Envy

mouth shut. You’re the only person who knows what I saw. And for the moment, I’m willing to keep it that way.”

“And why, pray tell, is that?”

For one thing, she’d decided that this was the kind of information that could keep. Why use it now when she could get what she needed out of him first? She’d save this for when it counted. But an honest answer wouldn’t do much to help her cause.

“Well, that would be point number two,” she told him, ticking off a second finger. “I like you, Jack Powell. I think you’ve got a lot of… possibilities. So I’m going to keep quiet about Beth. I’m going to walk out of here and show you that I can be as discreet as any of the adoring goody-goody students I’m sure you’ve wooed into bed in the past-but I’m not giving up. I have a lot of patience when it comes to getting what I want.”

“And what about what I want?” he asked drily.

“You don’t need patience,” she pointed out. “I’m right here. You just need to come and get me.”

They’d needed somewhere out of the way, somewhere no one they knew would ever be or would ever think to look for them. The school library was an obvious choice. Huddled over a small table in the back (sandwiched in the stacks between self-help and pet grooming), Harper and Kane quickly got down to business.

“It’s a good start, Grace, but we need to kick it into higher gear. Slow and steady’s not going to win us the race on this one,” Kane whispered.

Harper craned her neck around, once again making sure that no one she knew could overhear them. Her crowd wasn’t much for the musty book zone, it was true-but a certain brainy Barbie clone had been known to stop by.

“I don’t know, Kane-that relationship has a definite expiration date. And with Beth fawning all over you for the next two weeks, maybe…”

“Adam will have enough space to discover you’re the best thing ever to happen to him?” Kane finished for her.

Harper blushed. That was, in fact, exactly what she’d been thinking. “Well, if you want to put it that way.”

“Wake up, Harper,” Kane said sharply, snapping his fingers in front of her face. “These two could go on like this indefinitely. They’re both too noble to cut their losses. I know Adam, and he’s going to stay in this to the bitter end, and Beth-”

“Couldn’t stand on her own two feet if you nailed them to the floor and shoved a pole up her-”

“Hey, watch how you talk about my woman.”

“Your woman?” She arched an impeccably plucked eyebrow. “Someone’s getting a little ahead of himself.”

“Exactly my point-I don’t like waiting, and I didn’t think you did either. Isn’t that why we’re in this thing?”

“Okay,” she conceded. “So we’ve got the setup, Adam’s already jealous-”

“And soon it will start to fester-,” Kane added.

“Especially if we help it along a bit,” Harper concluded. So not a problem. If there was one thing she could handle, it was feeding the flames of jealousy-hadn’t she proved that well enough over the weekend? “But we need something else, something more dramatic, with a little flair.”

“I couldn’t agree more. But what?” Kane asked. They were right back to where they’d started. “That’s the million-dollar question. And it has to be done right, with finesse-we don’t want this to backfire.”

“Are you thinking of something specific?”

“I’m just trying to ensure that we both get what we want,” Kane explained, winking, “since, never let it be said I think only of myself…”

Harper raised both eyebrows this time.

“Okay, usually I do,” he admitted. “But in this case, we’re in it together-one for all, all for one, et cetera.”

“Whatever, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ve known you for too long.”

“Oh, you wound me!” he exclaimed. Mrs. Martin, the ancient and evil-eyed librarian, walked by and gave them a nasty look. The shut-up-or-get-out kind of look. Harper lowered her eyes and tried to muster a chaste and innocent smile. But Mrs. Martin, immune to the act, just scuttled on by.

“I’m supposed to trust you?” Harper asked, lowering her voice to a whisper. “When you’re trying to steal your best friend’s girlfriend?”

All traces of a smirk vanished from Kane’s face, and he glared at her with hooded eyes.

“First of all, Grace, I don’t believe in trust-which is why I don’t believe in best friends. It’s easier that way. And second of all, as for stealing his girlfriend…”

Harper leaned forward eagerly. She’d been wondering how Kane could justify his scheming, especially when he seemed to have no particular motivation for choosing Beth, of all the girls he could have pursued.

“… lets just say-karma’s a bitch.”

“Care to elaborate?” Harper asked.

“No.”

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, each daring the other to speak. Harper broke first.

“Fine-just get back to what you were saying,” Harper urged him. “What kind of backfiring are you afraid of?”

“Well, we could pin something on Adam, like, say, he slept with someone else-believable enough, I guess,” Kane said, his smirk returning. “Deep down, all guys are pigs.”

Harper opened her mouth-then closed it again. She couldn’t betray Adam’s confidence. At least not until she heard all of what Kane had to say.

“That could work,” she mused.

He shook his head slowly but surely. “Not so much-think about it. Beth breaks up with Adam in a fit of anger, and Adam spends the rest of his life trying to win her back. And I don’t think either of us wants to deal with that.”

“Agreed,” Harper said, her heart sinking. He was right-and she had nothing. Nothing that wouldn’t turn Harper and Adam’s potential relationship into collateral damage. “In fact, I think Adam needs to be the one to break it off,” she concluded in spite of herself. “He feels betrayed, she feels unjustly wronged, they both want nothing to do with each other and go running into our arms.”

“Sounds like the perfect plan. Except…” Kane sighed in exasperation. “We still need to figure out how to get from point A to point B.”

“We’ll figure it out,” she comforted him. “In the meantime we continue to drive Adam out of his mind with jealousy?”

“You got it. And, hey, never underestimate the power of the Kane Geary charisma. For all I know, a couple more of these study ‘dates’ and she’ll be begging me to hit the bedroom.”

Harper balled up a piece of paper and tossed it at his big, fat head. “Leaving Adam ready and waiting for some sympathetic TLC from his beautiful next door neighbor?” she suggested sarcastically. “Unlikely.”

“Hey, you never know-it could happen.”

It’s not like Miranda had no one to eat lunch with. No, she reassured herself, she had plenty of friends. Just because Harper had randomly decided to skip out on lunch didn’t mean Miranda was adrift on some sea of loserdom. There were plenty of people she could sit with, plenty who would covet her presence at their table if only because the reflected beams of Harper’s glory made Miranda glow with the light of borrowed popularity. But the prospect of pushing “food” around on her tray while listening to the stupid simpering of these so-called friends-without Harper across the table to exchange timely eye rolls with-was just too much for her to handle this afternoon. So instead, Miranda opted for a snack machine lunch (granola bar and mini canister of Pringles) at the newspaper office, which had a door that locked and a couch that creaked noisily but had yet to collapse.

But first, a pit stop at the girls’ bathroom. She stood in front of the mirror, touching up her makeup-and making a mental note that a makeup makeover would definitely have to be the next stop on her road to self-improvement. The peach frosted lip gloss and smoky gray eye shadow she’d picked out in tenth grade just wouldn’t do. Her mother, though usually having more than enough to say on the subject of Miranda’s appearance-and how to improve it-knew nothing about makeup herself. She’d been able to contribute very little to Miranda’s education on the subject beyond such helpful pointers as “That blush makes you look like a whore.”

The bathroom was surprisingly uncrowded for this time of day. A couple stoners lurked in the back corner, from