Fool Me Forever (Confidence Game)

by Ainslie Paton

  That was a problem. It wasn’t a kiss. It was a kiss off, and they had unfinished business.

  He pulled up Zeke’s number and called. On a Friday night, Zeke would be primed to party. “Where are you?”

  He heard a horn blare and then Zeke’s voice. “Better be urgent.”

  “It’s not urgent.”

  Zeke sighed. “Then why’d you call?”

  “I’m in a Starbucks.” That told Zeke all he needed to know. Halsey’s dislike of Starbucks was well known.

  When Zeke arrived, he went straight to the counter to order them both the most obnoxious drinks on the menu. “Bad date? You’re all dressed down, sexy beast,” his brother said, when he took a seat, putting something frothy in front of Halsey.

  “No. Yes. No.” He pushed the drink away. He could virtually smell the sugar in it.

  Zeke slurped his hardened arteries in a glass. “Did you call Cal before you called me?”

  “No.”

  He angled the empty glass toward Halsey. “But you thought about it.”

  “I still want to call him.”

  “Pretend you did.”

  “Pretend, like when I was five and you locked me in the garden shed overnight and I pretended I wasn’t scared shitless?”

  “Cal let you out the next morning.”

  “And I got you back.”

  Zeke frowned. Halsey could see the memory hamster in his head running the wheel backwards. “Nah.”

  Halsey nudged Zeke with his knee. “Remember when you were dating Bettina Winslow?”

  “Junior year. She was a senior. Hmm, older women. God, she was hot. Science nerd and a cheerleader. First kiss, first fingering, first hand job. I remember these incandescent make-out sessions in her dad’s car. Fucking sweet for how young and dumb we were.”

  “You were in love and then she dumped you.”

  “Broke my damn fool heart.”

  “And you never found out why?”

  “She never spoke to me again, and her family moved after the summer.”

  “I told her you had crabs.”

  Zeke gripped both sides of the table. “You what? You did. What? That was like eight years after the garden shed.”

  “I might be slow, but I’m deadly.”

  “Holy shit, Halsey.” Zeke laughed and slumped into the back of his chair. “You were a little punk. And you never told anyone till now. Still waters. You make me want to hold your head down the toilet and flush it till you agree to find Bettina and tell her what you did. She’s probably still traumatized.”

  “Doubt it. She was sucking Beau Matthew’s face behind the basketball courts the next week.”

  “No! She was? I pined for her. Wrote goddamn love songs about her for a whole year. Beau Matthews was a jock who couldn’t add up if he used all his fingers and toes. And you knew, you bastard.”

  “Like you suffered. You turned it into an art form. The next year, you turned hooking up into your major. And you and Cal were kings of the school.” And now they were the kings of wealth redistribution, Cal was in love with Fin, and Zeke was still breaking hearts all over.

  “Why the fuck am I here, Halsey?”

  “Lenore Bradshaw. We were going to team up to run a sting on Cookie Jar, but I fucked up already and she kissed me.”

  “You volunteered to come out from behind your big phallic antique desk and interact with a member the public in a humanitarian effort. Are the financial markets about to tank? Is the stock exchange shuttered? The dollar about to be devalued?”

  “I knew it was a waste of time calling you. My desk is not phallic.”

  “Your desk is a representation of your dick, a symbol of your masculine power and your ability to spend an insane amount of money on old stuff.” Zeke made a vee shape with both hands arcing down as if to indicate his groin. “Ergo, phallic.”

  “You’re being a dick.”

  “You want me to pat you on the head and congratulate you for seeing a problem and solving it?”

  “I didn’t solve it. I fucked it up.”

  “Oh. Shit. How?”

  “Took on Lenny’s psycho brother and made her life worse.”

  Zeke’s brows went up and stayed there. “You got aggressive?”

  The way Easton had brought fear into the room, coated it in self-righteous judgment, and cloaked it in hate. “I wanted to put my hand down his throat, rip his tongue out, then make him eat it. I don’t know what came over me. I was flippant when Easton needed soothing, and in his face when he was already riled up. I pushed his buttons so hard it all—” He made explosion hands with a sound effect.

  “How?” Zeke pushed the obnoxious drink toward Halsey.

  Halsey pushed it back. “He turned on his family, broke things, and stormed out. Lenny will pay for this. He’ll be all over her to get back at being humiliated by her accountant.”

  “Wind that back.” Zeke windmilled a finger. “Did you say accountant?”

  “It was the excuse we gave her family for why I was suddenly around.”

  “You’re posing as Lenny Bradshaw’s fake accountant on a sting.” He whistled. “And I’m the irresponsible one.”

  “She fired me. Guess it doesn’t matter. She’s never going to want to see my face again.”

  “The face she kissed?” Zeke took up the abandoned drink. “In my experience, when a woman kisses you, it’s an opening bet.”

  “She was under duress. She can’t be held accountable for it.”

  Zeke scrubbed at his hair, making it stand up in an untidy mess that brought all the hookups to his yard. “Jesus, Halsey. You sure know how to complicate things.”

  “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do to fix this.”

  “Wish you’d called Cal,” Zeke said.

  “This is why I hate fieldwork. I don’t have the instinct for it.”

  “That’s trash and you know it. You’re out of practice because of the big desk thing, but there’s nothing wrong with your instincts. You deal with psychopaths, narcissists, and egomaniacs every day. Showing Easton he crossed a line isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If he knows you’re around, he might look for easier pickings. It’s something else got you rattled.”

  It was Lenny. He’d never been so distracted by a woman before. He didn’t have to fake his existence with her, and that was a wholly new experience. It was honest and outside of family; he didn’t have a lot of that in his relationships. It was unique and thrilling and so was the knowledge they were attracted to each other.

  And attracted was too polite a term for what he felt.

  He was appallingly smitten.

  You are fucking hot for her, idiot.

  He wanted to apologize to her until he wore the denim of his jeans through. He’d wanted to back her up against the wall and kiss her till neither of them could reason anymore. If he couldn’t keep his thoughts straight around her, he couldn’t safely involve her in his scheming, and he couldn’t give her the satisfaction of revenge.

  All that, and Cookie Jar would once again get a free pass for his worst excesses.

  The conversation was going nowhere. “Tell me what to do, Zeke.”

  “How badly do you want to bring Cookie Jar down?”

  “Badly enough. I’m asking you for advice in a Starbucks.”

  Zeke considered that, and Halsey’s false hope for useful guidance died an excruciating death when he said, “I’d start with kissing her back.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mal was awake but not in a mood to respond to Lenny’s entreaty to open the bedroom door, and Lenny didn’t have it in her after the impact of her almost ravishing in the corridor to push too hard.

  She leaned her forehead on the closed door because the back of her neck had gone soft and wouldn’t support her head. It had been at least an hour since Halsey had made her a riot of chemical response. Long enough to clean up the kitchen, eat a bowl of cereal and two more chocolates, and try to get the lamp working again. Long enough to shake off th
e euphoria that lit her up and gave her goose bumps and to feel heavy with regret for what hadn’t happened.

  She’d been ready for a ravishing, tingling all over with anticipation of something sweet and exploratory or happily punishing after all the buildup. Either would’ve fed the fire, but he’d held back because he’d definitely want permission, and everything about them was confused. Allies or enemies? Partners or just hormones gone wild?

  It was so frustrating she could smash something.

  “I’m going to bed, but if you want to talk, I’ll be reading,” she said to the door. She’d be lying on her bed looking at the ceiling, trying not to think about his hand on her face and how he’d looked at her and time stopped and all that existed in the world was their twinning heartbeats as they stood on the brink of something extraordinary.

  That became some kind of end-of-the-world, not-kissed adrenaline slump.

  Just as well they hadn’t kissed. It would make things even more confusing.

  They clearly couldn’t work together. Halsey had tensed when she’d touched his shoulder, laughing about the idea of him being the type to have an outrageous tattoo. He’d tensed in the corridor big time. But he hadn’t flinched from taking Easton on, and that was going to bounce back at her in unknown and uncomfortable ways. Her brother might well have been a mugger of a different stripe, but Halsey had interfered without fully understanding the consequences.

  She should be angry about that, but it’d been a long time since anyone had come to her defense in any way, and Halsey had done it three times now, if a little recklessly.

  She changed her pajama-like dress into a tank and sleep shorts and lay on her bed, only to have to get up to retrieve her phone from the dresser when it beeped. Totally worth the effort. A text from Easton announcing he was leaving town and blaming Lenny and her “accountant” in quotation marks for emphasis, for depriving him of the funding he needed to start his business and restore the family name.

  That was a stroke of unbelievable good fortune.

  Score one for the accountant.

  She hit delete so hard it’s a wonder she didn’t leave a scorch mark on her phone screen. She felt nothing except relief. With Mom in Florida and Easton going wherever he thought the sun would shine brighter and the money rain harder, she only had to worry about Mallory and D4D. That felt like being on vacation with all the best books and the greatest food and plenty of time to sleep in.

  When Mallory appeared, she had her phone in one hand, a packet of markers in the other, and a pink-and-purple unicorn drawn on her upper arm. It had the words “everything is shit” shooting out of its butt.

  “He’s going away,” she said. She’d gotten the same text.

  “It won’t be forever.” Easton had gone off before, grievously misunderstood and wounded. It should win them a few months of peace.

  “Not sure I’d care if it was.”

  “Want to talk about what happened?”

  Mallory altered her marker ink, adding the word “not.” Her unicorn now farted the words “not everything is shit.” She sat on the bed when she’d finished. “That was rad what Halsey did. He caused a fight and I hated it, but now I kind of like that he did it. He stood up for us.” She crawled up the bed to where Lenny lay on her side and sat across her legs. “Men are confusing.”

  “They sure can be.” Mallory’s hair was wild, and she smelled of the cigarettes she smoked out of the bedroom window. That was an issue to tackle, but not tonight.

  Mal waved a marker in her face. “You need a unicorn, too.”

  And because men were confusing, and Lenny felt the same way as Mal did about Halsey, she let her draw a unicorn on her arm. It was green with a purple mane and tail, and oversized eyelashes.

  Adding colored swirls to the unicorn’s horn, Mal said, “You’re into him, right?”

  Lenny cringed, making the purple marker whip across her skin, ruining the drawing and earning herself a hard pinch on her ass.

  Mal sat back, considering the damage. “He’s fun. And he doesn’t smell like baby vomit or wear a brown cardigan, and he didn’t take any shit from me. He out-bullied Easton. He’s hot. You could do worse.”

  She could do worse. Especially for a kiss. She’d like to kiss Halsey properly on his lips. Wind her arms around his neck, pull him down, and see if he tasted like something illicit and horribly bad for you. If he reacted anything like he’d done for a nothing burger, fleeting cheek buzz, shocked and so freaking intense, it would be worth it.

  Really, they should just get naked, get it out of their systems, and be done with each other. Half of the reason he was so attractive was because he was the worst possible choice.

  Mal leaned down again. “I can fix this,” she said, and proceeded to draw a sunset behind Lenny’s unicorn. She was good at this. Maybe she had a future in inking tattoos. It didn’t matter what Mal decided to do with her life, as long as she was happy doing it and free of the taint of their family shame.

  “I’m going to make it say ‘maybe okay will be our always,’” Mal said.

  “Do not put that on me. Put ‘this too shall pass.’” It was a message for Mal. A tiny prayer in black marker that her sister might take in as she wrote it on Lenny’s skin.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the piercing,” Mal said.

  “No, you’re not.”

  Mal pulled the top of her pj’s up to show her naval pierced with a curved barbell.

  “Did it hurt?” Lenny asked.

  “Pinched. Got it the day Dad was sentenced. I don’t know, I needed to do something, and a tatt was too permanent. I still want to get one, though.”

  “Take your time with the tattoo idea, okay?” Lenny flicked the metal. “It’s cool.”

  And so was Lenny’s unicorn. It galloped, green bodied, thick purple tail streaming, eyelashes proud, toward an orange-and-pink horizon with the words “fuck my life” bursting from its butthole.

  She went after Mal with tickles for that, and they rumbled on the bed till Mal threatened to wet herself, and then Lenny submitted to watching The Fault in Our Stars again just for that line about okays and always, and she felt hopeful for the future for the first time without it being 70 percent fake.

  On Monday morning, her news feed showed her a story about the prime minister of Ossovia receiving a donation from the American Baltic Alliance. It was to fund a university.

  Or buy a fleet of vintage cars.

  The hope she’d felt burned into rage.

  It wasn’t in her best interests to kiss Halsey, to take him to bed, to let another fraud into Mal’s life, but it was in everyone’s interest that Cookie Jar was exposed and stopped.

  She opened her email, clipped the link to the story, and sent it to Halsey with the words. We should talk.

  He called before she had a chance to make coffee.

  Their words tumbled over each other. His, “I’m sorry for—” and her, “We can’t let him—”

  “We?” Halsey asked. “Him?”

  “Us. Cookie Jar. Who else is going to do anything about him?”

  “You’re sure?” His tone shifted from cautious to incredulous.

  “No, but I think we should try.”

  There was a great swoosh of air on the line and then he said, “I won’t let you down. I know my behavior has been less than professional.”

  “You haven’t let me down. I’m quite capable of throwing something at you when you annoy me.”

  “You certainly are.” She heard the smile in his voice, a little blossoming of warmth.

  “Easton decamped for greener pastures. He’d have kept on at me for money. He didn’t bank on me having reinforcements.”

  “I’m glad, but I can’t pretend that had anything to do with me.”

  “Because Excel Boy lost his cool and hulked out.”

  “It wasn’t appropriate. It won’t happen again.” He paused, and then as if he’d shaken himself, he was all business. “Our first event is Friday nigh
t. Education for Ossovia. It’s a cocktail party. Cookie Jar will be there as a special guest. A chance for you to introduce yourself as a Heroes League donor.”

  “What will you be doing while I’m being charming?”

  “I’ll be following your lead, PowerPoint Girl.”

  Would that mean if she kissed him, she could lead him to kissing her back? The thought made her skin fuzz over with heat. She slipped off her jacket and glanced at her unicorn. At least it wasn’t farting “fuck me, Halsey,” but that’s where her brain was at. All the way past lips locking to body rocking. It’d scrub off by Friday night. She had to hope the thought scrubbed out, too. It was furiously unhelpful. She tuned back in to Halsey explaining about a shared calendar and telling her he’d call to collect her.

  Before Friday, she had time to familiarize herself with all the events they’d go to, pretend to not be secretly thrilled about her short-term cosplay femme fatale hobby, and to think about what to wear and how to work the event for her own advantage.

  On Friday, the unicorn wasn’t entirely gone—the ghost of it still pranced over her arm despite vigorous scrubbing, which meant she’d need a sleeve. The black silk satin vintage Dior with the standup cowl neck, short sleeves, and ballerina skirt would do nicely. It was fitted in all the right places to flatter and flared in all the others she’d prefer to de-emphasize, and importantly, it zipped up and covered her fading artwork.

  Halsey buzzed promptly at 6:45 p.m. and walked in wearing a divine charcoal suit with a turquoise tie and pocket silk. He sucked all the air out of the room like an explosion with his full-body glamor. She half wished Mallory was here to see him and not at Ginny’s for a Netflix binge and sleepover.

  She fiddled with her diamond bracelet and then transferred her nervous energy to her earrings and checking inside her clutch rather than do anything that might be considered swooning. He had to know he looked fine; there was no need for her to fawn over him. She needed a drink, because she did not need to think about being kissed as a prelude to getting him out of that suit. You are in so much trouble, trouble, trouble.