Twisted Souls

by L. L. Collins

  Before I can register what is happening, Liane stands up and settles herself in between my legs, curling her body into mine as she shakes with emotion. At first, my hands don’t know where to go, hovering above her like they would burn if they touch her. But instinct takes over, and I wrap my arms around her slight frame, pulling her so tightly into my body that it is hard to tell where I stop and she begins. My heart hammers in my chest, but I doubt that she is paying attention to my body’s reaction. She has never done this to me before. Had we sat together? Yes. Had she cuddled up to me while we watched a movie or when she was cold? Yes. But this is different. She couldn’t be any closer to me if she tried. I close my eyes as I rest my chin on her head, the fragrance of her shampoo infiltrating my nose. With one hand still clutching her tightly to me, I begin stroking her hair, watching it run through my fingers like the sand beneath us.

  “Blake,” she cries. “What did I do to deserve this? I-I loved him. At least, I thought I did. Now I’m not sure I know what love is at all.” She turns her face so that I can feel her soft lips puffing air against my chest, and it takes everything in me to keep myself from tipping that gorgeous face up to mine and taking this all away from her. I can help her forget. I can show her what love really is, even if I’m not 100% sure myself. What I do know is that I would never make her feel the way she feels right now. She snakes her one arm around my waist, which then presses her chest against my stomach. Breathe, Blake. Don’t focus on how close she is to you right now. Focus on how much pain she’s in in. Be there for her. Show her.

  “You can’t control what he does,” I say softly, pressing a soft kiss on the top of her head. “He’s an idiot, Liane. I know you loved him, but maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe you concentrate on yourself now and going to school and enjoying life. Whatever is meant to happen will happen. And I’m always here for you, just like you’ve always been there for me. If I can help you in any way, please just name it and it’s done.”

  She sits up, making me feel instantly alone. Scrubbing her wet eyes with her fingers, she smiles at me bleakly. “What would I do without you, Blake McIntyre?”

  My hand moves on its own volition. Tucking her hair behind her ear, I cup the side of her face with my hand, rubbing my thumb along her wet cheek. Her mouth opens and closes, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead her eyes flutter closed and she leans into my hand, breathing in sharply. Time freezes as I watch her long eyelashes rest on her face, then blink open and stare right through my soul. She leans up so close that I can see the brown flecks that dot her green eyes.

  “Thank you for always being here for me,” she whispers, her breath tickling my nose. She brushes her lips across my cheek, moving her hands to the sides of my head. If I just turn my head slightly, I could press my lips against hers for the second time in my life.

  “Li! Blake! Dinner!” I hear Bennett shout. I love that kid, but right now I want to throttle him. Would she have kissed me for real? What is she thinking right now? It instantly takes me back to me kissing her and her running away, refusing to talk to me for months. I don’t want to go down that road again, but somehow it feels different. Or maybe I’m just as delusional now as I was as a stupid kid.

  She stands up, brushing the sand off of her legs, then holds out her hand for me. “I’m starving. Let’s go.” I follow her silently back to our families, hating myself for feeling desperate enough to wish she would realize Ronan isn’t the one for her, I am.

  “YOU OKAY BACK there?” Blake calls to me. We decided to rent bikes and go around the island ourselves, but I neglected to remember just how ridiculously hot it is in August. He stops, turning back to look at me. He is wearing a USC ball cap backwards, his blonde hair sticking out, a muscle shirt that does a nice job of showing his muscles, and a pair of board shorts. The heat and humidity makes his shirt stick to his chest, making me even shorter on breath than I already am.

  Putting his kickstand down, he gets off the bike and takes a water out of his bag. “Here. Drink.” I take it from him, wishing I didn’t look so ridiculous right now. I’m in shape, what in the world is my problem? Maybe Blake is my problem. Or Ronan. Or a combination of both of them.

  “Thanks,” I say, downing half the bottle before coming up for air. “It’s so hot out here.”

  He smiles, that heartbreaker smile that makes my stomach clench. It also makes me think back to last night, when I was so close to kissing him. What had I been thinking? Oh right, I hadn’t been. I was upset over my stupid boyfriend (ex-boyfriend, now), and sick of fighting what I had been feeling for Blake since the night he was brave enough to kiss me on that same beach four years ago. I had run away from him then, unwilling to admit that he was right. Yeah, I had been fourteen and inexperienced and stupid, but still. Now I am the one scared that if I cross that line, he will laugh at me and tell me I’d had my chance. I can’t help but wonder if Bennett hadn’t come up telling us dinner was ready, what would’ve happened. I had kissed his cheek, but I had wanted much more. What kind of person did that make me? Five days after my boyfriend breaks up with me, and I’m already lusting after someone else? Maybe I don’t deserve to have Ronan. Or Blake either for that matter.

  I had stared at my ceiling all night, sleeping only fitfully. When I did sleep, I had dreams mixed with Ronan and Blake. I’m so confused. Ever since I met Ronan, I had thought he was it for me. He had been my everything; maybe too much of my everything. But I always knew, even when I started dating Ronan, that there was something I was denying with Blake. I could feel my body pressed up against Blake’s, his warmth surrounding me as he held me and stroked my hair while I cried last night. It isn’t lost on me that we both have crossed the friend line, but I’m too terrified to say anything about it, and I doubt he will want to bring it up after the last time he said something to me.

  So here I am, my thoughts lost as we ride our bikes around the island and I stare at Blake’s backside the entire day. Maybe I need to be in front after we rest. Yeah, that’s a better idea. Then I can actually think straight.

  “Earth to Li,” Blake teases, snapping me back to reality. “You’re starting to worry me. Let’s sit down under the tree and cool off. You can’t get heat stroke on the first day of vacation. Your mom will kill me.” I can’t tell him that I’m worrying myself, but not the way he thinks. I have no chance of getting heat stroke unless it is from the heat of him.

  “Sorry,” I laugh, following him as he sits down under a tree. Not that it is any cooler here, just a little more shady.

  “Guess this wasn’t a good idea on our first full day here, huh,” he says, taking some water in his hand and dripping it on my neck. I sigh, closing my eyes at the relief. He continues dripping water over my face and neck, and I lean my head against the trunk of the tree. When he runs his fingers along my forehead, I gasp at his touch without realizing that I’d made a sound out loud.

  “Li,” he whispers. My eyes are closed and I’m terrified to open them. What is happening? I feel him looking at me, but he says nothing else. Opening my eyes, I realize just how close he is, his dark eyes looking into mine. I smile, not knowing what else to say. The heat outside has nothing on what is crackling between us at that moment.

  “Thank you. I feel much better now,” I break the tension, putting my hand on his face. For the first time in our lives, I feel stubble there. We really are all grown up. “I have no idea what my problem is, but I’m okay now. Ready to keep riding?”

  Blake studies me, still not saying anything. He puts his hand over mine, lacing his fingers in between mine. “Are you sure?” he says finally. “I don’t want you to be sick. Believe me, heat stroke is no joke.”

  “Yes, I’m okay.” I stand up, brushing off my shorts and turning back to help Blake up. When his hand touches mine, I feel it again. I have the feeling this is going to be a long two weeks. This is day one, and I’m already being ridiculous.

  “Let’s go to that little cafe you love and get a cold drink and a snack. Then, we
can go back and jump into the pool.” Blake is still holding onto my hand, even though I am trying to get back to my bike.

  I nod, looking down at our hands before looking back at him. I want to ask him; I need to ask him. But my tongue is all tied up, and I refuse to embarrass myself in front of him. You mean like he did to you four years ago and you just ran away and refused to talk to him? God, I am so mean. Why is he even still my friend? He had poured his heart out to me and I had basically kicked him and told him off.

  He winks at me, dropping my hand and walking back to his bike. I take a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. All I know is this; I can’t lose my boyfriend and my best friend in the same week, so I need to chill the heck out.

  “WANNA RACE?” BLAKE says, wiggling his eyebrows up and down. We have a long standing competition where we race each other doing everything: on the bikes, running down the beach, laps in the pool, even eating ice cream cones. I always beat him in the pool and with the ice cream (headache included) and he beats me in the others. I don’t even remember when that had started, but it was somewhere around five or six years old.

  I throw my head back and laugh, glad that the mood is lighter since earlier. After we had stopped at the cafe and had a snack, we’d ridden around for another hour, laughing and talking about school, graduation, life, and carefully avoiding the topic of Ronan. I’d appreciated him letting me take the lead on this and not pressing me for any more details or wanting me to ‘talk it through’. At this point, I needed to pretend Ronan Collier didn’t exist, and while I’m here, that’s more possible than when I go home and stare at all the pictures and mementos we had together.

  Flinging my towel on the chair and kicking my flip-flops off, I pull my cover up off over my head and throw it on the chair with my towel. Blake follows, and then we both turn to each other, the familiar gleam of competition in our eyes.

  “Ready?” He arches an eyebrow at me, pretending to start running for the pool, which makes me start running. “NO! Not yet! Cheater!” He runs after me, catching me right before I jump into the water. His arm snakes around my waist and he pulls me backwards like I weigh nothing. In the past, we would’ve been pretty equal in strength. This new, stronger Blake means that I am no longer equal to him.

  “No cheating,” he growls in my ear, flinging me around to face him. “Even if you are a girl. You don’t get to cheat at racing. Not now, not ever.”

  I think we both realize at the same time that we are pressing against each other from chest to legs, our faces millimeters apart as our chests heave with exertion. I’m sure that everyone at the pool right now is watching us, since we have made such a spectacle of ourselves. But for what seems like the millionth time since I have seen Blake McIntyre again, I feel my heart fluttering and my pulse racing.

  His eyes travel to my lips, and I wonder if he is thinking like I am about our first kiss. I had thought about it for weeks, months, heck maybe even years afterwards. I’ve had many kisses since then of course, and the first kiss is always so awkward, but there had been something about kissing someone you knew so well that made everyone else hard to measure up to. I feel his hand, hot on my lower back, right above my bikini bottom. We’re essentially spending two weeks mostly naked and it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours and it’s already torture.

  Pushing out of his hold easily since he is distracted, I sprint for the water, shouting behind me, “Wanna race?” I hit the water a full two seconds before I hear him jump in. I kick with all my might, knowing that Blake with all of his muscle will catch up to me quickly. As I flip to go back the other way, I catch sight of him neck and neck with me. Willing my muscles to move faster, I reach the deep end of the pool a mere half a second before Blake’s hand shoots out of the water to touch the wall.

  He lifts his head from the water and grins at me. “I win.”

  “No way! I win! I was here already!” I shout, splashing water in his face. “Don’t be a sore loser.”

  “Loser? I think you’re the one that cheated and jumped into the pool before we said go. That automatically disqualifies you.” Blake gets a familiar gleam in his eye and he moves over to me, making me instinctually back away from him. “You know what that gets you,” he says. I shake my head no, knowing that isn’t going to stop him. He nods his head yes as he reaches for me. Looking around wildly for an escape, I realize my best bet is to swim away and hope he doesn’t catch me.

  Just as his hand closes around my wet forearm, I use my legs to push off the side of the pool and take off, kicking and cutting the water with my arms as fast as I can. I know it will only dissuade him for a few seconds, but it’s enough for me to try to come up with a game plan to get away from him. I reach the shallow end and come up right at the stairs, ready to run up them and to the beach before he knows what is happening.

  Except the second my eyes lift up out of the water, they meet the amused face of Blake, standing with his arms crossed. “Trying to get away from me?”

  I look at him for a moment, realizing I’d been had before the laughter starts. He outwitted me, that is for sure. Duh. I should’ve figured that he would just get out and walk around to beat me at my own game. “You know what that means now, don’t you Liane? Come on, let’s go.”

  I shake with laughter, unable to get myself out of the water. Yes, I sure did know what that meant, but I wasn’t sure that I could even get out right now. “B-Blake,” I roar. “I-I can’t get up.”

  “Oh, you’re getting up alright,” he says, reaching down for my hand. But he doesn’t stop there. As soon as he can reach me, he puts both of his arms under mine and effortlessly puts me over his shoulder like I weigh twenty pounds.

  “Blake! Blake! Stop it! Put me down!” Laughter follows us as Blake ignores me and begins his walk to the boardwalk, his one arm around the back of my thighs like it is nothing. All I can see is his chiseled back and his very sculpted butt as he continues on the path to the beach. There is nothing I can do.

  “What are you doing?” I hear Brooke say, followed by Brianna’s laughter. Finally, I see their legs but not anything else as Blake steps into the sand.

  “He’s lost his mind! Tell him to put me down!” I call, using my hands to try to push my head up so I can see. I feel something shaking before I realize that Blake is laughing at my attempt to try to move.

  Brooke and Brianna laugh. “Not a chance, Li. He won’t listen to us, anyway. But we will come and watch whatever he’s going to do. What happened, Blake?”

  “She cheated at our race and then tried to run away from me,” Blake says. Both of his sisters groan.

  “Oh, we learned our lesson the first time we tried to cheat with Blake,” Brianna says, coming around so I can see her. “You’ll learn your lesson, too.” Blake stops, gently setting me on my feet. I sway, unsteady while the blood rushes back to the lower part of my body, and he grabs me. I swear the smile on his face could split his skin it is so wide.

  “I think you might like your lesson though,” Brianna whispers. I turn to look at her, and she winks at me. What does that mean? Before I could ask her what that means, Blake puts me down in the sand where someone has started a sandcastle, and then Brooke appears again with a shovel.

  “Thanks, sis,” Blake says, holding me down with one hand and using the other to start moving sand away from my body. As if I could go anywhere, even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.

  “No moving,” he instructs, lifting his hand from my stomach and using both arms to dig the sand away from where I am lying. I wonder if I should be worried about what he is going to do, but I’m not. Brooke and Brianna sit to the side, commenting and talking to Blake and each other. But all I can do is watch his muscles work that shovel. Ripped cords move back and forth with the motion of digging, and I think that I could quite possibly lay here forever and let him do whatever he wants as long as I can keep watching that.

  “Liane,” Brooke’s voice told me she had probably been trying to talk to me for a while no
w.

  “Sorry,” I answer. “What did you say?”

  Blake throws the shovel on the ground and walks to the water with a small bucket, leaving me lying on the sand, feeling ridiculous. “I see how you look at him,” Brooke whispers. I turn my head so I can see her. I feel the blood rush to my cheeks, and I know they both can tell I’m embarrassed.

  “What?” I have to deflect; there is no way I can talk to his sisters about him. They are my friends, but he is their brother. I’m being too obvious. It’s time to control myself.

  “Li,” Brianna says, moving near my head and sitting down. She looks out to the water, watching Blake. “Both of you need to be honest with each other.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Tell him,” she says, then moves as Blake makes his way back to the sand. Tell him what? My eyes flick back and forth between his sisters and him, wondering just what she wants me to tell him.

  “ARE YOU DONE now?” I really hope Blake is going to be finished burying me under twenty pounds of sand soon, because I have to use the bathroom rather badly. He has spent the last hour painstakingly packing sand around my entire body, leaving only my head unburied. This is my ‘punishment’ for cheating, but I wonder how much punishment it really is. Let’s think, I’d had Blake’s hands all over every part of my body for the last hour. I also got to watch his face as he concentrated on packing the sand just so, and the beauty of his smile when his eyes met mine. It wasn’t a bad deal. I might have to be ‘punished’ more often.

  Blake sits back on his heels, looking me up and down. “Yep. It’s all done now.” Brooke and Brianna had long left us, both of them off to hang out with some boys they had met at the pool. The sun is starting to go down, meaning our families are going to be looking for us soon for dinner. It’s tradition: we meet for dinner every night we are here. Sometimes it’s at our condo, sometimes theirs, or we go out together.