4

 

Rumor Has It

Demi

 

 

Zoey. She’s been here nine solid days, but who’s counting? Last time I checked ski week was a measly six sleeps, but I don’t dare inquire of the obvious. I know for a fact she goes to Port University, so I pull it up on Gavin’s laptop while she makes a ruckus with the pots and pans, pretending to cook. You’d think a steel-drum band was marching through the kitchen. This is usually the part where she announces we should head to the Corner Store for a sandwich. Granted, Neva can whip up a mean roast beef, I hate the thought of Gavin spending all that money on us night after night. I’d make dinner, but I have a habit of burning it before I even manage to pull it out of the package. The kitchen and I have never been friends. And, unlike Neva, I can’t even put a decent sandwich together.

The webpage blinks to life in tones of garish orange and greens. Welcome to Port University, home of the Fighting Walrus! Wishing all our students good luck this week. The gerund gets under my skin like an army of fire ants. And good luck on what? Expensive universities like Port should consider their grammar before they massacre the English language on their homepage. Reminder: Library study hours have been expanded for midterms!

Midterms? I glance up at Zoey who’s bopping around with a spatula like she’s about to breakout in song.

“Aren’t you missing exams?”

She zooms over and looks at the screen before I have a chance to shut it.

“Just shit, Emmy.” She snatches the laptop from the table, uprooting the evidence against her. “Are you fucking spying on me?”

We enter into a brief standoff, and, before I can answer, a hard knock erupts over the door. I spring up to see who’s abusing it on the other side. I’d rather plunge every kitchen knife in the cabin into my skull than spend another minute cooped up with Zoey. Gavin went on a wood run with Ace, who happens to be up just for the weekend because for one, he’s still enrolled in school. Anyone can see Zoey has been booted out on her size zero ass. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to keep someone with Zoey’s sparkling personality around.

More pounding.

“I’m coming.” I swing open the door, and a tall, almost handsome fellow stands on the other side. He’s slightly slumped over himself, dressed like the preppy of the year and his hair has enough shellac in it for me to see my reflection. His eyes drop straight to my boobs, and I’m quick to cinch my cardigan. A second glance at my boobs is a luxury I’m not providing him. Gavin drove me to the nearest Salvation Army, and I was able to buy some clothes. Of course he wanted to take me down the mountain to the mall of all places, but I refused. For one, I would never let Gavin buy me overpriced T-shirts and jeans, and, two, I’m still a little paranoid about Nora and her army of money-hungry spies. She knows I’m out there somewhere, waiting, sharpening my claws, fashioning my heart into the most dangerous weapon of all. “Can I help you?”

“Warren!” Zoey skips over and wraps her arms around the perverted goof.

“Neva said you were back. I thought I’d check it out for myself.” he says while cupping her rear instead of a hug. Interesting. I’ll have to ask Gavin if that’s an acceptable greeting in Loveless. “So you’re out of Port, huh?”

Her finger flies to her lips in a lame attempt to shush him.

“Relax, I’ve already pieced it together. I’m not saying a word to Gavin.” I will hint. A lot. Besides, Gavin is a smart guy—like Mensa smart. I’m sure he has his suspicions. Although, when you love someone, you want to think the best of them even if it does blind you to the truth. Blind love. That must be what my father experienced with Nora. Every other theory defies logic.

“Want to head to the store? Neva’s a real bitch if I don’t check in.”

Wow, this one is a keeper.

“Corner Store?” I snap my purse off the counter. “I was just headed there myself.”

I trail them as we walk over. Gavin’s cabin is about a stone’s throw from the coffee shop, so it takes all of two minutes. I watch Warren, the boob monger, like a hawk. I’m not liking the way his hand has found a home over Zoey’s bottom or the way she’s giggling like a twelve-year-old at every little cloud of bullshit that plumes from his mouth.

We head into the store, and the heated air presses over me like a hug.

I spot Kennedy sitting alone in the back, and wave over at her, leaving cotton candy-haired Neva to tear into Warren while Zoey watches. If Neva is smart, she’ll kick them both out.

“What’s up?” Kennedy shuts her laptop and pats the spot next to her, so I take a seat.

“Zoey’s friend stopped by.” I say friend with air quotes. “He’s all hands and eyes if you know what I mean, so I followed them over.”

“Warren?” She makes a face. “I know exactly what you mean. He was engaged to Reese for a while. It ended in disaster. The police were involved. I wouldn’t bring it up.”

“Reese? I guess everyone is allowed a misstep or two.” Or twenty if you’re me, but I’m with Gavin now, and my life before Loveless seems like a long-forgotten dream—nightmare to be exact. “What’s with the police? I bet she took him downtown for groping.” Reese is smart like that, unlike Zoey who seems happy to let him fondle her barely-there assets.

“She wishes it were that simple. He attacked her one night in her bedroom.” She wafts her hand through the air as if brushing the thought away. “Thankfully, Ace rushed in and pulled him off.”

“That’s terrible.” Just the thought of anyone forcing themselves on someone sets my blood to boil. Josh runs through my mind with his permanent lewd grin. He was forcing himself on me, and I was too stupid to realize it. There was no love between us. Heck, there were no conversations between us. It was so mixed up and twisted. I don’t know how to classify it other than wrong.

“Anyway,” she continues, “Warren is an infamous asshole. Neva has already dumped his ass twice.”

“And how about you? Have you done any dumping lately?” Kennedy is what Reeva would classify as a level six beauty. Reeva claims that girls like that are ripe for sultans and hysterically wealthy business men who are willing to part with six figures for a weekend of fornicating fun. It’s happened once or twice. The girls always return glassy-eyed and cool as if they were suddenly moved to the popular kids table and could have nothing to do with the rest of us plebeians.

“I’ve seen a few people at school.” Kennedy absentmindedly braids her hair before combing her fingers through it again. “Most of the guys are immature dorks. I’m sort of treading the single life for the first time and it s-u-c-k-s. I did my own dumping last fall when I got rid of some dead weight that I’ve been attached to on and off forever. I’m not sure why I seem to gravitate towards cheaters. There’s no worse feeling in the world than having someone you care about sleep around on you.”

My heart sinks because I’ve been the other woman more times than I can count. I didn’t care if the guys I was with had girlfriends, or hell, wives for that matter. I was dead on the inside, and they were just as dead to me. Just two corpses passing in the night. A bleak smile comes and goes on my lips.

“That would suck,” I say. “Just the thought of Gavin being with anyone else would kill me.”

“Speaking of Gavin”—she leans in with a devilish grin brewing—“have you rounded out the bases yet, or are you still stuck playing tonsil hockey with that boy?”

“I don’t know what boy you’re talking about. Gavin is all man.” I wrinkle my nose. “Not that I’m fully aware. Zoey came back at the exact moment we tried hitting a homerun. I’ve been benched ever since. Believe me, the temptation to crawl into his bed hits me nightly, but he promised he’d do something about her. Gavin said if she’s not gone by Monday, he’s shipping her to the boathouse himself.”

Her face lights up. “I guess Monday is your lucky night.”

“I guess it is.”

“Ladies.” A deep baritone voice rumbles from above. I rise to meet Gavin and that grin he always has waiting for me. “What’s Monday?”

Kennedy scoops up her drink and laptop. “It’s national buy-your-girlfriend-flowers day.” She gives me a quick wink before speeding for the door. “I’ll catch you two later. Please do things I wouldn’t—and report back to me. It makes life that much more interesting. Make it dirty!”

“Dirty?” Gavin mouths as I spin into him. His cheeks—his eyes—they smile without his lips. It’s a neat trick that only Gavin seems able to pull off.

“Do you realize that you’re fiercely attractive when you’re amused?” I sneak a kiss off his ultra soft mouth. “Anyway, Kennedy is treading the single life, and, in her words, it s-u-c-k-s. But I think all she really needs is to get l-a-i-d,” I whisper without taking my eyes off my perfect, gorgeous boyfriend.

“She’ll have to find someone else to oblige her.” Gavin sinks a hot kiss on my lips, and my sweet spot heats in rhythm. “I’m taken.”

“And how about me? Do I need to find someone else to oblige me?” I let all the affect drain from my face as I say it. Not that I would ever consider finding anyone else to oblige me, but I’m eating up the momentary displeasure on his face.

“You’d better not. My heart couldn’t take it.” Gavin pulls my hand up and lays it flat over his chest. “Feel that?”

His chest thumps beneath me, and I close my eyes, letting the sensation ripple through my limbs, my throat, right through to my ears. I want to feel exactly this with nothing, no clothes, no people filling in the space between us. It’s going to be magic with Gavin.

“You make my heart beat, Emmy.” He pulls another slow kiss off my lips, and my chest swells as if I’m ready to burst. “It only beats for you, Em—no one else.”

I lean up on my tiptoes and press my lips directly into his ear. “I’m going to make it race, come Monday night. I don’t need flowers, Gavin. I only need you.”

“Fuck,” he whispers so low I can barely make it out.

“Is that what you’re going to do to me?” I hold back a laugh, daring him to deny it. “I’m kind of liking the dirty talk.”

“Oh, babe”—he sniffs a quiet laugh—“I’m going to do exactly that and so much more.” His lips meet mine with a passion I’ve never seen in him. Gavin and I are working ourselves into a frenzy that’s going to explode the top off this mountain in a few short days. We did it. We took things slow, and now we’re at the finish line about to receive our rewards. Zoey could shack up with the boob man at the counter for all I care. I just need her out of my hair for one night.

Gavin pulls back and looks at me with that glazed look in his eyes, and I wonder how we’ll ever hold out until Monday.

“Emmy”—he expires my name in a heated hiss, and my stomach clenches because it’s not the right name—“I know we’re coming into this with a pretty clouded history, but I promise, you’re going to be my first in a lot of ways. I hope you’ll feel that way, too. I’m going to make love to you, Em—slow and easy, fast and hard, and everything in between.” He trails a line of fiery kisses to my ear. “I have never felt this way before. I’m so in love with you, I can’t see straight. I want to taste you. I want to bury myself deep inside of your body and never leave.” His breathing picks up to meet with mine. “Not a second goes by that you’re not in my thoughts. That’s how much I love you.”

A beat of silence stops up the air as he waits for me to say it back. It’s right there on my lips. I go to give it, and nothing but air comes out.

The last person I loved I killed. I can’t stand the thought of hurting Gavin like that.

“It’s going to be special.” I press my cheek to his and pray the tears go away before I open my eyes.

“It will be,” he assures. “You plus me equals forever.”

Gavin always knows the right thing to say.

 

 

Sunday rolls by with a rainstorm that sends chocolate rivers rushing down the streets, but Monday shows up with sunshine and a smile on her face and it feels as if the entire universe is in on our big secret.

Gavin and I helped Zoey make three trips to the boathouse today. I can’t seem to wipe the grin from my face. It’s the first genuine smile I’ve bled since she’s been here. Zoey has been nothing but piss and vinegar ever since Gavin broke the news this morning that she’d be moving.

“I’ll be all alone.” She whines as we head back to the cabin. “And freezing! I bet my corpse will be frozen a week before you bother to check on me. What if a madman breaks in and grinds me up like hamburger?”

“He won’t.” Gavin scoops up another pile of her ever-expanding wardrobe. “You’ll be frozen remember?”

“I can see this makes you happy. Glad to know my impending death is a joke to you.”

Boy, she’s an expert at turning up the guilt. The boathouse is across the way for Pete’s sake. She could yawn in the middle of the night, and we would still hear her—not to mention the fact it has a working potbelly stove. She won’t freeze if she’s smart enough to fuel it. And, as for the madman, well, him I might consider assisting.

“I’m one text away,” Gavin assures. “Besides, I don’t see what the big deal is if you’re heading back to school in a few days.” He’s chiding her. I haven’t told him that she’s been booted yet, but he’s this close to getting it from her himself.

“It might take a little longer than expected.” Zoey shoots me her wrath by way of a scowl.

“Like next week?” he asks with a slight uptick of frustration in his voice. “Next month? Look, Zoey, I know something got effed up this semester just tell me what it is. I might be able to help you with it. Do you need a tutor? I’ll get you the best.”

My heart warms at the sacrifices he’s willing to make for those he loves.

Zoey stops abruptly and seethes at me. “You told him.”

Gavin’s eyes widen at the thought of me keeping this from him.

“I didn’t tell him a thing.” I turn to Gavin, fully ready to rat her out. “Warren said something about her being out, and she didn’t deny it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” There’s a slight twinge of hurt in his voice, and I suddenly feel like a major disappointment.

“I figured it wasn’t my place.”

He concedes, turning to his sister. “Tell me what happened, Zoey.”

Her nostrils flair. Her tiny fists embed themselves in her nonexistent hips. “It’s none of your damn business what happened.” Zoey storms off into the cabin.

“I’m the one paying for your books and apartment!” he shouts after her. “It is my damn business. You’re my damn business.” His voice reverberates off the mountainside, and I hold him back from charging in there.

“Whoa, big boy.” My hip grinds into his crotch, and I lower my lashes while flirting with a smile. “Save some of that aggression for tonight.” I lean up and give his lip a playful bite. “I’m sort of liking you all riled up with nowhere to go.”

“I’ve got somewhere delicious to go.” He runs his tongue over my lips. “But you’re right. I’d better cool off. Why don’t we run to the store and grab a few things to stock up her fridge? That way she can cool off, too.”

“Mmm...” I trace his lips with my finger before dipping it into his mouth. It’s like falling into a deep, hot pool. My entire body longs to lunge inside—and tonight, I will. “The things I plan to do to you are making me insane.”

“Come here.” He motions me over to a bench he constructed himself ensconced with two wooden bears he carved with his own hands. Their razor cut fur, their perfect almond eyes—it makes me smile to know that his hands were privy to each and every detail.

“Do you know what I was just thinking?” I hum in his ear.

“That you changed your mind about tonight?” He pulls me onto his lap, and I sit sideways onto the bench with my feet on the head of one of the wooden furry creatures.

“Very funny. No. I was just thinking that you’re an artist, and the entire forest is your canvas.”

Gavin lowers his lids looking like deep fried sex on a stick. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“As will it you. What’s up?” Not that I mind taking a reprieve from hurricane Zoey, but it does seem suspect for Gavin to trot off in the middle of one of her classic meltdowns.

“I made something for you. It’s nothing big. It’s sort of silly.” He fishes around in his pocket.

“A locket with a picture of Zoey inside?” It could work like a dream catcher only it’ll attract nightmares. Zoey is a magnet for trouble in all shapes and sizes—Warren being the most disturbing of them all.

“You’re half right.” He holds out his hand. “It’s a necklace.” Lying over his palm is a copper heart no bigger than a quarter, leashed to a thin matching chain.

“Gavin! This isn’t silly.” I carefully extract it from him as if it were a newborn.

“Sometimes I make a personalized inscription to go with the carvings. Sometimes people want that. And I wanted to do that for you. The necklace is rose gold.” He turns the thick copper heart around, and I forget to breathe.

Inscribed on the back in very delicate handwriting is You Plus Me Equals Forever.

“Oh, Gavin.” I clutch it to my chest and press a hard kiss to his lips. I’ve never received anything like this before—given with love, created from the heart. This is far more than some silly token, this is the whole world he’s giving me on a string.

“I made the heart—inscribed the words myself.”

I gape at him. For the first time ever, I’m speechless.

“Here.” He helps me put it on and kisses the pendant before it falls to my chest.

“I love it.” My eyes have a hard time peeling away from it because I’ve never said those very words to Gavin. But in a few short hours I plan to rectify that.

He lifts my chin with his finger. “I get it.” The words come out pained. “I love you, Emmy. I promise I love you enough for the both of us.”

A door slams in the cabin followed by a crash and a bang.

I bounce another quick kiss off his lips. “Why don’t you get some food? I’ll go in there and make sure she doesn’t burn the place down. I’ll talk to her, you know, girl to girl.” I’m feeling especially generous now that I know tonight is going to be so explosive. My body is already willing to detonate over his. Gavin and I are brimming with gunpowder, and these stolen kisses, these building emotions are the match we need to blow the roof off that cabin tonight.

“I don’t know.” He looks past my shoulder as a muffled scream comes from inside. “On second thought, she sounds like she needs someone to talk to. Go ahead. Be careful. Duck and jive if you have to.”

“Oh, Jackson.” A dark laugh rumbles from me. “I’m saving all my best moves for you.”

We stand, and he spins me as the evergreens meld together in a dizzying circle. This is how it feels being in love with Gavin, deliciously freeing and joyously unstable.

“I love you, Em.” He holds my fingers as he walks backward, and they collapse to my side as we part ways.

He turns and walks in the direction of the Corner Store, and I say it back in less than a whisper.

“I love you, too, Gavin Jackson.”

I warm the token of his affection in my hand. The simple heart he etched with our love.

“I love you.” And that’s exactly how it’s going to sound coming from my lips tonight.

 

 

Inside, I find Zoey smashing and thrashing her way through a bookshelf, destroying innocent paperbacks and Gavin’s old copies of National Geographic. I go over before she starts in on an encyclopedia apocalypse. Their parents were ardent hoarders of ancient information. Gavin mentioned once that the set belonged to his father as a child, so I wouldn’t want her to lay a finger on a single brown leather spine. Sometimes the material things left behind by those we love become just as precious as they were and are.

“Zoey, stop!” My voice reverberates through the tiny cabin.

Her hair whips around like jags of lightning. She reaches to the top shelf, and an entire row of hardbacks rain down over her.

She’s going to knock herself unconscious if she keeps this up, so I do the only thing I can think of and wrap my arms around her, putting her in a virtual vice, and, if she happens to mistake it for a hug, well, that’s okay, too.

“Let go!” She shrills it in my ear, and I hear her voice echo through me long after she stops. Tears pour down her face, and, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why she’s losing her shit, especially without Gavin in the vicinity to impress with her little tirade.

“Not until you promise to relax. You’re making your brother insane.”

She knocks me back, and I trip over a pile of her laundry sitting dead center of the room. I land my hand over my new pendant to protect it from the fall and hit my head on the coffee table on the way down.

“Shit.” I sit up dazed for a moment. A flash of white light expands around me. I feel like I’m in a cartoon.

“It’s all your fault this is happening,” she hisses. Zoey falls in a heap on the floor, hugging an oversized photo album like it was a body. “You’re trying to take him away, and he’s all I have left!” She cries with her mouth open wide, saliva stringing its way down her lips.

“I’m not taking him anywhere. You’re only going to be fifteen feet away, much closer than you would be at school.” Didn’t Gavin mention something about them not getting along? “This isn’t about your brother, is it?”

She reluctantly shakes her head as she continues to hug the bloated cloth-covered book. It has a DIY appeal, and instinctively I know what it is. My mother left me albums just like that. She must have left a dozen. As soon as September rolls around, I’m going back to Winter Haven and claiming every single thing that Nora and Josh think they’ve swiped from me. My father’s company, my mother’s pearl necklace she wore the tragic night she had me, every red cent of my rightful inheritance, it’s all mine come my twenty-first birthday. Some people want alcohol on that wayward milestone of a year, but all I want is revenge. That is, if I can find a lawyer with enough balls to fight the missile shield I’m sure they’re cowering behind. With my father’s money, Nora can hire every shark in the western hemisphere to represent her.

“It’s more than just my brother.” Zoey wipes the snot off her face with her sleeve. “It’s my parents, too.” The hurt resonates from her. She’s splitting like a glacier, ready to fall to pieces in the warm water below. “It hurts so much coming back here. For so long this cabin—it represented them—it was them. I could still feel them here—smell them. And the boathouse”—she looks out the window and makes a face—“that will never feel like my mom and dad. Please don’t make me go, Emmy. You’ve already taken my brother. Don’t take away my parents, too. I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready.”

My fingers tremble over the copper heart. Zoey just struck me to the bone. Her heart is torn open, gaping into the room, waving like a red bloody flag. All I want to do is sew her up with thread fashioned from my own skin. Only another grieving soul could understand the excruciating pain she’s going through.

“Zoey, I’m so sorry. Of course.” I press the pendant to my chest until I can feel it making an impression on my flesh. I know exactly how she feels. Here I am hating what Nora has done to me, and I’m essentially doing the same thing to Zoey. God, I’ve Noraed her. “I’ll talk to Gavin. It should be me in the boathouse, not you.”

“Really? You would do that for me?” She gives a hard sniff with those sad puppy dog eyes, and I’m done.

“Yeah, really. Of course, I’d do that for you. You’re practically my sister. Go get cleaned up, and I’ll help you move your stuff back.”

Zoey springs to her feet and skips to the bathroom like a kindergartner headed to recess. A part of me wonders if that whole scene was just a ruse. But I feel bad for even thinking it and bat the wicked thought away.

I scoop up the photo album and open to the first page.

A happy couple smiles back at me with Lake Loveless as the backdrop. The sky is a pretty lavender, and there’s snow on the ground—but there’s something unnerving, something strangely familiar about the way they look.

I’ve seen this picture before.

My heart jumps to my throat. Ice runs through my veins, and I stop breathing altogether.

This can’t be.

I flip the stiff cardboard pages and find a newspaper clipping.

The room starts in on a slow spin as I take it all in.

Mountain community mourns John and Lena Jackson, killed in a head-on collision on I 98.

My body goes numb as I glance back at the picture. My heart, my soul, my spirit shatter like glass in tandem. My heart was full a moment ago, and, now, there’s nothing left but an arid space.

“Oh, God.” The album shakes right out of my grasp. This is a thing of horror—a nightmare within a nightmare. Here I am, baptized with my own blood.

My fingers wrap themselves around the precious heart Gavin crafted. I’m a monster. My hand shakes so hard the necklace plucks right off.

I fumble for my purse without thinking and jump into the Honda. It starts right up, and I speed the hell off this mountain.

I’m never coming back.

I do what I do best—run.