“Like you shouldn’t have done that before!”
Kennedy giggled and returned to Wyatt. The moment came when they exchanged cell numbers. He couldn’t believe it.
“I’ll wait for you to call,” Kennedy said and winked at him. God, the wink made every bit of his blood rush to the groin. Wyatt nodded dumbly, tucking his phone away. He still couldn’t stop thinking about the feel of her rocking against him or the swell of her breast in his hand.
If only that had been Edy.
Edy was at the back of his head, of course. Where she always lived.
When Wyatt went to the bathroom, he stumbled on a pair screwing roughly on his sink. Startled, he stumbled back out, cheeks flushing red, apologies on his lips. Then he went outside to take a leak and started in on the clean up early. He was at a loss for what else to do.
“You’re so silly,” Lottie told him, grabbing him as he went for a mess of Budweiser cans littering the hall. She had her blouse misbuttoned. “Let the hired help clean that up,” she said.
Wyatt stared at her. “There isn’t any hired help.”
Lottie smiled prettily. “There is now.”
When he flinched, she merely patted his chest. “We’ll need it with all the parties.”
Parties with Cîroc vodka, pounds of marijuana, and Ecstasy floating around the place. He didn’t ask who provided what and how. But now, with her talk of more parties already, it worried him.
Wyatt swallowed hard several times as he thought things through. As chances stood, he might not get his mother’s portion of the inheritance. That meant he had to make his two million last.
“Lottie, maybe we should talk about what’s being spent. This place is expensive. So were those first-class flights. Maybe we don’t have to have… so much at the parties?”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “You want people, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t care about them, only Edy.”
“Not even Kennedy?”
Did she even have to ask?
“Every freaking thing is for Edy! You don’t think you owe me something, Wyatt? You weren’t the only one affected by what people think happened. How do you think people look at a cousin fucker?”
Wyatt started. A couple of passers-by glanced their way, curious, drunk, giggling. One guy made the shape of a hole with one hand and penetrated it over and over with his glow stick. Another shouted that there was no shame in getting it how they could. When he disappeared with a towering brunette into Lottie’s room, she barely gave them a glance.
“It was your idea—” Wyatt started, loud and sharp, as he grabbed her arm, then caught himself, wondering just what in the hell he was doing. “You needed me to take the blame for your boyfriend,” he insisted. “And I did.”
Lottie’s gaze narrowed. “Do I not say ‘thank you’ enough?”
He shook his head. Exhaled. Took a step back. Lottie and her boyfriend had always fought a lot. That fight wasn’t the first time things had gone too far, only it was the worst. Wyatt had made the mistake of showing up during one of those brawls. He’d called the police and kept his mouth shut about her asshole boyfriend tearing out the front door a few minutes earlier. Wyatt hadn’t needed to be told. Between the guy’s dad being his father’s boss at the factory and his instinctive need to protect Lottie, he hadn’t been willing to cooperate much with the police before talking to her. He knew she wouldn’t want him in trouble. Besides, he knew those officers and didn’t like their superior looks. It wasn’t like they didn’t know Wyatt. They brought his dad home from the bar when he drank too much and fought, or when he strutted around in pissed clothes and ranted. His town had been a small one and the asshole town drunk was known. So was his kid.
Lottie softened. “I didn’t know it would go so bad for you. I didn’t know my dad, or the other people, would go insane like that.”
Wyatt choked on his breath. What had she thought would happen? What had he thought? He’d been so young and stupid, wanting so desperately to be worth something to someone. He’d thought his loyalty to her would do it. He still didn’t know if it had, or even if he wanted it now.
Lottie sighed. “Let’s just party and have fun. I’ve always wanted the life of zero worries. And you deserve it. Let me give it to you.”
As if she could.
“Are you listening?” Lottie said. “There’s this guy here tonight that I really like. I think you’ll see more of him in the future.”
What did it matter who she liked? It wouldn’t work out. First loves were so passé. Divorce was common. He had a lifetime to wait for Edy while Hassan needed only one screw up to be gone. Wyatt was barely listening with the first optimistic cogs in his head turning since that first night when Hassan kissed Edy.
With that calming thought, he later drifted into sleep with a smile on his face. He dreamt of his parents. His dream-self had woken up across the street from Edy, stomach cramping with the smell of eggs in the air. Unable to believe it, he swept out of bed and hit broken glass, cursing as a shard dug deep into the softness of his arch. Oh, but those eggs. When was the last time Mom cooked? Or Dad? They’d never been able to afford takeout, and anyway, Dad complained that it was all run by foreigners.
Glass out, he hobbled to the bathroom for a bit of tissue, staved off the bleeding, and cursed when he swore bacon joined the smell of eggs. And coffee? Get the fuck out of here.
He practically skidded down the stairs, stumbling on his too-long pajama bottoms, before realizing at the last possible moment that he was supposed to meet Edy. He couldn’t miss that. Not even for bacon and eggs.
There was time to shove a few slivers in his mouth—delicious they were—thank his mom for cooking, swallow a bit of her coffee and rush upstairs to get dressed.
He couldn’t get ready fast enough. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered falling out with Edy, remembered vowing to never speak again, and yet somehow here they were drawn to each other. Agreeing to meet anyway.
Wyatt stopped short at the sight of her in the street. For all his fantasies, for all his absolute worship of this girl, his mind never did her any justice. It never managed to capture those dark, soft eyes, that pretty little pert nose, or a mouth so soft and sensual it dried his throat. And her body. God. Her lithe and petite dancer’s body had bloomed into jutting curves and shapely thighs.
She hugged him like she always did and a shiver of want electrocuted him. She seemed to notice, but didn’t care, in that weird Edy way of hers, chalking it up to the biomechanics of some such forgivable nonsense.
They walked arm in arm, strolling, as if it weren’t deathly freezing outside. Wyatt thought, not for the world would he speed this walk up. They laughed and teased and tickled and more than once he chased her, happier than he could ever remember.
He caught her near an old building that once belonged to Boston City Hospital. Somehow, Edy knew history about this building, both about how it had been part of the mental health wing, and before, when it had a darker past.
The wind cut through, furious, and on its heels came the first snowflakes.
“You’re not dressed for a blizzard,” Edy said softly.
He wasn’t dressed for the cold weather they’d been running in either.
Wyatt shrugged. “Want to explore inside?”
He never expected her to agree, or to grab his hand, rushing inside first.
Brick walls and a low ceiling brought the temperature up in a bit. The hurried scurrying they heard was dismaying, as were the layers of dirt and grime caked on the windows that made it impossible to see out. Dirt packed the floor, making puffs whenever they took a step. Still, Edy turned to him with those eyes that always glinted.
“Want to make out?” she said in a bawdy, southern accent.
“What?” He hadn’t heard that. Still, he looked at her with so much longing.
“Make out. I thought you...?”
“Yes. Yes.” Wyatt couldn’t think beyond the word.
> She smiled shyly, and his heart turned over.
He found her with his mouth, fumbling and uncertain but eager to please. She tasted like licorice and smiles. When she did smile at him, he kissed that, unable to believe his luck. He pulled her in by the elbows, reaching down around her waist, finding her hips and finally gripping those as the kiss changed, as he changed. He wanted to slow down, but he couldn’t stand her changing her mind. Not now. He wanted her too bad and he’d waited too long.
His mouth punished her for that, for the waiting and humiliation, making her take his tongue, backing her into the wall, until the fight in her became clear—then he became clear, using his body to pin her, unbuttoning his jeans with a hand, reaching up and under her coat until he became the Wyatt he’d always been accused of being.
She cuffed him in the ear, making it ring, and he staggered back, cursing and pissed. Edy sobbed in earnest now, swearing at him in Punjabi or Hindi or something. It pissed him off, making him think of that bastard Hassan and how he’d never get hit for kissing her. No, she’d treasure a guy like that, open her pants for him, all while treating Wyatt like shit.
He hit her back. She looked at him, wide-eyed and startled, gaze full of accusations and Wyatt awoke with a start. He hurled over the side of the bed, sending a spray of fetid alcohol and stomach acid from his nose and mouth, lurching and heaving his vomit on the floor. He began to sob along the way, even as he threw up, that image of hitting Edy foremost in his mind. He would never…
Eventually, he stumbled towards the bathroom.
“Dude, you look like shit. Let me help you.” Halfway there, a spare, tallish guy with a smile bright as lightning held out a hand. Wyatt may or may not have recognized him from the night before.
“Whatever,” was what he muttered.
Twenty minutes later, Mateo had fixed Wyatt some chicken bouillon, sent Lincoln in the rental for some Gatorade and V8, and had Tristan making him tea. Still unsure of what these people were doing in his house, he figured one of them must be attached to Lottie.
But when Lottie came out the room a few minutes later, she had a shirtless meathead following her, laughing before he slapped her on the ass.
Wyatt thought about Edy again. That dream had been so real. His anger at her had been so palpable, so honest, and he could feel her body yielding to his kicks. She was at mercy to him and he’d enjoyed it.
He resisted the urge to vomit again.
Chapter Ten
A call came at a quarter to eight in the morning. A flash of Rani caught in open-mouthed laughter, followed by the chiming roll of Shabdkosh, Shabdkosh, the Bollywood musical, let Edy know that Hassan’s mother wanted to talk. With her backpack on, Edy stared at her cell, eyes enlarging as the ring continued. What could Rani Pradhan want with her?
Especially when they hadn’t spoken in months.
Maybe that’s what this call was about. Maybe after all this time, with memories nipping at her heels, bouts of maternal guilt had finally given her an about face.
Edy snatched up the phone. “Hello?” she said, way too loud.
“Where is he?” Rani demanded.
“I don’t know.”
She scoffed. “I hardly believe that to be the case.”
Edy glanced at Naomi’s Mike the Tiger clock hoisted on the wall. “He’s probably on his way to Accounting. I think that’s his eight o’clock.”
“And yet he isn’t answering his phone. Is this because of you? Have you turned my own son against me?”
“I’ve barely seen your son!” It wasn’t as if Rani needed help turning her son against her. When she wasn’t pestering him about the arranged marriage, she was guilting him about his disobedience and inability to be like other, more respectful sons. No, any ignoring that Hassan was doing was being carried out for his own sanity.
“I cannot find my son.”
“Right. So would you like me to, er, go to his room and—”
“No! That’s absolutely inappropriate!”
It didn’t even matter. Edy couldn’t be caught socializing with Hassan. The upperclassmen dancers would roast her on a spigot.
Mike the Tiger ticked loudly, reminding her that in a few short minutes she had a class in a building she’d never been to.
“Can we talk later, Rani? I have History of Dance soon.” And she was really, really looking forward to it.
“There’s no reason to talk. Just let Hassan know that his mother is looking for him, if he concerns himself with these things anymore.”
Edy sighed audibly. Rani’s guilt trips could get a bit tiresome. But instead of saying that, she said, “Of course he concerns himself with these things. You’re his mother. He loves you.”
“Not as much as you, it would seem.” It was early for this.
“It’s a different kind of love,” Edy said. “Both are special. Don’t deny him one when both make him so happy.”
In the silence, Edy started walking for class. If she generally headed in the right direction, then it would shave a few minutes off the route, at least.
“You should have sisterly love for Hassan. You should have rejected his advances for my sake.”
Edy said nothing. She wasn’t sure what she was meant to say.
“It repulses me, you know,” Rani continued. “The way you two look at each other. You’ve been raised as siblings.”
“We were neighbors,” Edy said. “Our fathers were roommates in college. Our families were close.” She hesitated before adding the finishing touch. “I don’t think you’d be raising this objection if I were Punjabi.”
Rani made a noise in her throat that sounded like trapped chicken bones were there. The last time Edy had heard something like that, Hassan and the twins had smashed out his bedroom window with a baseball and nearly tumbled out trying to catch it, drawing the attention of gawking neighbors.
“You are neither Punjabi nor Hindu, Edy. Don’t pretend to misunderstand.”
“My parents are Christian. That means I can’t date your son? We haven’t taken wedding vows. We just enjoy each other’s company.”
Again with the sound.
“He loves you deeply,” Hassan’s mother said. “I cannot imagine him turning away from you, once you have opened your arms to him. You bear the blame for what’s happened between you two. You are the stronger; he is more emotional, impulsive. You can calculate, Edith. You know the weight of his heart and the power you hold.”
“You think I manipulated his feelings?” Edy said as she made her way down the hall. “You think I caused him to reciprocate some emotion only I had?” She’d never considered it, but was it possible? Was it possible that she’d misconstrued Hassan’s protective nature, assigning it some deeper meaning? Had she romanticized what was practical and convinced him that this behavior was evidence of love? She didn’t think so, but it was a new thought.
“No,” Rani said, “I do not think you willfully manipulated him.” She paused. “However, I think you are more responsible for the mess you’ve made. I think as a young lady certain things should have been explained to you… better. Perhaps it was my job to do so and I did not.”
Edy descended the stairs when she saw the crowd for the elevator and made it out to the street. She continued to head in the general direction of class. “What is it you wish would have been explained?” she said softly. It had taken a while for her to gather enough courage to pose the question. She could feel a unique sort of wounding coming on and she shied away, even as she pressed forward, willing to take any contact at all with Rani.
“Boys are… driven by their urges. Impossibly so. It is incumbent upon you, as a girl, not to give in to such urges and sully your reputation. It humiliates the entire family, not just the girl who has debased herself.”
Debasement. Is that what Edy did with Hassan? It felt anything but. She swallowed, wondering how she could deliver a sufficient reply without further inflaming her relationship with Rani. Or whatever it was they had.
; “You’re being completely ridiculous. Not to mention outdated in this country by about fifty years. My ‘reputation’, as you put it, is not sullied by your son. We do nothing but complement each other. And what happens between us is… no one else’s business, really.”
She hadn’t meant that last part. Well, she meant it, but she hadn’t meant it like that.
“You want me to mind my business when it comes to you and Hassan?”
Edy groaned. She stood on a sidewalk as students streamed past, purposeful in their strides. She could feel the impatience coursing through her veins. “Yes. I am what Hassan wants. He is what I want. My parents accept it. Ali has said he only wants our happiness. It’s only you now, Rani. All alone and making everyone miserable.” She flexed her hands, stretching her fingers then making a fist.
“My husband said that he no longer opposes you?” Rani was on the verge of yelling, reverting to her native Punjabi in another rarity Edy could file away: yelling. But Edy had also run out of patience.
“Yes. Like you say, he practically raised me. He actually loves me. I make his son happy and his son makes me happy. What else is there?”
“Spoken like a selfish child. Whatever makes you happy, whatever whim, is what should be done. Utterly ridiculous.”
“Why?” Edy demanded and her legs powered forward, angry, irrational, only sort of maybe going the right way. At least she was moving. “Why is my happiness utterly ridiculous? Or Hassan’s? Why should we even listen to you when you don’t try to understand what anyone else wants? When every word out your mouth is just… bakchodiyān!”
Edy gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified at the way she’d insulted the other woman. Bullshit. She’d said that everything that came out of Rani’s mouth was bullshit.
Her heart beat a cadence of fear as she waited for a response. When it didn’t come, Edy glanced at her cell phone and realized she’d been hung up on.
Oh God. That was so bad.
Before her conversation with Rani, Edy had attempted to memorize the location of her class. She didn’t want to look like a freshman dork, wandering around in search of where to go. Now, she used her cell phone’s GPS to navigate the campus, cutting across lush grass and ducking beneath the swing-low branches of lush magnolia foliage. Despite the GPS, she didn’t seem to be finding the building.
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