The first week I moved to Tampa, I met Jake at a bar Meg had taken me to. Apparently, those two went to school together for years. A few weeks later, he invited me to a party at his house. That’s when he introduced me to his sister. Even at seventeen, Jade was no pushover. One time, I watched as she put a grown man in his place without batting an eye. It wasn’t pretty. Jade Quinn also happens to be drop dead gorgeous. The only reason I’ve never tried to sleep with her is because her brother is one of the closest friends I have here. Okay, that and she would never tolerate my “whoring around”, as she calls it. She’d probably kick my ass before her brother even got the chance.
There’s no way Jade is awake yet. Since I am, there’s no reason to just lie around when I could be getting ready. If I show up at her door before she gets up, she’ll kill me. Climbing out of bed this early on a Saturday is painful, even without a hangover. After dropping my boxers to the floor, to go along with the rest of this week’s dirty laundry, I go across the hallway to the bathroom. My reflection reveals an overtired, overworked version of myself. When did this happen? A cold shower should help me feel a little better. It doesn’t, of course. Why didn’t I just pick up another girl from the club last night? Maybe if I had, I would have forgotten all about Kacie and I could still be sleeping. Why the fuck am I still thinking about some random girl who just so happened to sit down at my bar?
An hour later, my Dodge Ram pulls into the Quinn’s driveway. I have no idea what to say to Jade. “Hey, who’s the girl you were dragging out of the club last night?” That’ll go over really well. Both of their cars are here, so at least they’re home. The second after ringing the doorbell, I consider the fact that Kacie may be here. What if she crashed here after leaving the club last night? Girls do that kind of shit, right? I should have checked with Jake before coming all the way over here. Before I can turn to walk away, the door swings open. Jade glares at me as if I had done something wrong.
“The answer is no,” is all she says as she walks away. She’s already dressed in her bathing suit, so I know I didn’t wake her up. Thank goodness for that. Since she left the door open, I take it as an invitation to go inside. This house isn’t nearly as big as most of the places in the neighborhood, but it’s still awesome and a whole lot better than my condo. I enter through the oak door, closing it behind me. The foyer is pretty big. It leads to the stairs on my left, the kitchen next to that, the living room directly in front of me, or the garage on my right. I can hear voices coming from the kitchen, so that’s where I go.
Silence falls over the room as I enter it. Jake is sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal, looking at something on his phone. Jade is standing next to the island in the huge modern kitchen. She has her hand on her hip looking hot, as usual.
“What’s up?” Jake greets me.
“Good morning, beautiful,” I say to Jade. She doesn’t say anything back. “What’s up, Jake? You working today?” Does everyone except for me normally wake up this early on a Saturday morning?
“Hell, no. I don’t do weekends,” he tells me. “I need to work on my car. They should be calling about the next race soon, don’t you think?” It took a little while for Jake to tell me about the races. Guess he needed to make sure I wasn’t a snitch or anything.
“I’m pretty sure it’ll be this week or next. They aren’t going to want all the holiday traffic around,” I agree. “With any luck, it won’t be until after Wednesday, though. The Scirocco should be ready by then.” One good thing about my uncle going to Europe was that he made the arrangements for my car to be shipped over as soon as he got there.
“Your uncle is going to kill you if something happens to that car.”
“Why would he kill me? I paid for everything. He just had to set it up for me.”
“I still can’t believe you are entering it in a street race.”
“That’s the reason I bought it,” I remind him.
“I don’t want to be around when someone scratches it.”
“I’m serious, Evan. The answer is no,” Jade interrupts. She’s been so quiet, I almost forgot she was there.
“I don’t remember asking you a question,” I admit.
“Kacie Foster is your question and my answer is no. You can’t sleep with her,” Jade blurts out.
Unintentionally, I start to laugh. Jake is shaking his head. He probably knows what I’m about to say. “I don’t ask anyone’s permission to sleep with a girl, except for the girl.”
“This isn’t a joke. She’s not just any girl. I saw the way you were looking at her last night,” Jade says.
“And how was that?” I ask, sarcastically.
“Like you were ready to rip her clothes off and throw her ass over the bar.”
I flash Jade the smile I know has been wetting panties for years. “Are you jealous?”
“Screw you!” she barks and it makes me laugh again. “Jake, help me out here.” She looks desperately to her brother for assistance.
He sighs. “Kacie’s family, Evan,” is all he says to me, but he’s implying a lot more. You don’t fuck around with a friend’s family. “She’s not your type, anyway.”
That strikes a nerve. “What’s my type?” I ask, slightly irritated and a little offended.
“Easy,” Jake confidently says, taking his dishes over to the sink.
“Look, Evan.” Jade is much calmer now that she knows Jake is on her side. “Kacie has had a really rough life, which got worse over the last few months. I just got her to come home. The second something happens, she’s going to bolt and I may never get her back again! She’s my best friend and I don’t want to lose her.”
“What do you mean, ‘just got her back’? She’s from here? How come I’ve never seen her before?”
“I’ve been friends with her since we were in the fourth grade,” she starts telling me, grabbing two Cokes from the refrigerator and potato chips from the cabinet. “The day after high school graduation, she packed her shit and moved over a thousand miles away to go to college. She didn’t even hang around for the summer. Her parents have treated her like crap since the day she was born. Other than us,” she glances over to Jake, “she’s only had her grandparents to love her. Her grandfather passed away years ago and her grandmother, who she was closest to, passed away about four months ago. She’s broken and scarred deeper than any of us.” Kacie Foster and I have more things in common than I would have ever guessed. Well, all except for the broken part.
“Why did she come back?” I ask, sympathetically. There’s no way in hell I’d ever go home.
Jade shrugs her shoulders. “She says there are some things she needs to take care of here.”
“What does any of this have to do with me being interested in her?” I try to play off being unaffected by the information she’s just given me.
“Damn it, Evan!” Jade yells. “Kacie isn’t the kind of girl to sleep around the way you do. Stay the fuck away from her!”
“And if I don’t?” It slips out before I can stop it. This isn’t helping my cause.
“Evan, knock it off.” Jake stops what he is doing. “Jade, chill.” He’s shaking his head again. “Stop acting like an old married couple. You,” he looks at his sister, “can’t tell people what to do. You,” he looks at me, “should respect your friend’s feelings. I’ll be in the garage. Don’t make me come back in here.”
Jade gives me a nasty look and starts to head toward the back door. I don’t want her to be mad at me. “Alright, I get it. You don’t want your friend hurt and I can respect that.” She stops walking. “I promise not to sleep with her.” Jade smiles. “Unless she begs. I don’t have the willpower to deny a beautiful girl who begs.”
“I hate you,” she informs me.
“Wait a second.” It occurs to me that she’s holding two sodas. “Is she here?”
“Uh, no,” she says, glancing over her shoulder at the door. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?” I’m not going to let her s
lide on this. “What does that mean?”
“After last night with her parents ganging up on her, she’s ready to run. Promise me you won’t be the one who sends her out of town,” Jade pleads. Kacie must really mean a lot for her to be acting the way she is.
“I promise.” Hopefully, I don’t screw that up.
The internal debate going on in her head right now is quite obvious. Eventually, she makes a decision. “She’s not here. She lives next door.”
Earlier, when the thought of Kacie being here occurred to me as I knocked on the door, I wanted to run far away. Now, knowing she’s only a few yards away, I have a whole different feeling. For the last twelve hours, I’ve done nothing but think about this girl and now I finally get to see her again. Happiness runs through me as I bounce over and open the door for Jade.
“You better be on your best behavior, Evan Pierce,” Jade warns, walking past me. I follow her through her backyard over to where the hedge separates this yard from the next one. The hedge is interrupted in one spot by a white archway covered in a flowered vine.
“Why aren’t you hanging out by your pool?” I ask, looking back at the Quinn’s yard. Before Jade can explain, the view I walk into speaks for itself. The landscaping is amazing. Palm trees, tropical flowers, the pool, the view of the bay are all spectacular themselves, but the house is what stands out the most. Huge windows on both the lower and upper levels provide a picturesque view from almost every room in the place. There’s a balcony off one of the rooms upstairs, and there’s another room on the ground level which opens up onto a patio semi-separated from the rest of the yard by a row of tall plants. Who the hell can afford a place like this?
Jade doesn’t wait for me to keep up with her. She heads over and makes herself at home on a lounge chair next to her friend. As I slowly approach, my eyes roam over Kacie’s entire body, of which her blue strapless bikini gives me the perfect view. She’s just as beautiful as I imagined she would be. Unlike last night, she has her hair pulled up. Her eyes are hidden behind black sunglasses and a book has her complete attention. Jade hands her one of the bottles of soda and puts the bag of potato chips on the glass table between them. Kacie never looks away from the page she’s reading, although she mumbles her gratitude.
When I finally make my way to where they are sitting, words have escaped me. This must be what it feels like to be intimidated by a girl. To be afraid of rejection. I have to pull my shit together. This is ridiculous. I talk to females all the damn time. Why hasn’t she looked at me? She has to know I’m here. I clear my throat in hopes of drawing her eyes up. Maybe she’ll speak first and make this easier.
Jade sighs and says, “Kacie, that’s Evan Pierce, who you may or may not remember from the club last night.” Jade immediately goes back to looking at the magazine she has just picked up. I sit down on the edge of the chair on the other side of Kacie.
Kacie looks up for a second. “Oh, hey,” she says, then she’s back into the book. What the fuck?
“Hey. What’s going on over here?” I try to strike up a conversation.
She holds the book up even higher as if I didn’t see it before and mumbles, “Reading.” It sounds like Jade may be chuckling behind her magazine. This isn’t going as well as I hoped.
“Anything good?”
“Yup.” Her one word answers suck.
“What’s with the Coke and potato chips so early in the morning?”
“Hangover.”
“Seriously, you should try it, Ev,” Jade says. “Works every time.” Thanks for throwing me a bone there, Jade.
“Are you doing any better since the last time I saw you?” I ignore Jade and attempt to talk to Kacie again. This time, I nudge her leg with the back of my hand. Man, her leg is smooth.
Finally, I found something to grab her attention. Kacie stops reading, but doesn’t put the book down. She flips her sunglasses to the top of her head. “I am. Thank you for asking, and thank you for the drinks last night. I really appreciate what you did. Jade and I are planning on going out later. I was going to stop by the club to pay for them.”
“You’re welcome to come to the club anytime you want, but you won’t pay for a damn thing while you’re there,” I tell her.
“You don’t have to do that! You don’t even know me,” she says, looking puzzled.
“You’re Jade’s best friend. That’s good enough for me.” That and the fact that she has me so turned on, I can’t think straight.
She smiles, nods her thanks, and goes back to her book. Jade glances over and sticks her tongue out at me. Why doesn’t this girl want to talk to me? Once again, my eyes leave Kacie’s face, linger on her chest, gaze over her tight abs, check out her navel piercing, and travel down her perfectly toned legs. She must put in hours at the gym to look this good. I can’t take the silence any longer, so I reach over and yank the book out of her hand.
“Hey! Give me that!” Kacie leans over, trying to grab the book back, only to give me a perfect view down her bikini top. She almost manages to grab it from me while I’m distracted, but I quickly recover.
“Let’s see what’s so interesting,” I smirk, pretending to read the words on the page.
She scrambles to get up off of the chair, but I stand up at the same time and hold it high enough so she can’t reach it. Good thing she’s short. “Seriously. Give me the book. They’re fighting. He’s about to admit he loves her.”
“How do you know?”
“She’s read it about five times,” Jade blurts out, clearly annoyed. I’m not sure if she’s annoyed because Kacie read the book so many times or because I’m flirting with her.
Kacie is now holding her balance by leaning her one hand on my forearm, trying to reach for the book. Again, she throws me off-guard. This time, it’s by how good it feels to have her touching me. Why is she affecting me like this? Our eyes lock, but she pulls her hand away and looks down.
“Can I please have my book back?” she whispers.
“Nope,” I tease.
Kacie sighs and walks over to the edge of the pool. She breathes in deeply before launching herself into the water. She must have had some type of training because she flawlessly glides from one end of the pool to the other.
Jade brings me out of a trance by laughing almost hysterically. “What’s so funny?” I ask, a little pissed.
“Other than watching you fail for the first time in your life, you just assured me that Kacie will never beg you. Now I don’t have to worry about you running her out of town. Thank you very much,” she answers, still chuckling.
“And how did I do that?”
She points to the book I’m still holding in my hand. “You don’t ever touch a girl’s favorite book, especially when she’s at one of the best parts.”
“That’s ridiculous. I was just kidding with her. She’s not really going to hate me because I touched her book,” I try to convince myself. Jade sounds so sure. Maybe she’s just trying to psych me out.
“We’ll see,” she smiles.
“Whatever,” I grumble.
When I look back, Kacie is climbing out of the shallow end. One step at a time, she makes her way up the steps and onto the concrete walkway that runs all the way around the pool. Her eyes are closed as she reaches up and fixes her hair the water just loosened from its position. She’s not trying to flaunt her body the way most girls would. She’s standing there as if no one is watching. Kacie doesn’t come back to where Jade and I are sitting. She heads over to a garden, still dripping wet.
Even though I’ve only been in her presence on two short occasions, the realization of how different Kacie is from anyone I’ve ever met sets in. She is completely confident in herself. Not the narcissistic type of confident, either. More like the type that exudes maturity, determination, and sophistication. Kacie Foster isn’t the kind of girl who sleeps with random guys, nor would such a guy deserve to have someone like her. She deserves better. She deserves so much more than a guy like me.
Rising up from the chair, I sigh as I drop her book and grab the towel hanging over the back of Kacie’s chair. “What’s the matter, playboy? Can’t figure out why the pretty girl isn’t begging yet?” Jade remarks, mockingly.
“No. I know exactly why,” I say, miserably. She doesn’t make any more comments, but I can feel her stare burning into my back as I walk over to Kacie. As I walk up behind her, I can see she has a tattoo on her lower back off to the right side. It’s so bright out here that I can barely see, but it looks like a bouquet of flowers. Softly, I say to her, “I’m sorry for taking your book from you. I brought your towel as a peace offering.” She must not have heard me coming because she jumps at the sound of my voice. “And now I’m sorry for scaring you.” I laugh a little, draping the towel over her shoulders.
“You’re lucky I read that part already or I would have slapped you,” she says.
“I don’t doubt it for a second.”
“Thank you for the towel.” She turns back to look at the flowers in front of her.
“You’re welcome. Where did you learn to swim?” Why am I still standing here? I’ve already come to the conclusion she deserves better than me. I need to get the hell away from her and stay away.
She turns around to face me, clutching the towel closed in front of her chest. “Years and years of swimming lessons my mother made me take at the country club her and my father belong to. Do you swim?” she asks, almost as if she cares to know.
“Not like that. We didn’t really swim much back in New York. Only occasionally at a friend’s house, or a really long time ago when we’d go on family vacations.”
“New York? You don’t sound like you’re from New York.” The way she’s looking at me somehow makes it even worse to know I’m not good enough for her.
“What do you mean by that?” I try to sound offended
She laughs. “I don’t know. I had a few friends at college who were from New York and they had an accent. You don’t.”
Left Behind: Left Behind Series #1 Page 6