The Thrill of It (No Regrets Book 2) Read online

  He narrows his eyes at me. “Um. Sure. But do you even have to ask that question? Don’t we meet up every day?”

  I force a laugh. “Yeah. Of course. I just don’t like to take anything for granted.”

  That’s the truest thing I’ve said to him in the last twenty-four hours.

  I lean in to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Bye. I need to run. You can hang, or let yourself out. Or whatever.”

  He loops his arms around my neck, holding me close, and I resist the desire to squirm away. “Is your headache better?”

  “Getting there,” I say as I slip out of his embrace, then furrow my brow, affecting my best I still have a headache look.

  I dart into the bathroom, close the door, and grab the plastic bag with the test in it. I hid it under the sink last night; I wasn’t about to leave the evidence in the wastebasket. I push it to the bottom of my purse.

  Then I’m gone. Out the door, down the stairs, around the block, heart pumping wildly, feet pounding the concrete, the high summer heat relentless in its assault. Beads of sweat drip down my back.

  Two more blocks. One more block.

  I toss the plastic bag into a trash can on the corner, then I wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt and hurry to the drugstore. I yank open the door, glancing once behind me. I don’t see anyone I know.

  I find the aisle with the pregnancy tests, snag two, and rush to the counter. I tap my foot as I wait for the woman in front of me to buy gum. Spearmint or cinnamon? She lifts each pack, considers them. My heart jerks with sick envy. Spearmint, I want to shout. See? It’s easy to make that decision. But she picks cinnamon, unwrapping a piece and popping it in her mouth as the clerk hands over her change.

  When it’s my turn, I plunk the boxes on the counter and scan the perimeter, hoping Trey doesn’t have a sudden need to buy gum or anything else. The woman at the register looks exceedingly bored as she rings me up, and I want to reach across, shake her shoulder, and say, Don’t you know my life is about to change? And I just want spearmint, okay?

  Instead, she dumps the tests into a plastic bag without a word and thrusts it at me.

  “Thanks,” I mumble, then swivel around and march to the restroom at the back of the store. I lock the door and press my hand against it, trying to steady myself as a wave of fear tackles me. I breathe out hard through my nostrils, offering a plea to anyone who’s listening to tell the universe to stop mocking me.

  But ten minutes, two more tests, and a fresh wave of morning nausea later, I have my answer—and it’s neither spearmint nor cinnamon.

  30

  Trey

  Paper?

  She has a paper due?

  She’s taking a writing class, and I’m pretty sure the assignments are of the creative story variety, not “papers.” Strange answer, but as I brush my teeth, I realize something seemed off about Harley all morning. I stop brushing, rewind the last twelve hours—her headache, her rush to leave, and most of all, her not wanting to have sex. Come to think of it, she’s seemed out of sorts ever since we were watching that movie last night, after we ate the birthday cake.

  I tense for a moment, shoulders tightening, as a one-syllable name flashes through my head like a blaring neon sign.

  Cam.

  Is she talking to him again? Is that why she’s being so weird? Is she toying with going back? She better not be. Because that’s a line she can’t cross.

  I grip the sink with my free hand, take a deep breath, and try to settle my jumping-to-conclusions nature. I listen for the sound of my shrink’s voice in my head, telling me to slow down.

  I won’t assume the reason she’s acting weird is that she’s talking to him again. Maybe it’s because this is the first time she’s ever celebrated a birthday without her mom being a part of it. Even though the woman is a witch, I bet Harley misses her. And I suspect she doesn’t want to admit that either, tough girl that she is. I finish brushing my teeth, ready to pat myself on the back. My shrink would be proud that I didn’t act on my fears. I spit out the toothpaste, and leave my toothbrush in the cup holder, next to Harley’s.

  Seeing my green toothbrush next to her red one, carbon copies of the ones at my apartment, reminds me of how ridiculous having two places is. The back-and-forth is pointless, since she’s at my apartment or I’m at hers every night. That’s what I should have done for her birthday. Asked her to move in with me.

  I file away Harley’s skittishness for the rest of the day, and instead plot the best way to ask her to live with me as I work the afternoon shift at No Regrets, inking a trio of frat brothers by imprinting Greek letters onto their biceps. It’s usually the kind of tat you see three dudes decide to get on a dare when they’re wasted, but they’re stone-cold sober, so I guess this is what they want.

  “Dude, this is awesome,” one of the guys says, and high-fives me.

  “Yeah, looks good, man. See you later.”

  Then I head to my parents for the weekly dinner visit. School starts in less than a month, and I have one semester left before I earn my degree. Translation: only one more semester of these visits, and then the parental handcuffs come off.

  The maroon-uniformed doorman nods at me. “Good evening, sir.”

  “Hey there,” I say. It’s strange, so strange that he has to act all deferential to everyone who comes and goes through the lobby of this Upper East Side building. I want to say, Dude, I’m just like you. But once I’m inside the building, I lose all thoughts of the doorman because I see a pair of legs I’d recognize anywhere. Even from the back—maybe especially from behind, because that was her favorite position. Her long brown hair flows down her sexy back, and she’s wearing workout shorts, sneakers, and a tank top. I rub my eyes as the elevator doors close, sealing her inside. I don’t even see her face, but I know those legs belong to Sloan McKay in 15D.

  She moved out three years ago, only a few weeks into our affair. The only woman I didn’t leave first. My heart pounds furiously at seeing her, and I want to slap it, tell it to have zero reaction, because my heart belongs to Harley and it’s fucking embarrassing that anyone else would cause this sort of uncontrollable chaos in my chest.

  I duck into the nook with the mailboxes, close my eyes briefly, and slump against the wall, reminding myself that even if I run into an ex, it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’m about to have another meal with my parents, and that’s nearly as pleasurable as having teeth pulled, so seeing Sloan is nothing.

  Sloan, and her long legs.

  Sloan, who used to show me the paintings she was working on for the gallery show she hoped to land someday, who liked to talk about art and passion, who always told me I made her feel things no one else did.

  Sloan, who dropped hints she was thinking of leaving her husband before she just took off one day from the building. I hadn’t seen her since.

  But Sloan isn’t Harley. Sloan isn’t the one I’m in love with. She’s not the girl I’m asking to move in with me.

  I turn around and head upstairs to my parents’ floor.

  “Good to see you, son,” my dad says, offering a hand to shake, then clapping me on the back like I’m just another good old pal here to visit. “We ordered Chinese food tonight. Your mom didn’t have time to cook.”

  Like this is news? My mother never cooks.

  “Chinese is cool,” I say.

  “Great,” he says. “Let’s go get her. Let her know you’re here.”

  Inside her office, she’s tapping away on her computer. She holds up a finger, the sign to wait. “Just sending in this prescription for Vicodin for a tummy-tuck patient. Be one more second,” she says, and then hits the button on her online prescription software that will send the recipe for numbness to the nearest pharmacy.

  I wouldn’t mind a Vicodin right now—anything to take the edge off eating scallion pancakes, cold noodles, and pepper steak while making fake conversation with my parents. Nothing has changed since the night I showed her the tats all over my body to remember my dead baby
brothers, the ones she pretends never existed. Nope. It’s business as usual. Come to dinner. Talk about school. Be a good boy. See you later.

  “So, Trey,” my father says when he’s done, folding his napkin and pushing away his plate. “Final semester. Have you given some thought to what happens come December when you graduate?”

  I clear my throat and take a drink of water, wishing it were beer. “I thought I might go to nursing school,” I say, and I manage it with a straight face, flashing back to my joke last night with Harley.

  My mother’s eyes brim with curiosity, and it’s the greatest evidence I’ve had in years of eliciting an emotional reaction from her. “Nursing school. That would be fantastic,” she says, and I want to roll my eyes and say, You can’t think I was serious? But they’d be thrilled if I became a nurse, because at least I’d be in the right field. And as far as they’re concerned, the field I’m in is the wrong one. I don’t tell them that when I graduate in December, I want to do what I’m doing right now: designing art on bodies.

  We talk more about school and nursing, and it’s kind of amazing in a sad, pathetic way that my mom can chat endlessly about medicine but never about the losses that sliced our family into a before and an after. When she’s done, she surprises me by saying, “Your father and I would like very much for you to bring Harley over sometime.”

  I nearly spit out my water. “What?”

  “Yes, we’d like to meet her. Can she join us?”

  “Um, okay,” I say, and soon after that, I head out, texting Harley in the elevator, but when I reach the lobby, I stop the message because there she is again.

  Sloan.

  On the street. Sliding into a cab. Why is she back here again? And she’s not alone, but I can’t see who she’s with. I feel dirty for even noticing her, and I hope to hell she’s not around when I bring Harley with me. I don’t want my present running into my past.

  31

  Harley

  A stick-thin woman in khaki shorts pushes a blonde girl in a swing, and I catalog the mom’s blasé attitude. Her listless hands on the chains. Her cell phone pressed hard against her ear. Her eyes rolling as she half-heartedly gives the kid a push on the back. The girl kicks her legs, pumping them, trying to fly higher, to touch the yellow ball in the sky with her toes.

  “No,” the woman says into the phone, her lips a pink slash across her face. “I asked you to be home by five thirty. I have Pilates class, and you said you’d be home.”

  Her voice makes my chest hurt, a deep hollow ache all through my bones.

  I’m in Central Park at the playground, and the sun is baking my shoulders. Sweat drips down my tank top so I tug it away from me, but the relief is temporary. The sky is in a punishing mood, lashing the city with brutal heat.

  “But that’s not what we decided earlier. Don’t you remember?”

  The woman has claws in her voice, but I bet the person on the other end is just as pissed off. I bet they go round and round like this every day, fists raised, two boxers in a ring. Jab, jab, hit, hit.

  “Higher. Push me higher!” the kid shouts.

  The mom ignores the request.

  I drop my head into my hands, and my forehead is slick against my damp palms.

  This could be my life. Not the playground, because I don’t mind that. Not even kids, because I guess they’re fine, all things considered.

  But fighting with Trey.

  Arguing over who’s doing what.

  Getting annoyed.

  Rolling my eyes.

  Not loving, not caring, not cherishing the other person.

  Look what happened to my parents when they had me. Dad cheated, they split, and now he’s so far gone I don’t know where he is.

  Look at Trey. The babies his parents lost decimated their family.

  That could happen to us.

  I can’t stand the thought of us being ripped apart. I finally righted the sinking ship of my life, and now it’s capsized again with one stupid mistake. My phone rings, and it’s probably Trey, so I grab it from the pocket of my jean skirt, sliding my finger across the screen without even really looking.

  “Hello,” I mumble into the phone. I must be a sight. Hanging out at the playground, hunched over and sweaty.

  “Darling.”

  My skin crawls. I swear there are fire ants all over me at hearing her voice. The sound I’ve avoided since she tried to buy me back.

  “Yes,” I say, stripping my voice to the bare necessities. “What is it?”

  “Your registration form for the fall semester arrived,” my mother tells me. She used to pay for my school, so she received all my forms. She doesn’t pay for college anymore, but the university hasn’t quite gotten its records updated.

  “Just forward it, please,” I say, but my throat hitches, and I can feel tears pricking the back of my eyes. Great, I’m barely pregnant, and I’m already hormonal. But the one thing I won’t do is let her hear me cry. I hold back the tears.

  “I already printed it out, so I think it would be easier if you stopped by to pick it up.”

  I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “No. Just send it to me.”

  “It’s overdue, Harley. You need to turn it in.”

  “Then I’ll go to the school and fill it out in person.”

  “Well, darling, it’s Friday, and it’s due at the end of the day, so perhaps it would just be easier if you stopped by to pick it up. You can even scan it in from here.”

  I breathe out hard. I don’t have any fight in me right now. I don’t need to be pregnant and kicked out of school. “Fine. I’m at the park. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  I stand up, and my stomach roils for a moment, and I’m sure I’m going to yak again. I clasp my hand over my mouth, but the feeling subsides quickly, and I start to walk away.

  “Let’s go. Your dad is in charge of you now,” the mom says sharply to her kid.

  My God, parents suck.

  My plan was to meet her at the door, hold out my hand, and take the form. But then I had to pee, so Mother Nature won. Now I’m washing my hands in the hallway bathroom, drying them afterward on a soft—and surely expensive—lemon-yellow hand towel.

  When I return to the living room, my mother is waiting for me, perched on the edge of her royal-blue couch. Her eyes are red, like she hasn’t been sleeping well. She’s usually so sure of herself, but she’s clicking and unclicking the band on her watch, a strange little tic that tells me right now she’s not the Barb Coleman who conquers the world.

  I want to rip that nervous look off her face because I hate all that she did, all that she didn’t do. But then there’s a primordial part of me that still longs for what we never had. That wishes I could drop down on the couch next to her, lay my head in her lap, and tell her that my life is about to change irrevocably. What should I do, Mom? She’d smooth my hair, offer some wisdom, and tell me she’d help me through it. That she’d be there, every step of the way.

  “Can I have the form now?”

  “Of course,” she says, reaching for it on the table and handing it to me. I grab a pen and spread out the form on a paperback from my purse, using it as a hard surface as I fill in the boxes while standing. I don’t want to sit down. That would imply I’m comfortable here. I’m not, and I never will be.

  “Harley?”

  “Yes?” I ask, glancing up from the boxes and blue ink.

  Hope sneaks into her eyes, and nerves steal into her voice. “I’d like to try again.”

  I shake my head, then return to the form. “Mom. We’ve been there. I told you there’s no starting over.”

  “I know. You did.” Click of the watchband. Unclick. Metal against metal. Like her and me. “I’ve thought long and hard about what you said. And I’ve made a grave mistake.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, keeping my guard up as I finish filling in the last few boxes.

  She sighs, and then clasps her hands together. “You were right,” she says, her
lower lip quivering slightly. Barb Coleman is rattled. Call the press. “You said I should have confronted Miranda about what she did to you. About the blackmail.”

  “Yeah. You should have,” I say, jutting my chin out, reminding her of how she dismissed me so easily.

  She nods several times. “I should have. I own up to that, Harley. I do. And I want to confront her now. To do everything I can to stop her from publishing that”—she stops, as if she can’t finish the sentence. She’s reached the part of her bizarre act of contrition that she can no longer stomach—“that book.”

  But I have no problem saying the name. “Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict.”

  She winces, her nose crinkling. “Yes. That one.”

  “So, you’re going to do what? Write an article on how she blackmailed a former call girl? Expose her?”

  “What would you like me to do, darling? What would make you happy?”

  Erasing one of those two pink lines would make me happy. We’re talking erupt-into-a-tap-dancing-heel-clicking-fool kind of delight. But while I used to care deeply about hiding her secrets and closeting all of my own, the book isn’t important anymore.

  “You know what would make me happy, Barb?”

  She straightens her spine, sitting up taller, a puppy dog wagging its tail for a treat. “What would make you happy, darling? Anything. Name it.”

  “I would like to use your scanner and send this in.”

  “Oh.” Her shoulders fall, but she gestures to her office, and I head into it. I position the paper in the machine to send, but the light is flashing red. It needs ink. Typical. The woman can expose the wrongdoings of any high-ranking public official, but God forbid she actually maintain the technology in her office.

  I grab some toner from the cabinet and open the machine, replacing the used toner with a new one. I set the box with the old toner on her desk next to her laptop, but the box knocks the corner of the computer askew, exposing a vintage card the color of eggshell underneath.