So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (12 page)

He glanced over at me again, and I felt goose
bumps in unexpected places. I pulled my windbreaker tighter around
me.

“The reality ain’t all that exciting,
Goldilocks. I have a brother, but he’s not dead. Kyle’s just a few
years younger than me. I guess there’s a kinda fairy-tale glaze to
the story, though, ’cause we were orphaned pretty early. I was
five, and he was one.” Chase wasn’t looking at me this time, so I
couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or not.

“What happened?” I asked, allowing my
curiosity to get the better of me.

“Drugs and alcohol happened. Crack cocaine,
mostly. My earliest memories are of finding food for me and my baby
brother—graham crackers, milk, whatever we happened to have if my
mom remembered to get groceries—while my parents got high and
passed out to reruns of
M*A*S*H
.”

He said all of this nonchalantly, so I
couldn’t tell how he felt, but my heart went out to him. As the
sunlight made his dark lashes cast shadows on his face, he suddenly
looked so vulnerable. I’d momentarily felt sorry for the completely
horrible Elsie Donegan—but why hadn’t I imagined that Chase was the
one who’d actually harbored a tragic family story? His annoying
bravado and rebellious swagger suddenly made a world of sense. He
was a survivor.

“Did you have any other family around?” I
asked, my voice softer than before.

“Nah, just the New York state foster-care
system. Real warm-and-fuzzy folks.” He glanced at me out of the
corner of his eye as he splashed his girl with more green paint.
“Look at you, all curious and shit. Doing some kind of fieldwork on
the exotic garden varieties of the New York hoodlum?”

I sighed. Chase might not take my concern
seriously, but I had to try to convince him that I was on his
side—at least, long enough to get some information that would help
me select the artist for my project. And given that most of our
conversation so far had been surprisingly civil, I had some hope he
would listen. “Chase, I actually came here because I need to ask
you for something.”

His eyebrows rose, but at that moment, two
large shadows darkened our path. I turned around, alarmed to see
two tough-looking guys standing there. One of them was a boy with
stringy blond hair and a staggering number of facial piercings; the
other was a bald guy with a large dragon tattoo spanning his entire
skull. Neither of them looked particularly interested in Chase’s
mural.

“Yo, Adams, where you been? We been looking
all over for you, man!” the blond guy said gruffly, taking a
menacing step closer to both of us.

A sinking feeling took hold in the pit of my
stomach as the bald guy looked me up and down. “This your girl,
Adams?” he asked. “Me likey.”

“You got our money, man?” the blond said,
completely ignoring me.

I looked over at Chase. “You know these
guys?” I whispered, my heart making little palpitations in my
chest.

Chase was as cool as a cucumber as he added
silver curlicues to the peacock feathers and blooming roses. “Yup,”
he said, seemingly unperturbed.

“If you don’t got our money, man, maybe we
take your girl as collateral,” the bald guy said, eyeing me like I
was a tasty ice-cream cone.

“Are you going to do something?” I whispered
again, as I nudged closer to Chase. “These guys seem kind of . . .
mean.”

Chase simply said, “I don’t have your money,
so just back the fuck off. I’ll get it to you as soon as I can, but
that definitely ain’t now.”

“What, too busy painting fairies and shit?”
The blond guy sneered and kicked over one of Chase’s canisters of
paint.

This was definitely not looking good. I
glanced up the alley to see if any of the other artists were
getting a good look at what was going on. They seemed entirely
oblivious.

Surely they won’t do anything stupid in
broad daylight
, I tried to reassure myself.
All the same,
why isn’t Chase reacting?

“We gave you the package a month ago, and you
said we’d be getting our cut last week, but we ain’t seen shit
yet,” the blond guy hissed. “Now, we’ve been pretty fuckin’ patient
with you up till now, so if you don’t start showing us some
respect, things are gonna start to get real up in this bitch.”

Package? I looked over at Chase, who was
still completely Zen about the whole thing. Was Chase some kind of
. . . drug dealer?

The blond kicked over another canister of
spray paint, which made me jump. Since Chase didn’t seem to be all
that invested in protecting either me or himself, I began racking
my brain for a plan. The alley was pretty narrow, but maybe if I
ran past the bald guy, I’d be able to get out of harm’s way before
something awful happened.

He seemed to notice me searching for an
escape plan, because he took another step toward me. “Hey, babe,
ever done it with a Puerto Rican before?”

The blond guy chuckled in response. “Ain’t
nobody gonna fuck a nasty-ass motherfucker like you unless they
wanna end up with venereal disease.”

The bald guy began to swear in Spanish at his
friend.

“L-listen, guys, I don’t want any trouble,” I
said, my voice noticeably tremulous. “I was just leaving right
now.”

“‘Listen, guys, I don’t want any trouble!’”
the blond guy mocked me in a high voice, blocking my path as I
tried to leave.

I balled up my fists to keep the tears that
were blurring my vision from falling down my face. I turned back to
look at Chase, but he was as unreadable as ever. The panic that had
been coursing through my veins a couple minutes earlier flowed like
lava through my entire body. Apparently, Chase had duped me again.
Not only was he potentially some kind of drug dealer or smuggler,
but he was also the kind of guy who was probably going to let
something terrible happen to me.

“Where you going, Blondie? We was just about
to show you something,” the bald guy said, and moved as if to pull
something out of his jacket pocket. I froze and placed my hands
over my mouth, too stricken with fear to even scream.

“Oh my God, he’s . . . he’s got a gun!” I
said out loud to no one in particular, although it came out more
like an inaudible rasp than as a statement.

I suddenly felt a warm hand on my shoulder,
and that was when I screamed, barely drawing attention from the
other artists in the alley. I turned around, and it was just Chase,
who had a strange smile on his face. “All right, guys, knock it
off—she’s had enough,” he said simply.

Not quite understanding what was happening, I
turned back around to see the dirty blond and the bald guy doubled
over in silent laughter, practically writhing on the ground. The
bald guy looked up at me and pointed, dissolving into a heaving
mass of hysterics as he tried to speak. The blond guy was able to
collect himself, however; he shook his head and looked at me. “Aww,
you should’ve seen your face. ‘He’s got a gun!’ Jeez, man, we
really look
that
bad to you?”

“Chase, man, we’re sorry, but she was such
easy bait,” the bald guy said. Then, to me, he said, “We didn’t
mean nothing by it. It’s just . . . Pike and me saw you from a
little ways off, and we decided to make a bet to see if you would
get all . . .” He gave out a few high-pitched yelps, which I guess
was his way of imitating a histrionic girl. “You lost, man.”

The blond guy shrugged. “Whatever. I wouldn’t
have bought it if I was her. You look about as tough as a little
girl wearing a Catholic-school uniform.”

It took me several moments to realize what
was happening. I looked at Chase, aghast. “Are these guys . . .
friends
of yours?”

He smirked. “More like monkeys on my
back.”

The blond guy smiled affably at me, as if he
hadn’t just threatened me a few minutes before. “Thing is, last
time Chase hooked up with a chick like you, she was convinced
Reynaldo and me were gangsters or something.” He sized me up. “We
just wanted to see if you could hang.”

My blood was boiling. As petrified as I’d
been moments ago, I now felt humiliated and incensed. To think
Chase had just stood by, silently enjoying his friends’ horrible
gag, made me feel ill.

“For one thing, I am
not
hooking up
with Chase. For another, that’s great—really mature, guys. Nice to
know you get your kicks scaring innocent people half to death.” I
turned to Chase. “And here I was, believing for a second that
maybe, just maybe, Chase Adams was human. But I was right—you’re a
fucking monster. I’m sorry I thought otherwise.”

“Oooh, busted, dude,” Pike hooted. “And for
the record, I agree—Adams
is
a fuckin’ monster. I’ve known
him since the fifth grade, and I think he was, like, put together
from the pieces of a bunch of different corpses. Real Frankenstein
shit.”

“Hey, chillax, muchacha. We didn’t mean
nothing by it,” retorted Reynaldo. “And come on, you have to admit,
you definitely had us pegged as thugs, right? I mean, no offense,
but you don’t look like no girl I know from the Bronx.”

“Shut the fuck up, Reynaldo,” Chase said
brusquely, then reached toward me. “Annie, come on—it was just a
joke.”

“Not a very funny one,” I said, gathering my
things to me tightly and storming up the alley, past Chase and the
other two. They threw their hands up in the air, as if to signal
they wouldn’t try to mess with me. I could still hear them
chuckling as I huffed past the other (still completely oblivious)
muralists.

“Your girlfriend don’t have a sense of humor,
man,” Pike was complaining.

“Lay off—she isn’t my girlfriend,” Chase
snapped back.

I glanced back, but he was poring over his
masterwork as his friends play-punched each other and continued to
marvel over their act of trickery. From where I was standing,
Chase, however, was just as stone cold as he had come off when I’d
first met him.

So much for the sudden vulnerability
,
I thought. And as far as asking for his help went, my patience had
just about worn thin. When it came to finding a suitable street
artist for my part of the Quentin Pierce exhibit, I knew exactly
where I stood. I was totally alone.

I’d
brushed off Kendra’s questions later that evening, insisting I’d
met a couple street artists but that Chase hadn’t been around. She
seemed disappointed but didn’t press me any further. And Kendra
actually had news of her own to share.

“Yannis Papadapoulos finally asked me out!”
She had a smile the size of the Grand Canyon on her face, which
also made me smile. I’d honestly thought the hot Greek guy was just
a passing fancy at first, but I could see from the way they bowed
their heads toward each other in class, so attentively it was like
they were the only two people in the room, that this was more than
Kendra’s flavor of the hour.

“That’s awesome—what are you guys gonna
do?”

“Well, at first I was thinking of going to
see
Splendor in the Grass
at Washington Square Park, being a
huge Natalie Wood fan and all, but I decided to leave it up to
Yannis, so it’ll be a surprise,” she said. “Besides, you and
Harrison are going together, and I wanted to avoid hijacking your
first date. Anyway, Yannis’s command of the English language isn’t
so good, so I’m not sure how much he’d enjoy the film.”

My heart began to thump just a little harder
when I thought about Harrison. He would be picking me up in a few
minutes, and I still hadn’t decided what to wear. I stood in my
bathrobe, rummaging through my closet, as Kendra twirled a lock of
her hair around a curling iron.

As if she’d read my mind, Kendra said, “Go
with the purple sundress—it’s a pretty warm night, and you’re gonna
want to show off your legs. You can borrow my strappy brown
sandals—they’ll go really nice with the ensemble. Besides, it’s
late October, and this is probably the last balmy night we’ll have,
so take advantage of global warming.”

I smiled gratefully at my friend. “My own
personal fashionista,” I said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek
as I got ready. After applying a little lip gloss and mascara, I
observed myself in the full-length mirror. My skin was a little
ruddy from the unexpected warmth of the past couple days, but the
sun had tinged my hair with a few lemon-yellow streaks, which made
me feel fresh and summery. Despite the stress that seemed to have
poured over my life like an avalanche, the girl in the mirror was
calm and poised and even had a slight sparkle in her
cornflower-blue eyes. I felt beautiful.

“Looking hot, Annie! He’s totes going to try
to take you home tonight,” Kendra said, eyeing me suggestively.

“Well, I’m not really that kind of girl, so
the most he’ll be getting is a kiss. Besides, I have a lot to do
for the curatorship, so I’ll be working throughout the
weekend.”

“Oh, Annie,” Kendra said, as if she were
talking to a small child. “You only live once, and you’re going out
with the hottest guy in school—might as well have a little fun
while you can.”

I cowered a bit. I loved my friend, but I was
somewhat uncomfortable discussing my sex life. I wasn’t exactly
experienced. My first time had been with Peter during our junior
year of high school, on his living-room couch, after a particularly
hot-and-heavy make-out. We’d talked about doing it for a while, but
when it came down to it, it was spontaneous and a little unexpected
for both of us. And it wasn’t that it was bad—that time or any of
the handful of times we took advantage of stolen moments when my
mom or his parents were gone; it just never sent tingles down my
spine or a flood of emotions coursing through all the parts of my
body that longed to feel alive. The thousands of pieces of erotic
art I’d seen, and the literature and films I’d most relished,
suggested that the sweaty and disappointingly quick encounters I’d
had with Peter didn’t come close to comparing with what I believed,
on some level, really good sex could be like.