Bend Page 17

  Wow. Well, that’s surprising. I’d never have guessed Paige was thinking of uprooting her family like that.

  “What about Logan’s job?” I ask, because her husband has, what? Nine years now with that firm? He’s an equity partner and has a network of resources and colleagues as well as rapport with judges and other court officials that he relies on to do his job well. That’s not a position you up and walk away from on a whim.

  “Well, he wouldn’t have to come with us if he didn’t want to.” Paige tosses out this comment quickly, almost nastily, and then she flashes me a little smile. As if to say she’s only kidding.

  Except it hadn’t sounded like a joke. I sit up straight. “Everything okay with you two?”

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” She gives a small laugh. A sound meant to imply she doesn’t understand why I would even ask that. Reaching out and gently tucking some stray hairs behind my hair, she says, “Can I do your hair and makeup for the party?”

  Um. Okay. The back of my neck prickles, and my stomach twists, because now she’s definitely changing the topic on purpose.

  But if she and Logan are having problems, and she doesn’t want to talk about it, I guess it’s none of my business. Unlike her, I don’t pry.

  Teasingly, I say, “You’ve got two little girls to act as stand-ins for your dolls now.”

  “Yeah,” Paige fires back, “but you’ll sit still, and you won’t whine about me hurting you when I brush your hair.”

  I let out a short burst of laughter. “Don’t bet on it.”

  “It’ll be fun,” my big sister cajoles, sitting up and tilting her head to look at my hair, as if she’s already picturing how to fix it. “Just like old times.”

  I blow out a sigh, giving an exaggerated groan. Because it seems appropriate. “Fine. But only as long as you promise not to get offended if I don’t like it.”

  Paige gives me a thumbs-up. Looking up at the clock on the wall, she says, “What time is it? Ugh, I have to start getting the girls cleaned up.”

  Yeah. As my sister pushes away from the table and gets up, I realize I should probably go find Jay. And get out of the way the inevitable discussion about how we’re sharing a bed this weekend.

  That should be about as much fun as trying to dig a hole in the ground with a toothpick.

  “Both bags are going in here,” Mia’s brother says as we reach the top of the stairs and he turns left down the hallway, pushing open the door at the very end. Which is the door to Mia’s bedroom.

  “Really?” I stop abruptly on the threshold like I’m one of those shopping carts that lock up if you try to take it out of the parking lot.

  “Is that a problem?” From the middle of the room, Cameron arches his eyebrows at me while setting down Mia’s luggage—a multicolored, wheeled carry-on suitcase as well as what looks like a hot-pink gift bag.

  “Uh.” I’m blinking at him, my mind going blank. The only thing I can think to say is, “No?”

  “Because you seem kind of surprised.” Cameron’s tone is heavy with innuendo. Beneath the brim of his Giants baseball cap, his keen eyes are fixed on me, looking uncommonly serious and direct as he asks, “So I’m guessing this is not something you guys usually do?”

  Play it cool now. It’s kind of hard to get a handle on Mia’s brother. One minute he acts like the class clown. The next he goes all moody and standoffish on you. He obviously suspects something’s going on between me and Mia, and I have no clue how he feels about that.

  I don’t have much of a clue how I feel about it, either.

  “No,” I reply as lightly as my acting abilities allow while finally taking a step into the room, “but the house is packed pretty full, right?”

  “Yeah. So you get to sleep in here.” Placing his hands casually on his hips, he finishes emphatically, “With my sister.”

  Sleep...with my sister. Without a doubt an intentional choice of words. Letting my duffel bag drop to the floor, I give a small cough and avert my gaze. Looking around Mia’s old bedroom. Wondering how the hell I got myself into this position.

  The room is almost entirely red—from the walls to the floor rug to the bedspread and the desk with its attached shelves and bookcases that takes up the entire length of a wall. My gut reaction when I saw it the first time Mia brought me home with her was: this is not how I pictured the bedroom of a privileged, suburban teenage girl to look.

  Guess I didn’t know her that well back then, because now this room just screams Mia. Colorful, bold, a little whimsical, and subtly feminine.

  After eight years, her parents haven’t touched a thing. This is still her space. And unlike every other time I’ve visited this house, I’m sharing it with her.

  Why the fuck am I sharing it with her?

  Running my fingers through my hair, I cross over to the window and look outside. I can see the entire backyard, from the concrete patio with its barbecue and dining area to the vast lawn that’s entirely enclosed by a wooden fence as well as a white, hexagonal gazebo near a dense growth of trees so tall that even from the second floor, I can’t see beyond them.

  But I know that behind the trees, the small city Mia grew up in is spread out over and among picturesque green hills that make its name highly appropriate. I have a hard time imagining what it was like for her, growing up in a place like this. Growing up in a house like this, which could’ve been ripped from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens.

  It’s taken me a long time to not feel out of place here, to banish the sense that the home of Franklin and Gwendolyn Waters is too big and too fancy and too pretty for someone like me and that just by being here I’m going to somehow taint it or break it—or be kicked out, because I clearly don’t belong.

  “So what are you working on right now?” I say as I turn back around and find Mia’s brother scrolling and reading something on his phone. I’m asking partially to make small talk and partially because I’m curious.

  “Me and a buddy of mine are developing this app that’s gonna totally kill,” he replies absently. Then he looks up and says dryly, “Can’t tell you what it is, though.”

  A snort escapes me. “I’m not going to steal your idea, trust me.”

  “Can’t be too careful.”

  I walk over to Mia’s desk and sit down on her office chair, which is made for a smaller person than me and feels tiny and flimsy. Cameron is kind of the odd person out in this family, what with Paige going into law like their mother and Mia choosing a medical career like their dad. But Mia told me that her brother coded his first computer program at age seven, so I guess he’s made the natural choice.

  “Wait...” Cameron scowls as he points at the floor where he left Mia’s stuff. “Is that a gift bag? I thought we weren’t doing gifts.”

  “Is it?” I stare dumbly at the pink paper bag with its pink twisted-paper handles. Well, it definitely looks like one, though there’s no tissue paper. When I asked Mia what to do about a present, she told me her grandmother made it clear years ago that she didn’t want gifts anymore, preferring instead that people donate the money to charity.

  “Man,” Cameron complains, walking over and grabbing the bag in question, “that’s so like Mia. She just has to be the special one. And she can’t follow rules for shit.”

  I can’t really argue with that. At least not the rule-following part. As Cameron picks up the bag and peers inside, though, I notice there’s a logo on it. In a loopy black script, it says, Secrets.

  Aw, shit. My stomach drops.

  “Hang on,” I say, automatically reaching a hand out in an attempt to stop him from looking inside. “I don’t think that’s what that is.”

  “What the fuck?” He pulls out a package wrapped in transparent pink plastic. It looks like your standard gift set. Except it doesn’t contain personal beauty products.

  “Yeah, that’s definitely not for your grandmother,” I point out while letting my hand drop back onto my thigh. So...this is happening now. Great.

&n
bsp; “What the hell is it?” Pushing his cap back half an inch, Cameron holds the package at face height, squinting at it with his mouth hanging slack.

  “Exactly what it looks like, dude. Mia apparently went to a sex toy party last night. Guess she left the bag in the car.”

  He throws me a look of disbelief. “A sex toy party? That’s a thing?”

  Funny. Those were my words, too.

  “What are you doing?” comes a high-pitched hiss from the doorway, where Mia’s staring at her brother with murder in her eyes. “Put it back! Mom is right down the hall!”

  Cameron looks at his sister. Then he points at the package he’s holding up and says, “A ten-speed vibrator? Really? My first bike didn’t even have that many.”

  Color high in her faintly freckled cheeks, Mia enters the room, pushing the door shut behind her. “Why did you guys even take that bag inside?”

  “We just grabbed everything,” I explain, crossing my arms over my chest. “Why was it in your trunk?”

  “I guess I forgot it in the car last night,” she tells me defensively. “Told you it was late.”

  “Do you think the strawberry-flavored lubricant actually tastes like strawberries?” Cameron says, tilting the little package around and taking inventory through the clear plastic. “‘Prolonging Cream For Him.’ Wouldn’t Viagra be more effective? And are you actually hooking up with guys who need that stuff?”

  I wince. Right now she sure as hell is not.

  “All right.” Mia advances on her brother and snatches the bag out of his hands. “Get out. Go play your guitar or something. And mind your own.”

  Grinning devilishly, Cameron leans toward his big sister and taps his index finger on the package. “Is that a butt plug?”

  She points at the door. “Out!”

  He backs up in that direction, still smirking at her, and I’m shaking my head at them. Since I’m an only child—and thank God for that—sibling dynamics are as foreign to me as Arctic winters.

  As he grabs the doorknob behind him, Cameron starts chanting, “K-I-S-S-I—”

  Mia reaches past him and yanks the door open, and then, with her palm on his chest, she shoves him outside and slams the door shut.

  “—N-G!” he shouts on the other side of the door, and then his laughter fades down the hallway.

  Turning around, Mia leans back against the door, letting out a little grunt of disgust. With her eyes closed and a palm on her forehead, she puffs her cheeks up, blows out a sigh, and says, “Shit.”

  “Yup,” is all I say. Because that pretty much sums up how this weekend is going.

  She looks at me from across the room, but even with my near-perfect eyesight I can’t quite tell what her expression means. Except it’s obvious she’s unhappy about something. So I guess that makes two of us.

  “Okay, so,” she starts as she crosses over to the pink shopping bag and drops her little set of goodies back into it, “about this sleeping arrangement...”

  Clutching the bag, she watches me and doesn’t finish the sentence. She just stands there looking beautiful and sexy and contrite—and kind of nervous?

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I get it.”

  Her expression smooths at that, the rigid lines of her shoulders easing, and she heads to her walk-in closet to toss the sex toy bag in there, hiding it.

  Does she really think that’s it? That she’s getting out of this that easily?

  Lacing my hands behind my head, I continue with, “You didn’t want to blatantly break the first rule—you know, the one that we both agreed on? So you’re doing it ambiguously instead.”

  She whips back around. Her eyes shooting daggers at me, she snaps, “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

  “Yeah?” I widen my eyes at her. “Well, cat’s out of the bag. Your brother made that clear. In a passive-aggressive way.”

  “Cam’s a troll. If we don’t make a big deal about this, it won’t be.” Mia walks over to the bed. The metal springs and frame squeak as she sits down.

  Maybe she’s right and it’s not a big deal. It’s just that, if she’s wrong and her family does decide to make a fuss, then what? We tell them the truth? We lie? There just aren’t any good options.

  “Besides,” Mia says from the bed, a slight tilt to her head and an impish smile playing at the corners of her mouth, “this saves me having to sneak off to wherever else you might be sleeping. So you can pay me back.”

  “Pay you back,” I echo flatly. What the hell does that mean?

  Then it hits me: us, stopped on the freeway shoulder in the pouring rain. Her wet and hot little mouth on my dick. Sucking. Stroking. Swallowing.

  Pay her back? Jesus.

  “Mmhmm.” She pulls her feet up on the bed and tucks them in so she’s sitting crisscross on top of the bedspread. “And I’ve never had sex in this room before. So I’ll be able to cross that off my bucket list.”

  I grit my teeth even as arousal stirs in my groin. Because, no, screwing Mia in her old bedroom in her parents’ house was not part of my weekend plans, and I doubt it was part of hers, either. But she’s obviously rolling with all of this more easily than I am.

  “Never?” I try to sound casual, swinging slightly in the office chair. “You told me as a teenager you did pretty much everything you could to drive your parents crazy.”

  She lets out a quick snort and chuckle. “Yeah, but I didn’t take it that far. Graduated high school still a virgin—isn’t that cute? Matt was my first.”

  And just like that, my semi hard-on deflates. My face freezes, my legs stop moving the chair, and my mind screeches to a halt.

  Fuckface took her virginity?

  Of course he did.

  Goddamn it. Why is this news to me, after six years?

  Mia is watching me expectantly, and I’m trying to figure out if there’s a reason she turned the conversation in this direction or if it was just an offhand comment. But I just can’t tell.

  So I decide to find out.

  She tossed the bait. I’ll bite.

  “And was that an experience worth remembering?” I grind out.

  Chewing on the inside of her cheek, she tilts her head and watches me narrowly. Trying to decide what the answer is…or what version of the answer she wants to tell me? I’m holding myself still, tense, and quiet as I wait.

  “It was, actually,” she finally admits in a soft tone.

  I can’t stop the scoff that erupts from my throat.

  “What?” she retorts, a touch of belligerence in her tone. “You want me to lie? To say that I spent a year and a half with a guy who didn’t know what he was doing in bed?”

  The corner of my eye twitches. I suppose I asked for this, but her words are still eating a hole in my stomach, and I can’t think of a single thing I want to say in response to that.

  But I don’t need to say anything. Because she’s not done.

  “Besides,” she goes on briskly, “you should be grateful. I probably wouldn’t like sex half as much if he hadn’t been so good at it.”

  Right. Thanks a lot, asshole. Thanks for screwing Mia so well that she now loves it, allowing me to reap the rewards. I suppose I have him to thank for the skills she showed off in the car earlier, too.

  Be grateful? Jesus fucking Christ.

  My eyes are burning. Why is she telling me this? There’s definitely a challenging and almost spiteful look in her eyes, and I feel like she’s studying me to gauge my reaction.

  Does she want me jealous of her ex-boyfriend? Fine. She succeeded. Congratulations, Mia. I don’t like thinking about her having sex with any other guy, but the mental images of her fucking him make me want to punch something.

  I’m pretty sure she still has a thing for him. Still, after all these years. Even after what he did to her.

  Which means that, even if all the other reasons it’s a mistake to be sleeping with her somehow disappeared, I don’t think she could ever really be mine. Not unless she could find a way to
let go of him. Which seems like it might never happen.

  If she wants to see me pissed off and jealous, though, she’s about to be disappointed. I still have enough self-control to keep that shit in check.

  So I clear my throat and change the topic. “When does the party start, and where is it?”

  It takes her a few moments to respond, like she has to switch mental gears. “Six o’clock at the country club. It’s about fifteen minutes away.”

  “Are we driving?” I ask, because a Waters family party inevitably includes alcoholic beverages. As do a lot of regular middle-of-the-week meals, so yeah, it’s fair to assume most of them shouldn’t be driving home tonight. I don’t think anyone has a drinking problem. But I can’t say for sure, because if there were any alcoholics in this family, they’d be able to hide it pretty easily.

  “I figured we could get a ride with Paige and Logan,” Mia answers with a shrug. “They have room, and Paige is designated driver by default right now.”

  “Okay.” I suppress a sigh. I kind of wanted an excuse to stay sober. It seems like the smartest thing to do.

  Because it feels safest to continue discussing trivialities, I say, “Freya told me with a lot of excitement that there’ll be a DJ. And, apparently, if there’s dancing, I’m her first partner.”

  Mia’s whole face lights up as she gives a quick laugh. “She’s never been shy about going after what she wants.”

  “That runs in your family, huh?” I ask dryly, bending my knees and drawing my feet up to the footrest.

  “It doesn’t in yours?” she asks sharply.

  Shit. I walked right into that one. And I need to answer it in a way that doesn’t encourage any follow-up questions.

  “Not really,” I say vaguely, putting a shrug into my tone and hoping she decides this isn’t a topic worth pursuing. I don’t know how I’ll deal with that right now when I’m still kind of agitated from talking about her and Fuckface’s sex life.

  Arching her eyebrows and smiling, she slides off the bed, stands up, and lifts her arms over her head. Stretching. Probably still feeling stiff from this morning’s long drive. And despite my irritation with her, my hands are itching to touch her.