Wicked Grind

by J. Kenner

  Mostly, he thought she was just trying to get away from him.

  The thought bothered him. He was seventeen years old and about to move to New England to enroll in one of the most prestigious private photography programs in the country. And he'd gotten in on a merit scholarship. Not because his parents had written the Trustees a check.

  He could talk about pop culture, but also liked sports. He knew his way around any art museum, modern or classic. And he was well-versed enough about ballet and the opera to impress girls who were into that kind of thing. He was a halfway decent surfer. He'd had a string of girlfriends from the time he was eleven, mostly because they'd pursued him, and the female attention made him cool in the eyes of his friends.

  And even though he suspected that some of that attention had been directed more at his family name than at him, he also knew that he wasn't a complete dud.

  So why the hell was Kelsey running from him?

  "Her," he said one day, pointing her out to his friend Patrick, whose father was the general manager of the country club. "What's her story?"

  They sat at a table by the pool, eating burgers and fries. Directly across from them, Kelsey was working the cordoned off adult section, delivering dry towels and magazines to a cadre of women who showed up daily at the club to sun themselves, drink fruity cocktails, and gossip. She moved with an enchanting grace, and her lips were perpetually curved up at the corners, like she had a delicious secret that she wasn't telling.

  "I don't know much," Patrick admitted, as Wyatt's thumb stroked the edge of the Ricoh camera that was his constant companion. He itched to pick it up and capture her on film, and it was taking all of his effort not to be the kind of invasive ass who started snapping pictures of people without their permission. He saw enough of that breed around his grandmother and sister, and his mom to a lesser extent. He really didn't need to join their ranks.

  That didn't change the desire, though, and so instead of capturing her in his camera, he tried to burn her image into his mind. A mental picture of beauty and grace that he could keep with him always.

  "--this summer."

  Wyatt shook his head, realizing he'd zoned out. "Sorry. What?"

  Patrick shot him a look that was both irritated and amused. "I said, her dad's heading up the landscaping crew this summer."

  "Just the summer?"

  "Our old guy quit, and the new guy they hired can't start until September. And Draper was available. My dad said something about how he's between jobs. I guess he has a gig starting in LA in the fall."

  "Yeah, but what about her?"

  "She's shy. I met her at one of the staff meetings. I said hello, and she stared at her shoes. Probably because I'm so intimidating."

  "Probably," Wyatt agreed ironically. Patrick was pretty much the least intimidating guy on the planet, which was why he worked the member relations desk three times a week even though he was barely eighteen. "But why's she working at all? What are her hours? Do you know what she likes?"

  "Because her father insisted that my uncle give her a job, too," Patrick began, counting his answer out on his fingers.

  "Pretty much eight to five. And I really don't know." He cocked his head as he considered something. "I know she watches her brother play tennis sometimes when she has free time. So she either likes him or she likes tennis."

  "Tennis," Wyatt muttered, nodding thoughtfully. "Okay. That's good to know."

  "Good?" Patrick said. "I don't know about that. Because if good means you're thinking about asking her out, I think you should just back away slowly and find someone else. She's not worth the trouble."

  "Yeah? Why?"

  Patrick shrugged. "You've seen her. The girl's too shy. It's the summer, dude. You'll barely get to first base before she moves back home and you head to Boston."

  "It's not just about sex."

  "Yeah? Then you're doing it wrong."

  Wyatt rolled his eyes. Patrick might like to talk big, but he was more bluster than action.

  "Besides," Patrick continued, "from what I've seen, her dad's pretty strict. Like he walked out of a nineteen-fifties TV show. Probably why she doesn't talk to the guys. Or really to the girls, for that matter. Just forget about it. Seriously."

  It was good advice, and Wyatt even tried to follow it for a few days, forcibly pushing her out of his thoughts and going out of his way to not be anywhere that she might be working. It even worked. Sort of. But then he'd catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye, and she'd enchant him all over again.

  Soon, he realized that he was finding ways to be around when she was finishing her shift. He'd offer her a ride, and she'd repeatedly turn him down. Politely and sweetly, but also firmly.

  He also found ways to be around when she was starting her shift. That's when he'd offer to bring her a coffee. Again, she always said no.

  He tried again and again, sometimes suggesting a coffee, once even asking if she wanted to play a game of tennis after her shift. "I can't," she said. "I have to get home. Besides, I'm horrible at tennis."

  "Right," he said. "Me, too." That was a blatant lie--he was actually pretty good at the game--but she'd rattled him. And he crossed tennis off the list.

  After a full week of trying, he started to give up. She hadn't said as much, but considering what Patrick had said about her dad, Wyatt assumed she wasn't allowed to date. Or maybe she just didn't want to date him. Maybe that was even what he found so attractive, the fact that she didn't seem to care in the least who his family was.

  The day she said, "no thanks, really," before he'd even asked her about a coffee was the day he started to worry that he was crossing into stalker territory, which was really not the vibe he wanted. He made a point of backing off. No sense acting like a douchebag, after all.

  He started spending more time with Patrick. And then Grace joined them, and she was most definitely interested in him. She sat a little closer than necessary. She brushed his arm when she laughed at his jokes.

  She also talked incessantly about his family. His sister and her cooking show. His mother, with her screenplays and novels. His grandmother, with her Hollywood pedigree and all those lovely award statues. The family mansion in Beverly Hills. The twenty-thousand square foot summer house in Santa Barbara. The chalet in St. Moritz. The family legacy. The studio Wyatt's great-grandfather had founded. And on, and on, and on.

  All stuff that had nothing to do with him.

  All stuff he really didn't want to talk about.

  But at the same time, he was a guy, wasn't he? A seventeen-year-old guy with all the raging hormones that came with it. And maybe he had more discipline than some of his peers, but he wasn't a saint, not by a long shot.

  So when Grace came to him when he was leaving the club one Friday night and told him her car wouldn't start, he did the gentlemanly thing. He offered her a ride. And when she offered to use her fake ID to buy some beer as payment for the lift, that seemed the polite thing to do. And when she offered to go down on him . . . well, he was a guy, after all.

  Or rather, he was guy enough to enjoy it in the moment, but afterwards, he felt like shit. He didn't want Grace, and all he'd done was lead her on. And when she started hanging around him more--obviously believing that they were sliding into coupledom--he manned up, told her he didn't think it was going to work, and ended it.

  To say she didn't take it well would be the understatement of the century. She called him a stuck up prick who thought he could just skate by on his family name and didn't have to be nice to anyone. Which was ridiculously unfair since he'd always felt like his family name was an albatross. But unfair or not, it stung.

  "That's the price we pay," his father had said when Wyatt decided to bite the bullet, swallow some pride, and ask his dad for advice. He'd always had a good relationship with his father, but lately Carlton Royce had seemed distracted. An accountant, Carlton had met Wyatt's mother, Lorelei, when they were both attending the same charity function. They'd each come with other
dates, had met at the dessert table, and had married four months later.

  "Price?" Wyatt asked.

  "Of celebrity."

  "Yeah, but I'm not a celebrity. That's Grandma. And Jenna," he added, referring to his sister who owned three restaurants and starred in her own Manhattan-based celebrity cooking show. "Mom, too, sort of." Considering all his mother's work was behind the camera, she wasn't as recognizable. But she'd grown up on studio lots and at star-studded premiers. So that definitely put her in the celebrity bucket.

  But Wyatt had avoided all that stuff. Not because he was shy, but because he just didn't get it. If the spotlight wasn't actually shining on him, why would he want to be standing in its glow?

  "Comes with the territory, kid," his dad had said. "Just because you never escort your mom down the red carpet doesn't mean the world doesn't see you as one of them. You're Hollywood royalty, son. We both are. Whether we want to be or not. Whether we deserve it or not. And most of the time, that's all anyone cares about. They want that piece of you. That shiny anointed part. They don't see you. They see the family."

  Wyatt frowned, not used to hearing such harshness in his father's voice.

  He started to ask about it, but his dad continued. "Even on the inside," he said. "It's everywhere. Permeates everything. It's like dry rot, and it eats away at the foundation."

  "Dad? What are you talking about?"

  Carlton drew a breath and shook his head. "Sorry. Just rambling. Don't listen to me." He sighed, the sound long and mournful. "You know I love you, right?"

  "Um, sure," Wyatt frowned, worried by his father's tone and uncharacteristic sentimentality. "I love you, too."

  "And God knows your grandmother thinks you hung the moon."

  "Sure, Dad," Wyatt said. The fact was, Anika Segel was a force of nature, and although Wyatt was firmly convinced that she was one of the most incredible women to ever walk the earth, he had no freaking idea what she really thought about him. Or anybody, for that matter, other than his mother and sister. With those two, she'd hole up for hours talking career and how to position themselves, and on and on and on.

  There were times when Wyatt felt invisible.

  So while his dad's words were nice to hear, Wyatt wasn't at all sure he believed them.

  His dad clapped him on the shoulder. "Just forget about Grace, son. She'll move on. Another girl will come along soon enough."

  He thought of Kelsey and cringed as he felt his cheeks heat. Was he actually blushing? How lame was that?

  His dad chuckled. "So she's come along, already? All right, then. Tell me about her."

  "I dunno. She's pretty. She's different." He lifted a shoulder. "And she's not interested in me at all."

  "You sure about that?"

  Wyatt shrugged again.

  "But you like her?"

  "Yeah. I like her a lot."

  "So tell her."

  "I tried."

  His dad nodded thoughtfully. "Fair enough. But maybe you need to try harder. Deep down, nobody's that different."

  "She is," Wyatt said firmly. Because Kelsey was different, with her shy and quiet ways counterpointed by a light that burned inside of her. He'd only seen flickers, so far. But what he wanted was for it to shine on him. He wanted to bask in her glow.

  His father's mouth curved down thoughtfully. "Maybe she is. But don't be blinded by a pretty girl," he said. "Or a sweet one, or a charming one. Sure, there are girls out there who aren't as obvious as Grace, but in the end, everybody's drawn to fame. Everybody. Even the people who say they don't want it themselves, they're still drawn to the light. We're a culture of moths, Wyatt, and you'll be a happier man if you remember that."

  Disturbing words, but he pushed most of them aside, focusing only on the try harder part of the equation. Because something told him that Kelsey was worth the effort. He just hadn't found the way in yet. She was a sweet girl, and instead of trying to really get to know her, he'd given up and gone out with Grace instead.

  God, he was an idiot.

  He spent the next few days avoiding Grace and trying to get close to Kelsey, something he never quite managed to do. They shared a few words, and every time, he'd see a spark of interest in her eyes. She liked him--he was certain of it. But she stayed behind her wall.

  That reality frustrated the crap out of Wyatt. He wanted to get to know the real Kelsey, because he was sure there was another girl living behind that wall of sweet shyness. But the most he ever saw was that tiny glimmer of light, and he had no idea how to break through the wall to let the fullness of her shine through.

  Try harder, his dad had said, but isn't that what he'd been doing? How long should he keep trying? Wasn't it crazy to keep on and on, expecting her to suddenly smile brightly and slide into his arms? Wasn't that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result every time?

  It was. Which meant Wyatt was certifiable. Because he just kept at it, trying to think of different ways to catch her attention even while avoiding Grace, who was determined to go out with him again even though he'd politely told her that he didn't think it was going to work out between them.

  Grace, however, wasn't the kind to take no for an answer, and maybe that was a good thing. After all, Grace was the reason he was finally able to find a way over Kelsey's wall.

  He'd been pacing outside the rec center, planning to grab Kelsey when she came out. But then he heard Grace approaching with a group of her friends, and since he really wasn't in the mood to see her again, he ducked inside, then pressed himself against the wall as he breathed hard, hoping that the girls weren't planning to come into the center.

  He peered through the windows, waiting until they'd safely passed. When he saw them disappear around the copse of trees near the picnic area, he exhaled and started for the door. He was about to go back outside when the music that had been playing in the background suddenly grew louder. He paused, confused, then realized that someone must have opened a door to one of the studios.

  For just a few moments, pop music flooded the hall, the sound steamy and seductive and a little bit familiar. He moved that direction, curious to see why a provocative current chart-topper was front-and-center in a dance class filled with little kids.

  Except there were no little kids. That much was clear as he got closer. The music was coming from the largest studio, the one at the end of the hall. The door was open, and Mrs. Hinson was leaning casually against the door frame. A fifty-something former Broadway chorus dancer, Sarah Hinson had moved to Santa Barbara to open her own studio, and had ended up contracting with the club to teach all the dance classes from toddler all the way up to ballroom dancing for seniors.

  He paused in front of the door to the men's room, the slight offset from the wall helping him to stay out of sight should she look his way.

  "Honey, you are too good to waste your time spritzing tables," Mrs. Hinson was saying. "You should be in New York going to auditions. I still have a few contacts. At the very least, you should be spending your days dancing. Goodness knows I could use your help teaching. And you'd have all the studio time you wanted between classes."

  Wyatt cocked his head, trying to hear the response from whoever was in the room, but the voice was too low and the music--even though the volume had significantly diminished--drowned it out.

  "Well, that may be so," Mrs. Hinson said, "but that doesn't mean your father is right. I don't doubt that man loves you, but he's not doing right by you."

  Wyatt took a step closer, not sure why, only knowing that he was curious.

  "Fine." Mrs. Hinson threw her hands up dramatically. "I know better than to try to convince you. But you just remember that the offer stands. And if you ever need a letter of recommendation, I'll--well, of course I mean it," she said after a pause, during which the girl she was talking to had obviously said something. "And now I've got to run. No, no. You stay as long as you want. There aren't any more classes today. You enjoy yourself. Ju
st be sure to lock up."

  The girl must have agreed, because Mrs. Hinson waved, then turned and headed down the hall toward Wyatt. She had her head down as she rummaged in her purse, and he slipped quietly into the men's room until he heard her footsteps pass.

  He counted to ten, then counted again just to be sure. Then he slipped out into the abandoned hallway. The music was back--louder now--and he headed toward the still-open door. He was curious to see who was in there, although when he thought back on it later, he was certain that some part of him already knew.

  It was her, of course. Kelsey.

  She wore tights and the bottom half of a leotard that looked like it had been cut in two with hedge shears. On top, she wore a sports bra with a collarless T-shirt over it, cut off at the midriff. He could see the taut muscles of her back and abs as she soared across the room. Because that's what it was--soaring. Not dancing. Hell, not anything he'd seen before. She was magic, her movement and power elevating what used to be a simple pop song into something absolutely transcendent.

  This was it, he thought. This was her. This was Kelsey, and he was seeing her for the very first time.

  He'd only seen hints of the core of her before. That spark. That vitality.

  But he'd seen it now, and he knew it lived inside her.

  She wasn't shy; she was extraordinary. Alive. Vibrant.

  Real.

  More than that, she was going to be his.

  Somehow, he was going to win this girl.

  9

  Somehow he was going to win the girl.

  As plans went, Wyatt had to admit it was a little vague. Not so much a plan, but a hope. An intention.

  Somehow, though, he was going to see it through. At least he knew more about her now than he had before. And he pursued her like he'd never pursued a girl before. Flowers in her locker. Compliments whenever he saw her. Lattes in the morning, which he left for her even if she said no. And, best of all, tickets to the final round of a ballroom dance competition being held right there in Santa Barbara.

  "I don't know if you're into dancing," he lied, thrusting two tickets into her hand as they stood outside the tennis center. "But someone gave these to me, and I thought you might want to go. With me, I mean." He gave himself a mental kick. He sounded like a douche. Not a confident seventeen-year-old.