Bloom (24 page)

Chapter 54

We get back
to the beach with barely enough time to change into our uniforms and head to work. James is still not over the conversation with Ryan. His smiles are slower to appear and quicker to fade, and there’s something troubled that lingers in his eyes.

I mess up an order and Brian gives me a ration of shit about it — away from James, of course. Ever since it came out that we’re dating, Brian’s saint-like tolerance for my screw-ups has disappeared entirely, but he knows not to let loose where James can hear.

I will miss the beach, and I’ll miss my co-workers, but God knows I will not miss waitressing.

Especially tonight. It feels like something is building, a sort of escalating animosity I can’t pinpoint but read as if it were written in marker above me. My father leaves a message on my cell, his tone unashamedly threatening. “Your mother told me you’re planning to give interviews. You need to call me before you say a word to anyone, understand?” A small bitter laugh escapes as I listen.
Too late, asshole.

I see the photo of Ryan and me. He’s got that cocky grin on his face like he’s about to get laid and his hand is on my back, but I’m stepping into the cab so it looks like he’s grabbing my ass. It’s bad. And James is in a pissy enough mood as it is.

Adding to all this, I’ve been assigned tables in both cocktail and the dining area, which means I can basically take my inadequacy as a waitress and multiple it by a factor of 10. I’ve got three tables in cocktail waiting to order, but I’m stuck off to the side while some dithering woman asks me to repeat the specials three freaking times.

“So what would you like?” I ask, attempting not to sound exasperated.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Whatever.”

My cocktail customers are starting to look around, irritated.

“So you don’t want anything specific?” I prod, as gently as possible given that I would now like to suffocate her to death.

“I don’t know,” she says. “What’s good?”

Food from other restaurants.

“People like the crabcakes,” I reply.

“Oh,” she says. “I don’t like crab. What are the specials again?”

So generally, I’m having such a shitty evening that it almost seems inevitable when Martin walks into the bar. Like a lit match near a gas spill. I haven’t seen him once since the balcony incident, and just remembering it makes my skin crawl. He smiles at me. An unnerving smile, as if we share a secret. He doesn’t approach me, however. He approaches the bar. And James.

I don’t hear their exchange. But he says something that makes James go rigid. And then he pulls my bikini bottoms out of his back pocket.

James’s face seems bled of color. He’s almost expressionless as he leaves the bar and comes to me.

“Can I speak to you in the kitchen?” he asks, curiously restrained.

I follow him into the back, behind the deep freezer, and then he turns, and his restraint is abandoned.

“Did you sleep with him?” he gapes, looking sick.

“Are you serious?” I cry. “I can’t believe you’d even ask me that.”

“Then how do you explain the fact that he has your
bikini
in his pocket and he’s telling me you left something at his house?”

“If I tell you I didn’t sleep with him, that should be enough for you,” I snap.

“I recognize your suit, Elle!” he shouts. “So I want to know what the fuck he’s talking about.”

I’m a little staggered. Does he really not know me well enough to realize that I would never, ever hook up with that sleazeball? There are no words for how much I resent the fact that he’s demanding an explanation, but I reluctantly offer it, expecting him to calm down when I finish. Instead he only looks angrier.

“So that pervert stole your bikini and you don’t even mention it to me?” he seethes.

“Yeah, silly me,” I reply. “I thought you might overreact, but look at how
well
you’re handling it.”

He storms out of the kitchen, and I follow, but I feel empty, as if his doubt has stripped something from me. I can’t believe he thought it was true, even for a second. I can’t believe he had to ask.

When I reach the bar, he’s already got Martin on the floor.

It takes Brian, Matt and Brooks — all three of them — to pull James off.

“How was I supposed to know she was your girlfriend?” he demands as he climbs up, pulling his shirt to his face to staunch the flow of blood from his nose. “You guys always have some slut leaving your house.”

Bam.

James hits him hard enough that he topples over a cocktail table.

The sense of déjà vu is overwhelming. I’ve been here before. I see the wait staff, the customers who know me, casting covert looks my way. Suspicious looks, as if I’ve really done something to be ashamed of. It’s exactly like the morning I was fired, except these people should know better. Do they really believe I could have cheated on James with
Martin
? Of course they do — people are willing to believe anything of you, as long as it’s bad. Even James.

I take off my apron, grab my bag and walk out the back door before James even has a chance to notice.

If he really loved me, if he really knew me, he’d never have asked me that question. Ryan was right. How were we ever going to last three years in different cities when he’s willing to believe I’d sleep with
Martin
?

I get to the house and take the steps two at a time. Ginny’s there, getting dressed to go out.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

I don’t owe her an explanation. She’d be just as likely as any of them to throw out accusations. “Nothing,” I say, pulling my suitcase out from the closet. I begin throwing my clothes in.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes.” I wipe my tears away though more replace them immediately.

“Why?” she asks.

“Because your brother is an asshole.”

She nods and leaves the room.

Well, that was easy.

I finish one suitcase and go under the bed for the next. I hear pounding on the steps, a heavy tread coming fast, and in seconds James is there, blocking the light from the hallway with his frame. “You’re leaving?” he asks in astonishment.

“Yes,” I spit out, wiping my eyes hastily, but unable to stem the flow of tears.

“Why?” he asks. He actually looks confused, as if he wasn’t just in the restaurant a half hour ago accusing me of cheating on him.

“You believed him,” I reply. “You believed disgusting Martin over me. Just like everyone else did.”

“No I didn’t,” he argues. “I was just … it took me by surprise is all. He showed me the bikini he said you left on his floor! There weren’t a lot of alternative explanations.”

“But once I told you I hadn’t done it you should have believed me, and you didn’t.”

“Of course I did!” he shouts. “I just wanted to know why. I wanted it to make sense.”

“I. Saw. Your. Face!” I shout back, my words punctuated by sobs. “And there was complete skepticism written all over it! You did not fucking believe me!”

“Yes I did,” he insists. “I was just freaked out. I’ve got Ryan telling me you’ll sleep with him by the end of next month, and that picture of the two of you is all over the Internet.” He notes my surprise. “Yeah, I saw it. Did you really think I wouldn’t? And then Martin has this thing of yours and … it took my brain a minute to catch up. God, you’re killing me. Stop crying.” He tries to pull me into him and I push him off.

“No,” I hiss. “You don’t get to be the person who comforts me anymore.”

He pulls me back to him and this time he doesn’t let me bat him away. “Yes I do.”

“Let me go!”

“No,” he says. “And you’re not going anywhere. You’re not going to let one little misunderstanding ruin this, because I’m not going to let you.”

I try to knee him and in one fluid motion he has me thrown over his shoulder like a sack of grain, and is carrying me out of the room. “Put me down, asshole!” I shout, my fists pounding against his back.

“You better not hit me like that on the stairs,” he says calmly, “or you’ll kill us both.”

I ignore him, thrashing and crying and hitting him the entire way. We pass the living room, pass Ginny staring at us with wide eyes. He kicks open his bedroom door and shuts it, throwing me on the bed and falling on top of me before I can even think about scrambling away. He pins me down, his hands at my wrists, his heavy legs holding mine.

“I’m not letting you drive off like this, Elle,” he says stonily. “It’s nighttime and you’re upset.”

“Get off of me,” I hiss.

“Are you going to stay?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not getting off of you.”

“You can’t hold me like this forever. And what did Martin mean, anyway, when he said there was always some slut leaving here? Have you had other girls here this summer?”

He smirks. “Oh, and now who’s the untrusting one?”

“Nice way to evade the question.”

“I haven’t been with anyone all summer except for you,” he says. “But let me ask you something. Let’s say I still got along really well with Allison, and we’re having some jokey call together just this afternoon and talking about seeing each other at school next weekend, and then Allison tells you I’ll be sleeping with her again by the end of the month. Wouldn’t you freak out a little? And right after that some girl walks into the bar with a pair of my boxers? Just how calm would you be in that precise moment?”

I narrow my eyes. “I’d be exceedingly calm.”

“You’re full of shit,” he says.

“Possibly,” I snap. “But you still shouldn’t have doubted me. We can’t survive three years in different cities if things already fall apart so easily.”

“And we also can’t survive if you’re going to flee every time we argue,” he counters.

“Well maybe but … ” His mouth comes down on mine, silencing my words — his tongue, his lips, all of it hard and relentless. I want to hold onto my anger but I can feel it dissipating, replaced by other things I want more. He’s still holding my wrists, and uses his teeth to raise my shirt, to pull at my nipples through the thin lace of my bra.

He moves both hands to one wrist and pulls my shorts off.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t mad anymore,” I pant.

“Irrelevant,” he says.

“I didn’t say I was going to sleep with you.”

“I don’t think I asked,” he replies. He unzips his shorts. A tremor runs through my whole body, listening to that sound, knowing what will follow it. He shoves my thong to the side and slides his fingers inside me, and I gasp against my will. “You’re soaked,” he pants.

He shoves into me, hard, and his groan is even louder than my own. His mouth comes back to mine, no longer to silence my arguments.

“You can’t just run off like that,” he grunts, pushing into me again. “We’re going to fight from time to time. Okay?”

“Yes,” I moan.

“And that had better be the last time you give some asshole your bikini again, too,” he says as he pushes into me.

“Fuck you,” I say, but it sounds more breathy than defiant.

He thrusts again. “What did you just say to me?”

“Fuck you.”

His strokes become hard and fast, almost punitive. He lets go of my wrists and grabs my ass, holding me aloft so he can push into me farther.

“Oh my god,” he groans. “I’m gonna come so hard.”

And with those words I seize up around him, too shocked by the suddenness and force of it to even think of stifling my cries, and he follows me violently.

When he finally collapses on top of me, his mouth goes to my neck, my ear, my mouth, and mine to his. “I love you, Elle,” he whispers. “I love you so much sometimes I feel like I can’t stand it, like it’s not even safe to want something so badly.”

“I love you too,” I tell him. “That’s why it hurt so much when you didn’t believe me.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling back to look in my eyes. “I’m so sorry I made you feel like that. But honestly, I did believe you. I really did. I was just pissed. I was pissed that he had a piece of you, for whatever reason, and it just made me stupid and jealous. But I did believe you.”

“Okay,” I sigh. “I’m sorry we fought. We only have a few days left. I don’t want to spend them fighting.”

“I’m not sorry,” he grins. “I learned some valuable information.”

“What information?”

“You like to be held down,” he says against my ear.

I blush. “And how exactly do you know that?”

“You got that look on your face you always get when you’re excited,” he says.

“What look?” I ask accusingly.

“The one where everything about you says ‘please fuck me’.”

“That’s not true,” I argue. “I don’t have a look.”

He says nothing, but his hand goes to my breast, teasing it into a hard point. His mouth moves downward, over my ribs, down to my belly button, and farther south, until his head is between my legs. He raises his head and grins at me. “Elle, do you think you have that look now?” he asks softly.

“Yes,” I moan.

“I’ve made my point,” he says, and he lowers his head again.

Chapter 55

It’s more than
a little embarrassing to emerge from his room the next morning. He’s not embarrassed at all. He’s just gotten laid six times in less than eight hours, and he looks pretty pleased with himself. You might even say he looks smug.

He holds my hand as we walk into the kitchen, and the laughter begins almost immediately. I release his hand to go pour coffee.

“I think there was some kind of break-in on the street last night,” says Max. For a moment I believe him, but when I turn he’s grinning broadly.

“Yeah,” says Ginny. “I heard all the screaming. It sounded like someone was being murdered.”

“You know,” says Max thoughtfully, “if that whole broadcast thing doesn’t work out, Elle, I think you could totally make it in porn.”

“And now,” says James, turning his angry brows toward the table, “you’ve carried it too far.”

“You deserve it,” says Ginny. “I’m going to be scarred for life. On the bright side, Mom and Dad will be relieved to hear you finally lost your virginity.”

Max chortles at this. “Right. James hasn’t been a virgin since the two of you were learning to read.”

His laughter gets cut off by a sharp look from James. “It’s only 9 a.m. and you’re already pissing me off,” he warns.

Ginny sighs dramatically and grabs Max’s arm. “Come on. Let’s give the lovebirds a little time to eat. God knows they probably need the energy after last night.”

She turns as they exit the room. “And just so we’re clear, the kitchen and that table are completely off-limits if you two can’t keep your hands off each other for an entire meal.”

I groan my embarrassment when they leave, but James is laughing silently, shoulders shaking as he tries to hold it in.

“Stop laughing,” I say. “It’s humiliating.”

“Not for me,” he says, encircling my waist and pulling me close. He plants a kiss on the top of my head. “What was that last bit Ginny said? I think she was suggesting the table or the counter?”

“Yes,” I giggle. “I’m pretty sure that’s what she was trying to say.”

He kisses me, a sweet kiss that slowly slides into one that is less sweet and more purposeful. “That would be completely hot.”

“Yeah,” I say a little breathlessly.

“Breakfast first or after?”

“I don’t really need eggs,” I say. “I’m not even hungry.”