Pride

by Robin Wasserman

  The band played for an hour, driving most of the regulars out of the bar in search of a quieter hole in which to hide. But Kaia stayed. When the set finally ended, Reed stepped off stage, obviously exhausted. She knew he had seen her—but he didn’t smile, didn’t wave, didn’t come over. Instead, he walked slowly to the bar, where the bartender—an overweight brunette in a low-cut top—had a drink waiting for him. He sat down on a stool with his back to Kaia.

  No one turned his back on Kaia.

  And she wasn’t about to go up to him. She didn’t even want to, not really—what would be the point?

  So, instead, she sat there for a few minutes, sipping some water and refusing to look in his direction. Then she made a decision: enough. She got up from her seat, grimacing as her heel sank into something suspiciously soft and moist on the sticky floor, and walked out of the bar.

  The parking lot was shadowy and half empty—and when she got to her car, there was a dark figure leaning against it. Her heart leaped into her throat—and then she recognized his silhouette. It was Reed.

  “Where did you—?”

  “There’s a back exit,” he explained, jerking his head toward the bar. “I saw you go. Leaving without saying goodbye?”

  “Without saying hello,” Kaia corrected him. “But it’s unfortunately too late for that.” He somehow brought out the nasty in her, just by breathing. And he just stood there and took it—almost as if he knew her, could recognize the feeble attempt to drive him away. Maybe she was glad it hadn’t worked.

  “Did you like the show?”

  “It … had its moments.”

  “Yeah, we suck,” he acknowledged. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I’m not very predictable,” Kaia said, taking a step toward him. In the dim orange glow of the flickering streetlight, she could barely make out his features, and his eyes were only pools of darkness—unreadable. “I’m rarely what you’d expect.”

  “I know,” he told her, and took a step closer as well.

  They were almost touching, and she could feel a shiver of electricity pass between them, as if the air itself were charged with tension. Possibility.

  “I should get back inside,” he said, but didn’t move.

  “I should get home,” she agreed, but she, too, kept still.

  “I wish it would rain again,” she said suddenly, nonsensically. And it was true.

  “It will,” he promised. And he took one more step and the space between them disappeared. Her lips met his hungrily and she sucked in the taste of him, sweet and sharp at the same time. She thrust herself against him and pushed him against the side of the car, drinking in the feel of his hands roaming across her body.

  He pulled away first, her skin still craving his touch.

  “I’m going now,” he said simply, with the mocking smile she loved to hate. “I’ll see you around.”

  And he was gone.

  chapter

  7

  It’s tough to have a bad time when you’re nestled amid the ice-covered peaks with nothing to do but frolic in the snow and bring your wildest romantic fantasies to life. Opportunity is everywhere. You have to really work to avoid it.

  They’d managed.

  A waste, Adam thought as he unpacked his duffel bag and came across the unused pack of condoms. A total, fucking waste. He threw them across the room toward the wastebasket. Missed.

  A disaster, Harper thought, pressed up against her window, watching Adam’s bedroom window a few yards away. All those hopes and all those expectations—and they’d all come to nothing. He turned out the light and then, almost as an afterthought, pulled down the shade. Almost as if he knew she was watching.

  A mess, Beth thought, as Kane dropped her off at home and, with barely a peck goodbye, sped away into the night. The trip had started out so well—and then it had just fallen apart. Why did she always make everything so complicated? Why couldn’t it just be simple, for once? Easy. Straightforward. Clean.

  A miscalculation, Kane thought, speeding down the dark, empty highway. He’d pushed too hard, been too obvious. Not a problem. He could do slow. He could do subtle. He could do whatever was needed to get the job done.

  A mistake, Kaia thought, lying in bed and wondering whether Powell was home yet, when he would call. That’s all it had been. All he had been. A terrible mistake. A moment of weakness. She’d indulged temptation, no harm done. But it was back to reality now. Reed Sawyer was nothing but a mistake—one that could never happen again.

  Although one in ten men suffer from impotence at some point in their lives, the disorder remains largely misunderstood, due to the persistent shroud of embarrassment and shame that accompanies the condition.

  You can say that again, Adam thought bitterly. It had taken him a full hour to even work up the nerve to type “impotence” into his computer’s search engine—and as he read through the numerous and mostly unhelpful Web sites, he couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder every ten seconds, even though he knew there was no one home to catch him.

  Impotency can be attributed to psychological or physical causes. But fear not! Whatever the root of your condition, there are answers, if you’re willing to look for them. There’s no need to suffer in silence any longer!

  Condition. It was such a harsh, clinical term. But then, most of the Web sites Adam had managed to find were exactly that: harsh. Clinical. And thoroughly depressing. Somehow, reading about surgical procedures and hydraulic penile implants was not improving his mood.

  This wasn’t for him. He wasn’t some graying, middle-aged guy who needed a fistful of Viagra to get it up—he was a healthy, athletic, eighteen-year-old guy in his sexual prime. Tomorrow night was the first basketball game of the season, and everyone watching him sprint across the court would assume he was just as strong and virile as he looked—young, fit, with all his parts in working order. They’d never guess what was really going on—and, while he was on the subject, what the hell was going on?

  Psychological causes can include stress, guilt, depression, and relationship problems.

  Adam sighed, and pushed himself away from the computer. So he was messed up—like that was a surprise. A month ago, he’d been happy, relaxed, confident—then Beth and Kane had bashed the hell out of him, and now he didn’t know who he was or what he could rely on.

  The worst part was, in the past, Adam might have been able to swallow his pride and gone to Kane for help on this one. But now, he had no one to ask—no older brother, no trusted friend, and he hadn’t talked to his father in years. And the Web was obviously useless.

  No, he was on his own. There wasn’t much he could do about his stress level, but he could at least reassure himself that the cause wasn’t physical. He pulled an old Playboy out from beneath his mattress. It couldn’t hurt to remind his body of what it was supposed to do.

  After all—practice makes perfect.

  “Yo, Gracie, this slaw isn’t going to clean itself up!”

  Harper winced. It was one thing when Adam called her “Gracie”—hearing the nickname in his lilting Southern accent reminded her of all those lazy summer afternoons they’d spent chasing each other around the backyard during childhood. Calling Harper “Gracie” had been the surest way for Adam to end the afternoon flat on his back with a wad of dirt stuffed in his mouth. (Though, even then, Harper had secretly loved it.) But when Mr. White, the diner manager, adopted his little pet name for her, it made her skin crawl—and it usually meant she had a particularly disgusting task awaiting her.

  There was one week left of winter break, and Harper had planned to spend every spare minute at the diner, in hopes she could pay back her parents and quit by New Year’s. It had seemed like a good idea in theory—but, in practice, it sucked. Especially today. Merry Christmas to me, she thought bitterly. Ho, ho, ho.

  The laughter was appropriate—her life was a joke.

  “And when you’re done in there, Gracie, come back here and see me. I’ve got a little h
oliday treat for you.”

  “Yes, Mr. White,” she called out as sweetly as she could, still determined to demonstrate that she could be a model employee even under the most heinous of circumstances.

  White had promised to try her out on table service today, since she was the only waitress forced to be there. But surprise, surprise, there were no customers. And so Harper was stuck spending Christmas with her new best friends, Mr. Mop and Mr. Bucket.

  All this so she could pay her parents back for the ski trip? WFS. Right. She and Adam were supposed to be closer than ever by now—instead? They’d barely seen each other since getting back. Harper had, of course, been stuck at the diner. And she suspected that Adam was hiding out.

  “Any day now, Gracie!”

  Harper sighed and slogged toward White’s “office,” expecting to find him, as usual, with his feet kicked up on the desk, watching TV and picking his nose.

  “Yes, Mr. White?” she said, affecting a subservient tone—it didn’t come easy—and poking her head in. “What did you—ew!” Harper stopped short in the doorway. There was White. Way too much of him. As she’d expected, he was leaned back in his chair, his tree-trunk legs propped up on the desk, and the local public-access Christmas show blaring in the background. Just one problem. He was wearing a half-unbuttoned, cream-colored (or at least it looked like it used to be cream colored) shirt with sweat stains rimming his pits and a forest of chest hair poking through—and barely anything else. His thick, hairy legs were totally bare.

  “What’s your problem?” Mr. White growled.

  “I—I—” Harper wasn’t struck speechless very often, but then, how often was one trapped in a dingy back room with your hairy half-naked boss?

  Still, she had an image to protect.

  “What did you want, Mr. White?” she asked, maintaining a neutral tone. “I’m kind of busy out there.”

  “Just thought I’d give you your Christmas treat,” White said, standing up.

  A Christmas bonus? Dare she hope?

  “You don’t mind the ensemble, do you?” he asked with a sly grin that said he knew exactly how much she minded and was loving every minute of it. “I figured, since it was just the two of us …”

  He approached her, shirt flapping against his bare legs, and Harper forced herself to stand her ground. Is he really stupid enough to try something? she wondered, swiftly calculating her options. He was big, yes—but also fat, slow, and stupid. She’d kick him in the balls, she decided, and then sue him for everything he had. This whole sordid episode could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

  “You see, round this time of year, I like to do a little something extra for my special employees,” White explained, leering at her. “And you’re one of my special employees, Gracie, aren’t you?”

  Steady, Harper prepared herself. Wait for your moment.

  He lumbered toward her.

  Closer, closer—

  And then he was past her—bending down to get something in the corner. Harper watched in confusion. If she wasn’t getting a bonus, and she wasn’t getting sexually harassed, what the hell was she doing there?

  “Here ya go!” White said triumphantly, standing up and tossing her a huge cloth sack. “Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!”

  “And this would be?” Harper wrinkled her nose and carefully set the bag on the ground. It smelled even worse than she did, and after a full day of mopping up the diner’s bathrooms, that was saying a lot.

  “It’s laundry day, sweetie. As you can see—” He gestured toward his lower half. “I’m fresh outta pants. And—” here he leaned toward her and winked. “I’m almost out of unmentionables. If you know what I mean.”

  Harper recoiled from his hot, musty breath—and left the bag on the ground.

  “I’ll give you ten bucks to take care of this today. And if you do a good job, you can do it every week.” He turned away from her and sat down at his desk again. “You’re welcome.”

  “You want me to … do your laundry?” Harper could feel her good employee routine slipping through her fingers. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Don’t play coy with me, sweetie,” White said, gazing at the TV. “You may have a fancy name, but I know you need the cash.” He chuckled. His laugh sounded like a garbage disposal. “Otherwise, why the hell would you be working here?”

  Harper looked down at her feet. She could see a dirty gray piece of cotton peeking out of the top of the bag, but didn’t want to think too hard about what it might be.

  As she saw it, she had two options.

  She could suck it up and take the laundry, prove to herself and the world that, contrary to popular opinion, Harper Grace didn’t mind a little hard work once in a while. More importantly, she could pay back her parents that much faster, hastening the blessed day when she could finally walk out of the Nifty Fifties and never come back.

  Or she could throw the bag of dirty underwear in his face and remind this loser that class and money were two separate things. He may have her beat on the latter, but where the former was concerned, he wasn’t even worthy enough to shine her shoes.

  “Oh, what, did I offend you?” he snarled. “Bethie never had a problem with it.”

  Harper rolled her eyes. Of course not. Little Miss Perfect let White walk all over her. Watching Beth get bawled out by the manager on a daily basis had been the only glimmer of pleasure in Harper’s dark diner days.

  What would Beth do?

  Beth would probably accept the laundry gratefully, like a dog begging for scraps. Beth would smile sweetly and thank White for his Christmas “bonus.” Beth would hold her nose, wash the underwear, and come back eager for more torture.

  But Harper wasn’t Beth—thank God. And it was about time people started to appreciate it.

  She gave the bag of laundry a sharp kick, pretending her foot was connecting with something far more satisfying. It skidded across the room, strewing pants and underwear all over the office floor.

  “Did you forget who you’re dealing with here?” White growled, standing up. His face had turned a deep, purplish red.

  “No—I forgot who you were dealing with,” Harpercorrected him. “But now I remember. And just in time.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I used to think your burgers were the nastiest thing in town—and then I met you. I quit.”

  Kaia was having a bad day. And the e-mail didn’t help.

  K—Merry X-Mas! New Year’s at Smash. Be there!—L P.S. J’s been asking about you….

  Lauren was the only one of her New York “friends” who kept in touch with regular—if brief—e-mails, tantalizing missives about the life Kaia had left behind. She was also the only one who didn’t rub Kaia’s face in the fact that she was missing everything. And “J” was, of course, Joshua Selznick, an ex-boyfriend with a model’s build and a mogul’s wallet.

  Kaia fantasized for a moment about making a grand reentry to New York for New Year’s Eve. A private party at Smash, one of the hottest clubs in the city (and, conveniently, owned by a friend’s father). A wild, all-night adventure filled with glitz and glamour, just like the old days …

  New Year’s had always been Kaia’s favorite day of the year, but her father had all the power—and all the credit cards. Which meant she was stuck.

  Unless …

  Kaia was pretty sure her mother hated her, but there was one person she hated more: Kaia’s father. Motherly affection might not be enough to win her approval for a trip back east—but maybe divorcée disgust would.

  Such a strategy would, of course, mean contacting her mother—but sometimes it was necessary to make a small sacrifice for the greater good. Five minutes later, she was dialing the number, half hoping there would be no answer.

  “What is it?” came the harsh greeting.

  “Mother?” Kaia asked tentatively.

  “Oh, darling, it’s you. I thought it was your father. Caller ID, you know. What is it, darling? I’m runni
ng out.”

  Kaia always marveled at the way her mother was able to take a word of apparent affection, like “darling,” and somehow drain it of all warmth.

  “It s been a while since we’ve talked,” Kaia began.

  “Oh, has it?” her mother asked distractedly.

  “Four months, Mother,” she pointed out.

  “Oh no, I’m sure it hasn’t been that long. Don’t be melodramatic, darling. Well, it was nice to hear from you, but—”

  “It’s Christmas, Mother. Don’t you even want to know how I am?” Kaia asked through gritted teeth.

  “You sound lovely, darling. I assume your father’s taking proper care of you.”

  “That’s the thing—”

  “I can only hope he’s managing to be a better father than he was a husband. That bottom-feeding, scum-sucking … well, it’s all in the past now. You’re an angel for putting up with him.”

  “He’s not around very much,” Kaia admitted.

  “Oh, then lucky you!” her mother exclaimed. “Now Kaia, I really must go, so—”

  “I want to come home for a visit,” Kaia blurted out. “Dad won’t let me—he’s trying to keep me away from you. I—” Could she really get the words out with a straight face? “I miss you.”

  “Oh. Well, that won’t do at all,” Kaia’s mother said calmly. “Who does your father think he is? Of course we’ll plan a visit. Sometime soon, darling. Don’t worry.”

  “I was thinking next weekend,” Kaia said, hope rising.

  Her mother laughed, a brittle, glassy trill that contained no real amusement or joy. “The weekend? Oh no, I’m far too busy. It’s New Year’s, you know.”

  She knew.

  “And, of course, the rest of winter is just a mess—so many benefits to attend, you know how it is. But don’t worry, we’ll find some time—maybe in the spring. Or definitely in the summer.”