“ARE YOU HOOKING up with Daniel?” Delphine asks, as we wander through the twists and turns of the well-lit corridors backstage. I strangely find it comforting following the map to West’s changing room, an activity for my mind to focus on that doesn’t involve a certain rude bastard.
Daniel is the lawyer I met at the main bar. After my contention with Lenic Reevus, we fell into shots of hard liquor like carrion birds on a corpse. “I’d rather make it a girls’ night only — and West.” I wrap my arm underneath hers. Daniel was lovely and sweet, but frustratingly there was no wish fulfillment. A certain stuck-up ex Marine won’t stop running through my damn mind, and I don’t want anyone else.
She smiles at me, squeezes my arm. “How near is West’s room? I really need to use his loo,” Delphine says, urgently.
“Just ahead, on the left — hold on.” I halt my footsteps, my eyes landing on a door to the side of us. The sign ‘Lenic Reevus’ hangs in the middle, and the door is slightly ajar. I push the door open a little farther, and see it is empty. My gaze drifts towards a bar, a table, a seating area, and I see a MacBook resting on the armrest of a leather sofa chair.
I rush into the room. “A man’s laptop can only mean one thing — I’ll put a tenner on a threesome. Two men, one very busty girl. Did you see his hands? I’ve never seen such big ones. He’d want plenty to hold on to—”
“Don’t do it.” Delphine stands by the archway, looking nervously out the corridor.
“A little research won’t hurt. And it’ll most likely be password protected.” I lift up the laptop lid and a smile blooms on my face instantly. It’s already switched on and logged into his browser.
“I’m not coming in,” she hisses in a whisper.
“I won’t be long. Keep a lookout.”
I lean forwards to peer at the screen, and it takes me a moment to digest what I'm looking at. I grimace. “That is … just wrong.”
“Oh God, what is it? Is it animal porn?”
I shoot her a look. “Why did your mind go straight to the bottom?”
“What is it? What’s he looking at?”
I turn the laptop around to show her the screen. “Fishing.”
“Fishing porn?”
“No, fishing. As in ‘I am a total loser and have no life.’” I shake my head. “He’s reading: ‘Top five bait to catch trout.’” I glance over at my friend. “Wow, Lenic Reevus really knows how to party. What a badass.” I do a quick scan of his search history, but it’s riddled with fishing and something called Paleo. “Who chooses fishing over sex?”
She shrugs. “Come on. I don’t want to be caught snooping in his room.”
I close the lid of the laptop and teeter my way out of the room, but I pause at the threshold of his door. Part of my brain is telling me that I’m about to do something stupid. Well, I tell that part of my brain, it won't be the first stupid thing I've done tonight.
“You coming, Flick?”
I glance back to the sofa, my drunken gaze zeroed in on the laptop. “I’ll meet you in West’s room in a minute,” I tell her, grabbing her signed baseball cap as I totter back inside. “I just need to do something first.”
“IS THIS PRIVATE land?” Delphine asks, as we stand on the dock, looking out across the North Sea.
It’s eleven o’clock at night, but as soon as we headed back from the city to our hometown, we came straight here. This place was a favourite haunt in my childhood.
I pass her the bottle of red wine. “West and I used to come here all the time when we were young. Old Marsden gave us permission to do so. He knew my grandpa well and trusted us not to run amuck.”
“But it is private land?”
“Yes.” Staring into the void of darkness surrounding us, the only sounds I hear are the creaking of Marsden’s boat home that is anchored close by, the crickets croaking, and the strong wind that has picked up suddenly. “It’s a shame West was unable to escape his duties at Box Fest. He most likely would have recanted some embarrassing stories that took place here.” I grin at her. “That I may or may not have been involved in.”
She offers me the bottle. “But Marsden doesn’t mind you coming here now? Even after five years?”
“I should think so,” I say, slightly unsure. I take a sip of wine. “Do you remember me mentioning Vanessa Marsden and her bloodthirsty pack of gossips?”
Delphine nods slowly. She’s only been living in my childhood nosey seafront neighbourhood since I moved back three months ago. I know this place like the back of my hand, and my reputation is still the subject of gossip. It seems, just because I escaped five years ago, doesn’t mean I get a do-over to erase the past.
“She’s Marsden’s younger wife. I don’t understand why he tied himself to a woman like her. He’s quite pleasant, but she’s the opposite of pleasant. She’s the kind of person who expects the world to provide.” I glance across the dark sea. “But it doesn’t work that way. You need to go out there and earn it for yourself.”
Breathing in the familiar scent of the surroundings, this place, the water, takes me keenly back. It really doesn’t look much different from the days West and I would spend time here, escaping the trials and tribulations of teenage hood. But the reality is, everything changes. Sometimes it is so slow, we barely notice. Then other times, it is abrupt, and life is never the same again.
“Are you going to accept Daniel’s offer for a date next weekend? He seems nice.”
“No. It wouldn’t be fair on him.”
“Why? You’re pretty, young and single.”
I sigh. “I can’t help it. I’ve really tried. But all I can think about is doing Lenic Reevus in the most filthiest imaginable ways possible.”
“You still want to sleep with him?”
“Now it’s confirmed he’s an utter bastard — yes. Very much so. I still hate him but angry sex is the ultimate pleasure.” I set the bottle of wine down on the wooden dock.
“Can’t argue with you there,” Delphine laughs.
We both groan in displeasure when a light patter of rain starts to fall.
British summers.
I roll my thumb across my silver-sterling charm bracelet and sigh heavily. Lenic was supposed to be a distraction tonight. Feeling despondent, the urge to do something precipitous takes over again.
“I think we should end the night skinny dipping,” I suggest, teetering to a standing position, using my friend’s shoulder to balance myself.
“You are out of your mind.”
I breathe the warm salt-tinged air into my lungs, and slip out of my dress, dragging my underwear with it. “No, I am out of my clothes.” I unclasp my bra and let it fall from my fingers. The wind rises, grabbing my long hair and whipping it across my face.
“Oh my god, you’re naked. Anyone could be watching.”
“Nobody’s here. The place is deserted, like it always was. I went skinny dipping here with West once. It was one of the best times I ever had when I was a teen.” It helped a lot back then to forget it all, and I hope it will help me in the present.
I miss you, Grandpa. I miss the laughter, the warmth, the good days…
“I miss you,” I whisper into the night, turning to face the water.
You know that feeling you get, the night before something big is about to happen? It's the moment before your first kiss. The moment before the roller coaster dives down. I’m having that feeling right now. I can feel it in the tips of my toes.
“Tempest!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “You can hook, line, and fuck me any day.” And then I dive right in. I hear Delphine gasp as I jump overboard and sink under the depths of the dark blue sea. I swim underwater, farther out, and a moment later I break the surface and take a lungful of air.
“What the hell is this?” a rumbling, angry voice roars from behind somewhere. The man’s voice almost sounds like thunder booming as lightning cracks open the dark sky in the distance.
A storm is coming.
“Who the hell’re you two?” the thunderous voice continues. I twist around in the water, startled.
Oh God…
It’s Lenic Reevus.
“You?” Lenic spits. “What the hell’re you doing here?”
"It's none of your business," I shout back. Why is he here?
"The hell it is.”
“I think the question should be: what are you doing here?” I spit back.
“I live here,” he grits out.
“No one lives here. This is Old Marsden’s broken, rundown boat home. The only thing that would dare to live on that heap of junk is a dirty rat. OK, now it’s starting to make sense that you could live on it.” He starts to shout something in return but I cut in. “Have you been watching me all this time? Oh my god. Did you follow me—?”
I stop engaging him in conversation, frozen like ice in the water, as he marches angrily along the wooden dock that leads to the boat home.
Towards me.
“It was Marsden’s property until I bought that ‘heap of junk’ from him, fixed it up, and rented this part of the land out.” He stabs a finger at the boat home. “Now get out of the water. You’re too far out. It’s not safe.”
I have done some dumb shit over the years, but coming here, getting drunk, mouthing off, is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Lenic is not a one-night-stand party boy. He is the straight arrow, the type to follow orders, ingrained into him through military regimes and training.
“I-I, uh, I can’t…” I feel the current getting stronger beneath me, and tread water faster to keep me afloat.
“I’ll jump in and get you myself,” he barks.
My pulse skitters. I am aware enough to see the black cloud following him; aware he is close to flipping. It’s probably what makes him the best fighter in the ring. That temper. That fire. I’m learning that about him; damn am I learning. It might scare the hell out of other women, but his temper is growing to be one of his sexiest qualities.
Suddenly, it starts to rain down in sheets. “Swim up to the dock. I’ll pull you up,” he shouts.
I wish I could get out of the water, but it is impossible.
I.
Am.
Naked.
“Get out of the water — now,” he snarls. His eyes are flashing hot with anger, but buried deep down in there, I think I see worry. I feel the quiet beginnings of my own worry building inside of me. The water seems to be getting higher. Or is it that I am sinking lower? “Swim up to the dock — come on, goddamn it!”
“Flick, please, listen to him,” Delphine urges.
I start to kick my legs to push my body upwards, but something, like a trail of weeds, has caught on my leg. Panic floods me. My arms rise above my head, flailing at the water uselessly in an attempt to swim. My head ducks under the current as I tread into deeper water, but quickly resurface, gasping for air.
Oh God.
I am drowning.
I hear Delphine screech at the top of her lungs for help and another form of panic spreads through me, choking on the water that keeps, keeps on entering my throat.
For a brief moment, I hear what sounds like a heavy drum pounding hard as Lenic charges across the dock — whipping off his T-shirt — faster than a speeding bullet. I hear a loud splash as he dives into the water without hesitation. The sight of him is somehow strangely a window to hope, before another gasp, and I am under again, falling deeper and deeper to the bottom of the sea.
The knowledge of dying is clear. But there is only one thought circling my mind as I begin to slip from consciousness.
Lenic Reevus jumped into the water.
And he’s coming for me.