Untouched: a Cedar Cove Novella (7 page)

“Hi,” she waves
awkwardly. “I'm sorry, we were, uh...”

There's silence as we
all fill in the blanks of what we've been doing.

“You over
twenty-one?” Larry demands.

I sigh. This is what
happens when you give a failed football star some power: they want to
throw it around any chance they get.

“Relax. She wasn't
drinking.” I answer for Juliet. “And you don’t have to get your
panties in a twist. I'm taking her home now.”

I check Juliet's got
all her clothes back on, and then take her hand. I start up the dunes
towards the parking lot, but Larry steps in my way.

“I don't think so,”
he stops me. “You’ve got her in enough trouble tonight. I’ll
get her back to her parents.”

Larry stares me down,
waiting for me to bail—or for me to try and tell him no. For a
split second, I think about ignoring him and his uniform, and
marching Juliet right on past, but Larry reads my mind.

“Just try.”He tells
me with a smirk. “I’ve got a drunk cell at the station with your
name all over it.”

“I’ll be fine.”
Juliet says quickly. She puts a soothing hand on my arm. I don’t
even realize until I feel her touch that my muscles are tensed and
ready for a fight. “I promise, my parent’s will be fine.” she
says again. “What can they do? I bet they never even noticed I was
gone.”

I force a breath out
and stand down, even though everything in me is screaming not to
leave her alone. “Text me when you’re back,” I tell her, taking
her phone and programming my number in.

She sends me a final
shy smile, and then follows Larry back to his patrol car, but I don't
head home like I was told. I get in my truck and drive behind them,
following Larry’s car all the way back to her house.

After everything we
shared tonight, I have to see her home. I need to know she’s safe.

I leave the engine on
idle down the driveway, watching as Larry takes her up to the front
porch. The lights are already on, and when the door opens, her mom
rushes out, looks panicked. She hugs Juliet tightly and drags her
inside, but her dad stands, kidding around with Larry for a moment, a
drink in his hand. He offers one to the deputy, but Larry shakes his
head, and walks back to his car.

I wait until the lights
go out inside, and my phone buzzes with a new text.

Safe and sound xx

I exhale.
Sweet dreams,
I
write back, and finally turn the truck around and head for home.

Back at my place,
there's nobody waiting up. The house is dark when I let myself in,
and I'm halfway to the closet I'm using as a room when I see mom’s
door is open, and the bedroom is empty inside.

She didn't come home
again.

I sink to the floor in
the hallway and lean my head back against the wall, staring at the
dark room and the unmade bed, and everything it represents.

I've slumped here
before: waiting for her to stumble home. I don’t know how many
nights I’ve spent in this exact same spot, cursing her, and god,
and anyone else I can think of for all her fucked up failures. It
burns at me through the long night, all the guilt and failure. A
heavy fire that never seems to die away.

But this time, it
doesn't hurt so much.

I can still feel
Juliet's soft touch, still taste the sweetness of her kisses. My
salvation. Because now I know there's her goodness in the world, the
rest of it doesn't seem like such a bleak wasteland.

You're a good man

Me? A good man? I could
laugh, if I didn't hope so desperately for it to be true. My whole
life, nobody’s seen anything in me but a waste of space, a bad
influence.
That Emerson Ray,
they say.
He didn't even know
his daddy, but the man was no good. And you know about his momma.
That boy will sure enough wind up just like them one day.

You hear something long
enough, you start believing its true, until soon enough I figured,
why not prove them right? It was in my blood, after all. Poisoned.
Worthless. If they thought I was past saving, then I wouldn’t waste
my breath trying any other way. I would fight and screw and do what I
damned hell pleased.

Except... It wasn't
what I wanted, I see that now.

All I wanted was her.
Someone to look at me, and see past my bullshit. Someone to think I
was worth a damn.

Juliet.

I catch my breath, just
thinking about her. The way her body leapt to my touch, the innocence
to her passion. I've fucked a hundred girls, but I've never watched
them like that: stared into their faces as the feeling flooded over
them, pushed them higher just to know the look in their eyes as they
fell. It was something precious, sharing that moment with her. Holy.

I hear a creak in the
hallway and look up. Brit has come out of her room, yawning, in PJs
and an oversized shirt.

“What are you doing?”
She frowns at me.

“Just thinking.”

“Don't break
anything,” she quips, stepping over my outstretched legs to go
through into the kitchen.

I pull myself up and
follow her. She opens the cabinet, and pulls down a box of Oreos.
Gets milk from the fridge. I fetch two glasses, and we sit around the
table in the light from the porch outside.

“Can't sleep?” I
ask.

She shrugs.

“Mom leave a note?”

She shakes her head.

We dunk cookies in
silence for a moment.

“So how's the girl?”
Brit asks.

I play dumb. “Which
girl? You know I’ve got them in every state, baby.”

She snorts, and tosses
a chunk of cookie at me. I intercept, and shove it in my mouth. “The
one from here,” she says.“Julia.”

“Juliet.” I correct
her.

Brit smirks. “See, I
knew you liked her.”

“I didn't say that.”

“
Juliet
.”
She mimics me, drawing out the word. “Please, you don’t have to
say a thing, it's written all over your face. Emerson's in looooove,”
she adds, singsong.

I glare at her. “How
old are you again?”

Brit laughs. “So when
do I get to meet her? With her clothes on, I mean.”

Now it’s my turn to
shrug. “I don't know...” I say slowly. “The party got busted,
Larry took her home.”

Brit pauses. “She's
got the kind of parents who care?”

“About this?” I
remember her mom’s face, seeing Juliet escorted up the front steps
by a deputy sheriff. “Yeah.”

“Must be nice.”
Brit says, and the wistful sound in her voice hurts me like hell. I
give her the last cookie.

“It won't always be
like this, you know.” I tell her softly.

“Yeah,” Brit sighs.
“Maybe one of these days, she won't come home.”

The truth sits between
us, the elephant in the room. We’ve both thought it, how could we
not? Equal parts guilt and hope, shame and anger.

Because it would be so
much easier if, one of these nights, mom didn’t come home. If she
could just stay gone. Then we wouldn't go through this cycle over and
over again: Brit waiting for her to shape up and be a real mom, and
me hoping for... Hell, I don’t even hope anymore, I lost that a
long time ago. But I'm left to clean up the mess, every time, and
when I think about a version of my life without that – without
waiting for the call to come get her, wondering what she’s gone and
done this time...

What would that life be
like? Safe. Normal. Easy.

The kind of life
worth sharing.

“You should get back
to bed,” I tell her, getting up to rinse our glasses.

“You too.”Brit
replies. “You need your beauty sleep. You look like hell.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Tough love, big
bro.” Brit circles the tale and wraps her arms around me in a quick
hug. “Be careful, OK?” she whispers, face pressed against my
chest.

“What do you mean?”

“This girl… she’s
a summer girl, right?” Brit tilts her face up to me, eyes sad.
“That means she’s leaving. They all leave, in the end.”

I break the hug, and
shove her gently towards the hall. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
But my words catch in my throat, and the question lingers, long after
she trails back to bed, and I’m alone in the dark kitchen.

Just one week, and
already, I’m in so deep with Juliet, I can’t see the surface. But
what happens next week, and the week after?

What happens when
summer’s over?

My mom loses it. I've
never seen her so mad.

Dad smirks his way
through it the way he always does, like I'm just a joke to him, but
the minute the deputy leaves, mom flips out. She yells and screams
about responsibility, and strangers, and wandering off in the dark
alone.

I stand, arms folded,
and take it. Nothing they say can ruin the warmth I have blazing from
my chest, a fierce glow of joy radiating out through my entire body,
surrounding me with safety and hope.

Emerson.

Emerson.

Only him.

"Do you know what
could have happened to you?" Mom is still yelling. She's wrapped
in a threadbare bathrobe, pale and drawn in the 3AM kitchen light.
For the first time, I feel a pang of guilt that I left her to worry
alone.

“I was fine," I
reassure her. "Emerson would never let anything happen to me."

I hurry upstairs to bed
before they can quiz me anymore. When I come down the next morning –
braced for more lectures and yelling and lord know what other
parental disappointment – they say nothing. I eat breakfast in
silence, suspicious, listening to mom chatter about a farmer’s
market in the next town, and the family bike ride we can all take
along the coast. I wait for the catch, but none comes.

“What do you think?”
Mom asks me with a nervous smile. I look from her to dad, who is
sitting there, totally disinterested, reading the newspaper. They've
clearly made some deal, or, more likely, mom has decided that this is
all teenage rebellion, and that making a big deal over it will only
drive me faster into Emerson's arms.

“Fine.” I answer
shortly. I'm already counting the minutes until I can see him again,
but after the look of panic on her face last night, I don't want to
cause her any more grief. “Whatever you want sounds great.”

I spend the next couple
of days sneaking texts to Emerson, under mom’s constant
supervision. I know I'm eighteen now, and technically free to do
whatever I want, but there's something so desperate about her
mothering that the guilty part of me finds it easier to give in.
Carina as good as ignores her these days. My sister spends all her
time out tanning on the beach, bitching to her friends on the phone
about how bored she is. And dad? Well, he's either sleeping off a
hangover, or quietly drinking his way to a new one, sitting on the
porch with a thick novel and a Long Island iced tea, “since it is
vacation, after all.”

I don't care. I don't
care about anything now, not with Emerson flooding my memories,
taking up every free corner of my mind. I find myself drifting off,
lost in the thought of us together on the beach that night. It takes
my breath away, every time. I can be rinsing dishes at the sink, or
standing in line at the 7/11 for milk, and in the blink of an eye,
I’ll be gone, back there again. The warm sand pressing into my
back, Emerson’s hard body pressed down the length of me. All day, I
can feel the burning imprint of his hands on my skin: the soft tease
of his fingertips, tracing down my torso; the possessive graze
against my breast. I have to snap out of my reverie and catch my
breath, blushing furiously, trying to keep the memories at bay until
I'm alone in my room and can let the scene play out to its end:
Emerson's jaw clenched with tension as his fingers work their sweet
magic and send me spiraling into a hot, dark world of pleasure I've
never known before.

“
I’m going to
teach you. You’re going to come so many times, you won’t remember
your own name.”

I lay in bed, hearing
his low rasp like it was inches from my ear. Morning sunshine pools
on the floor through the open window, I can hear the sound of the
waves crashing on the beach below, but if I close my eyes, I’m back
in his arms, aching for him. I can't stop my hands from playing over
my stomach, circling lower, my pulse kicking as I imagine my hands
are his, my searching fingers, his own…

My cell buzzes with a
message, and I snatch my hands away, as if caught. I roll over and
grab the phone from my nightstand, heart skipping another beat when I
see it's from him.

I have to see you.
Pick you up in 20 minutes.

There's no question,
just a statement. Sure and certain.

I leap out of bed and
quickly dress, picking out a cute sundress to throw on over my
bikini. I stuff a sweater into my beach bag, grab my camera and
wallet, then pad cautiously downstairs. I’m ready to deflect mom's
questions, but instead, I find she's still in bed, looking tired.

“Are you OK?” I
ask, lingering in her doorway.

She gives me a smile,
looking up from her book. “Just a bit under the weather. I think I
caught a chill yesterday, you know how the winds get at the beach.”

“I told you to pack a
sweater,” I tell her. “Where’s Dad?”

“He took Carina back
to the city for the day,” mom replies. “She has that engagement
brunch, one of her friends.”

“Oh,” I pause. “Do
you need me to bring you anything?”

“No, I’m fine.”
Mom waves away my concern. “You look nice, where are you going?”

“Just, out.” I
answer.“I thought go for a bike ride,” I add quickly. “Take a
picnic or something and spend the whole day out. Let me know if you
need anything. I can bring you back some soup.”

Mom waves away my
concern. “I'll be fine. You go have fun.”

“OK, see you!”

I skip downstairs and
out the door before she can take it back. My heart races with guilty
relief. I don’t want her ill, but with mom in bed, I have the whole
day to myself. To Emerson.