Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [102]
Miranda shaded her eyes from one painfully thin hipster sprawled on a batik blanket wearing nothing but tightie whities and a pair of three-hundred-dollar sunglasses. She experienced a brief, violent surge of hatred—how dare this boho boy lie around in his underwear, looking happy, when Miranda’s life was circling the drain? It was a disgustingly familiar bitterness, her lifelong companion, although it seemed all the stronger and more vicious for having abated somewhat in the last few weeks. It was tough to be bitter around someone as unrelentingly generous and lively as Adam Temple.
Quit mooning, she lectured herself. You had your moment in the sun, soaking up Adam’s energy and passion. Now it’s time to head back to reality.
She turned back to watching the path, and that was when she saw Jess loping steadily toward her, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed and none the worse for wear.
Miranda felt a wave of relief that he was okay. She wanted him to come to his senses, sure, but she didn’t want him to suffer while doing it. Unreasonable, maybe, but as he got closer, she could see a faint red line at the corner of his eyebrow where he’d been bleeding last night.
He’d already been hurt because of Frankie. No matter what Adam said in defense of Frankie’s character, nothing was worth endangering Jess’s life. She’d sell her soul to keep him safe.
“Are you all right?” were the first words out of her mouth.
Jess didn’t roll his eyes, but with instincts honed by years of parenting a teenager, Miranda could tell he wanted to.
“I’m fine. I told you I would be.”
“Good, that’s good.”
They looked at each other, each waiting for the other to make a move.
Miranda broke first. “Why don’t we walk up to Belvedere Castle? It should be quiet up there, and maybe not so hot.”
“Sure,” Jess said, turning to lead the way.
Was she imagining it, or had some of Frankie’s smug, cooler-than-thou attitude rubbed off on her brother?
They followed the winding stone steps up to the top level of Belvedere Castle. The castle was more of an observation point, cunningly worked to look like someone’s idea of a medieval fairy tale, complete with arched windows and a turret. There were usually people grouped around the stone platform enjoying the view, gaggles of children running around playing knight of the realm, but today there was no one.
Miranda would’ve wondered if her luck were changing, except she recognized the stubborn tilt to Jess’s chin.
He moved to lean against the granite balustrade, hitching one hip up to get comfortable. Miranda thought it probably wasn’t a coincidence that the position accentuated the couple inches of height difference between them. Jess had always been good at strategy games; he’d been beating her regularly at Risk since he was eleven.
Her shoulders tightened. The fact that he viewed this as some sort of power struggle didn’t bode well for her chances of getting him to respond rationally. She and Jess shared a tendency to chuck logic out the window while clinging blindly to a fixed idea. Miranda had worked hard to overcome it, but Jess was still so young.
Young, but not without confidence, she saw, as he firmed his mouth and squared his shoulders.
“I’ll start,” Jess declared. “It’ll save time, since I already know what you’re going to say. You want me to promise not to see Frankie anymore, and better yet, you want me to find a nice girl and settle down, maybe spawn a litter of kids, and live happily ever after. Am I close?”
Miranda drew in a breath, feeling sucker-punched by Jess’s casual scorn for the dreams she’d harbored for him.
“Would that be so atrocious?” she heard herself say. “It’s the life our parents had. They thought it was pretty great.”
Jess’s eyes widened as he acknowledged the hit, then narrowed dangerously. Silence expanded between them like the shock waves of an exploding bomb.
“Oh, nice. Bring Mom and Dad into it,” Jess finally ground out.
Miranda flushed with guilt, although underneath