Be My Downfall

by Lyla Payne

“I’m sorry about the other night. When I was rude to you at the bar. And for showing you my ass.”

  I snorted. “I have to tell you, I didn’t mind the latter. And it’s fine.”

  She scooted almost imperceptibly closer, then scooted again, until the heat from her body founds its way inside my ski clothes. She smelled like shampoo and snow, fresh like the world around us and I breathed deep. It doused my brain like some kind of drug.

  When she reached out and slid her arm through mine, though, it snapped me to attention. The about-face was too much. “What are you doing?”

  “Boys belong in boxes, Wright. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you nuts?”

  She shot me a conspiratorial smile and leaned closer, lowering her voice to a whisper even though no one could possible overhear. “I’ve seen you at Dr. Porter’s. Are you nuts?”

  Embarrassment flooded my cheeks with heat, stinging in the face of the chilly wind, and I fought the instinct to pull away from her. So I saw a psychologist. So did eighty percent of Whitman.

  “Not most of the time,” I replied, keeping my chin up.

  “I’m fucking bats,” she said, cheerfulness oozing from every pore.

  The other morning, Kennedy had seemed…not depressed, exactly, but not happy. Not like this. It made me wonder if she was bi-polar, but the real reason probably had more to do with her state of sobriety. Or maybe how honest she felt like being.

  Those things might even be connected.

  “Anyway, boxes. Boys fit in them so nicely—in a ‘too nice’ box, or one labeled ‘good fuck’ or maybe ‘run for the hills he has no idea what to do with his penis’.” She cocked her head. “I suppose there are teeny, tiny boxes for the ones that girls might actually be able to stand for more than a night at a time, but I’ve never used them.”

  I didn’t tell her that I’d never found a use for the last box, either. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I want to put you in one, but I can’t decide which.”

  Heat spilled down into my groin as she looked up into my face, pure suggestion burning in her bright eyes. Her hand snuck over and rested between my legs, and even through ski pants there was no way she missed what she’d set to life with the simplest of comments.

  Through the foggy desire gumming up my brain, I tried to remember this was Kennedy Gilbert. Whitman’s resident hot mess. I was pretty sure whatever she’d smoked or drank for breakfast was rubbing my crotch right now, not her.

  Get a grip, Wright. And for Christ sakes get laid when you get home.

  It took every ounce of willpower to reach down and slide her hand away, back into her own lap. “Not that one.”

  “Which one? The ‘likes to get off in public’ box? Noted. We’ll throw that one away. Bunch of fucking weirdos.”

  “You really are odd.”

  She nodded, settling back on her side of the chair and pulling her poles loose. Our lift neared the top of the mountain and I did the same, still struggling to shake loose the lust. When she looked at me again, the proposition had disappeared from her gaze, leaving cool detachment in its place. Her stare left me feeling abandoned, cast away, which was silly but still true.

  “You have to get in a box, Wright.” She swallowed hard. “I can’t deal if you don’t.”

  My skis hit the packed snow at the top and training took over, propelling me off the seat and out of the way of the people coming behind us. Kennedy was graceful on her skis, gliding at my side until we reached the summit and looked down at the run waiting for us. I wondered what she meant, or why it mattered to her if she couldn’t figure me out.

  “Wanna race?” She tipped her chin my direction, her whole body radiating mischievousness, the moment of desperate vulnerability I’d glimpsed on the chair lift long gone.

  “If you’re into losing,” I shrugged, puffing out my chest like an idiot.

  Without warning she switched both of her poles to one hand, grabbed the front of my jacket, and planted a kiss on my mouth. Her soft lips tasted like strawberries and lingered, her tongue flicking over my bottom lip for the briefest of seconds before she pulled away.

  I couldn’t come up with one single response before she turned and headed down the slope.

  Chapter 4

  Spring break had ended except for the long-ass flight home. Only Sebastian and I were flying first class—the rest of them were in business—but when Blair’s dark head poked around the corner and into the aisle, my chest tightened. I didn’t want them on our flight. I wanted to go home and forget about the way Kennedy woke something familiar and strange inside me at the same time.

  It had to be because of my brother. My shrink would say that dealing with Trent had given me some kind of stupid hero complex, and when I failed, it damaged my identity. It had always sounded like bullshit to me, but believing it helped me be okay with living life without my brother.

  I’d never had much interest in procuring a girlfriend, but even if that changed, Kennedy couldn’t be further from a good choice. Maybe someone like Emilie—a girl who knew what she wanted. A strong girl who didn’t let her desires embarrass her, or other people’s ideas of what was right dictate her life.

  Kennedy and Emilie shared a fuck you, world attitude, but not much else. The more I’d thought about what she’d said on the ski lift, about boys and boxes, the way she flipped out on me that first morning…it all felt as though she balanced on a very narrow fence.

  Even so, I’d spent the last twelve hours trying to forget the taste of her lips on mine, the way I’d missed them when she’d pulled away, and pretending I’d imagined my disappointment when I’d found her gone at the bottom of the slope.

  It was lust. She was fucking hot, and it had been a while. Nothing more.

  But here she was again.

  “Could you let me through, please?” Her voice sounded as tired and scratchy as it had the other morning at my house.

  I looked up into blue-green eyes that were clear of red lines and purple bags. “What?”

  “You know, I’ve tried telling Blair you aren’t a complete dumbass. Don’t prove me wrong.” She pointed. “That’s me by the window.”

  I moved and she got situated, pulling dark sunglasses out of her hair and settling them on her face before leaning her head against the plastic window.

  “First class, huh?” It was like I’d developed Tourette’s. I hated talking with my seatmates on airplanes, and I’d decided to make a general life effort to avoid Kennedy Gilbert. Yet here I was, making conversation.

  “Yeah. When your parents burn alive in a car accident that was the fault of a major trucking company, you win a shit ton of cash. Yay, me.”

  The words sounded normal, as though she’d casually commented on how perfect the weather had been for spring break, and they took a moment to hit me. Pain vibrated underneath them, so raw that it peeled back my skin and left every nerve ending alive and touched.

  “You don’t have to say anything. It’ll just be white noise to me anyway.” She shifted farther away, until her little body pressed against the airplane in an attempt to get as far away from me as possible. Or maybe as far away from everyone as possible.

  Kennedy’s story, at least the bare bones, was pretty much common knowledge at Whitman. It didn’t stop the truth from sounding terrible when it spilled from her lips.

  “I know. People never know what to say. It sounds like the parents on a Charlie Brown cartoon. Nonsense.”

  I hadn’t meant to share even that much, to let her know I understood, even if Trent’s leaving was only a fraction of the pain she felt in losing her entire family.

  One strawberry eyebrow arched. “Exactly. But what would the perfect son of Senator Wright know about that?”

  Silence hung between us, thick with expectation, but I didn’t respond and eventually she shrugged and pulled a tattered copy of Anna Karenina from her messenger bag. We sat in an oddly comfortable qui
et until the plane reached cruising altitude, then I pulled out my accounting homework and my laptop. Even though my G.P.A. was still intact, this class gave me more trouble than most. Math was one of the few things that didn’t come easily to me.

  “You’re mixing up your principles,” Kennedy mumbled, not moving at all.

  The sunglasses made it impossible to gauge the direction of her eyes. She could have been watching me the whole time, though why someone would stare at accounting homework if they didn’t have to was beyond me.

  “What?”

  “Your principles—continuity and objectivity. You’re mixing them up. Objectivity means not using subjective measurements to gauge success, and continuity means assuming a business will continue to operate.”

  “But doesn’t it make sense that we’d want to be objective about the business’s ability to continue?”

  “Maybe, but businesses are entities, kind of like people. And everyone expects them to find a way to continue moving forward, even if every sign points to their inability to do so.” She pursed her lips. “Also, those Israeli girls over there are talking about how hot you are. In case you’re interested.”

  Now I raised my eyebrows. “You speak Hebrew?”

  Kennedy turned away, staring out the window again, and mumbled something unintelligible.

  “Pardon?”

  “I said languages are like numbers—they make sense.”

  “Lucky for you,” I muttered, trying to focus my attention back on my homework instead of mulling over what she’d said about people moving forward even when they’d encountered a disaster.

  I’d read a lot about the stages of grief. It had been an assignment from Dr. Porter, because even though Trent hadn’t died, I had still lost my brother. People moved through them at different speeds, taking more time on some and less on others, and it was easy to get stuck. But if I had to guess based on the thin facts Kennedy had given me, she was still at the beginning. In denial.

  After six years.

  The homework went smoothly after Kennedy set my principles straight, and when the flight attendant came around a second time, I ordered a Bloody Mary. Kennedy ordered vodka and orange juice, then another. She kept reading and I tried not to think about figuring her out. She dropped little nuggets into seemingly random conversations, breadcrumbs that, if I followed them, might lead to the reason for her refusal to accept her life, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to pick them up.

  I walked the aisle to stretch my legs, stopping to chat with Jax and Finn for a few minutes. It helped to put space between my mysterious seatmate and me.

  When I came back Kennedy had procured a third drink. Her smile looked more like a grimace than anything else. “Why are you taking accounting?”

  “Still trying to stuff me in a box, strawberry?” I teased.

  “Yes. And you’re going to help me. I promise not to kiss you again. That didn’t help.” Her fingers went to her lips, and she flicked her gaze to the pretty Israeli girls two rows back. “Unless you’d rather go talk to them. From what I can overhear, the conversation isn’t going to be awful stimulating—unless you speak fluent giggle?”

  The smell of her body as she leaned toward me—not perfume but just shampoo and skin—tried to get to me but I shook it off. “Not interested.”

  “I mean, I can’t say I blame them for checking you out.”

  A pause lingered between us while I tried to rein in my hormones. The moment inched toward awkward before another sardonic grin split her face and she reached out to pat my cheek. “Relax, Wright. I’m not going to ask you to join the mile high club. Merely pointing out the obvious. You’re quite handsome, in that wholesome way that Iowa farmboys are handsome.”

  “Thanks. I think.” Her fingers left a tingle behind on my face. It took all of my self-control not to reach up and touch the spot. “I take accounting because it’s my minor. I’m going to get a film degree but I want to work on the business side.”

  “Why don’t you just get a business degree?”

  “I like movies.”

  “What do you like about them?”

  We talked about screenplays and writing, about stories and happy endings and sad ones, for the next hour. We shared more than a few favorites, especially when it came to classics.

  “Favorite movie?” She pursed her lips, squinting at me as though the answer held the secret to unlocking my elusive categorization.

  “That’s an impossible question for a film major. I’ll give you my top five.”

  “That seems like an excessive amount of information, but I’ll allow it.”

  “It’s a Wonderful Life, The Basketball Diaries, The Godfather, Young Frankenstein, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

  She seemed to process, then nodded. “All stories about redemption, in one form or another. Very interesting, Wright.”

  I’d never thought about it, really, and surprise wrinkled my forehead. “That was fast.”

  “I like movies, too.”

  “So, what’s your favorite?”

  “I only have two—a classic and a current, like normal people.”

  “I can’t believe you think you’re the normal one in this conversation.”

  She ignored the barb, rattling off titles in quick succession. “An Affair to Remember and Beasts of the Southern Wild. The second one took the spot from 500 Days of Summer.”

  The only connection that came to mind spilled right out of my mouth. “All stories about moving forward after tragedy.”

  It occurred to me that perhaps that wasn’t the best thing to say, but for a brief snatch of a moment, I glimpsed something beyond Kennedy’s flippant, dismissive exterior, and my desire to know more pushed forward before I could stop it.

  When she tensed, all of the honesty sinking back behind a wall, I knew I hadn’t imagined it.

  “That’s true.” She gave me a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “People usually assume the first is about a terribly clichéd crush on Cary Grant, but he’s not my type.”

  “Wait a minute. You are seriously the first girl I’ve ever met who doesn’t think Cary Grant is hot.” I grinned at her faked innocent face, letting the serious moment go. “I call foul.”

  “Meh. I watched a documentary on him once and he was totally weird. And kind of an ass. I think he was crazy cakes from having to stay in the closet his whole life.”

  “What? He wasn’t gay, strawberry. Okay, maybe bi, but that doesn’t make him less empirically attractive, does it?”

  “No, but what makes you so sure? Takes one to know one? Is that why you’re perpetually girlfriendless and eluding categorization?”

  “No. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “Ohhh, and the conservative senator from North Carolina has a liberal son,” she teased, sliding her arm through mine and resting her head on my shoulder. “Do you mind?”

  I swallowed hard, trying to breathe through my mouth and avoid smelling her. The softness of her palm against mine did uncomfortable things to my crotch, and for some reason the phrase ‘mile high club’ flashed in my mind like a neon sign.

  “No,” I managed. “Are you tired?”

  She shook her head, pieces of silky red hair tickling my neck and my forearm. “No. Just chilly.”

  “Right, because you don’t fall asleep with people around. Does that mean you’re not going to sleep this entire flight?”

  Tension wrapped her entire body in the space of a breath, her hand going rigid in mine, her breath quickening. She tried to pull away but I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, trying to encourage her to relax but unsure if it was even possible.

  “Never mind. We don’t have to talk about that, strawberry.”

  “You know nicknames are supposed to be short, right?”

  “What would you prefer?”

  “How about my name?”

  “Nah. It’s long, too.” I thought about it for several minutes while her breathing returned to normal, but
couldn’t come up with anything better. “It fits you.”

  “I’m sometimes squishy and full of seeds?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  I felt her lips turn up into a smile against my shoulder. “Maybe I’ll put you in the ‘too nice for his own good’ box. Which, incidentally, is full of guys that get tired of my bullshit within the space of a week.”

  We’d be in the air over nine hours, and she had to be feeling those drinks. I wondered how drunk she was right now, and pretended it didn’t bother me that I couldn’t tell. I liked this flirtatious, charming Kennedy, but I had been equally intrigued by the quiet, pensive girl I met the other morning, too. Where did they meet, and what held them together?

  I found that, in spite of my absolute certainty that following my curiosity would come to no good, I wanted to find out.

  Chapter 5

  Kennedy kissed me on the cheek and said goodbye as we exited our row and joined the rest of the passengers in the aisle. In truly strange fashion, at least for a girl, she’d gone all the way to Switzerland with nothing but a carry-on—and her ski clothes must have taken up half of that space. Maybe she depended on clothes she filched from her many men. I wasn’t proud to say that I would have let her have her way with me and then steal anything she wanted at this point.

  I wasn’t a prude. I brought girls home from bars, picked them up in class and took them to a couple of dinners, and moved on without any fanfare—it wasn’t that I didn’t want to take her to bed. To my surprise, even the fact that she’d been there with more than a few of my frat brothers didn’t turn me off. If I thought I could take her home and fuck the intrigue right out of her, like I did with the others who caught my eye, that might have worked.

  But I didn’t trust myself with her. I knew what Dr. Porter would say—that I’d barely gotten to the point where I could intellectually accept that there was nothing more I could have done for Trent. That his leaving said nothing about how much I loved him or how hard I tried.

  Kennedy’s sadness ran deep, like a river inside a canyon made of forced smiles and teasing words and way too many mind-altering substances, but I felt it. I didn’t know if it was because I’d become attuned to the same hidden truth inside my brother, or because she and I had some kind of connection, but either way—it was too big a risk. I couldn’t get involved with her, because I didn’t trust myself to get uninvolved.