“Who has Reese always been in love with?” Bev darts over to Kennedy and gives her a long, moaning embrace.
“Daddy!” I jump up and wrap my arms around him tight. It feels like a small eternity since we’ve seen each other last. It’s like seeing a ghost, and a part of me believes Mom might be the next person to barrel through that door. But I’m not that lucky today. I’ll never be that lucky again.
“Hey, princess.” He plants a kiss over my cheek. His hair shines like glass. It’s silver as a nickel, clean and white, no signs of yellowing. Dad’s face glows with a smooth even tan, and that tiny dimple by his eye cuts in as he smiles down at me. “Now what’s all this talk about love?” He gives a quick wink. “Speaking of Warren, how’s my boy doing? I hear he’s been running the show while I’ve been away.”
“He has,” I say, shooting a quick look to Kennedy. “Rumor has it he’s working very hard.” At committing an assault against your daughter I want to add but don’t. I haven’t forgotten the fact Warren tried to mow my field with his weed whacker. There’s no way in hell I’m giving him a pass on that one. In fact, I think I should kick his boys around the lake a time or two to get the message across. Not that I want to spend a moment of my time bothering with Warren or his wandering wiener.
“Good. About time he starts pulling his weight around the office.” Dad presses in another kiss. “Yeats has one of the best law schools in the country. I think he’ll make a fine addition to the firm one day. Until then he should blow off all the steam he can.” Assholes always do. “Enjoy academia while you’re able, girls. The corporate world is a cold, cruel place to be.”
I want to tell him that the whole world has been a cold, cruel place to be since my mother died, but now with Ace filling my days, my nights, it feels a lot less scary.
Just the thought of Warren setting up shop at the law firm feels like another link in the chain that will permanently bind us together. I curl into my father’s chest, so he won’t see the disappointment blooming over my face. I’ll never be rid of Warren in my life. Not that I really care. A part of me just wants him to find someone and be happy, the way I found someone—sort of.
“I missed you,” I whisper as I tighten my arms around my father’s waist. He feels solid as a tree trunk, immovable. He smells of cedar and leather, and I take him in, trying to memorize the way he feels and smells so that when fall rolls around, I can hold him in my heart.
Beverly drops her purse on the table with a thud, jolting me out of my moment like an ax falling over my neck. “You’ll never guess what I bought in Milan.” She pets Kennedy’s hair as if she were an exotic animal. Beverly and Kennedy look more like sisters thanks to all the Botox, the nip and tuck, the Pilates before dawn, but Beverly keeps her jet-black hair cut above the ears with long sweeping bangs up front.
“A new Louis Vuitton purse?” Kennedy hops when she says it like a child on Christmas. “The oversized one I want as a beach bag?” It’s a sad day when a handbag that costs more than some used cars is relegated to fun in the sun.
“No.” Bev swats away the thought like she were vying for an eco-tote from the dollar store. “We can pick one of those up over lunch one afternoon if you like.” She taps her acrylic nails over the veneer of the table and creates a death rattle. “I’ve finally found a decent replacement for this God-awful table.”
I glance up at my father. This is the final material piece of my mother that’s left in this house. She loved this hunk of mahogany as if she grew it from the ground and hewn it herself.
“It’s a done deal.” Dad holds up a hand. “It’s already being shipped.”
“But this is Mom’s table,” I say it low for my dad’s ear only, but the room stills because the passive-aggressive bitch in me made damn sure everyone around us heard.
“Oh, hon.” Beverly pours out her faux sense of sorrow, thick as vomit. “I’ll have it stored for you, and when you and Warren buy your first home, we’ll have it ready and waiting.” She winks over at me, and I wonder if that’s her socialite way of saying F.U. and your dead mother’s table, too. “See? You’re already on your way to starting a family of your own.” She tilts into a peaceable smile. Deep down inside I’m convinced she knows I’m not into Warren. Maybe that’s what she and Kennedy discuss over lunch before they buy overpriced beach bags. “It’ll all work out. I promise.”
I don’t think it’ll all work out. What I do think is that my Step Bitch isn’t quite done booting my mother out of my father’s life. When Beverly moved in, she had the wrought-iron railing plucked right off the stairwell and replaced it with sheet glass and a metallic track that lined the top, and now it has no more feeling than a rain gutter. As soon as she took over the house, she systematically removed every last piece of my mother that I cherished and replaced them with cold, unfeeling works of questionable “art.” I can’t bear the thought of losing this table to some faraway storage unit. They might as well bury it in the cemetery right next to my mother. I don’t want to wait until I finish with graduate school one day and finally move out to see it again. God knows I’ll never share a home with Warren.
“Speaking of homes”—Dad nods out the window at the neighbor’s property—“the Nicholson’s house is up for sale.” The exact one nestled between our house and the McCarthy’s.
I roll my eyes at the thought of shacking up with Warren, now or ever, and sandwiched between our parents no less. Just the thought makes me want to stab my eye out with a fork.
Nope—not happening.
I’m so head over heels in love with Ace, I can’t see straight.
This is the start of something spectacular. I can feel it.
Ace Waterman is the one for me, and there is no other—never was, never will be.
A few, lazy, Ace-free days slip by. Gavin hauled Ace into the backwoods in order to chop down an entire Connecticut forest. And now that the emergency hacking spree is over, we can resume our regularly-scheduled debauchery and bring honor to the good name of summer flings everywhere. Well, almost.
I swivel around in my chair, more than slightly irritated as I stare at my desk.
Normally I keep track of important things like when my papers are due, when I’ll be having a quiz, and when my period might interrupt one of the most exciting weeks of my life. But despite my meticulous attempts at mapping my life out on a calendar, I totally forgot that red witch was due to shoot right out of my fallopian tubes. This pretty much ruins things for me tonight, but it doesn’t mean Ace has to suffer.
Brylee sits on my bed whittling a banana into a bona fide penis while I watch the careful attention she puts into her pornographic art.
“You should go on tour or something,” I muse. “People would pay to see this. They’d call you the Penis Peeler. You’d be a hit in galleries all over the country. Society is sick as fuck, but don’t you worry your pretty little head, you fit right in,” I say as she unearths the fruit’s true phallic form, complete with ridges and what looks like a vein running down the middle, a tip that looks more like a crown. “Maybe you could sit outside of the general store with an empty coffee can? I’ll seed you some tip money.”
“You’re a riot.” She squeezes the poor thing until it launches right out of its casing and into my chest. I let out a short-lived scream followed by a rather swift eviction of the sticky mess. “That’s a dick’s favorite thing to do.” She presses out a manufactured smile. “Come right at you.”
“That’s disgusting,” I say, still plucking the mess out of my tank top.
“Tell it to Ace.” She gives a light kick to my knee. “So, you break things off with Warren?” She unties her bathing suit top at the neck and accidentally flashes me before redoing her strap.
“What’s with everyone today? First, Kennedy—now you? We were never together. He’s fine with me seeing other people. We’ve discussed it—I kicked his balls, I believe the topic is no longer on the agenda.” Somehow I don’t believe that. I doubt I could have a Warren-free
summer let alone a Warren-free lifetime.
“In theory? Or do you know this as a fact?” Brylee leans in as if there were a real need for an answer.
“Fact. Besides, I’m not advertising Ace anytime soon. He made it clear we’re BFFs forever, remember?” I wipe my chest down with a tissue. “Warren is yesterday’s news. He needs to find himself someone new to blue ball him.”
“You ever going to tell Ace how you really feel?” Brylee’s eyes glitter up with tears. Her lips redden as if she were sorry for me in a severe way. Looks like I’m not the only one PMSing around here.
“No.” I push out a sigh as I fall back on my pillow. “We’re in such a good place right now, I don’t want to ruin things.”
“I know right?” She mocks, landing beside me. “I mean, that little pesky thing called the truth has fucked up more relationships than I can number.”
“Be quiet.”
“Promise me something.” She nudges her thigh into mine. “You’ll tell him the truth at the end of all this madness.”
“At the end of all this madness,” I parrot softly. I think about it for a second. “I mean, at that point summer will be over.” I shrug, trying to reason it out. “It’s not like I’ll see him until next year. I’ll be home for Christmas, and that’s when he sees his mom.” Ace and I can play hit and miss for the rest of our lives if we want to.
“Nobody remembers anything in a year.” She’s goading me, but I go with it.
“I guess you’re right.” I chew the inside of my cheek until I’m about to draw blood. “Yeah, I think I will tell him how I really feel at the end of summer.” A spike of adrenaline surges in me at the thought.
“Pinky swear?” She holds out her hand.
“Pinky swear.” I hook my little finger over hers, and we shake on it. Suddenly it feels as if a boulder has been lifted from my chest, and I can breathe again. I hadn’t felt this light in so long. I had forgotten how good it felt. I’m walking on air, and it’s all because I’m finally going to tell Ace Waterman exactly how I feel.
My phone goes off. It’s a text from Warren, and I groan.
You up for dinner? I get off early tonight. Blue Crab?
“What should I tell him?” That giant ball of granite rolls right back over my chest as I stare at his words.
“Just curious”—she pokes me in the knee—“are you allergic to the truth?”
“No. Maybe.” I type, Not feeling so hot tonight. Some other time, and hit send. “There. That’s not totally a lie. I started my period today. I always feel like crap the first day I start.”
“You do realize that by tacking on, ‘some other time,’ you’re stringing him along.”
“Please.” I pull back to get a better look at her and that blonde, wide-eyed innocence she’s faking just for me. “I’m being nice.”
“Yeah, well, eventually you’ll have to be a lot less nice. Face it, you’re going to have to dump his ass.”
“Mmm.” My dad floats through my mind. “If our lives weren’t so intertwined, I would have put Warren in his place a long time ago. Besides, there are plenty of girls who are after Warren. I’m sure he’s already into someone else. And, if he’s not, he’ll get the hint I’m not interested when I successfully manage to avoid him at all costs this summer.” I thump my finger over my lips. “Hey, didn’t you once say you thought Warren was hot?”
“Yeah, but we were like fifteen, and it was the night I got drunk off wine coolers for the first time.”
“Maybe you should take up drinking wine coolers again.”
My phone blinks to life. Damn girl all this time apart just makes me want you more. Tomorrow you’re mine.
“Told you.” Brylee shakes her head in disapproval. “You should try the truth. You never know, miracles might happen.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
I wish I could try the truth. But not any truths I might have to share with Warren.
It’s Ace and our truths that take over my mind and heart. Telling Ace that I love him would be the most amazing thing in the world, especially if he confessed to feeling the same.
It would be magic—a miracle.
Ace
Gavin backed a tractor behind the cabin and dumped a shitload of red fir into the clearing. I’ve been splitting logs since two, and I’m sweating like a hooker in church. My back hurts like hell as if Gavin parked that tractor right over it before he left.
I land piece after piece on the mauler and split the soft wood, easy as slicing butter.
“Ace Waterman.”
I turn around to find Brylee waving, making her way over with two large iced teas from the general store. A short-lived smile pumps from my lips because I know one of them is just for me.
“Thanks.” I take it from her and down it in a few quick gulps, sort of the way I imagine what being with Reese the first time will be like. The other night keeps running through my mind like a dream I was lucky enough to experience firsthand. “Grab an ax,” I tell her. “We’ll knock this out in an hour,” I pant through a smile. I’m teasing. I wouldn’t make Brylee lift a finger around here.
“I’ve got an ax to grind all right.” She purses those ballooned-out lips at me. She’s pissed to hell, and I know I’m in trouble. Brylee and I commuted to Collingsworth Community College all last year to save on gas. I know all of her pissed off expressions, and this happens to be the one she reserves just for me.
“Spill it.” I land on the bench and pat the seat next to me.
“A little birdie told me that you’re having yourself a real good time this summer.” Her sky blue eyes blink in disbelief. Reese and Bry are pretty tight, so I expected this on some level. Hell, I’m hoping the only bird around here is Brylee because, God knows, I’m hoping she’ll sing and let me in on how Reese might really feel.
“And?” I may have mentioned to Brylee on one or more occasions that I was into Reese. Heavily.
“Have you told her how you feel?” The wind picks up and tosses her hair into her face a moment. She hitches it behind her ears, and it trims her face like a haystack.
“Nope.” I swallow hard at the prospect. “Thought about it, but I’m not sure I’m ready to go there. Things are moving pretty good right now. She say anything to you?”
“Yes, and I’m embarrassed to repeat it.”
I give a little laugh. It takes a lot to embarrass Brylee.
“Look”—she slumps down—“just promise me that at the end of this crazy summer, you’ll tell her how you really feel.” She closes her eyes a moment too long.
“I don’t know. Reese was pretty adamant we stay friends. I’d hate to ruin anything.”
“It won’t ruin anything. You never know, she might have been dying to hear it all along.”
“Do you know something?” My adrenaline spikes at the thought of Reese dying to hear anything that remotely resembles that.
“I know Warren texted her while I was over there. He still very much considers himself a contender.” She glances down at my dust-covered chest, my dirt-stained Levis. “Don’t let him out charm you. Make this a summer she’ll never forget, and who knows? She might go insane and beg you to make her yours forever.” Brylee bears into me like there’s an underlying threat in there somewhere.
Making Reese mine forever—I like the sound of that.
“And if she doesn’t feel the same?” I ask, still inspecting her for clues as to how Reese might really feel.
“Then you’ll both move on—the end. Reese would never cut you out of her life. You and I both know that.” She rubs my back as if she’s already consoling me. “I just want to see you happy for once, and, sometimes, telling someone how you really feel is a step in the right direction. You never know, she might be right there with you at the corner of delirious and happy.”
Delirious and happy. That’s exactly how Reese makes me feel.
Brylee gets up and starts heading back down the dusty road before turning around. “Oh, and heads
up. Her Aunt Flo just came into town for a visit.”
“Who?”
“Her period.”
I crimp my lips. Did I want to know that?
“I prefer some chocolate, a warm blanket, and a movie on days like that.” She shrugs. “Just saying.”
“Chocolate, warm blanket, movie… got it.”
“Massages. Foot massages!” She drifts down the road. “S’mores!”
Aunt Flo, huh? That’s all right. I’m just thrilled to spend time with Reese, and, if I get to comfort her in the process, even better.
Guess I’m off to do some shopping.
In the evening while the residue of the sun still lights up the sky like a lamp, Reese knocks on the door.
“Come in,” I call from the kitchen. I’m just about done loading up an oversized picnic basket I dug out of the shed.
I step into the living room and find Neva glaring over at the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on—Reese Westfield. Her hair is slicked back in a ponytail. She has on a pair of grey sweats and her Yeats T-shirt. Her face is freshly scrubbed, and she looks about thirteen, and mighty fucking cute.
“Hey beautiful.” I wrap my arms around her waist and land a gentle kiss over her lips. Neva lets out a groan like she just witnessed a puppy massacre.
Screw Neva. What the hell does she care? She certainly doesn’t care about my opinion where it really matters. I told her months ago that the douche she’s dating is a loser, but she didn’t bother to listen.
“Fuck you both,” she belches it out like some demon on steroids.
“Um”—Reese cuts a quick glance to my sister—“hi yourself.” She starts in on a tempered smile as if she’s relieved our secret is out, at least at my house anyway.
“Ignore her,” I whisper. “I’ve got a surprise for you tonight.”
“Really?” Reese bounces on her toes. “I can’t wait.” She tilts her head to the side, gazing at me as if I told her I was going to take her to the moon. “You didn’t have to do that. You’re all I need.”