I put my hands against the glass too.
‘This is weird, girl,’ I say.
‘Just wait a second, Kip. Let me explain.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘You have to stare out to the ocean. Okay? And just take deep breaths. Forget about everything. And soon you’ll be… like walking on the ocean. It’s like you’re part of it. You get this sense that you’re supposed to fall out of the window but you never do. It’s like saying fuck you to gravity and the universe.’
I turn my head and look at Kait.
She’s smiling.
She makes me forget to breathe.
Kait turns her head. ‘What?’
‘It’s dark out, girl. You can’t see the ocean.’
‘It’s dark. Duh.’ She takes her hands away. ‘See? You think I’m out there now. That I’m some crazy bitch or something.’
She takes her hands off the window and I grab for her right hand. I put it back to the window. My hand covering her hand.
I inch closer to her. “Hey. I’ll stand here all night with you if it makes you happy.’
I opened my eyes and it was magically becoming morning.
I laughed to myself that I actually fucking took a nap.
Not sleep.
A nap.
My neck hurt from the position I slept in.
It was only forty minutes later though.
Nothing to get excited about.
But the good news was that I could easily function on forty minutes of sleep.
I moved away from the window and saw my phone on the bed.
With a text from Ruby.
From only a few minutes ago.
Can’t sleep. How abt u?
I grinned.
I looked back at the window.
The whole idea of letting go and moving on… that was a fucking tough thing to accept.
* * *
I stood on the beach after a long surf and nodded to the ocean.
It felt good to be tired and sore.
I was obviously extra tired but that was okay.
My body functioned enough to let me surf as much as I wanted to and that was a good day in my book.
As I walked along the beach I saw two girls sharing a big towel. They were on their bellies, their tops undone. Both with their hair pulled back tight. One blonde hair. One black hair.
I approached them, letting my lumbering shadow climb over their bodies until they looked at me.
The one with black hair pulled her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose. She eye humped me for what felt like three hours and then nodded with approval. She pushed her sunglasses back up.
I looked at the blonde haired girl.
I crouched down and reached for her sunglasses. “Here, girl, let me help with that.”
I gently slid her sunglasses off her face.
She had really blue eyes and her cheeks turned red.
“Tell me when,” I whispered.
“When…?”
I winked at her and slid her sunglasses back on.
“Can we help you?” the black haired girl asked.
“I have a tough decision to make here,” I said. “Unless you like to share. But I think it’s better not to share. I think it’s better to fight for what you want.”
The blonde haired girl scoffed. Like she was offended. But she was slowly starting to smile.
“Do you believe in time?” I asked.
“Time?” the blond haired girl asked.
“Time,” I said. “Think about it. Time. Like… are we going to waste time here? Talking? Messing around? Or can we just get to what we all want?”
“Which is what?” the black haired girl asked.
“Roll over,” I said. “Then I can make my decision.”
They both laughed.
The black haired girl stared at me though. She made a daring move to her side, but made sure to keep her chest covered.
“Better?” she flirted.
“Not even close,” I said.
“What else do you want then?” the blonde haired girl asked.
“Ah, see, you’re the wild one here,” I said. “Quiet. Blushing. But secretly…”
“No, no, no,” the black haired girl said. “Don’t start judging us. We know who you are.”
“Are you afraid of me?” I asked.
“Should we be?” the blonde haired girl asked.
“You can decide that later in life. Right now, one of you is going to stand up and join me. Or both. I’m a reasonable guy here. When I see something beautiful I just have to…”
I felt my phone buzzing in my hand.
Ruby’s name was on the screen.
Get ready
“You just have to what?” the black haired girl asked.
“Hold on,” I said.
I replied to Ruby.
Are you okay?
“Hello?” the blonde haired girl asked.
I looked at the two girls.
Beautiful. Willing. They knew who I was. They knew what I wanted. They knew I’d never get their names. And both…
“Make sure you put on sunscreen,” I said. “You’re both far too beautiful to get burned or sick or something.”
I turned and walked away.
I could feel their eyes burning at me.
This was not my style.
Not my fucking style at all.
Ruby was fucking with my head. My heart. My world.
And I was the one who opened that door.
And that door was easy to shut too.
I just didn’t want to shut it.
I looked over my shoulder and the two girls were still staring at me.
Leaving them behind was hard to do.
But for some damn reason, Ruby meant more to me than some mindless, random hookup.
I must have been sick.
* * *
Barr stretched his neck and helped himself to a drag of his cigarette.
I was starting to develop a twitch or something with all the thoughts running through my head. It was almost tempting to start smoking, just to give my hands and body something to do during the quiet moments that drove me crazy.
Pres walked out of the guesthouse and looked around like someone was following him. He pointed to Barr and me then motioned for us to keep walking.
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
Pres pushed between us and walked to the back of the pool.
We stood next to the pool house and Pres rubbed his jaw.
“What’s wrong, Pres?” Barr asked.
“It wasn’t HCH,” he said. “I know that for sure.”
“Who did you talk to?” I asked. “They love to spill bullshit everywhere.”
“Trust me,” Pres said. “That place is a fucking shit storm. Did you hear that Elijah’s kid went missing?”
“What?” I asked.
“Wait,” Barr said. “Elijah has a kid?”
“Where the fuck have you been?” Pres asked.
“Sorry I don’t keep up with that place,” Barr said. “Didn’t know that was my job. As far as I care, that place could burn and I’d roast marshmallows for fun.”
I laughed. “Barr…”
“What?” he snapped.
“Listen to me,” Pres said. “I talked to Mac.”
“Mac,” I said. “As in…”
“Cormac,” Barr said, gritting his teeth. His lip slowly curled into the air. “Are you fucking kidding me, Pres?”
“I know how you feel about that…”
Barr flicked his cigarette into the pool and grabbed Pres’s shirt. “You don’t know a fucking thing about how I feel, Pres. You think you do. You know what I’ve told you. You know what I’ve let you in on. Bad enough we had to go fucking chasing ghosts up there for Tinsley.”
“Hey,” Pres said. “They were after us.”
“That was handled though,” I said. “You know Mac took care of everything there.”
Barr turned his head and
set his rattlesnake eyes on me. “And what the fuck does that matter?”
I showed my hands. “Why don’t we let Pres talk for a second? Leave the past behind us.”
“The past,” Barr said. “That’s what you think it is. Fuck you both for that.”
“Barr, if you don’t take your hand off my shirt, I’m going to break your wrist and throw you into the pool like you did your cigarette,” Pres warned.
Barr laughed. “You really want to try that, Pres?”
“Fucking hell,” I said. I stepped forward to get between them. “I’ll put you both into the pool. My hands at the back of your heads. Make you really think about what’s important right now.”
Barr opened his hand and stepped back.
Pres didn’t move an inch. “I would never do anything to hurt you, Barr. And if something is hurting you, maybe you should talk about it.”
“Nothing to talk about,” he said. “We’re not going to the past. Right, Kip?”
Barr threw my own words at me like jagged glass.
“Yeah,” I said. “Right.”
“Mac called me,” Pres said. “To warn me of what’s going on with Elijah. He’s on a rampage. Questioning everything and everyone. I’m surprised Mac hasn’t done anything to him yet. The point I was trying to make is… no way HCH would be fucking with us right now.”
“So a simple statement of HCH not painting the wall would have worked,” Barr said.
“He did say that,” I said.
“Then maybe you should have shut your fucking mouth, Kip,” Barr said.
“That’s right, Barr. You’re right. You win.”
“I don’t talk to Mac on a regular basis,” Pres said. “We don’t talk about our feelings. He wanted to let me know what’s going on in case Elijah decides to show up again. Accuse us of his taking his kid.”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “It’s not HCH. It’s not BC. No more talking about BC ever again. Done. And if the subject needs to be brought up, then we do it differently. For Barr’s sake.”
“Thanks for thinking of my heart this time, Kip,” Barr said.
I grabbed his shoulder. “Hey, you told me to not worry about your dick. Right?”
Barr shook me away. “Asshole.”
“So maybe we need to think about East vs. West,” Pres said.
“Shit,” I said. “Bad enough Tinsley was asking about Uly.”
“Who brought the name up?” Pres asked.
“Okay, wait a second,” Barr said. “Maybe just let it play out a little longer on its own. If it’s East vs. West, they’ll talk. You know, we should just call them HCH Part Two.”
I laughed. “I like that. Or maybe some kind of symbol. You know? Like the symbol for water?”
“Shit,” Barr said. “Are you trying to be smart, Kip? Did you really pay attention in Chemistry?”
I grinned. “The only Chemistry was between me and Miss Laurelein.”
“That was never going to happen,” Pres said.
“Want to bet?” I asked.
“Barr, get the fuck out of my way,” Tinsley’s voice said from out of nowhere.
She pushed Barr as hard as she could to get to me.
I had no idea how long she had been listening to us.
I opened my arms, smiling.
“Coming to give me a big hug in front of Pres, girl?” I asked.
Tinsley was an inch from me.
Then she punched me as hard as she could right in the mouth.
Chapter 5
I didn’t move but I did taste blood.
I didn’t say a word because I thought about all the reasons Tinsley would have had to punch me. It was a pretty long list. But I figured if anything I had been thinking about Tinsley was bad enough, Pres would have come after me.
“What the hell was that about, sugar?” Pres asked.
“What a punch,” Barr said. “Goddamn, love.”
Tinsley stared at me with fire in her eyes.
She backed away a few steps and then turned sideways and pointed.
That’s when I saw Ruby.
Slowly approaching, biting her bottom lip.
She gave a weak wave.
She made an eek face. “Sorry, Kip.”
I licked my lip. “No need to be sorry, girl.”
“What the fuck?” Tinsley yelled. She looked at me. “Are you insane? She’s supposed to be getting better. Helping herself. Not falling into another trap.”
“Wait a second,” Barr said. “What’s going on here?”
“Oh, shit,” Pres said. “Kip… come on…”
“You know, I’m standing right here,” Ruby said. “And I’m not some defective person.”
“Nobody said that,” Tinsley said. “Kip is the defective person.”
“Wait a second,” Barr said again. He pointed to me. Then he pointed to Ruby. Then back to me. “You and her…”
“Yeah,” I said. “Got a problem with it?”
“I do,” Tinsley said. “This is not happening. No fucking way in hell.”
“It already happened, Tinsley,” I said.
Her eyes went wide. She slapped Ruby’s arm. “You said you didn’t sleep with him. You lying bitch!”
“He’s lying!” Ruby yelled.
Tinsley looked at me again.
I smiled. “I meant to say it’s going to happen. Really soon too.”
“You fucking prick,” Tinsley growled.
She came after me again and Pres swooped in and wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her from attacking me.
She kicked and punched the air.
“This is crazy,” Barr said. “How did this happen?”
“You know me when I see a hot girl,” I said. “Can’t help myself.”
“Damn you, Kip,” Tinsley said.
“Calm down, sugar,” Pres said. “It could be worse.”
“How?” Tinsley asked.
“I could be getting high on those apartment steps again,” Ruby said. That shut all of us up fast. “I could be shaking, afraid of what was going to happen to me if I spoke out of line. Or just waiting for someone to show up with a gun or something. Is Kip really that bad?”
“Yes,” Tinsley said. “He will break your heart. And if that happens you’ll start to spiral.”
Tinsley elbowed Pres and ran away.
Pres chased after her.
I rubbed my jaw and nodded. “You know… that’s not the worst reaction I’ve ever seen to someone finding out I was with someone they cared about…”
* * *
After Barr excused himself to go have a cigarette, it was down to just me and Ruby. Standing feet apart but the heat between us was enough to make the pool water boil.
We matched each other’s steps until we were just a few inches apart.
“She really got you there, huh?” Ruby asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s got a hell of a punch.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“You could read the instruction manual to build a bookshelf in Portuguese and I would listen to every single fucking word, girl.”
Ruby fought the urge to smile. “I punch harder than Tinsley does.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve kicked a lot of ass in my life, Kip.”
“But not mine.”
“Not yet.”
“I can’t wait for it. I’ve had a lot of people tell me I need a good ass kicking.”
Ruby shook her head. “Does anything bother you?”
“Yeah.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact we’ve been standing here for about four days and I haven’t kissed you yet.”
“Are your lips broken?”
Fucking. Hell. Girl.
I reached for her face.
She slapped my hand away. “This isn’t some romantic thing, Kip. If you want to fucking kiss me, then do it.”
I pulled my hand away a
nd wasn’t sure what to think for a couple seconds.
Ruby sighed and jumped to her toes. She grabbed my face and pulled herself toward me.
Her lips touched mine.
My hands grabbed her waist and I pulled her even closer.
I had to properly kiss her, right? It was the kind, gentleman thing to do.
Ruby quickly grabbed my wrists and shoved me away again.
She backed away and pointed at me.
I showed my hands in a willing defeat.
“What exactly are you doing here?” I asked her.
“I needed to get out of that house,” Ruby said.
“And you didn’t think to warn me?”
“I did. I texted you.”
I thought about the two pretty girls belly down on the beach, bikini tops undone. Temptation written all over their faces. And yet I was staring at the wildest eyes I had ever seen. Tasting my own blood thanks to Ruby telling Tinsley about us.
I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world right then.
“And you thought today was a good day to tell her everything?”
“Oops,” Ruby said.
I grinned. “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”
“Yeah? You think so?”
“Really fucking pretty, girl,” I said.
I closed in on her.
She stepped back out of my reach.
Messing with me.
I finally stopped.
Ruby put her fingers to her lips and kissed. “I better go check on Tinsley. Make sure she’s calmed down a little.”
“I’m sure Pres can help with that,” I said. “You might walk in on something you don’t want to see.”
“Who said I don’t want to see it?”
I slammed my hand against my chest.
Ruby did a snort-laugh thing that should have made her sound stupid. Or dorky. Or something.
But she was fucking beautiful.
Fucking perfectly wrong for me.
And that was exactly what I needed.
* * *
Tinsley and Ruby swam, walked down to the ocean, swam there, ran back, swam in the pool again, and were now sitting on the edge of the pool, feet playing in the water.
There wasn’t a second that went by without my eyes locked to Ruby.
KIP: a bay falls high novel Page 5
