by Kat Ransom
Like that someone was me.
Eleven minute drives home from school became four-hour, two-hundred-mile road trips around Florida. And now that we’ve shifted from friend-zone to more, and I’ll be goddamned if some starving, sneaky anaconda or blood thirty crocodile is going to steal her from me.
I’d chase this girl across the earth and through the ends of time.
“Oh no, it seems as though I’ve capsized our vessel,” she giggles and lets out a snort. An actual snort.
There is something about making her laugh, making her smile. The quiet girl at school who ignores everyone, who stares out the window all day like she’s dreaming of being anyplace else.
She makes me feel like I take her there.
The girl who pays no attention to the teacher but still aces every test. There’s something so powerful about me being able to make her eyes go from dull and disinterested to full, dancing, and dazzling.
I get to do this for her.
I’m not just worth something when I’m with her, I feel like a fucking god. She’s so incredibly smart and kind, and unique. She talks about things that matter. I don’t know what the hell she sees in me, because Emily Walker is a good girl, not the usual kind who see bragging rights when they look at me. No, Emily sees something else. She looks at me like I hung the moon—and I need more of it.
Testing the depth, my feet hit the soft earth below me, and my toes sink into the silt, giving me enough traction to drag Emily through the water and up against me. Her palms flatten against my chest, and she looks up at me through her wet lashes, a tremor running through both of us and arcing between our bodies like electricity.
”Looks that way, gorgeous girl. Kayaking is not your forte.” I rest my hands on her midriff, my thumbs caressing her hip bones. She’s treading water trying to stay afloat, her feet not reaching the ground. Grabbing her behind her knees, I wrap her legs around my waist to anchor her.
She inhales sharply, then whispers, “Good.”
“Why is that good?” I sink down to my neck in the water and hold onto her, doing my best to keep my dick where it belongs and not make her uncomfortable. She’s not like other girls.
Her fingers expand over my chest. I can feel her energy seep through my pores and send a bolt of heat through my spinal cord.
“This is the only time I get to fail. It feels good.”
“It feels good to fail?”
“Maybe that’s not exactly it,” her hands grip my shoulders for support as a small boat goes by and sends a wave rolling into us. “It feels good that I can try whatever I want, and there are no consequences. You aren’t disappointed that I dumped our kayak. Are you?”
“No,” I chuckle and kiss her forehead.
Hell, she could sink the US Naval fleet, and I wouldn’t be disappointed in her. I’d be helping her launch the torpedos.
I know plenty about consequences, though.
“Is that why we do this stuff every weekend? So you can screw up,” I ask her, letting my hands trace up and down her back.
“Partially,” she looks over my shoulder and nods before giving me her big, brown eyes again. “I mean, I do like learning new things too, but I don’t know. I just… we can be bad at things together, and no one cares.”
“If this is you being bad, Emily Walker, I need to up my game,” I wink at her and watch a rose blush creep up her chest and neck.
“You know what I mean,” she lowers her head to my shoulder.
I can’t keep my lips from grazing the tiny smattering of freckles that dance across her shoulder.
I do know what she means, though, because my world revolves around consequences. Different from her consequences, but what do semantics matter?
Failing most certainly does not feel good in the Ballentine household, though.
“Is that what I am to you, too? Your experiment with being bad?” I don’t know what I’ll do if she says yes. While I’m okay with being used by most chicks for fulfilling their daddy issues, that isn’t what I thought Emily and I had.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she fires back at me, her eyes going round and searching mine like she’s waiting for me to crack, to bleed, before her. “You’re not an experiment. You’re also not as bad as you think you are.”
“No?” I tug her waist against me, partially because I want to teach her how she can really be bad, partially because I want to feel more of her. And partially because I need more clarity before I lose more of myself in her if we’re not on the same page. And I’m not above forcing honesty out of her.
“You just want me to think you’re bad,” she smiles and rubs herself against me.
Fuck, this girl is going to destroy me.
“No one thinks I’m good, Em.”
And I do mean no one.
Everyone at school knows I’m just biding my time until graduation, fulfilling the mandatory obligation before I move on, doing the bare minimum. I stay just this side of being arrested most nights because while Stanley Ballentine doesn’t give two shits about what I do or who I do, an arrest record would interfere with his plans for me, and there would be consequences then.
“I do, and I like that I’m the only one who gets to see it,” she smiles and nips my bottom lip.
The hint of her jealousy turns me on more than is probably emotionally healthy, but that’s never been my strong suit. Plus, what am I supposed to do when this beautiful girl is biting my lip and grinding herself on my dick that’s barely containing itself behind some thin polyester?
I wish I could kiss her sweetly like she deserves, because even when Emily is bad—she’s good—but, instead, I kiss her like she’s my next meal and I haven’t eaten in a hundred years.
With her legs locked behind my back, I absorb the taste of her--sunshine and a trace of the Dr. Pepper that now floats down the river. Throw in a hint of a good girl wanting to be very bad with me, and it’s like heroin in my veins.
“Yo Ballentine,” someone yells behind me just as a splash hits me in the face, and Emily’s lips pull apart from mine. “Your kayak is floating away.”
My chest puffs up like a rooster preparing to defend his flock against a hawk. I move Emily behind me as I turn, grabbing the football Chuck Dixon has launched at us. Three kayaks make their way closer to us, and the cackling of drunk girls echoes through the mangroves.
“Hi, Cole,” one of them waves at me and tries to stand in her kayak with Kyle whats-his-face.
“Sit down, Brittany,” Kyle yells at her when the kayak starts to wobble.
I toss the football back at Chuck and issue them my customary greeting, “What’s up assholes?”
“Party at Bryce’s tonight, you coming?” He asks while their kayak parade creeps slowly down the river in front of us.
“Maybe,” I answer him, keeping one hand on Em’s legs that are still wrapped around me from behind.
I have no intentions of drinking shitty beer at Bryce’s tonight when I have this goddess wrapped around me, wrapped up in me, wrapping me up in her.
“Come on, man, we haven’t partied in weeks.”
Uh-huh, see the aforementioned goddess.
“You should come, Cole,” one of the other chicks bats her lashes at me. She pushes her chest out, then peers around my shoulders and purses her lips at Emily, “Hello, Emily.”
“Hey,” Emily answers from behind me, disgust echoing from her voice.
“Want me to get your kayak, man?” Chuck asks as they float past it.
“Nope.”
“Leave the lovebirds alone, dude,” Kyle laughs as they finally pass us.
“Bye, Cole!” The three girls wave and giggle.
As soon as they’re out of sight, I spin back to Emily and vow to murder those pricks when I see the crestfallen look on her face. I was very fucking clear with them.
“They still leaving you and Makenna alone?”
“Yep,” she tries to unwrap her legs from me, but hell no. Not over these jealous assho
les, anyway.
“I like those legs right where they are.”
“You should go to the party,” she sighs.
“Do you want to go to the party?” Because that’s the only way I’m going.
“No,” she shakes her head. “The Major General wouldn’t let me, anyway. He thinks I’m at Makenna’s house right now, but that won’t work all night.”
I groan. This asshole treats Emily like she’s made of porcelain, like she’s not a straight-A student, a girl who thinks deliberately overturning a kayak is naughty.
I mean, I can’t blame him for not wanting his pristine daughter hanging out with the likes of me. But Emily is smart and capable and doesn’t deserve to be kept in an ivory tower. She doesn’t deserve having to sneak around just to go kayaking or lie every weekend to spread her wings a little.
“How long do I have you for?”
“We’ve got time,” she smiles and throws her arms around my neck. “Do you have to go to the track today, too?”
She’s getting goosebumps up and down her arms, so I walk us into the sun. Slinking back down in the water, I run my hands over her to warm her up. It’s ninety degrees out, but the girl is perpetually cold. “Yeah, I need to get some laps in.”
“Can I come with again?”
“Absolutely,” I can’t fight the grin that overtakes my face at her wanting to come to the kart track with me again.
“Stanley won’t be pissed?”
“Fuck him.” Stanley will most certainly be pissed. I’ll catch more shit about it from the old man, but it’s well worth it to have Em with me all day, beaming down at me in the bleachers, looking at me like she wants to climb me when I’m in my race suit.
“We should go, then,” she kisses me, and I fight the urge to keep my vise grip around her waist when her legs fall off my hips.
Wading downstream to the kayak, I drag Emily behind me. She’s laughing and floundering about trying to stay above water. She goes quiet when I right the kayak and throw one waterlogged shoe back inside that was floating nearby.
“Cole…”
I turn around, and Emily has one of the yellow oars raised in her hand, her eyes are enormous, and she’s watching the shoreline a few feet away.
My eyes dart to where she’s looking, “Is that…”
“I think it’s an Eastern Diamondback, maybe.”
I reach slowly for her and pull her away, the snake moving over mangrove roots and watching us. Its tail is rattling, and its forked tongue is visible from how close we are.
“Get in the boat, Em,” I whisper, because I don’t know if you’re supposed to be quiet around snakes or make noise, like bears, but quiet seems appropriate.
Emily moves to the side of the kayak, and I put myself between her and the snake, its beady little eyes never leaving us. Emily tries to lift herself in the kayak, but it just wobbles and thrashes from her efforts.
“Stop, stop, stop,” I put a hand on her. Every time the kayak rocks, the snake gets agitated and bobs its head around, tracking the movement, inching closer to us.
“You get in and pull me up,” she breathes, the nerves and fear in her voice audible. She’s still wielding the oar like she’s going to bash the snake to death.
“I’m not leaving you in the fucking water.”
Ever so slowly, I move the kayak, so it’s between the snake and me. That only seems to piss it off even more. Maybe these damn things are like bulls, and the bright color is enraging it, fuck if I know. But, at least now, I have a barrier between Emily and the serpent I knew was lying in wait for her since she dove from the goddamn kayak earlier.
“Okay, I’m going to get in and pull you up,” because, as usual, Emily’s advice was the smart choice.
Moving as slowly as I can, I lift my torso onto the kayak. As soon as I start swinging my legs over, the water displacement from the kayak sinking a few inches rushes at the snake. It falls into the water and heads right toward us, its head and tail above water, his body propelling him forward.
Moving faster than I ever have, I throw my legs over the kayak and grab at Emily to haul her up. But she’s screaming and smacking the water with the giant yellow oar like Jaws is after our boat.
Despite her wild attacks, I’m able to wrap my arms around her shoulders and haul her over me, lying flat in the kayak, so we don’t flip the damn thing again.
“Are you in?” I yell in a panic, trying to make sure her legs are on board and aren’t going to get chewed off by this devil creature.
“I’m in, I’m in,” she pants. “Can it still get us?”
Hell if I know, I’m not Steve fucking Irwin. But that snake is going to be a pair of boots long before it reaches Emily.
“Stay still,” I take the oar from her and sit up. Finally, my eyes find the bastard on the other side of the river, making its way back up onto more mangrove roots.
“He’s gone,” I tell her.
She sits up and starts rubbing her thighs, which are red and scuffed up from me dragging her over the side of the kayak in a panic. “Damn it, Em, you could have been hurt attacking it with the oar. What the hell?” I inspect her legs. She’s going to have huge bruises.
“It was coming at us!”
I shake my head and run my palms over the red marks on her legs. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I didn’t hurt it, did I?”
This girl… death of me, I swear to christ.
I take her face in my hands and give her the kiss she deserves, the sweet one, the one that tells her how amazing she is, how special she is, how good she is.
“I’m supposed to rescue you, you know.”
Those gorgeous brown eyes meet mine, the ones that haunt my dreams and make things in my chest tighten and constrict unnaturally. “You did,” she breathes around my mouth. “You do, every day.”
Four
“When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live.” - H.P. Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulhu
Emily
“Oh, no,” Makenna’s eyes go wide, and her hand flies to her mouth as soon as the video chat connects. Her face takes over my laptop screen.
“Oh, yes,” I reply and move the half-drunk glass bottle she’s staring at further toward the camera lens.
My good friend, Sailor Jerry, only comes to visit during times of extreme emotional duress. The honorable seaman always brings along his ninety-two proof friends and eventually whisks me off into a spiced rum dreamland where Cole Ballentine ceases to exist.
I haven’t seen Jerry for a long time.
Not since Makenna and I last met up in the States and, in an Everclear induced stupor, we decided to see if Cole’s old cell phone number still worked.
Sailor Jerry would never have allowed me to dial that vintage number I purposely never deleted.
Everclear, however, that nasty bitch will turn on you.
The number worked. Why the hell did he never change it after all these years? I met with the haunting sound of his voice for the first time in so long, hearing my name leave his lips again.
Emily?
Em?
Is that you?
I hung up without uttering a word, and that was the last time Jerry took me to bed and made me forget.
I’m not a big drinker, too much of a control freak. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
And I am a desperate woman.
“It finally happened? You saw him?” Makenna’s hands are still on her cheeks, partially hidden under plumes of her long, curly black hair.
“Worse,” I mumble.
“Shit. Okay, let me see what I have,” Makenna grabs her laptop and takes me along with her through her apartment in San Antonio, Texas. Her refrigerator light comes on. “I don’t have Sailor Jerry, but I have merlot. It’ll have to do.” She returns to her bedroom with a bottle of wine, no glass.
This is not a night for civilized drinking.
/> Makenna is my best friend and one of the only people who knows the real me, flaws, failures, and all. Another military brat, we both found ourselves in Tampa when our fathers were serving at MacDill Air Force base.
The Cole Ballentine Years for me, in retrospect.
Makenna was was just another shy, nerdy girl used to being the new kid in school, used to being picked on and uprooted from her home every year or two.
We tend to stick together, those of us who feel like we never really belong anywhere.
Makenna was the weirdo who withdrew into art and is now a brilliant photographer. Back then, the Florida humidity wreaked havoc on her gorgeous curls and set her up for a host of cruel jokes and nicknames like “Bush Beast.” It got worse when she burnt large swaths of it off while trying to straighten it into submission.
I was quiet and introverted, the perpetually new kid everywhere I went. People thought I was shy, but that wasn’t it. I just had nothing to say to them.
School bored the hell out of me, the other kids annoyed the shit out of me, and they deemed me “creepy” even though I was the blandest girl in school with my dull, straight, brown hair and generic brown eyes.
I wanted Makenna’s bouncy curls, and she wanted my stick-straight locks. The grass is always greener, but all the grass is dead and dried up in high school when you’re not in the popular crowd.
Knowing what I do now, I probably should have listened to my gut back then with Cole. He was so far out of my league it took him months to convince me he wasn’t setting me up with an elaborate hoax when he kept trying to talk to me, sitting next to me in class, showing up at my locker.
Tall, cool, popular, wealthy father, hot car, obscenely handsome—everyone thought he had it all. He walked those halls, and you’d swear he was Moses parting the Red Sea.
He owned every room he walked into. Every angsty teenage girl desperate for a fixer-upper bad boy lined up to drop her panties with one sexy smirk.
Yet, he wanted me. I may have made him chase me down and prove it because the concept was outlandish at the time.
And he did prove it, relentlessly.
Funny thing, it turns out everyone is an insecure disaster in high school. No one was immune. What you see on the surface is never what lurks below.
