Twice as Hot (Tales of an Extraordinary Girl #2)(3)
Author: Gena Showalter

Ever since Sherridan had learned about my abilities, she’d been acting strangely, retreating more and more into her mind. Oh, she still loved me. That wasn’t in question. And I knew she didn’t fear me. If she asked me to blow-dry her hair from fifty paces one more time, I was going to strangle her. But there was something almost…depressed about her, as though her life now lacked excitement and adventure.

I knew that feeling.

There were people in the world with beauty, riches, power. Their every step seemed blessed; failure and rejection were not things they’d ever experienced. Excitement greeted them everywhere they went, danger was something to be laughed at and anything they desired, they could have. In their hands, they held the power to change the world. At one time, I would have killed for such a life. Now, I have killed for it, but it wasn’t the charmed existence I’d once thought it would be.

Perhaps I should have known such gifts would come with a price. But all I’d seen was the glitz, the glamour. The exhilaration. I hadn’t known that there would always be a thousand others willing to rip me apart to possess what I have.

I prayed Sherridan didn’t desire what I had desired – what I had gotten. This power beyond imagining. I prayed she was smarter.

Behind me, I heard a door creak open. Close. Footsteps.

I twisted. A slump-shouldered Tanner was strolling down the hall. I worried over the change in his appearance. He wore black as usual, but in the past his clothes had always been clean. Now his dark attire was dirty and wrinkled, his azure hair unwashed and in spikes around his head. He looked terrible.

There were bruises under his eyes and lines of tension around his mouth. He’d even taken out his signature eyebrow ring and Eight Ball contacts.

I’d known and loved him for several months, and I hated seeing him like this. He was tall and when I’d first met him he’d been extremely lean, more boy than man. But he’d begun to fill out and muscle up, coming into his own in both command and confidence. This past week, though, he’d started to slim down again, as if he didn’t have the will to eat.

"Hey, Crazy Bones," I said. It was my pet name for him.

Usually he grinned. Now he stopped a few feet away from me and peered down at Sherridan as if I hadn’t spoken. "Happy Place?" he asked.

I nodded, my heart lurching at the sadness in his tone.

"She’s weird."

"Tanner," I said, then stopped when he faced me. My heart gave another lurch. God, his eyes. Once a bright blue (when he didn’t disguise them with those crazily patterned contact lenses), they were now dull and listless and swimming with misery. They were dark and dismal. Hopeless.

In that moment, I hated Lexis. Tanner was the brother I’d never had, hadn’t known I’d wanted and needed, and couldn’t live without. I couldn’t stand seeing him like this.

"Don’t," he said. His jaw tightened. "Just don’t."

"Don’t what?" I asked, even though I knew what he meant. I just wanted to draw him out of his miserable shell.

"Don’t feel sorry for me." He moved forward, brushing me aside with his shoulder.

I remained in place, a little stunned. He hadn’t made a single derogatory comment about my br**sts or tried to cop a feel. Even when death had been breathing down our necks, he’d been unable to go five minutes without talking about my ni**les.

Okay, so maybe "brother" wasn’t the best word to describe him. He was the boyfriend I adored but wouldn’t sleep with. Wait. No, that didn’t work, either. Whatever he was, I loved him. Plain and simple.

"Tanner, I don’t feel sorry for you," I called, bypassing our air purifier and following him into the kitchen.

Because my abilities were so attuned to nature, toxins were my greatest enemy now, so there was another air purifier in the kitchen. Another in my bedroom. Another in the hallway.

Tanner was digging inside the fridge. Bottles clinked together; something thumped from the top shelf.

"Doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about her."

"You need to, because it’s festering inside you. You’re falling apart and – "

"Hey, which of us is the master of emotions here? Besides, I know what you’re going to say. You’ve been here, done that. Yeah, I know. Only difference is, you got a happily ever after. I won’t."

"She was your first love, but there will be others. You’ll see. Just give it time. You’ll get over her and someone else will catch your eye."

Every muscle in his body stiffened, but he didn’t face me. "So what you’re telling me is that if Rome didn’t want you, you’d be okay with finding someone else?"

No. Never. Rome was it for me. The one and only. My man. I couldn’t even imagine myself with someone else. Poor Tanner, I thought again. Had he really loved Lexis like that?

"Why did she end things?" I asked softly.

Silent, he straightened. He was holding a beer, staring down at it.

"Uh, you’re not twenty-one," I pointed out, just to break the quiet tension.

Finally he flicked me a glance. "Feel free to turn me in." He popped the cap and leaned back, the rim suddenly at his lips. In record time, he drained the contents of the bottle, tossed it into the trash and reached for another.

"No, I meant, you’re not twenty-one so you shouldn’t be drinking without a responsible adult drinking with you. Toss me one."

That earned me a grin. Swift, but there for that brief moment all the same. I felt as if I’d conquered the world. And I hadn’t even had to use my powers! "Like you’re responsible," he said.

"Well, I am an adult."

"That’s debatable, too." He tossed me a beer.

My reflexes were not as defined as my paranormal abilities, and I almost dropped it, the condensation making it slick. I had to clasp it with two hands to maintain a firm enough grip.

"Already had one?" he asked.

I looked drunk? This early in the morning? "I’m not belting out show tunes, so no." With a flick of his wrist, Tanner closed the fridge and faced me fully. I settled atop one of the bar stools, sipping at the beer. Ick. Not my alcoholic beverage of choice, especially for breakfast, but it would do.

Anything for Tanner. "Talk to me. Please. I’m worried about you." He shrugged, his eyes once again swirling with more misery than any one person should have to deal with. "Nothing to tell, really. We got together because she needed someone to comfort her and I needed a willing body to lose my virginity to."

"And did you?"

One of his black brows arched. "None of your business."

Did that mean no? The Tanner I knew liked to kiss and tell and besides that, they’d seemed so hot and heavy. PDA was not something they’d eschewed.