“JESUS CHRIST, YOU SLEPT WITH her.” Dean closed his eyes, throwing his head back and rubbing his face tiredly. We were all standing by the grill Vicious was manning. He was flipping steaks and burgers, wearing a scowl and semi-casual clothes, while Jaime was unwrapping baked potatoes and dumping enough coleslaw to choke a fucking giraffe into them for the kids. I placed the burgers in their buns methodically on a long porcelain island in Vicious’ six-thousand square foot garden, ignoring them.
They couldn’t know that.
Not from one fucking glance I’d thrown her way while I’d thought no one was looking.
“Spit it out, bastard. We want to know.” Jaime laughed, taking a swig of his Bud Light. Behind him, Daria, his six-year-old, was playing with Vaughn and Knight, Vicious’ and Dean’s kids. Lev and Bailey, the infants, were in baby swings at the far end of the garden, with Rosie and Mel watching over them and sharing iced tea. Emilia, Vicious’ wife, was in the kitchen getting everything ready.
And Luna and Edie were in their own little world, lying on the grass, staring at the sky, their arms tucked under their heads. Edie was talking, and Luna smiled a little and nodded a lot, listening. I was dying to be with them, to get closer, to ask them what they were talking about, but sharing this moment with the two of them was exactly the kind of deep waters Edie was talking about.
“Well.” Dean elbowed my ribs, passing by me with a bowl full of potatoes. “Did you or did you not stick your dick in a teenager?”
I looked up from the buns and the burgers, blinking slowly. Sometimes, it was beneficial to be called The Mute.
“I know you want us to fuck off, but come on, we gotta know. We’re your best friends,” Jaime reminded me, stretching the point by plucking a joint out of his pocket. Dean rolled his eyes, and everybody stopped what they were doing.
“Give it, you little shit. I haven’t had a smoke in a lifetime.” Figured. Dean’s wife had a lung disease. He made countless sacrifices for his family, which made me respect him even more than I had in the past. Rosie looked fine. Normal. Pretty. But still sick. So every time he could get away with smoking pot, we were reminded of how not-so-normal his life was. The fucker had a big heart. He willingly wedded what I bitterly accepted—a situation where we had to take care of someone else.
Dean lit the joint and braced the island, passing it on to me. “Come on, now,” he said, smoke crawling from his lips. “Talk.”
They weren’t going to let it go, so I threw them a bone for no other reason than to shut them the fuck up.
“We have something going on,” I said quietly, not meeting any of their gazes. I took a long hit and passed it on to Vicious, who stared at me questioningly before bringing the blunt to his lips. “It’s nothing. She hangs out with Luna a lot, but she’s got her own shit to take care of at home, and I have my stuff to deal with. It’s just casual. For both of us.”
What a fucking understatement that was. Edie wasn’t casual. She never had been. But admitting to something else was goddamn crazy.
“Should I be the one to point out that Jordan Van Der Zee is our partner, and that you’re the only person he has beef with?” Jaime asked, taking the joint from Vicious. Dean plucked another beer from a bucket full of ice.
“Fuck knows why. Trent is the only person who actually works hard out of us four.” He laughed. Everyone nodded.
“Maybe he really is racist.” Jaime’s voice was depressed.
“Nah. If he were, he’d try to hide it.” Vicious shrugged. “It goes deeper than that. All I know is that Jord wants to kick you off the board, Trent. I see the way he looks at you. Whatever he has on you, it’s big. He wants you out of Fiscal Heights and he wants you out of his life. His daughter is the perfect excuse.”
“No one is going to know,” I gritted out, snatching the joint from Jaime. “We’re careful.”
But even that wasn’t true. Two days ago, I’d had my finger in her ass in the elevator, minutes after she nearly swallowed my cock. We needed to be more cautious, and I needed to stop being drawn to the most dangerous pussy in my vicinity. She was untrustworthy. She wanted to hand her dad all the information he needed on me. Edie Van Der Zee was starting to look a lot like the death of me, and yet here I was, coming back for more and more of her poison. Addicted like a crackhead.
“Are you sleeping with her to get back at her father for trying to get rid of you?” Jaime asked.
I scoffed. “Fuck no.”
“Do you have feelings for her?” Dean added.
I rolled my eyes, turning to Vicious. “Can you shut them up for me?”
Vicious shrugged. “Do I look like your errand boy? You seem to know how to take care of yourself pretty good.”
I was about to open my mouth and tell them that, in the very near future, Jordan wasn’t going to be a problem for me anymore. Then I heard a shriek coming from behind Dean’s back. I dropped the joint to the grass, hurrying toward the sound I recognized, because I’d studied it too fucking obsessively.
Luna yelping.
“I haven’t done anything to her! I swear!” Daria’s voice screeched. She was running around the lush, carefully cut grass with her blonde ponytails in little pink bows, wearing the ballet uniform she wore constantly. This one made her ex-ballerina mother extra proud. But she was starting to look and feel and talk like a mean girl.
“Oh, no! Luna, sweetie, what’s wrong?” Mel hurried toward the scene at the same time I did. Edie was on one knee, pulling Luna into a hug. Luna buried her face into Edie’s shoulder, and Edie was shooting an ice-cold look I’d never seen before at Daria.
“That was not cool, dude. At all. Did it make you feel good? Hurting her?”
Hurting her? It was the first time I suspected I wasn’t above screaming at a child. I wanted to yell at Daria until every vocal chord in my throat tore apart.
“What the hell is happening here?” I stopped at the same time Mel did. She looked at me helplessly. We hadn’t spoken to each other since I shit all over the date she sent me on. She hadn’t mentioned introducing me to anyone since. I considered that a victory.
“I went to get us some lemonade,” Edie was quick to explain, not waiting for guilt-ridden Daria to speak up, “and as I walked back, I noticed Luna’s seahorse was in Daria’s hand. She tore it apart and took out the fluff,” Edie reported, tightening her grip on Luna, who cried harder. Edie stood up, and Luna was wrapped around her like she was her child.
And it broke me.
And made me happy.
And sad.
And so, so fucked.
I turned to Daria. Mel did the same. She was fuming, too, and it took some of the edge off, because at least I knew she was taking this shit seriously.
“Why, Daria? Why did you do that?” Mel crouched in front of her daughter, holding her shoulders. Her voice was soft, but her imploring eyes were urgent. This wasn’t the first time Daria had been mean to Luna.
Daria hitched one shoulder, staring at the ground with a pout.
“Luna is so nice to you all the time,” Mel stressed. No one asked Luna anything, because all of us knew we weren’t going to get an answer. She was still in Edie’s arms when Daria lifted her gaze slowly and pointed at the far end of the yard. We all followed the line of vision and saw Knight and Vaughn sitting at a picnic table, munching on the burgers I’d made for them.
“What?” Mel asked again, seemingly irritated. Shit. Her kid was boy-crazy at the age of six. Jaime was in for a long fifteen years or so.
“Knight always picks her side.”
“There is no side. Luna is not against you,” Mel said, her flowery skirt flipping in the wind. I had to calm my rage by averting my gaze to my girls again. Edie pressed Luna’s head to her shoulder and shook her head, still shaken by Luna’s reaction.
“How do you mean, sweetie?” Mel asked Daria.
And had I just thought ‘my girls’? Shit, I had. I’d called Edie my girl, even though she wasn’t, even though she never would be. But she fucking felt like it right there and then. Like someone that belonged to me, not because I wanted to tap her ass—even though I did—but because she was made. For. Me.
“Knight always wants to play with her, even when Vaughn and I play a different game. And Luna doesn’t even play. It’s ridiculous. She just stands there, being stupid.”
I took a step forward, but it wasn’t necessary. Edie was next to Daria in a heartbeat, and the look on her face…fucking priceless. She had the potential to be as daunting as her father. She just didn’t want to be.
“That’s enough, Daria. What you’re feeling right now is jealousy. It’s okay, we all do sometimes. But what’s not okay is how you chose to act on that jealousy by taking it out on Luna and her favorite toy. I think you owe her an apology, don’t you?”
There was silence for a moment. Daria twisted her fingers together, looking horrified and embarrassed, pulling at her pink tutu dress. Luna was watching her from the crook of Edie’s neck, her hands around Edie’s shoulders.
“It’s true.” Melody sighed, staring at me in an I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-her expression. I shrugged. Not my problem.
Emilia walked out of the kitchen for the first time since we’d gotten there, holding a bowl of fruit salad. She put it on the table and rushed to us, wiping her purple hair from her face.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
Melody filled her in. Daria apologized, and Luna finally consented to let go of Edie and go with Emilia to wash her face.
Mel, Edie, and I stood in a small circle afterwards. The sun made everything more angry and heated, and between my anger and Melody’s obvious embarrassment, I knew we could explode pretty quickly.
“I think I’m going to go have that lemonade now,” Edie trailed off, turning around and walking into the house. Mel stared at me skeptically, and for the millionth time that year, I thanked God I was the fucking Mute and she didn’t expect an actual answer.
I walked into the house looking for Luna and Emilia. I trusted Vicious’ wife. She and Rosie had this thing about them. They made you feel at home, even when you clearly weren’t.
I passed by the two empty bathrooms on the first floor, about to walk up the stairs to the bedrooms when I stopped by the stairway. Edie was in Vaughn’s playroom, which was full of toys. Trucks and soldiers and whatnot. She was standing by a slide coming out of a giant castle, fingering something small in her hand. I squinted, trying to see what it was. It was a toy soldier.
She looked…sad. For the first time, I actually saw it on her. The wariness. The despair. She looked wrecked, and I’d always been too busy to notice, because this wrecked soul happened to have an amazing ass and a gorgeous pair of tits and a father I loathed. Fuck.
There was no excuse for what I was doing. For me walking into that room and closing the door behind us. For me striding over to her with chaos dancing in my chest, watching her as she lifted her eyes from the toy, reading everything that was inside of mine.
I could say it was because she’d protected my daughter, but that wouldn’t be true.
I could say it was because I saw her layers as she held that toy soldier in her small hand, but that would be bullshit, too.
I did it because I had to. Because fuck the consequences and Jordan Van Der Zee and everything standing between us. For the first time in five years, I put my lips on another person’s and kissed her. Hard.
My mouth coming down on hers was like riding a bike. It came to me instinctively, but at the same time, felt so fucking different I almost choked on that kiss. My hand cupped her cheek and drew her close, and my tongue darted out to open her mouth. She moaned into our kiss and clung to my face as if she’d wanted to do this since the day we’d met. I held both her cheeks and deepened our kiss, letting the strange, strange notion of my tongue dancing with another’s sink in. It was so fucking wet and intimate. I wanted to eat her.
“Tide,” I breathed, sinking my teeth into her lower lip and closing them until I heard the familiar whimper of joy. “You’re such a fucking tide.”
“Seahorse,” she retorted.
“I wish.”
“You are.”
“Maybe,” I said, sounding unsure for the first time in a long time.
“I’m not your tide, Trent.” Sorrow laced her words, and I knew she was right. She wanted my neck. Bad.
“No. You’re my Delilah, Edie, and I’m your Samson. You want to ruin me, destroy me, strip me of my power, and betray me. I should stay away from you, but I want you too fucking much. And when it’s all over, when all that’s left of us is sweaty flesh and shattered minds and torn hearts, you will remember me as the man who made you cry, and I’ll remember you as the girl I had to break to stay afloat.”
We stared at each other, almost smiling. What a fucking way to break my rules, with a girl who was both at my mercy and tasted of betrayal. Brushing my thumbs over her cheeks, I crashed my lips into hers, kissing her with abandon and passion and regret. I kissed her with everything I had that was worth taking. We nibbled and bit and made this kiss our fucking bitch, knowing there probably wouldn’t be another one. Doing what I’d been wanting to do since I’d seen her across Dean’s lawn standing next to her father, sneering at the world like she was ready to declare war on it.
I was opening up to someone who wasn’t my parents or my three friends, feeling the walls of something disastrous closing down on me.
Our lips were swollen and our eyes were hooded when we were caught, in the middle of the colorful playroom, propped against a plastic castle with a slide. The door swung open and Vicious leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, examining us with boredom. Knight and Vaughn were standing next to him, each of them hugging one of his thighs, watching us without really understanding what they were looking at. “You said you were careful. No chance at getting caught.” My friend threw my words back at me mockingly.
My urge to deny everything was crushed by the impulse to claim her. I dropped my hands from her face, but only so I could tilt my body toward his.
“You need to leave.”
“You need to come up with a good plan before her father kills you,” Vicious retorted calmly.
“What I need”—I looked down, trying not to curse in front of the kids—“is your cooperation. Before I snap.”
That made Vicious take a step back. Before he closed the door, I heard him say, “I think it’s time to make some popcorn, kids. These two are going to give us the best show this town has to offer.”