The Bad Boy's Dance (35 page)

              Asher hadn’t been in school.

              Mrs. Knut threw a fit and made us dance to songs with a rhythm faster than a rocket. She located me after class. “You tell him if his ass isn’t in this classroom Monday, I’m going to change your song to Britney Spears “Oops I did it Again”, and make him do a solo.”             

              Message received.

              I dropped Dana and Caleb off after school and went home. I was distracted as I fixed Jodi a snack and woke up Spencer, who’d fallen asleep on the floor next to the play pen and was snoring up a storm. Jodi had stuck a tiny doll shoe in his nose, and it was still there when he shuffled to his room.

              Seating her on my lap in front of the T.V, I wondered what I should do. Asher would have called me if everything was okay, and it obviously wasn’t. My worry magnified, and suddenly I was itching to find him. I’d check his house first, and if it didn’t pan out, I’d call him a few million times.

              My purse was in hand and I was almost out the door when…

              “IIIbbbbee!”

              Oh crap. It was my shift to watch Jodi, and Spencer was too dead to the world to be of any use. Jodi shifted on the couch, wiggling her tiny limbs. Her golden mass of curls shone around her face like a halo.

              “Ugh!” I muttered, picking her up and locking the front door as I walked out. I opted to take my Mom’s car, since Jodi’s car seat was already in there. I strapped her inside and hopped into the front seat. “It’s about time you meet the guy who’s been turning your big sister’s world upside down, huh Jodi?”

              Her answer was a high-pitched squeal.

              Getting to Asher’s house was faster than the last time, maybe because I wasn’t taking time to admire the sprawling mansions. I was too intent on my mission. When I got to his mansion, I parked and unbuckled Jodi. I lifted her, and she immediately wrapped her arms and legs around me like a boa constrictor. 

              Spitting a honey curl from my mouth ever-so-elegantly, I made the long trek to his front door and rang the doorbell. Jodi reached out and touched the lion head knocker on his door.

              A few minutes of an agonizing wait later, the door swung open, and Asher leaned against the door.

              My relief to see him was acute. He was gorgeous as always, but there was something off in the way he was staring at me, and the fist he’d made around the door.

              “Do you plan on letting me in?” I snapped, my annoyance at his absence winning over my relief.

              He stepped aside silently, and I marched forward. His house was as pristine as ever, with the winding spiral staircase outfitted with expensive paintings and long columns.

              “Who’s this?” Asher spoke at last, motioning to Jodi.

              “My baby sister, Jodi,” I answered curtly. Considering for a minute, I placed her on the carpet, away from any breakable objects, and prayed she wouldn’t spit up on the pricey Persian rug.

              “What are you doing here?” Asher asked tonelessly, crossing his arms over his chest.

              So that’s how we were going to play this.

              “Finding out where the hell you’ve been the past two days. You’ve been dodging my calls too.”

              “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I had to check in with you whenever I went off to do my own thing.
You
certainly don’t,” he said through gritted teeth, his calm exterior slowly cracking.

              “I don’t vanish without telling anyone!”

              “You do worse!” Asher calmed himself with effort. “Leave, Ivy, I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

              I kept any hurt off my face and faced him squarely. “Sucks to be you then, because I’m not leaving until I know what it is that’s got your knickers in a twist.”

              A muscle flexed in his jaw as he glared at me, but I refused to shrink away. He knew me well enough to understand when I got tenacious, there was no shaking me.

              “I’ve been trying to calm down before I saw you.”

              “Why would you need to?”

              “Cut the bullshit already!” he suddenly shouted, raking a hand through his hair. “I know!”

              “Know what?! What are you talking about?”

              Asher prowled towards me. “What the
HELL
were you THINKING!” he bellowed, the anger clear on his face nearly bowling me over.

              I stared openmouthed as he paced in front of me, stopping to shoot me a glare of equal parts rage and…fear. “Why did you make that deal with Trevor Garibaldi?”

             
Oh fudge buckets.

             
“How did you find out?” I said in a small voice.

              He threw up his arms in frustration. “There’s a gossip mill like you couldn’t believe with the people I deal with. In no time at all, everyone was buzzing about Trevor’s teenage pet he’d introduced to
Viktor Derevko.
”

              “Busybodies,” I mumbled.

              “Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, Ivy? You put yourself on Derevko’s radar, and if he figures out you have any type of a connection to me, he
will
use you to get to me. God, why would you do something like this?” His voice rose again, and my previous remorse and embarrassment vanished.

              “To keep you safe, you idiot! You’ve done so much for me, did you think I would turn away a chance to help you? You turned up at my door on the verge of
death,
Asher!” I yelled, my hands fisting at my sides.

              “I don’t need you to keep me safe! I’ve been doing just fine. I can handle myself with these people, but you have no chance!” Asher growled, slamming his fist into the wall. Bits of paint chipped off, falling to his feet.

              “Stop trying to protect me all the time! Let me do it for a change. I don’t want to be your obligation, Asher!”

              “My
obligation
? Is that how you think I see you?” Asher asked, getting even angrier.

              I rubbed my temples. “What’s done is done, alright? Derevko isn’t going to hunt me down!”

              Asher advanced towards me, caging me against the couch with his arms. “You have
no idea
what kinds of people they are,” he hissed. “They will stop at nothing to get what they want, and they’ll burn anything standing in their way. They took down my father, Ivy, and you couldn’t get a sneakier, more manipulative bastard than him. What makes you think you stand a chance?”

              I shoved against his shoulder, pushing him away a few steps. “What makes you think you can? Despite your invincibility complex, they can-and
have-
hurt you, Asher. If someone had come to you and offered you a way to protect me, would you have turned them down?”

              “It’s not the same.”

              “Like hell it isn’t!”

              At this point, Jodi started wailing. I rushed over, picking her up into my arms. Rocking back and forth, I smoothed her hair until she calmed down. She became more interested in experimenting with the inside of my ear.

              Asher had a mask over his face I’d never seen before. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, and a fissure of fear entered my chest. Had I messed up that badly?

              “We’ll figure this out later,” I vowed, forcing him to meet my eyes. “I’ll see you soon.”

              Hurrying outside and to my car, I buckled Jodi in and climbed into the driver’s seat. All during the drive home, and the rest of the day, I was distracted with thoughts of our fight. It was our first
real
fight, and I didn’t like it at all.

              “Ivy! Dinner!” Paul called up that night, an hour before I was to go to bed.

              “Isn’t this a little late?” I joked as I pulled a chair out at the table. “I was going to go to sleep soon.”

              Paul smiled sheepishly and pointed at Spencer. “It’s his fault. Don’t ask me how. He managed to burn the soup.”

              “How do you burn soup?” I pondered, mystified.

              “You overheat it and the vegetable burn,” Paul clarified. “Because some people are idiots like that.”

              Spencer flipped Paul off as he fed Jodi. He was saddled with the task tonight since I’d had to take his shift this morning.

              Laughing slightly, I forked some salad and mashed potato into my plate, but I just ended up pushing it around.

              “You alright, Ives?” Paul inquired, shoveling an asparagus into his mouth. “I know my cooking is bad, but you should eat
something
.”

              Obligingly, I forced down some beef and bread, but my stomach was too coiled from my encounter with Asher. I couldn’t understand why he was so angry. It’s not like Derevko was my best friend once removed or anything. And anyway, I’d only gone to a ‘job’ or whatever one time. I wasn’t exactly a hardened criminal just yet. So what was his problem?

              I couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning throughout the night. What was normal protocol for a situation like this? Was I supposed to call Asher and apologize? I’d gone to his house first, so the ball was in his park. My previous relationship had been anything but typical, and I had no reference to go by.

              By morning, I was certain I looked like a zombie. It took me a solid ten minutes to have an MMA fight with my hair and lose. I ended up leaving it in a messy knot, and my clothes were a Batman T-shirt I’d had for years and an old pair of faded jeans.

              I made an ironic kissy-face at the mirror. “Who needs Victoria’s Secret?”

              After pecking Jodi’s cheek and checking she was fed, I picked up Dana and Caleb. Dana was feeling better while Caleb’s anxiety had grown. We spent most of the ride to school convincing him he’d get that soccer ball like Harry Potter got the snitch.

              “Dana, did you ever buy your ticket to Homecoming?” I asked, forcing a nonchalant tone.

              “No,” she pouted. “Freaking Jason. I’m not even going.”

              “Of course you are. It’s our senior year, and we’re all going. And this is coming from me, the girl who would rather chew off her knee than go to a school dance.”

              Dana cast me a suspicious look, but I only winked at her.

              My good mood was fouled when the bell rang for lunch three hours later, and Asher was once again absent. It was preposterous to think he needed three whole days to calm down. And isolating himself at home was only going to give him more time to dwell on it. Avoiding me was a useless tactic.

              After strategically placing Kyle in the seat beside Dana, I excused myself and told them I had a bit of a migraine. Kyle offered to drop them off, and I gave him a thumbs-up.

              Starting my car, I just sat there and debated the wisdom of my actions. Should I go there, even after the harsh rejection from yesterday? It was obvious he wasn’t ready to speak to me. Maybe I was pushing him too much.

              Also, this was the third time I was ditching class.

              My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I extracted it to find a new text in my mailbox.

             
Asher:
Come to my house. We need to talk.

             
Oookay, Mr. Moody raised his head once again. I drove from the school parking lot, slinking low in my seat when the school officer glanced at my car. Technically I wasn’t
not
allowed to be off school grounds, but it would look questionable this late during lunch.

              It took me less time to get to his house this time because of a lack of traffic. I locked my car and hesitated before marching up the long path to his front door. I raised my hand to the door bell ringer, but the door was already ajar.

              Asher wouldn’t leave his front door open in a million years. Fear bloomed in my chest. Could Derevko have hunted Asher to his own home? Abandoning propriety, I tossed the door open and galloped into the house. Where could he be?

              Tearing through the first corridor, becoming more and more frantic when I couldn’t locate him, I tried to slip as quietly as possible up the spiral stairs. If Derevko was here, it wouldn’t do Asher any good if I fumbled around like a cow and got captured.

              I opened every door in the second corridor until I got to the last one. This had to be it. I knew for a fact only the theater and the game room were on the third floor.

              I cracked the door open, just enough so I could see what was going to in the room and ascertain if there really were criminals after Asher.