Keilana disappeared behind the wall again only to re-emerge a few seconds later wearing an oversized t-shirt and soft cotton boxers that were at least two sizes too big. Why did she always have to look so adorable?
She gave me a look I couldn’t decipher. “I’m surprised you asked about Billie. You’ve made it clear that there can never be anything between you and me.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Well, other than friendship.” Then she cocked her head to the side like an interested puppy. “Have you changed your mind about that?” There was a hopeful lilt to her voice that tempted me like few things in my life had. God was cruel.
“I ... no.” It felt like someone was sitting on my chest. “Keilana, we can’t ...” Christ, I wanted to die.
She let out a deep breath and joined me on the sofa, but didn’t sit too close. “What does that mean? We can’t?”
I turned to her and prayed that my heart wasn’t showing in every line of my face. “I think you know what it means.”
She gave me a small, slightly guilty smile. “You can’t blame me for trying.”
I began to fidget. I had to change the subject or I was going to lean over and kiss her senseless. “Billie seemed interested in you. I, well, I just wondered if the feeling was mutual?”
She rested her head on the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. “I don’t think that’s any of your business. In fact, you know, Cadie, I don’t think this is how friendship is supposed to go.”
I blinked. “Whaddya mean?”
Keilana frowned, but kept her eyes closed. “You’re always asking about me, but never telling me about you. Granted, I’m not used to the interest because most people hate me, but—”
“They do not!”
She merely raised an eyebrow at me. “Most people might hate me,” she continued blithely, “but I’m pretty sure that real friends know stuff about each other.”
“You know”—I waved my hands in the air—“stuff about me.” Scintillating comebacks under pressure are my specialty.
“Nothing that matters,” she disagreed pointedly.
She was right. God, I hated it when she was right. “Fine, you can ask me something about myself and then it’s my turn. Deal?”
She made a sour face. “Just one question?”
There was a hint of challenge in her voice and I found myself unable to resist the bait. “How about three?”
One of her dark eyebrows edged upward again and it was all I could do not to reach out and run my fingertip over it. She hummed a little to herself. “Hmm ... And I can ask anything?”
I swallowed, a million things I did not want her to ask me running through my mind. “Anything.”
“In that case I need a minute to think.”
I rolled my eyes.
She turned sideways and tucked her feet underneath her. Then she proceeded to take her time about deciding what to say.
My nerves ratcheted up with every passing second, and yet I was surprised to find myself eager to share something about the real me. Even if it was only something small, a tiny bit of reality to assuage my guilt so that I could look her in the eye tomorrow—I sighed inwardly—just before I would work on another snitch report to her parents.
“Okay, is the reason you won’t kiss me because you’re interested in someone else?”
Whoa. That’s not what I expected her to ask. “I ... no. There’s no one else. There hasn’t been anyone serious in my life for several years now.”
“Wow. Years?” she mouthed silently, looking concerned.
Oops. I forgot that I was supposed to be twenty-one years old. I hadn’t lived long enough to have too much emotional baggage. I smiled wryly. “Well, maybe it just seems like years. I work too much. Or at least I did before this fall. And I’m alone too much. I surf too much.” God, I was starting to depress myself! “And none of those things are very conducive to finding someone special.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously but she didn’t say anything.
I licked my lips. “My turn yet?”
She gave me a reluctant nod. “Umm ... I guess.”
“Good.” I clapped my hands together, not bothering to hide my excitement. I had carte blanche, a nosy person’s dream. But that didn’t mean I could jump right in with both feet. No, I still had to be careful. If I aroused too much suspicion now, I would just be shooting myself in the foot for later. I nearly asked about Billie, but I decided to try to throw her off guard with another topic completely. “Why does Shauna hate you so much?”
Keilana didn’t even hesitate. “Because sophomore year I had an affair with her roommate, who also happens to be her twin sister, and everyone found out about it.”
I winced as I thought of this tiny school with all its gossipy cliques. “Oh, man. That sucks.” No wonder she was a leper to Shauna and her friends. She’d violated a cardinal rule among the popular girls. She’d done something that showed plainly she wasn’t a clone of the other girls. Well, that and eaten pussy.
Tiredly, she rubbed her eyes. “It was the one time I didn’t look before I leapt and I’ve been paying for it ever since. I thought ...” Her jaw worked for a few seconds, but no sound came out. “I was stupid. I thought things would be different on the mainland. And they were. But just not different enough. Everyone has an agenda.”
My heart sank.
“And after a while I stopped trying to convince people that I wasn’t some sort of deviant predator and just let them think what they want about me.”
“Predator?” That seemed a bit harsh. “You’re no predator. I’ve been here for weeks now and I’m still the virgin I was when I got here.”
She snorted softly and her mouth shaped a weak grin.
I scooted a little closer and bumped my arm against hers. “So Shauna blames you for her sister’s wicked walk on the lesbian wild side, huh?”
“Of course.” She mimicked Shauna’s voice perfectly. “There aren’t any dykes in the very distinguished Brewster family.”
I couldn’t help but snicker.
In her normal voice she grumbled, “I am a seducer of innocent women, after all. And to hear Shauna tell it, not even the nuns are safe around me.”
I wasn’t sure that if Keilana really turned on the sex appeal that anyone would be safe. I know I wasn’t. The hard part to believe, though, was that she didn’t seem to have a sense of how compelling she could be and how much power that gave her. At first I thought her apparent naiveté in this area was some sort of trick. But it wasn’t. It was just Keilana.
“It was Shauna’s sister, Misty, who seduced me, not the other way around.” Her face took on a look that was a combination of anger, hurt, and embarrassment. “And it wasn’t even me she was interested in. She wanted a job at the Poppenhouse Cookie headquarters in Honolulu and thought that she could convince me to sweet-talk Daddy into giving her a one-way ticket to her paradise.”
My eyebrows rose further. “That’s really lousy, Keilana. I’m sorry.”
She forced a shrug and looked away. “I lived.”
“You sure did. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”
She glanced back at me, her eyes holding no secrets and alive with panic. My stomach did a back flip. She needed comfort. She needed a real friend to lean on and tell her that everyone didn’t use everyone else, someone she could count on no matter what.
In short, I was the absolute last thing she needed.
“So …” I lightened my voice and did my best not to give in to my sudden urge to cry. “Did Shauna’s sister get her ticket?”
She looked a little surprised by my question but she began to relax. After thirty seconds or so, the corner of her mouth quirked. “Oh, yeah, she got her ticket punched.” Her smile broadened. “And so did I.”
Our eyes met and we both dissolved into unexpected laughter over Keilana’s suggestive tone. While she didn’t seem to really be upset, there was just the barest hint of poorly-veiled hurt in her smile.
“Well,” she said, si
ghing, suddenly aware at how closely I was watching her. “You sure picked weird questions.” An evil twinkle invaded her eyes. “I still have two questions left, but I’m going to save them for when I’m not beat.” She yawned.
My eyes saucered and my butt began to levitate off the couch. “That wasn’t three questions! That was ...” Then I mentally replayed our conversation and wished I could kick my own ass. “You tricked me, Newman.”
Her brows contracted. “Why do you call me that sometimes?”
I covered my face with my hands, and cursed at how easily I’d gotten caught up in our conversation.
“And how did I trick you?” she asked in a voice so reasonable that I wanted to scream. She was teasing me and I knew it.
I glanced up and couldn’t help it, I did something I hadn’t done since I was six years old. I actually began to pout.
She smiled warmly and reached out very slowly to cup my cheek. I could have moved away. She made sure to give me plenty of time to escape. But I didn’t. I wanted her touch as much as I’d wanted anything in my life and I bit back a gasp at the unexpected warmth of long fingers. It was the first time she’d touched me since my ill-fated French lesson that had left me hungry for her for days. My belly twisted all over again with the familiar craving.
“Thanks for making me laugh, Cadie.” Her voice was as rich and sweet as honey and I felt it seep into my bones as she spoke. She stroked my check with her thumb. “Up until a few minutes ago, tonight had really sucked.”
My tongue refused to work and all I could do was smile back.
She gave my cheek a final pat. “I’m going to take a quick shower to get the smoke out of my hair. I ...” Her eyes dropped to the small space between us. “It ...” She scrunched up her face, smiling just a little. “This is sort of hard. Okay, I just wanted to say that it felt good to tell someone about Misty. I never have.” She glanced up, suddenly shy. “Thanks.”
And then she was gone.
I sat there staring at the closed bathroom door, wondering how things had gotten away from me so easily. I nearly tripped over the ottoman as I ran to the bathroom. I banged loudly on the bathroom door, hearing a startled, disembodied, “Yeah?”
“Will you go to the beach and hang out with me tomorrow? I want to show you something that’s really important to me. Please.” I held my breath as I waited for her to shoot me down.
Finally, I heard what I was sure was a sigh. “Just the two of us?”
I exhaled, beaming a smile at the door. “Yeah, just us.”
“Promise you won’t laugh at me?”
Laugh at her? Who would be that rude? “Hell no. I’ll take the first opportunity I can to laugh at you.”
Playfully, Keilina growled through the bathroom door. “I knew you were going to say that.” She opened the door and stuck her head out just far enough that I could see smooth skin, naked shoulders and endless back. I bit back a whimper.
She looked at me with eyes so beautiful and trusting that they broke my heart. “When do we leave?”
yx
I jammed the end of my board into the sand and laughed as Keilana tried unsuccessfully to do the same thing with my spare board. “Here,” I took the board from her and rammed it into the ground.
She frowned.
“Don’t worry,” I said with a smile. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”
We couldn’t very well go to my usual haunt, Black’s Beach. I didn’t want someone to call me Belinda in front of Keilana. So we headed to Del Mar. The surfing wasn’t as good here, but surfing was a lot like sex. Even when it was bad, it was still better than just about anything else you could do. Besides, this area held a special place in my heart and as silly as it sounded, I wanted to bring Keilana.
We walked a little north of the public beach and found a fairly secluded spot below the low, rocky cliffs at our back.
Keilana tilted her face skyward and spread her arms out wide. “It’s still nighttime! What are we doing here at night?”
I blinked. “You haven’t been to the beach at sunrise?” How did someone get to be twenty-one-years old and never once experience one of the most beautiful sights on the planet?
“There is no sun yet. And”—she shook her head—“well, our main house wasn’t right on the water, just the guest quarters.”
Oh, that made this even better. A puppy with two peters couldn’t have been happier than I was at this moment. “This is the best time to be here!”
She gave me a skeptical look, her eyes a deep shade of violet in the gray, pre-dawn light.
I nudged her gently with my shoulder. “It’s magic. You’ll see.”
Keilana looked around before spreading out a large beach blanket. I bent to help her, sneaking glances at her as we worked. She looked cute in her linen shorts and neatly pressed shirt and I couldn’t help but look forward to seeing her in the swimsuit I knew she wore underneath. I was already in my shortie wetsuit and a thin black rash guard. We kicked off our shoes and sat down on the blanket.
It was going to be hot today and a balmy breeze tossed my hair around my face as I threw my feet off the edge of the blanket and dug my heels into the cool sand. The wet, lush smell of the water and vegetation was overwhelming and the salt from the spray stung the back of my tongue. Heaven.
Keilana leaned back on her hands. “Is it always this quiet here?” Only the sound of the surf punctuated her words. We couldn’t see or hear another living soul. “Are you sure we’re still in Southern California?”
“Ahh ... I’m sure. No screaming kids. No obnoxious punk teenagers. Why do you think I come so early?” I wrinkled my nose. “Later in the day it won’t be like this.”
She gave me a wry smile. “You, Cadie Blaisdell, are no more a people person than I am.”
I gasped in mock horror, clutching my chest. “I’m not that terrible, am I?”
“Ha. Ha.” She slapped my arm. “You’re not at all shy and you have confidence to burn. So why do you look like you’re going to throw up whenever any professor addresses you in class?”
I cringed. “There’s a completely logical reason for that look.”
“There is?”
“Of course. But it will cost you the second of your three questions to get the answer, Newman.”
She bit her bottom lip. “You’re still sore about that, huh?”
I merely smiled sweetly, holding her gaze.
She thought for a second. “No deal. I want to know something better than that.”
I sighed. Except for Clue, which I still love to play, I’ve always sucked at games. This was no exception. Keilana, however, seemed to be the type that somehow managed to own Park Place and Boardwalk after only three turns, sending everyone else into the flames of pretend financial ruin.
Suddenly the shadows of Keilana’s face looked just a little lighter. A hint of pink and yellow began to invade the atmosphere and I pressed the button to the light on my watch, then looked up at the brightening sky. A big grin split my face. “Okay, pay attention now.”
Her eyebrows disappeared behind windblown bangs. “To what?”
“To everything.” Just as I said the words, splashes of golden light shot across the water, illuminating the sea and its rolling waves in a divine glow, and the mist from dancing surf began to glitter like millions of radiant crystals infused with light.
“Wow,” she breathed reverently, her eyes round. “It’s beautiful.”
I nodded, my focus trained on a world that was coming to life before my eyes. A sense of utter peace invaded me and I felt more centered than I had in weeks. “My dad used to take me to the beach every Saturday when I was a kid. It was our special time together. He was the one who taught me to surf.”
“I ...” Keilana’s face took on a faraway expression. “I have no idea what that must have felt like. I’ll bet that was nice though.”
I swallowed thickly, hurting for everything she’d clearly missed growing up and feeling my simmering anger toward her
parents begin to bubble over. My hands shaped weak fists and I had to force myself to speak in a normal tone of voice. “It was nice. My dad worked all the time, but Saturday mornings were ours and it always made me feel special.”
I vowed on the spot to phone my folks on Sunday. We hadn’t spoken in well over a month and there was no reason for it other than we were all too caught up in our own lives to bother picking up the phone. As much as I hated to admit it, complacency was a two-way street.
More light poured down on the water, transforming it from an inky black, to a steel gray and finally a deep sapphire. In the distance, a small flock of birds came into view and they began swooping down to the sea in search of breakfast.
This time and place was important to me, and I wanted Keilana to understand that. It didn’t matter that at any moment I would disappear from her life. What mattered was now ... this very second. “You know, for about five minutes every time I see the sun rise over the water, I’m certain there is a God. It just doesn’t seem right that something so breathtaking could be an accident.” I stretched out on the blanket, feeling the coolness of the sand soak through into my back. “The rest of the time, I’m not so sure.” How’s that for knowing something personal, Keilana? That’s the real me.
She turned her head and flashed me a blinding smile. “Thanks for showing me this. You were right. It does seem sort of magic.”
“I knew you’d think so too.” I let out a satisfied breath and crossed my legs at the ankle. I looked up and lost myself in the endless sky. It wasn’t nearly as blue as her eyes. It should be jealous. I turned my head. “This isn’t all I want to show you.”
She suddenly looked a little nervous. “It’s not?”
I was too excited to sit still any longer “Nope.” I jumped to my feet and offered her a hand up. “Let’s paddle out and watch the sun coming up from the other direction. We can ride the surf in. You’ll love it!”
She gulped so loud it had to be painful, but she reached for my extended hand.
I gripped her hand firmly. “It’s easy,” I promised, trying to erase the look on her face that had gone from nervous to outright fear in a blink of an eye. “You don’t need to stand up on the board or anything. Just float and paddle. I’ll show you how.”
Undercover Tales Page 14
