Ripped

“No joke,” he promises, lifting my hand so he can see. “Looks pretty on you.”

I squeeze his fingers with mine as my heart squeezes at the very same time. “But my mother and your father . . . they both need us right now.”

Our lives are so imperfect. Cluttered with obstacles between him and me.

After my father died, my mother turned even more strict and bitter.

After Mackenna’s mother died, his father turned to drugs. Dealing drugs.

And now, my mother is the DA in charge of convicting Mackenna’s father, and the case is destroying our every chance at happiness.

I can’t wait to get away.

We need to get away.

He strokes my face with his long, guitar-playing fingers. “I know they need us, but they won’t need us forever. The hearing isn’t until a couple of months. Whatever happens with my father, whatever the judge decides . . . we’ll meet at the park that night, and we’ll run away. Get married. I can get a couple of gigs at a few local bars, I can support you through college.”

“Will you really help me pay my college tuition, Kenna? Are you sure you can do it?” I ask hopefully.

“Hell, I’d do anything for you.” He’s deadly serious as he speaks the words, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “I’m tired of hiding, you know.”

“I’m tired too.”

“I want to be with you. Out in the open. I’m sick of being your secret. I want to be your guy. I want people to know you’re mine.”

“But I am.” I lift my hand to his line of vision again, wiggling my beautifully adorned finger. “I am yours. And our plan’s still on, whatever happens. I’ll meet you at the park after the trial.”

He smiles a sad smile at the mention of the trial, then he kisses the ring on my hand, and then, well . . . then he pulls me by the small of my back against his hard, broad chest and kisses me stupid. “I love you. Always,” he husks out.

There are ways people love you.

There are all kinds and types of love, I’ve found.

The way you love pets. Your friends. The way your parents love you. Your cousins. And there was this whole other way Mackenna and I loved each other.

Our love was like a raging storm and a harbor: unruly and unstoppable, wild and endless, but steady and safe . . .

Or so . . . my fool seventeen-year-old heart thought.

Months later, I sat on a rickety old bench for hours, until the park grew pitch black, empty. I could’ve been robbed or maybe even kidnapped, it was so dark. I was so stupid and naïve, I still waited, my toenails freshly painted, my shoes new, my dress the one I thought I looked prettiest in—at least one of the few that was not black but a light yellow. And I waited, running my hands down my loose hair. I twirled my promise ring on my finger until the base of my finger grew red and I realized he wasn’t coming. And my eyes stung and my lungs closed when the figure that appeared that night was my mother’s, my mother who couldn’t possibly know I was dating him, extending her hand.

“He’s not coming,” she whispered.

“He’s coming, Mother. I’m leaving. You can’t stop me,” I said with more conviction than I felt.

“I don’t need to stop you. I just convicted his father, Pandora. You won’t be leaving with that boy. He’s not coming. I saw him with someone else. I’ll wait in the car.”

With someone else . . .

Just like my dad.

Mackenna lied to me.

And just like that, Mackenna broke me. . . .

FIVE

HAZED

Pandora

Okay, so here’s the deal. A fact of life I’ve just proven. Everyone believes rock bands live in this sick little world, where all the band members get stoned, drunk, and laid, curse and argue, and every day is like this big ol’ party?

Well, it’s true.

They rehearse, of course. They work—some of the time. But holy shit, do these people know how to party. Even Trombone Guy, Violin Guy, and Piano Guy are hitting the booze tonight.

Party animals.

The whole lot of them.

“You wanna drink?” Violin Guy offers, but when I say no, I watch him simply shrug and leave with his buddies, the Harpist and the Flute Guy, instead.

Really, all I want to do is go to my room and order a burger and French fries, but we’re supposed to be “partying,” and the cameras are making sure not to miss a single moment of the stupidity happening here.

I even begin to wonder if some of it is purely for marketing purposes.

Hanging close to a cameraman so he won’t tape me—I’m sure I’m wearing my most sour, tart face—I spot Mackenna by the beer pong. The amount of alcohol around here is mind-boggling. Body shots all over the place. Beer pong, drinks, booze, drugs. Even a shisha is going around.

I might try that if I were with my friends. Mel and Brooke, Kyle . . .

As it is, I won’t drop my guard for a second, especially with Mackenna Jones nearby and a thousand cameras around us. Imagine me drunk? With Mackenna nearby?

I might kill him.

I might . . . well, he’s so disgustingly male, I might feel him up while I kill him.

His lean arms are resting on the table as he waits for his opponent to throw the ball into his beer cup. His opponent happens to be one of the twins, and after he fails to make his shot, Mackenna smoothly dumps the ball into his cup, laughing while making the Viking—I think it’s Lex—drink.

Yeah, those two are pounding the booze.

I want to stop staring, but I can’t. Mackenna laughs out loud a lot, and the sound easily reaches my ears even though I’m across the room.

He’s changed in all these years. He’s still got that aura of a boy, but he’s so much a man now. I can’t stop cataloguing the differences. His jaw is squarer and slightly shadowed. Fuller lips. Thicker throat. He’s got muscles on his arms like there’s no tomorrow. He’s just so tan and . . . man. I watch as he waits for Lex to throw the ball into his beer cup again.

Then I notice that a dancer, Letitta, keeps eyeing me maliciously. She cranes her neck out like a mean bird as she comes to me. I’m disappointed to see the cameraman follow.

She hovers by my side and signals in the direction of my gaze.

“He’s such a good fuck.” Her greedy, beady little eyes slither over Mackenna, and, wow, her smile is just like I imagined Cruella De Vil’s right before she skins the fucking puppies.

An evil feeling crawls through me when I realize she, of course, has fucked that body in far more ways than I ever, in my stupid innocence, could have. I force a smile onto my face and twirl my pink strand of hair as I say, “I know, I broke him in.” I start to leave, but her voice stops me.

“You think you look cool and badass, but you don’t. Not really.”

“Thanks. I’ve been wondering what you thought about me. Now I can go rearrange my whole personality to suit you.” I look at the guy behind the camera, who’s grinning like he’s just struck gold, and I try to keep my cool, even though my anger is simmering under the surface of my skin.

She scrunches her face up until she looks like a little gremlin. “He hates your guts, girl. I swear the lyrics of ‘Pandora’s Kiss’ just needed to add the fact that he wished you dead. Why would he even look at you, if not to break you right now?”

I laugh. This kind of laugh, I’m actually used to. The kind that means I’m the opposite of happy and mirthful. “He already broke me, there’s nothing to break anymore, and when I reglued myself, I made it a priority not to put the heart back in. So it’s cool. Thanks for worrying about me. Your concern is touching.”

She jumps ahead of me and grabs one of my arms. “And yet you keep staring at him like you think he’s yours. He’s not.”

“Let go of me unless you want me to punch you,” I warn.

“Wow. You’re just like a man, aren’t you,” she says.

“Hey, Tit,” Lex calls, coming over to her and eyeing us both as though sensing we’re about to have a real live catfight, right here. I’m surprised he didn’t ease back and enjoy the view.

Maybe he isn’t such a douche bag after all.

Tit’s face switches in an instant from angry-gremlin mode to sweet-coquette mode as he comes over. He wraps his arm around her waist and kisses her on the mouth. God, I can’t believe these guys just pass around a woman like that.

Or actually, I can.

But I can’t believe they call her “Tit.”

I turn away when I catch Mackenna surveying me with a strange kind of proprietary gaze. Red plastic cup in hand, he starts walking over, and a ball of nervousness fires up in my belly as he approaches. Will you puleeze stop making me nervous, asshole? I want to yell.

“Making friends already?” he says with a smirk.

This smirk is different, though. Almost as if he’s displeased with Tit, which is ridiculous.

And suddenly I remember how, on the weekends after Thanksgiving, I’d escape with him. I remember us going to the ice rink, the day snowed in and cold. We’d watch guys making ice sculptures and we’d skate, and I loved to press close to him because he was always so warm and strong and steady on his feet. We’d see the frozen ice, stiff and white. I’d put on my skates, line up my boots, walk unsteadily into the ice. Then I’d slide over it, and he’d circle me like he was born on it. My Ice Man with silver eyes and warm skin and the world’s most perfect lips. Muscled and strong, it was always so easy for him to reach out and spin me like a top. And then he’d stop me from spinning with a hug, hold me close, and lift the ears of my cap so he could whisper, “You’re so hot you’d thaw this whole ice rink within hours.”