Robin Wasserman - Lust

Kaia just shook her head. “Miranda?” she asked. “How about you?”

Miranda looked longingly at the hot tub-and, more to the point, Kane’s supine figure stretched out along its width, his head now leaned back, eyes closed once again, arms splayed out along the edge. The Greek god of cocky laziness.

But consider her options:

Borrowing a suit from Kaia-who towered over her by a foot and differed in several other, far more crucial, measurements as well.

Or the Harper approach. Except that Miranda’s underwear of choice today was baby blue with yellow polka dots and, in fact, recently purchased from that Wal-Mart off Route 53. As would likely be immediately clear.

Add to this the fact that, much as she was enjoying the chance to examine and memorize every tiny detail of Kane’s mostly naked body, there was no way she was going to give him the same opportunity. He was taut perfection; she was, drawing from her always at-the-ready mental list of imperfections, stomach fat and arm flab and thigh cellulite and-well, suffice it to say, she was amply flawed.

“No, thanks,” she simply said to Kaia. “I think I’ll just sit on the side and gawk at all this partial nudity. Teen depravity, et cetera.”

“Yeah, I’m quite the turn-on, aren’t I?” Kane called to her, eyes still closed.

“You know I can barely keep myself from tearing off those boxers,” Miranda called out sarcastically, pulling off her shoes. If he only knew. She sat on the edge of the hot tub, dangling her bare legs in the steaming water, fighting the urge to lift one leg and begin lightly running her toes up and down his tantalizingly close bare skin. Instead, she flicked a foot sharply in his direction, splashing him with a torrent of hot water. “Somehow I think I’ll manage to restrain myself.”

Kane opened his eyes, lifted his head, and, steadily holding her gaze, wiped the drops of water off his face. He squinted at her, then shook his head and let it gently drop back down. “Do your best,” he warned her in a low voice, “but I’m irresistible-one of these days, Stevens, you’re not going to be able to stop yourself from tearing off all those clothes and jumping in.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Miranda said sharply, hoping that he was right, that someday she’d find the nerve.

But today?

Not gonna happen.

“Hey, how’s your meeting going?” Adam pressed himself against the back wall of the deck, the only spot he’d been able to find with good reception. He cupped a hand over the mouthpiece of the cell phone, to prevent the splashing and cackling from the hot tub a few feet away from drowning out his low voice. “Is it over yet?”

“No, we’ve still got a ways to go,” Beth told him. “We’re going to be here for a while.”

“That sucks.” He pictured her in the sparse newspaper office-really a spacious former supply room that Beth had commandeered her sophomore year to serve as the headquarters of the Haven Gazette . Despite the old editions hung proudly on the bulletin board, the short row of outdated computers lining the wall, and the ever-present stack of reporter’s notebooks and old tape recorders available for loan, the room still looked-and smelled-like exactly what it was: a dark, dank basement cave. A flickering overhead light, a fraying couch probably infested by termites, a tiny window that looked out onto a ventilation shaft-Adam couldn’t stand to spend more than five minutes there, but Beth loved it. She said it made her feel like a “real” journalist.

“No, it’s actually really great,” Beth protested, her bright smile so present in her sunny voice that he could almost see it. “Working with Mr. Powell is going to be so much better than last year with Donovan. He actually wants to listen to my ideas. In fact, you’ll never guess…”

Adam sighed good-naturedly as Beth began to chatter about her plans for the paper. He hated how busy she always was, but he loved her earnestness, her passion. The way she threw herself into what she loved.

He grinned-the way she threw herself at him sometimes didn’t hurt either.

“Anyway, I think we might work through dinner,” she finished apologetically.

“What? I thought we were having dinner together,” he complained, annoyed as quickly as, a moment ago, he’d been aroused.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry-I was just about to call you and-”

He stole a glance at the hot tub, where Kane was now flailing his arms wildly as Harper and Kaia struggled to knock him off balance and submerge him under the water. Kaia let loose a laughing shriek as Kane grabbed her wet, squirming body and tossed it away from him with a loud splash. Adam shook his head in exasperation. Kane was basically beating them off with a stick, and meanwhile Adam was getting stood up by his own girlfriend. It was more than frustrating, it was humiliating. “Beth, we practically haven’t seen each other all week!”

“I know.” She lowered her voice into a sexy whisper. “Look, I promise I’ll make it up to you. This weekend we’ll-oh, wait, hold on.”

Adam waited, his annoyance mounting. In the background he could hear distant voices and the familiar melody of Beth’s laughter.

Finally: “Sorry, Ad-Mr. Powell needs to go over something with me and the sooner we get through this, the sooner I can get out of here.”

Adam made a noncommittal sound. It was better, he knew, to say nothing than to voice the bitter thoughts pounding through his brain.

“So we’re okay then?” she asked, sounding worried.

And so he gave in, as always unable to resist the sound of her voice.

“Of course we’re okay. Go show him how brilliant you are.”

“Thanks!” she chirped. “Talk to you tonight.”

“Love you,” he told her.

But she’d already hung up.

Adam sighed and stuffed the phone into his backpack. Now what?

He supposed he could go home and sulk, have dinner with his mother-or, more likely, order a pizza with the guilt money his mother had left before leaving on some date with the flavor of the week. Watch TV, wait for a phone call that might never come.

Or…

Kane was once again stretched out in the water, letting the jets pummel his upper back and lazily tipping the last few drops of his drink into his mouth. Harper, looking-he had to admit-totally hot, was flicking water on a squealing Miranda.

And Kaia was sporting a barely-there white bikini, which, set off against her perfect tan, made her look like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. She floated against the side of the Jacuzzi, her chest to the wall and her chin propped up over the edge on her delicate, slender arms. Her hair fanned out behind her, floating atop the water like a cloud of India ink. She was staring right at him.

And that was definitely what his mother’s trashy romance novels dubbed a “come hither” smile.

Enough was enough. Adam began peeling off his clothes, hoping he wouldn’t have to take too much shit for the cartoon hearts that decorated his boxers (last year’s Valentine’s Day gift from Beth). He could already imagine how good that water was going to feel as he slid in, right between Harper and Kaia.

So, yeah, he’d been stood up-but was he supposed to complain about getting to spend the evening surrounded by beautiful half-naked women?

Maybe the whole thing was, in the end, for the best.

A hot tub, after all, is a terrible thing to waste.

“Sorry about that,” Beth said, snapping the phone shut and slipping it back into her bag. She turned back to the table, where a pile of old Haven Gazettes lay haphazardly in front of her, all flipped open to the articles she had deemed the best-and worst-of the lot. They were conducting a systematic investigation of everything that was right and wrong about the school paper, and at the rate things were going, it was going to take all night.