by Nikki Wild
The most beautiful house on the street was set back from the road, as several of them were. This house in particular was perched atop a hill, overlooking the dominion of wealthy homes below.
As my eyes bugged out, it was this house that my mother drove towards, punching out at the small electronic panel set into a stone wall near the gated entrance.
“Mom…is this where your guy lives?”
“Chet? Oh, didn’t I tell you? He’s a little…wealthy.”
“Jesus, Mom! A little wealthy? Look at this place!”
“I know! Isn’t it great?” She pulled through the tall, black iron gate, and I peered through the rear-view mirror as it closed behind us. “Just wait until you see the inside. It’s even better.”
“I…did you know?”
“Oh, Heavens no,” Mom chuckled airily. “The sly feller only showed me this place a few weeks ago. He rented this middle-class place for months. It was still really nice, much nicer than what we have, but he kept this place a total surprise to me. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t dating him for the money. I didn’t have a clue that Chet was loaded!”
My jaw remained dropped as we passed between the short, stubby trees that lined the driveway. Scattered along the hill, they coated the entire area in a layer of mystery. As we pulled ever forward, I couldn’t feel my fatigue anymore – it had been cleanly and utterly replaced with wonder.
If there was something to make me glad about leaving Bristol and coming back to Pennsylvania, it was this freaking house.
A tall, lanky teenager was loitering at the front door when we pulled up. Standing on the landing with his back against a pillar, a cigarette stuffed between his lips, he wasn’t even gazing at us when we pulled up. I could see his thick, sandy hair through my window. It stood in a barely-managed puff. He looked like my type of guy – aloof, a little edgy, just the right balance between handsome and I don’t give a fuck.
Right as I was thinking this, he turned and gazed right at me. He looked into my eyes for a moment, taking one last puff of his cigarette before putting it out in the mounted ashtray nearby. In that instant, he passed out of view as we parked in the carport, next to a pricey-looking sports car.
“A little young for your tastes, I’d say.”
“Oh hush, you,” Mom cheerily told me. “I’m afraid that I might have forgotten to mention Sawyer. Place nice with him, okay? He’s nicer than he looks, I promise…”
She’d been wrong about people before. I hoped that she wasn’t off the mark with this guy, either.
And that went double for the guy’s father.
We let ourselves out of the car, and Mom clicked down the carport door as we cleared the roof. While it tucked our underwhelming vehicle out of view, I glanced up at Sawyer. He was sizing me up, a glum look on his face.
“Thought you told me she was pretty,” he told my mother as we met him at the top of the steps.
“Oh, behave,” she chided him. “You said you were going to be on your best behavior. Where’s your father?”
“He’s inside. Real keen on meeting you,” he turned to address me, flashing a coy little smirk.
If not for his previous line, I would have been flattered. Now that we were right on top of him, I could see that he dressed in baggy clothes that hid his build. He wasn’t lanky at all – in fact, I could sense that he had the foundation for an incredible body beneath those clothes. When he wasn’t slumping, his shoulders were broad, powerful – and when I made the logical mental deductions to his sagging clothing, I realized that with minimal effort he could probably have an awesome body.
“I’m sure he is! It’s about time he met my daughter,” she continued as she started walking to the front door.
“Riiiiight. I’m sure this is going to be a blast,” he muttered under his breath, turning away from me.
I almost opened my mouth to demand what he meant by that, but Mom was already crossing the landing up to the door, and I wanted to keep close to her for now. Swallowing my words, I scampered off after her – but out of the corner of my eye, it seemed as if Sawyer were looking at me.
Checking me out?
I didn’t have time to think about this, because the door opened for us. Inside was a man who looked almost exactly like a much older, more distinguished Sawyer – but a Sawyer who had taken serious care of himself. With a broad, powerful build, Mom’s boyfriend bore the telltale lines of frequent smiling across his strong, chiseled face.
“Welcome, welcome!” He positively boomed in a firm baritone. “Come inside, let’s get a look at you…”
He passed aside, holding the door wide open, and we stepped into the rich, exquisite house.
Mom was right. It seriously was better on the inside. But I didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on the pristine, way too expensive interior.
“I’d you to introduce you to Chet…” my mother warmly told me.
I happily reached out to shake his hand, but he pulled me into a strong hug instead. Surprised, I was taken aback by the strength of his arms as he embraced me. He was as handsome as she had told me in her few email responses – although way too old to be anything more than “Mom’s boyfriend”, and he wore a strong whiff of what smelled like expensive cologne.
But Mom hadn’t finished her sentence, apparently. “…Your new father.”
Pennsylvania, Present Day
”I don’t get why you’re doing this!” I complained bitterly, scraping my worn sandals off my heels with the toes of the opposite foot. “It’s not like I’m a teenager anymore…I’ve been an adult for years. I can take care of myself, you know!” The sandals clattered against the tile as I leaned forward, my elbows on the counter with my feet dangling against my barstool.
“Perhaps it’s time you started acting like one, then.” My mother’s eyes were mischievous as always, but her lips were drawn down in a grimace. The contrast threw me off as she quickly appraised me in a glance. “You’re always out doing Heavens knows what with boys, coming in late at night…besides, it’s our wedding anniversary! I’d hoped you would have been happy for us.”
She knew damned well I only ever went out to the club with my girlfriends, but I knew better than to try and argue the point. It never went well. “Mom, you know how badly I want to go to Paris! I’ve always wanted to eat–”
“Yes, yes, how did it go? Eating French cheese, sipping French wine, lounging in the rolling grass of Southern France…did I get it right?”
As she peered in the refrigerator, she cast me another quick look with those wide eyes of hers. My mother always looked like she was on the cusp of hysterical laughter, always beaming with joy. It was no wonder my parents were celebrating their anniversary in Paris. Unlike most of the young married couples from my graduating class of high school, my parents seriously hit the jackpot on each other and they knew it. I’d never seen them bicker, fight, or anything of the sort in my entire young life. Their love and compassion for each other was almost sickeningly adorable, and I knew it was one of those “lightning strikes” moments.
If only, I thought to myself, I wound up half as lucky as them.
“I’m really sorry, sweetheart. Truly. I know that Paris means a lot to you. But your father and I are really looking forward to this…and I promise that if you keep your grades up, we’ll send you there soon. Maybe next summer! How would a month in Paris sound as a graduation present, hmm?”
She tilted her head slightly, with those wide, cheerful eyes. It was like talking to a puppy…a wealthy, happy puppy that was determined to come between you and your dreams. How do you stay mad at someone with that much infallible happiness?
“Fine. At least I’ll have the place to myself all summer…” I grumbled to myself. It was a perk, at the very least. I’d already started calculating the logistics of a “Home alone for the summer” party.
“Well, actually…” Mom started, her eyes suddenly tentative and cautious, “we wondered if you’d like to have the Beach House for the summer
? As a consolation?”
“The Beach House?” I suddenly sat up, my dejection temporarily forgotten. The vacation home had been in my family since the marriage – a glamorous building right on the edge of the ocean, down in Pensacola. Some of my happiest summers had been spent there. “But I thought you said you sold it?”
“Well, it turns out that we didn’t have to, after all!” She laughed, pouring two glasses of orange juice for us. As she tucked the pitcher back inside the fridge, she handed me a glass and leaned against her elbows on the lower counter. “I know how much you loved that place…just be okay with us taking our trip, and we’ll let you stay at the beach house all summer. Get some relaxation in. Work on that tan! Just, no boys alone with you there…”
“Mom…” I started, giving her a half-hearted glare over the lip of my glass. One coy, misplaced barb per conversation I could stomach, but a second was bound to push my buttons. “You know that I don’t—”
“I know, I know,” she murmured, glossing dismissively over my rebuttal. “But there is one teeny, tiny condition…”
“A condition?” I raised my eyebrow. “What, you don’t trust me alone there? I’m an adult, mother! I’m going to college and I’m making responsible choices. I’m old enough to take care of myself.”
“I’m sure you are, dearie, but your father insisted…”
“…Insisted on what?”
“Well, you see…it’s not that we–”
I heard the front door, or at least I thought I did. We both paused, listening for any other noises. After a moment, it was followed by footsteps in our general direction. My gaze locked onto hers, my brow lifted again, and we both stiffened up at the same time.
“Mom, are you expecting anyone–”
I stopped as I saw who had entered our home unannounced, pausing at the doorway into the kitchen. With a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm, a sly smile crossed his lips. His eyes slid from hers to mine.
Him.
Sawyer Samuels.
The complete bastard who abandoned us…
“Little Saffie,” my cocky asshole of a stepbrother chuckled as his grin widened. “Been a minute, hasn’t it?”
“Not long enough,” I murmured, recalling that stupid nickname he’d always had for me. Dread pooled in my stomach as I bit my lip furiously. With his shaggy hair cut short and his obvious muscular makeover, he was stupidly handsome. Even with his motorcycle gear on, his build communicated all I needed to know – that Sawyer 2.0 had seriously cleaned himself up. He was stronger, healthier, and all around built. It would have been attractive, but the dumb grin on his face told me he was just as much of a jackass as before, and my spirits plummeted. I started rolling my fingertips on the countertop as I glared at him.
Brushing off the remark, Sawyer paused to watch my gesture for a second, and then moved towards the refrigerator. As I heard the clinking of glass bottles – of COURSE the first thing he does is rummage for a beer – he called out to our mother. “Don’t suppose you’ve told her yet, or should I break the news?”
The dread compounded, and I turned to her. “Mom…why is he here?”
As Sawyer ducked his head back from the fridge, popping the top off on the counter, Mom turned to me with an uncharacteristically weary glance. “The Beach House…I mentioned that your father had a condition.”
My gaze flitted from her to him and back again.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding.”
“There have been some threats,” she explained. “An ex-employee of Chet’s…the police are looking for him, and it’s probably nothing. But your father and I want you to be safe while we’re away,” Mom smiled weakly at me.
“He’s my condition?” I practically shouted, pointing angrily at my stepbrother. He simply took another sip from his beer, and Mom looked at me weakly again.
“That’s right. Sawyer’s going to be your bodyguard.”
Two
Sawyer
New Orleans, Five Years Ago
I knew they were going to take it pretty rough when I left in the middle of the night. I did my best to push my guilt away, although separating myself from them – from her – was harder than I’d anticipated. But I knew that Saffron would be fine. She hated me, after all. I also knew why I had to go. I willingly embraced this path…but not before doing a little due diligence first.
Carrying only fifty bucks to my name, I arrived down in New Orleans – fresh off a Greyhound bus and far from the opulence of my parents’ gilded little world. I realized that I had made the right choice when I saw the city. No longer would I be living under their roof, sitting in their lap of luxury and feeling my brain start to rot.
Normalcy, luxury, comfort.
These things bothered me.
That’s a major part of the reason why I left home at the earliest opportunity. I’d spent eighteen years on this planet and I’d never seen what the world was really like. Screw endless bank accounts and high-end meals; I was determined that I was going to live. My parents could keep their wealth – their comfortable life of smooth edges wasn’t for me. What I needed was to feel the jagged lines of this world; I craved the roughness of a life forged out of the burning blaze of circumstance.
I meant to carve out my own way.
If I told you it wasn’t an adjustment, I would be lying to you. But I was streetwise enough to improvise. I’d sought out trouble during my early teenage years while my father was dating my stepmother-to-be. It wasn’t out of any malice or rebellion against the memory of my mom. I just needed to learn my limits, and that meant testing my mettle through the occasion fight or pissing off the authorities.
I enjoyed pissing people off…
Except Saffron, after she became my stepsister.
I pissed her off just because.
Through observation on my first afternoon in the city, I learned quickly to stick to the business district, perhaps the garden district if I really wanted to spread my wings. The former had everything I really needed, whereas the latter clearly contained nothing of any significance to me.
But I’m not stupid.
So I taught myself the land.
As I sat on one of the streetcars, themselves mobile landmarks of the old, beaten-but-never-fallen city, I allowed my eyes to take in the prominent Garden District. While we slowly chugged along St. Charles Avenue, I allowed my disgruntled gaze to soak in the multimillion-dollar houses, standing proudly three stories tall and boasting of their rich, exorbitant culture. My eyes fell upon the parked cars lining either side of the street, and the occasion driver desperately trying to snatch a small, inconvenient spot with anything less than a twenty-point turn. Lining the street on either side were the large, majestic oaks, stretching the tendrils of their pavement-cracking roots and cloaking the entire area in shade. As we continued along, the expensive houses and their accent treeline receded for the back-to-back universities of Tulane and Loyola. They were beautifully sprawling fortresses jutted against the sky, overflowing with students either carrying a direct line to Daddy’s checking account or resigning themselves to decades of crippling financial debt.
The streetcar carried me to the other end, but I remained on board. I was in hardcore observation mode, determined to learn the immediate layout and any points of interest to me. A small crowd of people stepped on and off the tram with each stop, and we swung back up St. Charles Avenue headed the other direction.
I took the time to learn common denominators between the people I saw. Various levels of class and dishevelment greeted me; in this city, everyone from primped Southern women to shaggy, unkempt street ruffians used this transit. Another observation: with the exception of a pair who recognized one another, nobody spoke. Everyone operated as if the entire streetcar was otherwise empty, neither opening conversation nor even glancing at the others.
Good, I thought to myself. That’ll make it easier to blend in.
My firm grip on my duffle bag relaxed; my shoulders released their tension. E
very major city carried veritable rot in its sprawling underbelly, from the disorderly and desperate among the homeless to the alleyway muggers that vanished into the crowds. I had been mindful of the risks to coming here. From what I had seen since arriving, it appeared that I had overestimated. I could see now that by playing it safe and keeping to myself, sticking to the safer districts, I was going to be okay.
I was wrong.
Pennsylvania, Present Day
Flying down the interstate, I felt the engine of my Suzuki throttling hard between my legs. With the slightest shift against the handlebars, I leaned just slightly into a lane shift, and then back, weaving between traffic as the sun began to descend in front.
This is what I lived for.
Although I could easily tell why I’d been seen that way, I never considered myself a daredevil. The five years since I had left Pennsylvania had made me find myself in one thrill after another. Riding the open road and cage fighting were simply parts of my everyday life, and I handled them the same way that I did with anything else – by throwing myself completely into it, feet first. I figured out every moment as it came, whether it was dodging the next haymaker or popping between cars on the interstate.
My confidence came with inertia; its own momentum carried it forward. I never had the patience for hesitance. It had no place in my life, and I was determined to keep things that way. I lived on instinct. Reactionary. I was always in the instant.
A big rig was coming up on the side.
