Robin Wasserman - Wrath

Kaia looked up and down the long, empty bar, then fixed Adam with a pitying stare.

“It looks to me like I’m all you’ve got.”

You can’t go home again .

That was the line that swam into Beth’s mind as she crouched behind a car in the parking lot, furious at herself for hiding like a coward, unable to find the strength to stand and show herself. She’d left school in search of Claire, or Abbie, or anyone from older, easier days, needing the reassurance of familiar faces, people to whom she mattered.

She’d found them, all right. And that, it seemed, had been the biggest mistake of all.

“Can you believe her?” Claire asked. She was lounging against the side of her silver Oldsmobile, while Abbie and Leslie perched on the hood of a boxy green Volvo. They were taking advantage of the picture-perfect weather, stretching out in the sun, and Beth would have joined them-until she heard the words that made her duck behind a parked car instead. “That speech was so pathetic. It was so her, though-all the little Miss Perfect crap.”

“Come on, Claire, don’t be such a bitch,” Abbie said, in a chastising tone spoiled by the fact that she couldn’t choke back her laughter.

“What? Admit it: She thinks she’s better than everyone.”

“Well…” Abbie and Leslie exchanged a glance. “Yeah,” Leslie allowed. “But that doesn’t mean-”

“Guys. Did you not see the way she was looking at us at the sleepover?”

“Like she couldn’t wait to get away from us,” Abbie mused.

“Like she was bored out of her mind,” Leslie added. “And we were supposed to be honored or something that she’d showed up in the first place.”

“It was kind of worth it, though, wasn’t it?” Abbie asked, tipping her head back to get a full blast of sunshine. “I told you we’d get some good gossip out of her.”

“Okay, but is it really worth putting up with Miss Priss for much longer, gossip or not?” Claire pointed out. “All this fake smiling’s starting to hurt my face.”

“Give her a break, Claire. This is Beth we’re talking about-I mean, yeah, she’s kind of boring and pretentious, but she was your best friend,” Abbie reminded her.

Claire scowled. “ Was . Note the tense. She’s the one who ditched us-and now we’re supposed to be grateful that she’s come sniffing around again? Like we’re some kind of last-resort rescue from total loserdom?”

“Okay, she’s not that bad,” Abbie argued. “It’s not like we weren’t friends with her… once.”

“She’s different now,” Claire said firmly. “You know she’s not one of us anymore. And I don’t care how many innocent little wide-eyed smiles she gives us-she knows it too.”

Maybe she had to work on her delivery. Giving someone helpful advice probably wasn’t supposed to make them want to throw barware at you-but Adam had looked about ready to do just that. And the irony was, she’d actually been sincere. For whatever reason, she was tired of watching his pitiful downward spiral; but, apparently, he didn’t want her help.

It was a good thing Kaia had better things to think about than the aberrant wave of consideration for her one-time mark. Reed was waiting.

“I’m glad you came,” she said, when she found him slouched in a booth at the back of the bar. He was wearing a tight black T-shirt and, with his river of black curly hair and deep brown eyes, he almost faded into the shadows. She hadn’t seen him-not this close, at least-since the day he’d run off from her house.

Her run-in with Powell had convinced her once and for all that if anyone in her life was a desperate perv, it was him. Reed had no motivation to torment her since she was sure he didn’t know about Powell. She’d been too careful.

“I’m not doing this, Kaia.” She loved the way it sounded when he said her name in his lazy, throaty voice. It sounded like honey-with a splash of tequila thrown in for flavoring.

“Doing what?” Kaia was good at acting the innocent, but in this case, she was honestly clueless. And she didn’t like it.

“You and your father-I’m not getting in the middle of that.”

“Of what? There is no ‘that.’ He barely knows I exist. And I try my best to forget he does.”

“I saw what you were doing.”

He spoke so slowly, as if each word did battle to escape from his brain. Usually it was sexy. Now it was just maddening. “Using me, to piss him off. I’m not doing it.”

Kaia laughed. Unlike the light tinkling giggle she usually allowed herself, this was a full-throated chuckle, a mix of relief and genuine amusement. She stopped abruptly when she noticed his expression-apparently, Reed didn’t like it when people laughed at him.

“Reed, did you see the look on my father’s face when he went back into the house? Did you hear what he said? He doesn’t care what I do. If I wanted to piss him off, I’d spill something on his white Alsatian carpeting. He couldn’t care less about my dating life.”

“I know what I heard,” Reed persisted.

His stubbornness, usually so sexy, was going to ruin everything.

“You’ve seen too many movies. My father and I? It’s not like that. What you heard was the same fight my father and I have every time we speak-which is about once a month. I don’t care what he thinks of me, or who I’m with.” She didn’t say please believe me . Either he would or he wouldn’t. “My father has nothing to do with-with whatever is happening between us,” she swore. “Forget him. I have.”

Reed considered her for a moment. He pushed a hand through his unruly hair, then nodded. “Okay.”

“We’re good?” she asked, wrapping her hands around his.

He nodded again. “We’re good.”

She leaned across the table to kiss him, hovering there for as long as she could, tasting his lips and breathing in his deep, musky scent. Then she stood up and laid her cell phone and wallet down on the table, hoping she’d chosen a clean spot.

“In that case, I’m off to find what passes for a bathroom in this place.” She skimmed her fingers across his forehead-for no reason other than that she liked to touch him. “Don’t go away.”

Kaia had been gone for two minutes when her cell phone beeped. Reed could still smell her perfume lingering in the air.

The phone beeped again. A second text message. And Kaia was nowhere in sight.

The phone was lying on the table, only a few inches away. It beeped a third time, insistent, as if it were calling to him.

Reed wasn’t usually a curious person. He saw as much of the world as the world wanted him to see-no more, no less. Why examine something when you could just breathe it in and enjoy?

But Kaia was different.

She was complicated and surprising. He didn’t trust himself around her. And he didn’t trust her at all.

When the phone beeped a fourth time, he looked quickly back toward the bathroom. There was no sign of her, so he picked up the phone and flipped it open.

See you at 8.

Wear the black teddy I like.

Or nothing.

That’s even better. J

Reed had never been a big reader. And in English class-when he bothered to attend-he’d always ignored all the crap about levels and symbolism. But the message didn’t require much interpretation; it said exactly what it meant.

When Kaia got through with him this afternoon, she’d be meeting someone else.

And maybe Reed was better at interpretation than he’d thought, because he was suddenly convinced that this was someone Kaia had seen a lot. “J” had certainly seen plenty- all -of her.

Reed wasn’t usually a possessive person. A hookup wasn’t a marriage proposal. People didn’t belong to each other. He belonged only to himself-and his girls were the same.