Pride

wastebasket. Missed.

A disaster, Harper thought, pressed up against her window, watching Adam’s bedroom window a few yards away. All those hopes and all those expectations-and they’d all come to nothing. He turned out the light and then, almost as an afterthought, pulled down the shade. Almost as if he knew she was watching.

A mess, Beth thought, as Kane dropped her off at home and, with barely a peck goodbye, sped away into the night. The trip had started out so well-and then it had just fallen apart. Why did she always make everything so complicated? Why couldn’t it just be simple, for once? Easy. Straightforward. Clean.

A miscalculation, Kane thought, speeding down the dark, empty highway. He’d pushed too hard, been too obvious. Not a problem. He could do slow. He could do subtle. He could do whatever was needed to get the job done.

A mistake, Kaia thought, lying in bed and wondering whether Powell was home yet, when he would call. That’s all it had been. All he had been. A terrible mistake. A moment of weakness. She’d indulged temptation, no harm done. But it was back to reality now. Reed Sawyer was nothing but a mistake-one that could never happen again.

Although one in ten men suffer from impotence at some point in their lives, the disorder remains largely misunderstood, due to the persistent shroud of embarrassment and shame that accompanies the condition.

You can say that again, Adam thought bitterly. It had taken him a full hour to even work up the nerve to type “impotence” into his computer’s search engine-and as he read through the numerous and mostly unhelpful Web sites, he couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder every ten seconds, even though he knew there was no one home to catch him.

Impotency can be attributed to psychological or physical causes. But fear not! Whatever the root of your condition, there are answers, if you’re willing to look for them. There’s no need to suffer in silence any longer!

Condition. It was such a harsh, clinical term. But then, most of the Web sites Adam had managed to find were exactly that: harsh. Clinical. And thoroughly depressing. Somehow, reading about surgical procedures and hydraulic penile implants was not improving his mood.

This wasn’t for him. He wasn’t some graying, middle-aged guy who needed a fistful of Viagra to get it up-he was a healthy, athletic, eighteen-year-old guy in his sexual prime. Tomorrow night was the first basketball game of the season, and everyone watching him sprint across the court would assume he was just as strong and virile as he looked-young, fit, with all his parts in working order. They’d never guess what was really going on-and, while he was on the subject, what the hell was going on?

Psychological causes can include stress, guilt, depression, and relationship problems.

Adam sighed, and pushed himself away from the computer. So he was messed up-like that was a surprise. A month ago, he’d been happy, relaxed, confident-then Beth and Kane had bashed the hell out of him, and now he didn’t know who he was or what he could rely on.

The worst part was, in the past, Adam might have been able to swallow his pride and gone to Kane for help on this one. But now, he had no one to ask-no older brother, no trusted friend, and he hadn’t talked to his father in years. And the Web was obviously useless.

No, he was on his own. There wasn’t much he could do about his stress level, but he could at least reassure himself that the cause wasn’t physical. He pulled an old Playboy out from beneath his mattress. It couldn’t hurt to remind his body of what it was supposed to do.

After all-practice makes perfect.

“Yo, Gracie, this slaw isn’t going to clean itself up!”

Harper winced. It was one thing when Adam called her “Gracie”-hearing the nickname in his lilting Southern accent reminded her of all those lazy summer afternoons they’d spent chasing each other around the backyard during childhood. Calling Harper “Gracie” had been the surest way for Adam to end the afternoon flat on his back with a wad of dirt stuffed in his mouth. (Though, even then, Harper had secretly loved it.) But when Mr. White, the diner manager, adopted his little pet name for her, it made her skin crawl-and it usually meant she had a particularly disgusting task awaiting her.

There was one week left of winter break, and Harper had planned to spend every spare minute at the diner, in hopes she could pay back her parents and quit by New Year’s. It had seemed like a good idea in theory-but, in practice, it sucked. Especially today. Merry Christmas to me, she thought bitterly. Ho, ho, ho.

The laughter was appropriate-her life was a joke.

“And when you’re done in there, Gracie, come back here and see me. I’ve got a little holiday treat for you.”

“Yes, Mr. White,” she called out as sweetly as she could, still determined to demonstrate that she could be a model employee even under the most heinous of circumstances.

White had promised to try her out on table service today, since she was the only waitress forced to be there. But surprise, surprise, there were no customers. And so Harper was stuck spending Christmas with her new best friends, Mr. Mop and Mr. Bucket.

All this so she could pay her parents back for the ski trip? WFS. Right. She and Adam were supposed to be closer than ever by now-instead? They’d barely seen each other since getting back. Harper had, of course, been stuck at the diner. And she suspected that Adam was hiding out.

“Any day now, Gracie!”

Harper sighed and slogged toward White’s “office,” expecting to find him, as usual, with his feet kicked up on the desk, watching TV and picking his nose.

“Yes, Mr. White?” she said, affecting a subservient tone-it didn’t come easy-and poking her head in. “What did you-ew!” Harper stopped short in the doorway. There was White. Way too much of him. As she’d expected, he was leaned back in his chair, his tree-trunk legs propped up on the desk, and the local public-access Christmas show blaring in the background. Just one problem. He was wearing a half-unbuttoned, cream-colored (or at least it looked like it used to be cream colored) shirt with sweat stains rimming his pits and a forest of chest hair poking through- and barely anything else. His thick, hairy legs were totally bare.

“What’s your problem?” Mr. White growled.

“I-I-” Harper wasn’t struck speechless very often, but then, how often was one trapped in a dingy back room with your hairy half-naked boss?

Still, she had an image to protect.

“What did you want, Mr. White?” she asked, maintaining a neutral tone. “I’m kind of busy out there.”

“Just thought I’d give you your Christmas treat,” White said, standing up.

A Christmas bonus? Dare she hope?

“You don’t mind the ensemble, do you?” he asked with a sly grin that said he knew exactly how much she minded and was loving every minute of it. “I figured, since it was just the two of us…”

He approached her, shirt flapping against his bare legs, and Harper forced herself to stand her ground. Is he really stupid enough to try something? she wondered, swiftly calculating her options. He was big, yes-but also fat, slow, and stupid. She’d kick him in the balls, she decided, and then sue him for everything he had. This whole sordid episode could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

“You see, round this time of year, I like to do a little something extra for my special employees,” White explained, leering at her. “And you’re one of my special employees, Gracie, aren’t you?”

Steady, Harper prepared herself. Wait for your moment.

He lumbered toward her.

Closer, closer-

And then he was past her-bending down to get something in the corner. Harper watched in confusion. If she wasn’t getting a bonus, and she wasn’t getting sexually harassed, what the hell was she doing there?

“Here ya go!” White said triumphantly, standing up and tossing her a huge cloth sack. “Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!”

“And this would be?” Harper wrinkled her nose and carefully set the bag on the ground. It smelled even worse