by Mary Martel
I didn’t understand this line of questioning, but I answered her. I didn’t think I had it in me to deny this girl anything. She shouldn’t have meant anything to me, but from the moment I’d locked eyes on her in that cemetery, she’d become a fascination, then an obsession, and now she was more and I didn’t exactly understand what that more was just yet. I simply knew that I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anything in my life, even if it was solely for the purpose of chasing away my own goddamn sadness, I had to have her.
It was selfish.
It was absurd.
It was probably going to end in heartbreak for the both of us. Maybe even that cunt Franklin too.
And I didn’t care about any of that in the slightest.
She passed the joint to me, and I took a hit before handing it back to her. She’d been doing this since she lit the thing up, which I greatly appreciated. It took the edge off my nerves and made it easier for me to sit here with her without saying or doing something stupid.
“I’ve seen Gin drink on occasion,” I reluctantly shared. I didn’t want to talk about Gin with anyone, I wasn’t ready. But if anyone deserved for me to share my memories of her sweet sister with, it was Gem.
“Never at big parties though. If it was a small group of us hanging out at the pool house at your mother’s house, she would let loose a little bit. Sometimes we’d have bonfires at Belinda’s house, and if Gin had planned on staying the night there she might get drunk. Never to the point where she allowed herself to get out of control. She liked being the DD and she liked staying levelheaded.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and held it for too long before releasing it. My lungs burned painfully, but I hardly noticed it. This next part I didn’t want to share with her, but she needed to hear it.
“I think she didn’t drink mostly because of Belinda. Belinda parties. Always has. She lets loose without a care for anyone else, and she’s never been any way other than that. Gin was the only one who could calm her ass down when she got out of control, and Belinda took advantage of that. Took advantage of Gin. She fucked who she wanted, when she wanted, and just expected Gin to get over it and even sometimes be her ride home afterwards when she was too drunk to drive herself.”
The more I talked, the more my insides burned with rage. I’d known all of this before, obviously, but I hadn’t allowed myself to think too much on it. Not my relationship, not my business. But maybe it should have been. Maybe I’d been wrong not to get up in Gin’s face about it and confront her on allowing her girlfriend to treat her like garbage when she deserved so much more.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Maybe and shoulda, woulda, coulda weren’t good enough anymore.
Gem got up and went inside without a word. I didn’t follow her. She probably needed a minute to collect herself.
She came back a few minutes later and slammed a bottle of Grey Goose and two glasses of ice down onto the table.
“I don’t have anything to mix it with,” she grumbled. “At least I brought out glasses this time. Franks and I usually just drink it right out of the bottle.”
I stared in horror and awe as she uncapped the bottle and poured both glasses almost all the way to the rim. She picked up the one closest to her and chugged almost half of it.
So it was going to be like that, was it?
I couldn’t hang with this girl, I’d be drunk off my ass and useless in no time.
I picked up my glass, careful not to spill any of it, and sipped gingerly at it. It was ice cold and went down smooth, barely leaving a burn in its wake.
I cradled the glass in both hands, close to my chest, and watched the waves crash against the sand down at the beach.
“Did you see her that night? The night she died?”
Fuck it, I thought, and chugged some of the vodka. This time it burned, making me wince. “No. But she called me. I didn’t answer because I was working, and it was too busy for me to take a phone call.” That would haunt me for the rest of my life. “She left a voicemail though. I listened to it when I got off work. I saved it but haven’t been able to listen to it since.”
Riley, it’s Gin. I can’t… Can you come over? I don’t want to be alone tonight, and Belinda is… Just come over, Riley, if you get this and it isn’t too late.
I had always thought she’d meant too late at night and her mother would be pissed if I showed up at their front gate. Now I wondered, and it scared the shit out of me.
And what the fuck had Belinda been doing?
“How did she sound to you?”
Drunk and sad. Not like Gin at all. I grunted but didn’t answer. I’d give her everything but that.
“I talked to her and she was drunk off her ass. Devastated and heartbroken. You know, she told me you two were dating for years, and I knew no different. She said you’d cheated on her, and the night before she’d caught you and Belinda fucking… It’s what drove her to drink all alone and miserable. I couldn’t even go and see her because our mother wouldn’t have let me in the house. We weren’t allowed to see each other regularly. We had a plan set for after graduation. We were going to live together and go to college wherever Gin wanted to go. Me, I didn’t care where we went just so long as I got to be with Gin, and because we’d both be eighteen by then, it wouldn’t have mattered what our parents had to say about it. We’d finally be free.”
Fuck.
Betrayal by someone you loved and thought had loved you hurt like a son of a bitch. I emptied my glass and set it down on the table. Gem slid the bottle of Goose toward me and I happily picked it up and filled my glass. Only halfway though, I wasn’t going to get crazy like her.
“Now I have all these questions with no chance of getting answers for them and it pisses me off,” she spat out harshly. “If that bitch wasn’t fucking you, then who did my sister see her with? She saw something that set her off, she just couldn’t be honest with me about it because she’d already told me too many lies to be able to tell the truth.” She pierced me to my seat with her intense eyes. “I want to know the truth, Riley. I need to know it. And I want to make that bitch pay for the way she treated my sister.”
Now that I knew all this, I wanted to know the truth too. And I had a good idea where to start looking. Or, better yet, with who.
“I feel like if not for Belinda, maybe Gin would still be here. Maybe we’d graduate and go off to college together and she’d have been able to finally be honest with me about who she really was. I…” She choked on her words and picked up her glass, chugging the rest of her second drink.
Goddamn this girl. Goddamn Gin for doing this to us.
And goddamn Belinda for being a shitty human being. For Gin, and for Gem, one day soon I vowed Belinda would get what she deserved, and she wouldn’t just be ostracized from our friends and an outcast. No, she deserved something else altogether.
“I think I can help with some of that,” I told Gem. Her head tipped to the side curiously. “I found out after Gin’s funeral that Belinda had been sleeping with a friend of ours, one of the guys from the football team. When he found out about Belinda and Gin, he was pissed, and that was the end of Belinda and him. He loved your sister, and I bet he’d be more than happy to answer some questions for us.”
Her eyes lit with something dangerous and I shivered, not liking that look one bit. It promised something dark and dangerous, something I didn’t think I wanted to be any part of but knew I no longer had a choice where this girl was concerned.
She had darkness inside of her. I didn’t know if it had been there before the death of her sister or not because I hadn’t known her then, but it was certainly there now. I didn’t know how I missed it before. She hid things about herself too well, and that scared me because obviously Gin had been the same and I’d entirely missed that about her.
“That douchebag from the funeral who she clutched onto,” Gem guessed correctly, and I winced at her words. He really wasn’t a bad dude or a douchebag. She’d have to lear
n that all on her own though.
“Yeah. I’ll see if we can meet up with him tomorrow.”
“Why not tonight?” she questioned excitedly. She waved her glass around, the liquid inside sloshing back and forth. “Invite him on over. He can get drunk with us and spill all of his secrets.”
I didn’t want to invite him over. I wanted to spend the night with just Gem and me without having her bodyguard hovering or anyone else around. I just wanted to be alone with my girl. I also didn’t think her bodyguard would be down with her inviting strangers over into their home, though, he’d said nothing against it.
What would it hurt to invite Jason over? Nothing, that was what. I still didn’t want to do it. But it wasn’t like I could call up Belinda and ask her who she fucked the night before her girlfriend died and expect to get the truth out of her. At least with Jason we’d know if it had been him or not, he wouldn’t lie about it.
I had a feeling it had been Jason. And I had a feeling Belinda had known her girlfriend had seen her fucking the football player and she hadn’t done anything to fix it. It was why she hadn’t wanted to answer my questions in the pool house.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Gem?” I asked quietly, hesitantly even. “Once you find out the truth, you’ll never be able to unknow it.”
She shrugged her shoulders carelessly, but I wasn’t fooled by the gesture. This meant everything to her. “It’s got to be better than the not knowing and the lies I’ve already been fed. Anything is better than that.”
I wasn’t so sure I agreed with her, but I pulled out my phone and texted Jason anyways.
Riley: Hey, man. You busy tonight?
His text came back almost immediately.
Jason: Holy fuck! He lives! It’s been too long, my man. We were starting to get worried about you.
I didn’t ask who the “we” was he spoke of. If this motherfucker was hanging out with Belinda again, we were going to have more than words.
Riley: Still kicking. I’ve been busy working. Gotta make that money before school starts back up.
Jason: What’s up, man? Did you want to chill? I can’t tonight, got plans with the fam. Tomorrow I’m free.
Excellent. I hid my satisfied smile from Gem. I didn’t have to share her with anyone tonight and got her all to myself. Unless her psycho buddy returned before he said he was supposed to. I wouldn’t put it past him to show up unannounced way before he’d told us he planned to return just to keep me on my toes and make sure I wasn’t doing anything with my girl that he didn’t approve of.
I hadn’t missed his little talk with Gem about not sleeping with me. Just who the fuck did this guy think he was, her keeper?
“He can meet up with us tomorrow,” I told Gem, and took another drink of my vodka. I winced, feeling the burn of that one go down.
“Fine,” she grumbled, sounding like a petulant child. I glanced at her and almost burst out laughing at the pout she wore. Seemed the little princess wasn’t interested in waiting for what she wanted. Good to know.
Riley: I’ve got to warn you, Gem is coming with me. She wants to ask you some questions about Gin.
Riley: And about Belinda too.
I hesitated before sending that last one, knowing it had to be a touchy subject for him, as it was for me as well.
Jason: Gem is the twin sister? Holy shit, how did you hook up with her?
I frowned down at my phone I held clutched too tightly in my hand, not liking the way he’d worded that at all. Selfishly, I didn’t want Jason to get to know Gem. I didn’t want him to know anything about her at all. She was mine and it was bad enough that I already had to share her with Franklin, I didn’t want to share any part of her with Jason as well.
But that was crazy, right? Everyone deserved friendship in their lives.
Fuck, I needed to snap out of it. Gem wasn’t a possession or something for me to own. She belonged to herself. Look at how pissed I’d gotten when I’d noticed how Franklin had spoken about her and treated her like he’d owned her. I hadn’t liked it, and I didn’t want to be anything like that creep.
Riley: We haven’t hooked up, but she’s cool. You’ll like her.
Riley: I’ll text you tomorrow and we can meet up.
Jason: Yeah, okay, man. You can bring her over to my place if you want. We can chill in my garage.
Riley: Sounds good. I’ll text you a time and see you tomorrow.
Riley: Be cool with her though. We lost Gin and we might not have known about Gem, but she lost a sister, a twin. It’s not easy for her.
Jason: I’m pissed you would even think you needed to say that shit to me. Not cool, Riley.
Jason: I know I fucked up with Belinda, but that shit wasn’t on me and you know it. I’m not going to be a dick to Gin’s sister.
Whatever.
I didn’t respond to him and tossed my phone onto the table. I didn’t know shit about Jason and Belinda. I wasn’t going to trust any of my friends where Gem was concerned, especially ones who knew Belinda intimately.
Jason might be a good guy, but he’d still fucked the enemy. Yeah, she hadn’t been the enemy at the time and he’d scraped her off immediately when he’d found out what she’d done, but they’d been sleeping together for a long time, and sometimes your emotions could get wrapped up in where you put your dick.
“We’re going over to Jason’s house tomorrow,” I informed Gem. She nodded, her eyes lighting up with a strange delight that scared me. Poor Jason, I had no idea what he was in for with this girl, she was going to fuck him up in some way, I just knew it.
“Do you want to go swimming?” she asked, changing the subject.
I stared in surprise as she stood up and began stripping off her clothes, not waiting for my answer. Her shirt came off, and thank fuck her back was to me because she didn’t have anything on underneath.
The shirt landed on the chair she’d abandoned when she stood up. She slipped her shorts off, slowly dragging them down her legs. They pooled at her feet and she stepped out of them, leaving them on the ground.
I couldn’t tell you if I was happy or sad to see she had panties on, but there they were.
She ran toward the pool and gracefully dove into the water.
I sat back in my chair and kicked my feet up onto the chair in front of me, relaxing. The ice in my glass had melted entirely, but I didn’t care and refilled it halfway.
I sat back and sipped at the chilled vodka as I watched, completely captivated, as Gem swam around the pool. I tried not to perv on her, but every glimpse of her bare flesh had my dick stirring to life, and by the time she climbed out with water dripping off of her, my dick was rock-hard and aching.
This fucking girl was going to kill me.
“I’ll get you a towel,” I mumbled as I tore my eyes off of her and practically ran inside the house.
I found a white, fluffy towel in the bathroom off the living room and brought it back out to her. By some miracle, I managed to hold eye contact with her as I held the towel open wide for her. She stepped inside, and I wrapped it around her body, tucking the corner into the front above her breast. My fingers lingered against her skin for a second before I forced myself to take a step back and away from her.
“Time for bed,” she murmured quietly with something akin to lazy hunger in her eyes.
Holy hell, I took another step back from her, half expecting her to pounce on me and rip my clothes off. I had to tell myself this was Gin’s sister and no matter how badly I wanted her it wasn’t right to take advantage of her or the situation. She was stoned and intoxicated. Also grieving. We both were, and I wouldn’t be the reason she woke up in the morning with regrets.
Gem stepped forward, almost close enough to touch. I gritted my teeth and forced my body to stay in place when all I wanted was to lean into her and wrap my arms around her, pulling her the rest of the way into me.
“Don’t make me sleep alone, Riley,” she whispered with an edge of something desperate in her
voice. “We don’t have to do anything, I just don’t want to be alone tonight.”
I sighed, nodding my head. I’d give her that, but I’d probably regret it later.
She took hold of my hand and pulled me after her into the house. I went willingly enough, but in my head I had to ask myself just what in the hell I thought I was doing here with this girl.
I didn’t really know her, and yet here I was with her alone in this outrageous house no seventeen-year-old should own all to themselves. She was out of my league, had a bodyguard who acted like her boyfriend, if that kiss he’d possessively laid on her earlier was anything to go by, and here we were about to go to bed together. This wasn’t normal. These kinds of things didn’t happen to me. I didn’t belong here with her and not just because of our financial differences.
“I don’t know, Gem,” I half-assed protested as I tugged slightly on our joined hands as we made it to the open door of her bedroom. “I’m not sure if your boyfriend would approve of this.”
She snickered and her hold on my hand tightened. “Franks won’t care, he said as much. He’s happy you are here with me. Trust me. Don’t worry, Riles, I’m not going to molest you. Sleep, that’s all we’ll do. Promise.”
This girl was fucking crazy, that was all there was to it. And I was fucked because I liked it far too much.
She let go of my hand to shut the door behind us. The towel hit the floor, and I watched her as she walked half naked with confidence to the closet.
Her body was beautiful, perfect, and the thought of sleeping next to her finally hit me. I didn’t know what sort of game she played here with me, but it wasn’t one I wanted to play anymore.
The stakes grew too high with each minute I spent in her presence. It would suck for me if she decided this game was boring to her and she no longer wanted me around. I couldn’t hack it.
She came back out with her hair in a loose side braid and a long tank top that went down to mid-thigh.
