by Megyn Ward
She’s the enemy. Just like Zach—a rich entitled asshole who’ll chew you up and spit you out if you let her.
The sunset on the opposite side of the island is spectacular, right about now. In every bar people are oohing and ahhing. On our side, dusk starts to fall. I stand up to gather fuel for the fire.
“I don’t have many friends.” She stands and brushes the sand from her butt. “Okay, no friends.”
“Ha! You have a party every couple of weeks and your house is packed with friends. You go to clubs and people fight to be at your table.”
She aims a cool glance in my direction. “How much money, after taxes of course, would you take to be my friend.”
“That’s a sad story.” I pick up a couple of pieces of driftwood. “But some of us don’t have the money to buy friends. We have to get them the old-fashioned way.”
She watches me lean over and gather a dried palm frond. “And you have how many that you cultivated that way?”
Ouch. I stomp to a wide spot on the beach that would be a good fire spot and drop my armload. “I have friends. I have lots of friends.”
She looks skeptical. “Yeah. They flock around you.”
What am I doing? I don’t have to be here. She sure as fuck isn’t paying me to be her friend. “Whatever.” I head down the beach, toward the trail that’ll take me to my borrowed car. “I’ll sign your certification card and you can be on your way.”
She follows me. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, I really would.” Reaching the spot where I lined up the equipment, I bend over and start collecting the wetsuits I brought for her to try on. “Have a great life.”
Like she finally realizes I’m leaving, she suddenly looks desperate. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be.”
“Supposed to be?” I straighten my stance and look at her. “According to who?”
“We’re going to be close.” She shakes her head and scowls at me. “Like, if we were opposite sex or gay, we’d be soul mates and lovers.”
I laugh. “If I’d known you were high, I never would’ve let you strap on a tank.”
“I’m serious.”
“No.” I cock my head at her. “You’re insane.”
It’s like I didn’t say a word. “Although you’re being such a bitch right now, I’m not sure why I care.”
For some strange reason hearing her say that hurts. “I’m at a loss myself.”
“Because we’re friends.” She seems frustrated. Like I should already know the answer. “You and I are connected.”
Escape plan forgotten, I look at her and laugh. “You are one crazy bitch.”
“Probably.” She grins, managing to appear almost human. “But I’m gonna stick with you until you figure out we’re friends.”
“Hey!” Zach trots from the path across the beach.
“Where’s the food?” Liesa eyes his empty hands.
He holds them out. “Closed. I didn’t realize the stores on this side of the island close so early.”
Of course he didn’t. In the tourist sections, there’s usually some place open in case somebody decides they want to cook an expensive, gourmet delicacy in their fully stocked condo kitchens.
“We can still go out,” Zach says. “There’s a lobster house on the north side, maybe fifteen miles from here.”
Spotting my escape hatch I lunge for it. “You guys should go.” I start loading the gear into dive bags. “I’ll take care of this.”
Zach hurries over and starts to help me. “You have to come with us.”
I laugh. “No.” If he thinks I’m going to some fancy restaurant so I can watch them spoon feed each other, he’s crazier than she is. “I really don’t.”
“I want you to.” He says it in a low tone and when I look up at him, he’s watching me. It reminds me of last night. The way I looked down to find him watching me from between my legs, while he licked and sucked my clit. A sudden rush of heat rips through me and I have to look away because I know he’s remembering the same thing I am.
I start to shake my head. Start to refuse but Liesa cuts through my protest with one of her own.
“I don’t want to go to a public place.”
Zach hefts one of the bags over his shoulder, still looking at me. “I have another idea.”
Liesa claps her hands. “Let’s hear it.”
“We can go to Kylie’s house.” He flashes me a shit-eating grin.
“Oh no.” I hold up my hands. “I don’t have any groceries and I don’t cook.” That isn’t entirely true. I learned a few things from my mother at the sorority house but that doesn’t mean I want to cook for the Duke and Duchess of Douchebaggery.
“Oh come on.” Zach pleads, firmly wedging me between a rock and a hard place. “You’ve got to have something. We’ll piece together some kind of meal. If not, we can stop at a jerk stand and pick up some take out.”
Having the super-rich over for a dinner party at our hovel is the very last thing I want.
Liesa bobs on her toes, hands clasped together, grinning like a loon. “Please, please, please.”
Where did that come from? On her show, she demands, threatens, whines, or cries to get her way but she never says please.
Zach gives me puppy dog eyes. “The liquor store was open so I got plenty of beer.”
Jesus Christ.
I give up.
Guess the Duke and Duchess are coming for dinner.
Chapter 28
Zach
What the fuck am I doing?
No, seriously—what the actual fuck am I doing?
I’m supposed to be reeling Liesa in. Making her trust me. Fall in love with me. Getting her all primed and ready for our horizontal close-up.
Just the thought of it is turning my stomach.
No because she’s not cute. She’s absolutely cute and not at all how I expected her to be. I expected epic meltdowns and manipulation tactics. Wrinkled noses and I chipped a nail whining.
Instead, she’s funny and determined and aside from her Kylie and I are soulmates in another dimension weirdo bullshit, completely and utterly normal.
I like her.
I really like her.
She reminds me of Alicia.
My little sister.
It sure as shit doesn’t help that all I can think about is Kylie. How good she tasted. How good it felt to make her come on my tongue. How shitty it felt when she realized I was asking her to help me score a date with another woman.
That I’m half in love with her.
When Kylie said she’d bow out and leave Liesa and me to our own dinner plans, I should have said yes. That was the plan. What I should’ve done. Instead, I practically browbeat her into inviting us back to her place for dinner because I can’t shake the same feeling I had at the bar last night—that if I let her out of my sight, she’ll vanish. I’ll never see her again.
Which should be a relief, really. I should be happy to see her go. She’s prickly and sarcastic and hates my face unless she happens to be coming all over it.
So, yeah.
What the fuck am I doing?
I toss the dive bag into the hatchback of Kylie’s car and slam the lid down. “Okay. We’ll follow you.”
By the time we pull up in front of Kylie’s house, she has the gear up on the front grass and the hose running over it to rinse off the salt.
Liesa holds up a tote bag. “I’ve got to take a shower.”
Kylie gives her a rye, of-course-you-do smile. She hasn’t rinsed off yet. She’s still wearing her bikini top and short boardshorts riding low on her hips. “Bathroom’s inside. Not sure there’s a clean towel.”
Liesa smiles and pulls out a plush, blindingly white towel. “No worries.”
Kylie shakes her head and laughs. “Not actually worried,” she says but unlike before there’s no bit in her bark. Something happened while they were alone on the beach. I’m not sure what, but whatever it seems to have smoothed Kylie cons
iderably.
At least where Liesa’s concerned.
I help her rinse and set the gear on the porch to dry, stealing glances at her while we work. She doesn’t even acknowledge that I’m here.
We make our way into the house. The front door opened into a tiny, dark living room. The only windows are narrow and set too high to see through. Most of the light comes from the screen door that opens onto the covered patio. It reminds me of the beat-up houses and apartments my frat brothers stayed in when they moved off campus. The couch looks old enough to vote. The TV is one of those old-school box sets, complete with rabbit ears. The floor is concrete with a few rag rugs tossed down. The shower sounds from the other side of the living room behind a closed door that must be the bathroom. Another door, presumably a bedroom, opens next to the bathroom. Across the living room a door leads to another bedroom.
Kylie leads me through the living room into an equally tiny kitchen. A few dishes are scattered along a chipped Formica counter. Like the rest of the place, it’s clean but worn.
I look up to see Kylie watching me. “Not like where you live, huh?”
I shrug and answer her honestly. “I’ve seen worse.”
She laughs but not like she did with Liesa. This time she sounds like it hurts. “Right.” She turns her back and opens the one cabinet on the wall. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
I step closer, pretending to peer into the cabinet she’s holding open when what I’m really doing is breathing in the smell of her. Sunshine and lemons. Salt and sea.
“Well...” She blows out a sigh. “We’ve got ramen. Peanut butter. Ramen. And ramen.”
I run my gaze from her nape, down the length of her spine while I think about how much I want to run my gentle curve of it.
She reaches to a top shelf. The bottom of her bikini top inches higher under her breasts, showing a lighter, milky shade of skin. Blood rushes from my brain to my cock so fast I’m amazed I don’t pitch forward into the sink. I swallow hard to get my voice. “We can…”
“Kylie!” The front screen squealed open and a guy shouts again. “Kylie!”
She whirls around and bumps into me, seemingly startled I’m standing so close. She swallows hard, her gaze drifting over my mouth. Her tongue darting out to lick along her lower lip and I have to stifle a groan because I know what she’s doing.
She’s remembering what I did to her with it. How hard I made her come last night.
Eyes narrowed, she moves me out of the way just in time to see a tall guy with dark curling hair, muscular shoulders, and about two inches taller than me fly through the kitchen doorway.
Blake. Her dive partner.
I didn’t know they lived together.
He’s carrying a grocery sack that he tosses onto the rickety table. In a rush, he grabs her around her waist and hoists her into the air, twirling her around.
He whoops again and sets her down. “I did it! I got in!”
Her face lights up and she’s like an entirely different person. One I’ve never met. “Where?” She holds both his hands and bends down as if ready to jump into his arms. “When? What?”
They’re both filled with so much excitement it’s like the whole world disappeared for them, except each other.
I don’t like it.
From where I stand I see him squeeze both her hands. “Colombia. They’re giving me so much aide I can afford it! Nearly a free ride. I’ll start in the fall.”
“Columbia” She squeals and launches herself into his arms again. “I’m so happy for you!”
A figure appears in the doorway behind them. Liesa, with a towel wrapped around her head, wearing a halter-top sundress that barely covers her ass. She watches Kylie and the guy with a look of curiosity.
The guy notices her and sets Kylie down on the floor. His eyes quickly flick from Liesa to me, seeing me for the first time and his jaw goes tight but he doesn’t say anything. He just straightens up and turns back to Liesa. In a split second his eyes squint in disbelief. He whirls toward Kylie.
She laughs. “Blake Tanner, this is Liesa Temple, Liesa, this is my roommate, Blake.”
Liesa yanks the towel off her head and her hair flops onto her back. She licks lips that aren’t smeared with her signature peach shade and actually looks nervous. She wriggles her fingers in a cute hello.
Kylie holds out an open palm in my direction. “You know Zach.”
He hesitates for a moment but in the end leans forward and extends his arm offering his hand to me. The look he gives me it pretty clear—he doesn’t like me but is willing to tolerate me for the time being.
I grasp his hand back and give it a firm shake.
Formalities out of the way, Blake turns questioning eyes to Kylie.
She shuts the cupboard door. “I’m teaching Liesa how to dive. She didn’t want to go to a commercial shop.”
He nods, still stunned to have a celebrity of Liesa’s stature in his kitchen.
Kylie leans back on the counter. “I went job hunting yesterday and ended up at JK investments. I barely made it past reception, but Zach and Liesa were there. Liesa wanted to dive, he found me.”
Liesa stays in the kitchen doorway. She smells vaguely like Kylie, probably the same shampoo, but nothing as delicate and sweet.
Blake surveys the room. “And now what’s going on?”
Kylie claps her hands, trying to bring back the earlier excitement. “We were going to make some dinner.”
“With peanut butter and ramen?”
“It’s what we’ve got.” She grins and holds out her hands. “But Zach brought beer.”
Blake doesn’t look impressed.
Kylie grabs his hands again and starts to dance and sing. “And you’re going to Columbia!”
His face split into a grin and he lifts her for another spin. “I can’t believe it!”
“Congratulations, man,” I say, meaning it even though there’s a part of me—the Zach who got into Princeton part and threw it all away for a girl part of me—is envious. “Columbia’s a good school.”
Blake must have decided not to stay uptight about unexpected company or the fact that it’s me. “Yeah. I’m stoked. I didn’t think I could afford it, even if I got in. But, wow. I’m going to Columbia!”
Kylie claps her hands. “He only rocked the LSATs and graduated with all the Cum Lauds anyone could ask for. He’s brilliant.” She turns her shine on him. “You’re going to be the best lawyer in the whole world, ever!”
Watching her brag about him and seeing her obvious excitement at his victory twists something inside me. Something that wishes he’d stay uptight about me being here. Something that wants to fight.
For what?
For her?
She’s already moved on from you.
You’re nothing to her.
You never were.
He puffs up his chest and his grin can’t possibly get any bigger. “I know you had your heart set on ramen, but I bought celebration grub.” He grabs the grocery bag from the table. He pulls a plastic bag from the grocery sack. “Ta-da! Shrimp.” He dumps the paper bag upside down on the table and a couple of lemons, a box of butter, a package of rice and garlic tumble out.
It doesn’t look like nearly enough food for four people.
He spins around. “I’ve got a bottle of champagne in my gear bag.”
“I’ll help.” She announces and disappears from the kitchen.
I move closer to Liesa. “Are you sure you want to—”
“I want to stay.” She looks up at me like she’s suddenly afraid I’ll force her to leave. Like she’s ready to fight me if I try.
“Okay. Sure.” I give her a smile. “We’ll stay.”
Chapter 29
Kylie
I take a quick shower and rummage through my closet, hoping to find something comparable to Liesa’s sundress. She looks so fresh with rosy cheeks from the warm shower, wet hair, barefoot and wearing the cutest sundress I’ve ever seen. Giving up tryi
ng to rival looks and money. I pull on a sporty skirt and tank, wind my hair into a scrunched pony on the back of my head and head back to the kitchen.
Zach and Liesa are sitting at the table, occupying our only chairs, sweating beer bottles in front of them. Blake’s sitting on the counter, beer in his hand, swinging his legs. After the episode at the Frog last night, I was worried about leaving him alone with Zach but I should’ve known it was a wasted effort. The very best thing about Blake is that he never holds a grudge.
I open our ancient refrigerator. Normally empty, the shelves hold a case of Red Stripe and the bag of shrimp. I pull out a beer, soundlessly offering everyone another, which all three welcomed, and pick up the shrimp.
Their lively conversation centers on the day’s dive. Liesa seems over the panic attack and even pokes fun at herself. Very un-TV Liesa.
Blake jumps off the counter and makes room for me to dump the shrimp into the sink. I start to clean them and he pitches in.
While they laugh and talk and swap stories about diving or comment on places they’d been or would like to go, I think about Jonas Knightly. Now that the dive is done, I’m going to have to approach Zach about payment. Ask him what his plan is to get me in to see him. I’m starting to worry that Zach promised me something he can’t deliver.
“What can I do?” Liesa’s voice behind makes me jump.
Without much thought I say, “You can peel the garlic and mince it.”
She looks like I just asked her to dismantle a nuclear warhead. “Okay. How do I do that?”
Blake drops a shelled, deveined shrimp into the clean pile. “I’ll show you. Let’s do it over here.” Blake collects cutting board, knives and garlic and drops them on the table and gives Liesa Cooking 101 instructions.
“Put me to work.”
I look up and over to find Zach standing next to me. Close, like he was before. Too close for me to think straight. “Slice the lemons.” I jerk my chin at the bright yellow citrus on the counter
“I can do that.” He finds a chef knife and snatches a lemon. Before I know it, he has both of them sliced into perfectly stacked rings.