Wicked Intentions(36)

Ryan is in a kerfuffle for a moment after that, unsure of how to respond. “Fine, but just don’t tell her I’m afraid of spiders!”

“You’re afraid of spiders?” I ask laughingly.

“Screams like a little girl when he sees one.”

Ryan says, “Bro!”

“You’re the one who brought it up, idiot.”

Bypassing all the spider talk, I turn to Ryan. “Have you seen a psychiatrist about your fear of bleeding women? That seems extremely Freudian.”

“Some deep-seated shit, for sure,” Connor agrees, nodding.

“When I lived at home before college, my sisters used to fuck with me by hiding their used pads and tampons in my stuff,” Ryan says on an aggravated exhalation. “I never knew when I was gonna stick my foot in a sock or put my hand in a coat pocket and have it come away covered in period blood.”

Connor and I make identical faces of disgust.

“What the hell?” Connor says.

“Oh, yeah, they thought it was hilarious. Meanwhile, I’m traumatized for the rest of my life. Every time I walk by the feminine products aisle in a grocery store, I feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

I picture him as a teenager, freaking out over a maxi pad he found in his sock drawer and shrieking every time he sees a spider, and I start to laugh.

Connor looks at me, and he’s laughing, too. “Can you believe this shit?”

“Unfortunately, yes, I can.”

“Glad to know my psychological wounds are so entertaining,” Ryan says drily, but I can tell he’s not really angry. I love it that he can take a joke at his own expense.

On impulse, I kiss his cheek.

His blinding grin comes on in full, megawatt voltage. “By the way, I know all I need to know about how the female body works.” He looks at Connor and waggles his eyebrows.

Connor’s sigh is the aggrieved but fond one of a mother whose favorite child is misbehaving again. Shaking his head, he turns and walks away. We follow like a pair of ducklings.

When we arrive at Connor’s office, there’s a welcome party waiting.

Darcy reclines in a big leather chair, her feet propped up on an even bigger black oak desk, her eyes closed as Kai, standing behind her, massages her shoulders. Judging by their outfits, they both got dressed in the dark this morning. Or lost a bet. Nothing matches, and it’s all eye-wateringly bright. Python cowboy boots are involved.

Tabby, pacing a three-foot section of floor in the corner, has her nose pressed against her cell phone screen. Her thumbs fly over it as she types. In comparison to Darcy and Kai, her outfit is almost normal—that is, if you have two part-time jobs at a theme park as a pirate and a slutty witch, and wore both costumes at the same time.

There’s a lot of black ruffles and pale skin, and heels that could double as kebab skewers. A knotted black bandana caps her red hair. Two enormous gold hoops swing from her earlobes.

Juanita is lying on the black leather sofa against the far wall in a Catholic schoolgirl’s uniform of plaid, pleated skirt, white shirt, and knee socks. She’s watching something on a tablet propped on her stomach and feeding Cheetos to the fat black-and-white rat lounging contentedly on her chest.

When we walk in, everyone stops what they’re doing and looks up.

And for a moment, just a few stuttering beats of my heart, I allow myself to remember what it feels like to have a family.

Because it’s obvious they’re all happy to see me.

Darcy lets out a whoop and jerks upright, knocking over the desk phone and almost falling out of the chair in the process. Kai jumps up and down, maniacally clapping. Tabby’s grin is almost as huge as Ryan’s. Juanita is grinning, too, and even the damn rat looks happy, whiskers twitching like mad.

“Oh,” I say in a small voice, my heart thumping with surprise, my eyes wide.

Ryan slings his arm around my shoulder and gives me a reassuring squeeze, as if he knows I’m in need of a little emotional fortification before I face the firing squad.

“Miss Thang!” bellows Darcy, finding her footing with the help of Kai. “You made it!”

She charges.

“This will only hurt a little,” Ryan says regretfully, before jumping out of the way.

Darcy throws her arms around me, engulfing me in her bosom.

She smells sweet and fruity, like coconuts. It’s pleasant, but I’m being suffocated, and so I make a bleating sound of distress.

She releases me to hold me at arm’s length and cackle. “A travel writer! Ha! We all knew that was baloney, girl! No writer in history has ever had ta-tas like that!” She leers at my chest.

“That’s what I’m sayin’,” drawls Ryan, leaning against a bookcase.

Darcy turns scolding, shaking her finger in my face. “Now don’t worry about us telling anyone you got sticky fingers, girl. We’re real used to keeping each other’s big, hairy secrets in this crew, you hear?”

“Um…”

She leans in and says in a stage whisper, “You know, me and you gotta stick together because the redhead is nuts. Tattoos of green fairies, and building computers that think and shit. And don’t get me started on all that Hello Kitty nonsense. It’s like she thinks that cartoon cat is alive.”

Tabby looks at the ceiling. “Darcy. I’m literally four feet away.”

“Lurk much, nutty?” Darcy mutters under her breath.

Exasperated, Tabby throws her hands in the air. “Still! Four! Feet!”

Darcy ignores her. “Now I know you and the boys got some business, so me and my baby”—she blows a kiss to Kai, who giggles and waves with his fingertips—“and short stuff over there with the obese dairy cow rodent just stopped by to say hi real quick on our way to lunch. So. Hi.”

I can tell I’m supposed to say something now, so I pretend this is a completely normal situation. “Hello. It’s very nice to see you again, Darcy,” I say pleasantly.

She nods in solemn satisfaction, like we just made a blood pact. Then over her shoulder, she bosses, “Kai, say hello to Miss Thang!”

Kai makes a formal little bow. When he straightens, he says in his charming German accent, “I would like to cook you a meal when this is all over, Miss Thang. Do you enjoy schnitzel? I make an excellent traditional schnitzel.”

Wondering what he means by “ven zis is all over,” I reply, “That sounds wonderful. Thank you, Kai. And you can just call me Mariana.”

I notice Connor and Ryan are both trying hard to keep straight faces, and not having much luck.

Juanita rises from the couch and skips over, tossing the rat onto her left shoulder in a smooth, practiced move. All gangly limbs and soft clouds of dark, curly hair, she inserts herself between Darcy and me, dusts orange Cheetos powder from her hands, then stares up into my face.

“Me and Elvis have a bet about where you’re from,” she says, as if picking up where we left off in an earlier conversation. “He says Brazil, but you don’t have a Portuguese accent—”

“I don’t have any accent,” I interrupt, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach.

Everyone else seems to have suddenly fallen silent.

Juanita slowly shakes her head, not in disagreement, but as if I’m not listening. “He says Brazil,” she repeats firmly, “but I say Colombia. So which is it?”

Her eyes are large and velvet brown, black-lashed and penetrating. They’re also devoid of childlike innocence, or any of the bashful self-consciousness adolescents usually display in a roomful of adults.

I’m looking at a fifteen-year-old girl, but the person looking back at me hasn’t been fifteen in an eternity.

Ghostly pale and unsmiling, my sister’s face swims into my vision. I inhale a hitching breath.

“You remind me so much of someone I once knew,” I whisper in Spanish, reverting to my native tongue without a thought, dragged back by the weight of ancient memory and the kind of wounds that scab over, but never fully heal.

“I knew it.,” Juanita replies instantly in Spanish. “Elvis, you owe me five bucks.”

“Okay, no secrets now. Everybody talks in English from here on out.”

It’s Tabby, her tone light and joking, but she’s looking at me with a gaze that’s anything but light. I realize that she understood everything Juanita said to each other at the same time I understand that she won’t mention another word to me about it, or divulge to anyone else what we’ve said.

This is turning out to be one hell of an interesting day.





Twenty-Two





Ryan




While Tabby and Mariana stare at each other, mentally transmitting some kind of weird, girl-code shit, Connor and I share a look of our own.

His look says She okay? You okay?

My look says I’m good, but my woman’s hangin’ on by a thread.

He nods. His piercing gaze flicks over to Mariana. “All right, kids,” he booms, addressing the room. “Visiting time at the zoo is over. Say your goodbyes.”

Darcy makes her signature farm-animal snort. “C’mon, Kai, let’s roll. It’s Badass Big Guy Meeting Time. Short stuff,” she says to Juanita, “you got a restaurant picked out for lunch? And don’t say anything with the words kale bar in it, or I’ll be forced to kick your tiny Catholic behind.”

“I’m an atheist, Darcy” Juanita replies. “I only go to a Catholic school because I’m fifteen and have no legal rights, and that’s where my mother wants me to go. And I was thinking that new Thai-French fusion place on sixth. Elvis loves Thai food.”