Wrath - 4 by Robin Wasserman Page B

lifted the glass herself. “She’s not worth it, kid. You’re too young for that face.” She squeezed his cheeks together and gave his face a gentle shake, like a grandmother doting on her angelic little boy. Then, in a decidedly un-grandmotherly move, she wrapped his fingers around his glass, clinking hers against it.
    “To forgetting,” she toasted, and downed the shot. She looked at him expectantly, and so he tipped his head back and dumped the drink into his mouth, trying not to choke as the cheap tequila lit a fire down his throat.
    “You’re stil frowning, kid.”
    “I—”
    “Let’s try this.” And the waitress put down her tray, grabbed his face with both hands, pul ed it toward hers, and kissed him. Hard. Fast. Wet. Sloppy. And incredible.
    She pul ed away, and Adam just gaped at her, dazed, as the warm tequila buzz spread through his body and the cheers and hoots of his buddies beat dimly against his ears.
    “There, that should do it,” she said, using her thumb to wipe away a lingering smudge of lipstick on his lips, just as his mother had done when he was a child. “Now enjoy the show.”
    “ That was fucking unbelievable,” the center said in a low voice.
    “You are official y the luckiest guy in the world,” the point guard added, back from his failed trip to the edge of the stage.
    Adam tried to smile as his buddies clapped him on the back and roared with approval. A couple years ago, this whole scene would have been a dream come true. But he wasn’t that guy anymore. Not even a hot kiss from a hot, half-naked woman could change that. The kiss just made things worse; he was ashamed to be there, because he knew Beth would be ashamed, if she ever found out—if she even cared.
    “Woo-hoo, baby!” the center cried, waving a fistful of cash at the blond bombshel who was sliding up and down a metal pole a few feet away. “Bring it on!” Adam sighed and closed his eyes. If he couldn’t leave, he could at least pretend he was somewhere else, with someone else. He’d gotten good at pretending, lately; real life was so much easier to handle when you just ignored it.
    Kaia tipped back her head to catch the last few drops of liquid in the glass, then sucked in an ice cube. She needed something bitingly cool to distract her. Sitting this close to Reed, with a table keeping their bodies apart, was driving her crazy.
    She’d met him at Guido’s as planned, and they were sharing a free pizza before making their escape. She of course hadn’t mentioned anything about her unplanned pit stop on the way. Not because he would have had any right to know, she reminded herself, and certainly not because she felt guilty—it just wasn’t worth the trouble. She’d met Powel at his apartment and used his desperation as leverage to achieve an unprecedented goal: open windows. Usual y obsessively paranoid about keeping every moment of their encounter shut off from the public view, Powel had let himself be cajoled into pul ing up the blinds, giving Kaia her first ever look at the view from his apartment. It was, as she’d expected, just as squalid as the apartment itself. Then came the true triumph: persuading Powel to open the sliding-glass door at the back of his bungalow and actual y take her outside, if you could count a five-by-five-foot fenced-in square of weeds and gravel as “outside.”
    They had stood for a moment at the threshold gazing out at the claustrophobic patch as if it were the Garden of Eden and they were considering a rebel ious return, and then Powel had taken her hand and led her into the not-so-great outdoors. It was dirty and uncomfortable, and something about the fresh air or the fear of discovery had made Powel more insatiable than usual, nearly endangering her twenty minutes-and-out plan, but it had been wel worth it. She’d talked him into breaking his own rules, just for the privilege of being with her, and there was nothing sweeter than that. Or at least, that’s how she had