No Strings Attached (25 page)

Katie smiled, and told Harper what she'd told Joss. She'd think about it. She had choices. She'd gotten something out of
this summer she'd never expected: real friends. Who didn't give a hoot about The Kick, or what she could do for them. Harper, of all people, “fringe-girl,” had forced her to examine exactly what it was she'd been so obsessed with holding on to. Her parents' life? How empty, and pathetic, was that? Look where it had gotten them.

Speaking of her parents, Katie had a responsibility, something she'd never ducked in all her life. Her mom, oblivious and flawed as she was, loved Katie as best she could. Vanessa needed her now. So Katie would go, stand by her, no matter where they ended up. Somehow, she would force herself to understand her father's side of the story too. That would come later.

As for the ridicule she would certainly suffer at the hands of the Trinity best-of-breed crew?

Bring it! They—Lily included—would meet the real Kick. She could, and would, deal. Without a credit card (pause for a real sob), if it came to that; without a debutante ball; without this season's designer best—with or without (she still hadn't decided) Nate Graham—but with her head held high.

Katie didn't have time to dwell on what would be. She did, however, have ten days until the news broke. Which meant she still had some clout on the Cape. She used it, one last time. As a favor to a housemate, who'd morphed into a friend.

His name was Whitford (really). He was freckled, friendly, sun-dappled, deep-pocketed—the real-life Kennedy kin she'd
run into at Blend in Provincetown. Whitford was ripe for summer fun, and very open to meeting someone, especially when Katie described her friend as cute, carefree, and fun-loving.

But a funny thing happened when she told Mandy that she'd set her up with Whitford—the Kennedy connection. The redhead, who'd taken years off when she removed her makeup, had said, “Thanks, but no thanks. I'm kinda happy with the catch I made on my own. Oh, BTW: Mandy doesn't live here anymore. The name is Sarah.”

Sucking out the sweet meat from the tiny lobster legs was as delicious and satisfying as she'd always imagined. To Katie's “
Eeww
, no one eats that part of it,” she'd laughed. “Now you know someone who does,” she'd said, and cracked open another. Mitch took a slug of beer and draped an arm around her. Sarah did not think herself capable of this much joy. Funny that she should derive it from her fucked-up childhood, from the Considine twins, Mitch and Bev, friends she'd excised years ago, along with the excess poundage. If she were a literary type, like Harper over there, she might say she had reclaimed her soul this summer. But since she wasn't? She'd just let Joss pour her a frozen margarita and get up and show Ali, wiggling her bodacious booty to
The Best of ABBA
, what a real “Dancing Queen” looked like!

Sarah's soaring spirits had as much to do with the amends she'd made before leaving the share house. The first was a no-brainer. Hitching a ride with Mitch, she'd gone to the biggest pet store she could find, and picked up … jeez, who knew they even had special food for ferrets? Let alone ferret toys? Ali had been overjoyed, even though Sarah had stopped short of petting the thing.

On Katie's advice, and on Katie's cue, she then accosted Harper, who slammed her book down in frustration and demanded, “Does this bare living room look like a confessional to you? First Katie, now you, desperately needing to tell me something. What part of ‘I don't care' don't you get?”

“A lotta stuff went down this summer,” Sarah had said calmly. “If not for Mitch, and the rest of you, I'd've been in deep shit.”

Harper folded her arms over her chest. “We already had our sista-friend bonding session. Gratitude extended and accepted. End of saga.”

“Not quite,” Sarah contradicted. “Before we leave, I really want you to know that I'm not the same shit heel I was three months ago.”

“Fine! I get it! You've seen the error of your ways. So, can I have the big bedroom now?”

“In your dreams.” Sarah feigned annoyance. “But you can have something better: the truth. Your choice to accept it or
not, but here it is: I threw myself at Joss. I totally … I don't even know why … he was there, he was easy on the eyes, he was unattached. I wasn't into him, and trust me, he was never into me. It was random sex. Okay, so when I found out he was on tour with some aging rock star, I thought he could hook me up. Y'know, introduce me to the manager, the agent, make some connection. But we never got that far. Joss ended it soon after it began.”

Harper sighed. “So you sent Mandy Starr packing, and what, you're going all Amish now? You're withdrawing from the Amazing Actress-slash-Model Race?”

“Of course not!” sniffed Sarah. “I have talent, a gift. Why squander it? But I'm going to do it right: take acting lessons, take it slow. And when I'm ready, sign up with a real agent. Legit. Mitch is going to help me.”

Harper couldn't suppress a smile. “That's actually pretty terrific. He's an amazing guy.”

“Yeah, so what am I? Liverwurst? Mitch
is
getting me—a big improvement over that prissy tight-ass Leonora,” she asserted, sticking out her prodigious chest and tossing her wavy hair.

Harper laughed. “You go, sister.”

Sarah lowered her voice. Earnestly, because this was really important, she said, “Listen, Harper. This isn't about me. I'm
real sorry for the foul things I said this summer. And the worse things I did. But don't hate Joss because of me. That's a really dumb reason.”

When he'd picked up the phone and punched in his father's office, Joss wholly expected some administrative assistant to answer. He was ready to say, “Please put Mr. Sterling on the line.”

But after several rings, turned out J. Thomas
was
on the line. “Son?” his voice borderline-quavered. “Is that you?”

Of course his father had probably tracked Joss's new cell phone number a year ago. “Yeah, Dad,” he confirmed. “It's me. Joshua.”

His father harrumphed. “Not Joss? Took me a while to get used to that”—affirming Joss's suspicions that his dad had known all along where he was—“but now I rather like it. Helps me see you in a whole different way.”

“What way's that?” Joss held himself in check, trying not to let the old resentment get in the way. He was calling to ask a favor, nothing more. Irritating the old man wasn't the best strategy. He asked after his dad's health, his sister and brother, anything else he could think of before revealing what he really wanted.

J. Thomas Sterling went along with it. Not once did he bark, “What the hell did you think you were doing?” Or taking that superior attitude: “So, I see you've come to your senses.” Or some other condescending thing Joss imagined he might throw at him.

Instead, his father listened. Said he'd be happy to do Joss the favor—it'd be easy for him to get information regarding Richard Charlesworth. And took the moment to remind his son that his bank accounts—dormant since Joss hadn't touched them—were, as always, being well invested, and available to him.

The true miracle, Joss reflected, was that J. Thomas never once asked the reason for the favor. Nor did his dad want to know when he was coming home, nor mention that the corner office designated for him still sat empty. Instead, he said haltingly, “Son, it means a lot that you called. Every time the phone rang, I kept hoping it'd be you.” Joss couldn't be sure if what he heard after that was the sound of J. Thomas Sterling, Esq., weeping. He wouldn't know what that sounded like.

The call had put him through the emo-wringer. But in a strange way, it gave him the courage to place another call, to another father. To ask another favor.

He was a little looped himself, when, pouring a second frozen margarita for Mandy—that is, Sarah—he felt someone
come up behind him and slide an arm around his waist. Because it felt so sweet, and right, he didn't turn away.

“That was pretty amazing, what you did for Katie,” Harper said, letting him wrap his arm around her shoulders. “You obviously told your dad where you were.”

Joss laughed. “You make it sound like I turned myself in! Like I'm going to jail.”

“Won't they expect you to work in the family business?”

“More than likely,” he said, nodding.

“What about your music?” She stared up at him with those amazing light gray-blue eyes.

“What about yours, Harper Jones?”

She frowned. “When did we start answering a question with a question?”

Joss withdrew his arm from Harper's shoulders. “Let's get some oysters before they're all gone.”

Harper pursed her lips. “Shrimp for me, oysters for you.”

“That works too,” Josh agreed, swiping a couple of beers and leading her to the outer edges of the clambake.

She peeled the shrimp gingerly, watching him slurp down the oysters indelicately. He handed her a beer. “You wouldn't rather a frozen drink, would you?”

“No way. I'm not about the hard liquor—learned my lesson at the party.”

He laughed. “Don't remind me.”

She kicked him gently. And he fell more deeply in love with her. Which is precisely why he had to risk it: “So, I ask you again, Ms. Jones, what about your music? When are you going to deal with it?”

Harper sighed, like she'd expected this. And was ready for him. She dug into the back pocket of her cutoffs, withdrew something obviously ripped from her journal, and handed it to him.

He looked at her inquiringly before unfolding the paper. “On the Beach,” she'd written across the top. Joss swallowed, his heart clutched. He had trouble focusing on the poem. No, not poem: lyrics.
“We watch the sun sink slowly into the ocean/the yellows, the oranges, the fiery reds/fade into the pinks, blues and grays of dusk, fade into us. …”

After a few lines he no longer saw just lyrics on a page, he heard them blend into the music—his music. He let the song play in his head; made a mental note that a bridge would have be written, where it would go.

“How badly does it suck?” Harper's voice jolted him back from creativity alley.

He put the song down, turned to her, and said what he knew he had to: “You're just like him, you know.”

“Just like who?”

“Your father.”

Harper freaked. She jumped up off the sand and tried to run away, but Joss was quicker. He blocked her way, locked her in his arms. She didn't fight as hard as she could, wasn't even sure what the instinct to run was all about. Yet, there it was.

The song blaring from the housemates' CD player was “Love Shack,” by the B-52's, and the others were dancing, Mitch, Mandy/Sarah, Katie, and Ali—shouting out the chorus:
“We can get to-ge-ther, love shack, baby! Woo!”

Pulling away from Joss, Harper finally managed, “How long have you known?”

“If I tell you, promise not to run?”

The breeze that accompanied the just-beginning-to set sun toyed with his long hair. Harper resisted the urge to brush it out of his eyes. She let him lead her farther away from the group. Of all the annoying confessions, the things people “had to tell her” this last week, this was the least expected, the least welcome.

Joss began, “When I first met you, I was intrigued. There was something about you I couldn't pin. You reminded me of someone—the way you move, your expressions, the dimples—and even though I just came from touring with Jimi Jones, I didn't make the connection. Then we got to know each other, and when you told me you wrote poetry, when I realized it was more than that, there was music in your soul. You never said a
word, and I respect your privacy—I probably would've let it go, kept it to myself.”

“But?”

“I fell in love with you this summer.”

Harper pretended not to hear that. She had enough to process.

“I don't want to hurt you,” he said earnestly, reaching for her now. “It's just that I needed to know if you knew. And if you didn't, would it be okay if I told you? And if you did, is it okay that I know?”

Joss was rambling. When he rambled, his cool quotient plummeted below zero, so she reached for him—how could she not? “I know Jimi Jones is my father,” she said, just above a whisper. “I've known since I was twelve.”

“You do?” Joss looked surprised. “Do you want to meet him?”

Harper couldn't resist raising her eyebrows and quipping, “So, you can hook me up, huh?”

Joss was too far beyond the earnest-edge to go with the joke. He colored. “Harper, please understand. You are the coolest chick I've ever met. I've already screwed things up. We have something. I don't want to lose it.”

She wanted to contradict him. They did not, in fact, “have something.” They wouldn't be having a thing. It was, had to be, No thing. There were a million ways to say it, and she
swore she was just about to. Instead, she heard herself ask, “What's he like?”

Finally, Joss smiled. God, he was cute when he smiled. “Jimi's really cool. For someone in his position—to his fans, he's like a rock god—he handles it amazingly well. He's still all about the music, a perfectionist. Somehow he's managed not to let the money, the power—the temptations—corrupt him. I've worked for other bands in the last few years, and he's by far the most real. He didn't know who I was, some anonymous roadie, but he always took the time to comment on my playing, to answer my questions—give advice, even.”

“So are we nominating him for sainthood?” Harper muttered.

Josh laughed. “Sorry. People around him say he's mellowed over the years—if that means anything. Anyway, yesterday, I called him—to find out if he knew about you. Just so you know? He does, but all these years he's honored your mom's wishes to not intrude. If you say the word, he'll come.”