Kennedy realized that they were headed towards the beach.
Another song came on, he really seemed to like that one because he started to hum along to it as they went.
He settled the Charger into a spot near the edge of the beach's parking lot. The place was relatively empty and Kennedy had an inkling suspicion that he had planned for them to be there ever since he had picked her up.
Damien killed the engine and stepped out of the car just as she tried to figure out how to turn off the music on the phone.
Kennedy was surprised at her own surprise when she felt her own door open and saw a strong broad hand move into her line of vision. He was offering to help her out of the vehicle.
Ever the gentleman, he sure made it very hard for her to remember his dark nature when she was with him. Then again, that could have been his evil plan all along. Sobered up by that last train of thought, but not derailed in her amazement of her body's chemical reaction to his proximity, she took his hand and let him help her out.
Taking a concealed breath, Kennedy braced herself for the delicious shock that she knew would come from his touch.
Just as expected, the familiar current of feeling spread through her every nerve ending as their hands connected.
She stepped out of the car carefully. Her legs felt like jell-o and she was afraid that she would end up flat on her face in front of him. She let go if his hand as soon as her feet were steady on the ground.
He gave her that trademark raised brow and crooked smirk of his in response as if he knew the reason why she had let go so quickly.
Daring to look into his eyes, she silently asked again if his body reacted the same way to hers.
It was ridiculous, but Kennedy suddenly found herself wishing with all her might that it were true. For all the good that it would do them, she knew that they shouldn't – couldn't – be together in a romantic way. Still, it was as if she needed the reassurance of knowing that not being together would torture him as much as it would her.
The echoes of soft rock music reached her from below and she remembered that she had never turned off the music player on Damien's phone. She smiled sheepishly and handed it to him. He took it and instead of shutting it off, placed it with the music still playing inside his pants pocket and began to walk away.
He stopped after only two steps as if to wait for her, his head turned slightly in her direction. She followed.
They walked towards the shoreline, Damien leading the way with Kennedy just a few steps behind him. For a moment, she thought that he wasn't going to stop until he was in the water and then, just as he was about to reach it, he veered to the right and kept walking.
She silently traced the deep imprints that his booted feet left in the damp sand. Her senses danced to the strange, yet pleasant, collision of the smells of salt water and barbequing meat somewhere in the distance.
Why didn't she come to the beach anymore? She used to like it so much and she loved the sound of the waves breaking against the– hard surface?
She looked up to see Damien climb up the big boulder that divided their tiny bit of beach from the violent waters of the Atlantic ocean.
She took in the massive form of the uber rock in front of her with the three white crosses painted on the stone base by the locals in remembrance of those who'd died there. Seeing them made her think of her own predicament.
She wasn't as daft as to believe that she was impervious to harm. After all that had happened, she was sure that there were still more suffocating problems waiting just around the bend for her.
Those crosses were painted there to remind climbers about the terrible fate that might await them if they tried to go over its height.
Luckily for Kennedy, her tomboyish tendencies had led her to climb that same boulder countless of times before. The real problem was, did she trust her companion enough to be alone with him and the fifty foot drop on the other side?
She hesitated for a few seconds, then thought, what the hell? If he had wanted to kill her, she would have been dead. Heaven knew that he'd had an innumerable amount of opportunities already.
On that morbid note, she climbed up after him while picturing a hundred different ways to kill Kennedy on the way.
Ten minutes, one fall and two scraped knees later, she joined him as he sat on the topmost part of the rock contemplating the navy blue ocean that appeared to meet no end, it's deep color mingled with the grayish blue of the sky at the horizon line.
The dark blue color of the water reminded her of his eyes and just like that, she became acutely aware of his presence besides her as he took his phone out of his pocket and finally turned off the music.
Her eyes fixed themselves down on the spot where the waves crashed against the rock and sat there staring at it as if her life depended on it. Judging by her earlier thoughts, she would no doubt find that extremely funny if it weren't for the nervous train wreck that took place in her stomach.
"A dollar for your thoughts – Damien interrupted the relative silence that surrounded them and she looked at him – I embellished a bit, a penny seemed a tad stingy, what with the ongoing recession and all."
"Birthdays suck." She replied, muffling some laughter.
"Ah." He said knowingly.
"Sorry, it's tradition for me not to do any kind of festive thing on this date. But, today my usually dark birthday cloud just took a ridiculously evil turn." She made a mental recount of all that had gone wrong since the clock had struck twelve that morning, from finding the Stone Cold Austin look-alike in her house, to her mother's merry news about her parentage and every single kink and sore muscle in between.
"Is there anything else that you would like to share?” Damien's query was met by silence as Kennedy wallowed in her own misery.
“I stopped celebrating my birthday's as well. Come to think of it, my last acknowledged one was about fifty four years ago. My mother died that night." She took in that bit of information. She had just learned of what he was, but the thought of him not aging hadn't yet crossed her mind.
"And I will stop my pitiful self-pitying as of this moment." She went over what he'd said about his mom and decided that she would stop thinking that she had it rough.
"You should, it is pathetic." He said with his bug Kennedy smirk.
"Well, I will!"
"Good."
"Way to spare my feelings there, friend." She pouted with a feigned sniffle. Her stomach turned into itself as she realized what she had just called him.
"I try." He replied, either not seeming to mind or completely ignoring her slip.
"Try harder."
"How can I, when you leave yourself open to my every sarcastic remark?" That was very true. She was beginning to believe that she did it unconsciously just to keep him talking to her.
"In case you were wondering, I'm giving you the silent treatment." They both knew that it wouldn't last very long.
"What a relief." He mocked.
She snorted and turned away, unsuccessfully giving him the cold shoulder.
The call of a seabird attracted her sight back to the water. It was no longer blue, but colored in deep hues of red, orange and violet. The sun had begun to set. She heard some rustling and looked down besides her to find him struggling to take something out of a bulge that she hadn't noticed before in his left pant pocket.
Kennedy sent him a quizzical look but he signaled for her to wait. Finally, when his hand managed to extricate whatever it was that he had stuck in there, she watched as out emerged a yellow Twinkie, still in its wrapper. The poor thing had been squashed to an inch of its cream filled life.
He tried to open it by taking hold of both sides of the clear wrapper with the tips of his index finger and thumb. It fell out of his grasp and bounced off of a slight piece that stood out jaggedly from the rock. She almost laughed, so much effort to save the thing only to have it splatter on the sharp stone surface.
Damien recovered his golden sweet, his
cheeks turning a light shade of pink as she looked on, marveling at the enormous contradiction between what he was and how he acted. That bashful, awkward guy was a part of him that she hadn't gotten to see before, a way more vulnerable one than what she was used to and one that she liked a lot.
"Close your eyes." He said, finally looking up at her. She was a little confused to say the least, but obeyed.
With her eyes closed, she worked hard to focus her sense of hearing and figure out what he was up to. She heard more rustling, then it was muffled by the sounds of the waves crashing on the boulder down below.
The wind whistled by her ears so loudly that she failed to make out the rest of the noises that he made before he gently commanded her to open her eyes.
Her eyelids lifted to reveal his cupped hands in front of her face, the beaten Twinkie held safely within their grasp. What appeared to be a toothpick was stuck out of it, it's top end aflame. How it stayed lit up with all that wind blowing around was a mystery.
He looked at her expectantly as she studied the cradled sweet closely and felt a little stupid when she finally understood its meaning.
He was improvising. They were celebrating her birthday. She fought back the urge to cry for the hundredth time that day.
9. Tie Your Mother Down
"Make a wish." She looked dumbly between the makeshift candle and him as he waited for her to do as he said.
"But, you didn't sing, everybody knows it doesn't work without the song." She tried to hide a smile at the