The Sweetheart Sham

by Danielle Ellison

  “There are only two four wheelers, so we have to partner up and take turns,” Jake says.

  “I’ll go with you,” Abby says. Jake shrugs, but he doesn’t look too happy about it.

  Jake hands the keys to Beau. “See you back here in a bit.”

  Spencer, Will, Lyla, Beau, and I are all standing there. Five people, one ATV. Beau tosses the keys to Will. “You go, take Georgie.”

  Will tosses them back. “You should go first. I do it every year.”

  “I’m going to get a fire going. By the time y’all are back, it’ll be dark,” Spencer says.

  “Good point, I need to call my dad and check in,” Lyla says. “I’ll go the next round.”

  Will looks at me. “You should go with Beau. I’ll hang out here.”

  “You sure, man?” Beau asks.

  I’m waiting, hoping. For Will to change his mind? For Beau to say he wants to go with me? I’m not sure. I haven’t been really alone with him since that night, and now that Lyla said something about it, I’m a little paranoid about other people figuring it out. Not that there’s anything to figure out, but I can’t deny that I’m still into him a little bit. Heck, I should just take Lyla and get it over with.

  “Have fun,” Will says, and then he runs over to help Spencer with the fire.

  Beau looks at me, and I hold out my hand. “I caught more fish. I’m driving.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Beau

  “We’re stuck,” Georgia Ann says. She watches with her arms crossed.

  I push the gear again and rock the bike. Nothing happens. “Shit.”

  The rain started twenty minutes ago. Everything turned to mud, so I took the driver seat. Turns out I was no better at getting us out of trouble. She moves toward the back. “Let’s push it out.”

  “It’s not going to work.” The mud is up to her knees. There’s no way it’s getting out.

  “Just try,” she insists. I join her and we push together; it barely budges. Shit. “Change gears again.”

  We have to stop trying. I turn the ignition off and take the key. She throws her arms in the air.

  “If we keep trying, it could burn up the drive belt and then we’re never getting out,” I say. “It’s better to leave it until the others come.” I pull out my phone again and text Jake. “He says they’re on their way.”

  “From where?”

  I shrug. I didn’t ask all those details. The rain has finally let up. It’s barely even drizzling now. Figures it would work that way, after we get stuck. “You should’ve let me keep driving. I would’ve never gotten us stuck in the mud.”

  She laughs and crosses her arms. “When’s the last time you drove one? I bet you’re out of practice.”

  “I’m not out of practice.”

  Georgia Ann points to the ATV and gives me a smug look. “I’m going to make sure everyone knows what you did to us.”

  “I’ll deny it,” I joke.

  Georgia Ann hmms. “I will cause reasonable doubt for you, I promise that.”

  She’s standing there with that cocky look on her face. She’s covered in mud and drenched from the rain. Her hair stuck to her face. I like when she’s sassy and confident.

  “This is my favorite version of you.”

  Our eyes meet across the ATV, and I see her fighting a smile.

  “I don’t know why you keep saying I’m different,” she says, sitting on a rock.

  “It’s not a bad thing.” I sit next to her. We face the opposite direction in case Jake comes in from another side of the woods. “I watch you with your mom, for one. You go along with everything instead of voicing your opinion.”

  She bites the side of her lip. I can see it now, what I didn’t pay attention to before. Pain, maybe some fear. I recognize that in myself.

  “I get tired of fighting so much. It’s just easier to go with it.”

  “That,” I say, “is not you. That’s how you’re different.”

  She shrugs. “We gotta grow up sometimes.”

  “Grow up, sure. Completely change how you do things, not so much.”

  Georgia Ann looks away from me toward her section of the woods. Cicadas sing around us, even though it’s nowhere near dark. “I guess it happened when Momma was sick.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  She shifts a little, twisting the ring on her finger. “Not much to tell. One day she was fine, then the next she wasn’t. Your mom knew, she called every day.” Georgia Ann pauses. “Anyway, your family helped a lot. I don’t know how we would’ve gotten through it. During all that, I decided I should just give her what she wanted, be who she needed me to be. That way if the worst happened, I’d make her happy. But she was lucky, and Momma’s still kicking up a storm. Somewhere along the way, some parts of it stuck.”

  “What do you want?”

  She looks back at me. “I don’t know. I love Culler yet I want something else, and when I think about not being with my family, I don’t want to miss out on that. I reckon I have one more year then I can figure it out.”

  All I can do is nod. I feel completely the same way. I’ve spent the last two years somewhere else. I’ve been with and without my family. I know life in Culler and life out of it. There’s no right answer.

  “I know the feeling more than anyone,” I say.

  “Why did you stay away so long?”

  I run a hand through my hair. Now that’s covered in mud, too. We’re both quiet for a second and my hand rests against hers on the rock. “I was angry. Mostly at Dad, for ruining us. He disappeared. Ma wanted me to try so I am, but it’s hard. I look at him and can’t not see the lie.” I’ve never said any of this aloud. “I don’t know how he chose someone else. It’s like he woke up and decided we weren’t enough.”

  “I’m sorry, Beau,” she says, her voice cracking a little. “I know that feeling.”

  I look at her. I really look at her. Under the smiles and the Belle status, even under the hard girl I know, is this piece of her that’s sad. She won’t meet my gaze, though. “You mean me?”

  She nods slowly. “I thought you decided you didn’t want me and you just didn’t know how to tell me, so that was why you didn’t show up.”

  I can’t believe she thought that. I never realized. Has she been carrying that around for so long? I reach for her hand. She lets me take it. “It was never you. I hate that you thought that. I’m so sorry.” I squeeze her hand tighter. “You were, you are, the most amazing girl I know.” I sigh. I should stop talking. I should shut my damn mouth right now. I can’t. It’s all been waiting to be said for too long. “I tried to reach out.”

  “I kept ignoring your calls.”

  “You answered one. We didn’t make it far,” I say. That was the time she said she didn’t want my excuses. “It was the last thing you said to me.”

  “I was hurt,” she says.

  “I get it.” I don’t want her to carry any of these feelings around. I never wanted to hurt her. I know I did, and I can’t undo that. “You were my best friend, Georgia Ann. You were more than that.” I sigh. “All I want is to be good to you and make sure you’re happy. You’re everything. You deserve everything. And the way you’re looking at me right now, even covered in mud, I still…”

  It would be easy, too easy, to say the rest. Her hand is in mine, electricity pulsing between us. The words are there on the tip of my tongue. Things I’ve never gotten to say, things I’ve only dreamed and wondered about. She’s waiting for me to finish the sentence. All I want to do though is lean in and kiss her. The air pulses and I can feel the anticipation. It’s not all mine, it can’t be—does she want to kiss me too? I want to see if that connection is still there between us. It would be so easy to lean in right now.

  I can’t do that to Will.

  I can’t do that to her.

  Or to myself.

  Instead I drop her hand and pull out my phone. My brain is foggy and full of Georgia Ann. I can’t make a move on Will’s girl
. I can’t. I pretend there’s a text, but I need a miracle. I need my brain back.

  “Beau?” Georgia Ann says, her voice soft.

  Please give me a miracle. She says my name again so I have to look at her.

  “You can tell me anything,” she says.

  I want to; damn it, I want to and I can’t.

  I won’t.

  “Hey, losers,” Jake calls from the distance over the sound of an engine. Both Georgia Ann and I look toward the horizon. My miracle has arrived, in the form of Jake Lexington. Talk about unexpected. I leap up from the rock anyway.

  Jake whistles when he shuts off the ignition. “You made a damn fine mess, Georgie.”

  “Takes one to know one, huh, Jake?” Georgia Ann snaps.

  That girl is going to get me into deeper trouble than mud.

  I glance back down at Jake. “How are we getting this thing out of here?”

  I focus on the problem at hand, at least the only one I can solve right now.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Georgie

  The ground is still damp from the rain earlier, but we are staying anyway. Now that the sun has set, it’s cooler, and the rain let up on some of the humidity. It almost makes it bearable out here. Everyone is laughing and happy. Beers have been passed around. Hot dogs are on the fire.

  Beau has barely looked at me since we got back. Even now he’s laughing and talking with Spencer and Abby, while Jake and Will argue about the proper way to toast a marshmallow. I thought Beau was going to kiss me earlier. I felt it. Lord help me, I wanted it. There’s no way I could’ve stopped it had he acted, and it would’ve ruined everything for Will if he’d kissed me.

  You were, you are, the most amazing girl I know.

  Lyla elbows me. “You okay?”

  She hands me a bun as she sits next me. “Yeah, just thinking.”

  “That’s typically my job,” she says. “Summer’s halfway done, and I’ve read fifteen books.”

  I stare at her. “Girl.”

  “I know. My daddy is so insistent. ‘You need to be the first Perry to go to college,’ and that’s sweet and all, but it means I never get to back down. Especially when, as Daddy reminds me constantly, we already have to work harder. The odds are stacked against us just because of the color of our skin.” Lyla sighs and reaches back to pull her hair into a ponytail. “It’s a lot.”

  “Parents don’t always realize the pressure they add.”

  “Sure don’t,” she says. “At least you don’t have siblings. I have to be an example for everyone else.” Lyla has two younger brothers and a younger sister.

  “Do you want to go to college?”

  “I do; I also would like to have a life while I’m young.”

  I hold my hot dog bun toward hers. “Cheers to that.” I say, and she laughs, hitting her bun against mine.

  I’d never really talked to Lyla about what it was like to be the only biracial family in town, or how that makes her feel. I guess I always thought Culler was accepting, even after Dale Westin. I thought Will never really had a reason to hide, but I guess I’m not seeing the whole perspective. I may only be seeing my half of the picture.

  “Hey,” Will says, plopping down next to Lyla and me.

  “You lose the fight?” she asks him.

  “I gave up. Jake’s hardheaded. It’s like arguing with a wall,” Will says. We look over when Jake cusses, shaking his hand like he burnt himself.

  Lyla tsks. “He’s been hit one too many times on the football field.”

  That makes Will laugh. I love his laugh. It’s my favorite sound. Today, he’s letting it out freely. “That would explain it.” Will bumps me with his shoulder. “You are quiet tonight.”

  I shrug. “Not a lot to say, I guess.”

  “That’s rare,” he says.

  “Why’s everyone always insinuating that I talk too much?” I look toward Lyla for an answer.

  Lyla stands. “I’m gonna go check on this. Jake can’t be left in charge of all of us eating.” She moves over toward the fire.

  Will smiles, his arm stretching out around my shoulder. “This was an excellent day, all things considered.”

  He’s got a little bit of sunburn on his nose, and it makes freckles on his cheeks come out brighter. “What makes the day so much better than a usual day?” I ask.

  “It’s been fun. Does there have to be something more?” he asks.

  “I’m trying to figure you out is all.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “Why do you say that?” I ask.

  Will studies my face. “You seem off.”

  I open my mouth to speak and shut it again. I hear Beau laugh on the other side of the fire. No, okay, maybe that’s my favorite sound. “We’ll have to talk about it later,” I say.

  You’re everything.

  “Are you and Beau fighting over the incident earlier?”

  I drag my eyes away back toward him. “What?”

  “When you were in the mud.”

  You deserve everything.

  “No, why?”

  “He seems tense, too.”

  He doesn’t seem tense to me. In fact, he seems as right as rain. I don’t know what I’m expecting to happen, or to see, or to say. Beau said a lot to me today, all of it a running track in my head. He said things I never thought I’d hear.

  Beau catches my gaze across the fire. We’re both trapped for a moment; even with space between us, it feels like he’s next to me.

  “No, we aren’t fighting. I’m sure everyone’s hungry. I know I am,” I say.

  Will wraps me in a hug, and whether for show or for real I don’t know anymore.

  …

  Jake is passed out on the ground a few feet away. He went hard tonight. Everyone else is asleep in their tents. I’m still awake, staring at the burning embers. I can’t sleep, can’t stop thinking about every encounter Beau and I have had today, and every second since he got back. I don’t think it’s the first time he wanted to kiss me, and it’s not mine, either. That gets to me. I never imagined I’d still like him after all this time apart.

  I can’t stop thinking about him.

  Glancing upward, the sky is covered with stars. It’s not a very clear night, but I can still see them and it makes me grateful to be out here with my friends. These summer nights are some of the best, and since this is the last summer we could all be here together, I’m soaking it in.

  Beau steps out of his tent, and he stretches. My heart races as I watch him. You deserve everything. He catches me staring a few seconds later, and it looks like he’s deciding what to do. Another second and he plops down beside me.

  “I thought you were asleep.” His voice is groggy and rough, that fresh out of sleep sound. I didn’t know it was possible for him to be hotter, but here it is. Stick a fork in me—I’m done.

  Beau rubs his eyes. “I was. Spencer snores.” That must be pretty bad if it woke him up. Beau leans his head on my shoulder. “I’m so sleepy.”

  The sudden touch wakes me up completely. A few hours ago he wasn’t looking at me. Now, he’s resting against me as if I’m a pillow. I don’t like the back and forth; it’s not fair to either of us.

  He looks at me. “I’m sorry for earlier.”

  I tense a little and for a second, I’m not going to say anything. I don’t want to start a fight, but that second passes and my tired, annoyed brain wins out. “For acting like you wanted to kiss me, or ignoring that I even exist?”

  Beau’s gaze is dark on me when he lifts his head. “Wow.”

  I shrug. “Am I just supposed to sugarcoat it?”

  “No, you’re not.” He sits up straighter, adding even more space between us. “I guess I’m sorry for all of it.”

  “Okay,” I say. I’m even more annoyed at him now than I was. He’s so confusing. How can he say those things to me and then apologize for it? Why even say it in the first place?

  We’re both staring at the embers, and Beau reaches over w
ith a stick and knocks the wood so the fire picks up again.

  “You’re happy, right? With Will?” He makes eye contact with me again. “I mean, he’s what you always wanted and you’ve got him. A fairy-tale romance. He’s been smiling all day, so I know he’s good. But are you?”

  Is he seeing sensing something between us, too? Lyla did; Beau and I definitely have this spark brighter than those embers. Maybe because it’s real.

  “I am. Happy.” I say it quickly so I don’t have to lie too long. I try to swallow down the tennis ball in my throat. “I promise.”

  “Good,” he says, his gaze lingering. It seems, for a second, that he stares at my lips like before. I can almost feel his heart beat with mine, like back in the woods when he said I was everything. “I just care about you.”

  Stop it.

  I stand and move away so there’s more space between us. It takes everything inside me to do it. “I’d be happier if you stopped being weird.”

  “How am I being weird?”

  I scoff. “You looked like you wanted to kiss me. You keep flirting.”

  Beau almost laughs. “I keep flirting?”

  “Yes,” I say. I’m just doing my best here to push him away. He’s too close, looking at me too intensely, and if he looks close enough, I fear he’ll see the truth. “I’m with Will.”

  “I know that.”

  I cross my arms. “Good. Just remember that.”

  “Trust me, I’m not going to forget,” Beau says. “Sometimes it seems like you do.”

  “I don’t!” I shout it back at him.

  A clap of thunder strikes so loud it nearly shakes the ground. Before either of us can respond, there’s a downpour.

  “Get into the cabin!” Beau yells toward me. Lyla and Abby pop out of our tent, they both grab their sleeping bags. I’m already headed into the cabin and they’re right behind me. We’re all three soaked to the bone. A few minutes later, Will comes in with Beau and Spencer behind him, holding up Jake. He’s half-awake, totally drunk, and they toss him on the ugly old couch.

  “He’s got a problem,” Lyla says.

  Abby shakes her head. “He’ll be fine.”

  “He doesn’t seem fine,” Lyla adds.