Held A New Adult Romance(30)

Everything had gone so well. Looking back it was small goddamn wonder she didn't want me to invite Justin.

She had never liked him. After a handful of meetings she said she was glad he made me happy, but personally she found him pretentious. "Different strokes for different folks and all that," she said. "But not my type, Babycakes. So not my type."

It started when he came through the door and decided my skirt was too short. "You'll Britney Spears the whole damn room every time you bend over," he said. "Put something else on."

"It's hot in the kitchen," I said, fanning my flushed face.

"So open a window."

"Already done." I was sweaty but like always I wanted to wrap myself around him, drown in the blue of his eyes. I could never quite believe he was mine, with his Byronic black curls and sweet, slow Southern voice. As we kissed he pulled my panties to the side and thrust two fingers inside me, right there in the hallway, where anybody could have walked in.

"I don't want anyone else to see this," he said. "This is mine. You understand? All mine."

I was already slack-jawed with lust. He gave me a look that could burn sugar and sucked the taste of me off his long fingers. I forgot all about the dinner that Everglade and I had worked so hard to make perfect, just like I forgot everything whenever he touched me. His fingers had rough tips from playing the guitar, something else he did almost as perfectly as he made love. When I wandered back into the kitchen I must have looked as vacant as I felt, because there was a pointed quality to Everglade's gaze. Looking back I realize she probably had a keener nose than most for sniffing out his brand of poison; after all, she was Kiersten Rowe's daughter.

At the time I just thought she was being terrible; she and Justin brought out the worst in each other. I prayed for the moderating influence of Alex, her boyfriend at the time. He was very New York, scary smart and with the same wry, sideways cynical humor as Everglade. His father was a professor at Columbia and his mother was something big in publishing. They were both, he was fond of saying, fucking horrified at his choice of San Diego.

He dished me out a spoonful of potatoes, a consideration not lost on Justin. Then he started talking about some author his mother had introduced him to - one of those bright young post-modernist things who was already being talked about as a Pulitzer candidate, even though he was barely older than us. "Dumb as a box of hair," said Alex. "I'm serious. That whole stripped-down prose they're all comparing to Steinbeck and Hemingway? It's actually because he's still on the See Spot Run level of sentence construction."

"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs," Everglade declaimed, in a Morgan Freeman voice.

I laughed. Justin curled his lip. "So what?" he said. "We should all carry on reading purple prose in order to look smart - is that what you're saying?"

Alex shook his head. "I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying the emperor's dick is flapping in the breeze and it's only a matter of time before someone points it out."

Justin shook his head. He liked classic novels and gloomy poetry, but he could never pass up an opportunity to be contrary. It was one of the things I loved about him - he challenged where everyone else would have accepted.

"I liked it," he said, poking at a piece of turkey. The breast was moist - all our basting and barding and butter had paid off - but he hadn't mentioned that yet.

"What?" said Everglade. "Scrotie McBoogerballs?"

"Funny," he said. "I watch South Park too. I find it makes me smarter, don't you?"

"Justin..." I felt my stomach twist and knot.

"It's a joke," said Everglade, unintimidated. "It's funny."

"So funny you told it twice?" Oh God. I should have known he wouldn't behave. I should have known he'd react badly to Alex. For some reason I'd told myself that Justin would love the company of someone as smart as he was. Only he was determined to be awful.

"It was a pretty funny episode," said Alex. "What did you like about it?"

"What? South Park?"

"No. The book."

Justin was pulled up sharp. I had no idea how he was going to react. "I thought it was honest," he said, after a short pause. He bit a chunk out of a buttered roll. "Unpretentious."

Everglade's eyebrows made a break for the ceiling. I shot her a warning look.

Alex shrugged. "I guess we differ. Personally I can't stand all that faux naive shit - I can't think of anything more pretentious."

"I guess your baseline for pretension is different to mine," said Justin, leaning back in his chair and spreading his arms, the better to show off his tattoos.