I fall backward down the hill, no worse for wear.
“Reese?”
A car door slams just as I try to get up.
“Shit!” Ace hisses, scooping me up. “You okay?” He brushes the hair from my eyes, his face rife with worry.
“Did you just get here?” I look over at the Cougar parked right where I stumbled into it.
“Yes. I just killed the engine, and you came at me.” The muscles in his jaw pop with worry. “Don’t do that.” He peppers my face with kisses. “Next time the car might win.”
“If you’re here, then who’s—” I glance back at the boathouse.
“Is someone there?” Ace takes up my hand and leads us over to the window.
Their bodies have shifted just enough to expose the girl—and it’s none other than Neva. Her head moves in slow, long tracks. The guy’s khakis thankfully block the rest of the show.
“Neva?” Ace storms through the door as Neva and the guy she’s working part ways. He scoops up his shirt off the bed just in time for Ace to clock him in the face.
Shit. What the hell was she thinking? Why the hell would she be here if Ace was supposed to meet me?
I burst into the boathouse to get a good look at the guy that Ace is busy beating the crap out of.
That carpet of blond waves, those squinted eyes, that square jaw—I know this asshole all too well.
“Warren?” My voice echoes off the walls. I look to Neva, confused. If she wanted to hurt me, she picked a lousy way to do it.
Ace hustles him outside and tosses him down the steps. “Don’t show your fucking face around here again.” He slams the door shut and turns to glare at his sister. “Why?” he roars.
Neva tries to take a step around him, but he blocks her path.
“Tell me right now, why him?” He demands. “Why here, tonight?”
Neva glares over me, her eyes moistening with tears.
“It’s not like it was a one-time thing.” She takes a stiff step in my direction, the look of hatred ripe on her face. “We’ve been at this for years.” Her lips curve with slight satisfaction. “How does it feel, Reese? Knowing the person you’re with thinks you’re nothing but trash?”
“Warren doesn’t think I’m trash.” I cut a glance out the blackened window before reverting to her venomous stare. “He thinks you are.” I couldn’t help it. A part of me wants to hurt both Warren and Neva, and I don’t really understand why.
I bolt past the two of them and into the cool of night.
“Reese, wait.” Ace jumps down the steps and grabs ahold of my elbow.
The lake shivers in the background. The music is still at it, full tilt, across the way.
“Look”—my voice shakes as I break free from his hold—“I don’t know what the heck is going on but that was one hell of a birthday gift.”
“What?” He glances back at the boathouse as confused as I am.
“And your sister?” I say incredulous. “Why in the hell would you pull your sister into this? That’s just sick.” I take off running toward the lake and he’s quick to catch me.
“Reese, I swear I had nothing to do with what went on in there.”
I pause just shy of the boulders blocking our path.
“Then why did you ask me to meet you here?” I pant as I glance across the water at my birthday bash still raging away without me.
“I didn’t ask you to meet me here.” Ace grabs ahold of my waist, and I warm to his touch. “I have no clue what’s going on, and the last thing I would do is put Neva in that position with anybody. What made you think I told you to meet me here?” His breath plumes out in vapors.
“Neva.” I nod over at the boathouse. “She said your phone was dead, so she was relaying the message. When I got here I thought it was you and someone else.” I choke on that last half. “I didn’t see Neva.” I drop my head into his chest and let loose. I sob for what feels like weeks while Ace holds me under a violet-colored sky. I pull back and touch the long black streaks on his shirt left from my mascara.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t be.” He strokes my cheek as he draws me in. Ace tucks his finger under my chin and gently lifts me to look at him. “I would never hurt you. I swear to God, I had nothing to do with Neva or Warren being here tonight. Reese”—he studies my features with a patina of hurt in his eyes, but there’s something deeper in them that makes my heart race—“I haven’t been honest with you all summer, and I think there’s something you should know.” He swallows hard. A smile curls in the corner of his lips. “I know that the intentions of what went on between us was platonic, but that’s not how I feel.” He pauses and the night clots up with silence as if all of creation had bent its ear in this direction to hear what he might have to say. “I love you, Reese Westfield—with all my heart I do. There’s nobody on this planet for me but you.”
My mouth opens and closes. The noise from across the lake, the horror of witnessing Neva on her knees for Warren, it was all plaguing me, and, now, Ace has said something and I think I’ve misconstrued the words.
“I’m sorry.” I move in so close I can feel his warm breath on my lips. “What did you say?”
His grin widens as he takes me in under the angel wing moon.
“I said I love you.” He presses into me with those deep knowing eyes. “I would never in a million years hurt you, and”—he pauses to land a soft kiss over my lips—“there’s nobody for me but you.”
Tears glide down my cheeks in long, hot tracks.
The sound of glass exploding rocks us out of our love struck stupor.
“Shit.” Ace pulls me along as we race up the dirt trail to find Neva sobbing on the porch after what looks to be a self-induced tantrum. The glass from the boathouse window has been reduced to shards. “Let’s get her home.”
Neva shoots a look to us, and her eyes burn wild with fire. “I’m not going anywhere with that bitch.”
“You know”—I take a step back—“I think I’ll head to the party for a while.” I lean up on my tiptoes and press a kiss just shy of Ace’s ear. “Come to my room when you’re through.”
His dimples go off and my entire body dissolves under the leadership of his smile.
He lays his lips over mine, and I greedily take him into my mouth, kissing him as if it were the first time our lips ever met.
Brylee was right. Everything is going to be so much better now.
I float back to the party. I’m not sure my feet ever hit the ground. The only downfall is that I never had the chance to tell Ace how I feel. And I damn well plan on rectifying that in just a little while. I scan the blooming crowd for Brylee, but there’s no sign.
A pair of arms circle around my waist, and I spin with a smile.
“That was fast,” I say, and my smile glides off when I see Warren’s bruised face. “Shit!” I jump a little at the sight.
He tightens his grip over me. His lids hood low with a snarl locked on his lips as the stench of vodka washes over me.
“What were you doing at the boathouse tonight?” His demeanor hardens as his fingers dig into my waist. “Neva says you’re fucking him. Is that true?”
“You’re drunk. Let go.” I squirm out of his arms, and Warren reels me right back.
“Tell me right now,” he roars it over my face, making my skin vibrate in rhythm to his disdain for me. The veins on either side of his neck extend, thick as cables.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know in the morning, when I know for a fact you’ll remember it.”
I break free and run all the way home—right up into my bedroom to wait for Ace.
My father’s cologne swims through the air as a seam of moonlight bisects my room, exposing a small white rectangle lying on my pillow. I close the door and head over without bothering with the lights. My fingers glide across the cool envelope as my mother’s familiar handwriting greets me.
Happy 21th birthday, Reese!
I pet the soft skin of the
paper and pretend it’s my mother’s hair. She wore it long, and when I played with it, I pretended I was combing through silk.
The seal parts for me all the way across without a single nick to the envelope. I slip the letter out and float it between my fingers. In just a little while, Ace will be here. He said he’d gladly read them with me. How much better will it be to read this while nestled safe in his arms? I slip the letter back into the envelope and tuck it under my mattress for safekeeping, right along with the “special recipes” I’m more than ready to read.
The curtains to my room billow like ghosts as the night breeze sails in. I can’t wait for Ace to arrive. And the fact I get to share my mother with him on my birthday is the icing on the cake, quite literally.
Kennedy was wrong. I can have my cake and eat it, too. After all, it is my birthday.
I lie down and drift to sleep to the sound of people laughing, and shouting, music blaring in my honor from the lake.
Ace will be here soon. And it’s a dream within a dream.
Time passes as I writhe over my sheets lost with Ace in my nocturnal wanderings. I can practically feel his hot lips racing up my neck, his heated hands tracking down my hips then melting lower still.
“Ace,” I whisper as my lids flutter. The hands, the body pressed over mine is real.
The strong scent of hard liquor pulls me out of my slumber, and I struggle to get my bearings on reality. He yanks at my dress and tears off my underwear.
“Ace?” I pull back in a panic and knock into the headboard.
“Try again. It’s the other man of your dreams.” Warren plunges his tongue down my throat, and I twist my head away.
“Get off.” I push him up enough for the moonlight to gloss over his skin.
Warren’s shirt is off, and I don’t see any shorts on him either—he’s naked, and proud, and judging by the liquor store he ingested, totally wasted.
He lands over me like a stone and gathers my wrists high above my head.
“You think I’m just going to let you turn me down while you whore around with Waterman?” He says his name like it’s a joke. “I fucking hung around for you.”
“Get the hell off or I’ll scream.” I struggle to break free from his grip. “My dad is going burn you alive if he finds you in here.”
Warren clamps his hand over my mouth and works my dress up over my hips.
“You want to scream?” He works my legs apart with his just as my phone buzzes from the dresser.
“Ace,” I moan through his fingers.
“What’d you say?” His voice rises in agitation.
I can feel his hard-on grazing over my thigh and my entire body palpitates with fear. Warren tightens his hand over my mouth until he’s covering my nose, and I can’t breathe.
Shit.
The sound of my name being called softly from outside startles him, and he pauses from his moronic efforts.
I shake my head free from his grip.
“Ace!” My voice shrills through the room, and I hope to God someone, anyone other than Warren heard.
“You fucking little bitch.” His mouth slides over mine in a sloppy kiss, and I squirm until my torso falls off the bed. I yank my legs from underneath him and the rest of me sails to the floor.
“Shit.” He lands next to me as I crawl away on all fours. “Damn bitch.” He catches me by the waist as I let another cry rip from my lungs.
I knock the end table onto his back as I make a break for the window.
“Ace!” I scan the darkened patio below as I fumble with the screen.
Warren yanks me away, and I tear the screen right off the window as he slams me against the wall. I press my hands into his chest as he crushes against my body—his eyes alive with his demented lust.
“I thought you were waiting for me,” he grunts, pressing into me with all his strength. “You said you weren’t ready.” He hoists up my thighs around his waist, and my head slams against the wall. I can feel his hard-on graze against the most intimate part of me, and I let out a cry as a wave of nausea cycles through me. “Well I’m ready for you, bitch.” He crashes his mouth to mine, and I turn my face.
“Don’t do this.” It rips from me, broken and childlike. “You’re drunk. You’re not this person, Warren.”
He tries plunging himself into me and spears up my stomach instead.
The door bursts open.
“Reese?” Ace bolts over.
He plucks Warren off me, and I crash to the floor.
“Thank God.” I stumble to my feet.
Warren and Ace wrestle and throw punches in the dark, kicking and grunting until Warren slams Ace into the wall. Ace flips him over, and they both sail right out the window.
Crap.
Ace
We plummet through the air, and the look of horror on Warren’s face lets me know this is going to hurt. And, being the nice guy I am, it looks as if I’m about to break his fall.
My back slams into something soft and smooth, and I glide down a three-foot awning and onto an opened umbrella that carefully rolls me to the deck.
“Shit.” I marvel as I land on my feet.
Warren slams face first into the railing next to me and flips backward onto the concrete driveway below. I glance over the rail to see him lying with his arms and legs in the running man position like some cartoon line art of a dead man.
“Fuck,” I hiss as a crowd begins to gather. I hop over the railing and lower myself down to the concrete next to him.
“Ace!” Reese runs out of the house with her father and stepmother in tow, the two of them cinching their matching robes.
“Reese.” I catch her in my arms and squeeze tight. “Did he hurt you?” My lips land over her ear.
“No.” She swallows hard looking over at the crowd in the driveway.
Warren sits up with a blanket pulled tight around his body as Reese’s stepmother tends to the scrapes on his face.
“What happened?” Her father pulls her from my grasp. “Did those two get in a fight? Do I need to call the police?” He glares at me as he says it.
“Yes, you need to call the police,” she pants. “Warren broke into my room and attacked me.”
“What?” Her father repels, clearly stunned as if it couldn’t be true. “Warren was just probably trying to get you back to the party. He would never hurt you.”
“He did. And he’s naked in the event you haven’t noticed.” Reese clings to me even harder. “Trust me, he wanted to hurt me. And if it wasn’t for Ace, he would have succeeded.”
“What was Ace doing in your room?” His eyes widen with disbelief.
“He heard me screaming. Warren was trying to force himself on me. Do I have to spell it out?”
Her father darts his suspicions from me to Reese.
The McCarthy’s waddle over in their slippers. Great. Here we go. Something tells me I’ll be needing bail and an attorney of my own before morning.
“Look”—Reese steps into her dad—“if you don’t call the police, I will. I’m not putting up with anymore of Warren’s bullshit.”
“Reese.” Her father grits it out like a threat.
“I’m going to get my things.” She leans into my chest a moment. “I’ll be staying with Ace. He’s the one I care about, not Warren. It was never Warren.” She looks up at me with tenderness locked in her eyes. “I’m in love with Ace Waterman, and I always have been.”
Her stepmother crops up just in time to hear Reese’s declaration, and her face bleaches out. I’m sorry if it’s not the news she wanted, but in truth, it’s exactly what I needed to hear and it feels damn good.
I follow Reese up to her bedroom as she throws a few things in her backpack. She kneels at the foot of her bed and slips her hand into the mattresses, retrieving a small stack of letters.
“They’re from my mom.” She bows her head a moment before stuffing them into the bag. She gets up and lands her arms around my waist. A sad smile pulls on her lips. “Um, I gu
ess I sort of invited myself, but can I stay with you tonight? If not I can find Bry—”
I touch my finger to her lips. “Tonight and forever.” I land a gentle kiss over her cheek and we leave the Westfield house through the back, away from the noise, the accusations and one seriously jacked up Warren McCarthy.
I’m taking Reese home, and I never want her to leave.
The lights are all on at the cabin despite the fact it’s well past two in the morning. As soon as Reese and I walk through the door, Neva wastes no time in scowling at us before barreling down the hall to her room.
“What the hell?” Dad stomps out in his boxers with his BB gun at the ready.
Shit.
I fill him in on what happened, and he heads toward the door and cranes his neck out at the lake.
“I’d better get out there to see if you killed anyone tonight.” He shoves the BB gun in my chest with a wry smile. “How many times have I told you to keep your nose clean? But”—he looks to Reese and his features soften—“I’m glad you’re okay, Reese. I don’t want anyone forcing themselves on you. Excuse me while I throw on some clothes.” He heads back down the hall at a quickened pace.
“Come here.” I press a kiss over her head and lead her to my bedroom. I snap on the tiny desk lamp next to my bed in hopes she won’t see that my closet has vomited out into the four corners of the room. “You can take the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“No way.” She rubs her hands up over my back and settles her eyes on me with the look of genuine affection. “If you don’t mind I’d like to jump in the shower—wash Warren off—but when I get out, I want to find you warming the sheets for me.”
“For you? I’d set myself on fire to keep you warm.” I wrap my arms back around her waist and gaze down at her with a pinch of grief. “Tell me what he did to you.”
“Nothing.” Her lips press together, white as plaster. “He tried to kiss me, and I artfully deflected his efforts.” She glances away a moment. “Then he tried to, you know—and he couldn’t.”