-16-
The Beach
This is crazy, I tell myself as I slip into my favorite indigo sundress that I only wear when I’m by myself, the one that completely exposes my arms and more than half my legs. I haven’t been this free for others to view since I was a little girl, and it feels utterly terrifying.
And I’m doing it all because Jagger Wells said I have beautiful eyes.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
My mother is going to faint when she sees me, openly embarrassing the family in front of all her frenemies.
On second thought, maybe this isn’t such a bad idea.
Shaking out my hands to get rid of the nerves coursing through me, I close my eyes, open the door to my room, and step out, not wanting to see the reaction on his face when he sees the full extent of what only his fingers touched.
Yeah, I can’t even begin to think about that bizarre experience right now.
It’s the first time someone other than a doctor has touched my scars.
When I’m met with silence, and my worst fears start to bubble up in my stomach – still too much of a wuss to open my eyes and see just how horrified his expression is – I’m ready to run back in when I hear the slight hiss of breath. When I realize it’s not coming from me, I crack a single eye to see what it is.
Jagger is standing near the door still, hands in his pockets, like usual. He has on khaki Bermuda shorts, a light blue, cotton button up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, but like always, his eyes are his crowning feature. They say everything he doesn’t, and unlike the disgusted look I figured he’d wear, I’m met with a small, proud smile, and eyes dripping in cool gray.
When he doesn’t say anything, I slowly move one leg in front of the other, taking me closer to him. Grabbing my purse from the counter, I turn to look at this mystery of a man, only to find him still staring at me. Not the scars.
Without a word, he takes my palm, gives it a warm kiss, and says, “You ready to go?”
A strangled, “Uh…no?” leaves my mouth, and he holds my hand a little tighter.
The trip to the shore takes a while due to traffic, but that’s okay. It leaves more time for me to prepare myself for the reactions I’m about to get. But on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t think too deeply on that subject. Barfing all over Jagger’s nice car would be a travesty.
Turning to watch his profile in the twilight background, I focus on it more intently than I should, looking for any distraction other than the party. I study the curve of his nose, the swell of his lips, the smooth skin of his jaw…and it gets me thinking.
“I bet you were that kid in high school that was the super jock, but also the nicest guy in school.” I mutter more to myself than to him, imaging teenage Jagger.
“What makes you think that?” he asks, hands placed loosely on the wheel, relaxed. It surprises me, mostly because of the past that Lotta had hinted at. But what shocks me more is his racing habit. If he was in fact in a car crash that killed his mother, why would you tempt fate again every weekend by putting yourself in an even more dangerous, and likely, position to get hurt? And how would it not sting to be reminded of your dead mother each time you did it?
Pushing the thought to the side, I answer his question, although distractedly. “Just with how you treat people, your friends. And there’s no way you didn’t play some kind of sport in school.”
This makes him smile. Slightly. He still seems…off, from what happened earlier at the house. Maybe it’s because for a moment, we both had almost thought he was going to –
“You’re not wrong, as much as I hate to admit it. I was really into soccer back then.”
With the sad way he said it, I can’t help but wonder, “And now?”
He shakes his head, finger tapping on the leather of the stick shift as he lets his eyes drift away from mine. “Not so much.”
A silence spreads as we go through the Holland Tunnel, coming out on the other side, night slowly falling around us. My eyes spot a Mercedes speeding by, and I think of another question to ask him. “Was Moon as crazy as a teenager as I imagine him to be?”
Finally, a real smile. “Worse.”
“And Rosy?”
“A big type-A personality, if you can believe it. He was our valedictorian.”
“No way. Really?” I snort a laugh, knowing I never would have put the cool guy with the designer sunglasses and artfully ripped jeans in such a category. “Are there pictures?”
He nods. “Yep. I might even have one from when Moon accidentally dyed his hair green.”
The image takes perfect form in my mind as he says it, and it has us both laughing. “Wait, what about you?”
The laughter slowly dies down. “What about me?”
“Are there any pictures of you as a pimply Freshman? A year when you had to wear glasses? Wait! No, I want to see the ones where you had a bald head. I know Moon wouldn’t have let such an incident go undocumented.”
At the mention of it, he shivers, glaring at me when I break out into another fit of giggles. “I will never, ever, let you see those. Ever.” He vows, the beach slowly coming into view on our left.
“That’s okay,” I say, shrugging it off with a smile. “I’ll just get them from your boys.”
That terrified look enters his eyes again, just as we duck into the front yard of a swanky beach house, three stories tall, the grass filled with BMWs, Ferrari’s, and every other kind of outrageously expensive car you can think of.
As Jagger parks next to a Lamborghini, the Lexus’ engine dying down when he pulls out the key, I think to ask, “Why don’t you drive the Camaro?”
He snorts at that. “Really? I have to explain why I can’t drive that pile of bones around these people?” The both of us step out of the car, his hand coming to rest on my lower back as he meets me on the other side. Without another word, he guides us towards the back of the house where all of the noise is coming from.
Set behind the sand dunes, dozens of young people dance around on the beach with drinks in their hands and music blaring from some source I can’t see. This is the one event a year where the youth of the rich don’t have to be buttoned up and sparkly for their parents. They get to act like the kids they are and throw snobby caution to the wind. I can tell the laid-back aura of everyone here surprises Jagger. I’m sure he was expecting cocktail tables and a swing band playing boring music somewhere.
“Okay, I get that,” I say in regards to his earlier comment. “But how did you come into possession of it in the first place?” I’m asking these insignificant questions because I’m trying to distract myself from what’s to come. I don’t like parties, mingling, talking – particularly with these people. And somehow seeing that in my expression, he answers me when I know he probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
Moving his hand from my back to slip down my forearm, eventually getting caught in my hand, he says, eyes still searching the beach, “It was my mom’s first car. She bought it herself when she was sixteen. It…meant a lot to her.” He swallows hard, his gaze continuing to be evasive, but this time, it doesn’t annoy me. Because I understand.
Holding his hand a little tighter, our steps taking us closer and closer towards doom, I ask, “Does she like parties?” using the present tense on purpose to see if he’ll correct me.
He huffs a strangled laugh. “She hated them.”
Hated. Past tense. Well, at least he admitted a little truth about her, though I still can’t believe this is the first time he’s mentioned her at all.
“I think we’d get along,” I mutter, right before we encounter our first guest.
Jagger
What she said makes me swallow a laugh, because I can totally see my mother loving Cyvil Montae and her sarcastic mouth, and her hatred of the rich lifestyle. My mother never cared for it herself, though having been born into it. She spent most of her life doing charity work as a way to find a good use for her time and inheritance, helping the Red Cross, the homeless, and children’s hospitals. I can never remember her taking a weekend to herself, always trying to save the world with her one woman show.
Thinking of my mom and the things she accomplished – and the hundreds of others she still wanted to do before she passed – leaves a cold feeling in my chest as a girl a little older than Cyvil and a little younger than me walks into our path, her platinum hair lit by the light of the tiki torches set up along the beach.
“Hey, Cyvil,” the girl says with a smile that slowly slips, her eyes momentarily getting stuck on a large scar centered over my fiancée’s left shoulder. Thankfully, it doesn’t drift any farther. “Long time no see.”
“Yeah, it’s been a while,” Cyvil says with a wavering smile, having seen where the girl’s eyes had gone. Taking the chance to introduce me and remove the spotlight from herself, she says, though a little bashfully, “Olivia, this is my…fiancé, Jagger. Jagger, this is Olivia Tisdale. She’s been a victim of the summer party system for even longer than I have.”
“Not by much,” Olivia laughs, and I’m glad that at least I’ll go home tonight knowing one person here was genuinely nice to Cyvil. “And congrats, by the way. My mom told me about your engagement.” Olivia looks at me now, eyes showing their first signs of confusion. “So, how did you two meet?”
Thankfully, Cyvil and I already covered this, knowing eventually someone would ask. “Through my dad, actually,” I say with a forced smile. Cyvil had wanted to keep the story as truthful as possible. And by truthful, that meant leaving out the finer details of that sentence.
“Oh,” she says, looking between the two of us. Her dark eyes are still unsure, but at least she lets it go when someone else comes by and steals her attention, leaving Cyvil and I to take a quick breather before the next one.
Since I’ve never been to one of these things before, I ask Cyvil what the point is, grabbing a beer from the large cooler set in the sand by the boardwalk. When she goes to grab one herself, I tap her hand admonishingly and put it back. “No, you’re not using liquor to get through this.”
“Oh, but you can?” Her eyes narrow at me.
“Yes, because my driver’s license says so. And anyway, you’re going to be our designated driver tonight.” As I go to take a drink, the bottle is suddenly out of my hand and in hers. I didn’t even see her move.
“You’re a terrible fiancé,” she counters, unable to hide the smile peeking out around her lips.
“I think Johnny Law would disagree.”
She huffs, sitting down on a vacated lawn chair set up around one of three large bonfires they have going, this one nearly abandoned with only us and two other kids who don’t seem to want to be here either. With her attention distracted, I take the beer back from Cyvil.
She grumbles, but explains anyway, “It’s stupid, really. Just like all of the other parties. It was originally for the youth of the top one percent to mingle and hopefully form friendships and marriages that will help their parents’ businesses in the future. What the parents don’t know is that they’ve turned it into more of a frat party than a respectable social gathering over the years. Just one sip.” She goes for the bottle again and I take it out of her reach at the last second.
“Do we need to sign you up for AA or something?” I ask, a little concerned now with her attitude towards alcohol. “How did you use to cope with these things as a kid?” I place the unopened beer in the sand as I join her in the adjacent chair, deciding neither of us should have it at this point.
She shakes her head, eyes staring into the fire. “I didn’t. I’d sit in the corner and pretend I was too busy with my phone so no one would approach me. Not like anyone would have, but still…” She pauses, then says, “But this is different. I have to mill with people now, talk, act like you being with me is freaking normal. It’s very stressful. And that’s not including this dress, which I can’t believe I even had the balls to put on. Do you see how a coping mechanism would be a nice thing right about now?” Face lit by the fire, I see the gilded color of her eyes shift over the beach, landing on each face nervously until they find me again. The self-doubt in them is what has me scooting my chair closer to hers, our shoulders touching.
Just as I’m about to say something deep, meaningful, and most definitely something I’ll regret later, a familiar voice pops up behind us, but it isn’t nearly as cheerful as it was last time.
“Cyvil, Jagger,” Mrs. Montae says, now standing in front of us, blocking the fire from view. Her eyes roam disapprovingly around the beach, or more specifically, at the people spread across it. “How are you enjoying your evening so far?” Though her voice is even, her eyes tell a different story when they notice the uncovered skin of her daughter’s arms and legs.
Cyvil pretends she doesn’t notice, but her hands whiten as they squeeze the arms of the lawn chair. “Fine. And how is the adult’s party up the beach?” she asks in the same tone, eyes flat.
“Splendid. Though it’s growing a bit chilly, don’t you think?” Taking the beige wrap off her shoulders, Mrs. Montae places it around Cyvil’s. But we all know it isn’t the act of a mother’s love. It’s still in the low eighties even with the sun having disappeared and the moon shining. This is because she’s embarrassed of her own daughter. “There, now you’ll be nice and toasty and covered.” Her eyes dare Cyvil to say otherwise.
Those delicate but strong fingers go from strangling the arm rests to curling in on themselves, her mouth about to open in an argument I’d hope would be wonderfully rude and sarcastic to shut her mother up, but instead, another person butts into the conversation.
“Ah, there you are, Mom,” Atillia says, joining us with a tight smile that lets me know she probably heard everything. Her eyes are full of suppressed anger, all aimed at her mother when she puts her hand on her shoulder. “Dad was wondering where you drifted off to. I had guessed the bathroom, but it looks like you found a different dumping ground.” She bends down to give Cyvil a hug and a real smile, all while ignoring the shocked look on Mrs. Montae’s face.
Till says, pulling away to look at her sister, “You look beautiful! I love that color on you. Really brings out the red in your hair.” She lets a piece slip through her fingers, smiling at her proudly.
“Atillia, we should be getting back to the party, don’t you think?” Mrs. Montae says with a hurried air, as though she’s suffered as much embarrassment as she can stand.
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a bit.” Atillia flits her hand at her mother, like shewing away a fly. I chuckle under my breath. As Mrs. Montae begins to walk away, her eyes shooting daggers at anyone who happens to look at her, Atillia says, “Oh, wait. You forgot something.” Taking the wrap from around Cyvil’s shoulders, she flings it at her mother without looking, letting it fall where it may. “Totally messed up the outfit. Warm tones don’t go with cool. Everyone knows that, Mom.”
And with a thoroughly stumped expression, Mrs. Montae stomps off in the opposite direction, looking over her shoulder several times to see if her eldest daughter follows. She does not.
“Well,” Till says with a sigh and a smile, parking it in the chair next to Cyvil, “at least you got the worst guest out of the way. Just be thankful I convinced Dad it’d be creepy if he snuck down here and spied on you.” She rolls her eyes before they land on me. “Gotta say, I was impressed by the look you gave our mother, Jaguar. Not many fake fiancés would stare at their fake mother-in-law to be like they’d murder them for their fake fiancée. That’s goals.”
Um, Jaguar?
Cyvil laughs, finally losing the disappointed look her mother had caused her. “Thanks for coming to break up the reunion. I was two seconds away from calling her something I know would get me cut out of the family for sure.”
“Hey, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. At least then you wouldn’t have two pains in your ass anymore,” Till says with a snort, adding, “I saw Mom slipping away from the party and decided to follow, having an inkling she was probably going to come down here and look for you.” Eyes scanning the beach with a smile, Till sighs, leaning back in her chair, getting comfortable. “I remember attending this party when I was your age. So much more fun than the boring adult party where everyone complains about their joints and the youth of America. Ooh, is that a beer?” Cyvil’s sister’s hand reaches out like a python, lightning quick as she confiscates the bottle from the sand, popping it open and taking a long drink.
“Till, aren’t you nursing?” Cyvil asks, eyeing her worriedly, the reflection of the flames licking the side of her face.
“Nope. Kal-el is on formula. Momma gets to drink whenever she wants.” I chuckle to myself as she takes another drag, as though it’s the first and last time she will ever consume an alcoholic beverage.
“Speaking of your newborn son, where is he?”
Atillia gives Cyvil a droll look. “With his father, little miss Judgmental. Don’t I get a twenty-minute break?”
“To booze and slum it with your sister and her fake fiancé? No, you don’t.” Confiscating the beer from Atillia, she empties the rest of its contents in the sand, making a dark little puddle by the fire.
“So that’s where you get it,” I say to her, making Cyvil shake her head.
“Get what from where?” Till asks, looking between us.
“Doesn’t matter. You should get back to your husband. Those people are probably eating him alive by now,” Cyvil says, eyes serious.
Till sighs. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Standing up and smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress, she turns around to give her sister one last, genuine smile. “Hey, I wasn’t lying before. You really do look beautiful. You should show yourself off more often. Make this one nervous about his competition.” She throws her thumb at me.
“Atillia.” Cyvil hisses, looking properly embarrassed now.
“FINE! I’m going. Whatever.” Throwing her hands in the air, Atillia starts to walk in the direction her mother had a few minutes ago, but not before screaming so everyone on the beach can hear her, “ENJOY YOUR YOUTH, PEOPLE. GETTING OLD IS A BITCH!”
Not a single person doesn’t stop dancing to look at her like she escaped some sort of institution.
Cyvil’s head falls into her open palms.
I laugh harder than I have in years.
“It isn’t funny,” Cyvil mutters through her hands miserably.
“Yes,” I say, starting to get winded, “it is. And you should be lucky to have such an awesome sister. I wish I’d had siblings,” I admit, the rest of the party resuming its normal volume once Atillia Devoux is no longer in sight.
“But you kind of do. Don’t you think of Moon and Rosy as brothers?” she asks, no longer hiding her face.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But…I wished I’d had them growing up, you know? Like when I was in middle school. It would have been nice to have some friends to play with.” I know I said the wrong thing when her eyes sadden in surprise.
“You didn’t have any friends when you were a kid?”
I really wish I had something to mess with, a stress ball, a bottle to spin around. Anything to keep from looking her in the eyes and having to see pity in them. I focus on the fire instead. “I uh – I was pretty shy. Kept to myself mostly. What about you?”
Seeing that I want the spotlight off of me, she says, eyes moving to the fire as well, “Kind of the same. But I had a few friends. Well, until the incident.” Gold looks down at pink, raised skin, crisscrossing her arms like a sick puzzle, scored and flayed, the same as her legs. “After that, my friends were too scared to play with me anymore. That’s when I got into reading. I liked pretending to be other characters, living a different life.” Realizing what she admitted, she says, voice chastising, “Wow, that was really dramatic, wasn’t it? It’s not like I was sad or anything. You adapt pretty well as a kid. I just had to find a different form of companionship, you know?”
Looking at her profile against the fire, her hair almost the same shade of red as the hottest flame, I find myself saying, “I would have played with you.”
This makes her smile, slowly at first, and then it blossoms across her face, changing it completely. “I probably would have made you otherwise.”
We both laugh.
And then, a different song starts bleeding from the sound system, less techno and more ballad, and I smile, making her ask, “What is it?”
“Well, we’re here to look like a couple, right?”
“Yeah…”
I stand up and hold out my hand. Her brows rise in surprise. “Couples generally dance at parties.”
She stares at my outstretched fingers like they have a disease on them. I try not to laugh.
“Come on, it’s not like it’s hard,” I say, taking her hand for her and hauling her up with me, her expression still uncertain.
“Great,” she mumbles under her breath, scanning the beach. “If the dress didn’t embarrass me enough, my lack of dancing skills will seal the deal.”
We quickly arrive at the patch of beach in-between the three bonfires dedicated as the ‘dance floor’, crowded by couples as they slow dance to “Bad at Love” by Halsey. I swing her around in a dramatic circle before she connects with my chest, her lips smiling against her will. But as soon as I begin to move, it disappears.
“Jagger?” she says with a worried look in her eyes as I move her arms to go around my neck, my hands going to her waist a second later. I begin to sway with the music, leaving her no choice but to follow.
She keeps looking around, no doubt trying to find someone that’s watching her and use it as an excuse to stop. I take my hand and gently tip her chin in my direction. The silent fear hasn’t disappeared from her eyes, and I ask myself how to take it away.
“The key to dancing is to keep your attention on your partner, and let everything and everyone else fall away. And besides, all we’re doing is swaying, not the mambo. And no, there isn’t a single person here looking at you. Everyone is too absorbed in their partner,” I say pointedly, making her give me a half-hearted grin, recognizing what I said is true when her eyes do one last look around.
Cyvil
Okay. So all I have to do is focus on the gorgeous guy with his arms currently wrapped around me and act as though the rest of the world doesn’t exist. If it were any other situation, you wouldn’t have had to ask me twice. But after what my mother said, and the insinuation that I have no right to show myself like this – despite what my sister said – I find myself feeling like I’m in a fish tank with a three-hundred and sixty-degree view for everyone to see, and I can’t escape. Whether they are actually looking at me or not doesn’t matter. It’s the paranoia of looking like a neon sign in the middle of the galaxy, the main source of attention, that has me squeezing my hands in a vice grip behind Jagger’s neck.
Doing the best I can to follow his advice, I find a part of him to focus on, eventually settling on his scent of all things. Under the smoky essence of fire on his shirt, I detect the smallest hint of his clean, masculine scent. Closing my eyes, I move closer, letting my forehead rest against the side of his cheek and away from the crowd since my touching him doesn’t seem to be bothering him. With every breath I take, my nose bumps against his neck, constantly inhaling the warmth of his skin.
He’s right, this is helping.
Slowly I let myself relax against him and go where his body goes, swaying like he said to. Another song comes on over the speakers, but it’s still one you can slow dance to, and not a single couple leaves the makeshift circle we have created. Resting my head completely on Jagger’s shoulder now, I force my eyes to stay open, to not shut and refuse to reopen with sleep. The combination of the pleasantly warm weather, the gentle sway of the dance, and feeling Jagger’s thumbs running circles over my waist makes it a hard battle.
“I take it you’re feeling better now?” he asks lightly against my ear, and despite my better judgement, I let a shiver run through me; fearing he felt it.
His lips graze my ear in a smile.
Yep, he definitely felt it.
“Yeah, the sedatives I took earlier are finally kicking in,” I say in response. When he stills under me, I make sure he can feel my lips against his neck, cracking open in a grin. “Kidding.”
He relaxes. And deciding this is as good a time as any, I say, “Thank you,” my hands resting on his strong shoulders, feeling the cords of muscle through his shirt. Damn.
“For what?” he asks, tilting his head to rest against mine, and I feel his curly hair tickle my neck. This is almost too easy, natural even, being like this with him. It should be a harder task to pretend like I’m head over heels for Jagger Wells, a guy I hardly know. And yet right now it feels as simple as closing my eyes and feeling the pulse in his neck tap a rhythm against my fingertips.
“For doing what Atillia said earlier.” I clarify.
“And what is that?” he asks quietly, voice hazy against my skin. Wait, when did I start playing with his hair? When did we stop swaying?