Unbound

by Kimberly Derting

  Since my phone was off, I glanced at the old-person clock hanging on the wall, the one with numbers and hands that required brainpower to decipher. It was already after seven. “Oh, snap,” I said, slowly closing down my programs and signing out of my shiny new email account. “I had no idea it was so late.”

  She was clutching a clipboard to her chest and she leaned gingerly against the wobbly wall. “Times flies . . .”

  I smiled because it kinda had, despite the seriously rocky start.

  Maybe this hadn’t been such a mistake after all. Weird, since I’d never considered myself a “giving back” kind of person, so working for the community rec center had never been on my list of dream jobs. I’d always thought I’d grow up to be a sports agent, like Bitsy.

  Check that. Better than Bitsy. I’d have clients who were scouted and signed multi-million-dollar contracts, and earned bonuses that included yachts and vacation homes. Spoiled athletes who I’d bail out of jail on drug charges and for carrying concealed weapons without permits.

  I’d never considered working for kids who grew up with nothing. Helping those whose pasts were bleak and who had probably never contemplated their futures.

  But maybe this was exactly what I needed right now—a world completely removed from my old life. Maybe while I was helping these kids build their lives, this was my chance to create a brand-new me.

  LUCAS

  Two days had passed since I’d left Dallas, and Emerson’s parents’ house, and so far I’d gotten zero response from her. And it wasn’t just me she was avoiding, I hadn’t seen her at her place either. I was trying not to turn full stalker on her, but I was definitely skating a fine line.

  Every time I heard footsteps outside, I found myself jumping up to check, and when it wasn’t her, I told myself Em was a big girl. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t answering my calls or texts, or that I hadn’t seen her in days. She didn’t need to report to me. She didn’t owe me anything. But repeating those words didn’t stop the disappointment that surged through me every time it wasn’t her.

  I missed her.

  I realized now, after two days of avoiding me, I’d screwed up by deciding to handle the gala situation on my own . . . when I’d left Em to enjoy the last of the weekend with her family without consulting her.

  And now I wanted the chance to explain. To apologize for ditching her.

  But I knew Emerson. She was stubborn, especially if she was hurt. I’d seen it firsthand, that night her dad and Bitsy had walked in on us in The Shrine.

  I hated that I might be the source of her pain now.

  Making matters worse were the memories of that night . . . afterward. In Em’s bedroom.

  Outside, I heard a car door slam again, but I didn’t get up right away. What was the point? It wasn’t her—it hadn’t been her for the past two nights. I’d become like some overzealous neighborhood watch commander. That’s what she’d turned me into. It wasn’t until I heard the key jingling in the lock next door—over at Em’s place—that I bolted up from the chair I’d been camped out in.

  “Em!” I shouted way too loudly as I shoved my front door open wide.

  She was carrying plastic grocery bags in one hand and her keys in the other, and when I stepped outside, trying not to look like part of the vigilance committee, she didn’t look at all surprised to see me. “Hey,” she said, the way you’d say hi to any casual neighbor as you carried your groceries in at the end of a long day. Not the kind of neighbor you’d fucked till you screamed his name.

  Two days of frustration—of unanswered messages and slights—stoked the fire burning in my chest. “The fuck is that?”

  She gave me a shrug, then acted like I meant her bags. “Dinner.”

  “Not your dinner. The hey. I’ve been texting like a crazy person, and practically banging down your door since Dallas, and you’re just gonna stand there and . . . what? Act like nothing’s up?” I scowled. “That’s bullshit, Em. That’s what that is.”

  The corners of her mouth sagged downward. And she shrugged again. “Sorry, I didn’t realize . . .”

  That was bullshit too. She wasn’t some clueless ingenue. She knew exactly what she was doing. We were better. In Dallas, we’d fixed things. I didn’t want to go back to acting like we were just friends, or worse, some fucked-up version of strangers. I wanted our life back—the one where she was in my arms, even if she needed to yell at me to get whatever was bugging her out of her system . . . because God, no one yelled like Em did.

  Yelled and made up.

  Make-up sex was hotter than fuck.

  “Like hell, you didn’t,” I snapped back at her. “If you have something to say, then say it.”

  “Fine,” she said, not yelling. Not angry at all. “You want me to say it? I’m done, Lucas. I’m tired of playing . . . ,” she lifted her arm with the grocery bags dangling from it and indicated the two of us, “ . . . whatever this is.”

  But I needed her to understand. No more games. I was serious about her . . . about us. “I’m done too. I don’t want to play. I told you that night, I want you.”

  “Too late.” She looked sad. She looked sorry too. But she also looked serious. “It’s over.”

  And she went inside and closed the door.

  EMERSON

  As part of Operation Screw Lucas, I needed my own set of wheels.

  Okay, so technically getting a car had nothing to do with Lucas, except I’d never owned a car of my own before, so doing this meant one more milestone in my life. One more box checked off the growing-up list.

  Graduate college. Check.

  Get a job. Check.

  Buy a car. Check.

  Shed all the extra weight I’d been carrying around—the super-hot-cheating-guy-next-door weight. Check, check, and triple check.

  There was only one problem with my plan: I’d done the books at my dad’s dealership, sure, but I didn’t have the first clue how to actually buy a car.

  That was where Seth came in. I finally had the chance to call on him for some of that brotherly advice I needed. And he’d been more than happy to oblige, especially since the favor meant making a trip to California.

  He rented a car when he landed—a cherry red convertible, of course. We spent the entire weekend scouring car lots from one end of the city to the other.

  I was like Goldilocks about the whole ordeal. The first lots were way too expensive—high-end luxury lots with price tags that could’ve easily covered the cost of some houses . . . at least in Texas.

  Then we hit the sketchier lots. Mostly junkers that seemed to be held together with duct tape and a whole lotta prayer. I was pretty sure those cars would crap out the second they were driven off the lot.

  Finally, we found the lots that fell somewhere in my sweet spot. Cars that had fairly low miles, got decent gas mileage, and were priced just right.

  “How’ve you been gettin’ around up till now?” Seth asked when we were test-driving a Honda with just under 30,000 miles on it. “And why’d you call me? Shouldn’t your boyfriend be doin’ this?”

  I kept my eyes firmly on the road, but managed to object to his use of the word “boyfriend” with a meaningfully placed side eye.

  “Fine. Whatever. He’s not your boyfriend. So then, what about Lauren? Doesn’t she have a car you can borrow?” he asked.

  I came to the end of the block and put on my blinker. So far, the Honda seemed like a sound choice. “She does. But that’s the thing—it’s her car. I’m tired of bummin’ rides. I don’t wanna rely on anyone else.”

  “So? Ask Dad. He has a zillion cars, all brand-spankin’ new, just sitting on those lots of his.” Seth informed me from over the top of his Ray-Bans. “You know all you have to do is bat those lashes of yours at him and he’d sign one over to you.”

  True. That’s how I’d gotten pretty much everything my entire life. But that wasn’t the point either. Just like my internship with the PR firm, I didn’t want to use my dad’s connections—I
wanted this to be my thing.

  “I want to do this on my own.”

  He leaned back and crossed his arms as we were pulling back into the dealership. The car was considered compact, so Seth couldn’t fully stretch out his long legs in front of him. I liked that about it. It meant Lucas wouldn’t fit comfortably either.

  It was perfect.

  “Little sis is finally ready to cut the apron strings. That it?” Seth drawled.

  I found a spot in front of the big glass building and put the car in park. “Something like that,” I said. “Now, let’s go in there and buy me this car.”

  Between starting my new job and buying a new car, my first week at the rec center had flown by. I barely had time to think about Lucas. To think about Lucas, and seeing Aster coming out of his place.

  Okay, so that was a lie. I thought about him more than I should. More than was good for my sanity.

  Lauren had been right about the kids hazing me that first day, with the whole stealing-my-lunch thing. It hadn’t completely ended there, but at least I didn’t get another dead possum sandwich again.

  Each day had been better than the one before. It was as if just by showing up, I was proving myself. The looks I was greeted with in the parking lot and the lobby were less and less hostile. There were fewer comments about my mama or my “fine ass.” Until, finally, one day, at the end of the week, a group of kids actually said hi to me as I was coming through the doors.

  At first I thought I misheard them, or that they were talking to someone else. Someone behind me.

  But when I turned to see, I realized I was the only one there. I nearly tripped over my own feet as I attempted to keep walking. Act normal. No big deal.

  But really, it was enough to make a grown woman cry.

  I didn’t, of course. Crying was a weakness, and much like being the only girl in a family of boys, the last thing I wanted was to show these kids they’d gotten to me.

  So I played it cool and did what any self-respecting adult would do: I saluted them.

  Saluted. Like they were in the army or something.

  What. The. Holy. Hell?

  For a second I thought about turning around and running back to my car. Maybe I could get a do-over. Maybe that meteor would finally come and disintegrate me from the planet once and for all.

  But then I thought, no, Em, be reasonable. It wasn’t that big a deal. Maybe no one had even noticed my weird reaction. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. So I just kept walking. The sounds of hysterical giggles that followed me as I escaped into the back office, and dropped into my chair, probably had nothing to do with me and my awkward salute.

  “Nice move back there,” Lauren said, appearing out of nowhere like some super ninja.

  I wilted. “Oh great. You saw that?”

  “Uh, yeah. Pretty sure everyone saw that. What was that all about?”

  My humiliation was complete. “I don’t know . . . ,” I admitted. “I just . . . they were finally being nice, and I just . . . I panicked.”

  “So you . . . ?” She raised her hand to her forehead and saluted me.

  “God, shut up. What the hell, right?” I giggled. It really did look ridiculous.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Fuck. Maybe I should quit. Cut my losses while I still have some dignity.”

  Lauren laughed. “It’s a little late for that. The SS Dignity just left the harbor.”

  I reached for the mouse and opened the file I’d been working on when I left last night and a spreadsheet of grant applications opened. “Whatever. Dignity’s overrated anyway. Maybe I’ll just stay here and embrace the fact that I’m as spazzy as my brothers always said I was.” Then I had an idea. “Speaking of! This is Seth’s last night in town. You and Will should come out and celebrate with us.”

  Interest sparked in her eyes. “What’re we celebrating?”

  “I got me a new job and a new car. It’s a whole new me.”

  Lauren grinned, then saluted me again. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  “When you said we were going someplace fancy, I had no idea you meant fancy schmancy. What is this place anyway?” I asked, eyeballing Lauren suspiciously. “This isn’t the part where you hand us all aprons and surprise us with the fact that we’re really here as staff and we have to work, is it?”

  Will laughed as he draped his arm over my best friend’s shoulder. She flashed him a goofy grin that I tried not be jealous of, but the pang was there anyway. “Nope. This is the part where we’re invited guests, thanks to a buddy I used to surf with. He’s gone pro now, and some of his sponsors are throwing him this launch party.”

  I tried to sense if there was any bitterness behind Will’s words. Once upon a time, Will had been an up-and-coming surfer, making a name for himself on the circuit. But then he’d suffered a career-ending head injury around the time his mother died, and he’d come home to raise Tess.

  That’s when he and Lauren had met. It wasn’t what he’d planned for himself, but he seemed genuinely happy about the way things turned out, not just for himself, but for his friend too.

  I guess some people were like that, okay with the fact that their life didn’t turn out the way they thought it would.

  “Makes sense,” I said, surveying the logos that covered everything—the tables, walls, even the waitstaff uniforms. “I guess that’s why it looks like someone threw up an advertising agency in here.” Once you got past all the endorsements, the ballroom was impressive, with overhead chandeliers dripping with glittering crystals.

  This was part of what had drawn me to the world of sports agenting—the excitement and hoopla that surrounded landing a client like Will’s friend Ryan. The money Ryan would earn from competitions was only the tip of the iceberg. It was the sponsorship deals he inked that would make him the real money.

  The eclectic mix of guests made sense too, now that I understood what was happening. The attire ranged from tuxedos to board shorts and everything in between.

  Lauren pointed at someone in the crowd. “Look, there’s Ryan.”

  “That’s my buddy,” Will told Seth and me.

  “Not exactly a giant, is he?” Seth commented about the guy at the front of the room. Leave it to my blunt brother to make a jab about the man of the hour.

  “It’s that low center of gravity of his that makes him a such a badass on the board.”

  The guy in question was currently being mobbed by reporters, who waved microphones in front of his face. Behind him, a slide show was playing, the kind I’d seen of my dad’s career highlights that repeated on a loop. Pictures of a miniature-sized Ryan as he dragged a surfboard twice as big as he was through the sand; another of him looking entirely too tiny, yet standing upright on that same board in the waves; him again, later in life, in the center of a wave that seemed to curl all the way around him.

  There were others, capturing wipeout after wipeout.

  I watched the images cycle through for a few seconds before Seth drew my attention when he stopped a waiter carrying a tray of wine glasses. He snagged two glasses of white wine. I thought he was getting one for each of us, right up until he downed one full glass in several long gulps, then slammed it back on the tray before he started on the other one, this time sipping it the way it was meant to be done.

  Classy, Seth.

  While the waiter tried to decide whether he was supposed to wait or not, I reached over and grabbed one for myself.

  “Thanks for nothing,” I muttered to my brother.

  Lauren and Will excused themselves, so they could go make nice with Ryan, which left Seth and me to soak up the energy of the event.

  Plus, some of that free wine those sponsors of his were providing. Bonus.

  Seth nudged me hard in the ribs. “Don’t look now, but . . .”

  I cringed. The last time I’d heard those words, our mom had been about to air one of her “friends’” dirty laundry. “Pass,” I said quickly, not up for a repeat performance.

 
But Seth wasn’t offering a pass.

  “No, look. Up there. At who’s with Will’s friend.”

  This can’t be good, I thought.

  And sure enough, when I directed my attention to where Seth was pointing, my wine beat a sour path straight back up my throat.

  Bitsy was up there. Bitsy . . . was here. At Will’s friend’s launch party.

  Of course she was.

  But, yeah, I guess that made a certain amount of sense, didn’t it? Bitsy was a sports agent . . . and . . . surfing was a sport.

  I watched as she sidled up to Ryan, taking her place at his side, the same way I’d seen her do hundreds . . . thousands of times at my dad’s side. She touched Ryan’s elbow, offering her support to him.

  He looked relieved to have her there. She leaned in to whisper something in his ear, and then, expertly, effortlessly, she pulled him away from the reporters, saying something that made them all laugh.

  He looked relieved again . . . that she was taking over for him.

  It was strange. All of her actions seemed somehow less creepy, less two-faced, here in this setting. More businesslike.

  All businesslike, in fact.

  Bitsy was behaving like a professional, the way an agent should behave. Their relationship was a partnership, after all.

  Is that all it had ever been with my dad too? I mean, yes, she’d been close with the rest of our family. But had I only imagined the other stuff? The parts where it seemed like she and my dad were sharing intimate touches and whispers and private jokes?

  Was all of this just status quo for a sports agent and I’d been making it into something . . . inappropriate? Something dirty?

  But, no.

  I’d seen my dad and her that night in The Shrine when they thought no one was around. And I might’ve only been fourteen at the time, but I knew what I’d seen: my father had kissed Bitsy. There was nothing businesslike about that. Surely she and Ryan didn’t share those kinds of moments, drinking and laughing and groping one another.