Lie to Me (13 page)

And every single one of those hurdles fell, one by one. You know the kind that collapse when they fall? Some kind of safety thing? All of ‘em, down, like collapsing dominos. Right in front of the entire confused track and field team.

And Lo takes the fall, rolling in that green grass, and just starts laughing at herself. I don’t mean normal laughing. I mean, it was funny, but not, like, the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. But Lo had tears coming down her cheeks she was laughing so hard, and as soon as I figured it out, I was, too. Because she ran at the hurdle like she’d just decided to start feeling things again, and then she’d messed it up anyway and embarrassed herself, and the absurdity of it, like she finally got the courage to take a step, and tripped over her own feet anyway…

I don’t know how to explain it. But that was the day that Harlow laughed again, and she did it laughing at herself. Believe me when I tell you that I’ve never been more relieved in my life.

So today, right now, as Lo starts to walk down those steps looking all proud and defiant, like spending time with me is going to be something difficult and terrible, something she has to conquer, she trips coming down the stairs and falls right into me.

She crashed into me.

Her body pressed against mine, her hands on my chest, her breath on my neck—damn. Instantly I feel myself start to get hard, and I have to put that on lockdown. Not easy when I can feel how breathless she is, too.

No matter how angry she is at me, no matter how much I deserve it, it won’t change how we feel together.

Her hands linger on my chest just a second too long and her hips melt into me just enough to make me want to groan, and then she pushes off of me, and I can see her laughing at herself. Laughing at me, too, laughing at how dumb and awkward we are.

She looks at me, her eyes these dancing blue points in the morning gray, crinkling at the corners while she smiles.

“So,” she says, exaggerating the word, “I won’t do that again.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Suit yourself.”

But I am just so damn happy to see her laughing again. Smiling.

There’s another one of those moments we have. When it’s just electric between us, when I know she’s looking at me just like I’m looking at her. Wanting it to be so much more. Except this time, when she looks back into my eyes, I see more than lust. I see hate. And hurt.

What did I expect?

I start to jog down the street, loping slow and easy, and find that she settles in with me just fine. Like old times. Like old times, except I’m carrying a secret, and I might be the worst thing to ever happen to her.

Because even with what I just saw, I can’t bring myself to stay away.

chapter 9

HARLOW

Working out for the first time in months on no sleep sucks, believe me. But that is not the worst of it.

I was up practically all night. Restless. Mind churning, sifting through memories of Marcus, always shying away from the worst, the day that’s at the core of so many of them. That’s not unusual, though. The only thing I’ve ever remembered about the day my parents died is Marcus.

Days after that?Nothing, except Marcus being there. I mean, I must have done things. Talked to people, dealt with responsibilities, spoken to my bitchy Aunt Jill when she arrived to take Dill, even though she wouldn’t take me. (I was “too much.” Whatever. She just wanted control of the trust, and the house.)

I mean, I still existed during those days, but all I remember is the time I spent with Marcus. Weirdly—and I used to feel guilty about this, because I thought it meant I was incredibly shallow—I remember thinking how much it no longer mattered that he had gone and slept with Rosa right as I thought he was finally getting interested in me. I mean, of all the things to be preoccupied with when you’ve just been orphaned, right? But I think that was just the level my brain could handle. Strangely satisfied that he was hanging out with me instead.

Not just hanging out. I don’t actually remember him leaving my side. The Mankowskis were super tolerant, come to think of it, maybe because Marcus was the only one who could get me to go to school. Or who could get me to sleep, eventually.

 So my jerkwad brain is tossing these gems up all night while I’m thinking about what it’s going to mean to spend all this time with Marcus again. And whenever I get too close to what happened later, to what Marcus became for me, I shut it down as much as I can. I can’t deal. I can’t deal, and I shouldn’t be thinking about that, because he is not that anymore.

It’s the emotional element that’s pissing me off. It’s the emotional element that makes me feel weak. I have to keep reminding myself: I don’t want him to love me, or try to win me back, or any of that bullshit. I don’t want to feel safe with him again. I mean, I can’t want that. I want validation. I want an explanation of why he rejected and then abandoned me.

And God help me, I want him inside me.

This is the last place I find refuge. The only place I find refuge: thinking about Marcus taking me, turning it into something purely physical, rather than emotional. Taking me hard, taking me in the way he never quite did when we were sweet, relatively innocent teenagers in love. I want to hate fuck him. I want to put him in his place, and make sure that that is all he’ll ever be to me again.

Or maybe I just want him. Maybe it’s just chemical between us and I need to accept that.

Yeah, so this is everything that’s going through my head as I walk down my front porch steps and trip into Marcus’s arms.

Not even a little bit on purpose, I swear. Not consciously, anyway.

So of course I laugh. I mean, of course I laugh; I just made an ass out of myself, again, and there is nothing else you can do but laugh in that situation. Because the second he touches me, I’m wet, and my body comes roaring alive with wanting him. The second he puts his arms around me to steady me, I feel his strength, feel him holding me up the way he used to, and I remember how incredible it was to have Marcus Roma in my corner. And everything in me crumbles.

So when I look back at him, I remember to hate him. I remember to hate him for leaving me, for making me feel like nothing. I remember to hate him for making me weak.

And I remember to hate myself for not being able to get over any of it.

He sees it. I know he does by the look that passes across his face like a shadow. And that both elates me, in a sick way I’m not proud of, and breaks my heart, in a way that frightens me.

I am so, so relieved when he just starts running.

I don’t even care when I catch myself falling into old rhythms, bantering with him, teasing him about how he’s so out of shape. He’s not out of shape, obviously; he’s a Greek god. But I have to say something to cover up the fact that I haven’t had a decent workout in months.

“McCarren Park?” he says, looking over his shoulder.

I smile and nod, and tell myself I’m not just playing it cool. I am cool. Because watching Marcus Roma build up a sweat is not going to get to me.

Or, rather, it will get to me, but only in one very specific way.

We hit the track and I start rehearsing the stuff I’d thought about yesterday. So, first of all, it’s clear I’m not going to get answers from Marcus right away. He taught me all about this, after all. If you attack directly, your opponent instinctively blocks. You have to feint.

So I’ll have to work my way around to explanations. It will probably involve lots of conversations about things I would rather forget, or at least not dwell on, but whatever. This was never going to be easy. But I’ve convinced myself I can handle it.

I have to. Besides the fact that this is an unconventional way to send Dill to the most emotionally expensive computer camp ever, I need to be sane and functioning when he gets back, not just a shapeless, emotional blob covered in chocolate and tears.

And, on top of all that, there’s the project I outlined for Shantha yesterday. I’ve decided to go on the offensive where this development is concerned. I know they still need zoning approval, and I know they’re trying to buy the building where The Alley has a lease and Shantha is totally on board to hold fundraisers for opposition at the bar. First step is that I need to canvass the neighborhood for support.

What’s left of the neighborhood, anyway.

That is what’s on my agenda for today, and I haven’t decided if I can trust Marcus with the information. Well, that’s not exactly true. I haven’t decided if I want to trust him with the information before I have to. I mean, it’s not like he won’t figure it out when we start putting posters and stuff all over the place.

It’s just pride. And spite.

I never knew spite could be such a motivating emotion, but hey, I’m keeping pace with Marcus Roma and I haven’t passed out yet, so it obviously works pretty well.

I make the mistake of looking up at him, and just…Christ, he is gorgeous. The sun is higher in the sky, and that warm morning light is hitting him just right, setting off that golden skin and those light eyes. For once I’m thankful that he hasn’t taken his shirt off.

He slows to a stop in front of me, running a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath and touching his toes once.

“Ok, warm up’s over,” he says.

I want to sit down and take a nap already. I can’t believe I used to do this every morning.

“Tabata sprints?” he says.

I groan. Tabata intervals of anything are evil—it’s twenty seconds of going all out, as hard as you can, then ten seconds of rest, and repeat until…well, if I remember correctly, until you pass out. At least that’s the way Marcus used to do them. I think fighters who were less badass about it did a finite number.

But Tabata sprints? Today? Oh God.

“Did you turn wussy on me, Lo?” he says with that evil grin. He knows that he can get me to try any insane workout by telling me I can’t do it. It’s just straight up wrong.

“Oh, you are evil,” I say. “Fine. Ten Tabata sprints.”

Marcus looks slightly surprised. “We don’t have to.”

“You have a stopwatch?”

I’m determined now. I have to win at something out of all of this. I need one thing in my column.

“Yeah.”

“Then call it,” I say, and shake my legs out.

I’m suddenly determined to show Marcus Roma just how far I can push myself. Just how much I can fight. I bend one leg as if I’ve got a block behind me and zone in on his starting mark. I relish this moment, always have. I love the still, quiet fury of anticipation. Of knowing everything’s about to…

Explode.

“Go!” he yells, and we both break into a full run, arms pumping, legs burning, throats scorched as we suck air into our aching lungs. I refuse to let him outpace me, even though it’s impossible; he’s so much bigger than I am. I resolve that I will not give in. I will keep pace with him on the last sprint. He might be bigger and stronger, but he will not have more heart than me.

It feels important on many levels.

On our ten-second break he stops, panting, waiting for me to catch up as I walk toward him. I don’t say anything. If you can talk during a Tabata set, you’re not doing it right.

By the fourth interval I can feel the heat coming off of my face and my legs starting to shake when I walk. Marcus looks the same, sweat pouring down his face. He peels his black t-shirt off and tosses it onto the green in the center of the track, and for a second I actually forget what I’m doing.

I watch his magnificent back shine with sweat in the morning sun on the next interval. It makes it easier.

I’m slowly catching his pace.

I feel like I’m about to throw up, I have a stitch, and I’m overheated, but I know I can catch him now.

By the last interval I think there’s an actual, non-trivial possibility that I might die. I can feel my pulse like a jackhammer in every part of my body. My skin is red, and my body is covered in sweat. All I want is air, and there’s not enough of it in the world.

But I catch him. I keep pace with him on that last interval, and at the end of it I look over to make sure he knows, as we’re both pushing through those last seconds, and I see him smile briefly, through the pain.

We don’t talk. We just collapse on the green grass beside the track. Marcus hands me his water bottle and I greedily suck half of it down.

I have no idea how long we lay there, side by side, silent and panting. But it occurs to me—sometime after I’m convinced that I will in fact live, but before I have the strength to get up—that we’ve just shared something again. There’s no one else I’ve ever done this with. No one else who’s ever seen me strip away all of the pretense and just get down to heart. No one else who’s ever seen what I can do when I put my mind to it.

I don’t even have the energy to be sad about it.

I turn my head, still lying on the grass, and see him lying next to me. He’s put his hands behind his head, his eyes closed, soaking up the sun. My eyes trace a line down his strong, flexed arms to his pecs, his lats, and then every single one of those little muscles on his ribcage, like little scalloped waves, all the way down to his abs, and the edge of that unbelievably sexy V that disappears under the waistband of his shorts, and then…

God.

I can’t—seriously cannot—look away.

I feel anxious now, too, and that’s a terrible way to feel after a workout. I exhale a puff of air and try to identify where the terribleness is coming from; it’s not hard. It’s that I’ve had to work so hard to fight my feelings for Marcus—all my feelings for Marcus—and, as always, he seems so in control.

We could be feeling the same level of emotion, or want, or motivation, or whatever, but only I would be biting my lip, tense, constantly on the brink of exploding with whatever emotion it was. Marcus? That just wouldn’t happen. He’s quieter. Where I burn up, he smolders. But always, always a controlled burn. I’ve always wondered what on this planet could make him lose control. It’s certainly not me.

And that is infuriating when I want him to want me more than I want him. When I want to be, for once, the one with the power. Because, once again, I want something from him and it’s making me insane, and he just lies there, totally cool and relaxed. I want him to tell me everything. I want him to confess, and for that confession to answer all my questions, heal all my wounds. I want him to beg me forgiveness and more. I want him to beg me, and, crucially, I want it not to affect me when he does.