Pandora. The big dose of reality hits me when I wake up and he is sprawled, in all his muscular glory, across my hotel bed

The big dose of reality hits me when I wake up and he is sprawled, in all his muscular glory, across my hotel bed. It takes a second for me to remember that I, uh . . . I let Mackenna stay over?

I groan and slap my palm against my forehead. Fuck. Why, why, why does he weaken my willpower? The mattress squeaks as he shifts in bed, one arm reaching out as he mumbles something in his sleep and seems to search for me. I roll away quickly and watch his hand settle on a pillow.

“Mackenna,” I say, toeing his side with my foot. “Mackenna!” I hiss.

He rolls around and sits up, and thank god the covers are halfway around his waist because if I see one more inch of bare flesh I might explode from the heat spreading through me. I feel myself blush even deeper when his muscles bulge as he pushes himself up with his arms. His eyes adorably heavy, he blinks to adjust to the light, his mouth as perfect and generous as it was yesterday. And then he looks at me. That gaze is softer silver in the morning, not as sharp or as intimidating, almost . . . intimate when he sees me. Glimmering playfully.

And too late, I realize why he’s fucking grinning. My T-shirt got caught on the waistband of my panties. And he’s taking me in, in one quick sweep. “Well, fuck, someone woke hungry this morning,” he says, his voice bedroom sleepy as he looks at me, and I grab the pillow to cover myself.

“I’m not hungry,” I say.

“I was talking about me. Come over here.”

“No, Mackenna! Come on. Get out of my room already. I told you to leave!”

He grins and gets up, and I toss the pillow and flush as I pull down my T-shirt while he heads to the bathroom. It takes him only a minute to come out. Not enough to comb my fingers through all the tangles in my hair. If I were into that and cared what the asshole thought. Which I don’t.

His eyes run up the length of my legs, continue from the hem of my T-shirt to my neck, then land on my head. “Leave your hair, it looks all right,” he says huskily, stopping to loom before me.

Heat flows through my body as he looks down at me with blatant need. What is wrong with him? With us?

“Nothing’s wrong,” he murmurs.

“I said that out loud?” I groan.

“You’ve been . . . vocal, all night. I quite like it.”

God. I dreamed. I dreamed . . . I’m not even sure what. I dreamed about the closet again. I dreamed we were in bed. I dreamed he tried to kiss me, and when I turned away, he sent a thousand shivery kisses up and down my neck.

The memory makes me flush cherry red. Did that happen during the night? By the intimate way he looks at me, I think he wanted inside me real bad. I didn’t let him, thank god. He fingers the collar of my tee, then watches me as he slowly drags his finger up my neck, his thumb caressing my bottom and top lip. Even though his hold is loose and he’s not physically holding me down, I feel trapped. His gaze alone holds me motionless.

He used to look at me with this same proprietary gleam when he was my boyfriend. My secret boyfriend, who nobody knew about . . . except me. I guess, in the end, my mom too.

But while it lasted, we hid in the janitor’s closet in school and made out until I could hardly walk, my legs unsteady as I headed for class with his taste in my mouth, the scent of his soap clinging to my clothes.

I’m fighting the urge to smell his neck now. It’s a war to just stand here motionless, tracing every inch of his masculine face with my eyes when I want my fingers to do the same. The years become nothing.

The hum between us is just like in the old days, when I was the center of his galaxy. When the girls in school would stare longingly at him when he walked past my locker, having eyes only for me. Sometimes, when the halls were vacant enough, he quickly leaned over me and kissed every part of my body, from my toes up to the back of my ear. I’d grow hot, and the place between my legs would start pulsing.

Too easily I remember coming home and squealing.

Me—squealing.

I would play love songs, only to replay the words he said to me and the ways he touched me. I would shower, eat, and sleep Mackenna Jones. . . .

But deep down, my mother’s bitterness and my father’s infidelity poisoned me. I kept all these feelings to myself—kept them from my mother so she wouldn’t take Mackenna from me. But because I didn’t want to lose him, because I feared it wasn’t real, I also kept my feelings from him, and now I’m used to saying nothing. Keeping it bottled up.

Why do I feel like I’m about to burst now?

“Don’t, Kenna,” I say when he uses his thumb to open my lips. He stands dangerously close—his height, his breadth, his size, his do-me-now-woman sex appeal intimidating the hell out of me.

He grins wickedly and strokes a hand over my hip.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not going to happen,” I say breathlessly.

“Yeah, it will.” His smirk says, It definitely will.

He pats my butt slowly, and the familiar way he brushes his lips over mine brings my temper to a boil. Who does he think he is? Does he think because we made out by mistake he gets to play my boyfriend? When I growl and slap his hand away, he chuckles and heads back to the bathroom.

Ohmigod, I cannot believe I let him put his filthy paws on me in that closet—and stay the night over!

Soon I hear the shower, the sound of the water slapping his delicious man-flesh. Then I hear him hum a tune, a tune I’ve never heard before. My chest moves when I remember he used to do that when we were teens. God, no, stop thinking of those moments. It hurts. Truly it does. Think of the bad ones. When he left. When he left me on my own after making me need him and believe I couldn’t live without him.

Refusing to get all sappy with memories, I grab my phone and think of Melanie.

She’s probably at the office, missing the delightfully bitter morning company that is me.

I quickly text, I kissed him

Every second I wait for her answer, I feel worse and worse, not only about the closet incident but also about falling asleep with him around. When I woke up, the bastard was almost spooning me.

Melanie: What?

Me: I kissed the bastard! He spent the night. Oh god!!!!! This is suicide!

Melanie: Why? Was he into it? You know what they say about where there was once fire . . .

Me: He was into the kissing, into using me for his selfish reasons and I was selfish too.

Melanie: So what’s the problem?

Me: The problem is he’s going to think he WON!

And he will. He really, really will, because he’s so full of himself I’m surprised he fits inside this building. How can I even explain to Melanie, who’s happy and carefree and innocent, that when a douche bag breaks your heart, you cannot let him have it again, you cannot let him touch you again. I’m about to try when she writes, Look, Maleficent, if he’s being a dick let me tell Greyson to send someone to rearrange his face—stat.

I blink.

Me: Melanie your new bloodthirst scares me

Melanie: Heee! :)

The thought of someone hurting Mackenna makes me sick. Only I get to hurt him. Damn it!

I toss my phone aside and breathe in and out, remembering my tricks from anger management. Then I force myself to think of Magnolia and my mother.

Mags.

I left my poor Mags alone with my mother, who’s even less merry than I am because I was determined to find closure and save all this fucking money to have some freedom in the future, for me and for Mags. Closure to me equaled Mackenna realizing that leaving me was the biggest mistake of his life. And how did I plan to do this? By getting involved again?!

We can’t get involved. We can’t be buddies—especially not fuck buddies.

Can we?

No, we can’t, because I’m too wimpy to survive him twice. Because even if he likes me a little bit once more, he won’t like me for real when he learns what sort of secrets I hide. You get struck by lightning once and survive, lucky you, but you won’t survive twice. That’s for sure.

How can I make it clear that the closet and a sleepover do not make us friends?

Remembering what he said on the bus about giving me a chance to redeem myself with a song, I grab a pen and start writing. I’m growing madder by the second. So mad it’s like I’m not writing words on a piece of paper but chiseling them into a slate.

Soon he steps out of the shower, strutting like he’ll have me yet. Yeah, he’s good. All wet, with droplets of water sliding down his golden flesh. His silver eyes meet me with quiet assessment—like he can sense the shift in the air. Well, at least he’s smart.

With a fake smile, I walk over and hand him the paper. “Your song,” I say.

His eyebrows fly upward in surprise, then he reads the words out loud.

Mackenna’s mouth

Spits all lies

A sewer tastes better

He looks at me in pure, undisguised amusement. “Seriously?” he prods.

“Go on,” I say through my teeth.

I can smell his shampoo. Hate it.

He continues reading.

A donkey’s ass is sweeter

I hate Mackenna’s mouth

And his fucking lies

He can kiss my ass

And it will taste better than his fucking mouth

He lowers the piece of paper, and before I realize it, he’s caught me by the back of the neck and kissed me flat on the mouth. Then he yanks back and strokes his knuckles across my wet lips, still grinning.

I wipe my mouth to get rid of the tingle his touch leaves. “I’m still working on it. Just thought you might like to start thinking of a tune,” I say, scowling.

“Why let me pick if you’re on a roll, baby? Let’s just use the background music for Jaws.”

“Stop kissing me when you feel like it, Kenna.”

“Stop opening your mouth and sticking your tongue at me when I do, Pink.”

“I didn’t . . . ugh.” I flip him the bird and feel entirely too warm when he heads for the door, taking my song with him.

“Thanks for this.” He grins like it’s a love sonnet. “Glad to see you’re making lists again.”

“It’s not a fucking list.”

“Well it’s not exactly a song either, Pink.”

Suppressing the urge to kick the door when he leaves, I decide to go cool down and take a bath.

“I hate you,” I mumble, just to get it out of my system as I undress.

But the worst part of it all is that I’m starting to wonder whether I truly mean it.

♥ ♥ ♥

AFTER A BATH, I’m calmer when I drop on the bed. The covers are rumpled. The room smells a little bit like him. I let him . . . hold me? Why’d I go and do that? I felt him slip in behind me. I felt the mattress give in to his weight and then I felt all his warm muscles surrounding me. I pretended not to notice because I didn’t want him to go.

I groan and bury my face in my hands.

God. What have I done?

I’m not letting him get through my walls—protective layers it took me years to mend. But I’m wandering right into the most painful moments of my life, and I already feel a little bit too rumpled. Like the bed he slept in with me. The rumpled feelings crawl their way into my chest, and I try to perk up and think of the future Magnolia can have with all the money.

I sit down and check the clock, then mentally go through Magnolia’s schedule. Since it’s summer, she must be home.

I dial from my cell, and all my pain and confusion ease when I hear her little voice answer.

“I miss you, Panny, I have thirty-eight things we’re going to do when you get back!” she proclaims.

“Wow, you’re going to keep me busy, huh?”

“Yessss! Guess which is number thirty-three?”

“Hmmm. Let’s see now . . .” I pretend to think until I hear her practically panting. “We’re going to lay around in pajamas all day and play board games.”

“No! We’re going to make a lemonade stand and sell orange juice.”

“What? Whoa, wait. You can’t sell orange juice at a lemonade stand—it needs to be an orange juice stand.”

“Yes you can! Why not?”

I’m so exhausted by last night, I can’t even think right this morning. So I backpedal. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s break the rules. Everyone who sells lemonade at a lemonade stand has no creativity like we do.”

“And we’re gonna add water so we get more orange juice to sell.”

“What? No, oooh no no. I’m drawing the line there, Mags. We are not watering down the orange juice. That’s for complete delinquents.”

“Delinquents! I wanna be a delinquent with you!” she squeals, and I grin like a dope and stare at my bracelet as she starts telling me about what she’s done. The bracelet has little gem charms, colorful and rugged in texture. They’re supposed to protect all my loved ones from wrong. I don’t ever wake up in the mornings without rubbing it.

I don’t like that Mackenna made me forget until now. So I brush my thumb over the rocks, letting that simple movement ease me like Magnolia does.

Little did I know I’d especially need as much calm as I could muster this morning.

♥ ♥ ♥

SO, THERE’S BAD news. Not surprising. I expected this trip to be a disaster from start to end, so I shouldn’t be in full panic mode. I already woke up with Mackenna in my bed, so now? Now, the interstate highway is closed due to construction, and the ever-efficient Lionel has chartered a plane to fly us all to the next location. But then again, that isn’t just bad news.

That is a disaster.

I am not a tactile person, but I desperately need to hold someone’s hand when I fly—desperate as in I’m-afraid-I’m-going-to-yank-off-an-armrest-or-something-now-that-Melanie-Brooke-Kyle-my-mother-or-Magnolia-aren’t-here.

But . . . sigh . . . I’ve got meds, right?

And meds make the world go round, so . . .

And at least I wasn’t forced to ride alone with Mackenna to the airport. I took the same coach as the dancers, and Lionel didn’t have time to protest before we were on our way. True, they all gave me enough evil eyes to give me a lifetime of bad luck—but it’s not like I’ve enjoyed much great luck in the first place, so I might not even notice the difference.

Once we shuffle into the airport, the Viking twins keep staring at me. Their expressions are curious more than antagonistic, and I briefly wonder what Mackenna has told them about me.

This girl not only throws a good tomato, but I popped her cherry when she was seventeen too . . .

“Hey,” one finally says.

“Hey,” the other follows.

They’re both smirking now, big and blond, and worst of all is that, like Mackenna, they reportedly have brains too. From the clothes they wear, to the carefully calculated appearances for the paparazzi, Crack Bikini is a meticulously plotted piece of merchandise. Mackenna’s wigs, the Vikings’ chains, tats, and nipple rings are all part of “the look,” though today, Mackenna wears a black T-shirt and jeans and a cap on his buzz cut, plus aviators. The twins are dressing the part of rockstars to a T. Chains hang around Jax’s neck, while Lex wears a spiked choker.

“ID?” Lionel asks, and I hand it over as he checks me in.

Mackenna joins his two boys and the guys stare in my direction. All three of them.

I hate how his energy pulls on mine. He’s the only person in this world I can actually feel spiking my adrenaline. He has a way of making me feel supercharged—as if my own body pumps extra hormones when he’s near.

Jax surveys me with quirked lips. “Kenna didn’t tell us much about you, you know.”

My eyes slide to Mackenna, and my tummy dips for some reason when I see he’s not smiling but watching me intently.

“Except that I was a witch?” I quip.

Lex laughs. “Not in those words.”

“Well, tall, dark, and mean is just part of his charm. Isn’t it?”

They grin at me, and I slide a look at Mackenna, my tummy dipping again when I see him looking at me as if there’s an intense pondering session going on in his brain. Lionel comes back with my ticket, and suddenly it’s real.

This flight is real.

There’s no way I will allow myself to be weak and vulnerable in front of Mackenna, but my nerves skyrocket as we head toward our gate.

I’m acutely aware of him silently walking next to me. One thousand percent bad boy rocker, with lazy swagger. With a sidelong glance I check out the tattoo on his forearm, the one thousand leather bracelets on his wrist, and the silver ring on his thumb. The memory of that ring on my skin when we went a little bit too far in the closet skims through me.

And what does that tattoo say?

Several men in suits walk with the group and attempt to keep people away from the main men. The guys have always been an entity—like two balls and a dick.

“You okay there?” Mackenna asks me.

“Dandy.”

Relax, Pandora. Just take a pill, take a whiskey, and knock yourself out.

I repeat it as a mantra as we board the plane. The scent of airplane is suddenly choking me.

Mackenna is talking with the guys. Lionel greets me with a huge smile as he lightly guides me into first class. A group of dancers start chatting up the guys. As I put my bag in the overhead compartment, I watch Mackenna. All the guys seem bored with the conversations, but not Mackenna. Ohhhh, no, not player Mackenna. He smiles and teases the girls, stealing little touches on their arms.

God, he’s unbelievable.

Scowling, I slide into my seat and pray for a smooth landing, breathing in and out as I check—for the tenth time today—the pillbox in my pocket. If a piece of metal can fly, then I can fly in it, safely, like everyone says.

But as I strap on my seat belt, I remember how my father died. He died this way. I picture that plane lurching and crashing. I picture him going numb. Thinking of Mother, of me. I wonder if the others screamed. It’s a fear that’s grown with me through the years as I’ve lost my innocence and become more cynical and, at the same time, more vulnerable and therefore more guarded. Fear bubbles and fizzes in my stomach as I try to stop thinking about that flight. How my father’s last goodbye was truly a goodbye. How no one survived.

My mother and I saw the crash on the evening news before we even realized my father was on board. “Ohmigod,” my mother breathed as we both watched the images of shredded airplane among sirens and stretchers and debris.

She checked her phone. “Your father’s flight should be landing soon,” she said. “And we are due for a nice family dinner.”

I checked my phone because I’d promised Mackenna I’d meet him by the docks.

My mother was pacing. She’d never paced before. A feeling of dread settled on me. Like when you see those dark clouds hover across the sun, blocking it from your view. When the phone rang, and my mother answered, I knew.

She started crying. I started crying too.

“He was on board. He was on board with his assistant. He wasn’t flying from Chicago, he was coming back from Hawaii.”

“What? Why?”

“Because . . .” My mother wiped her tears, and all the emotion fled from her face. “Because he’s been lying to us.”

The phone began ringing nonstop when people started to find out that my father had died. I knew that wasn’t the only thing they must’ve been talking about—they were talking about the fact that he was with his assistant too.

I stole out of the house, an hour late, and I ran into the darkness, and then I saw the figure out in the street, watching my house as though making sure I was all right, knowing he couldn’t go in there.

“Kenna!” I flung myself at him, trying to hold back my tears. “That flight. He was on it. He was on that flight.”

“Shh.” He rocked me. My safe haven. I closed my eyes and held on to him. “He lied to us. He’s been lying to us all along.”

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, kissing my eyelids. “I’ll always be here for you. I will never lie to you. . . .”

I jerk upright when the flight attendant announces she’s going to shut the plane door. The orchestra flies in the back, the singers up front. There are plenty of seats available—hell, they chartered the whole plane. Jax takes one seat and sets his stuff on the empty one beside him, and Lex takes another. And Mackenna is talking with the two flight attendants now. He’s twisted his cap around and looks young and delicious while wearing it backward. He looks like he used to look . . . when he was seventeen.

I’m trying to steady my nerves when he startles me by dropping down on the seat beside me, prying off his cap, and jamming it into the seat pocket in front of him, as if there weren’t a thousand and one bacteria in there. He leans on the armrest, his weight turned toward me. Is it his inborn fate to torture me?

“You lost? There are a dozen empty seats here,” I say.

He looks at me intently. “I want this one.”

Shaking my head, I grab a little manual from the seat pocket in front of me and start flipping through it. I will not lose my senses in front of him. No. Way. And yet I’m acutely aware of the alien noises surrounding me. Shuffle of feet. The engines. The shut of the plane door, his breathing.

His breathing.

I focus on that and try to match my breaths to his, all the while hoping he won’t notice. I could use him to relax. Or distract myself.

Soon we’re being offered drinks. I pull out my pillbox and keep it discreetly tucked into my palm as he stretches his long legs.

“Whiskey, sugar. And bring her the same,” he says, gesturing at me as he pushes his seat back. The manual says that during takeoff, the seat must be in an upright position, but he clearly doesn’t give a shit.

He never coddled me. Even when we were kids. He treated me as an equal. I rarely cried, but when I did, he just waited for me to stop. If I fell, he just pulled me up and acted like I wasn’t supposed to cry, so I didn’t. He knew I had trouble expressing emotions, and when my father died, I bottled them up completely. I stopped crying at all, and Mackenna was all right with it.

I think.

He never pressed me to talk about it. He’s staring at me now, and I can see him trying to assess the situation, without pity and clearly without any intention of coddling me, so I blurt out, “I still hate airplanes.”

His eyes gain a concerned glimmer. “I have an idea for you. Tell Lionel to fuck off and get off the plane then. We can both forget about this.”

He’s wearing probably the most serious expression he has, and for a moment I consider it. We kissed in the closet—then I pretended to be asleep so he could spoon me last night. Things are awkward today. I really don’t want to have the temptation of him all day, every day, for over three weeks. But the money could get me independence and Magnolia a secure future.

“I won’t back out. I signed a paper. Like I told you, I’m poor and purchasable,” I grumble.

“Then I’m disappointed. If anyone seems unconcerned with worldly goods and the mundane, it’s you.”

“Spoken like a douche bag who swims in dollars.”

He lifts his whiskey to his lips, and I realize he’s holding out another glass for me. I take it from his grip, making sure our fingers don’t touch. He lifts one finger, though, as if to purposely make sure we do.

I scowl. He smiles. As if he knows that little touch sent a current racing through my bloodstream, vein to capillary.

On the other side of the plane, Lionel stares at me like he’s seriously in love with me, and then, unfortunately, the plane starts moving. I have no idea how long it takes the pill to kick in, but I better down it. I’m so nervous, my body feels charged and buzzy.

My dad. I imagine him in a seat like this one. He was flying back home under perfect conditions, and he never arrived. I was staring at my homework when we got the call.

“Want to talk about it?” Mackenna asks.

“Not with you,” I mumble, grabbing and skimming through a catalogue before jamming it back into the pocket of the seat in front of me. I wish Mackenna would go away right now, when I’m not at my best. “Please go away,” I breathe.

“Please just let me be here for you,” he says. There’s no mockery in his voice. Nothing but sincerity in his eyes.

The fortress guarding my emotions goes rubbery, and this frightens me so much, I nearly beg, “No, you. Please. Go away.”

We engage in a staring contest.

For a moment I think I’m going to lose.

Then he murmurs, “You can count on me, Pandora.”

Before I can remind him why I don’t anymore, he unlatches his seat belt, and I want to take it back when he stands up and crosses the aisle to another seat.

This is why they say you have to be careful what you wish for.

I mourn the loss of human life next to me the instant he’s gone. Not human life—him. The loss of his challenging, exciting, and infuriating presence.

He knows how my father died. How he was on business and the plane just crashed. Like in a movie, and in your worst nightmare. He’d been with his assistant. Not on business. I lost my father the same day my mother realized he’d betrayed her. Betrayed us.

With another woman.

I couldn’t mourn, because my mother felt I was betraying her. Because he’d betrayed her. The only emotion she was okay with me feeling was anger. If I started to get a trembly chin, my mother would snap, “Don’t you dare cry over him! Look at how he left me! Look how he abandoned us!” And so I always made sure I snapped my mouth shut and never did cry. Anger was safe. I was allowed anger. Lots of it. And when Mackenna left me too, it became all I knew.

The nerves have my senses hyperaware as the plane turns to takeoff position. I hear every sound of the engines roaring, the clink of ice in Mackenna’s glass several seats away. His smell lingers in the empty seat, strangely comforting me.

I pop the pill into my mouth, grab the whiskey glass, and down it.

One cameraman is up in front, watching me, moving his camera. I swallow and stare out the window, my nails digging into my seat as the plane positions itself on the edge of the runway. I feel the camera on me when I hear a voice murmur, “Give her a fucking break and aim that somewhere else,” and then I feel the lean, hard body of Mackenna plopping down next to me.

“Suppose it does fall,” he says.

“Excuse me?” I sputter.

“Suppose the plane can’t lift and falls.” He cocks an eyebrow at me.

I glare at him, and he remains sober, his eyes roaming my face. “I wouldn’t mind dying today.”

“I would. My father died this way. It’s my worst death imaginable.”

“Worst death would be alone, with no one to even listen to your last words. Or drowning, that could—”

“SHUT UP!”

He stretches out his hand. “Take my hand, Pink.”

“Thanks, but no.”

“Fine. Thumb wars?”

“God, you’re such a baby.”

“You’re a coward. Come on, fucking use me for something. Want to fight? Fine. Want to hold my hand? Even better. Not sure? I bet you can’t pin my thumb under yours no matter what you do.”

Gritting my teeth, I clutch his hand, because I know—and he knows—I desperately need the contact. A frisson runs through my body, and I wish I had the strength to deny him, but I’m shaking. And he looks strong. Like nothing can touch him.

My boyfriend.

My ex.

The only guy I’ve ever had sex with. Ever wanted. Ever loved.

He holds my wrist and tugs. “Come closer,” he urges. The tenderness in his eyes makes the walls around my heart wobble.

“What? We’re playing with our thumbs, not our tongues,” I say defensively.

“Really now.” He smiles again, the smile tender. Even his hold on my arm, his whispered voice, sounds tender. “Come closer, Pink.”

I narrow my eyes and move closer.

He presses my thumb underneath his, and I realize he was tricking me. He chuckles wickedly, and I can’t even protest, because the plane is taking off. I suck in a breath and glance out the window at the ground speeding beneath us. For a couple of minutes I try to calm down, but it’s near impossible. Mackenna’s hand is still on mine, but instead of squishing my thumb, he’s rubbing it.

And it feels so wrong and right and deep in me and soft over me that I could probably stand the plane falling right now, but I can’t stand his hand on mine.

“Let go,” I say.

He lets go, and an odd glimmer of pity or sadness passes his face. “Just relax,” he says.

I squeeze my eyes shut. His voice does things to me. He groans and says, “Come here, baby.”

“The wolf says to the lamb. Don’t call me baby,” I whisper and refuse to obey, tucking my hand under my thigh. I’m acutely aware of every inch that separates us.

He leans over. “You’re anything but a lamb.”

Our eyes meet and everything about him, from his voice to his scent to his eyes, unsettles me to the point where I want to cry or scream.

The plane jolts again, and a couple of nasty clouds are coming toward us. My eyes blur, and everything in my body presses into the hollow in my tummy. I’m tense as I grip the seat, praying for the clonazepam to take effect. If it weren’t for Magnolia, I might not give a shit about dying. But aside from Mom, I’m all she has. And Mom is . . . Mom.

Mackenna’s glass is refilled. I watch his hand every time he lifts it, sips, and drops it. His fingers are magical. He once played the piano like the keys were an extension of his fingers, but right now, he’s a rocker dude. He’s always been bad, but he is a real guy with a real love of music and sound.

The pill starts taking effect and my eyes flutter shut. I make sure to slide my head to the opposite side of where he sits.

He says nothing.

As my head starts getting fuzzy, I cuddle to the window, trying to make sure my shoulder doesn’t touch his.

I remember stealing out to see him every afternoon. It didn’t matter that my mother worked for the DA. It didn’t matter that his father was a criminal. We were both in the courtroom that day, and I was already half crazy in love with him—unbeknownst to me, to my mother, or to him.

I insisted on going to court with my mother that day, telling her simply that I felt like going. She eyed me warily but could not deny me. I sat outside on a long bench, with him close. I had heard that his father was going to be given many, many years for dealing.

Maybe I shouldn’t have slid up to sit closer to him the day they set bail. We could’ve been seen, but I couldn’t help it. He was sitting there, looking at his hands, when his father and my mother were at it inside.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Me too,” he said.

He lifted his head, and I could feel him looking at me as intensely as if I was burning. I reached out to take his hand.

And that was all that we needed.

He’d defended me from bullies at school, and now I held his hand whenever we were alone. That day we were alone in an empty hall on a single bench, and the boy I couldn’t stop thinking about was ready to hear how much his father would have to pay to remain free until the trial date.

“Meet me at the docks where we met last time,” he said to me, squeezing my hand just as the courtroom doors swung open.

With a quick nod, I pried my hand free.

My mother walked out and called me back to her with a clear, crisp, lawyerly command. I felt him watch me—lonely, motherless, and, soon, fatherless—from that bench as they took his father away from him until he made bail. My mother said once the trial took place and his dad was convicted, Mackenna would be taken in by some uncle who was just as bad a gangster as the father and that soon, he’d probably be an outcast in school and would have to move.

It seemed like my mother was a witch. Everything she predicted came true.

But before he left, and between bail and trial, he was mine.

For days, weeks, months, he was all mine and I was his.

Sometimes, when I walked home from school, he walked with me. All my bullies mysteriously got purple eyes. When my mother saw him one day, she pulled me aside. “He’s up to no good, that boy. Revenge, that’s what that boy is up for. You stay away from him, Pandora.”

“He’s not,” I kept telling my mother.

But how could she understand? She didn’t see Mackenna and his remote, sad eyes. So sad even the silver turned to gray sometimes.

She didn’t know that nobody else had told him they were sorry for him. She didn’t know that when I kept going to “study” at other people’s houses, I really was going to meet Mackenna. She didn’t know how we talked, how we laughed. Sometimes we just sat by each other, doing nothing. Sometimes all I was aware of was the position of my hand and how it was in relation to the position of his hand. Sometimes all I knew was the sound of his voice—despite whatever words it said. Sometimes I caught him staring too. At my mouth. My boobs. Sometimes we went to the marina and stole a boat at night. We’d take a dip in the chilly water, and when we came up to the boat, we’d take off our clothes and warm each other.

He’d saved me in school. Now it felt like I was saving him.

He told me he loved me, and I wanted to say it back. But in all our time together, I never said it. He showed that he loved me in little things he did for me: carrying my stuff when no one noticed, quietly following me after school, sometimes waiting outside my house, in the rain, until I could sneak away for another moment with him. Maybe I was his source of compassion, and he couldn’t stand anyone hurting or touching me.

My mother didn’t know that long before the trial, I’d begged Mackenna to have sex with me.

He promised it would happen the following weekend. It did, and it was magical. He took me to the wharf, where we stole past the guards and into a hidden nook under the Ferris wheel. We climbed into one of the cabins, he spread out some blankets, and we made love.

He said he loved me. He asked if I loved him. I did. I really did. He made me tear up. I felt so beautiful, treasured, so perfect.

We kept meeting. Always in secret. Every time it was even better. Better than perfect. He hummed songs to me in his deep voice. At school, we’d have foreplay with our eyes, and then we’d touch each other at night.

Then the trial happened, and soon he didn’t come back to school.

But our plan still stood. After the trial, we’d run away.

Except he never showed up.

I even went to look for him at his uncle’s house, but he wasn’t there. Two older women were in his bed. “You looking for Kenna?” they asked.

I swallowed, wondering if they’d touched him, and if they hadn’t, where he was.

“He’s gone. Took a flight to Boston. One way. He said he sent you a message.”

“He lied. He didn’t send me shit.”

I ran, and ran, and when I got home, I locked myself in my room and went to pull out my box and tear up every picture of me with that lying, mean, cruel fucking asshole.

Nothing survived, except for that stupid pebble in that box from the time when he told me not to trip again.

Aren’t I tripping with the same pebble now?

I’ve told myself that it’s not like I remember. His hands. His lips. Our first kiss. He used to get so jealous about me.

One day, before Mackenna asked me to be his official girlfriend, we were arguing about Wes Rosberg. “He’s taking you out?” Mackenna asked, his eyebrows furrowing over his nose. “Where’s he taking you out? Why’d you say yes? I thought you didn’t like him?”

“He’s just a friend,” I said, shrugging.

He shoved to his feet. “Oh, yeah? What if he wants to have a girlfriend?”

I shrugged again. “Well, maybe I would like to have a boyfriend.”

“I want to be your boyfriend.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I want to be your boyfriend.”

“Kenna! Get over here!” a voice yells from somewhere in the background, bringing me to the present. Hearing the rumble of his voice under my ear, I’m momentarily confused.

“I’m a bit busy here.”

Jokes, laughter, and bad words are exchanged, and I can hear his chuckle.

Under. My. Ear.

He’s eased his seat back and lifted the armrest, and his arm is around my waist. My brain is dazed as I try to understand why my ear is on Mackenna’s chest, and why his hand is spread wide and big across the small of my back. Conveniently my top is raised. Or did he raise it? His thumb ring is on my skin, tracing little circles over the dent of my spine.

I feel a pressure between my legs as I struggle with this realization, but I’m so drugged I can’t even open my mouth. Am I dreaming?

When the twins come over to engage in a discussion with him, Mackenna shifts his body and stretches beneath me, muscles rippling under my body, then he slides his hand from the small of my back up and up, to my nape, then up, to cup my ear. His husky voice is low, as if he doesn’t want to wake me while the guys discuss a party tonight.

“She coming?” I hear the muffled question.

“Obviously,” Mackenna rumbles. They laugh. I can still hear him under my ear. Between my legs, I tingle harder.

“Might not be such a good idea. The girls are plotting her murder.”

“Bah. This one could chew them up and spit them out,” Mackenna says.

I can’t figure out if he’s insulting me or not. Is he taking my side instead of his floozies’? Something inside me feels warm, but I quell it. It’s been too long since we were friends. Sure, we had a closet make-out, but that was crazy. Lunacy. An animal moment. Currently, I’m too weak to fight the pull of his hand. I can’t get up, but the fact that I’m right here doesn’t mean we’re okay.

I drift off again, thinking about his name. His name means “son of the handsome one.” I looked it up when I was young because everyone made fun of my name.

I’m familiar with Pandora and her mistake—letting all kinds of bad shit into the world when she opened the box. I’ve always been at war with my name. I’m angry at it because, right away, it makes me think I can never be really good. I’m a jinx. I cause bad shit and represent nothing lucky, I suppose. But him? He’s this rock god. Son of the handsome one. All my feelings return to my body in a flash when I realize he’s brushing his mouth over mine.

What’s he doing? Stop him!

My body seizes as my brain shouts the command, and I make an inventory check and hear plane motors. He’s tonguing me now. I feel his tongue in my body, a body that was last used by him. And his mouth was last used by me.

I want to get angry, but I’m too busy lying here, absorbing this kiss that’s almost like the kiss in all Magnolia’s fairy tales. She doesn’t believe in fairy tales, she says, but the truth is, I do. Now Mackenna is the villain in my story and the reason I should’ve become a lesbian. If only my body had gone along with the plot.

But now he’s kissing me like he’s enjoying me. He probably got horny and decided I was handy. I stiffen at the thought and try to pull away, when a hand cradles the back of my head to prevent me. He whispers, “Shh. I’m just tasting you.” Languorously, he fits his lips harder to mine, his mouth moving.

“You need to drug your women to kiss them,” I slur as he continues rubbing his tongue to mine.

“Just the wild ones like you,” he gruffly teases.

I cannot process. I cannot control myself when he teases me—I’ve always liked it because it makes me smile, and I never smile. He tastes good, like whiskey and lazy, cocky male. I never thought lazy, cocky male could taste so good, or that being relaxed would make me savor lazy, cocky male even better than when I am on full alert. I can’t comprehend what’s going on. The things awakening in my body. The hole in my chest suddenly feeling full.

Protests form in my brain, but they don’t reach my tongue because his slick, warm, whiskey mouth is caressing it.

He’s toxic for me, and I can’t pull away. Instead, I’m rubbing my tongue against his slowly, savoring him. When I tell myself, Enough! and edge back, he follows me and croons, “Shh, relax your mouth, baby. Let me in.”

He shifts so I can feel it—the bulge between his legs. I suddenly want it feverishly, but to my despair, I hear snickering. Then I hear him ask the flight attendant for a blanket. I didn’t even realize they still had those, but I feel him cover me. The drug is still heavy in my system and I try to open my eyes, but before I can look into his face, his lips cover mine. “How could I forget for a moment what you tasted like . . . how addictive you are . . . ,” he whispers to me. He’s devouring me with lazy abandon. He cups one breast under the blanket. I don’t know what I’m doing.

Yes I do.

No I don’t.

Yes I do.

My mouth is moving faster, and his rhythm matches mine as he thumbs one nipple. Years of repressed longing seem to flood my body and energize my mouth. Nothing has ever tasted as good as him. Nothing.

The way he felt last night crashes over me, and suddenly I’m the one kissing him back with abandon. He groans. The sound reverberates inside me. “God, that’s right. Want me, Pink? Want this? Fuck the rest. Let’s have fun. Just you and me.”

His voice jerks me back to the present.

Fun?

The pain of losing him hits me full force.

Using all the force I can muster, I edge back, wiping my mouth angrily. He looks at me and blinks as if dazed from our kiss, and we both survey each other’s mouths. He looks openly ravenous, but I’m still trying to decide how I feel. Trying to find my usual anger.

“The cameras just caught that,” I say.

“Yeah, couldn’t be helped.” He eyes my mouth again, smirking in obvious satisfaction. “You were too tempting, Pink. You smell like fucking coconut, and I haven’t smelled that in years.”

I scowl. “You’re just a pervert posing as a rockstar to hide your love of bras.”

We land. I try to reach upward for my carry-on, but he takes care of it for me. His T-shirt lifts as he pulls our shit out of the top compartment, and I can see his abs and the tattoo on the inside of his arm. It says something I don’t understand.

“What does that tattoo mean?”

He quirks one eyebrow and says nothing as his eyes move to my mouth. “Says I’m a dickhead. You know, if that mouth doesn’t look well kissed, then my name is not Mackenna.”

I’m waiting for the indignation to come, but I’m still so relaxed, it doesn’t.

“Fuck you. You’re lying. What does it say?”

He smiles, because he clearly won’t tell me. Then he surprises me by leaning over and tipping my face with his curled thumb, his silver ring cold under my chin. “I may not have been good enough when we were seventeen,” he whispers, holding my eyes with a pair of wolfish ones that shine with an arresting intensity, “but trust me, I’m good enough now, Pink. I’m more than good enough.”

“You’re wrong,” I whisper angrily. “Money. Fame. That has nothing to do with it. You were good enough before, but you’re certainly not good enough now.”

“Look at you spitting fire like some angry little crow. How many fucking pills do you need to take to chill?”

“One, actually. You’re the antidote.”

I brush past him and out of the plane, feeling him amble behind me. I know he’s close when camera flashes at the arrival gate start exploding and girls start screaming, “Crack Bikini! Kenna! Lex! Jax!”

Lex and Jax were in some private school, and they met Mackenna when he moved. Supposedly the twins liked pissing off their rich dad, and nobody pissed off Dad more than a guy like Mackenna.

Mackenna Jones was rumored to have been on a suicide mission. He smoked whatever he felt like, drank, played loud music, made a mess, didn’t study. He also did extreme sports, and he beat people up. After his dad was convicted for drug trafficking, his uncle took him in, but he was no better. Judging by Mackenna’s lifestyle, it’ll be a miracle if he lives to his fifties.

Crack Bikini was present at a bar fight years ago, and a reporter at the time managed to capture a quote, a quote that has since become famous—or infamous.

“What is this? This a fight?” Mackenna reportedly asked.

“Yeah,” someone said. “Don’t know whose.”

Mackenna grinned, a little mayhem clearly making his heart happy. “Well, it’s mine now.” He whistled to the Vikings, and they jumped right in, not even caring who or what the fuck they were fighting for.

Now they’re older, but I’m not sure they’re that much more mature. That is, until a crying woman makes Mackenna stop in his tracks.

“Thank you. Thank you, oh, thank you,” she says, reaching out to him as though to touch a vision. I’m stunned when he pauses, confused, and takes her hand. “Nothing in my life has inspired me like your music, hearing your voice turns my day around . . .”

It’s almost too intimate to watch. I ease back as I hear him whisper something to her and sign the paper she extends. His eyes shine with sincerity. He’s not being an asshole, like he’s supposed to be. He looks . . . genuine. His smile is natural, his eyes are on her as he gives her some line that makes her beam and blush.

Again my walls tilt a little. Even the floor seems to tilt.

When he pries himself away from the crowd and heads toward me, he lifts one of his eyebrows.

“What? Nothing prickly to say?”

“No.” I walk silently next to him. His actions have touched places I never expected. I open my mouth and hear myself admitting, “It must be nice to make a difference in someone’s life.”

He stares straight ahead and keeps his voice low while the camera crew follows the entire band and the bodyguards struggle to keep the fans at bay. “It used to be what fed me . . .”

“But?”

“But it stopped filling me up and started draining me instead. Pretty soon you’re walking with a hole in your gut, singing songs you can’t hear anymore.”

I remain quiet, a strange hurt inside me. I want it to be easy to blame him for leaving me, but he had a dream to chase and I couldn’t expect to be his everything. I want to hate him because he hurt me, but he seems so human that I can’t do anything but stay quiet and absorb the way he’s making me feel right now.

The way his silver eyes look almost warm, an impossibility due to their shade alone, but they do. Warm, liquid, molten silver eyes looking at me as if he wants me to understand. “They all think it’s about the sex and the booze. It’s not.” He drags a hand over the top of his head. “It’s about the loneliness of the road. The girls, the sex. The clusterfuck of singing what you feel but having no one to fill the void, and the ache of wanting to feel something.”

He stuns me speechless.

I curl my hands at my sides to keep from reaching out as he waits for a reply. I can tell he wants some understanding from me, for he smiles and laughs. “All right. Nice chatting with you.”

I want to hug him so bad. If he were a little smaller, I would. If he seemed a little tamer, I swear I would.

But he isn’t small, or tame.

The energy around us crackles like a live wire as he waits for me to do—to say—something. Anything. I want to be his friend, to have the sort of relationship where I might high-five my ex-boyfriend. But fat chance that’s going to happen. It’s like the Berlin Wall is between us, and even if he wants to let me into his own walls, I’m not dropping my own ever again. So I say nothing and just nod, wryly saying, “Nice chatting with you too.”

He laughs to himself, a laugh that actually lacks happiness, and whispers, “You’re unbelievable.” He winds away, leaving me with a sick feeling in my stomach. I am alone, but maybe I’ve wanted that. I’ve been surrounded by people, but I’ve let no one in, and despite his fame, maybe he’s alone too. I judge him because I hate him, but what do I know of what he goes through?

What has he been through in the last six years that I don’t know?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t what you went through when he left you. . . .

Angry all over again, I stand and try to quell it as Mackenna waves a peace sign out to Lionel. “Be back at the hotel later,” he yells.

Lionel nods and turns to offer an explanation to the nearest camera. “Going to see his dad.”

“His dad is in jail,” I blurt out.

“Not anymore. He’s out and living in the vicinity.”

At my blank look—I thought he’d gotten almost twenty years?—Lionel walks over to me. “You don’t look so good.”

“I medicate to fly.”

“Oh. Well then, you can ride to the hotel with me.”

“Wow, thanks for the respite.”

“Miss Stone,” he says. “Tomorrow the director and I would like for the choreographer to see you. We’d like you to learn one of the dances—the one where he sings your song. Our plan for the Madison Square Garden concert is for you to wear a mask and dance with Olivia, then remove it at the end of the dance so he realizes it’s you—then you’ll kiss him.”

“You’re kidding.” I gape. “I don’t dance!”

“As of tomorrow, you do. You signed a contract.”

“It didn’t say I was going to—”

“It said you were to follow our guidance and support the filming in any capacity we saw fit. Trenton and I see fit that you dance, with Olivia, around Jones. Be ready by morning.”

EIGHT