Living the Dream

by Lyla Payne

  The sweet sound of Audra’s laughter joined with my mother’s papery, smoke-ruined bark confuses my anger and affection further, until all I know is that we need to get the hell out of here. My mother and I will have words about all this later but for now it’s all too much. Holding on to my anger tightens my stomach painfully. The last thing I need is to explode in front of Audra.

  They’re giggling like schoolgirls when I see them, my “girlfriend” wiping her eyes in the chair beside the bed and my mother laying limp on her pillows, looking like the laughter is causing as much pain as pleasure.

  “What’s got the two of you in such a fit?”

  If they hear the strangled tenor of my voice it doesn’t startle either of them into a straight face. My mother waves a hand, as though dismissing me, and part of me wants to break her wrist. Audra looks up, the bright smile on her face making her eyes sparkle, and the pain in my stomach moves to my chest.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Jocelyn was just telling me about the nurses and how they gossip and that a different one is boning Dr. Murphy than the last time she was here.”

  “Hilarious.”

  She stands up then, finally picking up on my desire to be done talking. “It was. I guess you had to be there.”

  A small smile is all I can manage but it seems to reassure her all the same. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

  If she’s surprised she hides it well. “You talk to the doctor?”

  “Yes.” I turn slightly toward my mother in an attempt to act like what I assume is a normal person. “He said you’re doing much better than they expected when they brought you in this morning and they’re only planning to keep you a day or two to make sure you’re stabilized.”

  “I figured as much. Doctors overreact to everything when they don’t know what’s going on.”

  “What is going on?” Audra asks softly, avoiding my murderous stare as though she expected it.

  Which she probably did.

  My mother comes to my rescue, answering while I bite my tongue so hard I taste blood. “It’s nothing for you to worry about, sweetie. The result of years of hard living, that’s all.”

  Maybe it shouldn’t surprise me that my mother doesn’t assume Audra knows the truth, that she’s willing to defer to my wishes for discretion on this, but it does. She’s been outwardly understanding as far as my feelings on her reappearance—or non-feelings on the matter—but it’s clear to me that she wants more. More money, more time, more words reassuring her that I believe her side of the story.

  I would never admit it to a single person without killing them afterward, but I wasted years daydreaming that my mother would come and rescue me from my life at Teddy’s. That she loved me and had simply, I don’t know, misplaced me for a while.

  But I outgrew that foolishness, and the woman in the hospital bed knew exactly where to find me all those years.

  “I’ll come back later and bring you some dinner. We can talk then.” Jocelyn nods, shrinking back into the pillows but clinging to the happiness our visit brought. I turn to Audra. “Ready?”

  She nods. “It was nice to meet you, Jocelyn. I hope you feel better soon.”

  “Me too, sweetheart.”

  I guide her out of the room and down the hallway, refusing to give in to the pressure of filling the silence with answers to her unspoken questions. To her credit, Audra doesn’t press. We both stop and coat our hands with sanitizer before leaving the building, and this time when her palm slides against mine in the parking lot, I don’t pull away.

  It’s then that I realize why I like her so much—Audra’s a challenge. A worthy adversary. The kind of person who would make a hell of a partner, if I needed one.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Audra

  The visit with Sebastian and his mother has been on my mind for the past couple of days. We haven’t seen each other again—he’s claiming that he has a big paper coming up, and to be honest, I could use some study time myself—since that day. The fact ramps up my insecurities ever so slightly, but the idea that the sex hadn’t been as good for him as it had for me doesn’t seem likely. We’d both enjoyed it, no doubt in my mind, and after the initial getting-to-know-you phase, we’d had chemistry that surprised even me.

  I haven’t told Blair or anyone else about meeting his mother. Sebastian made it obvious that he wished I hadn’t been let in on the secret and anyway it’s not mine to share. It does make me think, though. About why he wants to date a girl like me, about why he would lie about working for that campaign and have such obviously conflicted feelings about his mother.

  My heart hurts when all of the puzzle pieces start to assemble in my head. I’m still not clear on why he doesn’t just ask his father for more money if his mother needs it, but Sebastian must have a reason for needing a career all of a sudden.

  He also has his reasons for needing to rehabilitate his image with a girlfriend like me—one who people like and would never suspect of participating in anything shady.

  The two things have to go together, I’m just not 100 percent sure why or how they line up.

  We’re hanging out at the Kappa house in a few minutes and I’m hoping he’ll confide the details about his mother’s illness. I didn’t want to ask. I don’t want to be that girl, the one who pesters her guy, especially since I’m not even really his girlfriend, but it’s obvious he needs to talk to someone before his anger boils over like a volcanic explosion that ruins everything he’s working for.

  I don’t know when easily explainable curiosity turned into me actually wanting to be that person for deeper reasons—like he makes my heart hurt with understanding—but somewhere along the way it has.

  My phone dings with a text message. It’s Sebastian letting me know he’s outside, so I fly down the stairs to the foyer, passing three of my sisters on my way to push open the front door.

  My stomach has a seizure at the sight of Sebastian on the porch, the sun glinting off his perfect blonde hair. As usual, he’s too buttoned up for an afternoon at the house helping me with election prep—his gray pinstriped pants are pressed and paired with a purple button-down that’s just the perfect shade—but his attention to detail and grooming are starting to grow on me.

  There’s something throwback about it. Classic. Like dating Cary Grant.

  “Hey.”

  He nods, giving me a half smile that’s unlike him. As though he’s not sure or didn’t think through whether he would smile when I opened the door. “Hello.”

  “You look nice.”

  “So do you.”

  The girls behind me are probably spying and wondering whether we’ve had some kind of fight based on this awkward greeting, so I step outside, making sure to keep a toe in the door so it doesn’t lock behind me, and wrap my arms around his neck. His skin smells like cologne and salt and spreads the seizure to my heart, which only gets worse when his hands find the small of my back, pressing my body flush against his.

  I tilt up my head and our lips meet right there in the sunshine, as though they’ve been practicing for years. His tongue sweeps me open and brushes briefly against mine before he pulls back, his smile sure now. “It’s been a long couple of days.”

  My mind is too scrambled from the kiss to tell whether he’s playing to our audience, but it surprises me how badly I don’t want him to be. I want him to be the actual guy I’m dating. I want him to actually miss me when we have to take a few days off to study like normal college students.

  It shakes me all the way down to my bones, to have those thoughts. I’m standing in front of Whitman’s biggest asshole. The guy who has ruined more lives than late-night tacos.

  And I like him.

  “They certainly have,” I murmur in response, reaching out for his hand and leading him inside. We agreed on staying in the chapter room both because more people will see us and because boys aren’t allowed upstairs.

  The girls in the foyer—none of whom I know all that well—scatter, their eyes big
and fingers flying over their phones. Two more lounge in front of the televisions in the chapter room, and these girls I know. They’re part of my pledge class.

  They’re both blonde, both have short hair, and have been fast friends since the night we accepted our bids. They’re nice girls. One of them waves us over.

  “Hey, what are you doing in here?” Willa smiles, flipping closed the magazine on her lap.

  “Sebastian’s going to help me with my speech for a few hours before we have to go to this wedding.”

  Kylie sits up, interested now. She’s one of the only other girls in my class serving on the executive board, and she’s in charge of recruitment next fall. “You’re really going to run for president? I’m so glad. I mean really, which of the junior girls would be good?”

  “None of them,” Willa supplies, before turning a thousand-watt smile on Sebastian. “I’m Willa Price.”

  “Sebastian Blair.” He shakes her hand and then Kylie’s, giving me a tiny eye roll because obviously these girls know who he is. It’s kind of like meeting a celebrity for them.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Kylie says, sly now. “Audra’s been hiding you from us.”

  “I have not. We haven’t had any parties or anything since we started dating, and we’re not allowed to have boys in our room at the house. Why would I bring him here?”

  “Fair point.” Willa grins. “But the ball’s coming up in a few months!”

  “Noted.” Sebastian threads his fingers through mine, really cheesing it up now. “I can’t wait to see Audra in formal attire.”

  “Well, we can’t all pull it off on a daily basis,” I tease him, smiling up into his face.

  We are putting on a kickass show right now and the blondies are eating it up. They’re both grinning when I peel my gaze away from Seb’s handsome face.

  My cheeks feel hot. “Okay, well, we’d better get to work if I’m going to have time to make myself presentable for this wedding. We can’t have people wondering what we’re doing together all night.”

  “Oh, they’re going to wonder that anyway,” Willa blurts, horror crossing her face before the words even fall off her lips.

  A response dries on the back of my tongue because I’m not sure that defending our relationship is how a normal couple would react.

  Sebastian comes to my aid with a wink and a shrug, slinging an arm around my waist and tugging me in to his side. “We like our air of mystery, don’t we, button? If you ladies will excuse us, we really do have work to do.”

  He pulls me away to a quiet corner of the oversized room and settles onto the couch. A quick glance over my shoulder reveals both Willa and Kylie watching us with their mouths hanging open, varying degrees of respect and jealously on their pretty faces. Glee washes through me until I want to skip, but I manage to refrain. Barely.

  The satisfaction on Sebastian’s face warms me from head to toe. It’s that we’re sharing a reaction, both on the same page, that speeds up my heart now. If anyone had told me a month ago that Sebastian Blair and I would be so in sync in so many ways I would have laughed. Or vomited.

  Now it makes me proud. It fills me with an odd sort of contentment mixed with longing.

  And it scares me.

  “Okay, so I wrote a few drafts of a speech over the last couple of days and managed to ace my Political Science class,” I start, navigating away from perilous waters. “Do you want to read it and give me notes?”

  “No. I want you to give it to me.”

  “Right here? I think we should wait until we’re alone unless having an audience is your thing.” I grimace at the reference. It got away before the memory of Logan and those tapes could rear its ugly head. Which is weird enough in itself. It’s been days since I’ve really worried about that. “On second thought, I don’t think sex in front of others is ever going to be my thing.”

  Our eyes meet and the understanding in his gaze squeezes my heart. Tears prick my eyes but I blink them back with a smile that Sebastian returns, his lips soft. “It’s fine. It’s not actually a thing that turns me on, either. Especially not when it comes to you. I like the idea of keeping all of that to myself.”

  His gaze sweeps my body from top to bottom, lingering on my legs, then my breasts, then my mouth until I’m tingling and hot and ready to rethink the whole “climbing on top of him in the chapter room” thing. No one can hear us, though, so does that mean he’s being honest?

  “Practice giving your speech.” His eyes sparkle as he rephrases the request that got us on this track.

  I’m relieved and sorry to be back on a serious road, but I do want his opinion and we have to get to that wedding tonight. Shortest engagement ever, apparently, but I guess if you’re gay you’ve got to get in before the local courts change their homophobic minds again.

  “Okay.” I pull a folded piece of paper from my back pocket and clear my throat, nerves taking the place of the strange horniness that seems to attack me in Sebastian’s presence.

  The speech rolls off my tongue because I’ve practiced it several times on my own, but having an audience makes it different. Blair is totally useless—she kept trying to put in jokes about the number of members who have been arrested in the past three years and how we can decrease it. Or if we want to, because maybe it makes us more intriguing.

  She lost interest when I insisted that was not the platform I want to run on because it’s ridiculous. I think that, as much as she loves being with Sam, Blair’s more bored living a normal life than she expected to be. Normal meaning a world where committing fraud isn’t a weekly occurrence.

  I end the speech and wait for a response. Sebastian’s quiet for about thirty seconds and I’m ready to throw up. “Well?”

  He purses his lips. “You’re a decent public speaker. Good eye contact and I want to believe everything you’re saying even though none of it matters to me. That’s all good.”

  “But?”

  “But tell me something. Why is running for president important to you?”

  I bite my lower lip, thinking about the question. His compliments bolster my confidence that my doing this isn’t a totally stupid waste of time. A blow-off answer, a lie, really, is on the tip of my tongue but I replace it with a secret instead. After all, he shared one of his the other day, no matter how grudgingly. “I’ve been thinking that it might be a good test to see if political science, maybe law school, might be a fit for me. Career-wise.”

  “Have you considered a political career? Because I could take someone like you and make a serious candidate out of her in fifteen or twenty years.”

  I laugh at the idea, but the constant expression on his face lets me know he’s not kidding. “You’re serious?”

  “Of course. When have you known me to joke about politics?”

  “Never.” Of course, my body of work in the area of studying Sebastian is rather recent. “I haven’t really thought that far ahead, honestly, but I’ve enjoyed all of my political science classes, and deciding to do this whole Kappa election thing has made me really think. I enjoy arguing and making speeches.”

  “And you think you can change the world.” Sebastian’s smile is wry but not condescending. “I think most people who go to law school probably think that before they’re enticed and corrupted by money. But you’ve spent a lifetime do-gooding and you’ve got money. I don’t see why that would have to change now.”

  “I’m not even American, so don’t get too excited.”

  He shrugs. “Don’t have to be unless you want to run for president. I think you’d suck at that job, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” I shake my head. “Speech advice?”

  “Okay, so practice more, obviously, so you can smooth out the jokes and cut the unnecessary filler. Other than that, add a little bit of honesty. You’ve got good stuff about what a unique skill set you bring to the position, but there’s not enough heart—what are your dreams for Kappa, and how will you work to see them come true? You’re good at this, and Ka
ppa is, at its center, a nonprofit. You’ve got this locked up with a few tweaks.”

  I slump down on the couch next to him, sitting close enough that his warmth wraps around me. “I don’t know. I think it’s going to take more than a stupid speech to get them to trust me.”

  His hand finds my knee, fingers squeezing. “So, talk to them before then. The ones who matter, the ones who have the most influence over the others. Based on the blondes over there, it seems like you might already have more support than you think.”

  I glance at Kylie and Willa, who still have magazines open on their laps and the television tuned to some afternoon talk show but have situated themselves so they can watch the two of us. Maybe he’s right. If I really want to do this—and I’m starting to think I do—then there are ways to get it done.

  I flip his hand over, tickling his palm with my fingertips. “What time do I need to be ready for the shindig tonight? Is it outdoors?”

  Sebastian glances at his watch. “Two hours, I’m wearing this but with a tie and jacket, and yes, it’s outside.”

  “Okay, well, do you want to wait or come back?”

  “You’re really going to abide by the ‘no males upstairs’ rule? Because you know it’s regularly disregarded.”

  “True, but those girls aren’t running for president.”

  “I’m not a fan of you making sense.” He pushes off the overly soft couch and reaches back to haul me to my feet, then wraps his hand around mine. “Walk me out?”

  “Ladies,” he says as we pass Kylie and Willa on our way out of the chapter room, tipping an imaginary hat.

  The foyer is empty now but we’ve had plenty of exposure today. The three girls from earlier saw our amorous greeting and the eavesdropping twins in the chapter room could probably transcribe our whole conversation for Facebook. That doesn’t stop Sebastian from pulling me into a tight hug. He brushes what feels like a kiss atop my head before climbing into the town car idling at the curb and disappearing into the afternoon.