Gluttony

Chapter 14

Home.

It was a six-hour drive, without traffic. Time he needed, to think. To figure things out. But he was having some trouble with that.

The thinking.

It was all muddled in his brain, the last twenty-four hours, the fear and the relief and the regret all bleeding together into a muddy, impenetrable sludge. Adam clenched the wheel tightly. He’d driven Kane’s car plenty of times before, but never without Kane in the passenger’s seat, hounding him to speed up, warning him of the penalties of living life in the slow lane-and the even graver penalties of denting Kane’s Camaro.

But Kane was riding home in Miranda’s car, with Harper. Where Adam was no longer welcome.

It was easy to zone out, to listen to the gravel under the wheels and the wind against the dash. It was easy to pretend that by the time he got home, everything that had happened would be forgotten. Life would return to normal.

But he knew it was a lie. Harper wouldn’t forgive him, not this time-at least, not unless he was willing to meet her demands. And he couldn’t. He had responsibilities now, and he couldn’t walk away, even if it meant losing-

No. He wouldn’t think about that. He couldn’t afford to. Not when Beth sat beside him, her eyes closed, her face still stained with tears. What he wanted, what he’d lost, it wasn’t important now. Beth was the one in trouble-and someone had to make sure that, whatever happened, she never ended up on that roof again. She was weak, in need. He was strong, and he could be there for her.

He would.

He was glad she’d finally fallen asleep in the passenger’s seat, glad she felt comfortable enough-safe enough-to close her eyes and escape from everything, at least for a few hours. If only he could do the same.

Love.

Was it possible? I’m in love, Miranda thought, pretending she was saying it casually, the way you’d say, I have a toothache or I’m hungry. Like it was something that happened to you all the time. Like it wasn’t something you’d been dreaming of for years, all the while forcing yourself to stop, knowing that you had no chance of ever getting the thing you most desperately wanted.

I got it, though. She turned toward Kane, who took his eyes off the road just long enough to give her a warm smile. I got him.

She knew she needed to slow down. She wasn’t in love-or, at least, he wasn’t in love, not yet, and until both people felt the same way, it didn’t count. She knew that better than anyone, since she was the one who’d been longing, for all these years, watching him from a distance, waiting for him to notice.

She still didn’t understand why he suddenly had.

She should be cautious. She understood that. He hadn’t made her any promises, hadn’t talked about the future. Yes, he had implied that there was now something where there had been nothing, but they were on vacation. It was Vegas, where anything goes. What would he want from her when they got back home? What if he didn’t want anything?

But her doubts couldn’t make much of a dent in her happiness. Not even Harper, moody and silent in the backseat, could do that. Miranda had already forgiven her best friend-in the mood she was in, she would have forgiven anyone anything-but much as she wanted to, she couldn’t force herself to wallow in Harper’s misery. She didn’t have room for it in her brain.

Her body glowed with the memory of Kane’s touch, and she touched him now, just because she could. His hand rested on the gearshift, and, still a little terrified, she wrapped hers around it. He smiled at her again.

She was allowed to touch him now, whenever she wanted. She was allowed to kiss him. Maybe she was even allowed to fall in love with him.

Miranda wasn’t stupid. She knew she was getting ahead of herself, that things were too new, too uncertain, that if she let herself go too far too fast, she could end up getting hurt.

But with their hands pressed together, none of that seemed to matter. When Kane smiled at her-with that look in his eye, the one she’d always been waiting for, the one that said I want you-she couldn’t help it.

She felt like she would never hurt again.

Maybe.

That’s what Kane kept telling himself. He didn’t know it was a bad decision; he wasn’t sure it was going to lead to disaster. Yes, there was that feeling in his gut, that Oh, shit feeling that had never steered him wrong before. But backing down just because he expected disaster? That would be giving in to fear. And that was unacceptable.

She kept darting glances at him, nervous, adoring looks. Smile back, he instructed himself. Play along.

Except that he wasn’t playing, not this time-and that was the problem.

Miranda was the one he should be worried about. She was fragile, even if she pretended not to be. He knew he could hurt her-he knew exactly how to do it. And this whole thing, this ludicrously bad idea he’d had, it was probably a good way to start.

And yet…

Maybe it was a worthwhile experiment. That’s how he would look at it: an experiment. Nothing less, nothing more. Maybe he could let someone in, maybe she really was different from the rest of them, the girls he strung along until they got too close, or he got too bored.

It’s not like he had proposed or anything. A kiss was not a promise. A beginning didn’t have to last forever.

Stop making such a big deal out of this, he thought, focusing on the road. He wouldn’t look at her again, not for a while. He would concentrate on the road ahead of them, on the wide, cement path stretching to the horizon. He would clear his mind and analyze his options. He would not panic.

And by the time they got back home, maybe he would have an answer. He would have figured out how to make this thing work-or, at least, whether he wanted to try. What happens in Vegas… he reminded himself. It could be a mistake, trying to bring a piece of the city home with them. The two of them together, it had made sense back there-but that was a foreign land. A million miles away from Grace, CA. Who knew what would happen when they tried to fit themselves back into their old lives- together.

It could work, he decided, feeling her watching him again.

Maybe.

Empty.

It was as if someone had carved out her insides and dumped them in the garbage. Or maybe they were leaking out, slowly but steadily, because the farther away they got from Vegas, the emptier Harper felt. It was as if she’d left behind everything that had ever mattered to her, and part of her wanted to scream at Kane, beg him to stop the car, turn around, take her back.

But a U-turn wouldn’t help-what she needed was a time machine.

It was so strange, being back in the car again, back on the same highway, as if nothing had changed, when everything had. She was in the backseat now, while Kane and Miranda sat together in the front, not talking, just exchanging sly little glances, speaking to each other in that silent language that all