Ripped (Real, #5)(13)
She stares directly at me, ignoring the pills. “So what kind of opportunity is this?”
“It’s a good one—great one,” I amend as I frantically set my mind free to imagine a sufficient lie. “I sent in the proposal for several apartments—dark fabrics, you know. What I like. They’re for a big, um, family, and I was hired on the spot. They said nobody can do this but me—it has to be me. And I’ve been decorating long enough to know it’s the kind of opportunity I might never see again. Ever.”
“All right, so when are you home?”
“I think three weeks.”
“Very well.”
We continue our breakfast in silence. I try to exhale slowly so my breath doesn’t shake on its exit.
“PanPan!” A cannonball lands on my lap, and I laugh as all the warmth that is Magnolia envelops me.
“Hey, Magnificent!” I say, tweaking her nose. I call Magnolia anything with a Mag. She gets a toothy grin when I ask her what she’s up to.
“Nuttin’,” she says, pulling free and jamming a hand in the cereal box on the counter.
“Magazine, I’m going to be away for a bit, are you going to stay out of trouble?”
“Nope. Trouble’s my middle name.”
“We agreed it was mine.” I go to the cabinet and pull out a bowl and a spoon. “What’ll you do if you miss me?”
She blinks.
“You’ll make a list of the things you wanted to do with me when I was away and we’ll do them all when I get back,” I tell her.
She nods and carries her cereal to the table. I’m a big believer in lists. You write your wants down on paper, and it’s like putting them out there to the Universe: Bitch, you gotta make this happen for me. I got it from my mother, who’s married to her lists, and I think I will probably marry mine . . . when I finally get around to writing one.
“Okay, I will,” Magnolia says, starting to eat her cereal. I feel my phone buzz and notice Kyle’s car out in the street.
“Kyle’s here, I better go.” Putting away my phone, I squeeze Magnolia to me. When I stand, my mother nods. I grab my duffel bag, and for a moment, I’m uncertain whether to hug her or not. Since she stands there with her coffee in her hand and makes no move toward me, I nod back and leave. She’s just not very tactile, but neither am I. We’re more comfortable remaining in our little bubbles—little bubbles only Magnolia seems to penetrate. Well, Melanie sometimes gets into mine too.
I spot Kyle behind the wheel and slide into his nerdy automobile.
“What’s all this about?” he asks, confused by the duffel I toss into the backseat. “I’m driving you to some hotel parking lot? Did you become a cartel worker overnight?”
“I’m . . . uh, stage setting with Crack Bikini. So . . .”
“For real? You shitting me?”
He looks amazed, which only makes me want to groan.
He doesn’t know I know Mackenna. None of my friends know who “the * who made me hate men” was—their words, not mine. I only told Melanie last night because the bitch wanted to pass on the concert and stay home—to probably let her very healthy male bang her brains out—so I had to fess up to why it was so important that we go.
Because I just spent a f*cking fortune on two tickets, and because he’s the f*cking * who broke my heart and made me heartless and bitter.
Who? The one who sold you the tickets?
No! Mackenna suck-a-dick Jones!
“For real, you’re working with Crack Bikini?” Kyle asks.
“No, Kyle. I just like bullshitting you for rides to random hotels.”
“When are you coming back?” he presses.
“Less than a month.”
We head to where I was told to meet everyone, and as we spot about a thousand custom coach buses at the hotel parking lot, I’m so nervous I’m crackling.
Kyle parks in awed silence, then grabs my duffel and helps me carry it as we head toward a group of band members. Before we reach them, he stops and gives me a brotherly peck on the cheek, and—isn’t this just perfect?—there’s Mackenna, watching it from the door of a nearby coach. I push on my tiptoes and shove my tongue down Kyle’s throat, and before he can figure out why the f*ck I’m swapping saliva with him, I pull back with a little moan.
“Be good,” I say in a lame seductive voice.
He’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking at Mackenna.
Mackenna, who’s somehow leapt off the coach, is now approaching, all gorgeous rockstar with that sexy buzz cut, the dark sunglasses, the mocking smile.
“Ahh, our guest of honor!” Lionel beams as he starts forward in my direction, but he gets sidetracked by a roadie.
Mackenna has no such welcome. Those arms I dreamed would hold me until my last day cross over his broad chest, and I notice his eyebrows furrow as he plucks off his sunglasses, hooks them in his shirt, and fixes his silver wolf eyes on Kyle. He takes a very brief moment to survey me, then he sure as f*ck takes a longer one to survey Kyle. Cool steel slides along my nerves. The fact that he’s a rockstar and heart-poundingly sexy does not—and will not—exempt him from my hell.
“Pandora!” someone shouts, and a camera aims in my direction.
At the mention of my name, Mackenna’s head swivels toward me—and I’m not prepared for what I see in his deep, dreamy eyes, dark and waiting, or for the deep, intense flare of heat they cause inside my belly. One second it’s there, the next, he turns to the cameraman and stretches out one arm, using his palm to tip the camera so that it points elsewhere. Then he comes over and rakes Kyle up and down with an icy stare.