Robin Wasserman - Pride

“‘It’s a surprise,’” she quoted dutifully.

“So? Can’t you come up with a new question?”

“Okay.” Beth smiled mischievously. “Are we there yet?”

As the sound of laughter filled the car, Beth leaned her head back against the leather seat and closed her eyes. Maybe Kane was right and she should just relax, see where the day took them. She’d never been very good with surprises-but, thanks to Kane, she was learning.

“Patience,” Kane counseled. “All good things come to those who wait. At least…” he put his hand on her leg and began rubbing her inner thigh. “You did.”

Powell’s apartment was worth about what he was paying for it. Which meant it was slightly cozier than a soggy cardboard box, with better insulation. The rusted aluminum siding covering the face of the house was slathered with peeling grayish-yellow paint-and the inside wasn’t much more appealing. Powell’s tiny monthly rent check paid for a bedroom about twice the size of his bed, a bathroom (leaky shower, no tub), and a living room-dining room-entry hall-kitchenette area that offered slightly more elbow room than the front seat of a car.

In only a few short weeks, Kaia had memorized the shape and position of every water stain on the avocado green wallpaper, and every crack in the vomit-colored ceiling. The only thing she wasn’t sick of yet was the view, and that was only because she’d never seen it-Powell made her stay away from the windows.

Or, at least, he had in the past. Lying back on his bed and watching him pace angrily back and forth across the small room, Kaia could almost feel the balance of power shifting in her direction.

“A pizza boy, Kaia?”

He couldn’t get over it. Not just the idea of her in someone else’s arms, but the idea that he’d been sharing her with a delivery boy, of all people. Powell was a snob at heart. It was something they had in common.

“A ski bunny, Jack ?”

“So this is revenge, then? A little juvenile, don’t you think?”

Kaia just shrugged. “Not everything I do is about you,” she pointed out. “Sometimes I like to have a little fun.”

“I told you, no high school boys,” Powell snapped. “We agreed on that at the outset.”

Kaia sat up and leaned forward, and in spite of himself, Powell’s eyes followed her cleavage.

“You want me to go?” she asked, pretending to gather her belongings. “Fine with me.”

“I suppose”-Powell sat down beside her-“I could be persuaded to give you a second chance.” He began kneading his hands against her bare shoulders, exploring the contours of her neck, her back. “Provided you give up your pizza boy.”

“And you?” Kaia asked, walking her fingers lightly up his bare arm. “Will you be giving up Snow White?”

“That wasn’t part of our deal,” Powell said.

Kaia slowly unbuttoned her shirt, revealing a lacy red bra. “New deal. You play, I play.”

“I don’t like to share,” Powell said in a low, dangerous voice. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and squeezed tight. Almost too tight.

“What a coincidence,” Kaia whispered, leaning her head back against him so that her lips were nearly pressed against his face. “Neither do I.”

Harper didn’t believe in failure. So when her parents took off for a day of antiquing (read: spending too much for other people’s discarded clutter at roadside flea markets), she was ready. Without a job to stand in her way, she had all the time in the world to set things up-and when Adam finally showed up, she knew he’d be blown away.

“Uh, Harper?” he asked, hesitating in her doorway. “What’s going on?”

“Do you like it?” she asked eagerly, stepping aside so he could get the full view. “I did it for you. Well… for us.”

“It’s, uh… wow.”

With only a few hours of hard work (Harper’s least favorite kind), the living room had been transformed into a winter wonderland. The electric fireplace roared and crackled as if it held a real pile of logs, the walls were dotted with crudely cut paper snowflakes, and Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” blared from the stereo. (Good thing her parents were addicted to cheesy holiday music-they had a whole shelf of this crap.)

“But… why?” Adam asked as Harper guided him to a couch piled high with blankets. She’d turned the air conditioner on full blast, and offered him a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

“I thought we were just hanging out, Harper-you know, low-key After last night at the game-”

“Oh, don’t think about that,” Harper said quickly, ruffling his hair. The last thing he needed now was to dwell on his inadequacy.

“I thought we could both use a little treat,” Harper explained. “After all, the ski trip”-how to put it delicately?-“didn’t really go as planned. So I thought we could have a do-over.’”

“A ‘do-over’?”

“You remember, when we used to play four-square in the driveway, and you’d try to cheat-”

“I never cheated,” he protested indignantly.

“Whatever you say,” she said, leaning against him. “Anyway, if something, or someone, interrupted normal play, we’d just forget it ever happened and start that turn all over again. A do-over.”

“Have I ever told you you’re adorable?” Adam asked, and she knew she had him.

“Not nearly enough.”

It was the romantic getaway from hell. Or rather, to hell, if hell was anything like the dark, cluttered space with half-empty pizza boxes dotting the floor, also known as Kane’s brother’s apartment. Aaron Geary and a few of his friends sat around the room on makeshift chairs-mostly milk crates and rusty lawn furniture-while Kane and Beth shared a sagging beanbag that was leaking tiny white plastic beads all over the floor.

What more could a girl ask for?

“No thanks,” she said firmly as a giant bong-the first she’d ever seen in person-was again passed around the circle. Beth had been trying all afternoon to breathe shallowly so as to ingest as little of the pot fumes as possible. Still, the smoke was giving her a raging headache. And her patience was wearing thin.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” she hissed at Kane, who was bopping his head along to the Jimmy Buffett sound track-on an endless loop-totally oblivious to her discomfort.

She pulled him up off the beanbag chair and led him down a dark hallway into Aaron’s bedroom.

“Have fun, lovebirds!” Aaron shouted. “I just changed the sheets!”

What luck.

Beth grimaced and tried not to touch anything in the room-a thick layer of dust covered everything, from the rickety futon to the dilapidated dresser. A few empty vodka bottles served as the only decoration.

“Having a good time, babe?” Kane asked, leaning in to her. Unsteady on his feet from an afternoon overflowing with beer and pot, he almost toppled over.

Beth recoiled from his touch and turned her head away from his foul pot breath. “No, I’m not having fun,” she informed him testily. “Why did you bring me here?”

“What do you mean?” Kane sat down on the futon and tried, unsuccessfully, to pull her down onto his lap. “It’s a road trip-it was supposed to be fun.”

“Kane, you dragged me out here into the middle of nowhere to waste the day in your brother’s pit of an apartment with his burnout friends. How, exactly, was that supposed to be fun?”

“Lighten up, Manning-do you always have to be so uptight?”

From the look in his bloodshot eyes, she could tell that it had just slipped out-but she could also tell that he’d meant it.

Kane stood and tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away.