by Mary Martel
I didn’t want to go back up to my house just yet. I wasn’t ready. Also, I didn’t have a television yet. I had a laptop with the internet we could watch something on, but that seemed far too intimate for today.
“No, tonight I could really use the water. It soothes something inside of me. Maybe I was a mermaid in a past life or something. Possibly a siren. Yeah, I like the thought of luring men to their deaths right about now.”
I laughed hysterically, still hanging over the side of the railing. The blood was starting to rush to my head from being upside down, and I was getting slightly lightheaded. I let my arm fall down and trailed my fingers through the sand there.
“Shit,” Riley muttered. “Stay here then. I’ll be right back, I’m going up to get you some water.”
I felt him move away from me and I was grateful for the moment to myself. I gripped the railing and hefted myself up to standing. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and started back down the steps. It might have been rude not to wait for Riley to return, but fuck it, the water was calling my name.
This time I didn’t run but took my time, careful with each step. I didn’t want to end up like my sister. Who would even go to my funeral? Franklin and the nannies? How terribly sad.
Pure elation soared through me the moment my bare feet touched the still hot from the sun sand. My feet carried me to the shoreline where the water would be able to lap against my toes.
The beach was empty of people on either side of me as far as the eye could see. There were no boats out on the water. No waves either. You’d think it would be quiet, but it wasn’t. I could hear the water moving along the shore.
No longer wishing to go for a walk along the beach, I sat my butt down in the sand with my toes just barely in the water. I stretched out, placing my hands in the sand behind me, and looked out at the lake. It was the most peaceful I’d felt since my sister had died.
There’d been the gaping hole in my chest that hurt with every breath I took. Now the ragged edges seemed slightly smoothed and they hurt a whole lot less. They were still there, still bleeding, but not as painful. Almost bearable.
I didn’t know how long I sat there before Riley crouched down beside me. He brushed my shoulder lightly, and I startled. I had been so captivated by the water that I hadn’t heard him approach. I could lose myself out here for days, maybe even weeks, and I wouldn’t complain about the time suck. It’d be a welcome distraction to me.
Riley unscrewed the cap from the bottle of water in his hands. He held the bottle out to me with a silent plea on his face. I sat up straight and took the water from him. It was ice cold and felt wonderful going down my sore throat. I drank half the bottle before passing it back to Riley. He recapped it and sat it down in the sand beside me.
Riley scooted closer to me, so close we were in danger of touching. He curled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his knees. The move made him look a whole lot younger. He rested his chin on his knee and stared out at the water.
Instead of watching the water, I now watched him. He never so much as even twitched and didn’t call me out for burning an imaginary hole in the side of his face with my eyeballs.
How someone could be so still for so long amazed me. Especially someone so big, though why his size mattered I didn’t know.
“Tomorrow,” Riley said, breaking into the silence that had stretched on for what felt like hours, and given the darkness surrounding us, it might have actually been. “Do you want to come with me to meet my mom? I’ve got to go home to check in, otherwise she’ll worry about me. She won’t call me or text me to ask me where I am or what I’m doing, but she’ll worry all the same. It’s ridiculous, so I go home to check in and she worries a little bit less. She’ll get a kick out of meeting you. She met Gin several times, and it kills me to say it, and don’t ever repeat it because my mother would take grave offense at hearing it, but I honestly don’t think she liked Gin all that much. Don’t get me wrong, she was always nice to her, but I heard her whispering with my sister once about how they thought she was a bit of a snob.”
I choked on a surprised laugh. Thinking of someone not liking my sister was absurd and not something I had ever encountered before.
But a snob? Really?
Fucking hilarious.
“Gin was the least snobbish person I knew,” I stated. “She was kind and sweet and…” I choked on my words.
And a fucking liar, that was what she was.
“Anyway,” Riley added with false cheer, “you actually are a snobby bitch, or so you seem. I think my mother is going to get a real kick out of meeting you. Hell, maybe she’ll even like you.”
Well, didn’t that just sound promising?
Right then and there, I decided that I would go with him tomorrow to meet his mother. Firstly because I had nothing better to do, and secondly because I felt like I needed to defend my sister for some stupid reason.
He was right though, I was a snobby bitch, I just hoped his mother didn’t call me out on it.
“Are you ready to head back up to the house now?”
Yeah, I think I was, oddly enough.
I stood up and brushed the sand off my ass. Riley did the same and he bent down to pick my half empty water bottle up.
I didn’t even question it when he grabbed hold of my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. I wasn’t really big on holding hands and cuddling. The only people I’d ever done it with before were Gin and Franklin. And now Riley.
He held my hand the entire way up the stairs, and I pretended I didn’t feel the butterflies taking flight in my stomach, but they were there all the same.
Franklin hadn’t said anything about hand holding, just no sex.
The dick.
“What do you like on your pizza?” he questioned as we made it to the top and onto my wooden deck.
“Sausage, pepperoni, extra cheese, and mushrooms,” I immediately answered. “I don’t like onions on anything, especially not my pizza. Sometimes, if I’m in a mood, I’ll go for pineapple and ham, but not today. What do you like on your pizza?”
“Well,” he drawled, sounding amused, “what I’ll never like on my pizza is pineapple and ham, that’s for damn sure. Ham, yes. Pepperoni, sausage, extra cheese, mushrooms, onions, peppers, jalapenos, bacon, all yes. There isn’t actually much I won’t eat so I’m good with whatever.”
I gobbled up every ounce of information he gave me as if I’d been starving for it. Desperate fucking fool that I was.
Being around Riley was easy, too easy. Was that what Gin had liked about him? I hoped she’d had that in her life because our family certainly hadn’t bought her that.
He squeezed my hand once before letting it go to slide open one of the glass doors at the back of my house.
“I’ll order the pizza,” he told me. “You got drinks in this place?”
Boy did I ever. Though I didn’t think alcohol was what he referred to. I’d seen him slightly intoxicated before, so I knew he drank and he’d obviously helped himself to my refrigerator when he’d taken the water… So what was a girl to think? Did he want to get drunk with me? I was more than down for that.
I left Riley to wander around my empty family room with his phone to his ear and headed down the hallway toward my bedroom.
I had left my phone on the floor there plugged into the charger. The goddamn nannies, Maxine and Ginger, had been texting me for days now when they realized I had not been back there for damn near a week now. Maxine seemed genuinely worried about me, and each text she’d sent got a little more frantic with her need to know where the hell I was. I had yet to respond and was starting to feel badly about it. Ginger, on the other hand, was just being a bitch and demanding I come home because she claimed I needed to run the household. Whatever the fuck that meant. I had no intentions of going back there any time soon.
I did, however, set something up with the lawyers and had bank accounts set up for all three of the nannies, Maxine included ev
en though she probably didn’t need it. They would get monthly allowances deposited into their accounts for the next five years and then they were shit out of luck. I imagined the lawyers already had this meeting with them at the house and they wanted me to come home so they could attempt to change my mind and weasel more money out of me.
I had thought about it long and hard and decided I was not going to support these ladies for the rest of their lives. My father had left plenty of money for all of his children, and made it so their mothers couldn’t fuck them over and steal their money from them before they ever came of an age where they could receive it themselves. The lawyers had tried to talk me out of the allowances for the ladies lasting five long years, but I hadn’t been able to be dissuaded. The amount of money they would receive in those five years would be enough for them to live a decent life off of for the rest of their days if they spent it wisely, which I knew not a single one of them would. What they chose to do after those five years wasn’t my business. I would make a point to remain in my siblings’ lives, and it wasn’t like I was going to kick them out of the house at that date, but after that their mothers were no longer my problem.
Hell, they weren’t my problem anymore, which I was trying to get across by not being at their beck and call by responding to their texts.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through their messages. They weren’t worth responding to, save for Maxine’s.
Her last text made me almost feel sorry for her.
Maxine: Gemmy girl, you’re starting to scare me. Please, just let me know you’re alright.
Yeah, now I felt like a real asshole worrying her when it took all of ten seconds to reply.
Gem: I’m fine. Found a new place to live for a while. I trust the lawyers took care of you. I need some time to myself for a while. You can tell the others whatever you want.
Her response came immediately, almost as if she’d been sitting by her phone waiting for me to text her back.
Maxine: I don’t give a shit about the others and what they think. I care about you.
Maxine: I know my relationship with your father wasn’t normal and made it so my relationship with you wasn’t normal either, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t grown to be family because that’s what we are. You’re my family, Gem, and I love you.
Maxine: Whenever you need me, I’m just a phone call away.
Gem: Thanks, Maxine.
Now I felt like an even bigger asshole for not telling her I loved her back. Did I love Maxine? I didn’t know what I felt for anyone anymore, but I knew I didn’t have it in me to tell her I loved her.
Maxine: Anytime, Gemmy girl. You know that, right?
I did. And wasn’t that part of the fucking problem? Relationships these days felt more like a burden to me than anything else. I didn’t have the energy for it anymore, it had been zapped out of me when my sister died.
My bedroom, although still a lovely room, was a sad state of affairs. Franklin and I had ordered a bed and mattress for both his room and mine, they just hadn’t come yet. So our air mattress we’d both been sleeping on was now in here. My bags and boxes he’d helped me drag into my closet. My clothes had been unpacked in there and the rest of my shit had remained in the boxes.
We’d purchased outdoor furniture and that was basically all that had come so far. Everything else had been ordered online and there still wasn’t much of it. It was expected to come within the next week and I couldn’t wait.
Maybe I could talk Riley into a visit to the furniture store after we went to see his mother. He seemed more compliant than Franklin, I bet it wouldn’t take much to talk him into going with me.
Ignoring the fact I wasn’t alone in my house, I stripped off my clothes and left them in a pile on the floor in the middle of my room. Naked, I walked to my bathroom and turned on the shower.
I got in under the spray of hot water and just stood there for a few minutes, letting it wash over me. I scrubbed the sand off my body, washed my hair, and shaved everything that needed to be shaved.
I felt almost human when I was done and turned the water off. I opened the shower curtain and froze. Riley stood there with a towel held out to me. His eyes never left my face as I took the towel from him and quickly wrapped it around my body.
“Pizza’s here,” he murmured huskily. “You want to eat it outside?” His lips quirked into a small grin. “There seems to be nowhere else to sit in this place.”
I nodded as I clutched the towel to my chest. He’d made a bold move by coming in here.
He reached out and ran the backs of his knuckles across my damp jaw, and I had to clench my teeth to keep from sighing in pleasure.
I craved more of this delightful skin to skin contact and soaked it up like a dried up, old, useless sponge. Franklin would find the whole scenario annoying and that was what had me reaching up to grab hold of Riley’s hand. Not to stop his gentle touch, but to keep him closer for just a bit longer. I desperately wished for the warmth coming off his skin to seep into my own as if it was another thing to absorb and take away from him.
Like a fucking succubus.
Or a disgustingly greedy cow.
Like my mother.
I dropped my hand as if his touch had burned my skin and wiped my palm on the towel wrapped around my body. You couldn’t wipe away the filth that ran through my veins. Filth I wanted to rub all over Riley and expose him to.
“Gem?” His gentle voice had me closing my eyes tightly before opening them once more and avoiding making eye contact him.
Had you ever heard that saying the eyes were the window to the soul? I believed it and I didn’t want Riley getting a good look at my peepers right about now. I was usually so much better at masking what I had going on, but he’d caught me off guard here.
“I’ll meet you outside to eat after I get dressed,” I said, dismissing him and at the same time answering his earlier question.
He sighed heavily and I didn’t need to see his face to know he was disappointed. I didn’t like it, but it was what I needed at the moment. I needed him away from me, out of here, before his presence alone sucked up all the oxygen in the room.
He left without a word, and I almost called out to thank him for it. Dealing with a man who, even when he didn’t like my decisions, didn’t question or argue, he simply complied and let me be, was refreshing.
I liked this a great deal about Riley. After the late afternoon spent on the beach with him, I knew there was a great deal about Riley to like. And I knew there was more yet to be discovered. I couldn’t wait to figure out the rest of what made Riley Riley.
I ran a comb through my wet mop of hair before piling it high on the top of my head in a messy bun. I hoped it dried entirely before I went to bed, because I didn’t enjoy sleeping on wet hair, but it would be rude to leave him alone for even longer in my house.
Normally I would have left the towel in the bathroom and walked naked to my closet, but I felt it was safer and wiser this time to keep my towel on while I hustled to my closet to get dressed. I pulled on some comfy black cotton panties, black short sleep shorts, and a thin black tank top. I never normally would dress in all black, not my style, but the only other super comfy tank I came across that I’d unpacked was white and somewhat see through.
Nips out and proud for all I came in contact to see was not the way I wanted this day to end.
I didn’t put on socks or sandals or anything because I was home now and I didn’t have to wear them. My mother didn’t approve of walking around her house on bare feet. I had rarely ever seen my father with bare feet either, but it wasn’t a rule he’d ever enforced in his home. My mother had clearly won that round with him, and I didn’t even want to think about all the other little things he’d done based on that vile woman’s wishes even after she’d kicked us out of her life.
It was disgusting and not how I intended to live my life, still under her rule even after I’d removed her from my life.
I wondered if Gin wo
uld have done the same if she’d ever had the chance to live on her own.
Chicken shit. That was me, hiding out in my closet from someone I had no reason to hide from.
Like an asshole.
I straightened my shoulders and got my shit together. Then I left the closet, grabbed my cell phone from where I’d left it on the bathroom counter, and left my room. There was no going back now.
I went outside to eat dinner with Riley, only making a pit stop in the kitchen to grab another pre-rolled joint Franklin had left behind for me.
Always so thoughtful was my Franklin.
Chapter Fourteen
I Couldn’t Hang With This Girl
Riley
She wasn’t anything like what I’d thought she’d be. But she was a lot more like her twin sister than what I’d imagined, given how different they were.
Gem was absolutely a bitch. There was no denying that, but there was a whole lot more to her than just that.
She was strung out and on edge, angry, so fucking angry, and incredibly sad. Jesus, fuck, but she was so sad. It broke my heart just being around her.
We ate in companionable silence while she alternately smoked her joint and stared out at the water.
She was breathtakingly beautiful as she tried to hide her sadness beneath her anger, but she didn’t fool me. I didn’t even think she fooled herself, but she sure as shit put on a good show.
Would Gin have approved of this? Lord knew she had been spectacular at putting on a show and hiding behind whatever bullshit she’d erected to protect herself.
Belinda, that fucking bitch, had a hand in both of these beautiful girls’ heartbreak and sadness. She’d destroyed Gin, and in doing so had ripped out Gem’s heart.
And she’d thus far gotten away with all of it.
“Did she ever drink around you?” Gem’s quiet, somber voice drew me out of my thoughts, and I looked away from the lake to her. “Gin, did she ever get drunk around you? Did you ever see her drink?”
