With Every Heartbeat(13)

I grew worried over just how much she’d changed this last year. Cursing and drinking and skimpy clothes. Those things hadn’t been Cora a year ago, and she knew they weren’t me now. So what had caused such a transformation? And why was she trying to change me too?

More importantly, what exactly had I gotten myself into by coming here?





Cora wrangled me into one of her tight tees. It was a plain gray V-neck but hugged my breasts like a second skin and was short enough to expose my navel with every other move I made. The shorts were indecently short and just as tight. Then she put me in ankle socks and white sneakers. Compared to the swimsuit she’d put on—a contraption of hot pink dental floss attached to three miniature scraps of cloth—I looked like a nun who was covered from neck to toe, but I still felt majorly exposed.

After slopping my hair into a quick, high ponytail, Cora stepped back and clapped happily. “Ooh, this might even be better. You look like an adorable virgin, ripe for the plucking.”

My jaw fell open as my face heated. “I cannot believe you just said that.”

She sighed. “Oh, Zoey, I’ve forgotten how completely naive you are.”

I hated that word, almost as much as I hated being that word. And she knew it. Swallowing down my irritation that she would purposely and so coldly use it against me, I shied back and cleared my throat.

“You know, only a year ago you were just as innocent,” I said, hoping to make her remember, to draw out the friend I once had. But seriously, what kind of wild experiences had Quinn Hamilton given my best friend?

She laughed in my face. “Isn’t it awful how stupid I was? But that feels like a lifetime ago, thank God. Don’t you worry about it, hon. A few months here will help draw out your courage.”

Courage for what, I wondered.

“Goddamn dialysis,” Cora muttered as she studied herself in the full-length mirror, turning from side to side. “It’s gotten me way too pale.”

I thought she looked extra tan, but I had a feeling saying so would annoy her, so I just sat on her bed and waited for her to stop degrading herself.

After another minute of frowning and muttering, she met my gaze in the mirror. “Do you think this will actually look as good once it gets wet?”

I made a face at it, thinking it’d probably disintegrate and fall off the second she got spray back from a water hose.

She read my expression and groaned. “You’re right. I should wear the blue one.”

As she peeled off the pink top, I glanced at my wristwatch. We really needed to get going; the fundraiser was starting in five minutes.

“I’ll wait for you in the front room,” I said just as a knock came at our front door.

I glanced at Cora, not at all feeling as if this was enough my home to be answering any doors yet. But she was too busy wiggling the pink bikini bottoms out of her butt crack.

That wasn’t a sight I’d ever be able to un-see, so I motioned toward the doorway. “I’ll just...I’ll get the door.”

She didn’t even pretend to hear me, so I hurried down the hall and checked the peek hole.

My stomach instantly knotted with tension. What the heck was Cora’s too-gorgeous-to-be-real boyfriend doing here? I’d refused to think about him all day, because just remembering those awkward moments we’d had alone when Cora had been passed out between us made me hot and nervous all in one confusing ball. I swear, my hand still tingled from where I’d had to bury it in his pocket to fetch the apartment key.

God, he’d a really warm, rock hard thigh.

I glanced down the hall toward Cora’s room, but she was nowhere in sight. Hesitating, I finally opened the door and peeked out at him. He startled a little when our gazes met, letting me know he’d been expecting her. Once he recovered, his blue eyes warmed with greeting and he smiled, flashing a deep dimple in the left side of his cheek.

Yeah, he just had to have a dimple, didn’t he?

“Hi,” he said brightly. “You guys ready?”

I blinked. “Ready?”

Worry and indecision clouded his face. He lifted his hand to rub at the back of his neck. “You’re both still going to the car wash, right?”

“Yes,” I answered slowly.

That seemed to fluster him even more. He jabbed his hands into his pockets, which made his shoulders more defined and muscled than they’d been a second before. Then he nervously kicked out a foot over the toe of his other shoe. “And you knew you were riding there with me? Right?”

I shook my head dumbly, flushed and flustered to learn that part. I already felt überly self-conscious going out, dressed like this. But knowing he would be there to witness it made it that much more unnerving. I was aware of every molecule of my body, from the irrational tick of my pulse in my throat to the cool wash of the air conditioner blowing a slight breeze against the backs of my legs. It made my breasts prickle, and my arms coat with goose bumps.