by Ella Fields
Lars stared at them with a smirk, then I squealed as he picked me up and carried me over the sand and under the wharf.
“What the hell?” I squeezed the bear to my chest, frowning at the dark that hovered over us and the trash that fluttered down from the activities above. “I’m not getting freaky with you under a—”
“Look up,” he said, righting me when I wobbled in my heels.
I blinked, the soft fuzz of the bear tickling my chin as I clutched it to my chest and did as he said.
A light from his phone flashed over the worn wood above our heads to illuminate a mural of sorts. “You wanted to see.”
Mermaids with blue and purple and black hair swam above us in a puddle of painted crystal white and blue water. “My god.” Surrounding them were three-headed monsters of some kind with horns that jutted from the backs of their heads and protruded from their hands, their snarling teeth sharp and glinting.
“They’re fighting?” I asked, my voice an echo over the low rush of the bay and the people above.
“They’re fighting the monsters, yes. They’re protectors of the sea, and the jellyfish”—he shined the light over their bulging purple and green forms—“are their trusted allies.”
A shocked laugh pressed against the back of my teeth. It curdled, and I swallowed the stupid sound in an instant. For there was no humor in his tone and no sign of playfulness.
He’d been candid when he’d said this was personal. It was something he clearly took seriously, and he trusted me to take it seriously alongside him.
Why, I didn’t know.
All I knew was that above me, stretching as far as the water and to the rocks behind us, lived a vivid world of art.
And beside me, waiting in silence, stood the boy who’d created it. “It’s incredible.” I shook my head, torn between wanting to read his expression, which I knew was a mask waiting to crack, and feeding my vision with what his imagination had brought to life. “Not a poet,” I said, a little breathless. “But a storyteller.”
Lars blinked, and a smile erased the anxiety from his features. “Just a kid who knows how to use a can of paint.”
“Shut up,” I said, almost rolling my eyes. Then I fished my phone out, making sure the flash was on to take a picture. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell the authorities.”
Lars chuckled. “I’m beginning to think this was a mistake.”
“You’re right. Now you owe me, Picasso,” I said, slipping my phone away.
“Do I now?” he asked, tugging me close and causing sand to sneak inside my heels.
I couldn’t have growled if I’d wanted to, not with the way his eyes so reverently touched every one of my features and his fingers gently caressed mine.
Nodding, I rose to my toes to quickly whisper against his lips, “And I’m kind of hungry.”
We grabbed corn dogs and cans of soda, I let him pay, and then we took them to an empty table that overlooked the water by the wharf.
I was still trying to shake off the awe. The last thing I wanted was for him to see me swooning, yet my eyes kept drifting back to the bay below. “How many times have you done that?”
Lars finished chewing before answering. “Not sure. It’s mostly just little things here and there. That’s the biggest I’ve done so far.”
“What made you do it? How’d you have time without getting caught?”
Lars shrugged. “No one really hangs out under there. The first time, I was high as hell, walking home from a party farther down the bay. Then”—he took a sip of soda—“I just kept coming back and adding to it.”
“Are you going to school for art?”
Pulling out a pack of cigarettes, he tucked one behind his ear, his eyes lowering to the table. “Don’t think so. What about you?”
I twisted my lips, not liking that he’d changed the subject. “Not sure yet.”
A slow fog named silence crept in, and we both let it linger for a few beats.
“Jesus, this is so good,” I said, wanting to fill it when I saw his eyes begin to roam my face.
Lars had already inhaled most of his corn dog, and I was willing to bet it took at least two to fill him up. “When was the last time you had one?”
I thought about it a moment. “A football game in eighth grade, I think.”
He frowned, then grabbed my purse.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting my number in your phone, should you need more corn dogs.”
“Shouldn’t you ask first?” I dabbed at my mouth with a napkin, then took a sip of soda.
I set the rest of my corn dog down, already feeling full thanks to having dinner before I’d left.
Lars ignored me, then snuck my phone back inside my purse. “I didn’t call my phone. I’m trusting you.”
“Trusting me?”
He nodded, plucking the cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it. “I’m trusting you to call when you want to see me.” He put his lighter back inside the packet. “The ball is now in your court.” A crooked grin. “Don’t leave me hanging this time.”
I scowled and took the cigarette pack, stealing one before pushing my half-eaten corn dog over to him.
Lars watched me exhale, his eyes thin and surveying. “And what if I don’t want the ball?”
He smiled a tiny smile at that and then looked down at the corn dog I’d set before him.
“I’ve already eaten,” I explained.
He nodded. “You want control, so I’ll stop stealing it from you.” He shrugged, inhaling a deep drag. “Simple.”
“Is it, though?” I blurted.
He lowered his head and shoulders, dark eyes lifting to mine. “I doubt anything with us will ever be simple, but I’m willing to compromise to get what I want.”
His words sat there, both a warning and a challenge.
After he’d finished my corn dog, we drained our drinks and tossed our trash, then meandered down the wharf where he bought me licorice, kicked my ass at basket toss, almost sent me flying out of a bumper car, then insisted we ride the Ferris wheel.
He helped me inside the cage, and I yawned as he took a seat beside me. “Tired?”
I nodded, not wanting to admit why, and hugged the giant bear to my other side.
As if he knew, he pulled me close, and my head fell to his shoulder. We gazed down at the rainbow city of lights dancing over the black water.
It was odd to feel at ease with someone one minute and like I could throw up in the next. He soothed and rattled me, and the combination was unlike anything I’d ever experienced or encountered before.
“Where are you going to put that giant thing?” he asked, his fingers gently skimming over my upper arm.
Goose bumps pebbled as my heart kicked. “I have no idea. In my room somewhere.”
Lars glanced at the bear, his eyes narrowed.
“What?” I asked.
He sniffed and relaxed back against the hard plastic seat. “Just never thought I’d wish I were a stuffed toy before.”
I laughed, and he looked at me with something that sparkled a lot like wonder and felt a lot like possibility.
We both leaned in at the same time, and when our lips touched, the breeze tickling my cheeks as our car reached the top and my hair blew around us, the entire world turned a speckled onyx. Even with my eyes closed and our hands gently capturing one another’s cheeks, I could see the night shimmering with its colors all around us and feel it caress my skin as Lars’s lips caressed mine with slow, delicate urgency.
The car squeaked, then rocked to a stop, and I blinked my eyes open, my face still close to his, and bit my lip. “We missed most of it.”
“I didn’t miss a damn thing,” Lars said, brushing his lips over my cheek, where he inhaled a deep breath before rising to help me out.
Families filled the parking lot, shepherding children into cars. We weaved around them all unnoticed—even with the giant bear—to where my car sat waiting at the far end.
&n
bsp; I stopped when I saw his black bike still chained to the fence, and then removed my hand from his to dig out my keys from my purse. I unlocked the car, tossing the bear into the trunk as Lars stood there with his hands in his jean pockets, watching my every move.
“Get your bike,” I said, closing the trunk. “It should fit in the back seat.”
“My house isn’t far.”
I gave him a look that said I didn’t believe him. “Just go get it already.”
He chuckled, then bounded over to his bike and did as I said while I climbed inside the car and got it started.
He grunted and cursed, trying to wrestle the handlebars through the door and over the seat. “Are you sure? This car’s fucking expensive, and it might mark the leather.”
“It’s a car. Just hurry up.”
He tutted. “So bossy.”
I sucked my lips and nabbed a breath mint, and then he finally fell into the passenger seat.
He gave me directions, and five minutes later, I was about to ask what his deal was because he’d said nothing since.
But when I pulled up in front of the dark number fourteen and looked over at him with annoyance crinkling my nose, I saw why.
My shoulders slumped, and my face fell.
His head lay against the window, breath fogging the glass, lashes cresting his cheeks, and with the engine off, the sound of his slow breaths could be heard.
He was sound asleep.
Daphne
With a jump, I woke to the sound of tapping, and almost screamed when I came face to face with a blonde through the window of my car.
She was frowning, wearing what looked like a nurses’ uniform, and then her features relaxed when she saw Lars.
I reached over and nudged him. “Lars.”
He woke with a grunted snort, eyes blinking rapidly. Wincing, he rolled his neck. “Shit, what happened?”
“You fell asleep.”
He quit blinking, rubbed his eyes, then laid them upon me.
I wished he hadn’t. Seeing those eyes glittering with tiny specks of gold, rimmed with sleep and softened from dreams, was pure danger.
And if his eyes were dangerous, then his grin could stop my heart as he grumbled, “So why didn’t you wake me?”
I stared at him, at the curiosity painting the sharp angles of his face, and then I remembered the woman, who was probably his mom, watching us. “You need to get out.”
Lars frowned, then looked from me to the window behind me. “Fuck.”
I nodded, ducking as he moved in to kiss me. “Your mom is right there.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Morning breath is a thing, no matter where you fall asleep.” His low laugh was rough and groggy. Gently, I pushed his face away, but before I could, he landed a quick kiss on my cheek.
He opened the door, climbing out. “You should come in. Have breakfast or coffee.”
The door shut before I could answer him, but I wasn’t planning to anyway.
I stared straight ahead, my heart pounding way too fast for six in the morning, while he got his bike out of the back seat.
I watched him toss it to the grass, then shut the door, and I started the engine before he could reopen the passenger door. After waving awkwardly to his mom, who was now standing by the mailbox with mail in her hand, I drove away.
Lars was staring after my car when I took a peek in the rearview mirror.
“There’s this new store near my dad’s place called Scrap-and-Jack.”
I snorted, making my second cup of coffee for the morning. “And did Jackson happen to take you there?”
Willa huffed into my ear. “No, why?”
I smiled into the steaming mug and took a sip even though it was way too hot. “Just asking.”
“Anyway, I thought we could all go and check it out together next weekend.”
Peggy, Willa, and I often hung out under the guise of scrapbooking together. Well, for me it was a guise. An excuse to hang out with them more when the cruel cut Barbies of the cove started showing me who they really were.
Peggy and Willa weren’t perfect. No one was. But I didn’t need perfect. I needed their warmth and humane personalities.
And now, well, I really enjoyed scrapbooking. Something was relaxing about the way decorating a blank page helped to empty your mind. Not to mention, it gave me an excuse to keep collecting the random pieces of history I found online. Stamps, postcards, long-lost love letters.
I hummed, thinking about it. “School is back next week.”
Willa sighed. “Oh, yeah. God, this summer has gone by way too quickly.”
“Tell me about it,” I agreed. “Wanna go shopping later? We could check it out after.” It’d been three days since I drove away from Lars, feeling more spooked than I ever had before in my life, and I was running out of ways to empty my mind of him.
“Can’t,” Willa said. “I have a hair appointment.”
Sure, she did. The girl rarely changed a thing about her hair. She’d never needed to. Willa, with her huge hazel eyes and wavy brown tresses, might have been sweet, but she was a shit liar.
“Tomorrow?” I offered.
Willa said she’d call Peggy, and then we hung up, and I dragged my tired ass to the couch where I scrolled through Netflix until I found The Vampire Diaries. I’d watched every season twice, but I needed to do something.
I hadn’t been watching for longer than five minutes when my phone rang.
Him.
My stomach began to fizz, and I set my coffee down with shaky hands and watched as the phone rang out.
He tried one more time before giving up, and the pang of disappointment that was ever-present as far as Ellis was concerned bit at my chest.
I snagged the remote and turned the TV off, then paced the rug with my phone in hand, temptation a forever luring drug. Moving down the hall, I walked upstairs and by my bedroom, pausing when I saw the bear on the bed.
The stupid rainbow bear from a stupid brilliant boy.
He wasn’t a man, but like that even mattered when he got within view of me anymore.
He also wasn’t a boy.
I stared down at the two missed calls on my phone, then opened up my contacts and scrolled until I found his. A laugh burst free when I saw what he’d saved his number under.
Took you long enough.
I knew I was probably only using a new vice to help curb an old one, but I couldn’t stop myself. All cravings needed a fix.
I hit call before I could think better of it, knowing that texting would only give me ten thousand reasons not to go near him and possibly a few more to see Ellis instead.
“Well,” Lars answered after a few rings. “This happened faster than I expected, but took longer than I’d have liked.”
I halted in the doorway to my bedroom, my eyes lifting to the framed artwork lining the walls of the hallway. Mainly abstract photos of my mother and a few landscape shots my dad had taken on vacation. “How’d you even know it was me?”
“Gut feeling.”
Quiet fell over the line as I hesitated, stumbling over my thoughts and the things I wanted to ask or say because I knew I probably shouldn’t think or say any of them.
He ended the silent turmoil with a simple demand. “Come over.”
Lars
I raced around the house, readjusting throw pillows on the plaid couches and straightening the TV remotes. Grabbing some dirty clothes from the laundry room floor, I tossed them all inside the washing machine, then raced back to my room where I gathered anything that was lying on the floor and threw it inside my closet.
I looked around, realizing it was kind of dark, and opened the curtains farther, granting a view of our next-door neighbor’s sky-high fence. Which didn’t exactly help the darkness situation.
Sighing, I went into the bathroom to freshen up and slicked a hand over my messy hair, trying to tame it a little. It never worked and flopped back down in a million different ways over my head
, some strands falling to dust my forehead.
“Fuck,” I spewed, then went and put the tea kettle on.
Tea? Coffee? I knew she was a coffee girl without even having to ask, but I still worried about our lack of real coffee and glared daggers at the instant shit we always bought.
Mom was asleep, so I tried to be as quiet as possible. Though not much would ever wake her besides her alarm, I was nervous after the first encounter she’d had with Daphne last weekend.
Daphne had driven away before I could even introduce her to Mom, and even though I’d known why, that the situation had probably been too much too soon, Mom had been puzzled and grilled me incessantly until she’d gone to bed that morning.
She knew.
She knew it was her the minute she saw my bike in the back seat and the green eyes that stared back at her through the tinted window of the Mercedes—the same green eyes she’d often busted me trying to replicate on paper—that Daphne was the girl I’d been hung up on all this time.
“I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” she’d said to me over the rim of her coffee mug after Daphne had left. “She’s filthy rich and seems like a snob.”
“Her parents are rich,” I’d corrected. “And what did you expect? Most girls at Magnolia Cove Prep come from loaded families, but that doesn’t make her a snob. We’d just woken up, and she was freaked.”
Mom had pursed her lips, then sighed and put her mug down. “She’s going to break your heart.”
“So be it,” I’d said like a fucking idiot.
“No.” Mom moved close to grab my face, searching my eyes. “She’s the one, but she’s not going to be.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Mom shook her head, her lips tugging down in dismay. “Be careful.”
“I’ll be fine.” I’d laughed, perplexed.
Mom had said nothing else and then left the kitchen with her coffee.
I heard Daphne’s car pull up and quickly straightened the towels in the bathroom, giving the toilet a glance on my way past. It would do.
I opened the door before she could even raise her hand and grabbed it, tugging her inside.
