The Girl in the Mirror (Sand & Fog #3) (9 page)

She nods as if she gets
that,
and I can’t believe I said such an untrue thing about Alan and managed to do it with sincerity.

Madison’s eyes cloud over. “But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me. We’re best friends. You tell me everything.”

“I didn’t want you to tell Nick and have Daryl find out.”

Her expression tightens like I slapped her. “I wouldn’t have done that. Not if you asked me not to.”

“I know, Maddy. This whole Jacob thing has got me all fouled up. It’s been so hard trying to figure out what to do.”

She takes her lower lip in her teeth, sucking as she studies me. I can’t tell how if this is working.

“Can we not talk about this anymore?” I plead.

I wait, trying to let nothing betray me on my face. Slowly, she looks around the room and then her blue orbs lock on me. “Something is going on here, Krystal. And I’m going to find out what it is.”

She springs from the bed and slams the door behind her. I should have done what Jacob told me. Not said a word and let him clean up this mess. I’ve made it worse.

I already have enough problems to manage. I don’t need this one, and Madison isn’t going to let up until she knows everything.

I start picking up the junk from the floor and toss it into my trash can.

I pick up my broken box and the ballerina, and sink to sit on the bed. I study the pieces. I wonder if I can fix it, maybe superglue the dancer back on her perch.

No, it’s ruined forever.

The metal stand is bent.

One side is busted in.

The music doesn’t play.

Hot tears pour from my eyes. It’s so odd that this should be the thing tonight to make me cry the hardest. Just an ordinary present that lots of little girls get.

But it wasn’t ordinary.

Not to me.

It was my Christmas gift from Alan when I was four, and while it might look like the same box every other girl gets, it’s not. He had it custom made for me. The shiny gold latch is real gold, the ballerina is made of crystal with dark hair like mine, the music that plays when the lid is lifted he recorded himself, and inside it says
I love you, sunshine.

I trace the letters in my dad’s neat, precise printing.

My muscles start to quake.

My dad would be so hurt and afraid if he knew
things.

He’s not really tough.

Not really mean.

It’s only an image he pretends for his fans, but he doesn’t have any of us kids fooled. Alan is the sweetest person ever.

No, I can’t let my dad find out any of it—tonight or the other stuff I don’t want him to know—but I haven’t a clue how to prevent it.

I lie on my bed as the minutes tick by, agonizing in that waiting type of silence.

What’s taking Jacob so long to get back?

My stomach churns from how he’s dragging this out. Why am I continuing to do what he told me to? He’s just some guy who works for my dad and I don’t even have to listen to him if I don’t want to.

I check the clock. Over an hour. Maybe he took Daryl to the hospital. I hope Daryl isn’t really hurt. I toy with the idea of texting him to find out if he’s OK, then I stop myself. Daryl’s got to be pissed. I should give him a few days before I try to smooth things over.

I go to my bedroom door, straining to hear through the heavy wood. Why isn’t there any sound from the house?

Ding.

I grab my cell off my night table. My heart accelerates as I type in my password.

Mom:
U forgot to text me when you got to the beach. ET phone home.

ET phone home.

Mom being comical.

Peachy. Now I have Chrissie to deal with on top of all the other junk I’m dealing with. Her timing is always brilliant. It’s like she has some sort of maternal radar and always knows when something is going on with one of us.

Crap.

It’d be wonderful if I could ignore it.

But that’s not how things work with my parents.

ET phone home.

Concern hides behind three dorky words coined from a movie from the last century. But I can’t ignore it, because it works every time Mom does that. I don’t know why but immediately obedience rears up inside me, squashing my right to ignore my mother.

I hit the cell icon and listen to it ring.

“You don’t call. You don’t write,” I hear through the receiver. “I’m not happy with you.”

A humorous Chrissie chide.

She’s upset.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. I forgot. You know how Madison is. It’s hard to keep up with her and stay focused.”

“Yes, I know how my sister is. Still, with freedom comes responsibility. Just a call like I asked and I won’t worry or bug you.”

The
with freedom comes responsibility
speech. Groovy—she complained to Grandpa Jack before she called me. Yes, that’s one of his lines. You’d think my mom could invent her own after five kids. Even Dad’s talks would be preferable to this.
Don’t be a fuckup.
Clear and to the point.

This
makes me feel even more terrible than I already do. I sit on the bed and lie back. “Sorry.”

“Is everything OK?” she probes.

“Sure. Why wouldn’t it be? I’m only thirty minutes from home, Mom, in Malibu. What could happen to me here?”

She makes a nervous laugh.

“No reason. I thought…actually, it sounds quieter in Malibu than it does at home…maybe I should join you.” More laughter. “Sorry, bad joke. I’ll let you get back to Madison. I only wanted to check on you. Check done. Have a fun weekend, baby girl.”

Click.

Mom babbling, followed by a fast retreat and hanging up before I can get a word in.

Oh yes, she knows something.

A call from Dad is imminent.

This is going to be a winner of a weekend.

Musical phone calls with my parents. Exactly what every girl wants on a weekend with her boyfriend—

Oh no.

This isn’t couples anymore.

I’m trapped here three days and I don’t have a date.

How the hell did that one escape me?

This is now Madison, Nick, and me.

Thank you, Jacob Merrick, for ruining my last weekend home. Humiliating me. Tossing out my boyfriend. Damn it, I wonder if he also ran to my mother with
everything
and if that’s why she called me.

I turn my cell phone in my hand.

No, she wouldn’t have hung up so quickly if Jacob had called her. She wouldn’t have called either. She would’ve shown up here without warning.

The front door slams.

Heavy stomping feet—Madison’s—it always sounds like she has lead in her toes.

“You asshole!” I hear her scream before I reach my door.

I hurry into the hall and freeze near the entryway.

“What did you do to Krystal?”

Oh no. She’s in attack mode, hitting Jacob.

“Nothing. Stop it. I didn’t do anything to Krystal. I wouldn’t hurt that girl for the world.”

Madison shoves her face into his. “We get back from the beach to find that person standing guard in the living room saying we can’t see Krystal, and when Nick tackles him so I get past him to make sure she’s OK, I find her bleeding and the room busted up. She’s so upset she can’t even talk to me. What did you do to her? Where’s Daryl? You better explain fast,
security person
, or I’m calling her father.”

My eyes narrow. She’s such a sneaky girl. She’s playing him, pretending not to know that garbage I told her in the bedroom, hoping he’ll spill the beans on what he knows.

I need to stop this before Jacob says anything to her.

How do I stop this?

I rush into the room and put my body between them, Jacob behind me and Madison facing me. “That’s it, Madison. Enough. Don’t hit my boyfriend again. You’ve got everything wrong, like always.”

Her blue eyes turn into giant saucers.

Her mouth drops.

“So now that person is your boyfriend?” She crosses her arms and shakes her head at us. “Would someone tell me what’s going on here? I don’t get anything that’s happened tonight, and one of you had better start explaining fast.”

Even as I only think it, it feels dreadful how easy lying has become a part of me. I push away all the painful nuances of that admission, shrug, and say, “What’s to get, Maddy? I dumped Daryl. I’m with Jacob now.”

The silence in the room is crushing.

Slowly, Madison lifts a brow. “Is that the story you want me to believe this time around? That he’s your boyfriend?”

“It’s the truth.”

As hard as it is, I manage to meet her stare for stare, feeling the heavy pressure of eyes from every direction.

Jacob’s sudden harsh breathing warns me that this little creative variation isn’t going over well with him, and I’m more than a little nervous he’s going to blow my lie sky high.

Though, why would he?

It helps us both.

At least I think it does.

Madison’s pretty face grows suspicious as her gaze shifts to Jacob. “What do you have to say for yourself? You’ve been a jerk tonight, totaling flipping out, ruining everyone’s fun, and now hiding behind your girlfriend. I don’t think I like you.”

I peek over my shoulder to look directly at
him
for the first time since I joined the melee.

Jacob looks flustered, like he doesn’t know what to do, and, damn, it doesn’t look like he’s going to say anything anytime soon. Thick tension swirls around us and he has that guard-at-Buckingham-Palace expression.

Seriously, what’s wrong with the guy? Either he talks too much, like his lecture in the bedroom, or he talks not at all—like every other moment of his life.

I snort. “God, Jacob, say something. This is really embarrassing.”

His fingers curl on my shoulder. Then he leans into me. “Way to warn me, Krystal. You could have texted me to give a heads-up before I walked into this. I thought we were going to keep us private. Did you tell everyone about us?”

He smiles, and I’m torn between relief and wanting to hit him since he managed to make me look bad even coming through for me.

Madison’s eyes narrow. “You expect me to believe this nonsense?”

Jacob shrugs. “I don’t care what you believe.” He holds his hand out to me. “Can we go somewhere to talk, babe?”

Babe.

He can be fast on his feet.

I don’t want to talk to him privately.

Madison gives me an intense look. “No, you are not going anywhere, Krystal. Not with him.”

“Calm down, Maddy. You always make too much out of everything.” I ignore her answering expression and put my hand in Jacob’s. “Why don’t we go walk on the beach?”

I can feel Madison’s stare moving with us to the patio doors. As he opens the door, I say over my shoulder, “We won’t be long,” and hurry outside ahead of him.

Once the slider is closed behind me, I whirl to face him and yank my hand back. “Thanks a lot. You could have been a little more cooperative back there.”

Jacob’s eyebrows lift and he stares at me for a second, confusion and annoyance warring in his gem-hazel eyes. “How is this my fault?”

“Everything
is
your fault. If you hadn’t interfered with Daryl and me, I wouldn’t have had to lie to Maddy to cover up everything and my weekend wouldn’t be shot.”

I march toward the sand—since I don’t put it past Maddy to spy on us through the glass—and make my way to the shoreline, not bothering to look to see if Jacob is following.

He falls in next to me, raking back his brown waves in irritation. “Do you even have a clue what you did to me back there?”

“Yes, I saved you.”

“Is that really how you see this?”

I nod and continue to walk.

He’s shaking his head at me.

“If Madison says a word, you’ve just cost me my job,” he points out grimly. “I’m pretty sure messing around with my employers’ eighteen-year-old daughter is grounds for termination. Why did you say I was your boyfriend?”

That never occurred to me, and the way he says that tells me he needs his job.

I sink down on the sand. “I’m sorry. It was all I could think of. I wasn’t trying to create a problem for you. I was trying to get Maddy to back off.”

He settles beside me. “Why didn’t you say nothing?”

“Because you don’t know Madison like I do. She’s just like her mother. She likes to get up in everyone’s business. She wouldn’t have let up until she got something.”

He stares at me, frustrated. “Well, now she has the power to get me fired, so excuse me if I don’t thank you, Krystal.”

“It’s going to work out fine. I can handle Maddy and she won’t say anything, not now that she thinks we’re a couple.”

He puts his elbow on his knees and his fingers in his hair. “I don’t think it’s going to work out that simply. I hate lying. It always blows up. It’s never the right solution.”

My cheeks flush from his subtle jab. “It can be the right solution. In extreme circumstances, and this is definitely extreme, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t,” he says in a drawn-out way. “Life or death is extreme. This is only an idiotic mess.”

“Well, it’s life or death for me. There’s no telling what will happen if my dad finds out everything. We need to work together to make sure that doesn’t happen. I don’t know how you can’t see that.”

“Work together?” Frowning, he studies me. “Oh no, what are you plotting now?”

The way he says that makes me internally flinch.

“I’m not plotting anything. I’m trying to think of practical solutions that help both of us. I don’t want to stay here all weekend being the third wheel with Nick and Madison. If we both cut out, Madison will know I lied, and if I go home early my mom will know something happened here. And you don’t want to lose your job. There’s only one solution, no matter how I work the pieces.”

He cocks a brow. “I don’t even think I want to know what you’d think is a solution to this.”

I lift my chin. “One more cheap shot and you’re on your own.”

“Unbelievable. I’ve always treated you respectfully and tonight I saved you from an abusive moron—”

“Daryl isn’t a moron. He’s not abusive. He’s a great guy and…” The look he gives me makes my words clog in my throat. His expression tightens to the point where his face looks like a plastic mask—or at least it would if that tic in his cheek wasn’t working double time. “Do you always have to be such a jerk to me?”