Gluttony (7 page)

“This guy … he’s got some issues. He won’t talk to strangers—he’ll only help you if he thinks he’s dealing with me. And unless you want to dress in drag …”

Harper rolled her eyes. “I suppose Adam’s got a Kane mask stashed away in his suitcase somewhere?”

“I’ve never met the guy face-to-face,” Kane explained. “He does me favors sometimes, when he’s in the mood. Just get Adam to say he’s me. It’ll be almost as good as having the real thing.”

“You know what would be even better?” Harper drawled. “
Having
the real thing. You’re really going to ditch me and leave me with …
him
?”

Kane gave her a condescending pat on the head. “It’s for your own good, Grace. So take it or leave it.”

She hated to lose. And only Kane knew quite how much—which was why, she was sure, he took such a special pleasure in beating her. “I’ll take it.” She sighed, then decided to press her luck. “And I’ll take something else, too.” She opened her palm and held it out in front of him.

“You want me to give you five?” he asked, willfully obtuse. He slapped her palm lightly. “If you insist.”

“More than five, Geary. If you’re going to send me off on some wild-goose chase looking for your skeezy errand boy, I’m going to need to find a way to keep Miranda occupied. And that’s going to cost.”

Kane grabbed her hand and, firmly, pushed it back down to her side. “Just take her with you.”

“It’s got to be a surprise,” Harper insisted. “I don’t want her to suspect anything.”

“And you don’t think dragging me into the bathroom and locking the two of us in isn’t going to make her just a little suspicious?” Kane asked, raising an eyebrow.

She hated that he could do that. In junior high, she’d spent hours in front of the mirror trying to train her eyebrow muscles to work independently of each other, but she’d failed miserably. Maybe the skill was genetic—if so, Harper guessed, it was probably linked to the genes for selfishness, smugness, asshole-ishness, and all the other qualities Kane Geary carried so proudly.

She couldn’t help but admire him.

But that didn’t mean she was going to back down.

“Let me worry about that,” she told him. “Just help me out with this. If you don’t care about helping me, think of Miranda.” From the look on his face, Harper knew it was the right card to play. She knew that, no matter how much Miranda might wish for it, there was no way in hell Kane would ever fulfill her sad little romantic fantasy and declare his love. But Kane knew it too, and Harper suspected that somewhere beneath his preening, posing shell, he felt a little sorry.

Apparently not sorry enough. “Nice try. No sale.”

Harper shrugged. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He peered at her suspiciously.

“Sure.” She gave him a perky grin. “No problem. Don’t worry about it.”

“What’s the catch?”

Ah, he knew her so well. “No catch. No hard feelings. I’m sure the three of us will have a lovely day together.”

“The three of you?”

“The three of
us,
” Harper corrected him. “Miranda, me, and
you
—together. Just like the Three Musketeers. The Supremes. The Three Tenors. You get the idea. One happy threesome—”

Kane’s smile twitched, and broadened.

“Not like that, gutter-brain,” she snapped. “Like this. You head out on your mysterious mission, we follow. Wherever you go, we go. Whatever you do, we do. And whatever it is you’re up to this afternoon, we—”

“Spare me the tedious details, I get it. You win.”

She met his bitterness with a beatific smile. “Music to my ears.”

“Just take the cash and let me out of here.” He pulled out his wallet and handed her a credit card. “Send her to a spa for the afternoon. Girls love that shit, right? Massages, scented candles, mani-pedis, whatever.”

Harper bit back the urge to point out that, between the two of them, Kane seemed the far more likely candidate for spa-hopping. From his Theory shirt to his Diesel jeans, he was Grace’s only known metrosexual, and damn proud of it. But, credit card not yet in hand, she decided silence might well be the best policy.

He handed her the credit card, along with a scrap of paper bearing the name and number of his “guy,” and then, with a final infuriating elevation of his left eyebrow, reached for the doorknob.

“So where
are
you going in such a hurry?” she asked, knowing better but too hung over for caution.

“I’ll tell you later,” he promised.

Well, that was unexpected.

“Really?”

“No.”

The awkwardness was new—but it was getting old.

Last night had been their first uninterrupted stretch of time together in weeks, and Harper’s frosty demeanor had given way after the first pitcher of beer. Things had been almost easy between them, and Adam had allowed himself to hope. Until this morning, when she’d once again frozen him out.

Adam knew Harper well enough to understand his odds: hopeless. If he wouldn’t give her what she wanted—and he couldn’t—she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of revealing how much she needed him. And maybe, these days, it wasn’t much at all.

So, after a few frosty unpleasantries, Adam had gone back to bed. But not to sleep. How was he supposed to sleep, knowing she was sitting only a few feet away from him, maybe waiting for him to say something—or, for all he knew, waiting for him to blink of out of existence once and for all.

He didn’t even know why she was still there. He had expected her to leave along with Kane and Miranda, but instead, she’d stayed in bed, stretched out with her feet kicking the pillows, staring at the television.
Say something,
he told himself.
Sit up, start a conversation
.

But he didn’t know how. Even in the beginning, when they’d first become friends, they had always understood each other. Always known what the other was thinking. It had been effortless. Now, blundering around in the dark, he didn’t even know where to start hunting for the light switch.

There had been that brief period of weirdness in fifth grade, when Harper woke up and realized Adam was a boy, and Adam—courtesy of a windy day, a gauzy skirt, and a bout of humiliated tears—clued in to the fact that even tomboys had their girly moments. Harper stopped wrestling him to the ground and demanding the remote control. Adam stopped mixing her dolls with his action figures. Harper stopped using her Fisher-Price telescope to peer in his bedroom window, and Adam started dating a pretty blond sixth grader named Emma Farren, who once poured red paint all over Harper’s spelling homework.

It was a long week.

Long and lonely—and before too long, Adam and Harper mutually decided to ignore the sticky boy-girl thing and proceed as if nothing had changed. Which, other than Harper’s perfect curves and Adam’s elephant-size libido, it hadn’t.

Since then, he had always been able to count on her, and she on him. They’d climbed the social ladder together, Adam with the unconscious ease of a blond jock built for adoration, Harper with ruthlessness and a fierce determination. Adam had grown cavalier—with his grades, his games, his girls—and Harper had grown vicious, but they’d stayed loyal to each other. Without question, without doubt, without exception.

And then, in short order, it had all been destroyed.

Adam had fallen in love with Beth; a jealous Harper had torn the two of them apart. Adam, oblivious, had fallen in love all over again, with Harper—or with the Harper he thought he knew. And when the truth came to light, when he realized who Harper had become and what she was capable of, he’d pushed her away.

How was he supposed to know that days later, she would be lying in a hospital bed, pale and unconscious, as he waited and wondered and wished he could take back every word? And what was he supposed to do when she woke up and mistook his concern for forgiveness, when she rejected his offer of friendship because he refused to deliver anything more?

She wanted her boyfriend back; he wanted his best friend back. She couldn’t forget how happy they’d been; he couldn’t forget what she’d done, how she’d lied. Adam just wanted to go back to the beginning, before things got ugly and cruel—but Harper preferred to go forward, alone.

And now here they were, awkward and miserable. At least, he was miserable. It had been a mistake to let Kane talk him into this trip, into this ridiculous ambush, as if the element of surprise would shake Harper’s resolve. He needed to get out of here and forget about the whole thing for a while. He decided he would get up, slip into some clothes and out of the room, so quietly and quickly that she wouldn’t have time to react—or, at least, he wouldn’t have time to dwell on how she chose not to.

Then, without warning, she spoke.

“I need your help,” she said, and he could guess how much effort it cost her to keep her voice casual and even as she uttered her four least favorite words.

He couldn’t make a big deal about it. She was on the line, nibbling at the bait—he had to reel her in slowly, before she got spooked.

“Mmmph.” He sat up, realizing she must have known all along that he wasn’t asleep.

“I got Miranda the full treatment,” she said, sounding almost as if she were talking to herself, “which should give us about six hours. But we have to start now.”

Maybe he should have resented the fact that she just assumed he would go along with her—but he knew what it meant. She knew she could still count on him when she needed him.

And she needed him now.

Adam suppressed the urge to jump out of bed and embrace her—or, better yet, shake her and force her to admit that her whole act was a sham, and she needed their friendship as much as he did.

Slow and steady,
he cautioned himself.
Patience
.

“I was going to watch the game,” he complained, grabbing the remote and switching to ESPN.

Harper switched off the TV. “Look, I don’t want to spend the day with you any more than you want to spend it with me, but I’m stuck, and I …”

“Yeah?”

She propped her hands on her hips and stared down at him impatiently. “Are you going to make me say it again?”

“You …”

Harper rolled her eyes.

“You need …”

Harper still stayed silent, though Adam was sure he saw the ghost of a smile playing at the edge of her lips.

“You … need … my … help,” he concluded triumphantly.

She sighed. “What you said.”

“Well, since you put it so sweetly …” Adam climbed out of bed. “I’m all yours.”

“Lucky me,” she muttered, shutting herself up in the bathroom so she wouldn’t have to watch him change.

“Lucky us,” Adam said quietly, to himself. She’d opened a door—to possibility, to reconciliation, to the past. No matter what, he wouldn’t let it slam shut again.

chapter
4

“I just don’t get it,” Miranda said again. “What am I supposed to
do
at a spa?”

Kane shook his head. It was almost charming, her complete lack of comprehension about one of the most fundamental feminine pleasures. He spent most of his life on the arm of beautiful girls who were more primped and pampered than a Westminster Dog Show poodle. Miranda’s awkward naïveté was almost charming. “Not my area of expertise,” he reminded her—while making a mental note that, speaking of pampering, his nails were looking a little too ragged these days. “I’ve just been informed that I’m to drop you off at the spa and make sure you go inside. My mission ends there.”

“Door to door service? Ooh-la-la.”

“Only the best for the birthday girl,” he said, leading her to the entrance of Heavenly Helpers. He grabbed her hand and, in his standard farewell gesture—at least when it came to pretty girls—turned it palm down, lifted it, and brushed it with his lips. Most girls giggled at the faux chivalry, but Miranda, despite a faint reddish tinge to her cheeks, didn’t crack a smile.

“You’re too kind, sir,” she said mockingly. And, with a quick flip of the wrist, she brought his hand to her lips and mirrored his gesture.

“And they say chivalry’s dead,” he joked.

“They say feminism’s dead too,” she shot back, “but here you are, working nonstop on our behalf.”