Envy - 2 (3 page)

And now sex, such a hot topic before, was off limits. Taboo. He never asked what had happened to her being “ready,” or when she might be again. Certainly never mentioned that he now knew what sex was like—and how much he wanted more of it. Sometimes he envied Kane, who could get any girl he wanted and could get anything out of her. Not that he would ever give up what he had with Beth, but sometimes he wished he could just take a break. Slip into a paral el universe where he was single. Free.

“So, it’s looking like the swim team might make it to the championships this year,” he said, trying to wipe such thoughts from his mind and searching for a neutral subject.

Making it work with Beth meant
not
dwel ing on what he couldn’t have. What he shouldn’t even want. “We’re having a pretty strong season.”

“I know,” she said with a rueful smile. “I wish I could make it to your meet tomorrow.”

“It’s okay,” he assured her, looking away. “I know you’re busy.” Last year Beth had come to al of his swim meets and basketbal games, and cheered him on from the sidelines.

This year she’d been too busy to make it to any of them. And he’d tried to pretend he didn’t care.

“If we do make it to the championships,” he began tentatively, “I think a bunch of kids from school wil probably come along, sort of a cheering section, and maybe—”

“I’d love to go!” Beth cried. She hopped out of bed and gave him a quick hug before pul ing on her denim skirt and a light pink tank top. “I mean, if you want me to be there….”

“Of course I do,” he said hastily, giving her a soft kiss. “I’ve missed my good luck charm. And it’d be fun to be there together. Good for … us, you know?”

“Speaking of us, Adam, I think we should—wel , we haven’t real y …” Her voice trailed off.

“What?” he prompted her gently, not real y sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“Uh, I just think I should get going,” she said, her voice suddenly brisk and cheerful. “I want to get in some studying before work.”

“You have a test tomorrow?” It seemed unlikely. Usual y when there was a test imminent, he knew it. It was general y pretty hard to miss—Beth had flashcards, study sessions, not to mention an endless litany of concerns about failing out of school—culminating, each time, in the inevitable A.

“No, for the SATs—you know, life-altering event only a few weeks away?” she reminded him.

“Plenty of time for that later,” he scoffed, pul ing her toward him. She pushed him away. Sometimes their relationship felt like an endless tug of war. He pul ed her in one direction, and something within her kept pul ing in the other.

“This is my future—
our
future—that we’re talking about here,” she said passionately. “It’s
important
.”

“I know, I know,” he said, trying to reassure her.

“You are coming on Saturday, right?” she asked, suddenly suspicious. “You know this thing is mandatory, right?”

“I know, you don’t have to remind me a mil ion times,” he complained, turning away from her. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I just wish you’d take these things a little more seriously,” she whined. “You’re always—”

“What?” He tensed. Along with sex, they usual y tried not to discuss the future—neither wanted to acknowledge that they were headed in two very different directions.

“Nothing.” She came up behind him and put her arms around him, massaging his chest and kissing his neck. “Let’s just forget it,” she mumbled, her lips against his skin.

It worked for him.

It was the worst possible timing.

Harper pul ed into the driveway, and there they were, a few yards away, wrapped in each other’s arms. Couldn’t they ever just give it a rest?

“Hey, Harper!” Adam cal ed to her in his lilting Southern accent. It was the one thing he’d held on to from an early childhood in South Carolina. Adam hated it, as he hated any reminder of his distant past. But to Harper, his voice was like a song, sweet and intoxicating. “Come over and say hel o!”

“Can’t, busy, gotta—you know,” she babbled, waving back as she raced for her front door.

Awkward postcoital convo with the love of her life and the love of his? No thanks.

Besides, they’d already forgotten her existence and gotten back to the serious business of groping each other. Harper shook her head in disgust and slammed through the doorway. When Adam had confessed to Harper—his oldest and most trustworthy friend—that he’d cheated on Beth, Harper had been sure that their relationship wouldn’t last the week.

But the incident had proved nothing more than a hiccup, a tiny bump in the path of disgustingly true love. In fact, if their nonstop PDAs were any indication, he and Beth were going stronger than ever. It kil ed Harper to know that, with a few careful y chosen words, she could destroy their happiness. She could drive Beth away—but Adam would never forgive her.

Ignorance is bliss, Beth—right?

As for Adam, he’d never mentioned Kaia after that, and now, once again, al he could talk about was his perfect, wonderful Beth.

Screw that. Harper was done waiting around for Adam to wake up and discover he was with the wrong girl. Harper the passive good girl (if she’d ever existed) was gone.

Harper the scheming bitch was back in action.

And final y, she had the beginnings of an idea….

Saturday morning, Haven High, room 232. The disgruntled seniors, al forty-eight of them, filtered into the room, spitting out variations on the same theme.

It was Saturday.

It was early.

And in a just world, they would al be at home in bed.

No one wanted to be there.

Not Kane, bleary-eyed and hungover from last night’s revelry, who thought studying was for saps and that SAT prep courses, even the lame one-time freebie offered by their tiny public school, should be reserved for those too stupid to score wel on their own.

Not Adam, who’d decided he didn’t need the SATs or col ege—not when he was planning to stay in Grace until the day he died.

Not Beth, for whom every minute wasted in the classroom listening to the teacher drone on was a minute she wasn’t able to spend shut up in her room poring over Princeton Review books and searching for the magic strategy that would guarantee her a perfect score. (And the fact that the class was led by Mr. Powel , that she could feel his eyes boring into her even as she stared resolutely down at her desk? It didn’t help.)

And certainly not Jack Powel , who, as the newest hire, had been compel ed to “volunteer” for the Saturday class. Sacrifice his morning. Stare down Beth and pray she wouldn’t grow a spine (or a mouth). Avoid the penetrating gaze of Kaia, whose very unwelcome and very public liplock with him in the middle of a school dance had left him the focus of hal way gossip, faculty lounge whispering, strict administrative scrutiny—and temporary probation.

No, Jack Powel would rather be at home and in bed too. Jack Powel would, in fact, rather be strapped into a dentist’s chair getting a root canal.

But no one had asked him.

“Okay kids, quiet down,” he cal ed out in his clipped British accent. He was only too aware of its charm—he’d made girls swoon al up and down the eastern seaboard, and it wasn’t surprising that the upper crust London inflection had an even greater effect out in this desert wasteland. “I know you don’t want to be here.” Shouts of agreement.

Join the club
, he thought, with more than a trace of bitterness. If his former col eagues could see him now, stranded in the middle of nowhere, policing these deadbeats-in-training. None of them knew how good they had it. He hadn’t known himself, until he’d ended up in this godforsaken corner of the world. And the worst part was, he had no one to blame but himself.

“Wel , let’s make it quick and painless, then.” He began to distribute a practice test—at least that would keep them busy for an hour or so.

He looked around at the roomful of students with a flicker of pity.
They don’t pay me enough to work on Saturdays
, he reminded himself,
but hell, these suckers have to be
here for nothing
.

Two hours later Beth staggered out of the school, feeling like she’d just emerged, not entirely unscathed, from an emotional car wreck. Sitting through French class with Powel was bad enough. Especial y with the whole school buzzing about Kaia’s kiss at the dance: Debate stil raged as to whether Kaia had thrown herself at the clueless young teacher—or whether the dashing Jack Powel was, in fact, carrying on a not-so-secret affair with his hottest student and God knew who else. Beth flushed every time the subject came up and just hoped no one could read the truth that was, she feared, written al over her red cheeks and tortured frown.

She stil couldn’t believe that she’d been stupid enough to trust him. Yes, he was the new sponsor of the newspaper and she was its editor in chief—at the time it had made sense that he’d want to spend a series of long, intimate afternoons together, going over logistics—but it had been more than that, right from the start, hadn’t it? “Cal me Jack,” he’d suggested—she shuddered at the memory. She had trusted him, believed in him, confided in him, until that final day. When it turned out that al he wanted was—

“Beth, wakeup!”

That was the trouble with zoning out—it made it a lot harder to avoid the people you didn’t want to see. People like Harper Grace. Haven High’s resident alpha girl: best dressed, best coiffed, best bitch. And, oh yeah, Adam’s best friend.

“Hey, Harper,” Beth greeted her, hoping her grin didn’t seem too fake.

She didn’t like Harper, didn’t trust Harper—but since she’d drifted away from her real girlfriends a few months into the relationship with Adam, she also didn’t have too many other options.

Harper pul ed her away from the crowd of students mil ing across the school grounds and gave her a conspiratorial grin.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said softly. “How are things going with you and Adam?”

“Uh … okay,” Beth responded guardedly.

“No,” Harper leaned in even closer. “I mean with, you know, that
problem
you were having.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” But Beth had a sinking feeling that she did. She’d made the mistake of confessing her fears about sex, and about her relationship, to Harper. The conversation hadn’t been a total nightmare, but she wasn’t looking for an instant replay anytime soon.

“I’ve been so concerned about you,” Harper said, linking her arm through Beth’s. “I mean, I just feel so terrible for you, with al your issues.” Beth pul ed her arm away but forced herself to do it with a smile. Adam was always urging her to see the good in Harper, and so for his sake she’d tried, and failed, and tried again. She was stil working on it—the least she could do in the meantime was be polite.

“So … you two stil haven’t …?” Harper prodded.

“That’s real y none of your business,” Beth snapped.

Harper looked at her appraisingly. Beth squirmed under the scrutiny of her gaze.

“Mmm-hmm, that’s what I thought,” Harper said final y, nodding her head.

“Look, I real y have to go,” Beth told her, pul ing away, wishing that a hole would open up and swal ow her before their little chat could go any further.

“No, no, I almost forgot why I wanted to talk to you in the first place,” Harper said, once again threading her arm through Beth’s as if they were the best of friends. As if they were anything. “So, listen, you aced that practice test, right?”

Beth darted her eyes toward the ground and reddened slightly.

“I guess…. Why?”

“We knew it!” Harper said triumphantly.

“We?”

“Me—and Kane. Look, he’d kil me if he knew I was tel ing you this, but Kane’s not too hot on standardized tests. He’s a smart guy, but he just freezes up. Have you heard that rumor, how they give you six hundred points just for writing your name?”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled dubiously.

“Wel , let’s just say Kane’s going to need it.”

Beth snuck a glance over at the Greek god of Haven High, preening for a couple of blondes from the cheerleading team. Beth wasn’t surprised to hear he was lagging behind.

From what she’d seen of Kane (another one of Adam’s friends whose “good side” was impossibly difficult to find), his definition of a hard day’s work involved vodka, girls, and plenty of naps. Stil , it didn’t seem like her business—or her problem.

“Why are you tel ing me this, Harper?” she asked, again pul ing her arm away.

“Kane doesn’t want to be stuck in this deadbeat town any more than the rest of us,” Harper explained. “Which means col ege. Which means decent SAT scores. Which means

… he needs your help.”

“Me?” Beth wrinkled her face in surprise—but a warm rush of pride began to spread through her. That they were desperate, and they’d come to her, needed her …

“You,” Harper confirmed. “He wants you to tutor him.”

“Then why isn’t he asking me himself?”

Harper laughed and shrugged. “You know guys, they’re idiots. He’s just embarrassed. Kane can be a little shy sometimes, you know?”

“Kane?” Beth repeated in disbelief. She looked back toward the entrance of the school, where Kane had hoisted one of the cheerleaders into his arms and was now spinning her around as she squealed in mock dismay. He didn’t look shy to her. Arrogant, maybe. Sleazy. Impressed with his own existence. Al of the above. But shy?