muscle twitched by his eye. ‘Let me take you to dinner.’
‘Dream on.’
‘I’m not kidding. I want to make it up to you.’
Robin sighed. With his rumpled T-shirt and steady grin and boyish bravado, Leon was the kind of person she would never in a thousand years be able to relate to. He was probably from some over-achieving American family who baked cookies and sat around a campfire singing and played tennis on a private lawn in summer. He was rich, clearly, and her guess was he always had been. That upbringing, the kind of anchor she herself had always yearned for, was exactly why he was able to make her feel so small.
‘Don’t bother,’ she threw back, moving to go.
‘Look,’ Leon said, less patiently, ‘I’m trying, OK? I’m only being friendly here.’
‘Make friends with someone else,’ she said, and turned and walked away.
5
Kristin loved kissing her boyfriend. Scotty Valentine’s lips were pink as candyfloss and just as sweet, his tongue soft and hesitant as it explored her mouth. She could spend hours simply kissing, running her fingers through his caramel hair and staring into his Pacific Ocean eyes.
They were in her bedroom, making out to a Turquoise ballad. Kristin took Scotty’s hand and guided it to her breast—he never instigated it, he was too gentlemanly—and lifted to meet his touch. She peeled off her T-shirt and the lacy sweetheart bra beneath. Scotty had only seen her topless once before and looked as uncomfortable now as he had the first time.
‘It’s OK,’ she murmured, reaching into his jeans. ‘My mom’s out…’
Dutifully Scotty tended to her nipples, nuzzling and licking till she started to sigh, then he dropped a chain of kisses across her stomach and in doing so reversed his crotch out of reach. She drew his head back up to hers, looping one arm round his neck and the other between his legs. Nothing. That was why, then. She inhaled his scent. It didn’t matter.
‘Sorry,’ Scotty mumbled, sitting up. ‘Don’t know what’s wrong.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Kristin, covering herself because she still felt shy around him. She hoped it was fine. Last time Scotty had been unable to get a hard-on and while he assured her it had nothing to do with her and he thought she was gorgeous, it couldn’t help but sting.
‘Just tired,’ he informed her, zipping his flies.
‘We don’t have to have sex,’ she ventured. ‘I could, you know…’
‘What?’
‘Help you along?’ she muttered uncertainly. ‘And then…?’
He looked at her as if she’d just suggested defecating on the carpet.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Have I done something wrong?’ Awkwardly she fumbled into her T-shirt.
Scotty grimaced. ‘I feel like I’m being hassled all the damn time,’ he complained, ‘for sex. You want it every day! I’m not a machine, Kristin.’
She was confused. ‘But we haven’t even got that far…’
‘Don’t you think maybe if I could relax a little more I might find it easier?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she stumbled. ‘I thought you were relaxed.’
He pouted. ‘Having my nuts attacked every waking hour isn’t my idea of relaxation.’
She wondered if he found it weird, the whole ex-best-friends thing. She should try to be more sensitive. ‘OK. Let’s just chill, then. You don’t have to leave.’
‘I do,’ he said dejectedly, ‘I need some me time. Everyone wants a piece of Scotty Valentine, don’t they? Why can’t people just leave me alone?’
Kristin swallowed her dismay. It was the pressures of his work. Fraternity had been gigging flat out and Scotty was exhausted. So what if she was desperate to consummate their affair? Love was patience. Fifteen years they had known each other; what was a little longer?
‘D’you know what it’s like living my life?’ he bewailed. ‘All the expectation, it’s bringing me down. How am I supposed to meet it?’
‘You’re not.’ She touched his face, turning it towards her. He’d gone salmon-pink. Kristin understood he was ashamed and it was self-defence that made him lash out. When would he realise he didn’t need to pretend with her? She worshipped him no matter what; without the band, without the ten million Twitter followers, just Scotty, the boy she adored.
Tentatively she kissed him. Slowly but surely he started to return it, leaning her back on the bed with a refreshed energy. Abruptly he flipped her round so she was on her stomach, and fiercely tugged down her knickers. For several seconds Scotty kneaded her ass, the breath catching in his throat, before, with a blinding sense of relief, Kristin felt his erection charging against her, prodding for entry. She parted to receive him, telling herself to stop because he needed to use a condom, but before she could speak she realised he was going for something different. Too tight, too sore, giving way to a splinter of disabling pain. She gasped in shock.
‘Wait,’ she breathed, attempting to pull free and turn on her back. It was a tricky manoeuvre but with some fumbling she managed to hook her legs round his waist and guide him in…but the throb in his jeans had totally evaporated. Totally. Scotty collapsed on to her, deflated, and she stared at the ceiling, eyes wet with tears, tracing circles on his back.
‘I’ll call you later,’ he mumbled eventually, getting up and grabbing his things. Bewildered, Kristin hugged her knees to her chest.
‘Scott,’ she tried, ‘we can talk about this…’
But he was gone before she could say goodbye.
At lunch, unable to ease her mind, Kristin took a swim in the mansion pool. Was it such a big deal? she wondered as she ploughed through her twentieth length. Scotty wanted to give it to her another way. That way had got him hard. Plenty of girls did it. Just because she hadn’t, it didn’t make it wrong. If that was Scotty’s thing then perhaps she should give it a go…
Lemon sun bounced off the patio, hot and sweet, blazing down from a flawless blue sky and reflecting off the glinting rock lagoon and sharp green lawns. When Kristin had started raking in the big bucks, her mother Ramona had wasted no time in securing them a prime piece of real estate. The imposing mansion (referred to as The White House) was enormous, comprising fifteen bedrooms, twelve of which were never used, a rooftop gym and home movie theatre. Out front, Corinthian pillars bragged the remarkable entrance. Inside, photographs of Ramona as a young fashion model adorned the walls.
Kristin was desperate to move out. She wanted to live with Scotty, like a proper couple, and get engaged and get married and have kids. But she had made a promise to herself that she would stay until her little sister turned sixteen. United, she and Bunny were an allied force against their mother. Bunny couldn’t do it on her own; she needed her: without Kristin she would get extinguished like a beetle beneath Ramona’s Louboutin.
The main door slammed, followed by a flutter of animated chatter. Kristin dried herself off, wrapped a towel around her waist and crossed to the house.
Bunny was galloping out to meet her, dressed head to toe in sequins and a wig better suited to a forty-year-old transvestite. At thirteen she wore full make-up, her nails painted and her eyelashes huge, and was struggling to balance on the four-inch stilettos that were preferred by the pageant organisers. She was small for her age: apparently her petite stature was a hit with the judges. Bunny White was a teen beauty queen, the best known in the state.
‘We won!’ she squealed. ‘I did my hula dance and then I had to catwalk and then they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up! I said a singer, like you. Then they asked me who I loved best