Robin Wasserman - Envy

“I know, I know, Heather’s a little-”

“Hilary,” Beth corrected him.

“What?”

“Her name was Hilary ,” she reminded him with a reproachful glare.

Kane at least had the grace to blush.

“Ah, yeah. Hilary’s a little-well, she’s not like you. She’s just… fun.”

“So I’m not fun?” Why do I even care what he thinks of me? she asked herself.

“You’re fun and so much more, Manning,” he said languidly.

“And that means what, exactly?”

“It means you’re cute when you’re mad-anyone ever tell you that?”

“You’re changing the subject,” she pointed out, ignoring the compliment. That was just the kind of thing Kane said, after all, she reminded herself. Just the kind of guy he was. It didn’t mean anything.

Kane sighed. “It means that you’re fun, but that’s not all there is. Girls like Heather-”

“Hilary.”

“Whatever-they’re a dime a dozen,” he explained. “Girls like you? There aren’t so many.”

Now it was Beth who blushed. “I just hate to see you wasting your time, Kane. You deserve so much more.”

“I can’t believe this is coming from you, of all people.”

“Why me, ‘of all people’?”

“Come on, Beth,” he said, looking away. “I know how girls like you see me. You think I’m a sleazy flirt. Not worth your time. Girls like you think I’m worthless.”

“Not all of us,” she murmured.

“What?”

She was suddenly struck by the unusual sincerity, the urgency in his voice. And she didn’t like it.

“Let’s just-uh-let’s get back to work,” she suggested, bending back over her notebook. “So, when the exponent is in the denominator, you want to…”

The problem was, she didn’t know how she saw him anymore-but she suspected it was time to stop looking.

Adam had been surprised when Harper called suggesting they take a walk down to the old playground. Reminiscing about the past wasn’t usually her thing-Harper was all about living in the moment.

But neither of them had anything better to do, and it couldn’t hurt to go visit the site of some of their best exploits. Just because Beth was off somewhere studying with Kane, again , didn’t mean he needed to sit around the house all day sulking. He needed to take his mind off of things-and no one did that better than Harper.

“Why do you keep checking your cell every five minutes?” he asked her, just after pointing out the spot where Danny Burger, fifth-grade stud, had wet his pants. In fear of ruining his too-cool-for-school rep, he’d promised the witnesses three packs of baseball cards each in return for their eternal silence-and then run the whole two miles back to his house. “Are you expecting a call?”

“No, I left my watch at home and I just want to see what time it is-I have a dentist appointment later. Let’s walk a little faster,” she suggested.

As they reached the gate of the small playground, Harper pointed toward a couple by the swings.

“Isn’t that Beth? And Kane?” she asked.

Adam squinted at the couple-it was them, all right. Kane was pushing Beth higher and higher, and he could imagine the exuberant look on her face as she stretched her toes closer and closer to the sky. He’d seen it enough times himself.

Harper raised a hand to wave, but he grabbed it and stopped her.

“No, let’s just-just wait, okay?”

She gave him a cryptic look, but shrugged in agreement. So they just stood at the fence and watched.

“What are they doing here, anyway?” Harper asked. “I thought they were studying.”

Adam’s stomach clenched. “Yeah, so did I.”

“We should really get back to work now,” Beth complained, breathless with exertion.

Kane checked his watch. One thirty-five.

Harper had better be out there somewhere , he thought.

It was the perfect setup-the picnic, the romantic frolicking on the swings. And that whole heart-to-heart on his dating life? Talk about an unexpected pleasure. So Beth was paying attention, was she? He’d been unsure of how to play it last night-too much macho pig with all the leering and groping? Would it erode all the hard work he’d put into changing her image of him?

But as soon as he’d seen the look on her face, he’d known he had her. She was disgusted, sure-but she also, for a split second, wanted to be Hilary, wanted to forget all her uptight, repressed, do-gooder rules and restrictions and just fall into his arms. It was a look he’d recognize anywhere.

One thirty-seven. Time for the coup de grâce.

“Just a couple more minutes, sarge?” he grinned down at her-and, surprise, surprise, she couldn’t resist. “Just once down the slide,” he suggested.

“Okay,” she conceded. “But you first.”

Perfect.

He slid down, waving as he went and then tapped her lightly on the shoulder. “Your turn, teach.”

She climbed up the narrow ladder and stood paused at the top, looking down at him dubiously.

“This is a little higher than I remember,” she said nervously.

“What are you, chicken?” he called up to her. “Five-year-olds slide down this thing. Don’t worry, I’ll be down here at the bottom to catch you.”

He waited for her, and watched as she slid down the rusty and pitted metal, her blond hair cascading behind her, a grin of delight illuminating her flushed and open face. Kane had been with a lot of girls, but he’d never known any who could be made so happy by so little. In fact, he usually ran a little more toward the high maintenance end of the spectrum, girls who could accept a gold bracelet with an upturned nose and a faint “Thanks, I guess.” But Beth-he shook his head in bemusement. Give her a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie, swing her through the air, it would be enough. She’d be happy. And it was real happiness, the kind that spills over its borders, pours into everyone around you. That he’d never seen before.

She slid with a squeal into his arms, and the momentum knocked them both backward onto the scraggly bed of grass, where they lay tangled in each other’s arms, heaving with laughter. For a moment Kane even forgot why he was there, what he was doing, who was watching.

Then he remembered-and felt a sudden stab of an emotion so unfamiliar he barely recognized it: guilt.

Adam stood motionless, his face impassive, carved in stone.

Harper reached a tentative hand out toward him.

“Adam, I’m sure it’s just-”

“Don’t, Harper. Just-don’t.”

He was clenching the chain link fence so hard that his knuckles turned white, and Harper could see a small muscle twitching just above his jawline-but those were the only exterior signs of whatever was churning within him at the sight of Beth and Kane rolling around on the ground in each other’s arms.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said quietly. “They’re just taking a break. Nothing wrong with that.”

Harper stayed silent, waiting for him to give her some sign of what to do next. Finally he pulled himself away from the fence, turned his back on the playground.

“Let’s go,” he said shortly. “Let’s just go.”

Harper hated to see Adam in pain, much less to know that she was the one responsible for it-but in this case… well, wasn’t it better for him to suffer a little pain now, if it would help him avoid a much greater pain later on, when he finally realized on his own that Beth was the wrong girl? Or when she left him , for college or for another guy or for no reason at all? Just look at her , Harper thought in disgust. Running around with Kane, throwing herself into his arms. The timing might have been a trick, but what they were looking at? That was real. That was betrayal.