Caleb whoops with delight. “None taken. You tell him, Jaws.”
“Shut up.” Cassie shoots him a glance that can vaporize concrete walls.
Brian says, “Well then, I guess this discussion is at an end. Samantha doesn’t need a ‘boyfriend’ and I don’t need to be here when I can be out there f**king somebody who doesn’t sock me in the chin.”
He rubs his jaw as he says this even though it is clearly unmarked.
“Good, it’s a done deal then,” Sam says.
“No, no, no, no. This is not over,” Cassie interjects. “Sam . . . a word, please. In private.”
She drags Sam out of the dining berth. Brian lights a cigarette as he watches her amusedly. Oooh, if only she can wipe that smirk off his face.
They go outside into the cold.
“Brrrr,” Sam says, shuffling her feet, “whatever you’re going to say, you’d better say it before I lose a toe to frostbite.”
“You’re not going to get frostbite, don’t be a drama queen. Now listen to me. This is opportunity to kill two birds with one slingshot. You get to – ”
“ – I know, I know, sock it up my sister – ”
“Yes, and – ” Cassie grabs her shoulders and stares deep into her eyes, and continues very slowly, as though to a child who is soft in the head “ – take your revenge on Brian Morton. As he deserves.”
“You mean spend a whole weekend with him?”
“Yes . . . with him as your slave. You heard the terms of his bet. He has to do anything you want.”
“Ewww, I don’t want to sleep with him.”
The moment Sam says it, she knows it’s not true. Brian Morton possesses an extremely masculine sexuality that leaps out at you, even if you’re utterly blind and sworn to the nunnery.
“Who says you have to? No.” Cassie’s features turn crafty. “But you can make his weekend a living hell.” She grins. “I’ll help you.”
“I don’t know. I don’t have that . . . ” Sam struggles for the word.
“Sadistic streak? Meanness? Don’t worry. I do. Remember all those times in middle grade when you swore you’d get your own back at him? Well, he left our school before you got the chance. Now’s your chance.” Cassie grabs her arm. “Say, is your sister going to invite me to her engagement party?”
6
They are in Brian’s black Ferrari, the four of them, on their way to Hartford. Brian is at the wheel. Caleb is seated beside him and Sam and Cassie are at the back.
“Don’t drive so fast,” Sam says nervously.
Brian turns his head heavenward. “Yes, Mom. You’ve said that for the sixteenth time already. I’m within the limits, OK?”
He was right. She’s driving him batty, hot body or not. No wonder she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Now, if only he can get this weekend over with and everything would be normal again. He’d go to clubs with Caleb, pick up girls and f**k his brains out. And no one is going to tell him, “Don’t drive into me so fast.”
Christ, what a waste of a weekend. Especially when she made it clear he isn’t to have any sex – not with her, not with her friend, and not with anyone else at the party because they are supposed to appear as ‘a couple’.
Hell, he’ll find his ways.
“Hey, ass**le, you’re supposed to be her slave.” Cassie knocks the back of his head with her fist.
“Ow. Doesn’t mean I won’t bitch and gripe my way through it. There isn’t a rule against bitching, is there?” Brian glares at Caleb.
“Nope, forgot to make that a condition,” his best friend says.
Sam says, “I think we should go over the list again.”
Brian groans. “I remember everything, OK? You like Zumba. We met at the gym. You were wearing this two-piece outfit and I thought you were hot.”
She is hot, but he’d rather eat thumbtacks than to ever admit that.
“Go on,” Sam says tersely.
“So . . . I asked you out. And we found out . . . during our ridiculously romantic date – ”
Christ, he doesn’t even do dates.
“ – that we went to the same school together.”
Cassie interrupts, “I still can’t believe you never told your Mom about Brian.”
“What’s there to tell? It was hideously embarrassing.”
Brian sighs. OK, so he was a handful as a kid. So his folks had to pull him out before he got expelled. But he did get expelled from two schools anyway and he had to have psychological counseling.
“Look, I was a kid, OK?” he says in a conciliatory tone. Semi-conciliatory, since he doesn’t do full-out conciliatory. “We were all kids. We did things. Stuff kids do. You’ve just got to let all that stuff go or you’d be a nutcase.”
He certainly did, and look where he is now.
“Wow, and that’s supposed to be an apology?” Cassie says.
“Butt out. I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Hey, be polite. Sam, make him grovel.”
“Groveling’s not in the deal,” Brian remarks. He’s still not clear about what is and what isn’t in the deal, but Caleb promised to make it up as they went along.
Oh shit. That’s exactly what he should be afraid of.
Still, he’s glad Caleb has managed to make the payment to the bank before the foreclosure. He would hate it if Mrs. Carr, proud woman that she is, would be out in the streets. Especially when she has been practically a mother to him when he was growing up.
The Carrs. Damn their f**king pride. There was many a time he wanted to go to a fancy restaurant or order a bottle of Dom Perignon when he and Caleb were out together. But nooooo, Caleb had to insist on paying his fair share. Which would set him back a week’s wages. So Brian just gave up, and they did stuff more attuned to the size of Caleb’s wallet – such as going to clubs and bars and gyms and bowling.
Sam lets out an audible whoosh of breath. “So you remember everything,” she says.
“Yeah, and you like your vibrators turned up to the max.”
Sam gasps in horror.
“I do not have a vibrator! Where did you come up with that?”
“Yeah, ass**le!” Cassie slaps the back of Brian’s head again.
“Seeing that you are between boyfriends, I’m reckoning you’re probably sexually repressed.” Brian turns to Cassie. “You do that again, and I’ll write ‘ASSHOLE’ in chalk on your seat.”