Thundering Luv (2 page)

Jewel put her hand to her forehead. “Thanks a lot for your ‘after curse out’ advice. I knew he would take it bad. That’s why I hate doing it in person. It always is the same. First they say they love you, then when you don’t love them back, they get mean or hateful, which makes me wonder if they loved me or were saying it to get in my bikini bottoms.” Jewel didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. She was relieved that Matt was behind her but she still felt like she was on an island alone within herself. And to be honest, she wouldn’t want to be caught alone with any of her past boyfriends with only a bikini between them. Each and every one of them had been aggressive whenever they made out. She wondered if the deep, late night conversations her ex-boyfriends had done to attempt to show her how sensitive they were was a bunch of snot they read out of some guy magazine.

“I never have that problem. I’m usually the one getting dumped.” Amy snorted. “Oh, and guys are such wimps, they don’t even tell you it’s over. You see them with a new girl at school that they’re kissing up to. Maybe I need to stop being so patient with them. Most of them I should’ve dropped after the first date.”

Megs flipped over onto her stomach. “I’ve had it both ways, and when I break up with a guy, I avoid, go ghost, which is easy when you don’t date guys at your own school.” She picked up a spray bottle of water and squirted Jewel. “Why are you even out here? You don’t need to tan with that complexion. I wish I’d gotten your father’s genes.”

Jewel smirked. “No you don’t. Since he’s got a new wife, his genes are always out of the country.” Her heart sank thinking about her dad, and the half laugh she waved to Meg didn’t even come out right. She sounded like a wounded dog instead of the snarky comeback.

Amy came closer. “When was the last time you visited him?”

Jewel shrugged, blinking back stupid tears she refused to waste on the one guy she did love. “Three years ago, give or take. Who cares? Who’s counting? I don’t like his new wife and she doesn’t like me either. So what? He can have her.” Fighting hard against feeling sorry for herself, she locked her jaw and smiled to show how unaffected she was by her dad’s snub.

Her father’s dark brown eyes, thick hair and smooth chocolate skin were distant memories now; he never even sent Jewel pictures. She was ashamed that she’d searched his name on the internet, printed his pictures out, and put them in frames to make her friends think she had a good close relationship with him. She was such a phony.

Megs frowned, tapping her finger on her chin. “Your step-mom is a model or something, right? And he’s like some big time Vice President at a company in Europe.” Megs got all dreamy eyed. “Paris, I hope I can go there with you to visit him someday.”

Jewel started to grin. Her cousin always helped her get back in a good mood. “Yeah, when Richard, aka, Daddy asks me to visit, I’ll take you. It’ll be fun.” But Jewel knew he never would. His new wife and he didn’t have kids together. Sasha didn’t want crumb-snatchers, and it seemed that now her father was devoted to his new wife, he didn’t want kids—his Jewel—anymore.

“So, when’s your mom getting married?” Amy asked, beaming. “She always has the best weddings. You will invite me, right?”

Jewel closed her eyes behind her shades. “If you want to come. I mean like this is the fourth one, and they don’t last long. I don’t even want to go.” Truth was, she didn’t even know her mom’s latest fiancé very well. She’d stop being nice to her mother’s new boyfriends turned husbands after fiancé number two. What was the point? Her mom would divorce them before the end of the year anyway.

“I mean, how does she do it? Most ladies can’t even find one guy to marry them – my mom is still ‘dating’ my dad and can’t get him to commit. But your mom—” Amy inhaled loudly—“she’s like…hmm, like a husband whisperer or something.” Amy laughed.

Jewel lifted her shades to peek out at Amy. “So, are you saying guys and dogs are the same?” She jumped up and plopped down on Amy’s butt to tickle Amy’s feet. “You calling my mom a dog trainer?” she giggled.

Whack!
The volleyball hit Jewel on the forehead with such force she fell backwards. Jewel’s foot hit’s Meg’s drink and red juice splattered all over her white bikini. Amy’s butt went upward to knock Jewel onto the hard deck. Falling back, Jewel’s head hit the wood floor, knocking her shades off.

Jewel tried to catch her breath. Pain and anger became one as she blinked against the glare of the sun. Her eyes met the dark brown ones of a laughing boy standing above her. A gorgeous guy, but who cared, he’d hit her so hard with his stupid ball, she was seeing stars.

“You! You! Stupid, don’t you know how to hit a ball?” Jewel struggled to get up, and pushed the boy’s tanned hand away. His unruly long black hair, dark eyes, and full lips cocked up in a smirk made her angrier.

“I’m trying to help you.” His baritone voice sounded like he was fighting against laughter, and he grasped her hand. His firm muscular shaped arm flexed as he bent to help her.

Jewel slapped it away. “I don’t want your help. You ruined my bathing suit and,” she touched her forehead where a small lump was forming, “put a knot on my head!” She pushed at him and stood up, grabbing the volleyball off the ground. His yummy face taunted her when his eyebrow went up, questioning her motive. Jewel aimed the ball at his head and missed.

He ducked. “What was that for?” His laughing eyes turned stormy.

Waving her hand at him, she stepped forward. “Idiots who hit girls with their…” Jewel slipped back, and tried to get her balance, but the last thing she remembered was him smirking at her as her head hit the floor again.

Colin couldn’t believe he was carrying the infamous Jewel Depree. The self-identified diva didn’t even recognize him. Why wasn’t he surprised? She never noticed him at school, not even when he was standing behind her ex-boyfriend, his cousin, Tank. His cousin was the Lacrosse face-off champ at the school, and Jewel’s 10
^th
grade conquest. Tank got kicked to the curb and dumped after three months of them dating. Truth was, after Colin witnessed the shame and horror of her last few breakups, he considered Tank got off easy.

“Ouch,” Jewel murmured. She winced in his arms, and still was unconscious. Her gold unruly wavy hair was soft against his arms. Her complexion was several shades deeper than his and from what he knew about her, she didn’t get it from a tan. Jewel’s skin appeared sun kissed all year around. And the scent, he tried not to inhale but the distinct smell of peaches and cream tickled his nose. He closed his eyes against the tightening in his chest, then breathed in the fragrance of her once more.

“Which way to her room?” Colin asked Amy, whose face was flushed with concern. Typically the type of girl he liked to date, with a light voice and gentle nature. Nothing like the
Jewel
in his arms. But there was no one like Jewel, was there?

“Uh, right here. You think she’ll be okay?” Amy smiled shyly at him.

He didn’t spare Amy a glance as he laid Jewel on the double-sized bed in the Island decorated room. Colin barely had a time to study the place before Jewel started wrestling back and forth on the bed. Her face appeared almost angelic, but Colin knew from experience she was a witch. A stuck-up cheerleader who threw her ‘sugary’ hellos around like she was trying to win some Miss Congeniality prize of the year. Being beautiful, snobby and talented wasn’t enough; the girl was the top of her class in everything. He’d occasionally observed Jewel and her cheerleading entourage in school as she sang the latest top-listed radio songs and got her friends to join in as they prepared for their practice.

His friend Jake rushed in behind him. “I hope she’s okay, because I didn’t mean to hit her with the ball,” Jake commented. “I’m sorry she blamed you, Colin.”

Colin shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to hang around. I’ll stay with her till she wakes up. Since I’m the one she tried to attack,” he laughed. Colin couldn’t help it. Since she’d seemed to calm down and was humming in her sleep. A small dimple appeared on her cheek and she twisted her body so she spooned his hips as he sat on the bed.

“Cool. Thanks for taking the rap for me. It was a stupid plan.” Jake slapped Colin on the back and left.

Colin moved so Jewel was no longer wrapped around him. His hand itched to adjust her neck on the pillow, but he thought better of it and put his hand on his knee.

Amy walked over to stand next to him. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here when she wakes up. She’s been in a bad mood since she broke up with her boyfriend.”

Colin lifted an eyebrow. “Who?” Then he waved a hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t care anyway. I want to apologize and get it over with.” That was the Jewel he knew from school. The Ice Princess, or Queen of Hearts they called her, since guys lined up to give her their hearts and she usually ripped them in two before stomping on them. Colin had to watch his cousin destroy everything in their room into pieces after she’d broken up with him by sending him a picture with a sign saying, “I’m sorry but it’s over.” Priceless. Even though, if he was honest with himself, he’d found Jewel to be an enigma.

Every time he’d passed her in the hallways at school, he got a shock of electricity in his chest. He didn’t know why, because he didn’t see anything about her that made him want her. Up until this year, he’d been in love with Summer, his girlfriend of two years. It didn’t stop him from seeking out the ‘break-up princess’ in the hallways though. Jewel always seemed to have other girls around her, not only her cheerleading friends either. It almost appeared to him that she worked at keeping her friends laughing with all the jokes she made, not to mention the times she’d used those same girls as a backdrop for some of her over-the-top boyfriend ‘dump’ tricks to the jocks in the school. He’d heard she’d even had a blog that she posted her creative break up tactics to share with other girls. Colin didn’t believe that story on her, but after her blow up at him earlier, it just might be true.

“I’m telling you if she wakes up and sees you there, she’s going to flip out,” Amy insisted. “If you want to apologize, we’ll be at the boardwalk later today. Maybe then if she’s not still mad at you, she’ll listen.”

Colin shouldn’t care if Jewel accepted his apology or not. But he did. Even though he wanted to despise her, something in him couldn’t. Maybe because she was beautiful, even with the splotchy birthmark on the side of her neck that she tried to cover up with her hand even in her sleep.

Jewel snuggled closer to him, her arm snaking to rest around his hip. Colin tensed. It tingled. He knew he had to get out of there.

“Cool, catch you later.” Colin hurried out of the room and down the blue paneled hallway to get as far from Jewel Depree as he could.

Colin watched Jake and Chad toss a football on the boardwalk. They always played the same game to get the attention of the ladies. Well, earlier that day it hadn’t worked, and Jake made a joke that he could pop the volleyball over to the girls sharing the beach bungalow with them. Thanks to Jake’s lack of skill, instead of hitting the volleyball on the deck to give Jake an excuse to say hello to the girls next door, the incident got Jewel hurt. The duplex beach house attached to Jewel’s was owned by Jake’s father. Every summer, Jake invited Colin to come with them. It was the best gift his friend could ever give him. It got him away from his distant family and made him more relaxed, which was something he never felt at home.

Leaving his aunt’s house to stay with Jake for the summer also gave him some time with his friends from his old neighborhood. It had only been hard to be away all summer long last year when he was dating Summer. He’d missed his best friend and Summer worked hard to talk her parents into bringing her up for a few weekends. But that was over now, she was gone. Moved out of state. Even though they talked on the phone, they both knew a long distance relationship wouldn’t work.