Pandora Wild Child

by Sunniva Dee

  Tomorrow her friends arrive. Tomorrow I’ll accidentally “find” her iPhone somewhere, probably in the ladies’ room. Which means I have twenty-four hours left to make her unequivocally hooked on me.

  The party throbbing inside the club makes my resolve easy to act on.

  Leon is spoken for—he’s needed in the patio, up front at the doors, behind the bar, in the back room. But whenever I get a glimpse of him, his shrewd stare takes me in, and he stops by often to give me a squeeze. He kisses me on the mouth as if he’s claiming ownership in front of everyone present. There’s no competition for him here, though—I don’t even feel like looking at anyone else. Heck, I can barely stand one person I don’t love touching me.

  Leon doesn’t have a problem with me getting a buzz on, but after he figured out where my limit goes, he demands I stop before I become a blubbering fool. He wants me awake and ready upstairs when the club closes. A bout of nausea runs through me, but I quench it with another swig of my drink.

  Tonight, though, Leon’s approach is different. It takes me an hour to figure out that the new drinks don’t work, that he must have asked Christian to water them down. Christian, probably thinking he’s doing me a favor, is happy to follow his boss’ orders.

  Outsmarting the two of them isn’t hard. I jokingly bump hips with Arriane as I pass her behind the counter. Christian is out on the floor, cleaning the spilled mess off a table, and Leon’s in the patio. This is the perfect moment to fill up a beer glass with white rum and add ice to give the impression of water.

  I swing around fast enough to meet Arriane’s eyes as she shouts, “Can I help you with something, Pandora?” over the music.

  “Thanks—yeah, do you have lemon for my water?” I ask, blinking slowly in an effort to appear more inebriated than I am.

  She smiles and pops a wedge into my glass, almost splashing some of the alcohol over the edge. “Good choice, water’s the way to go for you, I think. Tomorrow’s the real party, remember?”

  “True.” I smile back. Christian returns as I make my way out on the other side. He’s happy to see the “healthy” beverage in my hand, and helps me claim my chair back from the ogre of a football-player-dude who has perched himself on it in my absence.

  “For pretty ladies, anything!” the guy sings gallantly, his voice lighter than I would have guessed for such a big man. He gives the impression of wanting to chat. Instantly, I feel Leon’s arm around my waist. He nods to the ogre and quirks him a polite smile.

  “You enjoying your time at Smother so far? You’ve got everything you need?” He tucks me into his side on the chair, pressing a kiss to my head.

  “Yeah, great place,” the friendly ogre says, and Leon accepts a manly handshake from him.

  “Glad to hear it, man. This is my girlfriend Pandora, and I’m Leon, the owner here.”

  “Nice to meet you!” The ogre’s grin widens, like he’s in the presence of celebrities. He just met a real-life small-time club owner and his so-called GF. Wow, right? I roll my eyes and sink back into the rum, which works instantly. I shudder at the flavor and block its sting from slipping into my nose as I suck through the straw.

  “Pandora, are you all right?” Leon asks. Frowning, he continues, “Tap water?”

  I nod, unable to reply until the afterburn from the booze subsides. He shakes his head at me, not liking what he hears but letting it go. “It’s crazy tonight, but hang in there—I’ll make it worth your wait once we’re back upstairs.”

  He leans in, his warm breath sending shivers through me in a mixture of arousal and disgust as he continues: “I promise I’ll give you a night you won’t forget.”

  I’m not drunk enough to numb the heat and the fear surging in my stomach. Before he leaves on another Smother mission, Leon’s lips connect with my ear as he enounces his next words one by one. My intoxicated body pulsates with alarm, warning me that he’s not exaggerating:

  “I. Will. Ravage. You.”

  “How the hell did this happen?” I scream at Christian. He’s standing there, shaking his head, incredulous as he watches me drape Pandora’s gelatinous form over my shoulder. She’s not conscious anymore, and I’m not even sure what she’s taken. Is it just alcohol? I work hard to keep Smother free of anything else.

  “Dude, I have no idea. I swear—a fucking squirrel couldn’t get drunk on the alcohol I’ve put in her drinks tonight.”

  It took me a while to find her once the bar closed. She’d been out of my sight for a maximum of ten minutes, though, and Jason had orders to alert me if she tried to leave the bar.

  As soon as I realized she was gone, I had every employee drop everything to search for her, and Arriane just found her curled up on a bench in the patio.

  “She reeks,” Arriane says, eyeing Christian, who throws his hands in the air. She grabs Pandora’s water by the cash register, sticks her nose into it, and grimaces.

  “Rum. She wasn’t drinking water, Leon. No wonder she’s hammered.”

  “You served her rum instead of water?” I seethe, my anger spreading until I need all of my self-discipline to keep from smashing Christian’s face in.

  “Boss, no.” He’s exasperated. I’m homicidal.

  “Guys,” Arriane chimes in. “I saw her. I thought she’d gotten herself some tap water. It seemed a bit strange, though, because Leon, you always insist on bottled water for your girls.”

  I can’t stand here anymore with Pandora snoring in my arms, so I stalk up the stairs without another word. “Lock up after yourselves,” I bark before I shut the door.

  A light moan slips from Pandora when I carry her to bed and undress her. I’m growling with disappointment. She’s soft, pliable, beautiful, and doesn’t give a flying fuck what I do to her right now. This is not—not—what turns me on.

  I position her sideways with one knee lifted so it keeps her from falling to her stomach. She swallows in her sleep, like she’s trying to keep from throwing up.

  Those plump lips I want to bite are curled in a light smile, mocking me. Tentatively, I pinch one of her butt cheeks. When I let go, there’s a small, red mark that should have made her yelp. She didn’t.

  I get up and pace the room. Now, everything boils down to tomorrow. I have until the afternoon to persuade her. Thankfully, I still have an ace up my sleeve. I’ll be changing my strategy—whip out heavy artillery I’ve never used on someone before. Pandora started out easy, but now look at me: I have never had such a hard time convincing a girl to be mine.

  Until the morning, though, I’ll be the jackass with the bucket, the washcloth, and the soapy water who cleans up after her. Oh yes, any moment now, the alcohol will come back up.

  Wow. Did I do a bang-up job getting fucked up or what? I destroyed myself last night, giving Leon a backstage pass to the show. I remember only bits and pieces from when I zigzagged out to the patio, most of those pieces involving rum-flavored stomach fluids I never want to taste again.

  Exhausted, I watch as Leon dresses me on the bed. I don’t understand what he’s doing right now. He’s brought out the long, blue dress that slinks along my form without screaming “hawt,” and pushes my feet into the stiletto boots I bought yesterday. Then, he nudges me up into a sitting position and meets my tired gaze.

  “I’m taking you out,” he says. No curse words spew from him at the moment—unlike last night. Why isn’t he pissed at me? I would’ve been.

  “Sorry, Leon, I can’t. Seriously, I’m dying.”

  I blink up at him. My eyeballs must be pink from the intense hangover. “I’m thirsty,” I whisper. Then, I gingerly lower myself to the mattress again, because my brain is imploding.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m wrapped in one of Leon’s black motorcycle jackets, with a black helmet plopped over my head and my arms tense around his waist. We’re winding up a hill, and out of the blue, the road widens into an exotic garden filled with bonsai trees and tiny ponds. In its midst, a sprawling, one-story Japanese restaurant beckons.

&n
bsp; Before we left Smother, Leon slipped me some Advil for the headache, and now he helps me off the motorcycle and passes me another batch just in case. I swallow them dry.

  “What are we doing here? It’s, like, ten a.m.,” I say.

  He releases me from the helmet and studies his own fingers raking through my messy locks. “Eating breakfast.”

  “Really? Are they open? There are no cars…” I trail off, admiring our surroundings.

  Leon doesn’t respond right away but takes my hand and leads me through the red-lacquered front door. Discretely, I straighten my wrinkled dress. Inside, an enormous space with glass walls gives way to another, and beyond it, a third bright room welcomes sprinkles of sunshine from the glass-and-wood ceiling.

  “My great grandfather on my mother’s side was Japanese. This place is my family’s way of honoring his legacy—and they don’t offer breakfast, which is why the kitchen staff prepping lunch are the only ones here.”

  Trickling water surrounds us on all sides from the miniature waterfalls gushing down the walls and into the stone floor, where they snake through artificial channels in carp-infested rivulets.

  Leon is at home here, and as always he knows exactly where he wants me. This time at a table one step up from the ground against the glass wall. The view is spectacular. The garden lends frothy greenery to my right, and artificial gullies slide into an indoor pond on my left.

  While we wait for the food I won’t be keeping down, we sip green tea. I am feeling better, though. So much better that I’m unable to meet Leon’s gaze.

  He’s so… normal. Softer, less guarded than I’m used to from him. I don’t believe in this new Leon who made his appearance at the mall yesterday and again this morning. I can’t help wondering if he’s trying to manipulate me. And why would he?

  He doesn’t leave me to my own thoughts for long. Instead, he cuts to the chase in a low, smooth voice. “Pandora. You’ve been so distant over the last days. What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”

  “That pretty head of yours?” Geez Louise.

  “Oh, I just feel like I shouldn’t have bum-rushed you. I’ve been living at your house as if I have a right to be there,” I say, and as I do, I blush with the realization that it’s true. How entitled am I? Despite myself, despite my doubts about Leon, there’s no denying how he opened his doors without a second thought. He’s been so generous with me.

  Miso soup and steamed rice appear on the table between us, and it dawns on me why he brought me here; I’m starting to think I can stomach a Japanese breakfast.

  “No, Pandora, don’t think that way. I enjoy your company very much. I’d like the opportunity to make you happy,” he states calmly.

  The opportunity. He’s aware that I’m holding back. Good.

  I sneak a glance at him. Now that I know about his heritage, I understand the subtle slope at the corners of his eyes, the faded tan skin color I’ve been marveling over.

  “I’m sorry,” I start. He doesn’t look like a man ready to snap at any moment, so I take my chances. “You’ve been good to me, really, you have, but I can’t do this anymore.”

  Leon’s face goes blank with the implications of what I’m saying. “Do what? Aren’t you hungry?” He’s buying time, and we both know it.

  “No, Leon, I can’t keep… enacting a relationship we don’t have—”

  “No-no. We do have a relationship. I’ve never been more hell-bent on what I want than with you.” His irises frost with determination.

  “Leon, please.” A lump ferments in my throat, a pointless, redundant empathy for him.

  He’s right, though. The time we’ve spent together equals months of regular dating. This has been nothing short of a relationship, even if it’s a messed-up one. As screwed up as we are. What an intense week.

  He grabs a hold of me over the table, and I use my free hand to shield my eyes as if I’m watching the sun. He can’t scrutinize me this way.

  “Leon, I’m honored.” I inhale, hesitating. It’s hard to form the words when he moves his head from side to side like he doesn’t want them.

  “You’re right,” I whisper. “There are all kinds of relationships. Still—”

  He guesses where I’m going. His headshake remains subtle, but it’s faster, more insistent. I’ve allowed my body to lie to the both of us, accepting and enjoying his advances.

  Suddenly, the need to stop lying overwhelms me.

  Suddenly, my stomach hurts from hiding the truth.

  Leon can tolerate this rare blow to his ego, I rationalize. I draw in a breath, unable to wait a second longer, because I need to confess, tell him what’s killing me.

  “No matter what I do, I think of him,” I manage. Then, I tip into ramblings. “Being with you makes me miss him even more, and I feel dirty for… Shit—I’m sorry! It’s not you. This just isn’t right.”

  Leon is always strong, sure of himself. But now I look up and meet his gaze. It’s so light. It shimmers with a pain I’d never expect from him. He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my fingertips one by one.

  “Our week isn’t over yet,” he says, smoothing over my outburst. “Give me one more night, Pandora. You won’t regret it.”

  I’ve been on a one-week countdown waiting for my friends, for the beginning of a new year—heck, a new life! With the way he speaks, I wonder if he’s thought of this week as the opposite: quality time to spend with me. It would explain a lot.

  Despite the hurt in Leon’s eyes, our confrontation could have been worse, I feel. So what if he’s got a tiny crush on me? There are plenty of girls salivating over him at the club. All he has to do is crook a finger, and they’ll come running to the rescue of his bruised ego.

  “Leon, let’s be just friends, okay?” I say, my chest weightless with hope.

  “Sugar,” he murmurs, a flicker of purpose passing through his eyes before his expression becomes a blank slate, “don’t blame me for trying.”

  Half an hour later, I cling to Leon on the windy road down from the restaurant. I drag in fresh air through my nose, letting the roar of the motorcycle vibrate into my body.

  Tonight, I’m not drinking. I’m starting my New Year’s resolution early. As we approach downtown Deepsilver, a gust of energy assails me as I consider the possibilities. A new year is meant to become just that—new. Fresh.

  Ah, I’ll get my shit together. Ace my classes. Remain healthy and sober and never ever mess up. I won’t let Dominic’s love life interrupt our friendship again either, because I want to hear his voice, get used to speaking with him every day again. I’ll become worthy. Worthy of Dominic’s calls, texts—of his concern for me.

  It’s Sunday, and downtown is unnaturally calm before the New Year’s parties begin. At the red light by the theater, Leon’s bike growls to a halt. Smother is a block and a half away, and I can’t wait to scrub my hangover off in the shower.

  A small, olive-green car rumbles in the cross street to our left, blinker set in the direction we’re heading. The driver has a green light, but he’s not moving.

  The color of the car reminds me of Dominic’s. My mouth steers upward as I recall our drives home from Smother. Once, I even informed him that the paint job brought out the green in his eyes.

  I sense the driver’s focus on me. As I swing my head for a closer look, Leon shouts, “Hold on tight,” revs the engine, and does a U-turn on the red light.

  I grab onto him, but my attention remains on the little car. For a moment, our sudden change in direction brings us closer.

  It’s Dominic.

  It is Dominic!

  Dirty blond bangs tickle Dominic’s forehead. They’re longer than the last time he was in Deepsilver. Eyes I used to lose myself in widen and penetrate my visor, finding me—fixing me! My moan is drowned by the bike engine.

  But then.

  I can’t see him.

  Leon and I blast through a back alley and up a side street to Smother. Instead of dropping me off up front, Leon
pulls onto the patio. He bolts the gates behind us, and I unconsciously hug myself, my arms tightening around my midsection.

  “You figured you’d take another way all of a sudden?” I ask.

  “Yeah, the light took too long,” he replies but narrows his eyes at me. “Or are you insinuating something?” Before me, Leon morphs back to the controlling, no-bullshit man I know best. The one you don’t take any chances with. The one you obey without question.

  “So it had nothing to do with Dominic sitting in his car at the traffic light?” I still venture.

  Leon laughs a quiet laughter. “Pandora. I think you’re seeing things. The guy in the Corolla was not your little crush.”

  I’m stunned at his dismissal. So stunned, I remain frozen in place while he stores away his motorcycle. Once he’s done, he swivels and entwines our fingers to walk me inside, but I tug my hand from his and stay where I am.

  Leon’s eyes snap to me. He hasn’t lost his air of power and harnessed tension when he says, “I’m sorry if I came off blunt, Pandora. But if he were here—and interested—wouldn’t he have paid us a visit?”

  My heart speeds up. Yes, Leon is making sense: everyone knows Smother is my second home. Once Dominic finds my apartment empty, he’ll come and find me… if he wants to.

  What if he’s on his way to Smother?

  Leon secures a hand on my hip when I begin to walk. “Christian texted me,” he says, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. He steers me toward the entrance of the club. “He’s picking up Shannon and your other friends at the airport. They’re coming straight here to be with you.”

  Funny how such a short message can change everything. Alleviate the claustrophobia that set in the moment Leon bolted the patio gates closed behind us. Soon, goofy Mica, wise Destiny, and my astute Shannon will be here!

  “Oh my God! Really? They’re on their way?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Leon’s eyes sparkle with genuine delight now as he studies me. “And I hope to keep you this excited all night,” he adds quietly.