Chapter 26
ANOTHER 48 HOURS
I spent the rest of yesterday avoiding my father, running errands, and packing for the weekend.
I only talked to Layla for a few minutes, and then only to coordinate departure times. We were going to be spending the next few days down at the Jersey Shore, or as the natives liked to say, down tha shaw.
I was hitching a ride with Cooper Benedict, which would have been weird if I didn’t already know that he was taking Pickford, too. He just called me out of the blue last night and offered to give me a lift, explaining that it didn’t make sense for everyone to take their own cars.
“Sargento’s hopping in with Rymer. They’re bringing Heather and Becca.”
Heather and Becca? “No shit? I didn’t know they were coming down.”
Coop tried to play it cool. “Yeah, I kinda convinced them to come. I didn’t think anyone would mind; there’s plenty of room. They said they’d bring all the food, so...”
I’d known that he and Layla had broken up months before, but I have to admit, it was a huge relief to hear him talking about another girl. Good for him. And Sarge, for that matter.
Being crammed in an enclosed space with Coop for two hours kind of ensured a forced bonding session. As much as I hate to admit it, I gotta say, it turned out he wasn’t such a bad guy. He had good taste in music, he had a funny sense of humor, and hell, he obviously shared my same taste in women. We didn’t run out of things to talk about the entire way down.
As we pulled up to our rental house, however, the three of us went speechless.
The place was a total dive. A perfectly dilapidated, two-storied rectangle of brown. The roof and the siding were both covered in dark cedar shingles; the front door, the window frames, and even the shutters were painted to match. The only bright spots on the entire façade were a ten foot, light blue smiling plastic whale over the front door and a row of rainbow pinwheels across the railing of the small brown balcony on the second floor.
Cooper’s jaw went slack before he finally found his voice. “What. The Fuck. Is that?”
“No way, man,” Pickford said. “There’s no way this is the right place.” He double checked the address, his eyes shooting from the paper in his hands to the number painted above the door and back again, unwilling to believe his own handwriting. “Fucking Rymer, man. Tell me again why we put him in charge of this?”
Cooper got over his shock enough to pull into the driveway next to Rymer’s truck. We unloaded all our stuff and made our way into the big brown nightmare. Rymer and Sarge were sitting on an orange plaid couch playing Sega when we walked in. They barely looked up from their game to greet us hello.
“Nice place,” I scathed, taking a look around the room. Brown paneling as far as the eye could see; dusty, outdated furniture scavenged from the sixties; a wall of bookshelves packed floor to ceiling with American flags, bicentennial dishes, and patriotic knickknacks...
Holy crap.
I hauled my duffel up the stairs, mildly pacified to find that the second floor was somewhat nicer than the first. Heather and Becca were making up the mattress in the master bedroom, and I dropped my bag on the landing before heading in to kiss them hello. Shit. I didn’t even think about sheets. I guessed that aside from bringing all the food, they were taking care of our housekeeping, too.
“Hey, girls.”
Pick and Coop followed up the stairs with their own greetings before promptly getting into an argument about who’d be occupying the master bedroom. A few coin flips between the three of us determined Pick to be the winner, dammit. The master was the least-shitty room in the mostly shitty house.
Coop stayed upstairs with the girls while Pick and I went back down to the kitchen and cracked a beer.
We’d just settled in at the scroungy kitchen table when I asked, “What time did Lisa say they were heading out?”
“Around ten.”
I glanced at the clock above the window as I drummed my fingers on the yellow Formica tabletop. “Well it’s already noon. They should be here by now.”
“I don’t know, maybe they just got caught up.” Pick aimed a knowing look at me as a wicked smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Don’t think I don’t know why you’re asking. I already know about you and Layla on grad night.”
My head literally did a double take. “Jesus, word travels fast.”
“Nah,” he snickered. “Layla told Lisa and Lisa told me. That’s as far as it’s gonna go.” He gave a quick scan over his shoulder to make sure no one was within earshot. “I didn’t realize that was the first time. I thought you two had been hooking up all through the fall.”
“Nope. I wanted to, but she wasn’t having it. Once she got back with Coop, I stopped trying.” I picked at the tab on my beer to add, “Hey, uh, and also, I’ve been meaning to say I’m sorry for disappearing on everyone the way I did.” It was just way too hard to hang around when Lay and I weren’t even talking.
Pickford was smart enough to realize my dilemma on his own. He didn’t need me to explain it. “Well, it’s good to have you back,” he said, clinking his beer can against mine.
Coop came downstairs with the girls, all three of them carrying towels and dressed in their bathing suits. “We’re heading up to the beach,” he announced. “Any takers?”
Heather tried to lull Sarge away from his Sega marathon but he had money riding on the game. “Uh, not right now. I’ll meet you up there in a little bit.”
If he took his focus off the damned TV for one single second, he would have seen the look of utter disappointment that fell across Heather’s face. I was going to have to give that guy a good talking to.
“What about you two?” Coop asked.
I was dying to check out the beach, but I didn’t want to split and miss Layla. I was pretty sure Pickford had already figured that out as he answered for the both of us. “Yeah, in a few. We’ll meet you up there once the girls get down.”
Once they split, Pick and I unpacked the numerous grocery bags standing sentinel along the kitchen counters. Coop wasn’t kidding when he said the girls were going to bring “all the food.” There were Pop Tarts and cookies, bacon, eggs, and cereal, a shit-ton of macaroni and cheese, and countless bags of snacks.
Nice.
We left the cold cuts and rolls out to make sandwiches for the beach as Rymer and Sarge trash-talked each other from the other room.
We’d barely set up our assembly line when—finally—I heard the unmistakable sound of Layla’s Mustang outside, so I darted out the back door and headed up the driveway.
Lisa was already out of the car and standing on the sidewalk, a look of unmitigated shock on her face at the sight of our dilapidated beach rental. I can’t say that I blamed her. The place was pretty... disarming.
Layla hadn’t left her seat yet, so I leaned my elbows on the passenger door and greeted her through the open window. “Hey!”
“Hi,” she said back shyly. “Looks like you forgot your shirt.”
I glanced down at my bare chest. The day was a scorcher, and I’d been wearing nothing but my swimsuit all morning. “At least I’m wearing my shorts. For now.”
Her cheeks reddened ever so slightly, forcing me to physically restrain myself from pulling her out of the damned car and burying my tongue in her mouth right then and there.
Lisa must have caught our charged exchange, and decided to give us a little privacy. She smirked as she announced, “I think I’ll just head inside.”
I waved Layla toward the back of the long driveway where she wedged her Mustang into the sliver of space between Coop’s Audi and Rymer’s truck. As I jogged down the length of blacktop, she exited the vehicle, and suddenly, we found ourselves facing off across the ten-foot chasm that separated us.
There was the briefest moment of trepidation as we stared each other down, the both of us unsure how to proceed. I mean, the last time we saw one another, we were tangled up in each other’s arms. But was our first kiss destined to be our only?
Layla answered my unasked question as she lunged for me, throwing her arms around my neck and wrapping her legs around my waist before planting her lips on mine. Nice. My hands automatically reached under the skirt of her terrycloth coverup, grabbing her ass to pull us closer, liquefying any further rational thought from my brain.
Before I knew what I was doing, I maneuvered us between the cars and backed her up against Rymer’s truck. She lowered her feet to the ground, but there was no way I was ready to let her go just yet. I was too far gone.
“No, don’t,” I rasped, before hitching her legs around my waist again and rolling my hips against the space in between. The expression on her face showed the slightest hint of shock, but she braced her feet on the passenger door of her car as I gripped her jaw in my hands and slammed our lips together. An involuntary growl ripped from my throat as my mouth opened over hers, our tongues tangling; the uncontrollable hard-on behind my shorts rocking between her legs as her fingers ran along the bare skin of my chest, my shoulders, my neck.
I couldn’t get enough of her. Her touch, her scent, her taste. Things were escalating quickly, and my scumbag hands wanted nothing more than to strip her down and explore every inch of her skin as soon as humanly possible.
Jesus. If I didn’t put a stop to this now, I’d end up violating her right here out in the driveway, for godsakes.
It was torture, but I managed to tear my mouth from hers and find my voice. “Hi,” I said to her swollen lips.
“Hi,” she said back, trying to contain her giggling.
I met her eyes, my lip twitching as I admonished, “Took you long enough to get here.”
I’d been waiting all morning for her to get down to the beach, but I’d been waiting a helluva lot longer than that to get her into my arms.
Layla picked up on the double meaning of my statement. “Yeah, I know,” she said, smiling wickedly. “It feels like it took forever.”
I gave her another quick peck before adjusting myself in my shorts and grabbing the bags from her trunk. “You ready for the nickel tour?”
“I’m a little afraid, actually.”
“I’d like to be able to set your mind at ease, but there’s really nothing I can tell you that will prepare you for this place.”
“Well, if it’s as lovely as the outside, I’ll consider myself prepared.”
We came in through the kitchen as Pick was finishing up the sandwiches, Lisa supervising their assembly. They said hello as Layla scanned her eyes around the room. “What the hell?”
Guess she wasn’t quite as prepared as she thought.
I chuckled at her reaction before warning, “You haven’t seen the living room yet.”
Pick dropped his head and started snickering as I led the girls into the monstrosity.
Rymer and Sarge were still playing Sega as Lisa stationed herself on the brown pleather recliner. She and Layla shared a knowing look before she started in with the ballbusting. “Nice choice on the rental, guys. What, you couldn’t find a shittier house?”
Rymer snarled back, “Hey, can it, DeSanto! What do you expect for four hundred bucks a week?”
Layla stayed out of the fray and instead poked her head into the adjoining bedrooms. She started to open the bathroom door but then must have thought better of it, wiping her palm off on her skirt.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “The upstairs is better. A little.”
I led her to the second floor before dumping Lisa’s bag in the master bedroom. “Don’t get your hopes up. Pick won the coin toss.”
We went across the hall where I dropped Layla’s bag in the bunk-bed room. “This is you,” I said before pointing to the room right next door. “And this is me.”
Layla bit her lip as I launched into a corny bellboy speech. “I hope you’ll enjoy your stay with us, Miss Warren. Please feel free to utilize my services at any time, at any hour. Even in the middle of the night.” I slipped my arms around her waist and added, “Especially if it’s the middle of the night.”
She snickered as she pecked me on the lips. I was starting to get used to this, being comfortable enough to kiss her whenever I wanted. I slipped a hand behind her neck and went in for another one, but my momentum was halted when she wrinkled up her nose and asked, “Hey, where’s Coop?”
I scowled as I dropped my hands. “Seriously, Layla?”
“What?”
My posture deflated as I raised broken eyes to hers. I was only screwing with her, but I made sure to give a convincing performance just the same. “I just offer you an invitation to steal my virtue and that’s when you decide it’s the perfect time to ask me about another guy? Jeez, Lay. Talk about dejection.”
It was no use. She was totally onto me. “Wellll,” she teased, throwing her arms over my shoulders. “Maybe you need to try harder to keep me focused on you instead.”
“Oh yeah?” I laughed, finally planting that kiss on her. “I’ll see what I can do.”