it.

Part of her believed it had been worth it, just for the look on his face—at least, the patches of his face visible beneath the dripping milk shake. But the other part of her knew she needed the job: for her family, for col ege, for keeping herself on track, and sane.

Stil , it had felt good.

“Beth?” the principal cal ed. “You’re up.”

“Good luck,” Harper whispered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Beth snapped.

“Just … good luck,” Harper said with no trace of a smile. “I’m, uh, sure you’l be … great.”

Beth stared at her, waiting for the punch line, but there wasn’t one. Harper had never said a friendly word to her—not without an ulterior motive—and there was no reason to think she’d start now. “Don’t talk to me,” she hissed. “I don’t want to hear it.”

Beth walked slowly toward the podium at the center of the stage, thinking that something was wrong here. It should have been Harper delivering the saccharine opening lines, forced to stroke Beth’s ego and choke on her words. It should have been Beth welcoming the governor, awing the auditorium of students and faculty and media with her stunning prose.

For a moment, Beth wondered: If she tried hard enough, could she wake herself up to find that she’d fal en asleep in Adam’s arms three months ago, and al this was just a bad dream, brought on by pre-SAT stress?

“Ms. Manning? Any day now wil do,” the principal said dryly.

If it was a nightmare, it wasn’t ending anytime soon.

Beth unfolded the smal sheet of paper she’d brought with her, a two-paragraph intro she’d jotted down the night before. She took a deep breath and faced the sea of empty seats. “Thank you, Principal Lowenstein. And thank you, Governor, for visiting Haven High School. We’re al so honored to have you here.” Pause for applause, Beth told herself. But she was just delaying the inevitable.

“I’m now pleased to introduce one of Haven High’s most distinguished students, someone who deeply cares—”

Beth stopped. This was a joke. As if Harper Grace had ever deeply cared about anything except herself.

But they were just words, she reminded herself. Lies, yes, but not important ones. She just needed to talk fast and get it over with.

“Who deeply cares about the future of this school. As everyone knows, Harper Grace—”

She stopped again. She may not have had the nerve to speak the truth, but she didn’t have the stomach to tel the lie.

“Are you okay, Beth?” Harper cal ed from the side of the stage. At the sound of her voice, Beth only felt weaker.

Principal Lowenstein walked over to the podium and put a hand on Beth’s shoulder. She flinched away. “Is everything al right?” No.

When was the last time the answer hadn’t been no?

“I’m just not feeling very wel ,” she said softly. “I think … I think I need to go, if that’s al right.”

She fled before the principal had a chance to respond, and before she could see the jeering look on Harper’s face.

Every time she thought she’d scored a point, it seemed like she just got kicked down into the mud again, trampled and humiliated. Everything she tried to do blew up in her face, while every move Harper made was flawless—and deadly.

Beth stil had the moral high ground. She had al the principles in the world on her side. But Harper had the strength, the wil , and the ruthlessness. Which meant Harper had the power, and maybe she always would.

Miranda had heard the rumors.

That Rising Sun Casino was a desert oasis, fil ed with bronzed guys and buxom blondes, high-rol er tables and penny slots, drama, intrigue, adventure, a twenty-four-hour buffet and al the cocktails you could stomach. And they didn’t card.

It seemed an unlikely setting for Bacchanalia, Miranda thought, as the silver Camaro pul ed into a space by the entrance of the casino. A few neon lights flickered on and off, and an old man lounged in the doorway smoking a cigarette. It didn’t scream intrigue so much as infection.

But at least some of the rumors were true, Miranda discovered, as Kane held the door open and she walked down an aisle lined with withering potted palms. The cocktails were abundant, as were the buxom blondes ferrying them around the casino floor.

And indeed, they didn’t card.

“You like?” Kane asked, sweeping his arms wide to encompass the place as if it were his handiwork.

Miranda couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose. “It has a certain … charm.” To her right, a line of older women looked up from their slot machines, their hands fixed on the levers with a death grip. (And they seemed determined to stay there until “death grip” became a literal description.) Eventual y, having ascertained that neither Miranda nor Kane looked likely to infringe on their turf, they looked down again, back at the buckets of coins and spinning dials that always came up one short of the jackpot.

Kane laughed. “Never brought a girl here before,” he admitted. “But, somehow, I thought you’d enjoy it.”

Miranda flushed with pleasure. When he’d proposed the impromptu road trip after detention, she certainly hadn’t worried about her curfew, or asked where they were going or when they’d be back. She’d just basked in the glow of his attention.

“So what’s first?” he asked. “Blackjack? Slots? Maybe you want me to teach you a little poker?”

Miranda and Harper had been playing poker late into the night since junior high. They used M&M’s and Vienna Fingers for chips, then ate their winnings. She shook off the memory and grinned up at Kane. “Please. Point me to the poker table. I’l kick your ass.”

And she would have, too, if he hadn’t pul ed out a straight flush at the last second.

It was hard to tel when he was bluffing.

After a ful circuit around the casino floor, it was clear: Kane couldn’t lose—not at games of skil , not at games of chance.

They eventual y ended up in the gift shop. Kane had declared they needed a souvenir to commemorate the occasion. “How about this?” He held up a teddy bear in a bright blue shirt reading I ♥
POKER
.

“Congratulations. That may be the tackiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Kane clucked his tongue. “Oh, Stevens, you’re not trying hard enough. Just look around us—this is a cornucopia of crap.” Miranda had known Kane for a decade, and had studied his every move for almost that long. She’d seen him sardonic, sarcastic, sul en, supercilious—but never quite like this.

Never sil y.

“Okay, then, how about this?” She lifted a pair of earrings, holding them up against her lobes; the bright orange and green feathers dangled so low, they brushed her shoulders.

“Gorgeous. Now al you need to finish off the look is …” He selected a heavy chain of oversize, garishly painted beads and fastened it around her neck. She shivered at his touch, and his hands paused. She looked up at him and, for a moment, it seemed like—

“Not my style,” she said, ducking out of the necklace, and out of his reach.

What is wrong with me?
Her heart was pounding, her breaths too fast and too short, and she backed up a step, almost knocking over the shelf of commemorative shot glasses.

“Careful, Stevens.” He took hold of her arm to steady her. “You break it, I buy it.”

Breathe,
she instructed herself.
This could be it
. But it was as if her body was rejecting the good luck as too alien for her system. She’d imagined this moment so many times, and now that it was here, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do or say. She couldn’t get her hands to stop shaking.

Probably, she was just imagining the sudden shift between them. Nothing was going to happen, she warned—or maybe reassured—herself. To Kane, she was just a buddy; why would he suddenly see her differently?

It must be the double vodka martini, she realized. It had made her forget herself.

She’d also forgotten that he was stil holding on to her arm. Or perhaps he’d forgotten to let go.

“Problem, Stevens?” He smirked, and it was almost as if he could tel what she was thinking.

“I’m fine,” she claimed. “But the martinis in me seem to be a little clumsy.”

“I don’t think it’s the martinis.” He guided her toward the back of the gift shop, against a wal of “Guaranteed authentic!” Native American dreamcatchers. They were hidden from the rest of the store by a shelf of tourist guides to the Southwest. “I think you’re nervous.”

“Why would I be nervous? Were you playing with loaded dice?” she teased. “Think they’re onto us?” She shook her head in mock disappointment. “I should have known you’d only gamble on a sure thing.”

“You know me too wel .” He was close enough now that she could smel the alcohol on his breath. How drunk was he? she suddenly wondered. How much of this amazing afternoon was him, and how much—“That’s what I love about you,” he said softly.

“And here I thought you only loved yourself.” She kept her voice hard and bright, hoped he wouldn’t see how that word affected her.

Kane grabbed her hands and pressed them to his chest. “Stevens! You wound me! Here I am trying to be al sensitive and al you have for me are insults and innuendos?” He was joking—or, at least, she hoped he was. Miranda had a nasty habit of blurring the line between flirtatious banter and cutting dismissals. But this time, she felt relatively safe, and so she played along.

“So sorry, Kane,” she gushed fakely. “However can I make it up to you? I’l do anything!”

“Anything?” He arched an eyebrow.

“Anything your devious little heart desires.”

He smiled then, the same smile he’d given her at the poker table just before laying down his hand:
I win, you lose
.

“Then kiss me already.”

And there, between the dreamcatchers and the tourist guides, swaying to the scratchy, easy-listening remix of an old Céline Dion song, Kane gently cupped her chin in his warm hand, tipped her face toward his, closed his eyes, and slowly brought their lips together.

Technical y, it wasn’t her first kiss—but, in a way, it was. Because always before, it had been about the mechanics: the teeth scraping, tongue swirling, saliva swishing. Miranda had always focused on her breathing and where her hands should go, on the sucking and popping noises her lips made, silently wondering,
Is this it? Can this be all there is?

Now she had her answer: no. That was nothing. This was—this was Hol ywood, this was
Gone With the Wind,
Kirsten and Tobey hanging upside down in
Spider-Man,
Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy in
Pride and Prejudice
. This was every amazing kiss she’d ever imagined, with sparks and fireworks and a shock of pleasure exploding through her body.

This was Kane Geary caressing her cheek, sucking on her lip, moaning softly, pressing her against the gift shop wal . And this was her, forgetting herself, and how she might look or whether she was doing it right, forgetting to worry about what it might mean, how far it might go, if they’d be caught.