by Lyla Payne
I’d spent the afternoon re-watching The Basketball Diaries, even if the plot cut a little deep. The screenplay I’d been working on in my spare time dealt with the same subject matter and whenever I worried I was pulling punches, letting things get a little too clean and pretty, I queued this up. As if I needed a reminder how filthy and desperate and gut-wrenching life with an addict could be.
Afternoon classes were the bane of my existence, and my damn accounting class was a 2:00 p.m. Florida heated up quickly in the spring, and my shirt stuck to my chest by the time I landed in my usual seat toward the middle of the room.
“Can I have your seat?”
I looked up to find Blair Paddington turning a winning smile full of teeth and dimples on the guy who typically sat next to me. She wore a little slip of a red sundress, and he didn’t even ask why before practically flying out of his seat and into one closer to the front. She was Cher from Clueless reincarnated. Or maybe that would be Austen’s Emma reincarnated. Whichever, it worked for her.
She sat primly and took out her notepad and homework before turning to me. “Toby.”
“Blair.”
“Hey, what’s the matter with your friend Sam? He won’t stop texting me.”
I tried not to be pleased that Sam had trouble with girls sometimes, too. It was probably just Blair, though. She delighted in being difficult. “He’s not really my friend, he’s Quinn’s. And he’s nice enough. Why don’t you give him a break?”
“Yeah, I want to date some full-of-himself pro-athlete who’s got chicks throwing themselves at him all over the world. Sounds like a wise decision.” She tapped her pen on the paper, seeming to grope for more to say. “I actually wanted to ask a favor.”
“I figured. You’ve never acknowledged my presence in class before today.”
“Well, you’re not the smartest at accounting. I like to pick my partners according to the amount of work I want to do. Which is as little as possible.”
“I have an A in this class, you know.”
“You have to work for it.” She put up a hand. “Not the point. The point is, the Kappa-SEA Spring Formal is this weekend, and I have it on good authority that you don’t have a date.”
“I wasn’t really planning on going,” I hedged, sensing where this conversation was headed. I was no stranger to setups, since I didn’t have a girlfriend. There were plenty of hot Kappas, though, and getting laid was still on the month’s agenda.
“You and Kennedy seemed to get along okay in St. Moritz, and I want her to come to the formal, but she can’t unless a SEA asks. You know. Greek bullshit.”
Anxiety tightened my chest as excitement swirled in my gut. My own instincts couldn’t decide how we felt about spending more time with Kennedy, but either way, my interest hadn’t abated. “Why doesn’t she join Kappa?”
She flicked her eyes to the door as our professor walked in, then lowered her voice. “She’s not into acting like she cares about anything. But she does. Care about things. She has to, right?”
The hopeful tone in her voice tore at my heart, ripped holes in long-sealed memories. How many times had I tried to convince myself that Trent had to come around eventually? It took me a moment, but I patched the dents in my protective walls. “She doesn’t have to do anything.”
“Come on. I like her. She’s fun. We got stuck together in roommate lottery, and I’m determined not to remember freshman year as that time my alcoholic roommate died while I went to a party. Please?”
I knew I was going to regret this, but there wasn’t really a way to say no without looking like a complete dick. I didn’t have other plans or a date, and we did get along. “Fine.”
Class went by quickly, and thanks to Kennedy’s help on the plane, the principles made sense to me. Blair paid cursory attention, texting underneath her desk the entire time and then flirting with the guy who had vacated the chair on her way out of the room until he handed over his notes.
My phone vibrated as I shouldered my messenger bag, and I saw a number I didn’t recognize on the display.
You sure about this date, Wright?
Kennedy. I saved her number while I figured out how to answer.
Sure. You can put me in the ‘guy who pays for dinner and expects nothing in return’ box.
The little dots that said she was responding appeared and disappeared five times before her response finally came through.
That’s a pretty dusty and unused box.
Whatever. Guess I’ll see you Saturday night.
See you then.
*
We decided on a pre-party at Quinn’s beach house, complete with an almost unlimited line of cars waiting to take people to the party at a downtown hotel when we were ready. The dance or whatever started at eight. People started showing up at Quinn’s around four.
Kennedy arrived in a pale blue dress that clung to every curve, making her appear fuller than she had in Sebastian’s shirt. I put that memory out of my mind and kissed her cheek. “You look lovely, strawberry.”
She did, too. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy mass of reddish curls and her eyes were blue again, the way they’d been on the ski slope. It didn’t look to my untrained male eye as though she wore much makeup—her cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright, perfect just they way they were.
It made me glad to see her eyes weren’t bloodshot and her words were unslurred. We had a long night ahead of us, and though it wouldn’t be the first time I’d held a drunk chick’s hair while she puked, it was an experience I tried to avoid.
“How did you pick out a tie that matches my dress? Are you stalking me? Are you secretly obsessed with Molly Ringwald movies?”
I glanced down. My pale blue tie did match her dress. “First of all, my Molly Ringwald obsession isn’t a secret—no shame. Second, I steal all my ties from my dad’s ample collection, which is ninety percent some shade of blue or red. God bless America.”
She giggled and waved hi to Blair and her date, a too pretty guy anyone would recognize from the latest emotionally manipulative Hollywood drama—Zachary Flynn.
“Can we get a drink?”
Someone bumped into her and she stumbled forward into my chest. The smell of her washed over me, but along with the fresh scent I’d come to recognize as hers, I smelled alcohol. Seems at least some of the Kappas had gotten an early start.
Still, it was a party, and I wasn’t her dad, I was her date. I steadied her, sliding my hands down her silky smooth arms, then wrapped my fingers around hers. “Sure. Follow me.”
Blair and Flynn, who turned out to be okay if you didn’t look right at him, joined us at the bar. Audra Stuart and some hulking blond guy I didn’t recognize wandered over, and then Quinn and Emilie pulled up stools. We were all laughing, and there were Jell-O shots and then lemon drops, then whiskey, and finally the granddaddy of all shots, the Three Wisemen.
My head buzzed pleasantly by the time Kennedy and I climbed in the back of a limo with Blair, Flynn, Audra, and her date, whose name I could absolutely not recall. Blair and Audra giggled and shrieked, fighting over who would open a bottle of pink champagne. I noticed Kennedy sat quietly at my side, close but not touching, surveying the scene with a blank expression.
“Are you okay?” She’d kept up with the drinking, but given her rep, it probably fazed me more than her.
She startled, as though she’d forgotten about me, then offered a stiff smile. “I’m fine.”
“Sure?”
“I’ll tell you what box I don’t want to put you in, Wright, and it’s labeled ‘tries to fix me.’ That box is shoved into the trash compactor every hour on the hour.”
“Cripes, I don’t want to fix you. If anyone knows the futility of such a thing, it’s me.”
Things like that, little clues about my own past, spilled out around her, and I couldn’t figure out why. Maybe because she reminded me so much of Trent, or maybe because she was usually so drunk I figured she wouldn’t remember—or th
at she had so many problems of her own that they made mine seem of little consequence.
“Who did you try to fix, Wright?” Her voice pitched low and Kennedy twisted so that she faced me, her bare knee and thigh landing against my hand.
It distracted me more than a little and made me forget that no one outside my family knew about Trent. “My brother.”
“You have a brother? Does he go to Whitman?”
The others’ voices faded into the background and my skin felt hot—from the booze or her, or the fact that I wanted to have someone other than Dr. Porter to speak to about Trent, I didn’t know. Maybe a combination of all three.
“No.” I licked my lips and glanced at Blair, whose eyes locked with mine and narrowed. “I’ll tell you about him sometime if you really want to know. Not now.”
It was a lie, but the old, familiar panic churned anyway. I could never tell her the truth.
She nodded, seeming satisfied. It surprised me that she didn’t know I had a brother, since out family spent our lives in the public spotlight—but I didn’t know why. Kennedy didn’t exactly seem like the type to keep up with current events. The official story on Trent was that he had gone into the Peace Corps before attending college. Even though four years was a long time to serve, no one had started asking questions about when he might return. Yet.
My father would never tell the truth. He should. Hiding it made it seem like a fuck-up, when really there were lots of families going through the same thing. I knew. I had done the research.
The limo pulled up at the hotel and we all got out, stretching and heading inside. Kennedy stopped at the bar and grabbed another drink—it looked like chilled vodka, straight. She downed it and then dragged me onto the dance floor, her detached melancholy from the cab easing a bit as she smiled with her friends.
Two drinks and about an hour later, a slow song poured from the speakers and Kennedy moved in close, looping her arms around my neck. I obliged like any good date, wrapping my hands around her waist and pulling her to me. She smelled better than ever, as though the alcohol brought her to life.
I shook the thought away and looked down into her eyes, which held a pensive expression. “What?”
“I’ve decided.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. I think you’d fit nicely in the ‘good fuck’ box. What do you say?”
My body responded to her throaty proposition before I could even consider stopping it, and the alcohol heating my blood didn’t help matters. Thoughts and protests poured through my brain, arguing with my penis even though we both knew it had little chance of winning.
“I don’t think either of us is in the state of mind to make that decision tonight,” I countered. It sounded weak even to my own ears, but the blood rushing away from my brain might have had something to do with that.
“On the contrary, I think our current state renders the best kind of decision-making when it comes to getting naked.” She shifted until our bodies were flush and she could have no doubt about the way her words affected me. “Don’t be so serious all the time. I’ve asked around—you don’t like to stick around long after a good fuck—neither do I. We’re attracted to each other, and you belong in a box. What are you scared of?”
It sounded like exactly what I needed to get Kennedy Gilbert off my mind. Sleeping with girls invariably made them less interesting to me, and my worries about getting attached to her problems were probably unfounded. The only thing that held me back was the memory of the morning we’d officially met. There had been nothing about her demeanor that suggested she wasn’t sober, yet fifteen minutes later she’d forgotten our entire conversation. It had been that morning, more than anything else, that made me suspect she was less of a simple party girl and more a girl with serious issues. Issues I did not want tangled up in.
Kennedy pushed onto her tiptoes and drew my face to hers, brushing the softest whisper of a kiss across my lips. I returned it, and when she tried to ease away, gathered her tighter and pulled her bottom lip between my teeth. She tasted like strawberries and horrible, horrible choices, but when her lips parted to let my tongue brush over hers, I knew I needed to do her and get it over with—get her out of my system.
“Mmm. Yep. I’m totally right about the ‘good’ part. I can tell.”
“How about we finish the party and then see how we feel then. No promises, and no matter how badly I’d love to take you right here, I’m not doing this if you’re wasted. So sober up, strawberry.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know, I’ve been taking care of myself for a very long time. Making my own decisions and everything.”
“Which is fine, but jumping in bed means two people making a decision. I’m not making it for you, I’m making it for me. I like the girls I sleep with to remember it.”
“If you want me to remember it, sober or not, you’d better bring your A-game,” she murmured, eyes lingering on my mouth.
I tightened my grip on her waist. “I don’t have any other kind.”
Chapter 6
There was no way I could safely drive a car back to the SEA house, but luckily, the Rowland beach house had more spare rooms than Buckingham Palace. The after-party was quieter than the pre-party, and when our limo pulled up, only about ten people scattered on the back deck.
Quinn and Emilie had, not shockingly, retired as soon as they returned and Blair and Audra had disappeared, too. I didn’t know the remaining guys all that well, and since Sebastian reminded me of many, many things I’d rather forget, I steered Kennedy up the stairs instead.
“Taking charge, are we, Wright? I like it.”
I led her to the last room on the right, which I knew had a nice balcony, and pushed open the door. It was empty, and I suspected most of the house would be the same by the morning. The Rowlands’ decorator had done every room in the same beach motif and colors—not terribly original, but serviceable. The comforter was a sandy color with cream-colored trim, carpet, and pale green drapes. The balcony doors stood open, letting a cool, salty breeze into the space.
Kennedy turned and reached for me. It had been weeks since I’d been to bed with anyone, but even though my body was raring to go, my mind insisted we make sure she wasn’t going to wake up tomorrow confused about what went down tonight. I held her at arms length.
“Can you touch your nose with your fingertip? One at a time?”
“Ooh, are we going to play officer friendly and the poor, unsuspecting woman he pulls over? I like that game. Want me to spread ’em?”
I rolled my eyes and shifted, trying to hide the growing tightness in the front of my black dress pants. Everything she’d said for the last two hours had been suggestive in some way, and if Kennedy failed any of my tests, I’d have to take care of things myself in the bathroom. “Just do it, smartass.”
She straightened her back and rearranged her features into the kind of serious expression I’d started to think she only showed by accident, then gently touched the tip of her nose with each index finger. I noticed she hadn’t removed her nail polish since we’d met in St. Moritz and the chipped, glossy pink had shrunk to little circles in the center of her nails.
“Satisfied?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, that makes two of us.”
“Indulge me another couple of minutes and walk a straight line over to the windows.”
“If I refuse, will you handcuff me?”
“We’ll see how cooperative you are, ma’am,” I replied in a gruff voice, playing along. Kennedy had a knack for making the weirdest conversations seem completely normal. I’d had a few wild nights with girls before, but typically not a first time. Those were for fumbling and awkward silence, but something told me this would be different.
“In that case.” She turned and put one foot in front of the other, wobbling just a little bit on her way to the window and back, before stopping way too close to me. “Do I pass?”
“What’s your name?”
“Kennedy Anne
Gilbert.”
“What’s my name?”
“Toby Pain-In-My-Ass Wright.”
“Hey, how did you kn—”
She cut me off with a kiss, her lips landing hard on mine. They parted in an instant, her tongue searching for mine as her nimble fingers unknotted my tie and went for the buttons on my shirt. The fact that I was attracted to her, along with the fact that it had been weeks since I’d gotten laid, melted away the last of my worries over her sobriety. I hadn’t seen her take a drink in a couple hours and she seemed fine.
One and done. We’d get this spark of whatever it was out of our systems and move on, because that was how we both operated. No more lying awake thinking about what it would be like.
I let go of the last of my hesitation and found the zipper at the back of her dress. It pooled on the floor, leaving bare skin under my palms. She smelled amazing, like always, and was equal parts smooth and hard. Her thin frame accented her chest, barely hidden now beneath a black lace bra. I wanted to see everything.
Our tongues tangled until I couldn’t breathe. She bit my bottom lip a little harder than necessary, shooting a spike of desire straight to my groin, and we maneuvered our way onto the bed. She wrestled me out of my shirt, grinning like she was unwrapping a present on Christmas morning. I enjoyed the view while she did it, her lithe body and creamy skin enhanced by the lacy lingerie.
A couple of quick flicks of my fingers removed the rest of her clothes, and I took her lips in mine. My fingers played with her tits, which were bigger than I expected. The weight of them in my palms sped my heart rate and more blood drained south.
Kennedy groaned into my mouth. “Squeeze harder.”
I complied, using my thumb and forefinger to deal a couple of firm pinches, then pulled her down and rolled us over. I liked feeling her under me, making her writhe in an attempt to get closer. Her legs wrapped around my waist, but I broke away, trailing kisses down her neck and chest, lingering on her boobs for longer than was probably necessary—Christ, they were perfect. She responded with more enthusiasm when I used a fair amount of teeth and a firm hand, and the way she arched into my lips pushed my control to the edge of its limits.
