through gritted teeth. “I hope she’s worth it.”
She turned and stomped up the bank and into the crowd.
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She felt his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off violently. He forcibly stopped her and pulled her back to him. Both of
his hands were on her shoulders, and he was in her face.
“Let’s go back to our room, so we can talk.”
She glared at him, shaking so hard, she wondered how she
could still stand. “Fuck you.”
His face dawned with enlightenment. “Cheyenne, this isn’t
what it looks like.”
“Wow. Highly original,” she blurted, pulling herself free
from his grasp.
“Oh my God, it’s Scot Charles! Scot, can we have a picture
of you?” A bubbly blonde with a southern accent embraced
Scot’s waist as she and three of her friends descended on him
like a swarm of locusts. Cheyenne shook her head and backed
away.
“Cheyenne!” He called after her, and she flipped him off as
she hurried away. She spotted a large crowd of people dancing
and noticed Nathan and Saffron among them. Seeing Nathan
brought back sordid memories, and Cheyenne felt an evil urge
growing inside her to give Scot a taste of his own medicine.
She approached the couple and placed a hand on Nathan’s
shoulder. Nathan turned to her, and the stunned look on his face practically made her chuckle.
“Saffron, can I cut in?”
Saffron smiled a racy smile that made her look like a hun-
gry lioness. “Only if we can share.”
“I’m game,” Cheyenne shrugged. Nathan glanced around
nervously.
“Far be it for me to be a party pooper, but where’s Scot?”
Nathan’s emerald eyes glittered seriously by the light of the fire.
She slid her hand down his chest. “Oh, he’s probably off
playing with our nanny.”
“Cheyenne, what’s gotten into you?” Nathan tilted his head
apprehensively, and Cheyenne rolled her eyes.
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“Fine. If you don’t want to play, I’m sure Saffron does.”
She replied and moved toward Saffron. Saffron took her by the
hand and slowly ran her fingers down the exposed flesh of
Cheyenne’s back. They began to bump and grind, working the
nearby male crowd into a cheering frenzy. Out of the corner of
her eye, Cheyenne saw Nathan disappear from sight.
After searching every corner of the bar and finding neither
Cheyenne nor Scot, Steph took a seat with a view of the party.
She figured if she stayed in one spot for a while, she’d see one of them pass. She sat sipping coconut water and watching the casual debauchery with detached amusement. Though the light off
the fires prevented her from getting the full effect of the large full moon, this particular area was the quintessential Brazilian beach, and she gave herself five minutes before she bailed on the plan to find anyone and went off toward the far end of the beach to see why the moon was so worth celebrating.
She got far enough away that all she could hear of the music
was the dull thump of the bass—she recognized it as a Fury song
from their second album—go Scot Charles! At this point in the
evening, the tide sounded much more appealing, and Steph sat
on soft sand. The moonlight cast the coastline in subtle shades of silver and gray, dark rocks and shadows, tall clouds and
shimmering waves.
“Stephanie Brier!” She heard a jovial girls voice exclaim.
Steph glanced up at the pack of college-aged girls and
immediately looked back at the water. They were the Furies who
recognized her by the bonfire. Fucking vultures.
“OMG!” One of her companions exclaimed. “You have to
tell us! What’s sex with Phillip like?”
“What do you think?” Steph replied, without taking her
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eyes off the water. Maybe if she didn’t engage, they’d wander
back to the guys and leave her alone.
“Hot.” One of the girls chimed in, and they all giggled.
“I think he looks like he’d be enormous!” another girl
replied, and her friends murmured in agreement.
Phillip’s amused voice rang out in the darkness. “Excuse
me, ladies, but would you mind if we had some time alone?”
The collective gasps made Steph chuckle. After much
giggling and apologies for “talking dirty about him,” what
ensued was a persistent request for photos.
“Ladies, please. I’ll tell you what. If Stephanie agrees to
take a real picture of us together, will you give us some
privacy?” Phillip moved between the fans and Stephanie, and she
felt relieved.
“You’re not back together, are you?” one of them demand-
ed incredulously.
“No,” Steph snapped, pulling out her camera and adjusting
the settings by heart. She doubted they’d leave when she was
done, but she was willing to give it a shot.
Phillip moved over next to the foursome. Steph took four
pictures of them. Phillip painstakingly put all four of their email addresses into his phone, swearing up and down to email each of
them the photos and assuring them he would tweet and post them
on Facebook. Steph had no doubt it would be done.
To her surprise, the girls wandered off after pecks on the
cheek (all photographed with cell phones). Soon they were alone
with the moon and the sound of the surf.
“I really don’t miss all that,” she muttered, and when she
turned in his direction, he reached out and offered her his hand.
She hesitated, afraid of the physical reaction she’d had to him the last time he’d touched her and also the lack of control she had
had in its wake. By the light of the moon, she could see his
worried eyes and realized he was in a wildly different place than he’d been in a couple of days before.
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“Please?” he asked, and Steph caved, taking his hand. He
led her further down the beach away from the partiers. When
they’d walked as far as they could, he stopped, and they both sat down in the sand.
“Tell me how you know she was a girl.” His request was
unexpected. She shot him a look, but he was looking out over the sea. Steph exhaled and launched into a quick and basic
explanation. How she had no idea she was pregnant until after
the surgery, about her father’s hurried decision to have the baby tested for genetic issues and what the doctor had told her about her future fertility after losing one fallopian tube. She explained the follow-up phone call she had received in France when she
learned that she was STD free (‘Mazel Tov, by the way’) and
that the baby had been a flawless girl, but merely had no room to grow. She left out her psychotic daydreams about the little
blonde girl, Jonquil. Steph wanted to keep her all to herself. She might tell him one day, in a letter perhaps, but he didn’t need her craziness interfering with his grief process.
Phillip said nothing for so long that Steph almost forgot he
was there as she indulged her little Jonquil fantasy. She imagined sitting on the swing with her at the fort and watching Phillip toss her high into the air. She’d often imagined Phillip carrying
Jonquil around, shielding her tiny blonde head from the papa-
razzi’s’ cameras. She felt her throat tighten, and a tear slipped down her cheek.
She whispered, “Je t'adore, ma petite.”
Phillip shot her a questioning glance, and Steph immediate-
ly felt ridiculous. She was glad for the darkness that surrounded them. She brushed away the tear and then flicked some sand off
of her black dress.
“Why didn’t you just tell me, love?” He turned to face her.
She flopped back on her elbows and looked out at the black
water.
“I was sick, Phillip. They gave me three pints of blood. And
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I was really high on morphine. That’s some really good shit. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to me due to a baby neither of us knew about. And I was terrified. I didn’t want you to think
that losing the baby was why I was saying no.”
He nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “Why did you say
no?”
Steph huffed and relaxed all the way back on the sand. “I
wasn’t ready to commit to “till death do us part.” Not even close.
I barely knew you. It’s fucked up, but I know you so much better after a year of tabloid sparring than I ever did when we
were…us.”
“Come on, Stephanie. That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it? I remember how nervous I was to tell you I was
moving to Europe for good. I was freaked for days before Liam
was born, hoping you wanted me there as much as I wanted to be
near you. I remember being so excited about the next phase of
us. I wanted to spend every night with you. To learn who you
were, what you thought about the world… everything. I wanted to discover your favorite things…what you loved.”
“I loved you, Stephanie.” His exasperation was blatant. He flopped down into the sand and rolled over onto his side,
propping himself up on one elbow.
“I was afraid, alright?” She felt tears forming again and
blinked rapidly to combat them. “Why didn’t you answer the
phone when I called the next morning? I finally had the balls to call you, and you never answered.”
“I was so hurt, Love. I lost it completely. I got drunk and
trashed our cottage like it was some shite hotel room on the
road.”
“I know.” She sniffed, remembering the bloody holes in the
white-washed walls.
He reached down and brushed away her tear with his
thumb. With the slightest shake of his head, he glanced up at the stars. “You were right to say no. I wasn’t mature enough to be
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anyone’s husband.”
“No, Phillip. I’m just not wife material.” Trembling at the
ugly truth of her words, she held his gaze.
“We’re quite the couple then, yeah?” he scoffed, a sad smile
creeping onto his lips.
“We were doomed from the start. Oil and water.” Stephanie
choked out the words, feeling a crushing pain as her damaged
heart fractured all over again. A long pause resonated between
them, and he gently brushed a strand of hair away from her
cheek. Shaking his head, his determined eyes held hers hostage.
“More like oil and a blowtorch, if memory serves. We were
nothing short of amazing, Stephanie.”
She covered her face with trembling hands, horrified that
she’d trashed their romance and thrown him aside. Knowing that
he was dead on and that she’d never feel like she had when she
was with him. It was the worst kind of epiphany, and anguish
strangled her. She felt him lean in and gently remove her hands
from her face. His face hovered over hers. and her tears subsided when she saw the knowing look in his eyes. She reached up
instinctively, feeling the familiar prickly feeling of his stubble under her palms.
His lips came down in a swift motion, and she relented as
his arm came around her neck pulling her mouth up to his, his
other hand on her hip, fingertips brushing her scar. She kissed
him back, throwing every emotion he brought out in her into
their kiss. His ferocity met hers and he placed himself com-
pletely on top of her.
He pulled away and fixed her with a blazing stare. “God, I
forgot how delicious you are.”
Then his mouth was on her neck, and his hand traveled up
her bare thigh and under her sundress. His large finger tugged at the waist of her panties, and Steph responded by lifting her hips enthusiastically. She was sure they were about to go too far when the entire force of the frigid tide crashed into them. They both 158
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gasped and pulled back from each other, and the shocking cold
stunned her out of her weakened state and back to the real world.
The world where Phillip made a public joke out of their time
together and Christopher appeared on the scene to add an
element of warmth and normalcy to her otherwise pointless and
empty life. Mustering her resolve, she pushed Phillip away with
all her strength. He rolled off of her, uncontained astonishment marring his handsome face as he flopped fully dressed onto the
beach. As he sputtered in the wet sand, she stumbled to her feet.
For the second night in a row she was rushing away from him,
soaking wet and humiliated.
“Stephanie, wait!” He called, but she ran full speed down
the beach in the other direction.
Cheyenne allowed Saffron to touch her wherever her hands
traveled. She was drunk; it had been long before her pregnancy
since she’d been drunk, and it was liberating to let go of control.
As their leering audience grew, they formed a circle around
them. When Saffron leaned in to kiss her, Cheyenne turned her
head away.
“Let’s go back to my room, Cheyenne. I would love to
show you a few more of my moves.” Saffron whispered as she
nuzzled Cheyenne’s ear like a giant blonde cat. Even though she
was slightly aroused from the attention from the crowd and the
erotic interaction with Saffron, she had no plans to take it any further than the dance floor. She stopped moving and lurched
tipsily away from Saffron. As she opened her mouth to speak,
Scot’s exasperated voice rang out.
“Cheyenne, what in the bloody hell are you doing?”
Cheyenne turned to the sound of his voice. Scot shoved his
way through the crowd to her and took her by the arm. Nathan
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hurried up behind him, his eyes wide. Cheyenne yanked her arm
away.
“I was dancing, Scot. Got a problem with that?” She
crossed her arms.
“No…” Scot began with an eye roll. Saffron uttered a gig-
gle. Kara appeared beside Nathan, and Cheyenne flung her hair
over her shoulders, as if preparing for a face off.
“You are such a bastard, Scot Charles.” Cheyenne pointed
in his face and turned to Kara, her heart hammering in her chest.
“Cheyenne, wait.” She felt Scot’s hand grip her arm again.
He spun her to face him and pinned her body up against his.
Cheyenne kept her gaze on the ground as she struggled against
him. “Look at me dammit.”
“I can’t,” C
heyenne said in a hushed tone. She felt his grip
on her loosen and heard him release a long sigh.
“I really wanted to tell you this later tonight, when we were
alone.” At those words Cheyenne yanked her eyes up to him.
She was no longer able to hold back the tears.
“So now you decide to man up. It’s true then? You and Ka-
ra?” She squirmed out of his arms.
“No.” Scot looked flabbergasted as he shook his head and
ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe you would think I
would do that to us, to our family,”
“But…I saw you together. You’re always disappearing with her,” Cheyenne slurred as she wiped her eyes with the back
of her hand.
“What you saw was me trying to sort out details of our up-
coming trip,”
“With Kara?”
“Christ, Cheyenne no!” Scot shouted and threw his hands
up in the air. Cheyenne took a moment and glanced around at the
crowd who seemed entirely too invested in the outcome of their
conversation. Nathan chewed on his fingernails, and Saffron
stroked his hair in a comforting manner. Cheyenne turned back
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to Scot, who held out his hand. She looked to it, and then back to his dark eyes, glittery with unshed tears. She swallowed hard as if choking on a grapefruit and placed her hand in his. Scot
brought her hand up to his mouth and gave it a kiss. He took a
deep breath as if gathering himself to forge on with the conversation. “Do you remember when you interviewed me for The
Sound Wave?”
“Yes,” Cheyenne felt her voice quiver. Scot reached out and
stroked her cheek lovingly.
“Where did I say I wanted to take you?” His voice was soft.
Cheyenne thought back to that day. Scot dressed in those horri-
ble skinny jeans…the way she had clung to his every word.
“Rio.” She looked deeply into his eyes. Scot gave her a nod.
“I have been planning to take you there after the wedding. I
made arrangements with Kara, so she can take Liam home di-
rectly after the ceremony. I wanted the trip to be a surprise. How often are we going to be this close to my favorite place? We
have never gotten the chance to have a proper honeymoon, my
love.” He ran a hand through her hair and placed his forehead
against hers.
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