Envy

“Whatever.” Kaia grabbed a napkin and gingerly flicked away the mysteriously colored crumbs littering her side of the table. “I take it we’re getting right down to business?”

“I’m done with small talk if you are.”

“Good.” She leaned forward, and Harper was once again taken by her perfect form and poise, even in a place like this. And that rust-colored asymmetrical shirt? It was unmistakably a Betsey Johnson original. Harper closed her eyes for a moment and, with a sharp pang of envy, briefly considered what it would be like to have Kaia’s life- but she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“Here’s how I see it,” Kaia continued. “You want Adam. Kane-for whatever reason-wants Beth. You teamed up to split them up, and you’re ready and waiting for them to fall, heartbroken and sobbing, into your arms. How am I doing so far?”

Harper was disgusted with herself. Some secret plan. What a joke. And it sounded even more pathetic coming out of Kaia’s mouth. But she played it off. She had to.

“So far you haven’t told me anything I don’t know,” she complained.

“I’ll take that to mean, ‘Why, yes, Kaia, that’s the situation exactly. Please enlighten me as to how to make my dreams come true.’”

“I’m listening.”

“So you’ve got Beth tutoring Kane-a nice move, incidentally, but Adam’s too much of a wuss to break up with her just because he’s jealous. He’d never trust his own instincts on that one-and princess Beth isn’t going to fall on Kane unless you push her.”

“Again, waiting for the newsflash,” Harper drawled, inwardly bristling at the way Kaia casually spoke of Adam’s flaws and failings, as if she knew him so well.

“Well, for one thing, what you may not know is that Adam has some secrets of his own that Beth might not be too happy to hear.” A secretive smile crept across Kaia’s face. Harper knew exactly what she was referring to, but any pleasure she might have drawn from taking Kaia down a peg was hollow. She’d caught a glimpse of Kaia-and- Adam, act one, and had yet to wash the painful images out of her mind. She didn’t like to be reminded of act two, when they’d adjourned to a bedroom; Harper had, mercifully, missed the fireworks. But she could imagine. And did-often.

“Yeah, yeah, he slept with you,” Harper said, the words slicing into her. “Big deal. Anyway, I can’t use it.”

Kaia’s eyes widened, and Harper smiled, knowing that at least she’d taken the wind out of the other girl’s sails, as hoped. But Kaia wasn’t thrown off for long.

“So he told you? Interesting-and not too smart.”

“Well, that’s Adam, honest to a fault. Of course, he used to be loyal to a fault, too,” Harper said, glaring, “before you got through with him.”

“Do you want to fight about my popping your boy’s cherry, or do you want to get him for yourself?”

“What’s the difference?” Harper asked irritably. “I told you, I can’t use it. If Beth breaks up with him over this, he’ll spend the rest of the year feeling guilty and chasing after her. That does me no good at all. And, not that I really care, but I imagine that Beth wouldn’t be bouncing back too quickly either-I see her as the ‘I can never trust a man again’ type. After something like that, I don’t think Kane would exactly be her type.”

“Good thing I have a backup plan, then,” Kaia said triumphantly. “One that turns Beth into the villain. Adam will be looking for a ‘true’ friend to turn to, and you’ll be right there to pick up the pieces.”

“Sounds perfect. Only one problem-Beth would never cheat on Adam. She doesn’t have it in her.”

“Oh, really?” Kaia smiled, and it seemed she was about to say something, but she stopped herself, paused for a moment, and then continued. “Well, I suppose you’re right. And we know that, and Beth knows that, but there’s no reason Adam has to. And all that really matters is what he believes.”

“He accuses her-unjustly-she gets mad, we get mutual destruction.” Harper nodded eagerly. “I like it. But how-”

She cut herself off at the sight of two drunken hulks looming over their table, one uglier than the other. (Although it was admittedly difficult to judge: Were buck teeth uglier than gold teeth? Was the jagged scar above the eyebrow uglier than an irregularly shaped red blotch covering the chin? Was mountain man hair uglier than no hair?)

Baldy leered down at the two girls, his stained T-shirt exuding the stench of cheap beer.

“You ladies are at our table,” he slurred.

“’S our table,” Mountain Man agreed. “Everyone knows that.”

Baldy tried to squeeze into the booth with Harper, but with a yelp of anger and a sharp jab, she successfully pushed him away. He stumbled backward, but Mountain Man broke his fall.

“Wasn’t nice,” Mountain Man warned them. “You’re sitting at our table, you must belong to us too. Move over.”

Kaia wrinkled her nose and shot Harper a look of disbelief. “Why are these losers talking to us?” she asked.

Harper cringed at her choice of words-she’d spent enough time around Grace’s roughnecks to know that the best tactic was to shut up and get out of the way. But she wasn’t about to be bested by Kaia’s bravado. So she mustered some of her own.

“I don’t know-they must be as stupid as they are ugly,” she said, forcing a laugh. It felt good.

“Who you calling stupid?” Baldy asked menacingly.

“You sure ain’t too ugly yourself, babe,” Mountain Man leered, passing his greasy hand through Harper’s hair. That was enough. She jumped up from the table-and suddenly realized she was taller than both of them.

“Listen, buddy, get the hell out of my face,” she snapped.

“Who’s gonna make me? You? Or your hot little friend?”

As Harper searched for the words that would end this fiasco before it went any further, a scruffy guy about her age came wandering over.

“We got a problem here?” he asked, getting in Mountain Man’s face. “She asked you to leave her alone.”

“Who asked you, shithead?” Baldy growled, stepping up behind their knight in scruffy armor.

It was over in an instant.

Scruff Boy punched Mountain Man in the gut and, before Baldy had a chance to react, gave him a shove hard enough to knock both men to the ground. As the two losers lumbered up to their feet and began advancing on him, they got a nasty surprise-a tap on the shoulder from the Cactus bouncer, a WWE reject who looked like he bench-pressed losers like them for a warm-up. And, apparently, a friend of Scruff Boy’s.

Five minutes later the bouncer was back at the entrance, having barely broken a sweat, Mountain Man and Baldy were stumbling through the parking lot with a few fresh scars to show off to the ladies, and Scruff Boy? He was still standing there.

Harper looked him up and down-medium height, medium build, wildly curly black hair, and dark, catlike eyes. Kind of hot, really, beneath that stubble and the torn Clash T-shirt. She knew who he was, of course-she knew every guy in town. Especially the hot ones. He went to their school, barely (this was his second senior year in a row), played in a band, ran with a crowd that drank too much and smoked even more. Pretty much a total waste of space. But he had, after all, cleaned up their mess. They should probably be polite-

“Why are you still here?” Kaia asked him, curling her lip in disdain.

Or not.

“You two okay?” he asked, in a slow, zoned-out voice. “I’m Reed.” He stuck out his hand for Kaia to shake-she left him hanging.

“We’re fine,” Harper jumped in, again not to be outdone. “So you can just run off back to… whatever it is people like you do.”

He stood frozen in place, looking at them both with a mixture of disgust and disbelief.

“What are you waiting for?” Kaia finally asked. “A medal?”

“Actually, a thank-you,” he informed her. “My mistake.”

“You’re right. It was,” Kaia said, and turned back to Harper. “What was I saying?”

Harper watched the boy out of the corner of her eye. He stood there for another moment, as if waiting for them