I raise both arms in the air (it hurts but I don’t care), bring them up through my hair, let my hips catch the beat. Look at James through my eyelashes. I have never let James dance with me before, not once, but I might die tomorrow and Annie used me and I can never be with someone like Adam, so I don’t care tonight.
He bites his lip. He follows me.
He puts his hands on my hips and I keep my arms in the air and there is the beat, the beat, the beat, and the music. And there is his body next to mine, and it isn’t just a body, it’s his body.
I wanted this so many times. Too many times. I never let myself have it. After a song or three or seven, James pulls me closer. “We should get you home.”
“You should buy me a drink!”
“You aren’t supposed to drink.”
“Thanks, Annie! I’m also not supposed to do this.” I put my hands on his chest (my hands he knows all about and he doesn’t push me away), and stretch up, take his earlobe between my teeth.
“Fia,” he says, and I don’t know if he’s scolding me or moaning.
“Buy me a drink.” I bite his ear harder. I feel like I’m in control tonight. I feel like I am the one using him tonight. I feel good. Or as good as I ever do.
He leans his face into mine—his cheek has a hint of stubble, it’s rough, I want to run my mouth along it—then bends down, lets his lips touch my neck, trace it ever so lightly.
He grabs my hand and pulls me out of the crowd, toward the bar. He’s angry, with himself or with me I can’t tell, but I’m getting my way so I don’t care. “Since we’re breaking all the rules anyway.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“Annie will kill me.”
“No, she’ll just have me do it.”
He squints suspiciously at me, but I smile and twirl away to get to the drinks faster.
“Only one,” he says.
I open my blue eyes wide. I am the picture of innocent earnestness. “Absolutely.”
I can’t dance anymore. The lights are spinning and the floor is spinning. How did they install a spinning floor? It’s amazing. The whole world spins, spins, spins from the balcony where we’re sitting. I try to tap, but I can’t find my leg with my finger, and I laugh. I’m even free from my three taps.
“You know why I don’t want to be with you?” James’s eyes are as glassy as they were the first time we met.
“Because I’m too young for you? Because you’re an evil, manipulative monster and I know it?”
He smiles, and his smile has that edge I know, that sharp edge I recognize. It sings to my own sharp soul. “You knowing makes me want you more. And you aren’t young. You haven’t been young since you were fourteen.”
I smile back. “Fine, then. Because I’m psychotic and I kill people?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head, still smiling. “Because my dad wants us together.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. He suggested it when we left on the yacht. Wanted you to fall in love with me as another way to tie you to us.”
I laugh. “Wasn’t he worried I’d kill you in your sleep or something?”
“I don’t think he’d actually care.”
“Oh, poor James.” I scoot across the dark velvet of the love seat, scoot right onto James’s lap, wrap my arms around his neck. “Why do you care if he cares? Your dad is evil.” Is it the money? Can he not live without bottomless funds? Or does he actually believe in this shadowy network of power his dad is building? I need to know. I let myself ignore it for so long, but the why is killing me. The why of James working for his father. The why of how I can feel like this for him even though he is part of what did this to me.
He looks at my lips, leans in closer. I don’t need to know the why anymore. I don’t care. I’ll care again tomorrow, but now? I close my eyes, waiting, waiting, wanting his lips on mine.
He pecks my nose instead, then laughs. I open my eyes and glare.
“My dad is evil. But I’m a Keane. It’s my duty to care. I owe it to my mother.”
“So, are you finally living up to Daddy Dearest’s dearest wishes? Are you going to seduce me, James Keane?”
He pulls me in closer. “I’ve only stayed away from you this long because he wanted me to do the opposite. I can’t let him win, can I?”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“But what about the Readers?”
“Oh, them? I think ‘I’m boinking the boss’s son!’ at them every chance I get. But only the ones who are in love with you.”
“You are evil.” But he looks at me like I’m not.
I know it’s wrong.
He’s a Keane.
He isn’t his father, but he will be.
He’s almost as good a liar as I am, and I am too drunk to sift through what he’s said.
It’s wrong, wrong, wrong.