Wicked Games

“But,” her mom said, arching her eyebrows, “be careful. Guys with girlfriends … they have no idea what they want. And they’ll charm you into thinking that it doesn’t matter. You should know that by now, given the example I’ve set for you.”

“I know,” Jules said. “You’re right. It’s just …”

She gazed off between the stilt houses to the sliver of ocean they could see from their porch and thought about her mother’s tumultuous love life, the way she fell in love so quickly, and allowed herself to believe again and again that whichever new, cool, brooding, muscular guy she’d met this time would be different from all the other ones she’d dated. She was so wise about how relationships worked, but so terrible at taking her own advice.

Jules’s mom patted her hand, and then gave it a playful squeeze. “It’s just that they’re so hard to resist,” she said.

They smiled at each other, almost but not quite ashamed of this truth.

10 (#ulink_b22b181f-6b81-53eb-9abb-31a3bd41912b)

By the time she got to Jeff’s house, Lilah had calmed down enough to think straight, at least. She shut the door to the Caravan softly and took care with her footsteps as she made her way across the landscaped front lawn and past the grand stone-inlayed entrance to the house and around the side to the backyard, unlatching the gate to the pool area quietly.

She could hear rap music coming from somewhere deep inside the house. It was muffled, a private sound, not the full, surround-speaker blast she knew Jeff’s stereo was capable of, and she figured it to be coming from the rec room in the lower level of the place.

Before slipping inside and tiptoeing down there, she did some recon, peeking in windows, listening for other signs of life. The place seemed abandoned. There weren’t even any crushed red cups or beer cans lying around.

She peered through the windows of the pool house, twisting and straining to catch a glimpse of what might be behind the closed venetian blinds.

And there he was, Carter, sleeping like a baby on the pullout bed.

He was alone. That’s the first thing Lilah noticed.

Taking great care not to make a sound, she turned the handle on the door and slowly opened it and stepped inside.

Watching him sleep, so peaceful and content, curled up in the fetal position, his hair standing up in all sorts of odd angles, Lilah had a sudden urge to cuddle up with him. He looked so innocent there, so adorable, with the cowlick at the ridge of his forehead sending a pinwheel of sandy hair down over his eyes.