by Nana Malone
Jen cocked her head. “Seriously?”
Echo held a finger up. “Swear it.”
“Fine,” Jen sighed before dropping into a chair on the other side of the coffee table and crossing her heart with her fingers. “I swear. Now I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you didn’t tell them about design school…?”
Echo pressed a finger to her nose. “Someone give this girl a cookie.”
“So what happened?”
Too emotionally raw to tiptoe around it, Echo blurted out, “My dad is sick.” Jen gasped, and Echo did what she always did—tried to reassure her, wishing everything she said would make herself feel better, too. “He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, so he’s going to have all kinds of tests run, and he and Mom want me to help them keep my brothers in the dark about the whole thing. My grandparents too, I think. I forgot to ask whether they know or not.”
“That’s… I’m so sorry, Echo.”
“They only told me so I can help them keep it quiet. They’re not ready to tell everyone else yet. That’s why you have to keep it a secret.”
“I will, but I’m not sure you should,” Jen said, leaning forward in her chair. “That’s a lot of pressure on you, babe.”
“It’ll be all right,” Echo dismissed her friend’s concern. Not like she had any choice. “It’s not my secret to tell either, and I’ll survive. I always do.”
“So…is that all that happened? Did you even try to bring up design school? Because there’s no reason that the one needs to affect the other…”
“Except for the fact that I’d have to move closer to the campus for classes. It’s not like I can commute that far. Downtown is an hour away. And my parents will need me at home for this,” Echo explained. “Gage has practices that I’ll have to help pick him up from. You know the no-car-til-we’re-eighteen rule, blah, blah, blah. Then there’s my grandparents to keep preoccupied… I can’t leave them right now. Maybe I can defer. Maybe this thing with my dad will get straightened out by then.”
“Maybe it’ll be all settled in time for next semester,” Jen said hopefully. “Deferring is good.”
“It would have to be at least a year, year and a half, though,” Echo murmured.
“Come on,” Jen chided. “Think positive.”
“I’m positive I won’t be able to do anything about design school for at least another year.”
Jen tilted her head inquisitively, and Echo sighed before revealing the last bit of the encounter with her parents. “They also want me to go for the Olympics. They’ve already hired some coach to help me out.”
Jen’s face scrunched up into her that’s-fucked-up, nose-pinched expression. “Shit. As if you have time for that. And they did all this without even asking you first?”
Echo knew that wasn’t the way her parents had intended the gesture, and she instinctively rose to their defense. “It’s one of those things that we’ve all talked about maybe doing for years, and I never said I was opposed to the idea,” she explained. “They want to do something nice for me for helping them out, and this was what they came up with. This guy, whoever he is, will come to us and adapt his schedule to ours. To my needs. And they’re paying for him, for everything. They don’t want me to drop everything to help them, but—”
“But that’s what you’re doing, Echo,” Jen pointed out. “If they want to reward you for doing their bidding, that’s fine. But this isn’t what you want. Tell them about design school. Tell them you’ll defer, or reapply, or whatever, but see if they’ll get you someone who’ll give you private lessons or something. See if they’ll pay for fabric and a sewing machine…one of those mannequin things. Whatever it is you’d need for supplies to try piecing something together at home. Not this. You need to fight for your dreams, not theirs.”
“Enough, Jen,” Echo begged. “I’m not giving up. My family is just more important right now. If something is seriously wrong with my dad…”
Jen let the point drop, and they lapsed into silence for a few moments.
“Maybe…maybe there’s a way this Olympics thing can help you with becoming a designer,” Jen said, obviously not willing to let it go.
Echo looked at her from her sideways position on the couch with a skeptical brow raised.
“Sure,” Jen pressed on. “When you win, you’ll have all kinds of people looking to work with you. You’ll make millions in endorsements. Then you don’t have to worry about your parents paying for things until your trust fund kicks in.” She started talking faster as the ideas flowed and her enthusiasm grew. “And who’s to say that some of the companies who’ll want to work with you won’t have connections to the fashion industry that you can use. There are tons of celebrities starting their own lines who don’t design a damn thing. They just slap their name on a label. You can do that, but make sure you get to actually design the clothes, too. Learn indirectly or something.”
Echo smiled in appreciation for her friend’s suggestions. “It’s something to consider,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows. “That’s for sure.”
“Come on,” Jen said, rising suddenly from her chair and reaching out to pull Echo off the couch. “We’re going out to celebrate.”
“Celebrate? Really? You want to celebrate the fact that my plans for the foreseeable future have been flushed down the toilet along with my dad’s health and my sanity?”
“Okay, poor choice of words on my part,” Jen admitted, tugging gently on Echo’s arm. “Not celebrating. Doing something just for ourselves. We’re going to go out and have some fun before you find yourself under the thumb of some dictatorial coach who forbids you to eat food and drink at all, and has you running from here to kingdom come.”
“I don’t know that I’m up to it,” Echo said, realizing she was sounding kind of whiny.
“Sure you are. Or will be, when I’m through with you. Echo, when was the last time you just went out and let yourself relax? Danced a little, found a cute guy, and—”
“No,” Echo said firmly. “I cannot just go out and act like everything is fine.”
“Yes, you can. In fact, I think that’s exactly what you need. You need to find a guy who couldn’t care less about anything but getting into your pants. Who’ll make you forget your name, let alone your problems,” Jen grinned as she shifted position and lifted Echo from the couch by sheer force of will.
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
Jen rolled her eyes. “You’ll borrow something from me. I have better clothes anyway.”
Echo scoffed, which made Jen laugh. “You wish you had better clothes than me. And the good things you do have in your closet are the ones that I talked you into buying.”
“That’s the spirit,” Jen grinned as she led Echo to her bedroom and threw open her closet. “We’ll go someplace where no one knows us, fake names, the whole thing. Find a guy to buy you drinks, make out a little. Have fun. You know, keep it light. We won’t even worry about the V-card thing. You’ll feel better about everything and you won’t have to worry about seeing the guy again.”
Echo winced. The damn V-card thing. Jen was convinced she was the only twenty-two-year-old in existence—in the free world—to still have her virginity.
“That is an…awfully detailed plan you have.” Echo held up a top Jen handed to her, fingering scarlet sequins that created a shimmery layer over the soft jersey fabric. “Not this. I’d look like I belong on a dead witch’s foot.”
Jen took it back and handed her a navy halter-top. “Dark, but not too dark,” she said, pulling at the folds of fabric to see how they would fall on Echo. “And yes, it is a detailed plan, but if you think of it one step at a time, it’s completely reasonable. Definitely this one, and I don’t want to hear any complaints about the back.”
Echo took it and moved behind a decorative screen Jen kept in the corner. “What back?” she called, as she shed her shirt and wriggled into Jen’s top. There were a few strings crisscrossing the back, but no
real coverage to speak of. She slipped it off and shed her bra, thankful for a change that her breasts were small enough to make wearing one optional rather than a requirement.
She stepped out for Jen’s evaluation, straining her neck to see her mostly bare back.
“You look amazing,” Jen assured her.
Echo scrunched her nose. “My back is cold.”
“It won’t be for long. Now, please tell me you brought some dark jeans and a pair of heels?”
“Jeans, yes,” Echo called, heading for her duffle bag. “I’ve got the ones that do that thing to my ass.”
“What thing?”
“Make it look like I have one,” Echo muttered as she stripped down in Jen’s living room and slipped into a darker, tighter pair. Glancing down her body briefly, even she had to admit she looked pretty damn good.
She shuffled back to Jen’s room, where her friend had slipped into a slinky black number.
“Shoes are a no-go. I only brought my sneakers, and the ones I came in.”
“These.” Jen bent to retrieve a pair from beside her dresser and tossed them to Echo, the heel nearly spearing the top of Echo’s bare foot. “Sorry. You might need to stick something in the toes so they don’t slip off. My feet are bigger than yours.”
Echo slipped into them and took a few practice steps, bringing herself in line with Jen’s floor-length mirror. “I look—”
“Hot, sexy, ready to go,” Jen listed, before Echo could make a disparaging remark.
“If you insist, but I feel like I’m going to regret this.” She turned to Jen, who was fussing with her earrings. “Can’t we just stay in and watch a movie while chowing down on ice cream or something? You did say something about how my new coach will probably put me on a strict diet. I want to spend some quality time with a tub of Haagen-Dazs.”
“The point is to get you out of your comfort zone for a change,” Jen insisted, coming up behind Echo with a hairbrush and mussing up the strands a bit. “Now, you look like a…Cecelia? You can go by Cece.”
Echo pursed her mouth in contemplation, before narrowing her eyes in an effort to see herself as a Cecelia. “Cece,” she murmured, shifting her head and adjusting her shoulders so she could see where the stark line of the navy top ended and the pale expanse of her back began. “Cece…Sullivan.”
“A model who aspires to more,” Jen added in an announcer’s voice.
Echo frowned and shook her head. “No way anyone would buy I’m a model. I’m too… muscley. Just look at the size of my thighs.”
“You have a runner’s legs and your arms are ripped in a good way. All any guy is gonna think of when he sees you is how hot you look. All that gorgeous golden hair. The eyes. Come on, you look like a Viking goddess. Freija or somebody.”
Echo flushed. “What was that thing you said about one step at a time?”
“Fine. We’re dressed. Cross that off the list. You’re Cece Sullivan now. At least to anyone who asks. That was number two. Next, is getting us to a bar where no one knows Cece Sullivan or…I’m going to be Jeanette…Jeanette,”
“Uh…Jen? Don’t you think that’s a little close to your real name?”
“Right. Uh…Emily? But spelled in a weird way like…E-M-M-A-L-E-E,” Jen elaborated. “Emmalee Adams.”
“You’re not going to try to do a Southern accent, are you?”
Jen grinned. “Do you think I should?”
Echo rolled her eyes. “Just tell me where you’re taking me,” she requested, heading toward the door in her borrowed heels.
Three
“I don’t know this band,” Cole said when his friend, Dylan made his case for going out to hear a local band at some bar that aspired to be a club. He wasn’t in the mood. He should have been excited, but he knew it was a means to an end. Not what he really wanted.
“It doesn’t matter,” Dylan insisted, tossing his keys up in the air and catching them again. “They work with me, and they’re cool. We’re just going out for a few beers, and maybe the music will be decent. Best-case scenario, you pick up a girl and get laid. Worst-case scenario, you have a few beers and forget about whatever it is with this new job that’s getting you all twisted up. A job’s a job, and you were fine about it when you moved all the way out here to take it. Now it’s about ready to start, you’re gonna chicken out?”
“It’s not chickening out if I decide my principles are worth more than the money…and the fact that this job could guarantee my career and Alex’s school.” He shook his head. “I’m working for people that represent everything in life that I loathe. But I guess it won’t be forever…”
“Shut up and grab your coat. The only thing that will help with those thoughts is alcohol.”
“Alcohol won’t make it easier,” Cole insisted, but rose to follow Dylan.
“It will,” Dylan told him. “Because it can make you forget about it altogether.” He held the door open for Cole, who glanced back at the unpacked boxes littering his apartment. “Those’ll still be there when you get back. By the way, the only thing better than alcohol for you right now would be a hot chick. But they don’t have that on tap.”
Cole rolled his eyes as he ignored several jokes about what he might be able to ‘tap’ that night if there were any decent women at the bar. Cole was grateful to Dylan for letting him crash at his place until he’d found an apartment of his own. And it was good to see his friend again, but Cole wasn’t as eager to spend time with Dylan’s work buddies. They were all club promoters, and had a decidedly salesy, pitchman quality to them.
He and Dylan had been closer when they were younger, their parents being close friends and pushing the boys into activities together despite the fact they attended different schools.
But while Cole worked his ass off academically, running track, and earning scholarships to pay for college and get the hell out of their tiny town in Arizona, Dylan had preferred the party route. Who knew that could be parlayed into a real job? He’d snagged the San Diego gig when a club back home expanded.
Cole was polite around the friends he and Dylan met at the bar. Of course, Dylan told everyone about the fancy new job that Cole would be starting soon. The others were enthusiastic, but Cole wasn’t sure whether it was genuine, or had to do with the fact that some of the guys had clearly been waiting a while for him and Dylan to show up, packing away a few beers each in the process. These weren’t his friends, but beggars and choosers and all that.
San Diego was a great market. He just had to acclimate. As much as he wished, this place was not Virginia. But this was where the job was.
An hour in, Dylan elbowed him hard in the ribs and leaned in real close, his beer-soaked breath warm and wet against Cole’s ear as he said, “Check out those two at the bar, the blonde and redhead. The blond one’s pretty hot, even if she doesn’t have any tits and the redhead…” Dylan exhaled with a groan.
Cole didn’t have to be told twice about the blonde. He’d clocked her the moment she’d walked in. He’d been doing his best not to stare for the better part of ten minutes. And he was pretty sure he was shitty company right now. “Go talk to them,” Dylan prompted.
“You like the look of ’em so much, why don’t you go talk to ’em?” Cole muttered, sipping his beer.
“I’ll do one better,” he promised Cole. “I’ll get them to come over here and say hello.”
Cole rolled his eyes as Dylan strode over, the rest of their group equally amused. He was in a shitty mood, and just wanted to sulk. He should go home. But then the blonde looked over at them, and Cole couldn’t look away. She was completely breathtaking. She turned to take the new drink the bartender placed in front of her, showing the pale expanse of her back. When she turned back with a smile, Cole knew he was in trouble.
Jen refused to tell Echo anything about the place on the drive over, choosing instead to help Echo “get into character.”
“It’s not your face that makes people recognize you, necessarily,” Jen said. “It’s y
our body language, the way you carry yourself.”
“I think I’m safe, Jen—sorry, Emmalee,” Echo teased. “People remember my name cause it’s different, but not me. Dax is who they remember, because…Dax. Maybe Bryce ‘cause of the whole injury, recovery, marrying-Tami thing. And my dad and grandparents, of course… But not me. I’m lucky if they remember there’s a Coulter daughter at all.”
“Well, tonight, you’ll be lucky if you can get lucky, or close to it anyway,” Jen said with a little shoulder dance and wiggle of her hips.
“I thought the idea was to get me smooched, not get me drunk,” Echo laughed.
“You need a little bit of booze in you, first. Not enough to get you too tipsy, but enough that you’ll enjoy pretending to be someone else for the night.”
The establishment was packed. So many people. Thankfully, the bar wasn’t too far from the doors. There were a few tables with scattered stools around the outer edges of the room, but most of the people at them were standing. There was a large, open space in the middle of the room. At the front there was a low stage, where some semi-professional band was bustling around, setting up their equipment.
“What time does the show start?” Jen asked the bartender, as he got them their drinks.
“Half hour.”
“Explains why the place is still a bit empty, but why are they keeping that line out there?” Jen whispered to Echo, who sipped lightly on her gin and tonic.
“To make it seem like a super-hot place,” Echo laughed.
They waited at the bar, scanning the room and evaluating everyone that walked through the door as the place filled up.
Jen leaned over and muttered, “Incoming.”
“Hello, ladies,” a cute blond guy said smoothly. “My friends and I would like to buy you refills for your drinks, if that’s all right with you.” He nodded over his shoulder, to where the rest of his friends stood by one of the tall tables along the wall. It was a group of four or five guys, which made Echo nervous enough to swallow loudly. This was not her scene. Sure, she dated…every once in a while. Okay, rarely. But bars? Not her thing.