by Cora Brent
“I don’t have my suit,” she explained.
I shrugged. “It’s the beach for crying out loud. Throw on some shorts and a t-shirt. Formal attire not required.” The idea of Claudia jogging down the beach in a wet t-shirt was infinitely more appealing than even a bikini.
Claudia considered it. I waited. This freaking girl just had to overthink everything. If someone handed her a glass of water in the desert she’d probably inspect it and call in a chemist to run a mineral test before she let it touch her lips.
Ah, those lips…
They were pouty and luscious and I should be running my tongue across them. It wasn’t the time though. If I made a move on her now, Claudia would just scamper back to her bedroom sputtering about how this was wrong and this was bad and we mustn’t do this, blah blah fucking blah.
“Give me five minutes,” she finally said as she headed for the stairs.
I nodded coolly. “I’ll wait.”
While she was gone I tried to breathe my way out of a thick chubby. I failed. No matter how many visions of dead kittens I tried to summon, underneath it all was the brief memory of Claudia’s naked body. I stood there at war with myself for about half a year before she appeared again.
Lord have mercy.
White t-shirt. Short cotton shorts. Holy shit.
Claudia eyed me curiously and handed over one of the two big fluffy towels she was holding. I held it in front of my crotch.
“Ready to go?”
Her face broke into a sudden smile. “I miss the beach. Haven’t been there in ages.”
“No beaches in Arizona, huh?”
“No beaches in Arizona,” she confirmed and started rooting around in the kitchen junk drawer. “I could have sworn this was where Jack left his car keys.”
“No worries, we’ll just take my car.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Fuck no.”
Claudia stopped and gave me a look. Maybe I should watch my language. Maybe in Claudia’s corner of the world all the guys were allergic to f-bombs.
“Shall we?” I asked, gallantly holding open the screen door and Claudia gave me another of her gorgeous smiles as she stepped through it.
“We can’t be gone that long,” she warned as we drove away.
“We won’t be,” I said. I liked things this way; me in the driver’s seat and Claudia at my side, watching me with her sexy brown eyes and probably thinking about how awesome it would be to screw my ever loving brains out.
There wasn’t much room for talk along the way because we had to keep the windows open since the air conditioning didn’t work. By the time we reached the crowded parking lot Claudia seemed relaxed and happy, more than I’d seen her since she arrived.
It was a summer crowd of course, thick with every variation of humanity. There were a hell of a lot of girls wandering around with their assets hanging out but I avoided looking at them.
Claudia paused at the boardwalk railing. She leaned on the frame and inhaled deeply. “I’d forgotten this,” she said in a wistful voice. “There’s no substitute for the smell of the ocean.”
I leaned next to her, our elbows touching. She didn’t move away. “You used to go to the beach a lot?”
She shaded her eyes and surveyed the crowd. “Of course. Didn’t you?”
“When I was little,” I said and had a sudden recollection of digging at the shoreline for clams with my big sister. Anya would try with all her might to pry open the shells with her fingers. She never could. I couldn’t do it then. I could do it now.
“Jack used to bring us down here anytime he got the chance,” Claudia said. “Whenever Carmine would let him out of the shop for a few hours in the summer he would grab me, Rocco and Getty and head to the beach.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was nice. Rocco and I would see how far we could wade into the water before we started to get sucked out by the undertow. Then we would run back to the shore screaming, convinced we had barely escaped death. Of course there never really was any danger. I mean, you see the lifeguards everywhere. Plus Getty was a powerful swimmer and always nearby, ready to dive in and pull us back.”
“So where was Jack?”
“Jack,” she frowned. “Jack got distracted easily.” She stopped shading her eyes and peered at me. “His distractions were usually attached to a pretty face and a lot of skin.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a little uncomfortable at the idea of Jack dogging around with other women, even though I already knew that’s the way he had been. “I see.”
Claudia wrinkled her nose and returned her gaze to the water. “Well, I can barely see. I wish I’d brought my sunglasses.” She stepped away abruptly. “Let’s go down to the water, okay?”
She didn’t need to ask twice. I couldn’t wait to get wet with her. The sand was coarse and hot on our feet as we made our way closer to the shore.
When we’d nearly reached the water Claudia stopped and looked around. “There’s hardly a spot to sit down here.”
I took her hand. She let me. I started to pull her along. “Come on, let’s go down the beach a little ways, where the crowd’s not so thick.”
She didn’t take her hand away as I led her about a half mile away from where everyone was bunched together thickly. We could still hear the squeals of the beachgoers and if we squinted we could see the colorful blanket of towels and umbrellas. It was far quieter though, almost semi-private.
“Much better,” Claudia said, dropping my hand and spreading her towel on the sand not four feet away from the water line. Then without another word she tossed her flip-flops away and ran directly into the surf. I threw my shirt aside and followed her.
“Dammit,” she yelped as the waves hit her legs. “Something else I forgot. Just how freaking cold the Atlantic Ocean is.”
“You’ll get used to it,” I told her, wading in deeper. I stopped when I was up to my waist. Claudia was right behind me. She was a lot shorter. The water lapped at her t-shirt and reached her tits. I felt slightly cheated by the fact that she was wearing a bra, but the view was still nice.
“Beautiful,” I said.
Claudia looked out at the water. “It is.”
“I meant you.”
She bent her head. “Easton.”
I took her face in my hands and kissed her. Hard. She froze for a second, trying to move away. Then her body softened as she opened her mouth and our tongues collided. An insanely sexy moan escaped the back of her throat and that was all I needed. I wound my hands through her dark hair and pulled her further into the water as her legs went around my waist. I tore my mouth away from hers and sucked at her neck, tasting the salt of the ocean. Her hands were on my shoulders, her tits now submerged and pressing against my chest while I sucked harder, intending to leave a mark. I needed to do that, to leave my mark on her.
“Oh my god,” she whimpered when my hands found their way into her shorts. I didn’t care that we were on display in the middle of Jones fucking Beach. I didn’t care if it was downright indecent or if someone was dialing the cops right now to complain that a couple of assholes were boning in the surf. I was going to give her everything she needed and then take everything I could.
My dick was outside my shorts, pressing hard against her belly and looking for something better. This was going to be epic. This was going to be incredible. This was going to be the best fuck in the history of fucks.
“This can’t happen,” said Claudia’s voice as Claudia’s body pulled away.
WHAT???
She retreated a few paces and gave me a pitying look. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” I repeated. I tucked my dick back into my shorts. He wasn’t happy about it. Neither was I. But I wasn’t ready to give up altogether. I reached for her.
“Come on. Let’s go home then.”
She’d gone completely stiff. She was rigid as a piece of driftwood. “No,” she sighed, looking downright miserable as a soft wave rolled over u
s.
“Claudia, look at me.”
She looked.
I tipped her chin up and felt the shiver roll through her body. I sure as hell didn’t know everything about women but I knew when one was dying to be touched.
“I just want to make you feel good. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” she said and kissed my cheek. “Everything.”
She gave me one final look of regret before she started to walk away, wading determinately toward the shore.
“Shit,” I hissed as seagulls screamed all around. “No one would ever need to know.”
I didn’t think I’d said it loud enough for her to hear. But she did hear. She turned around. Her long brown hair was lifted briefly by the wind and I felt such an ache of longing I almost doubled over.
“I would know,” she said with finality.
I stood there in the water for another minute as Claudia made her way to the beach and wrapped herself tightly in a big towel. That was that, I thought. There was no getting to this girl. I could chase her until my legs fell off and she’d always stay one step ahead, stiffly reserved. Somewhere along the way Claudia had learned the bad lesson that she should never give in, never yield. I was wasting my damn time and I hated wasting my time.
Claudia silently stared off in the direction of the water tower as I returned to the beach and toweled myself off. She’d always been out of my reach. Always would be.
“Let’s go,” I said and tried to keep my irritation out of my voice.
“Easton,” she called but I ignored her. I had no right to be mad, but I didn’t want to have any more awkward conversations about life or childhood or other stupid crap. I heard her sigh and fall into step behind me.
I trudged the long way back to the car, Claudia following in silence. I figured that was the end.
It wasn’t.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CLAUDIA
If there was anything more pathetic than lying to yourself then I didn’t know about it.
Every time I was in the same room with Easton I felt his eyes on me. I knew what he was thinking, what he wanted. I wanted it too.
And yet I still pretended.
I told myself we could hang out at the beach like two carefree nonphysical friends and the thick sexual tension between us was immaterial. We were adults. Sort of. We could overcome it. My father was now married to his sister. If we got together it would be kind of disgusting, a shade removed from a Nabokov tale.
But for a moment when he kissed me there in the water I didn’t care. Easton had incredible hands, powerful hands. I was helpless as they moved over my body, between my legs. When he sucked on my neck I wanted it to hurt and it did; a small, delicious pain resulting in a mark that stared at me in the mirror as I hid in the bathroom later and blinked at my reflection. I touched the red circle on my neck, remembering the demand of his mouth a split second before I’d pulled away from him, leaving him confused and angry. He’d barely said two words to me since then. I couldn’t blame him. I was a mess. And now I was messing with him. I should be ashamed of myself.
Easton didn’t seem to understand what I meant when I said I was sorry. I didn’t know him well enough to explain it right. Plus it would have exposed too many things about myself that I couldn’t even deal with. I was sorry that I wasn’t different, sorry that I wasn’t the sort of uninhibited person who could just enjoy a moment.
After all, would have been a hell of a moment.
Strangely enough, I kept thinking of Garrett. Not because such an erotically charged morning had made me miss him. No, I didn’t miss him. I missed the way I thought of myself when I was with him; settled, steady, mature. None of it was a good enough reason to wear his ring. I should never have said yes to him in the first place.
There was a sudden thump against the bathroom door and the handle was violently rattled from the other side.
“I’ll be right out, Papa!” I called, combing quickly through my wet hair and arranging it to cover the glaring hickey on my neck. The steam from my recent shower still hung in the air and I wiped the mirrors down once more before exiting.
As soon as I stepped out of the bathroom I heard Rocco’s voice coming from the living room. When I got there he was kneeling down, tying Papa’s shoelaces.
I sat down on the couch and gathered a pair of orange chenille pillows into my lap. “Don’t you have to work?” I asked Rocco.
He looked up and got heavily to his feet. “It’s a slow day at the shop. Getty can handle it. Just wanted to check on things, see how you were doing.”
“You did that last night.”
Rocco widened his eyes. “What can I say? I’m such a protective uncle.”
“Like hell.” I threw a pillow at him. “Did Jack ask you to make sure I wasn’t burning his house down?”
A faint smile crossed Rocco’s face. “No. He didn’t ask me that.” He glanced around pointedly. “Where’s our future MLB pitcher?”
“How should I know?”
“Because he lives here so I figured you might have run into him.”
“I’m not his babysitter.”
“Right. Do you want to be?”
I stood up. Rocco was just teasing but the casual comment hit a little too close to home. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Fine. You want the night off? Papa wants to come back to my house.”
“I don’t need the night off.”
“Come on, Claud. Don’t you have friends somewhere on Long Island?”
“No. Papa, wouldn’t you rather hang out with me tonight? We can make S’mores.”
My great-grandfather frowned. He looked at Rocco, then looked back at me. I wondered what it was like, to gradually lose little pieces of your mind. Maybe it wasn’t so bad if you didn’t know it was happening, if you just kind of slowly sank into oblivion. Papa had celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday in April. He’d had a long, happy turn at life and yet it was still sad to watch it slowly ebb away.
Papa continued to regard me with quiet scrutiny while my uncle rocked back on his heels and waited for someone to say something. I didn’t want to stay in this house alone tonight. I really didn’t want to stay here alone with Easton. I opened my mouth to plead with my senile great-grandfather to stay and keep me company. He spoke before I did though.
“You’re no fun,” he said in a plaintive, childish voice.
“Hear that, Claud?” Rocco teased. “You’re no fun.”
“Shut up.”
He sighed and turned serious. “I’m just trying to look out for you. I don’t think you should hide forever.”
“I was only planning on hiding until Saturday.” That was the day after Jack and Anya were scheduled to return from Atlantic City. It was the date stamped on my return plane ticket. And then I would return to Arizona and go back to hiding out on that side of the country.
Rocco wasn’t done prodding me. “Why don’t you go out tonight?”
“I can’t find Jack’s car keys.”
Rocco crossed the room in three long strides, rattled around in the kitchen for a minute, and returned with Jack’s key ring.
“Excuses, excuses,” he said, tossing me the set.
“Maybe I’ll take a drive to the beach,” I said, shoving the keys in my pocket. Of course, I’d already been to the beach today but Rocco didn’t need to know about that.
“Stop by if you get bored,” Rocco called as he ushered Papa out the door. Papa didn’t seem sorry to be leaving.
Immediately after the screen door whined shut I started to feel rather forlorn. If I’d let Easton have his way earlier I’d probably be feeling better right now.
Or worse.
I wasn’t sure.
It was official; I was nuts.
After peeking outside and noticing that Easton’s decrepit Malibu wasn’t parked there, I sat on the couch again and sighed. I pulled out my phone and called my roommate, Brynna. We used to be really close in college bu
t ever since we graduated last year we’d lost a lot of that. She was ambitious and driven these days, working seventy hours a week at an accounting firm. I didn’t blame her for not having the time for John Hughes movie marathons anymore. Things changed. People changed. But Brynna was the only one who’d had a front row seat to the Garrett disaster and so I still felt like I could be more honest with her than with anyone else at the moment.
“Brynna here,” said her crisp voice.
“Bryn. It’s Claud.”
“Oh hey, Claudia. I didn’t even look at the caller ID.” It sounded like she put her hand over the phone for a second and mumbled to someone else in the room before she returned. “Are you having a nice vacation?”
“It’s not really a vacation.”
“Right. Are you having a nice non-vacation? How’d your dad’s wedding go?”
“It was lovely. I wore pink.”
Her voice was far away, distracted. “Cute. I’m dying to hear all about it. Listen Claud, I’m about to head into a meeting. You’ll be home on Saturday, right? We’ll go out, hit this new place in Scottsdale.”
I couldn’t help but feel like my roommate was trying to dismiss me. If I blurted out the news about this thing with Easton she would just sigh and tell me to do whatever made me happy. That was Brynna’s universal pardon: “Do whatever makes you happy.”
“Oh, Claudia? You have the rent check?”
“Yeah. I’ll give it to you Saturday.”
“Perfect. Safe trip, hon.”
“Thanks,” I said but she’d already ended the call.
I leaned back into the couch and stared at the room. The last time I was here the living room walls were still wearing the heavy, outdated dark paneling. Now they were painted a light sage color. I wondered if that was Anya’s doing. Jack didn’t care about things like living room walls. At least I didn’t think he did. Maybe I didn’t really know the first thing about what my father cared about.
My stomach issued a loud complaint, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I wanted a sandwich; ham and cheese on rye from the tiny deli next to Rignetti’s Bakery. I stopped in the bathroom long enough to dry my hair and then locked the house up.
