Her Secret

by Bloom, Penelope

“So we’re walking back to the bus?” I asked.

  “Hell, no.”

  “Because…”

  “Because for all we know, they repaired it and they’re already happily on their way. And I’d rather not have to be faced with the results of my own stubbornness.”

  I held back my smile. “I see. So, what, we just hunker down here until we can get a ride back home?”

  “No. I still have one option. I can call Bruce Chamberson. The man is ridiculously connected, and chances are, he can arrange for a quick means of transportation.”

  “Is there a reason we didn’t call him while we were on the bus to start with?”

  “Yeah.”

  I waited.

  Apparently, Peter didn’t think I needed to know the reason, because he pulled out his phone and turned his back to me as he made the call. I briefly fantasized about giving his balls an NFL style kick. I’d lick my finger, test the wind, take a few steps back, and then come at him full-speed. Wham. But the part where I was flexible enough to even lift my leg above being parallel to the ground was pure fiction. I’d have to lean my body back and go for a more surgical attack if I ever did want to kick Peter Barnidge in his arrogant, self-obsessed balls. Come to think of it, I’d never actually kicked a guy in the balls, but I’d also never met someone who seemed like they deserved it as often as Peter.

  I waited while he explained the situation over the phone, and then watched his eyebrows draw down. Whatever he was hearing, he didn’t like it.

  “Why him?” asked Peter.

  He waited.

  “Fuck. Okay. Fine. You’re sure he knows how to pilot one of those? Because if your brother ends up crashing us into a mountain, I’m going to personally strangle you.”

  Peter shook his head and then hung up the phone.

  “If we crash into a mountain, I doubt you’ll be strangling anyone,” I said. “And why do I think I’m not going to like this, either? Aside from the obvious unpleasantness of mountain crashes, I mean.”

  “You probably won’t. Bruce is out of the country until next week, but his twin brother happens to be in Pennsylvania with a private helicopter right now. Bruce said William would ‘love’ to give us a ride.”

  I wasn’t even surprised that Peter knew Bruce, once I thought about it. The coincidence was a little bizarre, considering I kinda-sorta knew Bruce through Lilith and Liam. I still hardly knew much about Bruce or his twin. But in my brief time spent getting to know Lilith, I’d learned that all the rich and powerful people in the city had a way of knowing each other through some connection or another.

  Lilith had explained it in a way that actually made a lot of sense. Experts always said if you ever won the lottery, you shouldn't tell any family or friends. The statistics on how quickly relationships were ruined by that kind of money were pretty staggering. Having billions of dollars wasn't really any different. So, naturally, rich people tended to gravitate toward rich people. There was no awkwardness in talking about their money or their problems, and there were no worries that they were being played in hopes of becoming someone's piggy bank. Most importantly, no resentment would slowly build until it boiled over.

  Thinking about it made me appreciate Lilith even more. She never seemed to care that I was dirt poor. Well, she cared in the sense that she wanted to help me, even if I wouldn’t let her.

  “Just to clarify,” I said. “When you say William will pick us up in his helicopter. You mean his helicopter that a professional pilot will be flying, right?”

  While I’d only seen William at a couple parties with Lilith, the man had certainly left an impression—and not the kind that made me think I wanted to let him drive me in an armored truck, let alone a helicopter. He made me think of a friend I’d had in high school who was into the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing. One of the first steps in making a new character was choosing their moral alignment. Alignments ranged from things like “Lawful Good” to “Lawful Evil” or “Chaotic Good” and “Chaotic Evil”. William Chamberson had struck me as Chaotic with a little bit of good, and a little bit of evil.

  Peter shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. But Bruce said he took lessons and he’s actually pretty good at it, as long as he’s paying attention.”

  “Do I get a vote in any of this? Like maybe voting that we sacrifice your pride and go check on the bus before we get in a helicopter with a lunatic and risk our lives?”

  “William Chamberson loves himself too much to crash the helicopter and die. Don’t worry, as long as he’s in the pilot’s seat, he’ll do a good job.”

  I wasn’t sure I was convinced, but Peter sounded confident enough that I decided to roll with the punches. Besides, how hard could it really be to fly a helicopter, anyway?

  I leaned forward and rubbed my calf. Walking with the boot on so much had started making my entire leg sore, which, in turn, was making my ankle throb.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. It’s just a little sore. You know, I don’t buy your story about workers compensation. I still think there’s just a nice guy buried somewhere in there, and he’s worried about me.”

  Peter blew a breath out of his nose dismissively. “You can buy what you want. I just want to make sure we get to that convention.”

  "Why are you so hell-bent on getting there, anyway? You're already a huge name. And there are literally conventions every single week all year as long as you're willing to travel. Besides, last time I checked, the Annapolis book convention isn't exactly special. So what's the real reason?"

  Peter’s eyes lost focus while he absently rubbed his lip with his thumb. For the first time since I’d met him, Peter actually looked vulnerable, like my question had dug beneath the armor he always wore and exposed him. “Because I don’t miss appointments. I said I’d be there, and I’m going to be there.”

  “And that’s the only reason?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he snapped. He got up suddenly and walked outside, which was curious, considering it was freezing cold and he’d left his coat behind.

  I pursed my lips. Well then. Clearly I’d pushed too hard and touched on a sore subject. But I wasn’t buying his story. Something about that convention mattered to him, and it wasn’t just about following through with an appointment.

  We killed about two hours while we waited for William and his helicopter—and the insanity of that fact wasn’t lost on me. We were waiting for a helicopter ride and our pilot was going to be a borderline crazy billionaire who may or may not actually know how to fly it. I guessed he at least had flown it around to this point without crashing, so we at least had that going for us.

  It was too cold to simply sit around outside, so I wanted to explore the little strip of businesses along the road. It wasn’t much, but at least the buildings were heated. Peter looked every bit like the boyfriend who was getting dragged around on a shopping trip. Even though he grumbled and said we should just stay put, he also wasn’t willing to let me hobble around by myself on my ankle. Secretly, I was grateful. My ankle was getting tender from being on it all day, and Peter was like a portable furnace in addition to being my human crutch.

  He’d lean in the corner as soon as we came into a new building, fold his arms, and try to glare holes in inanimate objects. I would never admit it to a living soul so long as I lived, but there was a quiet thrill in seeing people assume he was my bored boyfriend.

  I wasn’t sure why the idea should excite me. Peter wasn’t boyfriend material. He reminded me of one of those house flipper reality shows. Peter wasn’t the finished product they sold at the end of the show for a huge markup. He was the massive dilapidated mansion with great potential, but even greater problems. There were holes in the roof and squirrels living in the ventilation system. The foundation was cracked. Black tar shot out of the faucets and the whole place creaked like a ghost at night.

  Okay. He wasn’t that bad, but Peter was riddled with issues. He tried to hide it behind the stony expression he wore, but
it was obvious. I just wished it didn’t seem to be my natural reflex to want to fix him myself instead of running for the hills. I hadn’t been able to fix Dawson. I hadn’t been able to fix anything, for that matter. All I’d ever been able to do was keep floating, to keep Zoey away from the bad stuff. That was it, I guessed. I didn’t fix things, I maintained them.

  So why was the idea of fixing Peter so damn tempting?

  I walked in a little tennis store, vaguely wondering if they might have anything severely discounted that I could grab for Zoey. Then I remembered that I did have a new job with a respectable salary. If I wanted to, I could buy her a real racquet, for once. I hadn’t actually been given a paycheck yet, but I could put it on the credit card because I’d know the money was coming.

  I expected Peter to be brooding in the corner, but he was actually running his fingertip along the edge of a white racquet with gold and red patterns on the side.

  The guy working behind the counter—an athletic kid in his twenties—wandered over to where Peter was admiring the racquet. “That’s a good one. Small sweet-spot, though. If you’re a beginner, you’d probably want something with a bigger racquet head. It’s more forgiving.”

  Peter grunted, but he didn’t look away from the racquet. The kid seemed to take the hint and wandered back toward the counter.

  “Do you play tennis?” I asked.

  Peter shrugged. “Used to. Yeah.”

  “Why did you stop? Got too old?” I asked with a grin. Peter couldn’t have been older than thirty-five, and it was like no one had told him getting older was supposed to be bad. The few lines on his face only added to the intensity of his good looks.

  Peter looked down at me in that way of his, like he was wondering if he could headbutt me straight into the ground as if I was a pesky nail. “No,” was all he said.

  I rolled my eyes and walked over to look at the junior racquets. I’d never even let myself browse for a real racquet. The one I got Zoey was holding her back, I knew that much. The strings were loose, the frame was cracked, and the grip was in desperate need of being replaced. Just thinking of what she’d say if I brought one of these home for her made me smile.

  “Those are for kids,” Peter said. I hadn’t even heard him come up from behind me. “Then again, you’re probably short enough to pass for a kid. And your hands are ridiculously small.”

  Now it was my turn to glare. As tempting as it was to come clean about Zoey, Peter was hard enough to deal with when he was in a neutral mood. I didn’t even want to imagine how he’d be if I gave him an actual reason to be pissed at me.

  “Oh,” I laughed. “Do they make this one for adults?” I pointed at a pink racquet with purple hearts on the frame.

  He sighed, pulling it from the little hook it was hanging from. In his big hands, it looked hilariously small. “You’re telling me this is your style? Pink with purple hearts?”

  I shook my head and laughed. “No. I was just trying to be funny.” Even though I’d never tried to push stereotypically girly habits on Zoey, she had always loved pink. She loved it so much that the only flavor of ice cream she’d eat was strawberry and she’d made sure at least half of her clothes were pink.

  “Well, you failed,” he said.

  His tone was so dry that I laughed.

  Peter’s lip twitched, and he was either having a mild seizure, or he was trying not to let me see him smile. “If you wanted a racquet, you’d want one of these,” he said. He grabbed a black racquet from the wall and handed it to me. “It’s not so light that you have to muscle the ball, but light enough that you won’t wear your arm out. If you go too heavy, it’ll slow you down when you’re trying to volley at the net, too.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “It feels nice.” I swung it around slowly, trying to remember what I’d taught Zoey so I wouldn’t look clueless in front of Peter. Even though he claimed it was light, it felt heavier than the cheap racquet I’d been using. The balance must have been better, though, because even with the extra weight, it was still easy to maneuver.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked after I pretended to volley a ball at the net.

  “That was a volley,” I said.

  He visibly cringed. “It looked like a muscle spasm.”

  I was annoyed to catch the kid behind the counter covering his mouth and chuckling.

  “Look,” Peter said. He took my wrist in his hand and guided me through a proper swing. It wasn’t exactly the stereotypical crotch-to-ass, undeniably sexual kind of scene from movies. Instead, it was more like an annoyed teacher who couldn’t stand to see someone butcher the technique so badly. I was apparently pathetic enough to still get warm butterflies in my stomach from his touch, all the same.

  “And when you’re doing your groundstrokes, you brush up on the ball,” he said, pulling my hand up through the motion a few times to emphasize his point. “You’re trying to snap your wrist through the point of contact. That’ll be too inconsistent. Just like this. Nice and easy.”

  I nodded, even though I was having trouble really hearing him. His grip wasn’t as tight now, and it felt a little bit more like he was just holding my hand.

  “Well,” I said, putting the racquet back on the metal hook once he let go of my hand. “Maybe once my asshole boss actually gives me my first paycheck, I’ll come back and get this one. Except I think I’ll drive all the way here and skip the hiking off the highway part.”

  Peter snatched the black racquet back off the hook and then went to grab the white, gold, and red one he’d been looking at before. “Was that grip too big for your hand?” he asked.

  “No, it was fine,” I said slowly.

  “What size shoe do you wear?”

  “Ten,” I said.

  He laughed like I was kidding, then looked down at my feet and his expression grew serious. “Oh,” he said slowly.

  I punched him on the shoulder before I knew what I was doing. “S-sorry,” I said quickly. “I just—”

  He shook his head. “It’s fine. You punch about as hard as a wet tissue, anyway. I just thought someone as short as you would have equally small feet. They are fine, though.” He added awkwardly.

  I crossed my arms. “My gigantic, over-sized feet are fine? Great. Thank you.”

  He snagged some tennis clothes off the rack, grabbed a pair of shoes, and dropped it all in front of the guy at the register.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Buying you enough stuff that you’ll be able to hit with me when we get to our hotel later. There’s an indoor court by the hotel that I’ve used before so we won’t have to hit in the cold. And no. I’m not trying to be nice. I just got the itch to play again, and I don’t want you to have any excuses to turn me down.”

  “Wow. This is somehow the most and least generous thing anyone has done for me all year.”

  He smirked. “I’m honored.”

  10

  Peter

  Unfortunately, William really did know how to fly a helicopter. We waited for him in an open patch of grass behind a gas station until we heard the distant sound of the blades chopping through the air.

  I’d seen a few helicopters land in my day, and it looked like William’s landing was a little faster than was normal. The machine swooped down, did a half-spin, and then just plopped straight down into the grass hard enough that I saw William get bounced in his seat. I noticed a small, elderly woman in the seat beside him with a huge pilot’s helmet on and a pair of reflective sunglasses. She was looking toward us with a shit-eating grin. Grammy. The woman was William’s grandmother-in-law, and my few encounters with the woman made William look almost tame by comparison, which was saying something.

  I looked at Violet, who seemed like she might be considering throwing up. “Do I get life insurance working for you?” She had to shout to be heard over the roar of the blades.

  “No. Come on,” I said, taking her arm and making her use me for support again. It had become second nature to have her lean
on me as we’d hiked around these past few hours. I refused to acknowledge the way I felt a burst of warmth and excitement every time I felt her small body lean into mine. I had enough willpower to ignore basic, physical reactions. It was only natural for my body to react to her, but it didn’t mean I had to acknowledge it.

  I definitely didn’t let myself dwell on the questions her touch brought to my mind, like whether she’d still be as defiant if I stripped her down to her underwear, or whether she was a foreplay for hours kind of girl or a jump straight into the act type. Either way, I was tormented by the idea that fucking her would teach her. Teach her what, exactly, I wasn’t sure of. Apparently, my dick didn’t need to ask inconvenient questions. It just sent nonsensical statements up the chain of command until they bounced around in my brain like a song stuck in my head.

  Ironically, Violet seemed to think I was a dick, while in reality, I was trying my hardest to keep my dick out of the equation. When I wasn’t fantasizing about taking her to my bed, I could focus on the truth: getting attached would make me blind again. I’d open myself up to whatever cruel intentions she might have. What Kristen did had almost broken me—maybe it had, to some extent. I knew I wouldn’t survive a second betrayal, so I had to close myself off.

  We ducked under the blades of the helicopter and then I helped Violet up the small set of steps William rolled out.

  William was grinning like a lunatic from behind the aviator glasses he wore and the huge, army green helmet. His jacket was the same color with a fur collar like he was some pilot out of the first World War.

  Grammy didn’t get up from her seat in the cockpit, but she turned to watch us. William was a wild. I was sure I’d never met anyone as impulsive as the man, and the fact that he was also blessed with a bizarre combination of talent, intelligence, and stupid made him all the more dangerous. Grammy, on the other hand, was a little harder to define. The woman was pure venom, but then again, some part of her did seem to still want what was best for people. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the whole Chamberson clan and all their in-laws were just varying degrees of crazy. And here I was, dragging Violet onto a helicopter piloted by one of them.