Raspberry seeds are tangled along a strand a few inches over, and I give up and comb my fingers across his scalp, checking for concealed fruit.
“Mmm,” he says, as though he likes my hands in his hair, which is softer than I would have imagined. The bathroom suddenly feels very smal .
I drop the berries and seeds next to the one he flicked into the sink. “I don’t see any more...”
He lifts his head, his eyes stil playful, and I have no idea what he’s doing until he does it. At first I think he’s spied another piece of fruit in my hair, so I don’t react right away when he lifts his hand. The wal is only a foot or so behind me, and it takes little effort for him to push me to it, one hand cradling the back of my head and the other skimming my hip as he leans down. Something in my brain sparks awake and I jerk my face to the side as his mouth grazes the outer edge of my jaw. My hands come up to his chest and shove him. “Reid, no.”
He backs up immediately, hands up and out. Smirking, one corner of his mouth turns up and he shrugs. “Sorry.
Won’t happen again. Just, you know, curious.”
“About what? ” My voice is somehow steady, when I’m anything but. He almost kissed me. He almost kissed me.
He shrugs a second time, which makes me want to punch him. He’s so whatever. “I didn’t mean anything.
Seriously. Won’t happen again.”
There’s no responsibility to accept, because everything just happens around him, as though he’s at the eye of a storm he has nothing to do with causing or sustaining. I shove past him, my heart hammering. He barely touched me, and he stopped the second I protested. He said it wouldn’t happen again. Twice, in fact.
People glance up as I pass, ask if I’m okay, and I fix a fake smile on my face, tel them I’m fine, even while I feel like I might hyperventilate. Why? Because he’s a rich celebrity? Hardly. Because he’s beautiful? Because of his casual arrogance—that intangible thing he exudes that some women find so irresistible? No, and no.
Okay. Then why?
Because everything I wanted to feel when Nick kissed me last Friday, I felt in the near-miss that just occurred.
Chapter 14
REID
Shit. Wel , that was stupid.
On the other hand, what the hel ? I haven’t been shoved away that decidedly in a while. If ever. I’m getting, like, Stockholm syndrome or something, and Dorcas is my jailer. That’s why I tried to kiss her, obviously. I need out of this situation as soon as possible.
Maybe I should have let her hit the ground, but when I saw that woman knock her off the patio, I just reacted. It wasn’t the most graceful fal or the most adept catch in the history of accidental dismounts. The consequences: my shoulder is bruised and one elbow is scraped raw, my abdominal muscles narrowly managed to withstand rupture, and I discovered—inadvertently, I swear—that Dorcas Cantrel is concealing some noteworthy curves under her col ection of enormous, altruistic t-shirts.
Once I’m in the car, I cal George—again. “Reid?” He’s surprised to hear from me within hours of the previous cal .
“Yeah, just an FYI on some photos that are probably being uploaded as we speak—a girl at the house sorta fel off the patio, and I sorta caught her.”
off the patio, and I sorta caught her.”
“Fell off the patio?”
“Someone ran into her. Knocked her right off.”
“Jesus.”
“No, some inattentive middle-aged woman.”
He ignores my quip. “So this girl you sorta caught—
she’s not underage, married, an il egal alien, a meth dealer…?”
I laugh. “Eighteen, single, and straight as the road to hel .”
“Um-hmm. Anything else I should know?” He hangs the question out there as he always does, no leading statements, no fishing for details. One of the many things I love about George. I trust him more than pretty much anyone and he knows it. He knows, too, that I’l be up front with him, even if I seldom fol ow his good advice.
“Nothing anyone would be privy to. She’s not interested in me, man.”
Outside the car window, East LA flies by, everything worn out, decrepit—the buildings, the sidewalks, even some of the light poles leaning—weary of the dismal setting. A guy with massive tattooed biceps steers his wheelchair around a fire hydrant that might or might not work if needed to put out a fire. Inches from the curb, he whips around the hydrant like it’s part of some serpentine course for wheelchair racing. If he misses a hairpin turn, he’l be in the street and run over. Extreme sports, disability-style.
“Oh?”
I’m flattered by George’s disbelief. “Yeah, she’s a genuine do-gooder.”
“Ah, I heard we had one of those in LA.” George is a funny guy. “I guess it would be too much to ask that you leave her as you found her.”
Minutes ago I was impatient to be finished with this Habitat gig—and Dori. Tel ing myself that this too shal pass. George’s al usion to the end of my association with Dorcas Cantrel , or rather my reaction to his al usion, tel s me I wasn’t ful y connecting those two things. I’m surprised to find that I’m not ready for this to be over.
George sighs. “Oh wel , the suggestion was worth a shot.”
I tel him what I always tel him—and it’s the truth, for what it’s worth. “Thanks for the advice, man. I’l consider it.”
“Mm-hmm.”