Robin Wasserman - Envy

“Me too,” she replied-it was only polite. She looked down at her hand, linked with his, as if it belonged to someone else.

He touched her cheek with his other hand. “I’m really glad you agreed to go out with me.”

He was so earnest, it was painful. “You’ve got really pretty eyes,” he whispered. “You know that?”

Oh God, just kiss me already , she thought, stifling a laugh. But she just smiled sweetly. “Thanks.”

And then, even though she’d been waiting for it, he took her by surprise. One moment his face was a foot away, the next it was on hers, bumping awkwardly against her nose, and then their lips were suctioned together. There was no wave of passion, not even a ripple. Instead, she just observed, as if from very far away.

His lips were oddly soft and very wet.

She’d never before noticed how strange kissing was, really. All that squishing and sucking and smacking together. Where your tongue goes and what your hands should be doing. She’d never really thought about it before.

But then, she supposed, you probably weren’t supposed to be thinking very much, during. You certainly weren’t supposed to be thinking about your unfinished chem lab or yesterday’s episode of General Hospital while his fingers were crawling up beneath your shirt, hungrily grasping at your bare skin. And you probably shouldn’t be thinking about another guy.

But Miranda was-and wished that those were his arms wrapped around her, his breath hot against her neck.

But then again-

It was dark inside the car, and they were just shadowy silhouettes pressed against each other. He could be anyone. She could be anyone. When she closed her eyes, there was only the feel of a body next to hers, of a solid chest and broad shoulders, of warm flesh and hard muscle.

When she closed her eyes, they were two strangers coming together in the dark.

When she closed her eyes-he could be anyone.

“So I think I’m going to ditch out on this whole swim meet thing,” Miranda said, stretching herself out on Harper’s living room couch.

“What do you mean, ‘ditch out’?” Harper asked lazily. She was curled up in a worn orange armchair, feeling far too relaxed and contented to get upset about Miranda’s last-minute change of heart. “Why wouldn’t you go?”

“I don’t know.” Miranda, who’d been playing a game of ‘should I or shouldn’t I eat this’ with a bag of Chips Ahoy! for the last twenty minutes, finally pushed the unopened bag away in disgust. “With the SATs and all, it just seems like maybe I should stay home and study-”

“The SATs aren’t until Saturday,” Harper pointed out. “We’ll get back from Valley Glen Thursday night-you’ll have all day Friday to study.” They’d had this conversation already, a few days before, and Harper had thought the matter was closed.

“Yeah, but I’ll be totally wiped, and it’s probably better if I-”

“Miranda, what’s really going on?” Harper interrupted, shaking her head. It’s not like Miranda’s presence on Thursday was at all crucial to the plan-but she didn’t like last-minute changes, not this late in the game. Not when everything was moving along so perfectly.

Miranda flushed and looked away. “I just think it’ll be weird,” she admitted. “Greg’s going, and I don’t want to… I think it’s better if I just stick around here. I’m sure I can find someone who wants to do some last-minute cramming.” She laughed ruefully. “There’s always Beth-I’m sure she’s not going anywhere two days before the SATs, and-” Miranda suddenly caught a glimpse of Harper’s face, which had almost completely drained of color. “What?”

But Harper was struck speechless for a moment, as she felt her whole plan begin to unravel.

“Just to avoid this guy Greg, you’d stay home and”-she could barely bring herself to say it-“study with Beth ?”

“Well, I was kind of joking about the Beth thing,” Miranda allowed, “but actually, it doesn’t seem like the worst idea in the world.”

“Except that it is,” Harper countered heatedly-and then caught herself. She couldn’t have Miranda staying home and screwing everything up. She couldn’t leave Beth with a potential alibi. But what was she supposed to tell Miranda?

Obviously not the truth.

“So exactly what was so wrong with this guy?” Harper asked, stalling for time as she desperately tried to figure out how to get Miranda on that bus and safely out of town.

“There was nothing wrong with him,” Miranda clarified, sounding exasperated. “I just don’t think I need to be with a guy I’m not really that into.”

“Okay, first of all, hooking up in a car does not qualify as being ‘with’ him, so just take it easy. Second of all, you’ve only been on one date-that’s, what, four hours? You have no way of knowing whether you’re into him or not.” Harper cringed at her own words, since she’d only needed thirty seconds with Greg to determine he was a loser. But in principle, she reasoned, it was sound advice. So what if she and Miranda, experts in snap judgment, had never followed it before? There was a first time for everything.

“I know that when I stood him next to Kane, it wasn’t pretty. Doesn’t it seem like the guy you’re with-excuse me, on a date with-should at least seem like the most appealing guy in the room?”

Uh, not when you have no chance in hell of getting the one you really want , Harper thought. But she couldn’t say that.

“Miranda, you know that old song, ‘If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with’?” she said instead.

“No, and if you start singing, I’m walking out right now.”

“No singing, I promise. Just a suggestion-give the guy another chance. Forget you ever saw Kane last night.”

“What were you all doing there, anyway?” Miranda asked suspiciously. “I thought you were staying in.”

“Oh?” Well, at least this time she’d known it was coming, and she’d had some time to prepare. “Yeah-uh, Kane told me he was going out with Kaia to talk about… their history project, and I invited myself along. You know, to keep an eye on him-for you!” You are an evil person-and, all of a sudden, a shitty liar , she told herself. She hoped Miranda would buy it.

“Well, thanks, I guess,” Miranda said grudgingly. “I can’t believe you were willing to subject yourself to a night with Kaia just to keep him away from her. For me.”

“Well, believe it.” Please, please believe it.

“So you do still think I’ve got a chance?” Miranda asked, her voice filled with a new hope.

It was a hope that Harper knew she should shoot down immediately, for Miranda’s sake, if not for her own. But if she was going to get Miranda to this swim meet, Harper was going to need to use some bait. And she had just the thing.

“I think… it can’t hurt to find out. And this whole swim team championship could be your perfect opportunity.”

“Why-is Kane coming?”

“He’s on the swim team, isn’t he?” Harper replied carefully. It was a true statement… it just didn’t actually answer the question. “You can spend some time with him, be there to support him. And as for Greg-how do you think Kane will feel, seeing some guy chasing after you for a change?”

“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea, Harper,” Miranda said dubiously. “Having the two of them side by side? It might not be-”

“I saw the way Kane was staring at you in that coffee shop, Rand” Harper broke in, throwing caution to the wind. “Seeing you with another guy? It made him look at you in a whole new way.”