Breaking Even (33 page)

He smiles as he brings me closer to the pool, and his arm goes around my waist. “You’re the only girl who doesn’t look like an idiot. You came dressed for a pool party.”

I really love him.

“I still don’t know if—”

Before I can finish that sentence, I’m being hurled into the pool by his strong hands, and a squeal falls through my lips before I suck in chlorine-tainted water.

***

RYE

I’m laughing when she surfaces, and her beautiful, mean little scowl turns into that smile that’s only meant for me—the smile that changed everything.

I dive in, and swim under the water to her barely covered body. She came to torture me, and I know it. Even though she thought she was meeting someone else, I know this bikini was intended for me. And every intention I originally had for this evening seems to want to be delayed.

I don’t want to waste tonight with the heavy shit. I want to enjoy this—her smile, her eyes that are glued to mine, and her legs that are wrapping around me.

“So is this a first date?” she asks.

She wants to know what’s going on, but she’s still not pushing me. Underneath her smile is uncertainty. She deserves to push me all she wants.

“I think this is more like our eighteenth date or something,” I say teasingly, and she looks down with her shy grin that I rarely see. I like that smile, too.

Her arms stay around my neck as she keeps her body flush against mine. It feels perfect and right—so damn right.

My lips brush hers just barely, but she refuses to let that be all she gets. And I can’t help but smile when she takes control and kisses me hard, pushing her sweet tongue into my mouth and giving me exactly what I’ve dreamt about for so long.

I kiss her back, but when her sexy little sounds kick in, I have to stop. I’m going to damn burst in the pool if I don’t.

I break off the kiss to push my forehead to hers, and she loosely hangs on to me as I walk her around the pool. We can both feel the eyes on us, but I don’t care. Right now, it’s just the two of us because nothing and no one else exists.

“Where did you want to go after this?” she asks when I start walking out of the pool.

She shivers against the wind, and I walk over to the table where I have two oversized beach towels. But I carry her all the way over there, not really giving a damn if anyone thinks it’s ridiculous.

When I sit down, she’s still in my lap, and I wrap a towel around her body before hugging her to me. To create some heat through friction, I rub her back with my hands, sliding them against the towel.

“We can go now if you want to. I know you pretty much just got here, but—”

“Let’s go,” she says while grinning.

Her hair is wet, her face is glowing, and her sweet body is all mine for the taking. I wish I could just take her home right now.

“Let’s go,” I echo, trying not to sound as nervous as I am.

Ash glares at us when she overhears, considering the party is just starting, and a lot of planning went into the Luau portion of it. But then she shrugs instead of commenting. I suppose she understands.

After we bid everyone an early goodnight, Brin grabs her purse and we head to my Range Rover. She shivers a little, and I open the door for her to climb in.

As soon as I reach the driver’s seat, I’m pulling a shirt over my head. It’s dark, so this is probably going to creep her out, but it needs to be done.

“Where are we going?” she asks excitedly.

I have a feeling that excitement will be gone soon. Very soon.

“You’ll never guess,” I say while reaching over and taking her hand as I pull out of the driveway and head down the street.

When she squeezes my hand, I take an easy breath. There’s that peace. She’s the reason it’s there.

***

BRIN

When we pull up to the dark, creepy cemetery, I look at him like he’s crazy. This is not a good prank.

But the tension radiating from his body makes me realize this isn’t a joke. What’s going on?

“Rye?” I prompt, reaching back over for his hand. “What’s this?”

He looks over at me, and his lips thin. Finally, he takes a breath and pulls me toward him. I climb over the center piece dividing us, and my towel-wrapped body comes to rest sideways in his lap.

I take both sides of his face in my hands, and press a soft kiss to his lips, trying to do whatever I can to rid him of the nervousness he has. It has me worried.

“This,” he says against my lips, “is me giving you the answers you’ve wanted. If you don’t want to go in there right now, I understand. We can wait.”

I already get creeped out at night, but I’m not about to refuse him. This is apparently some big revelation, and I’m not going to risk him losing his nerve.

I was hoping we’d be going to a candlelit house with rose petals everywhere. And then I thought he might say he wanted to be in a relationship. I didn’t have unrealistic expectations of him admitting he loves me. However, I was willing to accept whatever he was going to offer, because he’s worth it.

But a cemetery? I didn’t expect this at all.

“Do you have a flashlight?” I ask hopefully.

“I have two of them.”

He reaches into the back seat and pulls out the first one to hand to me. Then he grabs a jacket and hands it to me. It wasn’t all that cold until I got wet. Now the night wind isn’t nice.

I take the jacket happily, and he grabs another flashlight. When he opens his door, he helps me down first, and I wait for him to get out before I glue myself to his side.

Every time there’s a sound, I fight hard not to squeal. This is by far the creepiest thing I’ve ever done, and I have no idea why we’re here.

“I didn’t think this through,” he says nervously, looking down to the towel still attached to my waist and his jacket that is trying to swallow me whole. “We can do this tomorrow.”

This isn’t exactly cemetery-after-dark attire, but I have a feeling this has something to do with his mother. There’s no other reason we would be here. He’s never said that she was dead, but I assumed she was either dead or out of the picture. Tria finally explained that she died a long time ago, but she didn’t elaborate because I shut her down. Given our destination, I could have easily assumed it’s the former of the two even without knowing.

Tria offered to tell me everything she knew about him, but I refused. I was hurting at the time, and there wasn’t anything that I wanted to know from anyone else. I just wanted Rye to tell me. Now... Maybe I should have let her tell me what she knew.

I have a feeling he’ll never do whatever he wants to if we leave now. So, putting aside my fear of dark cemeteries, I take his hand and point the beam of my flashlight toward the gate.

“I’m ready when you are,” I say, not looking at him.

He starts walking, keeping my hand in his, but then he stops abruptly and turns before he crushes his lips to mine, soaking me in as though he’s seeking courage. I think.

I don’t know what he needs, but I try to give him whatever it is.

“Come on,” he murmurs against my lips, his body still tense as he rethreads our fingers together and leads the way.

Dark, scary, and quiet enough to make every unseen rustle of motion sound ominous—it’s like a scene from every horror movie ever made. But I trek on, following close to him as he navigates the way.

He only gets tenser the deeper we go, and I keep waiting on a wolf to howl at the moon right about now. Fortunately, no such thing happens—mostly because wolves aren’t native to this area.

When he stops, I stop, too, and he pulls me beside him as he shines his light on a tombstone.

Marie Jenna Clanton

Loving Mother and Wife...

He’s brought me to his mother’s grave. But... why?

“I don’t know why I felt like I had to explain this here, but for some reason... it just seemed easier to do it this way.” He kneels and moves aside the dried flowers that rest on her grave. For some odd reason, there’s a coffee cup next to the tombstone.

“They’ve apparently not cleaned up yet,” he mutters to himself, but I don’t question him.

“This is my mother,” he finally says after a suffocating amount of silence.

What am I supposed to say? I don’t want to ask what happened. She died several years ago, according to the date on the tombstone and Tria, so condolences would seem contrived. I don’t know what to do. Nothing seems sufficient, so I just stand quietly and wait.

“It’s no secret that she died. But there are only a few people in Sterling Shore that know
all
the details, and not just parts of them. Six to be exact. My old therapist, my father’s therapist, my father, Wren, Ethan, and me. Now you’ll be the seventh.”

He snorts derisively before adding, “Usually the number seven is considered lucky. Sorry I’m about to ruin that for you. And honestly, you’re the only one who is going to know the entire story besides me—all that I can manage to divulge.”

He goes quiet again, as though this is actually painful for him to do. I start to tell him we can do this some other time, but he breaks the silence again before I can.

“She died when I was almost eleven. She was sick—very sick. Since no one knew she was sick until after she died, she was never diagnosed properly. Theories have spawned over the years, but it’s nothing more than conjecture based on her symptoms. You’d be surprised at how many mental illnesses carry different aspects of her symptoms. Everything from severe depression to bipolar disorder to schizophrenia have been mentioned. But no one can say definitively what she suffered from.”

Now I really don’t know what to say. None of this is making sense, even though I appreciate him opening up to me.

“I’m sorry,” I say lamely, leaning over to kiss his arm.

“I was the one who found her,” he says suddenly, ignoring my pathetic attempt to comfort him as his body almost trembles. “She went to the bathroom, climbed into the tub, and she used a knife from the kitchen to open her veins.”

Oh dear God. My heart, head, and stomach all constrict and roil in unison. He found his mother dead when he was a kid?

“Rye, I—”

“I remember falling,” he says, interrupting me again, saying the words in a rush like he’s trying to get it out while he can. So I hold back anything I want to say to comfort him as he continues.

“I slipped on her blood, and I hit my head on the edge of the tub. It knocked me out, and when I woke up, I was covered in her blood that had kept flowing out on top of me. I was scared, and we were home alone. She always sent them away. Always. Every time he was gone, she’d send the staff away. So I was alone and didn’t know what to do. I just remember her being so cold and pale. Her skin was like ice. And no one heard my screams for help because we were alone.”

I’m really trying to be strong so that he doesn’t feel the need to comfort me when I should be comforting him, so I hold back the sob that rests on the tip of my tongue. But my tears burn my cheeks as they roll out, refusing to stay dormant.

“How long were you left with her?” I ask in a hoarse whisper that betrays my attempt to sound strong.

“Seven hours after I found her. My dad came home that night, and I was huddled in the corner of the bathroom where she was. I remember rocking with my knees tucked under my shirt and my head tucked down. But everything is such a blur. Everything was so red, including me.

“I don’t remember him coming in, but I remember him holding me. I remember him yelling something to someone I couldn’t see. And I remember all the sirens and police who came, but no faces or actions are in those memories. It’s all a big... it’s fuzzy. And honestly, I don’t want to remember it any more clearly than what I do.”

I want to ask so many questions, but I don’t. He takes a breath, pausing to keep himself in control and doing what he can not to break.

“She killed herself because of the disease,” he says, reciting it as though he’s trying to convince himself. “She would be so happy some days. On those days, I was happy. I bring her a picture every year for those memories. But the bad days... She didn’t do it often, only when he’d be gone for longer than five days at a time. He’d leave or one of her boyfriends would break things off, and she’d hit that lowest point that did the worst things to her mind. I became a problem—one she couldn’t deal with on those days. Or maybe she was just sane enough to worry about what she might do if she didn’t hide me. So she’d lock me in the closet until dad called to tell her he was coming home.

“She always apologized, and she’d cry and rock me in her arms. But for two or three days at a time, I’d be hungry, scared, thirsty... The worst was the last time she did it to me. Eight days. I was dirty and had to use the corner of the closet as a makeshift bathroom. She slid some water and food through the door. If she hadn’t been lucid enough to do that, I would have probably died. Then she made me clean up my mess in there when she finally let me out. I hated her. I hated her so much.”

He chokes back a sob and turns away from me, but he keeps holding my hand. I never imagined this, and my heart is breaking. I want to say the right thing right now, but I have no idea what that is.

After a moment of recomposing himself, he clears his throat and continues.

“She’d say she loved me, and I fucking hated to be loved if that’s what it meant. My father would tell me he loved me, and I fucking hated him for his love if he was willing to leave me alone with her. And she’d cry and tell me that she loved him, that she missed him. That was usually what her bad days were like. She didn’t always lock me up. Those were just the worst times.

“Usually she’d stay in her bed for days at a time. The covers would stay over her head. She never hit me, or yelled at me, or even threatened me. It was always a calm process when she hid me away. It was only wild and out of control when she’d hurt herself. She hurt herself a lot more than she ever hurt me. And she always lied about how it happened.

“I kept her secrets. She’d always beg me to keep her secrets, and I did. But I honestly thought everyone else saw it. She’d scream and yell at my father. Once she even went after him with a knife. He called her crazy, but he didn’t realize she was actually mentally ill and needed help. With a case as severe as hers... She needed a lot of help. And medicine. And supervision.”