It was like she wasn’t listening to him. Like she hadn’t been for a while.
But someone else was listening, was hearing this all loud and clear. Jo edged away from him, twisting to put her back to the counter, cracking her knuckles in front of herself and not meeting his eyes.
“That’s great. That you’ll get to see her. Right?”
A few short weeks ago, he would’ve said yes. It was fantastic.
But he wasn’t so lonely for home anymore. Not so willing to take what he could get—at least not from Shannon.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Her voice was tight. “When do you leave?”
“Next week.”
Finally—finally—she looked at him, but her eyes were as guarded as they had been when they’d first started this… whatever it was. “Well, I guess we’ll find out then.”
Chapter Seven
Living in the tropics without goddamn air-conditioning was for masochists.
Christ. Jo mopped her brow as she stormed into her room, tugging at the overshirt she’d just about sweated through on her walk back from the lab and dragging it over her head with a growl.
“Are we mad at the shirt now?”
Somehow managing not to have a coronary or jump five feet in the air, Jo jerked around to find Carol sitting at the head of her bed. Fuck. Jo turned and dropped her gaze, flinging her shirt onto the pile of laundry in the bottom of the closet.
“The shirt’s fine. The climate’s on notice, though.”
“Yeah, it’s rough.”
Carol was one to talk. She was in another one of her stupid, cute sundresses, her hair tied up and off her neck, the one fan in the room pointed right at her face.
Meanwhile, Jo was in a tank top and baggy shorts, sweating like a pig and feeling naked, and—
And Adam was leaving tomorrow. For almost a week. To go hang out with that bitch who wouldn’t even give him a straight answer or make time in her day for him. In air-conditioning. And Jo was going to sit here boiling alive and pretending not to care.
Whatever. God knew she had plenty of experience with that at least. Maybe not the boiling part, but the rest of it she’d been practicing her entire damn life.
If she were back in Chicago and feeling like this, she’d spend some quality time with her punching bag, but no. She was stuck here, and Adam’s send-off dinner was in an hour. Part of her wanted to say fuck it all and go hide in the lab for the rest of the night. Another part wanted to march over to his room and finally put this thing that was brewing between them out in the open. Fight it out or fuck it out.
But all of those options made her feel so cowardly she wanted to scream. She wasn’t avoiding her problems, and she wasn’t going to let someone turn her into the other woman. No way.
At the sound of movement behind her, Jo sighed and tried to collect herself. She shoved the damp flop of her hair off her forehead, frowning at the way the dye was starting to fade.
Then, out of nowhere, Carol asked, “Is it your arms?”
Jo’s skin went cold. “Excuse me?”
“Or your shoulders? That you don’t want anyone to see?”
“It’s…” What the hell was Jo supposed to say to that? Her insides squirmed, and she was about to tell Carol off. What right did she have to ask? Or to notice, even? So what if Jo always wore long sleeves? There wasn’t any law against it or anything. “No, I just…”
She faltered. Just what?
“It’s okay,” Carol said. “I’m not judging. I just figured, with it this hot, you must have a reason for wanting to dress like that.”
“Like what?” A lesbian? A tomboy? She turned to look over her shoulder at Carol, only to find her standing a couple of feet away, peering into her half of the closet in consideration.
Carol shrugged. “Like someone who likes to wear sleeves.”
Hesitating, Jo rubbed at her shoulder.
The thing was, Carol wasn’t wrong. Jo’s stomach dropped, remembering the time her father had taken her to the university that once. She’d been in ninth grade, and her rebellion of the week had been frilly tank tops and short shorts. She’d walked through the halls, past the other professors’ offices, and she’d felt the same way she did now.
Naked. Frivolous. Like she didn’t belong.
She’d done a complete one-eighty over the course of the next year. The harder her look, the boxier and more manly, the easier it had been to edge her way into the heavy engineering projects on the Science Olympiad team. The more the guys in the AP Chemistry class had let her into their fold.
She still wasn’t afraid of wearing a corset top out to a bar, but never with the people from her department. Never with anyone she’d have to interact with professionally the next day.
“Shoulders,” she admitted quietly. That had seemed to be the line.
Carol nodded. She reached into the closet to grab Jo’s towel off the hook. Before Jo could ask, she pushed the terry cloth into Jo’s hands. “Go. Shower or clean up or whatever. I’ll pick out something for you for tonight.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Of course I don’t. But I want to.” She cast a quick glance Jo’s way. “Girls help other girls out. And I figured with Adam taking off and all… maybe you’d want to look a little extra nice.”
Carol had clearly chosen her words carefully. Nothing in it to insinuate that Jo didn’t look nice in general—although Jo would be the first to say she didn’t. The only implication was the one about her and Adam, and…
And it wasn’t as if Jo could really deny it. Not after the way they’d acted on the trip to the rain forest.
She took the towel and swallowed hard. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Grabbing her toiletry case, Jo turned and made her way out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, which was blessedly empty. She seemed to be on a roll with not being too much of a bitch today, so she called out, “Anybody mind if I get in the shower?”
Nobody spoke up, so Jo stepped inside and locked the door behind her. She stripped, unlacing her boots and piling her clothes atop them before starting the water, keeping it lukewarm. The spray felt good on her overheated skin as she stepped in, the soap that followed even better. Rinsing off, she turned the temperature as cold as it went and braced her hands against the tile as she let it wash over her.
Her nipples hardened, making the barbell running through the left one stand out all the more. She gave it a little tweak between her forefinger and thumb and felt it in her cunt, squeezing her eyes shut and twisting her neck to the side to suck in a greedy lungful of air through her mouth. She dropped her hand away from her flesh. Opened her eyes to cast a glance down her frame.
She’d never really given a good goddamn about what men might think of the things she’d done to her body, the metal and ink she’d put there to make it feel like her own. But it was hard not to wonder how Adam might react. So many of her assumptions about him had been wrong, but he still gave off such a vanilla vibe. If he saw her like this, would he be aroused or repulsed?
She rolled her eyes at herself as she turned off the water. The boy had seen her neck and her face, and he hadn’t run yet. The rest of it couldn’t come as too much of a surprise.
She really, really hoped he’d be aroused.
The heat in the air crept back in as she dried herself off, humidity making a mist cling to the medicine cabinet mirror. She swiped at the surface until she could see her own reflection. Flushed skin and big, dark eyes and hair dripping into her face.
She dug into her bag for her hair goop and scooped some out with her fingers. She combed it through the wet strands, then pushed the ends behind her ears. Tilting her head to one side and then the other, she looked deeper. Something in her chest thrummed.
There probably wasn’t much point to this. She burrowed deeper into her kit all the same, until she got her hands around the little pack she’d buried in there without exactly knowing why. Makeup
wasn’t part of her usual routine, and all she really knew how to do with it was get ready for a club—or Halloween, not that there was much difference between the two in how she dressed. She could do this, though. Look normal. A little extra nice, just in case.
Wiping the mirror down whenever it got too fogged up for her to see, she dabbed concealer under her eyes and blended in foundation. A tiny bit of eyeliner and lip gloss.
When she stepped back to get the full effect, her shoulders fell. She looked ridiculous. Not strong and powerful the way she did with crimson lips and smoldering eyes. Not normal like she did with nothing at all. She felt like a doll. And now Carol was going to play dress-up with her.
What was she doing?
Resisting the urge to just wash it all off, she wrapped her towel around her chest and zipped her bag, hauling it along with her as she stormed to her room. If Carol tried to put her in a dress, she’d just say no. Wear the same plain shit she wore every day, and if anybody didn’t like it, they could kiss her ass.
At her and Carol’s door, Jo stopped. Carol was sitting on her own bed again, her earbuds in, her attention seemingly on whatever she was reading, but her posture was too stiff. She was waiting. Steeling herself for the worst, Jo turned to her own bed, and…
And it really wasn’t so bad.
It was her own damn skirt—the only one she’d brought. Knee length and army green with about a million pockets. And laid with it, one of Carol’s tops. It was black, thank God, with short sleeves. A little flowy and gauzy, but over one of Jo’s typical undershirts, it’d be okay.
“Just a suggestion,” Carol said.
Jo’s throat didn’t quite know how to work. She flexed her jaw. “Thanks,” she managed.
“You’re welcome. I have some jewelry, too, if you want.”
“Nah.” She stepped closer to touch the fabric of the shirt. It was soft. “I have my own.”
She kept her back to Carol as she dressed, tugging on her underwear before dropping the towel and strapping on one of her few bras that was meant for more than keeping her boobs from bouncing and her piercing from showing. She dressed without thinking too hard about what she was doing, only noticing once she was done that Carol’d left out some sandals, too. They were strappy and black with a barely there heel. Jo stared at them for a long minute.
“You’d be a hell of a lot cooler.”
Carol wasn’t wrong. Jo stepped into them. They were a little snug, but not too bad. Before turning to face the mirror attached to the back of their door, she opened the bottom drawer of her dresser, shoving aside the rest of the stuff she’d stowed in there until she came up with the silk change purse. She only owned two necklaces, and one of them was a black studded choker. The other, though, was a delicate silver chain with a small oval locket.
Taking care not to twist the links, she extricated it. Brought it up to her throat and fastened the clasp at the nape of her neck. The metal sat cool against the space between her collarbones, and she ran her thumb over the locket’s hinge before squeezing it once.
Before she stood and turned around, she pulled in a long, slow breath. Then she opened her eyes and looked.
And there in the mirror was… her. Only a little extra nice. A little more skin.
A few more memories pressed against the center of her ribs.
Adam gave his things one final check. Five shirts, five pairs of socks and underwear. Five days home in the continental United States, and two of them with Shannon. Maybe.
He’d been looking forward to this the entire time he’d been here, and now that it was time…
He was still looking forward to it. The trip would be a good break, a good chance to find some perspective. He needed to get his head on straight and figure out what was happening with his life.
But no matter how excited about it he was, a nervous itching teased at the back of his mind. He’d finally gotten himself settled in here, and leaving, even if only for a little while, felt like abandoning something unfinished. Like pausing a movie when it was getting to the good part. He wanted to know what happened next.
Pushing his anxieties down, he started piling the stacks of clothes into his duffel bag. It fit with room to spare, and he stood there, considering for a minute. Without really thinking about it, he patted his pocket for his phone.
Before he could pull it out and check the icons for any alerts or missed calls, a knock sounded on his door. He looked up to find Jared leaning against it. He was fiddling with his own phone, tapping something on the screen.
“Yeah?” Adam asked.
Without looking up, Jared gestured toward the other house. “Kim says dinner’s almost done.”
Adam smirked. The two of them had been disappearing together a lot recently. It didn’t surprise him much that she’d been the one to message Jared that it was time to come over. “Is that all she had to say?”
“Shut up.” Jared hit another couple of keys, then palmed his phone and tucked it away. “You ready to go or not?”
Casting another glance at the shit he was taking to Baltimore with him, Adam nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” With a nod, he zipped up his bag.
But instead of moving from the door, Jared grinned. “You didn’t forget about protection, did you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Just checking. Because I have extra if you need any.”
The back of Adam’s neck heated. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Dude.” Jared snorted. “I worry about you all the time.”
“Thanks. I think.” With that, he shouldered past Jared and out into the hall.
As it happened, he hadn’t forgotten about condoms. He’d had the safe-sex talk drilled into his skull about a million times; he basically didn’t leave home without one. He sure as hell didn’t leave town to see his maybe-girlfriend without a solid half dozen.
Even as he’d been packing them, he’d wondered if it was worth the bother, though. The lack of sex—the lack of contact—these past few weeks had been getting to him the way it would any red-blooded male. If he’d still been in the mind-set he’d had when he’d arrived, he probably already would’ve been imagining the things he and Shannon could do, how good it would be to touch her again, even if it wasn’t serious. But he wasn’t.
Shannon wasn’t the one he thought about any more on those hot, lonely nights when he took himself in hand.
With Jared trailing along behind him, he crossed the path to the other house, where he knocked twice before tugging open the door and striding through. And there, right in front of him, was the girl he did think about. The one he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Wow,” he said, freezing in his tracks.
Jared narrowly missed slamming into him, but Adam didn’t move. He just stood there, soaking it in.
It was definitely Jo all right, all glinting metal and bright blue hair, but she was showing off her arms and her legs, and the lines of characters inked around her ankle. Pale, unpainted toes that never saw the sun.
“Hey.” She shifted her weight, leaning back against the arm of the couch.
Adam jerked his gaze up to her face. Even there she looked different somehow. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he liked it. A lot.
“See?” Jared said in a mock-whisper, clapping a hand on Adam’s shoulder as he stepped around him. “This is why I worry about you.”
“Fuck off.” Adam moved to let him pass. It brought him farther into the living room, closer to Jo, and the fire that hadn’t lit in his belly thinking about Shannon and him together in a hotel room all weekend ignited. Turned his skin to ash, and he was still feet away, and Jo’s posture was tight. Closed.
There was a tilt to her head, though. An invitation, maybe.
He took another step closer and cleared his throat. Shoved his hands into his pockets. “You look, ah, nice. Tonight.”
She raised an eyebrow skeptically.
He wanted to shove his foot into his mouth. “I mean, you alway
s look nice, but you look…”
“Extra nice?” she volunteered, a ghost of a smile playing across the corners of her mouth.
“Yeah.” He nodded.
Her grin widened. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”
He didn’t look any different from usual, but damn if it wasn’t nice to hear.
Behind them, the rest of the gang had gathered in the kitchen, and the sounds of plates and silverware clanging intruded on their bubble of space, but Adam could scarcely hear it.
Her neckline was open, the fabric soft, and that contrast alone was enough to make his breath go tight. Like he was watching himself from a distance, he saw his own hand rise, and then he was touching her skin, her collarbone, grazing a little silver chain that draped along the long, proud column of her neck.
“You don’t usually wear jewelry.” He let his fingertip trace down toward the pendant hanging from the necklace.
“No.” Her inhalation made her chest rise, her voice holding the barest hint of a tremor. “I don’t.”
Darting his gaze from the fall of silver to the open lights of her eyes, he licked his lips. “It doesn’t look like you.”
“It was my mother’s.”
And it felt like it took something from her to say that. She didn’t talk much about her life beyond this little island and this slice of time, except when she was using her own history to cut him down. This was different. This was new, and it made him crave so much more.
It made him want everything, and for a second, it felt like all he had to do was ask for it.
Then, just before he reached the metal locket, her hand closed around his, stilling his movements. Her skin was warm, but it sent a chill up his arm as she stopped him.
“Sorry,” he said, pulling back. Remembering himself and where and who they were.
“It’s okay.” She didn’t let him go, holding on as their hands fell away. She stroked her thumb across the point of his pulse.
He got the message. Some things he could touch. Others he wasn’t allowed to—yet.
When The Stars Align Page 9