Chapter Twelve
Brady
“Hungry eyes.”
“Holy shit, Pines,” I say, “did you just answer your phone with a Dirty Dancing quote? That’s it. I’m signing you up for an AARP card right now.”
She laughs, and her tired voice comes over the line again. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I was asleep.”
“You were asleep, huh?” I could tell she’d been asleep.
Even if my ears hadn’t caught it, my dick is fully aware.
I want that tired voice in my bed, in the morning, after a whole lot of sex.
“I’ve barely had a chance to wear you out and you’re this tired?
You’re going to be a zombie by the time I’m done with you. ”
“Oh really,” she says. “Are you taking me on a hike? Mountain climbing? White-water rafting?”
“Would I get to see you in a bikini again?”
“I don’t think people wear bikinis to go white-water rafting unless they’re in a beer commercial.”
“To get back to your question, no,” I say. “Extreme sports wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“Well, you keep your dirty thoughts to yourself, McDaniels.”
“I’d much rather share them with you. You feature very prominently in them.”
I imagine her shaking her silver head, embarrassed and flattered and not wanting to admit to either. “I have to go to work,” she says.
“What time are you done?”
“Just in time for me to go home and sleep,” she says. “We have an eight forty-five Legal Writing class tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Let me pick you up tonight.” I want more Angie Pines, and I want it now. But I can wait for tonight. In the meantime, I’ll think about the different ways I’m going to have my Angie cake and eat it, too.
“That’s okay,” she says. “We close early on Sundays, so you don’t have to worry about me going home late on my bike. I’ll be safely in my bed by midnight.”
A vision of Angie alone in her bed wearing that thin little tank top thing and a red lace thong barges into my brain. Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, one night of doing not nearly enough with her has turned me into a hormone-crazed junior-high kid. I’m practically salivating.
“Yeah, but you could be safely in my bed by midnight. That would be a hell of a lot more fun.”
“There is nothing safe about me in your bed, Brady,” she says. “And don’t give me that ‘good Catholic boy’ shit. It’s not happening.”
“ Never? ” I ask, momentarily alarmed.
A long pause ensues that makes my heart race. “No…not never ,” she finally says. “But not tonight.”
“You’re killing me, Pines.”
“You’ll live,” she says, laughter in her voice.
“You’re enjoying this,” I accuse her.
“What can I say? You’re kind of fun to torture.”
Eyes on the prize, Brady , I remind myself.
Slow and steady. She’s calling the shots.
But this isn’t how things usually go. I call the shots.
I meet girls, hook up with them for a while, and move on.
The minute the girl isn’t on the same page as me, the minute she’s more into me than I’m into her, or vice versa—game over.
It’s all about an even playing field. But this field is already tipped decidedly in my favor, so I figure I can let her get away with a few things.
“Okay, then, I’ll see you in class tomorrow,” I say, caving like a sinkhole.
We hang up, and I stretch out on my sofa, my dick twitching and my mind racing.
Girls don’t usually play hard to get with me.
I never have time for that shit. It’s on, or I’m gone.
But I’ve also never gone after a girl with a secret the size of the Grand Canyon.
This is a whole different set of rules from what I’m used to, and they’re Angie’s rules.
My phone rings, and I groan when I see the number.
“Hey, Lou,” I say.
“How you doing, Brady?” says the rough voice on the other line. “Listen, your dad’s being stubborn as ever and my associates are busting my balls over it. They’re ready to move on this.”
“Haven’t you tried to call Angela?” I ask. “See if she’ll talk to you?”
“No, I don’t want to spook her. She’s good at running, and obviously good at covering her tracks. We’ll need her eventually, and I’m not willing to lose her for this. Either your dad gives up the names or I convince the folks here we’ll be able to fry some much bigger fish.”
“She won’t talk to you, but you think she’ll talk to me?”
“You’ve confirmed she’s there. You got me her address and her phone number. Go the extra mile here and see if you can get me something big I can use. It’s a last-ditch effort, but I’m willing to stall them one more time to help your dad.”
Something big would require not just more effort, but more alone time with Angela. For now she’s just a casual hookup. I don’t need to know anything about her other than her favorite positions and the location of her G-spot. But I’ll never find out anything real about her.
I think of my mom on her knees, clutching me as she screamed, the strong arms that wrapped around us and promised to keep us safe.
“Yeah, sure,” I say. “I’ll get you something.”
I end the call and flop back on my sofa. Shit. This sucks. I don’t want to get my heart involved with Angela Pines. But she owes me. Her little disappearing act with her family, her gesture of independence or whatever the hell it was, cost my family big. This is my only chance to set that right.
I go for a long run followed by a long shower to clear my head of all things Angie, but it doesn’t happen. The Angie Army—purple hair and fake eyes and tattooed shoulder and deep curves and long legs—has begun a full-scale invasion of my brain and my body.
She is just a girl, man , I remind myself.
But when I finally fall asleep, I dream about those eyes. And they’re not turquoise. They’re brown and gold and the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. When I wake up the next morning—too early and unable to fall back to sleep—all I can think about is her.
Damn. Another long run is in my immediate future. I climb out of bed, brush my teeth, and put on my running shoes.
Running in the cool morning air, before the sun is fully up and the air polluted with commuter exhaust, isn’t helping as much as I’d hoped. It’s not until my playlist is interrupted by a phone call that my mind turns to other things.
“Hiya, Brady,” says my mom loudly. I can hear the noise of Manhattan in the background: car horns honking, buses screeching, people talking on phones. She’s on her way to her receptionist job in the city. “You all set to fly out on Thursday?”
“Yeah, Ma,” I say, slowing to a jog. “Flying into LaGuardia around ten p.m.”
“I don’t understand this, Brady,” she says, and I can hear the frustration in her voice. “You got accepted to one of the best law schools in the country, close to home, and you decide to pick up and move to the other side of the country to go to some school no one’s ever heard of?”
“I just needed a change for a little while,” I say, guilt starting to vibrate through my bones. “I’m already set to transfer to Columbia for the spring semester.”
“Do you even like it out there?”
“No,” I assure her. “They’ve got actual tumbleweeds and shit. And you can’t get a decent slice of pizza to save your life.”
“All right, then,” she says, and I could tell from her voice that I made her smile. “I’m just getting to work, hon. I’ll talk to you later. Can’t wait to see you.”
“Me too,” I say.
I hang up, and my phone switches back to my playlist. A familiar feeling of heavy sadness briefly clenches my chest as I think about the reason for my upcoming trip home, but I shrug it off and keep running. It’s all in the past.
An hour and a half later, I pull into the parking garage at school and snag a spot near the bike rack. As luck would have it, Angie rides up just as I’m getting out of my car. Okay, maybe I waited a few minutes with my engine idling to make it look like we’d arrived at the same time…
“What’s up, Pines?” It’s a pink poodle skirt day, complete with a pink blouse knotted at her midriff and black-and-white saddle shoes. Where does she find this stuff and how the hell does she make it look sexy?
“Hey, Brady,” she says, slightly breathless as she hops off her beat-up pink beach cruiser and grabs her books out of the basket.
Her hair is all bound up in one of the elaborate braids she favors.
It occurs to me that I’m probably the only one in our class who’s seen that hair in all its waist-length glory.
That thought sends an unexpected wave of possessiveness through me that I quickly tamp down.
Never in my life have I felt possessive toward a girl—with the sole exception of the night that asshole at the bar put his hands on Angie—and I’m not about to start now.
She isn’t mine, she will never be mine, and most importantly, I don’t want her to be mine.
I’m going to do what I need to do, then transfer to Columbia, head back to New York, and forget all about Angela Pines.
“Oh, hey, before I forget,” she says as we start heading toward the law school.
“I was thinking about that personal jurisdiction case…” And she launches into a series of hypothetical situations that she’s concocted.
The girl is smart, I’ll give her that. We talk about her hypos for the ten-minute walk to class and keep going until our professor shows up.
Not a moment too soon, either. Between her rapid-fire “but what if’s” and the smell of her skin and the memory of what that mouth felt like against mine, my head is spinning by the time I have to turn my attention to the mechanics of writing a legal memo.
After class, I chat with some friends as we head out of the classroom, keeping Angie in my peripheral vision. I need to move on this fast if I’m going to get intel for Lou.
“I’ll catch up with you guys later,” I say when I see Angie head to the library by herself.
I follow her in and find her seated at a table by a window toward the back. I stand across from her, and my shadow falls over her laptop. She looks up with mild surprise.
“Mind if I sit here?” I ask.
I try not to let her slight hesitation dent my ego. “No,” she says. “It’s fine.”
I pull out the chair, sit down, and lean forward on my elbows. I cut right to the chase. “I owe you a date, Angie Pines.”
“Um, well, okay, I guess…” she says, rolling her eyes. I swear you could power Manhattan with her eye rolls.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I say in a hushed announcer voice, “we’re here with Olympic ball-buster Angela Pines, and correct me if I’m wrong, George, but she seems to be…
Wait… Could it be? Yes, George, she is almost smiling at her opponent, triple gold-medalist charmer Brady McDaniels.
I agree, Bob. It does appear that the ball-busting champion of the world is about to crack a smile. ”
She bursts out laughing, then covers her mouth and looks around to make sure no one heard her.
“You’re ridiculous,” she says, her face flushed.
“Not gonna argue with you, princess. When are you free?” I ask her.
“I work all weekend,” she says hesitantly, still pink in the face from laughing. “Tuesday and Wednesday are my nights off.”
“Tomorrow night it is,” I say, lightly slapping the table and sitting back in my chair. “I’ll pick you up at seven?”
She swallows. “Okay.”
“See ya.” I stand up to leave, mission accomplished.
“See ya,” she says, sounding as bored as if she were in Property class.
Her eyes are already back on her laptop screen.
I shake my head slightly and leave. The attitude on this girl is unbelievable.
When I get to the exit, I glance behind me, my instincts telling me she’s not as bored by me as she pretends.
Sure enough, I catch her full-on looking at me.
“Busted,” I mouth to her, and I’m rewarded with a blushing Angie Pines smile.