by Jill Shalvis
“Oh, yeah.” When she would have brushed past him, he caught her arm, pulled her back around. “So,” he said. “That was pretty nice back there—”
“Yeah, yeah. It was nice. It was great. Now we don’t have time for the cuddle stuff, move it!”
He laughed. What else could he do? “There’s always time for the cuddle stuff,” he murmured and took the time to pull her in closer and kiss her softly. He could feel her jolt of surprise at the tender touch, the way her breath hitched.
She kissed him back, then stepped clear, licking her lips as if wanting to get every last taste. “You have to go,” she said and shoved his shoes against his chest. “They can’t catch us—it’ll give them ideas.”
He dropped his boots and stepped into them without bothering to lace them up. “I think they’ve already got ideas.”
She went still and stared at him. “You think they’re having sex? My God, why didn’t you tell me? We have to stop them.”
“I just meant that they’re thinking about it. It’s what teenagers do. At least teenage males. They wake up thinking about it, they eat thinking about it, they sleep thinking about it.”
“Don’t tell me this. I don’t want to have to kill that Adam kid.”
“Yeah. I just wish it was a different guy. Maybe Cole, who’s a little screwed up in the parental department, but a really great kid.”
“No one’s good enough for Hope.”
Again he stepped close, putting his hand on the bedroom door when she might have shoved him out of it. “That, Mia Appleby, is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard you say. I think she’s growing on you.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “Damn it.”
“You’re amazing to let her stay.”
“What was I going to do, throw her out into the street?” Again, she tried to get past him.
But he held on. “Was there anyone there for you? When you ran away?”
“I didn’t—” She broke off and looked away. “Look, I realize that what we’ve done might have given you the idea that we’ve got something going on here, enough to share this kind of stuff, but—”
“But we don’t.” He stared at her, wondering how he’d forgotten that. “Right. Sorry.” And he moved out the door without looking back. Going cold turkey, or so he told himself.
No more. He’d had his fill.
Now if only he believed it.
The next morning Mia had no hot water. A certain teen had used it all. When she entered the kitchen, the same teen was at the stove.
Flipping something in the pan. “What are you doing?”
“You might have heard of it,” Hope said, hair wet from all of Mia’s hot water. “It’s called cooking.”
“But we just cooked yesterday.”
“We? You mean me and the house in my pocket?” Hope handed her a plate filled with eggs, hash browns, and toast. “You can’t always go out to eat.”
“Why not?” Mia stared down at the food. Fat City. “You really made all this?”
“Funny thing, a stove. You see it actually heats up, and then—”
“Okay, smart-ass.”
“Eat It’s the breakfast of champions. You’ll be able to make more heads roll, you’ll feel like a queen, you’ll—”
“I get it.” Mia took a bite, and then another.
Hope had her hands on her hips, looking a little like…Oh, God. Without her black makeup, she looked like…Mia swallowed hard. She looked like Mia herself. She swallowed the bite that had suddenly congealed in her mouth and stared, stunned at the realization.
“Is it good?”
“Yeah,” she whispered.
Hope nodded, satisfied to have gotten her way, and went off to get dressed and paint herself up. And when she reappeared, she had her attitude and toughness firmly in place and looked nothing like Mia at all.
Mia sighed in relief and glanced at the calendar by the refrigerator. Two more days.
On the way to work, she cranked the air to combat the already warm day and accessed her messages. There was a client questioning the research budget for their company, another calling for trafficking reports, which would have been ready if she hadn’t lost half her creative team. Then Tess’s voice came on. “I want to trade this job for what’s behind door number one. Seriously, Mia, why didn’t you tell me Dickhead told you I’d come on to Ted? You’d best get in before you have to bail me out for murder.”
Mia shook her head and wondered what the hell Ted was up to now, and drove faster.
“Look at that,” Hope commented dryly from the passenger seat. “Your breakfast is working. You have the energy this morning to kick ass from the car. Usually it takes three lattes.”
“Hope?”
“Yes?” the girl asked sweetly.
“New rule. No baiting me before ten o’clock.” In the rearview mirror she checked the placement of the collar of her Michael Kors silk top, which was up to help cover the beard rash she’d gotten the night before from Kevin.
Then she noticed Hope was wearing a black T-shirt with a mock turtleneck beneath it. Also black. “Are you crazy? You’re going to melt.”
Hope fiddled with the neckline but said nothing.
Suspicion filled Mia, and reaching out, she peeled the neck of the material away from the kid.
“Hey!” She slapped Mia’s hand away, but not before Mia saw the evidence.
“Damn it, you have a hickey!”
Hope crossed her arms over her chest and slunk into the seat. “So?”
Mia pulled up to the teen center and turned to Hope. “So sex can be as bad for your health as cigarettes.”
“Jeez, I’m not having sex!”
“You’re not?”
“No, Aunt Apple, that would be you.” She flicked at Mia’s collar, revealing Kevin’s whisker burns.
They stared at each other, Hope’s gaze filling with a slow, seething resentment.
“Okay,” Mia said, fixing her collar again. “Okay, listen. Maybe we both need to slow down a little.”
“I’m not the one with the false accusations, thank you very much.”
“I mean in general. Maybe try to be less…worldly, and more…tolerant of each other.”
Hope arched a brow. “You’re going to be more tolerant?”
“Hey, I will if you will.”
Hope’s nose nearly hit the top of the Audi. “I’m perfectly tolerant.”
“Then what’s with all the screwing with the music, the phones lines, the ice makers of the world? You’re practically shouting Look at me, I need attention!”
Hope rolled her eyes. “Fine. Maybe I could be slightly more tolerant of your life.”
That seemed too easy, and Mia eyed her a moment. “So you’re going to stay out of trouble today?”
“Yeah.” Hope was staring at the high school. “I wish I could take summer school.”
“You’ll be home this weekend. By Monday you can be signed up—”
“Here. I want to take the science class here. With Kevin. He said I could add it—”
“Hold on.” Mia removed her seat belt and turned in her seat to face Hope. “You talked to Kevin about this?”
“Well, yeah. He said it was no big deal to add—”
No big deal? Jesus. What did he know of her life? Or the additional stress this would cause? “Hope,” she said gently. “You’re going home this weekend.”
“Right.” Hope looked down at her clenched hands. “Because you hate having me here.”
“Now, listen—”
“No, I get it. Loud and clear. Nice tolerance, Aunt Apple.” She opened the passenger door and sprinted out toward the teen center.
“Hope!”
But the kid didn’t stop.
Mia watched her go, thinking she was getting good at alienating people. Real good.
Chapter Fifteen
At the teen center, Kevin paced his office and looked at his watch. Again. There was a staff meeting this morning with a couple members o
f the board, who were in the kitchen getting their coffee, waiting for Kevin. And Mike. In less than sixty seconds, Mike was going to be late. Damn it, he’d woken him up with plenty of time to get here, and now—
The door opened. Mike poked his head in. Smiled, though it didn’t quite meet his eyes.
Kevin let out the breath he’d been holding and pointed to his watch.
Mike lifted his wrist. Sorry, no watch.
Kevin shook his head. You’ve got to get it together.
Mike’s not-quite-real smile faded entirely. Gee, Mom, relax.
You were nearly late.
Nearly doesn’t count except in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Yeah, yeah, let’s go. He moved to the door but then hesitated, fighting the urge to give Mike a list. Remember to look into their eyes. Remember to keep your cool. Remember…
But determination and pride blazed from Mike’s eyes, and Kevin didn’t sign a word except It’s going to be fine.
Mike stared at him, then let some of the smile come back. Always is.
Hope tried to not seethe with resentment watching Adam play Ping-Pong with Amber, a popular girl with perfect hair, perfect makeup, and a perfect body clad in bright sunshine yellow. Hope needed sunglasses just to look at her.
Feeling someone’s eyes on her, she looked up and found Cole watching her. She hadn’t talked to him since that day she’d seen him go out Kevin’s classroom window and had driven the Audi over the field to give him a ride—or would have given him a ride if Kevin hadn’t stopped them.
She hadn’t avoided him on purpose—well, maybe she had a little. It was just that he was no more popular than she was, and she’d wanted something different here.
Not that that had materialized for her.
Cole smiled. Embarrassed to have been caught staring at Adam, she looked away. Her metal belt cut into her hips, her stud bracelets clanked together noisily as she walked to the electronic dartboard on the wall, and suddenly she wished she wasn’t wearing any of it.
There was a game in progress, with a group of middle schoolers. These kids were younger and actually seemed to like her, so she stayed, regaling them with her stories, all of which were made up, of course. She had an entire background fabricated: she was the lone daughter of a wealthy couple who were older and traveled to places like the Greek islands and east Africa. At the moment, they were on a world cruise and she was stuck here with Mia against her will because her nanny had run off with their chef. In fact, her aunt hated having her here, hated it so much that she threatened to beat Hope every single night if Hope didn’t perform a long list of chores like she was Cinderella or something.
Just yesterday Adam had been totally impressed by the story, but today he was busy with Amber.
It was because she hadn’t put out the other night, she knew it. He’d been into her then. She should have just done it, gotten it over with.
Cole gestured to the darts. “Can I play?”
“All yours,” Hope said and handed the darts over without looking at him. Undoing the top two buttons of her top, she headed for Adam.
He looked up when she got closer, and then took a second look at the visible mark he’d put on her neck.
Next to him, Amber frowned.
“Coming over tonight?” Hope murmured to Adam.
His gaze dropped to her breasts. “I don’t know.”
“Because I’m feeling much better,” she assured him and absorbed his hungry smile.
Mia’s day did not go as planned. She spent the morning at a client’s office, and when she checked her messages, she had a cryptic “Call me” from Dick, and another, even more cryptic “Oh, boy” from Tess.
Neither answered her return call, and when she got back to her building and pushed the elevator button, the doors opened to reveal Tess.
She stepped off, holding a box with her personal items, and Mia’s stomach rolled over. “What the hell?”
“Well, it’s a good news, bad news sort of thing,” Tess said like always, but utterly without the usual smile. In fact, her eyes were red, she wore no lip gloss, and her face was pale.
Mia’s cell began to vibrate, but she ignored it, her eyes locked on Tess’s face. “Bad news first.”
Tess stepped off the elevator. “I quit.”
“Oh, no you didn’t.” Mia tried to grab the box out of her hands.
Tess held firm. “Ask me for the good news.”
“Tess—”
“Ask me.”
“Fine. What’s the good news?”
“After I quit, Dickhead fired me, so I think that means I can get unemployment.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” Tess shook her head and began to walk. “Ted is such an asshole.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Mia turned and followed her through the huge lobby, with no idea where they were going.
“He got this sort of sick thrill by pushing my buttons, you know?”
Mia did know. It drove her crazy that Ted picked on Tess. But to work there without her warm, easy support…Damn it, Mia couldn’t even imagine. “Go on,” she said tightly.
“You’ve already heard all this. He kept giving me stuff to do that wasn’t my job and wanting me to do it ahead of everyone else’s stuff. It was rude, but I could have dealt with that.” Tess was talking like this was no big deal, but Mia knew Tess needed this job financially.
And Mia needed her. Not financially, but in every other way. “Oh, Tess.”
Tess stopped in front of the donut stand, put down her things, and bought a dozen. “He talked to me like I was an idiot, but I could handle that, too.” She offered a donut to Mia, who felt like eating the whole box. “But this morning he was going through the other reps’ sales files, yours included.”
“What?”
“Yeah, looking at the trafficking reports, at your media research, all for the Anderson account. When I caught him at it, he had the nerve to tell Dickhead that I was setting him up to fail, that I wasn’t giving him important messages, that I was giving confidential information to other reps, doing everything I could to sabotage him. And then he told Dickhead that’s how you got the Anderson account.”
Mia stared at her. “This is insane. I’m going to get your job back, Tess. I’m going to—”
Tess’s eyes filled with tears, and Mia wanted to kick something. Preferably Ted’s balls.
“No,” Tess said with a sniff. “Don’t. Don’t jeopardize yourself.”
“I don’t care about that.”
But Tess was shaking her head. “I won’t come back here.”
“Tess—”
“I mean it, Mia. I won’t, not even for you. I have better things ahead for me.”
“Like what?”
“Like…Cookie Madness.”
Cookie Madness was a fun thing, a make-a-little-extra-money thing, not a living thing. Mia put her hands on Tess’s arms, her throat tight. “Tess—”
“It’s what I want.”
Mia studied her best friend, felt her heart tug, and nodded. “Then I’ll help you.”
“I’ll count on it.”
Mia ate an entire donut standing up. “What am I going to do without you?”
“Oh, honey. You don’t need me. You never have.” Leaning in, Tess kissed her on her cheek. “Your cell is vibrating, I can hear it from here. Go on up. I’ll be okay.”
“Tess—”
“Go. You have that meeting in twenty. If you lose the Anderson account now, I’ll never forgive you.”
Mia’s throat closed, and she watched Tess walk away, head high. “Tess.”
Tess turned back.
“You’re sure?”
Tess’s eyes were glittering with pride. “Very. Now go kick ass.”
Oh, she intended to.
It felt so odd to be stressed about work, Mia thought on the drive home. Always she’d thrived on the intensity of it all, but suddenly it felt like too much. Tess was gone, Tami and Steven were gone, ev
eryone else was nervous about the layoffs…
Well, except Margot, who, also now missing an assistant, asked Mia if she was going to walk off like Ted had, because she would like Mia’s office.
Ted didn’t say anything to Mia at all, but he didn’t have to; his knowing smirk said it all.
And if work wasn’t enough, Sugar left a message on Mia’s cell saying this weekend was bad for her as well. And nothing, nothing at all, was as it should be in Mia’s world.
Which reminded her, damn it, she had to pull over and do a U-turn because she’d forgotten Hope at the teen center.
Nice, Aunt Apple.
When she finally pulled up at the place, she found a car wash in action. High schoolers held up signs or directed cars toward more kids waiting with sponges and buckets.
Mia parked and got out in the blazing heat. Music boomed, and thanks to the education Hope had given her, she recognized 50 Cent rapping about all things sexual. The teens were mostly wet and soapy, having a grand old time as they washed cars for cash. In the beating-down heat, Mia searched the masses for Hope but couldn’t find her.
Mike was exchanging hose warfare with two boys over a Honda; another group was doing the same over a Toyota truck. There was a gaggle of girls wriggling signs that read HELP US KEEP OUR TEEN CENTER, LET US WASH YOUR CAR, HAND WASH!!
She saw a man in front of a Jeep filling a bucket from the hose. Bent at the waist, he was shirtless, his jeans rolled up to his shins, feet bare. Kevin straightened, his torso broad and leanly muscled, his belly flat and ridged. His gaze locked right on her, hose still held loosely in his hand at his side as he smiled.
Mia got hotter, and she realized she’d smiled first, a big, fat dopey one. Good Lord, she needed to have that fixed. No smiling. Not today. Today sucked.
Dropping the hose, Kevin came toward her in that loose-limbed, easy gait he had. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. So how many more cars do you need to wash to buy the teen center?” she asked, her pulse quickening for no reason other than he looked damn good.
“Just about every single one in the state of California.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
