BAD WICKED TWISTED: A Briarcrest Academy Box Set (58 page)

“
Cuba was part of the beautiful people
.
I wasn’t.”

–
Dovey

“DON’T GRIND THE gears,” he reminded me as we approached his Porsche.

I bit back a grin. Cuba loved his car and someone else driving killed him. “I know how to drive a stick. And I’ve driven it before. Remember?”

He stopped in his tracks, his eyes burning into mine. “Oh, I remember.”

My body clenched at the images that tumbled into my head. Of me straddling him in the front seat, my tongue tracing the curves of his tattoo…

I slapped that memory away.

He opened the driver’s door for me, and I got behind the wheel and even though I’d had a crappy day, I swooned. Because it was a freaking Porsche. A 911 Carrera Turbo with a seven-speed manual transmission, bucket sport seats, black leather interior, a slamming audio system, and matching silver alloy wheels with the Porsche crest.

It was sex-on-wheels. And I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit his car made me horny every time I got in it.

I settled into the soft leather. “Am I the only girl to drive your car?”

He tightened his lips. “Yep.”

“Huh.”

“You know, my dad gave me this car for helping him run his charity basketball camp. It took me eight summers of volunteering to get it.” He shrugged. “But I loved working with him and those kids.”

“Oh,” I said, a bit surprised at his talkativeness. It seemed strange and surreal for us to be on easy terms, but I went with it. We were in a small car for the next forty-five minutes. “So your ride means a lot to you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “That and a few other things.” And then I felt him staring at me, but I didn’t check to see. Because he was crazy gorgeous with his yellow eyes and broad shoulders. And, he was
right there
, making my palms sweat. Plus, the last time I’d been in this car, we’d made love. Oh, wait, correction: we’d fucked.

We headed out of the stop-and-go-traffic of Highland Park and got to the open road. The Silver Bullet—as I liked to call her—ate up the interstate, getting closer and closer to Ratcliffe.

A few miles in, I glanced in the rearview mirror. A grey Mercedes had been tailing us since we’d left, and I hadn’t missed that it had made every turn I had. I sped up and so did they.

I squirmed a little in my seat. The only people who drove expensive imports were people like Cuba or the wrong kind from my neighborhood. I doubted anyone in Cuba’s life would follow us, which led me to believe it might be Barinsky’s men. My stomach twisted at that thought, wondering if they’d been in Highland Park looking for me.

I checked the mirror again, relived when I saw that the car had fallen back a few lengths. It was probably just a coincidence.

A few minutes later, I took the ramp and turned onto 54
th
Street, trying to imagine my part of town through Cuba’s eyes. Masked by darkness, much of the underbelly was hidden beneath the night, but there was no misconstruing the hookers on the corners or the homeless with their cardboard boxes. As we drove by, neon signs from the stores flashed, from the red lights of the liquor store to the blinking yellow sign above the Chinese diner.

It
almost
looked pretty, but it wasn’t.

Soon, we’d be out of here.

“I live in Ratcliffe,” I announced. “You got a problem with that?”

“I know where you’re from,” he replied. “It isn’t where you live, but how you live that matters.”

“Easy to say when you’re rich.”

He grunted. “I never judged you for being poor, so don’t judge me for being rich. And maybe you have more important things than money.”

I remembered his mother again and softened. “Cuba, I know what today is. I’m sorry about your mom.”

He winced but gave me a short nod as he scratched at the leather seats. “I—I never mentioned it when we were together, but I had a sister once. Cara. She died five years ago when she was six. I was thirteen.”

I blinked
. A sister?

“I had no idea,” I said, shooting him a quick glance. The moment between us felt big, maybe because he was opening up to me, and I don’t think he talked about his feelings much to anyone.

He stared out at the night. “It happened before you came to BA.”

“What happened? If you want to talk about it?”

He fidgeted, his hands clutching his knees. “I watched her die right in front of me. Her death was the worst thing I’d ever seen.”

Horrible scenarios flashed in my head, but I kept silent, waiting.

His head turned to me, and our eyes clung for a moment until I had to look back at the road. The intensity of the emotion I read on his face made me want to pull over and give him my full attention. It made me want to comfort him,
hold him
.

But I couldn’t do that. He hadn’t wanted my sympathy at lunch.

Yet, I was tempted to reach across the space that divided us and maybe grasp his hand. My heart had been walled up when it came to him this morning, but somehow in the space of a few minutes…

No. I clutched the gearshift instead.

“I’m sorry, Cuba. That must have been tough.”

“Yeah.” His voice was raw, his pain a visceral thing.

We were silent for the next ten minutes, each in our own thoughts. I kept thinking about him and his sister, picturing Cuba holding a dying little girl with soft curls like his. What had happened to her? Was it some awful disease like cancer?

Finally, we pulled up in my driveway, and his headlights showed Beckham House, a run-down brick building with beige trim that needed painting and mildew that grew around the roof. A wonky-looking metal fence framed the property.

“This where you live?”

“It’s temporary until my mansion and beach house are finished.”

He smirked at my snippiness, and the familiarity of it smacked me in the face.

I made a decision.

I turned the car off and took a big gulp, needing to know the answer to a question that had been burning in my head for a while. Since today was what it was, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. And we might not even be speaking tomorrow. “Do—do you blame me for your mother?”

His whitened face reared back. “You don’t quit with the questions, do you? First class and now this?”

“Not a quitter,” I agreed.

He groaned and rubbed his hands through his hair, making it stick up.

“Just tell me,” I said, my voice thin and reedy, taking up all the air in the car. “I can take it. It would explain—”

He held his hand up. “Just stop. Don’t ask me questions I don’t want to answer.”

“That’s not fair,” I said.

He shook his head. “Life isn’t fair. Even for a kid from Highland Park who seems to have it all but doesn’t.”

My heart dipped at the melancholy I heard in his voice, but I pushed it aside when the Mercedes pulled into a spot just across from us. “You know that car?”

He squinted at the vehicle. “No. Why?”

“They were behind us most of the way here. Probably nothing,” I murmured.

We got out of the car, and he said, “You go on in. I’ll go see who they are.”

“Only if you want to be shot,” I said, shrugging like I didn’t care. Playing it cool, having a panic attack inside.

“Shot?” he stiffened, peering at the car. It sat idling, the windows blacked out with tint. Whoever was in there, they wanted to remain anonymous. Was it Barinsky’s men?

“Don’t stare at them, Cuba.”
Please.
I turned toward the porch.

“Do you know who’s in the car?” he asked, his head going back and forth between me and the vehicle.

Maybe.
“It’s a bad neighborhood. Maybe a drug dealer or a pimp. We don’t bother them, they don’t bother us. It’s a rule.”

He stepped out on to the street. “Fuck rules. You’re acting weird, so I’m going over there.”

“No need to be a bad-ass,” I snapped and without thinking grabbed his bicep. He came to an abrupt halt, and I should have let his arm go, but I just couldn’t. My fingers remained, lingering.

Because he felt hard and muscled—and divine.

No.
I snapped my hand back and tucked it inside my skirt pocket.

I cleared my throat. “Look, there’s a liquor store on the corner and a naughty book store across the street. Cars park here frequently. It’s nothing. Please, let’s go inside. It’s been a long day, and I just want a cup of tea.”

And I wanted us off the streets.

He eyed me carefully for a moment but seemed to believe me.

“Tea, huh?” he said, following me up the steps from the street and onto the cracked sidewalk.

“Yep, Heather-Lynn makes the best tea. And Sarah needs the routine, so we do the same thing every afternoon…” I tapered off, telling too much. He didn’t want to know about my problems, and I didn’t want his pity.

“Who’s Heather-Lynn?” he asked.

“A friend,” I said, seeing Heather-Lynn’s face at the window. She ate this stuff up, so I stopped on the sidewalk and prepared for a grand entrance. And sure enough, the front door banged loudly as she barged out the double front door, her age softened by the glow of the porch light. She barreled down the step, smoking a cigarette, decked out in a pink, quilted housecoat and kitten heels. Thank goodness the negligee from this morning was nowhere in sight.

She carried her dog in her arms. I assumed Sarah was still sleeping, because most days she’d come out to greet me too.

When I looked over at Cuba to gauge his reaction, he already had a slow-rising grin on his face, and I shook my head. Did his affinity with females extend to all age groups?

“
That
is Heather-Lynn. She likes to salsa, was in a movie once, and loves to flirt.” My face softened. “She’s been Sarah’s friend—and mine—for years. The dog’s name is Ricky, also her ex-husband’s name.” He’d left her years ago for a cashier girl at Target.

Her heels slapped against the cracked concrete. “Dovey Katerina Beckham…” She halted and squinted, a mist of cigarette smoke following her. Completely pretending she hadn’t seen Cuba with me from the house. She ran her eyes over him, lingering longer than was appropriate on his crotch.

“Hello, Heather-Lynn,” Cuba murmured, charm oozing off of him.

“Why
who
are you?” she drawled in her slow Tennessee accent. I could listen to it all day, mostly because her voice brought up visions of fried chicken and potato salad.

“Are you Dovey’s new man?” she asked him.

“No,” I answered quickly, not missing that Cuba had gone rigid. Did the thought of us as a couple disturb him? “This is Cuba, a student from BA,” I said.

She looked surprised—yeah, she knew the whole story—but covered it up with a smile. “Odd name, I must say. It’s a country and not a good one. But you’re handsome enough, I suppose. Great body.” She cocked her hip, striking a pose. “Yeah, you’ll do.”

I rolled my eyes. “He’s forty years younger than you. Stick with the mailman.”

She laughed and ushered us both up to the porch and through the entrance. I didn’t relax until we were all in and the deadbolts were in place.

Cuba gazed around the foyer, his eyes stopping on a collection of black and white photos of me at different dance recitals. He moved toward them as I pulled Heather-Lynn to the side.

“Sarah asleep?” I asked her.

She nodded and then cut her eyes at Cuba. “What’s going on with you and the heartbreaker? He is the
one
, right?”

I sighed. “Yeah. My car broke down, so he gave me a ride home. And there’s a weird car on the street, so I asked him in.” But, at this point I didn’t care about Cuba. I wanted to know more about what had happened with those goons. “Anymore visits today?”

“No. We’re fine.” She gave me a pat. “Now, go chat with him while I make the tea.”

Go chat with him?
That just sounded odd.

But it did seem as if we’d crossed a barrier in the car. Just a little.

She left, and I made my way over to him.

He turned and smiled at me and one of his dimples flashed.
Whoa
. I stopped in my tracks, sucking in air. That smile, that face…I hadn’t seen it in over a year.

“You look like a Degas painting in these pictures,” he mused.

He probably owned a few Degas’s.

“What do you mean?”

He traced his finger over a picture of me in a shimmery ball et tutu. “Your body is pure art, all straight lines and…I don’t know…perfect curves? Does that even make sense?” He shrugged in a self-deprecating way. “I don’t know how to describe it with the right ballet terms, but I like watching you dance. Maybe because I can tell you love it.”

Then why have you ignored me?

He sighed, dropping his hands. “You were right before, you know. Back at the parking lot. I have lost touch with my goals, but you never have.”

“You lost your mother,” I murmured, my body shifting toward him.

“I lost more than that,” he growled, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

I fidgeted, not sure what to say.
Did he mean me?
He couldn’t.

So, I changed gears. “Speaking of goals, take a look at this,” I said, showing him a picture of me in a white, sequined tutu, posed
en pointe
, arms in fifth position.

“This is me as Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. The role required me to dance
en pointe
for long periods of time. Trust me, supporting your entire body on your toes is not easy and some ballerinas never get it. It takes years and tremendous strength in the legs and ankles. Yet, every time I look at this picture, I don’t see my accomplishment. I see
her
,” I said, pointing at Sarah. The photographer had inadvertently captured her expression as I posed, her hands pressed prayer-like against her lips, elation and joy on her face. Unshed tears brightened her eyes.

It gave me goosebumps every time I studied it.

I shrugged. “There’re many reasons why I dance. My body craves the impossibility of it, all those crazy twists and turns. It’s where I pour out all my fears and frustrations. But really, dance gave me life once when I think I was close to dying.” I touched Sarah’s face in the picture. “
She
gave me hope for a future. My parents…” I stopped, realizing I’d said too much already.