Thanks, Mom . . .
He inhaled on the cigarette and let his eyes drift closed. He was silent for so long. I thought he was going to ignore me, so I took a step around him and went to move toward the massive accordion windows that folded in and opened to the stunning view of the Gulf. Wherever I ended up in this giant house, I was going to have an amazing view—not that it made up for being blackmailed out of my entire summer.
I froze when his hand curled around my knee, his rough fingers brushing along vulnerable skin on the back of my thigh. When I shivered, I blamed it on my wet shorts because there was no way in hell I would ever admit to being affected by Cable James McCaffrey. He embodied everything I never wanted in my life again, and he had no self-control. I looked down at the empty bottle of whiskey I still held in my hand and gave my head a little shake to get my thoughts back in order.
“My room is on the lowest level. It faces the pool. My dad’s room is on the top level. It’s the one that looks like a suite at Caesar’s Palace and smells like infidelity and alimony. I would avoid it at all costs in case STDs have suddenly become airborne.” He let out a sharp laugh that held zero humor and his eyes burned with black fire as he looked up at me under the fall of his wheat-colored hair. “I would suggest you take one of the rooms on the main level, that way you won’t be subjected to any of my other disgusting habits when I indulge.”
His eyebrows arched up, and he let go of my leg as he smirked at me. He was talking about sex. He wanted me to find a room in the house that had enough distance between where I was sleeping and where he was planning on doing anything but. I was there to keep him sober, not celibate. The idea of sharing a house with the types of girls who had driven me nuts in high school because they were content to be his playthings, made my teeth clench.
“Fine. I’m going to grab my bags and get settled in. It was a long drive from Loveless, and I didn’t think I was going to have to start with an intervention as soon as I got here.” I lifted the whiskey bottle and finished climbing the steps. “If you pass out on those stairs, I’m leaving you there, and I’m gonna laugh my ass off if you’re covered in seagull shit in the morning.”
He snorted and turned back to face the dark water, smoke billowing over his head. “Live my life swimming in shit, Reed. A little bird poop won’t kill me.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that, couldn’t think of anything witty or sympathetic enough, so I slipped through the dark and empty house and practically ran to my car. It was the only thing that felt familiar and safe in the current state of my life. I unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel; the urge to crank the motor and drive until I was anywhere but here was so strong that my palm hurt from clutching my keys so hard.
My phone was glowing with messages and missed calls. I’d left it on the dashboard when I first got to the house, but I regretted that now. I could have used the distraction while dealing with Cable. I told my dad I would call him when I arrived. He had no idea why I was in Port Aransas for the summer. I didn’t want to tell him that he was hanging onto his job by a thread or how Melanie McCaffrey had me over a barrel. He would quit in a heartbeat, but then he would struggle to find work if he stayed in Loveless, and there really was nowhere else for him to go. I was headed to California in a few months, and his entire family was in that small Texas town. So, I lied. Something I never did. I told him that Melanie had set up an internship for me over the summer that would help me not only earn money before college but would look great when I applied to grad school. He didn’t question any of it, and was, as always, so supportive and proud of every little thing I did. It made me feel awful.
Jordan had also called several times. She was dying for a rundown of the McCaffrey’s beach house, and she was chomping at the bit for an update on Cable’s condition. The rumor mill had started grinding away now that the news that he was out of prison and on parole was making the rounds. Jordan told me she had heard that he was horribly disfigured after the incident. She told me people were speculating his time in prison had been brutal and he had come out a changed man. Some were saying he had joined the Aryan Brotherhood while he was behind bars, and others were saying the feds had put him in witness protection and that’s why he wasn’t coming back to Loveless. I told her it was all ridiculous, but small-town gossip was a living, breathing thing, and without Cable there to deny any of the things being said about him, the stories grew wilder.
Needing a minute of normalcy, I touched the image of Jordan’s smiling face and called her back.
Jordan was as opposite from me as could be. She was dark where I was light. She was born to stand out when all I wanted to do was make my way unnoticed. Her parents were happily married and everything in her home centered on family. Her mom and dad had been together since they both went to Loveless High and neither one of them knew the first thing about having their family ripped apart by addiction and dishonesty. She was loud, outgoing, bubbly, and vivacious. She was friends with everyone, but I was the only one she kept close. She told me early on, when we first started hanging out, the reason she liked me so much was because I didn’t try to get her to like me. I laughed and told her it was because I didn’t want her to befriend me . . . I wanted to be left alone. But Jordan was persistent, and she didn’t have a mean or spiteful bone in her body, so there was no way I could resist her. We’d been inseparable since seventh grade, which was another reason I could gladly scalp Melanie McCaffrey. This was the last summer I had with my best friend before our lives inevitably split in different directions, and Cable’s mom had snatched that time away from us by forcing me to babysit her son. I was going to Berkeley; Jordan was staying in Loveless and learning all about her parents’ event planning and catering business.
Her older brother, Johnny, was supposed to take over when he graduated a couple years ahead of us, but he’d met some girl on spring break in Cancun and had followed her to Arizona. He shocked everyone by enrolling at Arizona State. Jordan, on the other hand, was made to show people how to have a good time, so she couldn’t wait to dive into learning the ropes of event planning. I was sad she was set on staying in Loveless. I wanted her to want more. But I understood why she was staying, and I couldn’t say I wouldn’t be more willing to stay if I had more to look forward to than watching my dad get older while things stayed the same as they were now.
I couldn’t bring myself to lie to Jordan when I told her why I wouldn’t be around for the summer. I owed her the truth, and I needed someone to commiserate with. She knew how I felt about Cable. She was also the only person who knew I was the one who had ratted him out to his mother about his drug use.
“OMG! I’ve been calling you all night. I thought you might have been abducted at a truck stop. Are you okay? How’s the house? Does it look like something from a magazine? How’s Cable? Does he look like a felon?” The questions came so fast and furiously I could barely keep up with her.
I tugged on my bottom lip and closed my eyes as I rested my head on the back of my seat. “The house is just as impressive as the one on the ranch. It’s big and has a wraparound deck. The beach is right off the back steps, and the water is within throwing distance. It’s all fancy. It reminds me of a luxury hotel. I’m scared to touch anything.” I blew out a sigh and ran a hand over my face. “He was drunk when I got here, Jordan. Trashed. He’s not supposed to be drinking or using any kind of narcotic. He didn’t even wait a day. This is going to be a disaster. I’m already annoyed and exhausted. This wasn’t how I wanted to spend my last summer before school starts.”
She made a sympathetic sound. “I know it wasn’t, but what can you do? If Cable is already on his way to screwing up, all you have to do is wait him out. Once he messes up, he’ll go back to jail, and you can come home and party with me until you leave for Berkeley.”
I rubbed my temples with my free hand and sighed again. “Yeah, but then I have to worry about Melanie firing my dad anyway because I couldn’t help her son. She’s desperate and unpredict
able. She might blame me if Cable fails.”
“You need to tell your dad what’s going on and let him handle her.” She’d been saying that since I told her about the ultimatum from Cable’s mom.
“If I can’t keep Cable on the straight and narrow for even a day, I might not have any choice. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I showed up. I knew he wasn’t going to be happy to see me, but I didn’t expect him to be three sheets to the wind already.” I also didn’t expect him to seem so broken and battered.
“How did he seem, besides hammered?”
I knew she was asking about guilt and remorse. Anyone else would be lugging around a truckload of both those things after the incident, but I couldn’t tell if Cable was any heavier emotionally than he was before that night. “He seems miserable.”
He really did. There was no light anywhere in those dark eyes.
She made another noise, and I could hear her typing on a keyboard in the background. “Well, I guess going to prison didn’t change much. He’s still drinking. I swear that boy’s face would crack in half if he ever smiled. It’s a total bummer you’re stuck with such a gloomy Gus all summer, especially since you’re in such a beautiful spot. You should be out chasing cute surfer boys while you’re there, not babysitting a grouchy, drunk, pain in the ass. This should be the summer you let your hair down and finally have some fun.”
She was always telling me I needed to loosen up and live a little. She never understood why I never went with her to parties or school activities. She swore I was missing out on making memories that would last me a lifetime. I tried to explain to her there was nothing about this time in my life I was interested in remembering. I had a destination in mind, and I was focused on the road, not the surroundings I was passing.
“I’ll take it as a win if I get through the next few months with my sanity intact.” No one had ever pushed my buttons as violently as Cable did. “One of these weekends you’ll have to grab Diego and come down for a few days. It won’t be the kind of fun you’re used to since the house has to stay an alcohol-free zone, but you can come play in the water, and we can go shopping and lie around in the sun.”
She hummed a little bit; the clicking of her keyboard halted. There was a long moment of silence that grew weighted and drawn out until she quietly told me, “Diego and I broke up a few days ago. I didn’t want to tell you because you were dealing with your own crazy stuff and packing up to leave.”
I gasped a little and sat up straighter in my seat. I wrapped my free hand around my steering wheel and asked, “What happened?” She and Diego had been together for the entirety of our senior year. She was smitten with him after their first date, and he treated her like she was his entire world. I couldn’t imagine what could have come between them and caused such a major break.
I heard a shuffle as she shrugged on the other end of the line. “Real life happened, I guess. I’m spending the summer working, and he’s going to visit his mom and brother in El Paso before he leaves for college. We’ll see each other for a week before he leaves for good. I wasn’t invested enough to work at keeping things together, and he wasn’t either. I don’t think he wanted to start college with his high school girlfriend holding on back home.”
I bit the inside of my lower lip to keep from blurting out, “I told you so.” What she was going through right now was exactly why I didn’t get attached or go out of my way to bond with anyone besides her. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”
She laughed a little bit, and I could practically see her wrinkling her nose at me. “How badly are you biting your tongue right now?”
I snorted. “Hard enough that it might bleed.”
She laughed again. “One of these days you are going to meet someone who gets in, Affton. They’re going to ignore all those ‘No Trespassing’ signs and all the barbed wire you have your insides wrapped up in, and they are going to get in so deep you won’t be able to get them out. You aren’t going to know what to do with yourself. They’re going to knock you so far off course there won’t be any finding your way back.”
That was never going to happen. After my mom, after the loss and confusion that followed, I made sure the path to my heart was pretty much impassable. I functioned by keeping my soft spots unreachable.
“Well, you found your way inside, so I guess anything is possible. I’m going to go make sure Cable didn’t suffocate in a pile of his own puke and try and get some sleep. If you’re flying solo, maybe you can get a week off and come down to visit me. I’d love to see you.” I’d love to see anyone who wasn’t Cable, but she was at the top of the list.
“I’ll see what I can do. Keep your chin up and don’t let that boy get to you.”
“Same. I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention and missed you going through a breakup. I’m a terrible friend.”
It was her turn to snort. “No, you’re the best friend ever. Cable McCaffrey is simply too distracting. He always has been. Check in with me periodically.”
I hung up and tapped the phone against my thigh.
She was right . . . he was distracting. I could still feel the touch of his fingers on the back of my knee and the heat from his body as he leaned into my side all solid and strong . . . and sloshed out of his mind.
He was distracting, and it was just one more thing I hated about him . . . or maybe it was the fact I allowed myself to be distracted by him that I hated. Hating him didn’t seem to be as important as it once was. Either way, it was going to be one looooong summer.
Cable
I NEVER MADE it to my bed.
The whiskey and melancholy proved too powerful of a combination to combat, so the farthest I managed to make it was to one of the reclining Adirondack chairs that dotted the deck. I woke up when a seagull squawked, and a family with several small kids who couldn’t wait to get into the water came screaming by.
My eyes felt like they were coated in sand and laced with fire. My mouth was dry, and there was a charming combination of something that tasted like ash and asshole on my tongue. Everything from my neck down hurt, and my shoulder throbbed from where it had been wrenched at an awkward angle all night long since I used my arm as a pillow. All my joints popped and creaked as I slowly got to my feet and tried to stretch out all the kinks. I cringed as my stiff, crunchy jeans scraped across my skin. I should have at least climbed out of them before I passed out. The saltwater had dried, and the residue was flaking off in white chunks with each of my slow, hesitant movements.
I scratched my chest and lifted an eyebrow as the mom, who was chasing after the noisy kids, stopped suddenly and gave me an obvious once-over. I snorted in amusement when her husband turned his head to see what was holding her up. He was loaded down with towels and toys. His look screamed that he wanted to drop all of it on the sand and walk away from her and the rugrats when he caught sight of me. He was doing the heavy lifting while his wife checked me out. I would be pissed if I was in his shoes. I lifted my hand in a jaunty little wave and heard the man swear loudly. It made me chuckle as I grabbed the t-shirt I’d never bothered to put on the night before and headed inside to find something that might knock my hangover back a few steps.
The massive wall of glass slid open easily and I squinted into the interior. I was not surprised at all to find my unwanted houseguest already up and ready to face the day. She was banging around the kitchen in another pair of frayed cutoffs and a t-shirt that had been black at one point but had faded to a much-loved gray. It had a picture of Johnny Cash flipping the bird on it, and in places, the white print had cracked and peeled away. I told myself not to look where the fabric was tied in a knot at the small of her back, exposing a swath of tanned, smooth skin. It was impossible not to stare as she stood on her tiptoes, opening all the different cabinets, and as she bent over to search through the fridge.
“Are you looking for something in particular?” I asked the question mostly because she gave me a look of utter disgust but didn’t say a word as I stumbled through the liv
ing room.
“Food. I’m looking for food. Haven’t you gone to the grocery store? What do you plan on eating for breakfast?” She slammed the fridge shut with more force than necessary and gave me a once-over that was nowhere near as appreciative as the one the mom had given me. “You look like shit.”
I rubbed a hand over my face; the stubble on my chin scraped against my palm. “I feel like shit, so that’s not a shock.” I rounded the massive, white leather couch in the family room right off the kitchen and flopped down across it. My dad would have a fit if he knew I was sprawled across the thing in dirty jeans and sandy feet. Everything the man possessed was for show and nothing else.
I closed my eyes and tried to rub some of the grit away. “My dad has a lady when he’s here.” He had several. “A woman named Miglena comes in every other day and stocks the fridge and the pantry. She makes enough food to last a few days, and she cleans up the house. She should be here sometime this afternoon.”
I cranked my head around so I could look at Affton as she made a strangled sound and glared at me from her place in the kitchen.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Her words snapped out. She was pissed . . . she always seemed pissed. I could tell she was ready to explode. “You’re too precious and perfect to get off your drunken ass and go to the store so you can feed yourself? You’re so delicate and fragile you can’t be bothered to pick up after yourself and keep this place clean for a couple months? You managed to land yourself a bottle of booze, but something practical like breakfast eludes you?”
She was scathing, and her sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a knife. She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at me as I tried to formulate a response.
“What are your plans for the summer, Cable? You can’t party. You won’t be able to work with the random drug screens that will be thrown your way, no boss will understand you having to run out in the middle of a shift to pee in a cup. You aren’t getting ready to go off to college. So, what are you going to do with yourself? Were you planning on lying around, feeling sorry for yourself while someone else takes care of you?” Her eyebrows shot up, and a furious flush stained her cheeks hot pink. “You’ve already lived your life that way and look where it landed you. I think it’s time you figure out how to be self-sufficient.”