12 Years Ago:
She’s halfway up the curved, marble-tiled stairs of the pool when she sees me and gasps. He sputters, actually, water still streaming down her face from her swim as she pushes her long hair back from her face and glares at me.
As usual.
“What do you want, Bastian?
She’s wearing a one-piece suit - navy blue, super boring, and super not-sexy in the slightest fucking bit. Which means it probably shouldn’t have the effect on me that it does.
“Chilly?”
I stare shamelessly at her chest as I stand from the pool chair, twirling her towel in my hand.
She scowls and yanks the towel out of my hands, pulling it against her chest.
“Why are you always such a cretin?”
I grin. “A cretin?”
“A troll.”
“You know you could try being a little nicer if you want to come to my party this weekend.”
She rolls her eyes.
“I’ve got plans.”
I laugh. “Like what, taped episodes of Dawson’s Creek and a bowl of popcorn?”
The flush on her cheeks tells me I’m right.
“So lame.”
“Whatever, Bastian,” she mutters. “Not everyone needs to get drunk and loud to have a good time.”
“No, but you do if you want to have a great time.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“Your loss.”
I’ve been doing my own thing for years now. It’s not that I don’t like Mrs. Tottingham, and it’s not that I want to piss her off or go out of my way to disrespect her or anything, it’s just that we both know our relationship has a very fucked up power balance to it. I like her a lot, and she takes care of me, and she loves me, but we both know she’s not my mother.
The weekend parties have just started though, and they’ve only built me from a prince into a king, even as a freshman. With the big house, the pool, the boat, the drugs and alcohol and the absolute zero parental supervision, Crown Manor and my parties have become the social scene of South Neck High.
The entire school comes, and they all want to kiss my ass. Well, guys wanna kiss my ass and be my best friend. Girls wanna kiss a few other parts of me and try and become much more than friends.
If they’re smart, they understand that I’m not remotely interested in that.
Welcome to the kingdom, and I’m the Lord Regent.
Now the Ana thing though, well, this has turned into a game for me. A sick, weird, confusing, twisted game. I’m not entirely sure of the reasons, though I’m sure a child psychologist would have a field day analyzing my parental issues, my “grief masking” as the one counselor I saw put it, and the timing of Ana arriving as my parents went away.
For now though, I just push her buttons because I can. Because I like the way it gets that fire going in her eyes, for whatever reason. It’s a game where I see how far I can push her until she snaps.
The problem is, she never fucking does. She comes close. There’ve been times where I know I’ve gone way past being a dick and moved into pure asshole territory, but she still never breaks.
It’s both infuriating and beguiling.
“You might want to get a better suit for the party, though.”
Her hair is wet and bedraggled, clinging to the sides of her face. She doesn’t really seem to care though, at least not around me like most girls would. Actually, there’s a lot about Ana that’s different from the way most girls act around me. Most fawn. Most heap attention on me, even the senior chicks. Even the ones with senior boyfriends.
Ana couldn’t give less of a shit.
With her, it’s like she can’t wait to get away from me.
“What’s wrong with my suit?”
“It’s extremely covering.”
She blushes, wrapping the towel tight around herself, her mouth small.
“Bikinis are kind of a must for the pool parties. Kelly Luciano wore a thong last week, actually.”
“Well I’m sure you had fun with that,” she says tightly.
“No, but Ash did.”
I grin wolfishly, and she blushes fiercely.
“I have to go.”
She starts to turn, and that’s when I let it dangle from my fingers - my head shot for this stupid game I’m playing with her.
The little silver necklace with the little cowboy boot pendant dangles from my fingers. It’s the necklace she’s always wearing, only this time, it was sitting on one of the pool chairs while she swam.
Naturally, I’m going to use it to be an asshole.
“Give that back,” she says quietly.
“What is this anyway?”
“It’s mine.”
“It’s tacky.”
Her face goes a special shade of dark red I’m not sure I’ve seen before.
It intrigues me.
“Give that back,” she says tightly.
She moves toward me, but I wag a finger, lifting the necklace high.
“Not until you tell me what the fuck it is.”
“It’s a necklace.”
“No shit.”
“It’s mine.”
“We’ve established that.”
“It was my mom’s, okay?” she hisses, her eyes narrowed dangerously at me.
I’ve hit a nerve. And the part of me inside that’s not a complete piece of shit tells me to back off. After all, dead parents is a territory I’m familiar with, and I know it’s off limits. I ignore that part of me.
“She have a thing for cowboys or something? Jesus.” I make a sour face as I glance at it. “This thing is…wow.”
“Bastian, please give it back.”
“What if we made a deal?”
She’s seething mad, and also nervous, I can see that.
“You come to the party in a bikini, and you can have it back.”
“You are such a fucking asshole,” she hisses.
“Ooo, someone discovered they could have a dirty mouth.”
“Give it back.”
“You do anything else with that dirty mouth, Texas?”
She’s bright red now, her eyes near tears. I’m pushing it. I’m not being “funny dick” anymore, I’m just being an asshole.
And I can’t stop.
She marches towards me, eyes fierce as she lunges for the necklace. But I yank it high in the air above her reach.
“You could show me at the party,” I purr into her ear as she cranes on her tip-toes to try and snatch the necklace.
She freezes.
“C’mon, Texas,” I growl into her wet neck. “Wear a bikini, come show me what you can do with that dirty little mouth, and maybe—”
Stars dot my vision, and I’m blinking through them long before the sting on my cheek blooms with heat. That’s the first day a girl slaps me. It won’t be the last, but that one leaves a lasting impression.
The necklace is out of my fingers and clutched in hers as I shake off the smack and narrow my eyes at her.
Then the anger comes.
“Bitch,” I hiss.
“Asshole.”
She’s almost crying now, shaking, red faced, her whole body tense.
“That was a big fucking mistake.”
“Deal with it,” she spits, whirling.
“Yeah, well guess what!” I bellow after her. “No parties for you. Not fucking ever!”
“Big whoop!” she yells over her shoulder.
I flip off her back as I turn.
“Yeah go have fun with your loser TV shows and loser popcorn and your mom’s tacky fucking cheap neckla—”
I don’t even hear her footsteps pattering across the patio until it’s too late. Her hands hit me square in the back, sending me careening off the edge of the pool and head first into the water.
I come up sputtering in rage.
“Big fucking mista—”
She’s already gone.
* * *
Present:
“You call that a punch?”
Katrina laughs as she easily dodges my lame attempt at a right hook.
“That was pathetic.”
“Fuck off,” I mutter, sweat stinging my eyes. I’m hung over, obviously. Actually, there’s a chance I’m still drunk from last night.
“I’m just saying, you’re throwing punches like a bitch today.”
Katrina’s easy. She’s also fucking gorgeous, which should make spending time getting sweaty in a gym with her not even remotely productive. But there’s no problem there because we’re just friends.
No, really.
You see, the trick to being “just friends” with a woman - and I do mean just friends, without any hidden agenda to fuck her - is either self-leverage or middle ground. Beyond that, it’s not possible. It really isn’t. Billy Crystal was goddamn right in “When Harry Met Sally,” and any guy who bullshits himself into believing otherwise is a fucking imbecile.
I've had a very small number of female friends I didn’t sleep with, but again, only within that framework. I was actually great friends with this girl Tanya a year or so ago who bartended over in Sagaponack, because I wanted to fuck the hell out of her roommate, Sarah.
I call that “self-leverage.” I was friends with Tanya to leverage myself to where I needed to be. Namely, balls deep between her roommate’s legs. I never made a play at Tanya. I never hinted. I never flirted. Nothing.
Well, in this particular case it was “nothing” until after the one very unsatisfying night with her dead-fish of a roommate. After that, Tanya was fair game.
She was much better than Sarah, for the record.
Katrina, my personal trainer, and fighting coach, falls under the other category: middle ground. Middle ground might mean she’s your best friend’s wife or serious girlfriend. It might mean you’re both on the same work project, where completion and not fucking things up by sleeping together means a big bonus for you both. Basically “middle ground” is situations where crossing that line fucks both your shit up.
In Katrina’s case, our middle ground is pussy - as in, we both like it. And card-carrying platinum club lesbians, however hot, fall very squarely in the “we can be friends” category.
“You look like shit, you know.”
I glare at her, but I bite my tongue. Katrina’s one of the rare few who can call me out on my shit - at least half the time, which is saying something for me.
“Rough night?”
I shrug. “Nah, just tired.”
A bottle of wine, five stiff bourbons, and a handful of Xanax is pretty much a guaranteed “rough night” for any normal, mortal human being. And I may have worked real hard the last few years at turning myself into a superman of drug and alcohol consumption, but even for me - yeah, that’s a rough fucking night.
Not like I’m ever going to fess up to that though.
“Well, you smell like a distillery.”
“And a fuck you too.”
I wince at the hangover still pushing a knife through my head, turning to take a deep breath of sea air. The gym is in the old carriage house behind the house near the boathouse and the docks down by the shore. One whole glass wall slides open to give views of the ocean and the pool - an architectural addition me and my spinning head are beyond grateful for today.
Katrina grins as she holds up the sparring gloves. “Right jabs. Gimme ten combos and a feign. C’mon, Crown, you’re better than this.”
I am better than this. Well, I was better than this, before the crash. It was my dad who turned me on to boxing. I guess even back then, before they died and before I went pedal to the metal to the dark side, dad could sense I had something inside of me that needed venting in a physical, aggressive way. Boxing took a back seat to lacrosse when I hit junior high, because the rest of my friends were playing it, and because none of them would get into a ring with me.
The rage was in full glory by that point. Mom and Dad had been gone for four years, I hated fucking everything, and the world owed me a favor. I kept beating on people, it’s just with lacrosse, I traded gloves for a big fucking stick.
There are more than a few plastic surgeons specializing in noses in the Hamptons who owe me a thank you card or five, by the way.
Outside a few stupid bar brawls though, I didn’t fight again until after I drove my car headfirst through a guardrail into the shallows at Notting Point. At first, I had this real pussy of a physical therapist to work on my leg, but it didn’t take long for my charming personality to drive him to quit - and that was after I’d doubled his usual hourly. But a week after, he’d passed my name along to Katrina, along with a note to me that “perhaps my tendency towards aggression would be better suited with a more hands-on approach to therapy.”
Enter Katrina, and enter me getting back into fighting shape.
Well, sort of. I’m still relying on the cane with my leg, even if Katrina’s been up my ass about not using it anymore. That, and the fact that my drug and alcohol habits have become, by most metrics, a problem.
Doesn’t mean I still don’t sweat my ass off in this fucking gym five times a week anyway, though.
Muscles burn, sweat stings my eyes, and my pulse roars in my ears as I punch through the demons and the hangover, bringing my fist against the sparring pad again and again until I’m half aware of Katrina backing off and waving her hands.
“Easy, Rocky.”
I spit onto the floor, panting, shoulders heaving, and ignoring the dull ache in my leg as I take a breather.
“You, uh, wanna talk about it?”
“I think you’re forgetting what type of therapy you’re actually paid to do.”
“Oh, good. It’s gonna be one of those days. Wrong side of the bed?”
I smile thinly, but I hold back the hell and vitriol I’d normally unleash on someone who said something like that to my face. Like I said, Katrina just happens to be in that small group of people who can get away with saying shit like that.
“Whatever,” she shrugs, not actually fazed by my bark as she drops the sparring pads and picks up her water bottle. “Let’s work that leg.”
I wince as I rake my fingers through my hair before I drop to the padded floor with a groan and roll onto my back. Katrina kneels, looking almost downright gleeful at the pain she’s about to inflict on my scarred, healing leg.
“Motherfuckingasshole,” I hiss as those deceivingly small hands of hers begin to kneed the muscles.
“Pussy. I see you’ve got a new gardener, by the way.”
I grit my teeth as she tortures me. “Sort of.”
She gives me a questioning look and I shrug.
“Hank’s daughter.”
“Oh?”
“Ye- fuck! Watch it!” I growl as her fucking devil hands find a raw nerve.
“Don’t be a baby.”
I hiss at her through clenched teeth, but she ignores me. “So you two know each other then. Hank’s been here a while right?”
“Seventeen years.”
Katrina whistles. “Wait, you’ve known that girl for seventeen years?”
I shrug.
“Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?”
“Why would that be nice?”
She rolls her eyes. “For you to have someone here you know? An old friend?” She raises her brow suggestively.
“No and no. Not a friend, and not a friend either.”
Katrina shrugs, going back to torturing my leg as I stew in my thoughts.
I still haven’t told Ana why she’s here - well, why she’s really here, which is very unlike me. Speaking exactly what’s on my mind, or telling people exactly how it is hasn’t ever been something I’ve struggled with. Maybe because I’m not weighted down by inconveniences like a conscience.
But that’s not it. I’m not worried, about telling her, I’m more just waiting for the right time. That and I suppose I’m still wrapping my own head around committing to this ridiculous plan. Because Ana’s back here to work for me all right, but it’s not to cut the fucking lawn and water my damn flowers.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
“Well, your not-friend is doing very nice things to that bikini out by the pool.”
I whip my head around, stepping right into the trap before I can stop myself.
Ana is by the pool, but she’s in jean shorts and a baggy t-shirt, not a bikini - sitting in one of the pool chairs reading a book.
“Gotcha,” Katrina says smugly under her breath.
I ignore her as I stand, my eyes narrowing on the girl sitting poolside through the glass doors of the gym. My nemesis. My confusion.
My weakness.
Nine years ago, I drove her away - quite purposefully. Nine years ago, ruining her and getting her the fuck out of this place was the only move I had. Except now she’s right back here where it started - back in my world.
She frowns, and suddenly, the book lowers as she glances around, as if sensing eyes on her. Her gaze locks onto mine, through the open glass wall of the gym.
“I’m off the clock!” she yells, scowling at me, not to mention completely misreading my glare. She flips me off before glancing back to her book.
Yeah, she’s back in my world all right. And after what I did to her, I know exactly how she sees me. An asshole. A monster.
A beast.
She thinks all that about me and more, and I haven’t even told her why she’s really back in South Neck.
Getting her back here was easy. Getting her to stay once she knows the truth is going to be much more interesting.