with Kane and Miranda, but instead, she’d stayed in bed, stretched out with her feet kicking the pillows, staring at the television.
But he didn’t know how. Even in the beginning, when they’d first become friends, they had always understood each other. Always known what the other was thinking. It had been effortless. Now, blundering around in the dark, he didn’t even know where to start hunting for the light switch.
There had been that brief period of weirdness in fifth grade, when Harper woke up and realized Adam was a boy, and Adam-courtesy of a windy day, a gauzy skirt, and a bout of humiliated tears- clued in to the fact that even tomboys had their girly moments. Harper stopped wrestling him to the ground and demanding the remote control. Adam stopped mixing her dolls with his action figures. Harper stopped using her Fisher-Price telescope to peer in his bedroom window, and Adam started dating a pretty blond sixth grader named Emma Farren, who once poured red paint all over Harper’s spelling homework.
It was a long week.
Long and lonely-and before too long, Adam and Harper mutually decided to ignore the sticky boy-girl thing and proceed as if nothing had changed. Which, other than Harper’s perfect curves and Adam’s elephant-size libido, it hadn’t.
Since then, he had always been able to count on her, and she on him. They’d climbed the social ladder together, Adam with the unconscious ease of a blond jock built for adoration, Harper with ruthlessness and a fierce determination. Adam had grown cavalier-with his grades, his games, his girls-and Harper had grown vicious, but they’d stayed loyal to each other. Without question, without doubt, without exception.
And then, in short order, it had all been destroyed.
Adam had fallen in love with Beth; a jealous Harper had torn the two of them apart. Adam, oblivious, had fallen in love all over again, with Harper-or with the Harper he thought he knew. And when the truth came to light, when he realized who Harper had become and what she was capable of, he’d pushed her away.
How was he supposed to know that days later, she would be lying in a hospital bed, pale and unconscious, as he waited and wondered and wished he could take back every word? And what was he supposed to do when she woke up and mistook his concern for forgiveness, when she rejected his offer of friendship because he refused to deliver anything more?
She wanted her boyfriend back; he wanted his best friend back. She couldn’t forget how happy they’d been; he couldn’t forget what she’d done, how she’d lied. Adam just wanted to go back to the beginning, before things got ugly and cruel-but Harper preferred to go forward, alone.
And now here they were, awkward and miserable. At least, he was miserable. It had been a mistake to let Kane talk him into this trip, into this ridiculous ambush, as if the element of surprise would shake Harper’s resolve. He needed to get out of here and forget about the whole thing for a while. He decided he would get up, slip into some clothes and out of the room, so quietly and quickly that she wouldn’t have time to react-or, at least, he wouldn’t have time to dwell on how she chose not to.
Then, without warning, she spoke.
“I need your help,” she said, and he could guess how much effort it cost her to keep her voice casual and even as she uttered her four least favorite words.
He couldn’t make a big deal about it. She was on the line, nibbling at the bait-he had to reel her in slowly, before she got spooked.
“Mmmph.” He sat up, realizing she must have known all along that he wasn’t asleep.
“I got Miranda the full treatment,” she said, sounding almost as if she were talking to herself, “which should give us about six hours. But we have to start now.”
Maybe he should have resented the fact that she just assumed he would go along with her-but he knew what it meant. She knew she could still count on him when she needed him.
And she needed him now.
Adam suppressed the urge to jump out of bed and embrace her-or, better yet, shake her and force her to admit that her whole act was a sham, and she needed their friendship as much as he did.
“I was going to watch the game,” he complained, grabbing the remote and switching to ESPN.
Harper switched off the TV. “Look, I don’t want to spend the day with you any more than you want to spend it with me, but I’m stuck, and I…”
“Yeah?”
She propped her hands on her hips and stared down at him impatiently. “Are you going to make me say it again?”
“You…”
Harper rolled her eyes.
“You need…”
Harper still stayed silent, though Adam was sure he saw the ghost of a smile playing at the edge of her lips.
“You… need… my… help,” he concluded triumphantly.
She sighed. “What you said.”
“Well, since you put it so sweetly…” Adam climbed out of bed. “I’m all yours.”
“Lucky me,” she muttered, shutting herself up in the bathroom so she wouldn’t have to watch him change.
“Lucky us,” Adam said quietly, to himself. She’d opened a door-to possibility, to reconciliation, to the past. No matter what, he wouldn’t let it slam shut again.
chapter 4
“I just don’t get it,” Miranda said again. “What am I supposed to
Kane shook his head. It was almost charming, her complete lack of comprehension about one of the most fundamental feminine pleasures. He spent most of his life on the arm of beautiful girls who were more primped and pampered than a Westminster Dog Show poodle. Miranda’s awkward naivete was almost charming. “Not my area of expertise,” he reminded her-while making a mental note that, speaking of pampering, his nails were looking a little too ragged these days. “I’ve just been informed that I’m to drop you off at the spa and make sure you go inside. My mission ends there.”
“Door to door service? Ooh-la-la.”
“Only the best for the birthday girl,” he said, leading her to the entrance of Heavenly Helpers. He grabbed her hand and, in his standard farewell gesture-at least when it came to pretty girls- turned it palm down, lifted it, and brushed it with his lips. Most girls giggled at the faux chivalry, but Miranda, despite a faint reddish tinge to her cheeks, didn’t crack a smile.
“You’re too kind, sir,” she said mockingly. And, with a quick flip of the wrist, she brought his hand to her lips and mirrored his gesture.
“And they say chivalry’s dead,” he joked.
“They say feminism’s dead too,” she shot back, “but here you are, working nonstop on our behalf.”
“I do what I can,” he said modestly.
“Kane Geary,” she said, presenting him to the nonexistent audience with a Vanna White flourish, “helping women one bimbo at a time.”
“You wound me, Stevens,” he said, clasping his hands to his heart.
“Every chance I get,” she agreed. And now, finally, he got a smile.
She wasn’t hot, he reflected. Pretty, maybe, in an understated way, if you liked
