CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sunday, we followed up another of Art’s fabulous dinners with a s’mores bonfire on the beach. Truthfully, I was pretty sure everyone was looking for an excuse to get out there again. It was one of the benefits of being home that I’d missed—going to the beach everyday if you felt like it. Needless to say, on early release days in high school, we’d been quite popular.
I sat in front of the bonfire, filtering sand through my fingertips, watching the flames dance. I knew it wouldn’t be home too much longer, but for the first time, that thought didn’t pain me. Only a slight twinge of nostalgia accompanied the thought.
I was glad we’d had those experiences at all. Many people didn’t, and I was pretty sure I had enough memories to last me a lifetime. Home wasn’t brick and mortar, but people. Us. Lane calf-deep in the surf with my dad, giving him a hard time about his paper-white legs—he stopped tanning right around his knees for some unknown reason. Home was Art helping Brit collect shells, and making up stories about where they’d come from. Home was Bree noodling around on the guitar, playing something haunting and acoustic. Home was…not Adam tending the fire.
That was one downside to bonfires—they attracted people like moths to flame whether they knew you or not. I sighed. Adam’s folks had also joined us an hour earlier and were now chatting merrily with Dad and Irene. While they were perfectly lovely people, they had also given birth to the devil’s spawn. There had to be consequences for that. I was thinking one of them needed to be sacrificed to the bonfire. Since they were such a nice couple, I was willing to let them choose. His mother made killer brownies, so….that made the choice rather in simple in my opinion.
I could also do without the random chick in the purple bikini who’d decided to meander by. Apparently, chatting up Jackson was a preferable alternative to joining the rest of her high-ponytailed squad in a game of volleyball. That kind of logic got people and their high ponytails stuffed inside empty coolers.
Luckily, I was the distributor of marshmallows around the campfire, which meant melty goodness was never too far. I stuffed another in my mouth, not bothering to put it over the fire first. If this didn’t qualify as a sugar emergency, I don’t know what would.
“It would probably ease everyone’s minds if you put that skewer down.”
I glanced up to find Adam looming over me, and then down at the skewer in my palm. I gave him a tight smile. “I might want more marshmallows. So I need to hang on to this.”
He plucked the skewer from my hand and dropped into the beach chair next to me. “Not while you’re looking at that girl like that, you don’t.”
I scowled. “That obvious?”
“Pretty much. If it’s any consolation, it probably doesn’t mean anything.” He shrugged. “Some people are natural born flirts.”
Jackson was not a natural born flirt. He was naturally beautiful and attracted a lot of attention. Naturally, that was making me lose my very tenuous grasp on my sanity.
When I finally formulated a response that didn’t involve profanity, I glanced over at Adam. He was already looking at me, a funny expression wreathing his face. With his head tilted like that, he looked like a slightly confused dog, which made me smile. “What?”
“I don’t think in all the time we were together, you’ve ever looked at me that way.” He shook his head, thinking. “In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.”
“What way?”
“Like you don’t want to share him with anyone else.” His mouth quirked. “And like you want to rip that girl’s arms off.”
I scowled. “Wow, that citronella candle really isn’t working. Pests seem to be getting through the dragnet.”
“Cute. Doesn’t change anything though. Certainly doesn’t change the fact that he’s flirting with that girl.”
I had to remember to send Nicole a thank-you note. If I’d married Adam, I would have wound up in some sort of facility—mental or correctional, depending upon how bad he annoyed me. “This really isn’t any of your business, you know.”
“Look at that! It looks like she’s putting her number in his phone. Looks like flirting to me.”
Correctional facility. Definitely correctional. “He’s not flirting.” I chucked a marshmallow at him, which he caught handily and stuffed in his mouth. “Despite you wanting me to go all The Boy is Mine on her.”
“You could be Monica,” he said authoritatively. “She can be Brandy.”
“You’re such an idiot.” Of course that went without saying, but I figured I’d confirm it for him. After a pause, I gave him a poke. “If anyone is going to be Brandy, it’s going to be me. She had the sassiest parts of the song.”
“Anyway, you’re absolutely jealous. Practically green,” he said. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I don’t know that you have a right to feel any kind of way about my relationships.” I cast him a baleful side eye. “And I’m not jealous.”
“What if I said I was?”
I tilted my head, staring at him. When I didn’t answer his question, his face started to color.
He finally scowled. “You have anything to say about that?”
I sure did. “Where’s Nicole?”
His cheeks reddened even further. “She’s inside, packing. She decided to go back home a little early. She was a little…concerned with the amount of time I’ve been spending around here. We had a little disagreement and she decided it would be best if we discussed it when we got home, away from my parents.”
“That’s a lot of code to decipher,” I said, handing the poor bastard a marshmallow. “But I think I’ve got the gist. She’s pissed about you spending time with your ex and you guys argued about it. Your parents, who’ve made it crystal clear that they want us to get back together and don’t know that you cheated on me, did their best to make things uncomfortable for her. That about right?”
“Just about.”
I felt his gaze on my face as I stared into the fire.
“I never told you that she and I were…” He trailed off and cleared his throat. “When did you find out?”
“Just a really good guess.”
I was glad to have confirmation. At the same time, knowing that he’d actually cheated on me made my gut a little queasy. I’d known there was something up the day I’d dropped by the school early, to pick him up for lunch. Usually, I waited in the car, but that day had been a real scorcher. Faced with another half hour of sweating in the car or waiting in the back of his class, I chose the latter.
I usually loved to watch Adam lecture, but this day had been a little different. I’d watched him interacting with Nicole in front of the class like old friends. I hadn’t even known he’d had a TA that semester—he certainly hadn’t mentioned it. He also hadn’t mentioned that she was blonde, sunny, and bubbly. She’d looked at him with a clear case of hero worship, and he’d cast indulgent looks in her direction. I’d sat in the back of that dark, cool auditorium, feeling unease snake through my belly.
I didn’t mention it, maybe because I was afraid to be right. If I was right, we were over, and I was going to have to find another reason to use a rec room for two hundred people that we’d put a deposit on. But as the months progressed, I became more and more sure. There was nothing overt to make me doubt him, but when you know, you just…know.
I knew it then just like I knew Adam wanted me now. But that certainly wasn’t happening. Not ever again. He had shattered something sacred—my already precarious trust. It was worse than knowing I could never trust him again. I wasn’t sure if I could trust anyone else, either.
“Aren’t you going to yell at me? Hit me? Something?” Adam let out a frustrated breath. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I bit my lip. I knew if I asked about all the sordid details, he’d tell me. Frankly, I didn’t want to know. “I think when Nicole gets on the flight tomorrow, you should be on it.”
It really didn’t matter anymore. There was no need to get melancholy about it. He’d moved on, and so had I. I was trying to move on even more, and as soon as Jackson picked up on my signals and stopped chatting up a Taylor Swift clone, maybe he could help.
As if I’d said his name aloud, Jackson glanced over in our direction. His forehead creased. I gave him a small wave, but he didn’t return it. I tried to eat a marshmallow sexily for his benefit, but his eyes only narrowed. I huffed out an annoyed breath. When I looked back, Adam was watching me with an uplifted eyebrow. I smiled weakly and stuck another marshmallow on my skewer. Seducing a cheating ex? Check. Fucking cupid and his wonky arrows.
I stuck the marshmallow in the flame and watched it color. Someone shrieked in the distance as the tide rushed in, and the sound was followed by wild laughter. It was a good night to be outside, the cool wind blowing, the salty smell of the sea sharp in the air, and the crackling of the fire loud in my ears. After Adam pushed out of his chair and headed back up to his parents’ house, the atmosphere was even better.
“Are there any left for me?”
I looked up to find Jackson standing in front of me, an unreadable expression on his face. It didn’t matter—he and Taylor Clone were done and I was ridiculously glad to see him. One corner of my mouth lifted. “I might be able to spare a few.”
He sat beside me on the log and accepted the skewer when I handed it to him. He lifted the marshmallow toward his mouth, but I stilled his hand quickly, shaking my head. “Don’t. It’s hot.”
“That’s pretty much the point, isn’t it?”
I grinned. “If you want to lose all feeling in your tongue, that’s up to you.”
He chuckled. “No, I’ll pass. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need it later.”
When I got his meaning, I went red as fire. If I was lucky, he would. That was provided I could manage to move our flirting past first base. Hell, we weren’t even kissing. What base was that? Was I even in the dugout? I thought I was somewhere in the concession stand, trying to get popcorn. Finally frustrated with trying to figure out how to be suave, I sighed. For Christ’s sake, I wasn’t a shy, blushing virgin.
I leaned over and kissed him, his lips soft and pliant under mine. He stared at me bemused, the fire giving those wide, hazel eyes a golden sheen. When he spoke, his voice was rough and low. “I guess that means we’re on the same page.”
It was a moment before I realized I’d been holding my breath. I let it all out in a whoosh of air. “Yep. Same paragraph. Same line.” Same slutty book.
“You taste like marshmallows.”
“Oh.” I looked down at the bag in my hands. “Sorry.”
His hand sifted through my hair and pulled my face back to his. “I didn’t say that was a bad thing.”
His lips were on mine again, his tongue sweeping through my mouth. I couldn’t do anything but open myself up to the kiss, a low moan escaping from my throat. There was kissing, and then there was this, this meshing of mouths and tongues that created this firestorm of sparks in my body. When we finally had to separate or learn to breathe aerobically, we pulled back.
I blinked. Without conscious thought, I slid my tongue across my lips, just to taste him again.
His eyes darkened. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“Oh.” It was all I could think of to say.
“That’s all you have to say?” he demanded. “Oh?”
“You want a sonnet?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Then maybe you should ask your volleyball chick to write you one.”
The wind swept his hair across his face and he pushed it back, enough for me to see his eyes creased in amusement. “You jealous?”
“No. It’s not my business if you let blonde, cheerleader types put their numbers in your phone.”
“I already erased it. I didn’t want to be rude.” He sent me a crooked smile. “Besides, I’m not really into peppy chicks right now. I’m kind of into this princess of darkness whose lifeblood seems to be sarcasm. Now where’s my sonnet, Winters?”
I pretended to think. “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Jackson is the sun.”
His lips twitched. “I want something original.”
“Damn.” I sighed heavily. “All right, I’m gonna need a minute.”
“Wait.” Suddenly his hand was in my hair again and I didn’t mind at all. “I’m going to give you more material to work with.”
This time, the kiss was leisurely and exploratory, and when it ended, I wanted more. Needed more. I sighed in disappointment when his hand dropped from my hair.
“That’s barely enough to write a damned haiku, Sparks.”
Just as he leaned in to give me a refresher course in why exactly, he was the master of kissing, and why I should bow to the altar of his well-shaped lips, I heard a throat clearing. Loudly.
I glared up at Art, who obviously graduated valedictorian from the school of bad timing. He smiled at me sanguinely, propping his board up in the sand. Water dripped from his dark, water-laden hair and he swiped a hand over his face. With several leather, corded bracelets around his wrist and wildly colored board shorts hanging low on his narrow hips, he looked like an ad for a surf shop. That picture was going to look so good in his upcoming obituary.
He leaned his head to the side slightly, hitting his ear to drain the water clinging there. “You know, most of us are probably going to be out here a while.”
“Yeah? So?” I tried to curb my irritation, but Art grinned anyway.
“So the house is probably empty.” Art widened his eyes and blinked. Twice.
Jackson and I stared at each other for a minute before standing simultaneously. We scrambled up the wet sand, headed toward the house to the sound of Art’s chuckling. “We’re not all getting lucky, you selfish bastards,” he called after us. “Leave the marshmallows!”