She nodded with determination and gave it a shot, smiling at the equally clean result. “Look at that! He’s beautiful!”
“Excellent. This method is also the quickest way to pick a strawberry, and at harvest time, that part is everything.” I noticed her admiring her charge. “Are you going to eat that one?”
“I was thinking about gifting it to you, my own personal strawberry mentor, as a token of appreciation.” I smiled as she carried the strawberry slowly to my mouth. This wasn’t going to go well. I just knew it. As I bit down, the juice from the berry trickled down the side of my mouth in predictable and embarrassing form. I quickly swiped at it, but not before a drop hit my shirt. “Shit,” I muttered, dabbing at it.
“Oh my,” Courtney said, enjoying this series of tragic events way too much. I only seemed to make the spot worse, and she eventually gave into the laughter altogether, covering her mouth. “I am so sorry,” she said through her glee. “I honestly thought that was about to be a really sexy moment.”
Now I was laughing at my own damn self. “Yeah, well, have you met me? There was zero chance of that happening.”
“Oh, come on. There was some chance. It’s you, and you happen to be very sexy, in my experience.”
“Don’t lie to me. I think we can both agree that sexy is your lane. In fact, I’ll prove it.” I dangled the strawberry I’d picked just out of reach of her mouth. She eyed it and smiled, never one to shy away from a challenge. The result of Courtney’s lips meeting the berry was swoon-worthy at the very least, the type of visual that fantasies were built around.
“See? Now that was sexy.”
“I’ll take it.” She stole the rest of the berry from me and ate it slowly, only proving my point further. “You guys grow good strawberries out here.”
“Now I’ll take it.”
We walked along the row of plants as the sun gently floated to Earth, the last little bit of daylight clinging to life. “So who’s in charge of picking the strawberries with this impressive technique I now have?”
“Professional pickers, of course. Hired specifically for harvest. We need hundreds at a time, which is hard to come by.”
“Hard to hire?”
I nodded. “Lots of farms, and only so many pickers.”
“So what do you do to make sure you have enough?”
“We make it a priority to pay the highest wages of any neighboring farm. That way, we get not only enough workers, but the best.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I admire those standards. I hope to adopt them as my own one day when I’m at the helm of Carrington’s and take care of my employees.”
We walked on. “And how has that particular endeavor evolved since we last talked? You’re employed now. That’s something.”
“Well, my father hasn’t handed me the company just yet, but it’s a start. I have, however, been able to engage him more on the important details surrounding the business. We’ve gone over regional sales reports, customer surveys, and buying trends as they pertain to seasons. It’s a start.”
“It sounds like more than a start to me. I think you might be well on your way to department store domination after all.”
She sighed and lightly grabbed hold of a tree branch as we passed. “Don’t be so sure. You know, I actually get the distinct feeling that he not only values women less than men in business, but is actually opposed to them.”
“So no progress on that front.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what it is, Maggie, but he talks about his female executives as if they were secretaries. It drives me insane.”
“God.” How did those things still happen?
“I have to figure out how to break through his preconceptions and show him that I’m every bit as capable as he is, if he will just give me the chance to learn more.” She shook her head and studied the horizon. “I get that he probably always dreamed of handing this company off to a son, but that didn’t happen.”
“And he’s the only one who has a say?”
“Not entirely. When I reach the executive level, hopefully after college, it will be out of his hands. The board will make those kinds of calls.”
I gave her hand a squeeze. “You’ll get there. It’s just gonna take time.”
“Time is one thing I’m willing to put in.” She gestured to the sun setting behind the big red barn in the distance. “Can we sit and watch?”
I smiled. “We can. Let me grab a—hang on.” I made the short walk to one of our freestanding supply sheds and found a blanket I deemed clean enough.
“You’re prepared,” Courtney said, as I laid it out for us where the soil met the grass.
“Thank you for noticing.” Courtney took a seat on the blanket, her legs stretched out in front of her. She was tan, I now realized as I joined her there. Really tan. “Someone’s been in the sun.”
She nodded. “I’ve been working on some landscapes when I have downtime.”
I thought back to the time I found her sketching in front of Klein’s and felt the lazy smile that crossed my face.
“What is that look?” she asked, turning her body toward mine.
“That would be the very first time I noticed you. As in, noticed.”
She laughed and relaxed onto her back, staring up at the remaining clouds as they swirled. “Do you know when I first noticed you?”
I looked down at her and shook my head.
“Goddamn Abraham Lincoln.”
“Really? You mentioned that on your porch, too.” How was that possible? “That stupid speech?”
“Absolutely. You were all passionate and polished and hot.”
“I was not hot,” I said emphatically. “There is no way I was hot.”
She pushed herself into a seated position. “You so were. And then and there I knew I had to get to know you. That you were going to be important to me somehow.”
Important. I let the compliment wash over me. “And now?”
“Even hotter.” She ran her index finger the length of my arm, and I felt the goose bumps hit. I closed my eyes and swallowed as she did it again, and again. “I love the effect I sometimes have on you,” she murmured.
“Sometimes?” I asked. “Because it feels like a little more than sometimes.”
“I have such a crush on you, Maggie,” she whispered. “Do you know how I know?” I shook my head and met her eyes. “Because I very much want you to kiss me right now.”
Those words were all I needed. I slowly touched my lips to hers and melted, because this was all I had been thinking about since that night on her porch. I kissed her once, tentative yet deliberate. And then again. The third time I found my footing and sank into the kiss, reveling. There was that freshly baked cookie scent. I’d never get used to that. Courtney slid her hand into my hair and gripped the back of my neck. A burst of heat like I’d never known rocketed through me. I skimmed my hands up her newly tanned legs, amazed that I was allowed to do this, marveling at how smooth her skin felt. Courtney’s tongue was in my mouth, and it was all I could do to keep myself anchored to steady ground.
“Do you remember that night at Melanie’s?” she gasped between kisses. “When we had to lie next to each other all night? And behave.” With a hand to my shoulder, she eased me onto my back and followed me down, settling her weight on me.
“That was hard. Torture is a good word. I don’t think I slept more than thirty minutes all night.”
More kissing ensued. Lots of kissing. Heavenly kissing. Her hands circled my waist and crept down to my ass, and she pulled me against her. I gasped at the intimate contact. There was so much I wanted to do but wasn’t sure exactly how. Not that I didn’t have ideas, definite ideas, and was ready to put them in action.
“You are so sexy,” she said against my neck, kissing up its column. Courtney touched me with the confidence I craved. It was exhilarating and only encouraged me further. I knew this was where I was supposed to be. I’d never been more sure of anything in my life
. This girl made my world spark into color.
The pull between us was undeniable. Intense. Electric.
I didn’t have a ton of experience in the chemistry department, but this wasn’t normal, right? These off-the-charts fireworks that only grew with time. I’d seen movies about this kind of thing, but never thought it actually existed in the world. And as much as I wanted to follow this decadent road where it led us right there and then, a reminder of our surroundings tapped me on the shoulder like an ambitious Girl Scout. While we were tucked away in the far reaches of the farm, any number of people could technically stumble upon us. Kissing was one thing, but losing my virginity in plain view of the employees who worked for my father—or worse, my dad himself—was quite another.
“Courtney,” I managed to say. God, I didn’t want to stop.
“Mm-hmm,” she answered. Her hands caressed my stomach and inched upward.
“We should slow down. We can’t do this out here. I really, really want to, but we can’t.” Her hands landed on the outside of my bra and I took a moment to steady myself, the ache between my legs almost too much. She nodded against my neck and paused to gather herself, her breath coming every bit as quick as mine.
“You’re right,” she said finally, and pulled her lips away. I rested my forehead against hers and took a moment, because my head was spinning and I wasn’t sure which way was up. We simply stared at each other as cognizant thinking floated back to us. Finally, I smiled and she returned it.
“Nothing has been the same since you,” I said quietly. “Where did you come from?”
“Chicago,” she whispered back, smiling at her own joke.
I chuckled and brushed the hair from her forehead. “I will never look at that city the same way again.”
“I will never look at a strawberry the same way again,” she said, glancing around us. I watched as Courtney fluffed her hair and walked a few feet from the blanket, hands on her hips, staring out at the expanse of farmland. “I just about lost myself there for a moment. You make me completely lose myself.”
“I just didn’t want people, my family to—”
“God, me neither.” She turned back. “Like we need to complicate this any further.”
I caught the edge in her voice. She was hinting at something beyond this afternoon. “Is this about the other night? Your dad?”
She looked skyward. The glance-away tactic when I mentioned her father had now become predictable. “He was less than thrilled about what he walked up on.”
“I could tell. Can I ask a personal question?”
She stared at me in amusement. “I think we blew way past personal over there on that blanket, don’t you?”
She had a point. “Does he know you’re gay?”
“We haven’t discussed who I’m attracted to. No.” She inclined her head as she considered the question. “I don’t actually think of myself as gay.”
“Oh.” Okay, so what did that mean? “So how do you think of yourself?”
“I’m just a person. I’m Courtney.”
I replayed the last ten minutes in my head, and my confusion hit its peak. “But you are attracted to girls, right?”
She sighed and sat across from me. “Yes. I have been.”
I was trying to follow the thread. “But you’ve been attracted to boys, too?”
“It’s happened. Yeah.”
“I see.”
She must have picked up on my confusion and attempted to explain further. “If I had to describe it, I would say that my attraction to another person doesn’t seem to be tied to their gender. It just doesn’t, and I can’t fully explain that. For me, attraction is about everything wrapped into one. What the person looks like, how they make me feel, how we connect. All of it. At least that’s what I’ve experienced so far.”
“Okay.” I drew the word out, unsure how I felt about this whole thing. “So you’re saying you’re bisexual?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. And do I really have to? I’m saying I’m just Courtney and I’m fine with that. I love to sketch with pencils on a big white pad. I’ve lived in twenty-one different states and one other country. I love Starbucks and am crushed there’s not one in town. And I very much like you, Maggie Beringer. You’re the star of all of my thoughts lately, and confession time, a few of them aren’t so pure.”
It made sense. It did. But the lack of a label had me grappling to understand and a little nervous. “I’ve never been into boys,” I said. “Ever.”
She threaded her fingers through mine. “Good news for me.” A pause. “Does it bother you? The fact that we’re different in that way?”
I didn’t know the answer. “I’m not sure. I don’t think there’s a rule that we have to be carbon copies of each other.”
“I completely agree.”
While I didn’t fully understand Courtney’s particular outlook, I could try to accept it. There was another issue looming, however. I could tell. “But about your father.”
She nodded, waiting for the question. “He’s upset because you were kissing a girl?”
“Well, it’s not the picture-perfect Christmas card he was planning on for me.” She paused briefly and seemed to make a decision to say more. “But he was more upset that I was kissing you.”
“Me? What? Why?” I pulled my hand away slowly, because the words felt like a slap. Parents always liked me. They were cosmically ordained to. I was that girl: the one parents loved more than teenagers did. This had me thrown.
“Let’s just say that the name Beringer turned out to be more of a hot button than we first imagined.”
“Okay, so he was upset. What happened?”
“There was some yelling on his part. Some door slamming on mine. A few threats.”
“Threats?” I shook my head. This was bad. “Why would there be threats? What were they?”
“The threats are stupid.” She placed a hand on my knee. “Don’t worry about them.”
“How can I not? What are we talking about here?”
“Oh, that if I want any kind of future at Carrington’s, I’ll stay well away from you. That kind of thing. Relax, he’s leveraging the store because he knows it’s something I care about.”
“Well, yeah.”
Her eyes blazed. “I’m not going to let him control me, Maggie. I’m not a child.”
“It’s that rift with my dad, isn’t it?”
Courtney nodded. “I think so. I found an old yearbook in his study that offered some insight. Get this. Apparently, your mother and my father were a thing when they were younger.”
My mouth fell open. My mother and Mitch Carrington? Really? As in, that happened? I tried to imagine a scenario in which my parents were not a hot-and-heavy item, in which my mother had a thing for another guy. A horrific thought descended. “If you tell me we’re related, I’m going to die.”
She laughed. “I don’t think that math adds up, but your dramatic side is hilarious.”
“So I’m on the forbidden list?”
She traced her finger along the neckline of my shirt. “In more ways than one.”
I closed my eyes as a shiver ran through me. “You can’t do things like that to me when I’m trying to problem solve.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll behave.”
“Maybe just for a little while,” I said, taking a deep breath to clear my head. “A temporary embargo on flirtatious behavior.” Courtney nodded in amusement as I ruminated on our predicament, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
She pointed at me. “Are you trying to make this hard?”
“What did I do?” I asked, grinning.
“The hair behind your ear. That dimple. You’re making me want to—”
“To what?”
She opened her mouth to answer, and I could already tell it would be saucy.
“Forget it. We have to focus, because I’ve never been on the forbidden list before. It’s kind of…exciting, if it weren’t so horrible.”
She shru
gged. “Maybe we should just focus on the exciting.”
“Does that make me the Montague or the Capulet? I want to get this right.”
“You’re definitely more of a Capulet,” Courtney said, studying me.
“Right? I thought so, too. So, let’s see what we’ve learned today.” I leaned back on my hands. “You don’t like labels, but you like me.”
“True.”
“But if you spend time with me, your entire future is at stake.”
She scrunched up an eye. “Also true.”
“And we’re not related.”
“Thank God that’s not true.”
I whistled low. “So there you have it. That’s a lot to take in.”
She smiled apologetically. “I can be complicated.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t mind.” Things felt infinitely heavier now, but in spite of it all, I still didn’t want to see the evening end. If anything, I wanted Courtney close. I had no clue what we were or were not to each other, and I had no clue if she’d be gone again tomorrow, which made the time we spent together all the more important. “Proposition,” I said.
“I’m listening.”
“Why don’t we not think about any of that and just chill under the stars for a bit. I promise we can keep it PG.” I instantly regretted that. PG-13 would have been a much better compromise. She hesitated before eventually joining me on the blanket. We lay there for several long minutes, looking at the clear sky, now a very dark shade of indigo, signaling that night was only moments away. The crickets had already struck up their chorus, and cooler temperatures were drifting in.
“Have you had sex before?” I asked. I was thinking out loud apparently and more than a little shocked about it.
She lifted her head and looked down at me, then nodded. “For the first time at sixteen with a boy named Elliot. He was popular and convinced me he was madly in love with me.” She laughed.
This was new and interesting information. “Did you love him back?” I asked.
She thought for a moment. “I masqueraded like I did and took it all very seriously. It’s what you do when you’re sixteen and think you have the world figured out.”
Strawberry Summer Page 10
