I parked my Jeep and followed the edge of the building. Bo and Eli were no longer in sight, so I embraced the few moments of peace before the shitstorm.
It didn’t last long. Footsteps clomped from behind, and I heard Eli’s words overlap, “Kid! Wait up.”
When I turned around, I expected to see Bo with him, but he stumbled toward me. Alone.
I accelerated my pace without realizing it. “Oh. Hey. What’s up?”
“Slow down.” He grabbed my hand, lifted it overhead, and twirled me in a circle like a ballerina in a children’s jewelry box. “Let me get a good look at you.”
Instantly, I regretted my outfit choice.
“You are,” his stare loitered on every inch of my body from head to toe, “stunning.”
“Um. Thanks.”
With Eli on my right and the building on my left, I mistakenly approached a dead-end. Crap. A massive recycle container rested against the aged brickwork in front of me. Knowing I had to cross in front of him, I executed my next move with a sharp turn.
“What’s the rush?” He cut me off two feet from the oversized bin designated for cardboard.
I felt heat radiating from his chest along with an undercurrent of confident energy he dictated. All of it buzzed in the air. Cornered. The smell of his strong cologne burned through my quickened breaths, cloying on the back of my tongue. Trapped. Ice-blue eyes penetrated and lured me toward the cusp of a panic attack, nudging me closer to the brink. Confined. Pulses of adrenaline jolted me, but the irrational rush of fear I’d done something wrong or I misunderstood what happened kept me from moving.
“Just trying to make my presence known. We all know how Annelies, your fiancée,” I stressed her title and tried to make another escape, “loves it when I’m late.”
“Annelies who?” Eli placed his palm against the building and locked his elbow to stop me. His breath reeked like hot hospital bandages as his face neared mine, telling the tale of how he swam in more than his share of Scotch. “And your presence is definitely known.”
Fear rioted inside me, and I wished I’d chosen a different parking spot. If only I would’ve used the pay lot, waited for a space near the fountain, or took the train. I could’ve left the Jeep a mile away, closer to the beach, or stayed home. Anything to reverse the current situation.
I should’ve decked him. I should’ve run. My legs and fists begged me to do it. My mind screamed to react. But the three body parts refused to communicate. Being paralyzed meant Eli was the predator and I was his prey.
Eli’s fingertips skimmed my waist while he forced my back to greet hard brick, lips grazing my right ear. Everything “my” he’d suddenly marked as “his.” “You smell incredible.”
“It’s soap.” I swatted his hand away, but it made him more persistent.
He glanced down at the t-shirt poking out from his zippered hoodie and pulled the tab down to his navel. “Pick one.”
I read over the white cotton fabric labeled BACHELOR PARTY CHECKLIST at chest-level. None of the small-print, bulleted options underneath sounded like fun.
Show off your sweater meat. No, thanks.
Talk dirty to me. Nope.
Let’s make out. Not happening.
Text me a pussy pic. Hard pass.
Lick my dick. Fat chance.
I stopped after the fifth option. Knowing what lurked farther south would remain a mystery in many ways.
“Tonight’s my last hurrah, you know.” Parts of his sentence crashed and collided in my head as his frame closed in on mine.
I struggled to stay calm. “Think about what you’re saying. Right now.” When I tried to duck out from underneath his arm, his body pinned mine against the wall and prevented me from moving.
“Trust me, I’ve thought about it. Hard. All day long.”
“Your bachelor party’s tonight. You get married. Soon,” I reasoned. “Really soon.”
“You could be part of my historic sendoff. Show a little sympathy.” He pouted and slid his free hand up my arm and tugged the spaghetti strap off my shoulder. Eli’s thumb caressed bare skin over to my collarbone. “Annelies will be my ball-and-chain for life.”
Bravery rushed, and I brought my knee up to greet his dick, but he blocked me and lost his balance under the authority of Scotch. The motion sent him to his knees with a grunt.
His reply forbade any further argument. “No one turns down a Whitaker.”
“I’m not turning you down.” My hands shook as I grabbed him by wads of his hooded sweatshirt material and pulled, assisting him to his feet. “I’m turning the tables.”
“That’s it.” A smirk of approval crossed his face. “Take control.”
In a singular move, I spun him around and pinned his body against the wall with his forearms braced to his chest while my other hand reached down for his pork sword and jizz bag, cupping. Was the idle threat too much or not enough? I didn’t know. What I did know was plenty of men damaged me, and I’d hit my breaking point.
“You act like you’re no dirty bitch, but I know the truth,” Eli murmured.
“What truth?”
He flashed me a deceitful smile. “You’ll see.”
I held him against the wall harder, my hand still on his vagina miner. “What are you’re talking about?”
Eli glanced to the left and let out a subdued chuckle. “This is perfect.”
“What’s so funny?” I let my gaze drag after his.
Frozen chest.
Lungs wheezing.
Couldn’t breathe.
Someone stood at the edge of the alleyway, and it created a new problem. It looked like I wanted to dominate Eli and succeeded. Distracted, I strangled his junk, but while I administered every fraction of his well-deserved pain, all of it translated to unadulterated shock spanning Sienna’s face.
Oh, no. No! No! No!
Immediately, I let go of Eli. He crumpled to the ground in a heap to nurse his jewels, the metal bin blocking the rest of the world from seeing him.
I didn’t know what she’d seen or heard— all, some, or none of it. Yeah. “None of it” was wishful thinking.
“Sienna!” I yelled after her. “Wait!”
She covered her mouth with one hand, spun around, and bolted.
The disgust on her face would be etched in my mind for life. I tried to catch up to her and stopped halfway to the front door of The Seaman. Even if I found Sienna, I didn’t know how to address what transpired. Or when. What would happen if I didn’t say something to her? Would she call me out in front of everyone? Would she tell Annelies directly? Would word get out around town, resulting in someone spray-painting “DIE, TRASH” on my Jeep? The latest snag wasn’t part of the plan. I was supposed to be the one telling her about Miles cheating with Lucy. With the wedding only two days away, we both harbored a dark secret.
July 7th couldn’t begin and end soon enough.
Pausing at the front windows to the bar, I didn’t see Sienna through the glass panes. Annelies. Bo. Lissy. They lingered near the entryway. Nauseated, I gripped the doorknob and pulled. I couldn’t tell you the time, the song playing, or who surrounded me when I walked in. My mind reeled, and everything became a hazy echo. But I had to compartmentalize what happened until I figured out what to do.
“It’s about time.” Paige tapped me on the shoulder from behind, breaking my daze. “You’re late. Again.”
I turned, my tolerance for her finally snapping like a twig. “Back the hell off, Paige!”
She walked away with her nose and superior attitude aimed high. “You don’t have to be such a bitch.”
Bo’s slur of concern sliced into the air, “What was that?”
“Nothing.” My eyes flicked in Paige’s direction before I turned to him again, laying i
nto the next person I’d been building a dam against. “And how many have you had?”
He counted on his fingers and quickly gave up. “I dunno. Four… teen? Does it matter?”
“Cry me a liver. Yes, it matters. When did you start?”
“Who knows? I can’t remember, Baby Girl.” He held the flask above his head and glanced at the silvery bottom with one eye shut. “This thing’s defective. Must have a hole because it’s empty again.” He reached for my hand and missed twice before heading toward what was more important— the bar.
The craptastic night hadn’t officially started yet, and I already called it a nightmare. First, I would’ve rather made good on Roxy’s bet and serenaded Barry with my underwear than be at Eli and Annelies’s bachelor party. Second, I’d manhandled Eli’s cooch cork out back. Third, Sienna witnessed it, and maybe even captured it on camera— her specialty. Fourth, I had a feeling Miles spent his afternoon plotting my death fifty different ways over the whole aquatics center mess. Fifth, Paige’s scathing attitude would land me in jail if I weren’t careful. Sixth, I felt obligated to babysit Bo while we were at The Salty Seaman. One hundred life rings couldn’t save me.
And that proved true when a hand firmly gripped my upper arm. “I’ve been looking for you,” a male said sternly over my shoulder. “Sit. We need to talk.”
My eyes flicked down at the vacant seat, but I didn’t submit to Miles’s request as I yanked my arm away. “I think you spoke enough for both of us at the pool.”
“Fine. Stand. I don’t care.” He paused. “Do you know what your problem is, Nash?”
I sat down with a look of defiance to let him know he didn’t control the situation. “Aside from the arrogant dick who just ruined my night, I don’t have a problem.”
He didn’t need to know whether I meant him or Eli. Or both.
“You’re destructive.” Miles’s eyebrows pulled down and together while he straddled the chair across from me, his eye contact refusing to break away from mine.
A ball of laughter burst from my mouth before I could stop it. “Me? I’m the town massage therapist for fuck’s sake. I fix people.”
Miles pulled a familiar, wrinkled cocktail napkin from his pocket and tried to flop it flat aggressively with a few flicks of his wrist. He gave up and pinned it down with his near-full coffee cup. Dark liquid sloshed up over the side. “Not big enough, anyway,” he muttered.
“For what? Your ego?” I rolled my eyes, doing my best to tune out Jewel’s Foolish Games wailing on the jukebox.
Miles’s gaze locked with mine again, frustration teeming behind near-black irises. Without looking down at the table, he reached for a checkered paper placemat and held it at eye level. “See this? It’s me before I met you. Pristine. Zero issues.”
I did my best to ignore the pained tension creeping through my shoulder.
“And this,” he crumpled the placemat tightly into a ball, the loud crinkling sound drawing attention from surrounding customers, “is me after I walked through the doors of your office. But no matter how much,” he flattened the paper on the tabletop with a forceful palm, “I try to fix it by ignoring you, it’s not the same.” The placemat had deep creases and wrinkles when he held it up, the top corner flopping forward. “In some jacked up way, you keep ruining me.”
My face heated and I hated that Miles McCullough got under my skin. “That’s where you’re wrong.” I snatched another mat from a nearby place setting. “This? It’s still you. Two-dimensional. Disposable. But there’s a difference.” I carefully ripped the paper, leaving a one-inch piece connecting the two halves together. “Try and deny it to make yourself feel better, but you were already ruined and hanging on by a thread when we met.”
“I don’t get it,” he said. “You leave an apology and still act like a—”
“Hold up, Miles. I didn’t apologize for anything.”
“Yes. Yes, you did,” he countered.
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“Yes—”
“Stop. What are you talking about?”
“Earlier. Today. On my truck. You said, ‘Sorry’s not enough.’”
I laughed. Hard. It came off patronizing, and I didn’t care.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“That wasn’t an apology. That was me telling you your sorry wasn’t enough.”
His stare drilled into me. “You… still think you did nothing wrong?”
“With the jerkhole skills you’ve mastered?” I leaned back and folded my arms. “Hardly.”
“What—”
When I scooted the chair back, the metal feet scraped against the concrete floor, the sound cutting his words off on my behalf. I raised a hand to my ear. “Can’t hear you.” Refusing to look his direction, I stood up, lifted his coffee cup, and snatched the napkin. Maybe it was petty, but he didn’t deserve having it. I ensured my fingertips also skimmed the torn placemat, brushing it to The Salty Seaman’s sticky ground.
Can’t hear you.
For a couple of seconds, I mentally tripped over my hasty exit. Tasha echoed in my head to “listen,” but Miles’s and my conversation equated to the opposite. Don’t let the Lusty Lady get in your head. She’s probably in a lobster-induced butter and lemon coma right now while Randy paddles her unmentionables. I was convinced the old lady wouldn’t remember a word of her own advice tomorrow. Stubbornly, I didn’t relent and walked away.
Over the next thirty minutes, I made sure everyone knew I attended that party, even though I remained a wallflower while they socialized. From the corner of my eye, I periodically spotted Miles across the room. His movements were calculated. Evasive. Staying at least fifteen feet away at all times. We were two opposing magnets, one force consistently pushing the other away. Yet, I remained convinced that barrier protected me.
My head ached, competing for first place with the agony inching up my shoulder and down my arm like a vice. It was a stalemate. I stared at my friend, the bottle of water in my hand— it wasn’t helping. My bottle of ibuprofen was empty. The muscle relaxers were in my medicine cabinet. Regardless, I couldn’t take a sedative knowing I had to drive. But I needed to get away from Miles, from Eli, from my pain, from everything.
I skimmed the room, my eyes slowing on the wall of liquor bottles behind the bar. It’d been three years, four months, one week, and six days since I’d last let alcohol pass by my lips. Not that I kept count. I wrung the cocktail napkin in my hands with whitened knuckles. My big toe tapped, and I couldn’t calm it. The Devil inside me shouted, his argument persuasive, and I was glad no one else could hear it. Should I? Shouldn’t I? I should! No, don’t. Maybe… So much turmoil. But in that moment, my need to escape? That critical all-important desire? It burned the back of my throat, clouded my vision, and stole my logic, all of it teaming up to surpass my trophy of sober days.
“Doin’ it.” I started my way up to the bar. Each step forward, each move to the side or diagonally to let someone through, and each person who stood in front of me were chances— like a game of chess. All of them were opportunities to change my direction. Yet, I didn’t back down. Checkmate.
“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked over the noisy crowd.
I stared at the various bottles of liquid and their contents, the world silencing. Colors captivated me: golden amber, crystal clear, sunny yellow, Caribbean blue, and rich russet. There were more, but sensory overload kept me from processing the others.
Next, I scoured the board of specialty drinks, their names written with chalk pens. I couldn’t tell if I needed a strong Suck, Bang, & Blow on a Boat, two rounds of Dirty Sex on the Shore, or a triple Mermaid Orgy. With too many options, I chose another route. “Beer me,” I said loudly. “I don’t care what kind, just make it fast.”
“You got it,” he said. A handful of seconds later, he set
a clear plastic cup in front of me. White froth spilled over the side and onto the countertop like a staged commercial during an NFL game.
“Thanks.” I left a ten-dollar bill on the glossy wood, grabbed my drink, and walked away.
“That’s a near beer, right?” Bo asked when I gave in and joined the group.
“It’s virgin as I am.”
Bo took a sharp breath. “For real? What’s the occasion?”
“Do I need one?” I asked through bared teeth. “And quit with the hypercritical stare. You drink like a fish, so why can’t I—”
“Whoa-oa-oa!” Paige pointed at my hand. “Look at you, holding an adult beverage! Did you have to suck dick for that beer, or do they have some poor people charity program up at the bar?”
“Shut it, Paige,” I snapped. “I’m jealous of people who don’t know you.”
She opened her mouth to reply when Annelies and Eli joined us.
“Okay! Here’s what’s happening,” Annelies said, adjusting her glittery Bride-To-Be sash and her jeweled tiara. “Everyone have a drink?” She glanced around the group, her eyes ending up on me. “Cool. You let someone buy you a beer.”
“I can pay for… I chose—”
“Before we take off and go our separate ways,” Annelies raised her cocktail glass a few inches, “we’re going to play one round of Never Have I Ever. Each person gets to say one statement about something they’ve never done. If anyone else has done the action, they take a drink. An extra rule? The topic has to be about relationships or sex.”
A waitress dropped off a tray of shot glasses filled with clear liquid on the table we surrounded.
“You know… I didn’t want us to run out.” Annelies pointed at the shots. “Lissy, you start.”
Annelies’s introverted sister replied, “Um. Never have I ever… had sex underwater.”
Everyone in the group looked at one another. Miles was the only person who lifted a glass from the tray, downing a shot.
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