Getting Hot

by Mia Storm

  The engine rumbles every time he presses the gas pedal, like some kind of wild thing, and it strikes me how perfect this car is for Bran. They both feel wild and a little dangerous.

  He glances at me as he weaves through the loose Tuesday rush hour traffic and his grip on the steering wheel tightens. “How does your boyfriend feel about this trip?”

  For a second, I’m totally lost.

  He must see the bafflement on my face, because he clarifies. “White Mustang?”

  I feel my eyes widen. “Jon.”

  “Jon.” His lip curls in an acerbic smile as he repeats his name.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  His eyes cut to me. “Does he know that?”

  I nod. “Definitely.”

  “So, just a fuckbuddy?”

  “Just a garden variety buddy. No fucking.”

  He shoots me a sideways look, then takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “Good.”

  “Why good?”

  His lips press into a line and he shakes his head. I realize it‘s to reconsider the course of this convo when he changes the subject. “I think it’s great that you and Destiny are so tight.”

  I scowl at him. “That was random.”

  He flashes me a glance. “Just an observation.”

  I settle deeper in the seat. “You have family other than Vicky?”

  He nods. “My parents split when we were kids and Mom got the bar. Dad got the gym, which my sister Brenda runs. She and Ma live in town and Dad lives in Jonestown…so just far enough that he and Ma don’t need to see each other all the time, but close enough they can get in each other’s faces or beds—whichever mood strikes.”

  I can’t stop my mouth falling open. “They sleep together?”

  He shrugs. “Sometimes.”

  “You don’t think they’ll get back together?”

  He blows out a laugh. “No. They hate each other.”

  “But they sleep together…?”

  “It’s complicated.” He shoots me a glance, and in it, I see the fire he’s trying so hard to contain.

  I should tell him. I opened my mouth to say it at the bar on Saturday night, but then Destiny was there, and after she was gone, the moment had passed. I even typed it into a text last night, but then decided the fact he’s been fondling a sixteen-year-old was something he deserved to hear from the horse’s mouth.

  I will tell him.

  Right now.

  “Mind if I play some of Lo’s tracks?” I blurt, holding up my phone.

  He opens the center console and pulls out a wire with a headphone jack. “It’s the original stereo,” he says with a nod at the dash, “but I rigged it.”

  I plug the jack into my phone and cue my Lo playlist. She’s gotten the bonus bump on her score every week for hitting the top ten on iTunes.

  I tip my head back and close my eyes as Lo’s voice fills the car and transports me back to the subway. I can hear her pure tones echoing off the tile walls around us, drowning me in awesome.

  When it gets to the end and starts to repeat, I click it off.

  “Don’t bite my head off, Lilah, but you’re every bit as good as she is.”

  Bran’s voice is low, and when I look at him, he’s looking right back at me.

  “Road,” I say, pointing out the windshield.

  He turns his eyes back to the highway that stretches straight and flat for as far as the eye can see. We’re in the middle of nowhere, so there are very few cars, and none nearby.

  “It could just as easily be you in the final tonight.”

  I huff a frustrated laugh through my nose. “You don’t get it. Shiloh is special.”

  His arm straightens, pushing his shoulders deeper into the seat. “So are you.”

  Chapter 19

  Bran

  With just that one sentence, she totally closes off. Her arms fold hard across her chest and she turns to look out the passenger window. She’s so angry that I suggested she might be better than her friend.

  “Why are you afraid of that?”

  She turns back to me. “I’m not afraid of anything. It’s just not true.”

  I’ve seen the look on her face a thousand times in Afghanistan—sometimes when I looked in the mirror. It’s the expression we all wear when we’re desperately trying to convince ourselves we’re not afraid. But our eyes always betray us, and I see her fear shining there.

  I shake my head. “Everyone’s afraid of something.”

  “What are you afraid of?” she shoots back.

  “Wow,” I say, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. “Where should I start?”

  She just looks at me, waiting.

  “I’m afraid of dying before I’ve ever lived. I’m afraid the best is behind me and this is all there is. I’m afraid of missing out on something great because I didn’t recognize it in time to grab hold. I’m afraid of admitting that I want more, because what if there isn’t more?” I grip the wheel and look at her. “I’m afraid of falling asleep.”

  “Nightmares?” she asks.

  I look out over the endless road. “Not if I don’t sleep.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  Cold sweat breaks across the back of my neck and I rub it. “Not my favorite topic.”

  Her lips thin into a line as she nods. “I can respect that.” She tips her head and those silver eyes cut through all my bullshit. “I know the shit I’ve been through is probably nothing compared to what you’ve seen, but it’s still enough to give me nightmares.”

  I don’t know whether it’s just Lilah, or the idea of actually talking about things I’ve never thought I’d be able to, but my heart is galloping in my chest. “You train for months, drills and simulations. They tell you you’re ready and they send you off. They don’t tell you how loud it is. When you’re in the middle of a firefight…” I shake my head. “They don’t tell you that you’ll never hear your brother’s scream over the shells. That the only way you’ll know he’s dead is when you turn around and see his mangled body, bleeding out into the sand.”

  I take a breath and hold it, waiting for the roll of acid up my throat to settle.

  “They don’t tell you you’ll hear those shells for the rest of your life, and every time you close your eyes, you’ll see it again…try to change it, put yourself where your buddy was. They don’t tell you that’s the only time you’ll hear the scream, because it’s yours, waking you from the nightmare.” I swallow and glance at her. “They don’t tell you shit.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but those eyes stay fixed on mine until I turn back to the road. Her hand slides like silk over the back of mine, on the gearshift, and she threads her fingers between mine. I know she feels me shaking, but I can’t stop it.

  We stay just like that as I navigate us over the Grape Vine and down into the L.A. basin. When I have my shit mostly back together, I look at her. “I know you’ve been through some shit too. You’ve got the look.”

  “What look?”

  “The ‘don’t mess with me’ look. It’s the armor everyone who’s been through shit they’re not really dealing with wears to keep people from noticing.”

  She takes her hand off mine and I wish I kept my mouth shut, but it’s too late now. Can of worms opened.

  “I told you my shit,” she says without looking at me. “Tweaker parents.”

  I cut her a glance. “But there’s more to it.”

  She stiffens, her hands pressing into the seat next to her legs. “Why would you think that?”

  My eyes brush over her and I flick my T-shirt. “Matching armor.”

  She rolls her head toward the passenger window and watches the cars we pass for a good while. “The day of the fire, Lo and I got expelled for gambling at school. She kept all her odds spreadsheets in the school’s cloud account and she’d log bets in the computer lab at lunch. Our house was always full of squatters, but when I got home early, there was only Dad and a guy I didn’t know. Don’t even kno
w what happened to him after. Guess he took off or whatever. I went upstairs and the next thing I know there’s screaming and…” She takes a deep breath. “I remember getting trapped on the stairs because the fire had already spread. Destiny soaked some blankets and we wrapped them around ourselves and ran through it. The fire trucks were just showing up, but Destiny and I just kept walking after we got out.” She shakes her head. “It’s all a little fuzzy, but I think we stayed at Lo’s group home that night. After, we kicked around between some of Destiny’s friends apartments until we found our crappy apartment in the Tenderloin.”

  She’s quiet for a minute, but I wait to see if there’s more. “No one ever came looking for you?” I finally ask. “CPS or the cops?”

  “Destiny thought if we kept our heads down, no one would think to look for us.” She shrugs. “Turns out she was right.”

  “Wow. So you guys have been on your own since you were fourteen?”

  She turns to me then, her eyes wide, and again, I see that vulnerability. She opens her mouth and looks like she’s going to say something, but then closes it again.

  Acid burns through my insides at the knowledge that her drug addicted parents nearly killed both of their kids. I scrub a hand over my chin to keep from punching something. For a long time we’re quiet as I get my temper under control.

  “Where was the rest of your family?” I finally ask when I can keep the shake of my rage out of my voice. “Grandparents, aunts, uncles. If your parents were strung out, someone else should have stepped up and looked out for you.”

  “My uncle’s the one who started my parents using. Grandma knew things were bad, which is why she took us in the summers, but it didn’t get really bad until after she was in the nursing home.”

  “Have you seen your parents since?” I ask, fury running like a river through my words. “Confronted them?”

  She shakes her head. “What’s the point? It won’t change anything that happened.”

  My jaw is clamped so tight I don’t know how I’m not cracking teeth. We get stuck in some traffic getting across L.A. to the Sony Studios in Culver City. A few blocks from the parking garage, there’s a diner. I pull into the lot.

  Lilah makes no move to get out. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Me either, but you should eat something.”

  She shoulders open her door and gets out. I meet her at the front of the car and we head inside. We’re seated at the window and she stares out at nothing as the waitress fills our coffee mugs.

  “Listen, you’re right about the past,” I say once she’s gone with our orders—a side of bacon for her and a slice of apple pie a la mode for me. “There’s nothing we can do to change it. This is about right now, and right now, your best friend is about to make something pretty spectacular happen, so that’s where your head should be.”

  She pulls her gaze back into the room and finds mine. “You’re right. Fuck the past. The future’s going to be kickass and I’m not going to miss it because I’m too busy wallowing over my fucked-in-the-head parents.”

  I nod. “That sounds about right.”

  ♫

  We jump through all the hoops to get parked and through security, and we’re led to seats in the second row, in the “family box.” The minute we walk in, Lilah’s face lights. Her eyes scan the room, over the stage that’s being prepped and the seats where the judges or coaches or whatever sit, and she drinks it all in.

  We settle into our seats and she reaches for my hand, nearly crushing it in her surprisingly strong grip. I focus on the feel of her skin on mine and realize, if I close my eyes and soften my hand, I can feel her pulse. It’s racing and she’s flushed with anticipation.

  God, she’s beautiful.

  And when she smiles at me, it knocks the wind out of me.

  Finally, the four coaches take their seats and the show starts.

  Some spit-and-polished guy with hair as shiny as his shoes stands up onstage in a monkey suit and tells us this is what the entire season has been leading up to; that one of the final four will be crowned The Voice and score a recording contract that will launch his or her career. But all I see is Lilah. I can’t take my eyes off her.

  Each of the singers takes their turn, and when Shiloh is announced to perform last, Lilah screams and bounds to her feet.

  I listen to Shiloh and she’s good, but the honest to fuck truth is, Shiloh has nothing on Lilah.

  There’s a commercial break and the house lights come up. People all around us start chattering, but Lilah is still absorbing. She reaches for my hand again when they start cueing us to quiet down and the house lights lower.

  The spotlight flashes to Spit and Polish, who says, “Here to sing her original song, ‘More Than Nothing,’ written by her best friend, Delilah Morgan, put your hands together for Shiloh Luck!”

  I spin on Lilah as everyone rises to their feet and claps. She’s standing next to me with her hands pressed to her flushed cheeks, an overwhelmed kid at Christmas. “Did you know?”

  She nods, and there’s a mix of terror and exhilaration in her eyes that makes them glow in the dim lighting. “She called me when they were deciding on songs and asked if I had anything fresh. I sent her the one I wrote for you and they loved it. I had to sign a release so they could use it.”

  I smile and shake my head as her friend launches into the song I first heard Lilah sing from her perch on my barstool weeks ago. As I listen, I realize the song is about so much more than I first believed. It’s about breaking chains and not being afraid to live. It’s about making life count. And fuck me, that’s what this girl has done to me. All my fears about dying before I’ve lived, and missing out on something great—she’s the fix to all of it. Out of the blue, she showed up in my life and made it into more than the nothing it was before. She’s the thing I look forward to every morning. She’s the thing that gives my life color and flavor and amperage. She brings me to life.

  I can’t stop staring at her as she jumps to the rhythm and sings along, oblivious to the furtive looks from people around us. And her voice does to me what it always does, wakes up the starving beast inside.

  She speaks to me on every level, body, mind, and soul, and right now, they’re all in agreement.

  Delilah Morgan owns me.

  Chapter 20

  Lilah

  Lo is crushing it and everyone is on their feet. One second I’m rocking out and the next, the fat guy to my left bounces right into me. I go flying and I find myself in Bran’s arms. Pressed against his chest. His biceps ripple as his hands lock over my hips. He pulls me against him so we each have a knee between the other’s, and his gaze melts me as he starts so sway to the rhythm.

  All of a sudden, I’m standing five inches from the sun. I feel every hard ridge of Bran’s ripped body pressed against me. I feel his hands glide to my ass and pull me tighter against his leg. And god, that leg. It’s steel between my thighs, rubbing on my most sensitive spot and forcing my breath to catch. I close my eyes and feel my breathing go ragged. And when my lips part in a gasp that’s swallowed by the pound of the music and the roar of the crowd as they woot for my best friend, Bran takes the invitation. His mouth closes over mine, insistent and unyielding, taking what he needs from me. And I give him that and more.

  Our first kiss rocked my world. Our second knocked it off its axis. This one is going to blow it apart.

  I claw at him, because there’s suddenly no way I can get close enough. His mouth on mine goes from desperate to ravenous and he grasps my ass harder. I grind myself against his leg and drop my head back and gasp again, louder this time, as I feel my world coming apart all around me.

  He knows just how to play me and I realize I’m going to come right here in the middle of a crowded television studio with my best friend tearing the place down.

  The song ends and the place erupts in applause, but I barely notice because I’m crying out for an entirely different reason. It occurs to me I’m going to hate myself in just ab
out five minutes when I realize A) I missed most of Lo’s performance and B) All I care about right this second is fucking my sister’s…boyfriend? Or is he just a prospect? She told me she doesn’t love him. But she thinks she needs to provide me with stability, and Bran is her plan to do that.

  All I know is that every time I catch him watching me play at the bar, despite my heart beating a little faster, I feel lightheaded. I can’t concentrate and my fingers sometimes forget what they’re supposed to be doing on the strings. I’ll blank on the lyrics to a song I’ve sung a thousand times.

  I wrote the song Shiloh just sung because he made me feel like everything wasn’t shit. Looking forward to seeing him is what made my life “More than Nothing.” He messes with my head and twists my body into knots. He makes me feel electric with the slightest touch. I don’t know if that’s love, but I do know no one’s ever done those things to me before.

  And sure as hell, no one’s ever made me come with their thigh pressed between my legs. But as I gasp out his name, sparks flash behind my closed eyelids.

  The applause dies down and Bran lowers my Jell-O body into my seat as everyone begins to sit. When I glance at the guy on my other side, he’s grinning at me.

  The coaches are commenting on Lo’s performance and I try to focus. Adam jabs at Blake that he can’t win them all and they agree that that song will make Lo tough to beat.

  Bran lifts my hand from where it rests on my thigh and the press of warm, rough skin against mine as he folds my hand into his sends a flood of heat through me.

  I like Bran way more than I should…for a lot of reasons. I have to tell him the truth.

  The rest of the show passes in a blur and I’m so wound up that I don’t even realize my phone is buzzing as we navigate the crush of bodies out of the studio. I pull it from my pocket, expecting Destiny, but it’s Lo.

  I yank Bran to the side and answer. “Oh my god, Lo! You crushed it!”

  “Because of you!” she squeals. “Did you hear Blake and Adam? They loved your song!”