Big Rock(46)

I stare at the image. Abe caught the moment when I was sniffing Charlotte’s neck. My face is only half-visible, but Charlotte lights up the screen, radiant and joyful. Her eyes are bright, and I swear I see of a flicker of something in them, but my mind returns briefly to her neck and the way she smelled last night. The scent memory washes over me—peaches. She smelled like peaches and dirty dreams.

Like happiness and desire all at once.

“See what I mean?”

I look at my sister and realize she’s been talking to me as I’ve been drifting off. “What do you mean?”

She pokes my sternum with her index finger. “Don’t break her heart.”

I stare at her like she’s crazy, but for one rare moment, Harper’s blue eyes are serious. There’s no joking, no teasing in them. “I like Charlotte,” she adds, as we walk along the path to the fields. “I know this started as a fake thing, but it’s becoming real. At least for her.”

I start to say for me, too, but I’m too floored by her words—I’m not sure I can form my own. I was so certain Charlotte’s ground rules were genuine, that her intentions were truly just for sex, and that her goal was for us to remain friends after a few f*cks. But women have intuition, even my sister. They see things men don’t. “Really?”

Harper rolls her eyes. Ah, my pain-in-the-ass sister is back in full force. “I know this is shocking to you, since your knowledge of love and relationships is woefully limited. You’ve never had a serious relationship.”

“That’s not true,” I say as we resume our path through the park. “I went out with Amanda in college.”

“Oh, well la dee dah. Four months. Whoa. Let me call the record books because that is soooo serious.”

“It felt serious at the time.”

“Spencer, this may surprise you, given the trail of destruction you leave behind, but every now and then, God knows why, a woman might develop real feelings for you when you screw her. Just be careful, especially when it’s someone you care about as a friend,” she says, as we reach the ball field. Nick’s there already, practicing his swing.

A million questions race through my head. I want to sit Harper down and quiz her. To ask her more about Charlotte. But Harper elbows me. She licks her lips and stares salaciously at Nick. “He’s so f*cking hot.”

I drop my bat. It hits my toes before I can jump out of the way. “Did aliens just take over your brain?”

“Look. At. Him.” She’s ogling my buddy, who’s wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt. “His arms. Oh my God. They are the definition of arm porn. I’m going to take some pictures to stare at later.”

She starts snapping photos on her phone.

“I’m calling the psych hospital. We’re checking you in,” I say, wincing because my stupid toe smarts now.

Nick catches her gaze and sets his bat on the ground, leaning casually onto it, like he’s some kind of star ball player. “Hey, Harper. You’re looking foxy.”

Foxy? What the hell? Down is up and right is wrong, and New York is falling into the ocean instead of California, because why the hell is my best guy friend hitting on my sister?

Harper juts out a hip coquettishly. She waves at Nick with her fingers and bats her eyelashes. “So are you, hot stuff,” she says, then winks at him before she points at his shirt. “Can you take it off? So I can get another shot.”

“Oh yeah,” he says, sounding like a stripper as he yanks off his T-shirt.

“Yum.” She smacks her lips and mimes making a cat claw. She leans into me and whispers, “I am so going to be visiting him one-handed tonight in my fantasies.”

My eyes pop out of my head, and I clasp her shoulders.

“You have to stop now. We can get you help. There are treatment centers for temporary insanity.”

“There’s no stopping this train,” she says, tossing her glove on the ground. Shoving her cone into my hand, she struts over to Nick, who’s shirtless, his chest and abs on full display. Harper runs her fingernails down his pecs, then locks her arms around his neck.

My fists clench, not because I want to hit Nick, but because some primal brotherly protective instinct is curling through me.

“Dude. Hands off. That’s my sister.”

Harper swivels around. “Gotcha! That’s for ruining Santa Claus for me.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


It takes a while to erase the image of my sister and Nick wrapped up in each other, even if it was just a prank, but I manage.

Thanks to my new obsession.

This photo. I can’t stop thinking about what Harper said about Charlotte, and I can’t stop looking at that picture on Page Six like it holds all the clues to the universe in it.

I stare at it as I head into the Columbus Circle station, having dropped my bat and glove at Nick’s apartment near the park. My head is bent over my phone as I trot down the stairs, then slip inside the downtown train. I wrap my hand around a pole while a hipster girl in green skinny pants shoves her way onto the car, sliding past the doors just before they close. She carries bags on each arm.

“Whew,” she says, relieved to have made it. But the edge of a cloth bag is caught in the door, so she yanks it free and turns in a tangle, spinning around.