by Penny Reid
“Mart-tin! What the actual fuck?” This time she didn’t shriek. She whined.
Martin’s eyes rolled back and I saw he gritted his teeth as he straightened and stood, turned and faced his stepmother.
“Can you get her to stop saying that? It’s really irritating,” I muttered to his back, hopefully low enough that only Martin would hear.
“Patrice,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “you need to get out of my room.”
Everything became very, very still.
Leave it to Martin to intone so much with slowly and softly spoken words. They dripped with icicles, icicles of hate. I actually felt the temperature of the room drop at least five degrees. I hoped he never spoke to me like that.
“But…but Mar-tin...” Her voice became very baby-like, high pitched. It was weird.
I couldn’t see her because Martin was blocking my view, but I imagined her expression didn’t alter because…dead-face.
“You know you are never allowed in any of my rooms.”
“But,” she sighed softly, like a bird cooing, “you know you don’t mean that.”
“You disgust me. You’re repulsive. You married my father for his money and have been trying to fuck me ever since. Climbing in bed with a fourteen-year-old boy is not okay, Patrice.”
I flinched, and my mouth fell open in shock, my eyes expanding to their maximum aperture. There was family dysfunction, and then there was Martin’s family. This was crazy. This was Jerry Springer meets Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous meets The Count of Monte Cristo.
“Why…what…why…” Patrice huffed and puffed, sounding lost and alarmed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I want Kaitlyn to know. I want her to know what being with me means, what disgusting baggage I carry in the form of family members.”
The room fell silent, and I felt another shift in the temperature of the room; it grew even colder.
“Fine,” Patrice said, her voice now alto, sounding entirely different…like a completely different person.
Instinctively I leaned to the side to see if a new woman had taken her place. It was still her, but her posturing had changed. Her shoulders were thrown back and her chin was tilted stubbornly upward. Other than that, her face looked the same, because…dead-face.
Patrice crossed her arms over her chest and added, “But you should do this skank someplace else, not in my house.”
“This isn’t your house. This is my house. All the houses are my houses. Everything is in my name. Everything was put in my name before my father married you, because he knows you’d divorce him, screw him over in a heartbeat if you thought you could walk away with more than a few hundred thousand dollars.”
What the what? His house?
This statement—or reminder, I was guessing—didn’t make her happy. The room temperature dropped again. I wondered if it would snow.
Obviously feeling cornered and nasty, Patrice decided to go for the personal approach. “You like this type of girl? The chubby ones do it for you?”
“Don’t.” The single word, again softly and slowly spoken, sent chills down my spine. It was more than a warning; it was a threat and it sounded lethal.
She held her hands up. “Whatever. I don’t care. But I will enjoy tearing her to pieces and making her life hell and using your money to do it.”
He chuckled at this. “That’s funny, Patrice.”
She cocked her head to the side as he laughed. “What? What’s so funny?”
“This girl right here,” he motioned to me, sounding proud and coldly amused, “this girl is Kaitlyn Parker, as in Senator Parker’s daughter. You know, potentially the first female president of the United States in the next election cycle? As in the granddaughter of Colonel Timothy Parker, the astronaut. She’s untouchable. She’s a national treasure. You do something to her, the entire fucking world will bring pain to your doorstep.”
I’d never thought of myself in these terms, not really. Nothing he said was untrue, but living the reality of being a perceived national treasure and accepting it were two entirely different states. Therefore, hearing this declaration come from Martin’s mouth—like he had thought about it—made my brain stutter and a spike of alarm shoot up my neck.
Patricia’s eyes slid to mine and, miracle of miracles, her expression did change. The color left her face and her eyes seemed to dim. Meanwhile I sat motionless in the bed, not sure what I should be feeling.
Then Martin added, obviously enjoying himself a great deal, “That’s right. She’s a goddamn national treasure, and she’s my girlfriend, and you need to get the fuck out of my house before I decide to stop being so nice to you.”
CHAPTER 6
Dimensional Analysis
Unbelievable.
That’s the word that kept flying around my stunned brain. I couldn’t even play the synonym game with the word. It was just all completely, totally, entirely, wholly, and absolutely unbelievable.
It was, the entire exchange was, epically unbelievable.
Patricia Sandeke—fourth, latest, and longest-lasting wife of Martin’s father—was…truly a different species. I know it’s not PC to think ill of my fellow females. In fact, one of my life rules is to try to assume the best of people, but—I’m sorry and I’m not sorry—the woman was a miserable excuse for a human being. She was a caricature, the epitome of a scheming, blonde bimbo gold digger.
Maybe she had hidden layers and a secret pain that explained away all her terrible behavior.
Maybe I was being a petulant and judgmental harpy.
Or maybe there were no hidden layers or depth. Maybe there weren’t two sides to this story. Maybe she was a black hole of vapidity and greed.
And Martin…
I tried to swallow. My mouth was dry, and therefore my throat was parched. I hazarded a glance at him but then quickly looked away before he saw my sneak peek.
I didn’t honestly know what to think about Martin.
At present he was staring straight again, the set of his jaw grim, the clouds in his blue eyes menacing. We were speeding away from the house via a fancy speedboat.
I didn’t know anything about boats, but I knew this one was super fancy for a speedboat. It was like a mini yacht. We were in an enclosed cabin aboveboard that looked over the bow; Martin was sitting in the elevated captain’s chair and I was in the co-pilot seat to his left. Both chairs reminded me of splendidly plush, leather barstools with armrests.
The vessel even had a downstairs bedroom with portal windows for undersea viewing. The space was much larger than I’d expected from first glance of the boat hull; it had room enough for a double bed, dresser, desk, bathroom, efficiency kitchen, two closets, and a respectably sized sitting area.
He hadn’t said more than two words since we left the house. But before we left, in his room, he explained that he’d cut morning practice short when Mrs. Greenstone radioed Lee in the boat about Martin’s father and stepmother’s unexpected arrival.
After the showdown at the I’m not OK Corral, otherwise known as Martin’s bedroom, he gave me one of his shirts and a pair of his shorts so I could get dressed. Then he left and told me to lock the door after him.
To me it all felt clandestine, cloak and dagger, high dramatics.
To Martin however, I suspected it felt like a Wednesday.
He returned ten minutes later with my things and informed me I would be sleeping with him for the duration of my stay. I opened my mouth to question this, but then he added that the gargantuan suite was the master suite, and Mr. Sandeke had claimed it for himself.
I wanted to point out that there were other rooms in the house, but Martin’s severe and distracted scowl made me back off. I decided to just go with it…for now.
I changed into my own clothes before we left, but I made him turn around while I dressed. Being naked at night with a happy Martin felt different than being naked during the day with an angry Martin. Yes, the odd modesty rules were
likely my own dysfunctions rearing their ugly heads, but I didn’t have time for self-psychoanalysis. Martin wanted us to leave the house, and do so as quickly as possible.
He busied himself by stuffing some of my things and his things into an overnight bag.
When I was finished changing, I risked his ire by asking, “What about Sam? We can’t leave her here.”
“Eric has Sam. He’s taking her to the cottage on the other side of the island. We’re going to meet them there tomorrow. Everyone else, all the other guys, are flying back today.” He didn’t look at me as he said this, as he was too focused on his task of merging the essentials of our belongings into one small bag.
“Tomorrow? She’s staying?”
“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t stay without her, so…” He sighed, picking up my chemistry book. After considering the cover for three seconds, he put it in the bag.
I guessed he didn’t want to chance another encounter with his wicked stepmother. Or maybe it was his father he dreaded seeing. Or maybe both.
Sitting next to him now, while he steered his fancy speedboat with livid concentration, I didn’t know what to say.
When I thought about relationships, I had thought the role of the significant other was to know what to say. My parents always seemed to know what to say to each other. But then, my parents had been married for thirty years and hadn’t been raised by evil people.
I’d only been conversing (about topics other than chemistry) with Martin for six days. Granted, those six days had included quite a lot of conversing. Sam had been right when she’d said this week was relationship boot camp. I was certainly getting bang for my time buck.
But the fact remained I didn’t know Martin well enough to know what to say, or if I should say anything at all. So I fretted instead until he slowed the boat to an idle, stopped it, then cut the engine.
I glanced around us. We were some distance away from the southernmost tip of the island and no other boats were nearby. We were completely alone.
“This was a mistake.”
Martin’s distracted statement drew my attention. I studied him for a beat, wondering if he were planning to continue unprompted.
When he remained silent, his eyes examining the gauges on the dashboard in front of him, I decided to ask, “What was a mistake?”
“Bringing you here, to the island. We should have just stayed on campus; my father wouldn’t have bothered us there. But I thought…” Martin absentmindedly covered his mouth with one hand, lifted his eyes to the horizon.
I didn’t wait to see if he was going to continue. I slipped from my chair and closed the short distance between our seats, standing in front of him, and placing myself between his legs. I wound my arms around his neck as he lowered his eyes to some spot on the floor. His hand dropped to his knee but he made no move to touch me.
“Martin…” I tried to use the voice my dad used when he attempted to explain the unexplainable. It always made me feel safe and comforted; in fact, I repeated my father’s words now because they seemed right for the situation and it was the best I could do.
“We can’t change the past. But we can change how much importance we allow it to have over our future.”
His lips tugged to the side and his eyes drifted shut. He shook his head slowly, but I was gratified when his hands settled on my hips.
“Who told you that?” he asked without opening his eyes; his tone told me he was reluctantly amused.
“My dad, when I didn’t study for a trigonometry test in high school and then subsequently failed it.”
Martin’s laugh burst forth with a tsk and a wonderful scoffing noise; it was adorable because it sounded involuntary. Best of all, when he opened his eyes and gazed at me, he didn’t appear to be angry.
He looked a little helpless, a little lost, a little hopeful, and a lot vulnerable.
“Oh, Martin.” I stepped all the way forward and pulled him into a hug, which he returned immediately. I felt a surge of fierce protectiveness for my Martin. It took my breath away, caught me off guard.
My Martin…oh, sigh.
In that moment I hated his father—a man I’d never met—and his stepmother for their treatment of him. I hated them for being too blind or evil to recognize how sacred his heart was, how he needed tenderness, care, and love. My heart broke a little as I wondered whether he’d ever experienced genuine affection from another person.
Given what I knew so far, I thought the chances were slim.
Yet, there was something about him that made me think he knew what normal was; he seemed to want normal for himself. He knew that mutual respect, honesty, and affection were essential, even though those closest to him had never demonstrated any of those character traits.
His enemies were now my enemies. I hoped he knew that, no matter what happened between us in the long run, whether we ended as friends after all this was over, he had a safe place with me.
After several wordless moments, I kissed his neck then spoke against the spot. “We have several strange conversations queued up for today’s agenda, but for right now I say we just hug it out for a bit, then maybe go swimming.”
He tsk-laughed again, a little longer this time, then pulled away so he could look at my face. I gave him a bright smile; my heart didn’t hurt quite as badly now he was looking less lost.
“Also, I hope you brought food because I’m hungry.” I patted his shoulders. “Please tell me there’re cookies.”
“Are you always like this?” he asked, his eyes narrowing in mock suspicion.
“Like what?” I pretended to be confused. “Amazing?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, finally smiling, “amazing.”
***
At the stern of the boat, we ate at a table that popped up from the deck. Martin set some fishing poles up and left them in these neat fishing pole holders that buzzed when there was a bite, then reeled the fish in on the line. I didn’t even know that kind of thing existed.
“You mean you don’t have to hold the pole in order to fish?”
“Nope.”
I felt slightly outraged. “But…that’s the whole point of fishing, to hold the pole, to reel in the fish.”
“The point of fishing is to catch fish.”
“That’s cheating. You’re cheating at fishing.”
He shrugged. “Outcome is the same.”
A light breeze picked up his hair and tossed it about a bit, playing with it, as though the wind couldn’t resist touching him. Behind Martin was the endless green-blue of the Caribbean and the endless, cloudless soft blue of the sky. The unmistakable, but not unpleasant, salty smell of seawater made the palette of greens and blues feel sharper somehow. Martin’s gorgeous eyes almost glowed on his tanned face.
I smiled at him, because he’d just placed the last of the grapes from lunch on my plate. “Well, where did you even find this infernal contraption? At the lazy fisherman dot com?” I teased.
“No,” he said, “but that’s a good domain name. I invented it.”
“What?”
He popped a grape into his mouth, chewed, then took a drink of his bottled water before finally answering. “The lazy fishing pole. I invented it.”
I stared at him. I couldn’t decide if I was outraged or proud.
“When did you do that?”
“It was my eighth grade science fair project. The first mock up was very crude since I’d built it myself. But I did a Kickstarter for it my junior year of high school and they’re now manufactured in Switzerland.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know quite what to say, so I studied the grapes.
He was so full of surprises. He was unexpected, and not at all who I thought he’d be. Yet at the same time, who he was made total sense. Martin seemed to really know himself, have a level of comfort and confidence in his own skin. This confidence was wrought by multiple trials by fire, and it manifested as not caring what anyone else thought.
I envied that. I envied him.
; Everyone I met always presumed to know who I was because of who my family was, and therefore, what I would do with my life. I had huge, impressive, worthwhile shoes to fill—so obviously that’s what I would do.
But rather than think about my own shortcomings, apropos of nothing, I blurted, “I don’t think we should move in together.”
Martin’s hand stopped midair as he reached for another grape on my plate and his blue-green eyes told me I’d caught him off guard.
“Really…” he said, like he was stalling for words.
“First of all, Sam is counting on me. As well, I’m very regimented about things like dishes and messes and such. I wouldn’t want us to be roommates and find that we can’t stand living with each other. Sam and I keep a chore list and we’re both really good about sticking to it. Would you be that kind of roommate? Also, there is the matter of cost, size, and personal taste. I don’t mind living in a small space, I actually kind of like it. I also like how inexpensive it is compared to an apartment. It’s likely that where you’ll want to live wouldn’t suit my budget or my size preference. As well, the opposite is probably true…”
Martin watched me through my well-reasoned speech. His surprise at my subject choice changed to a leveling glare of cynicism, then frustratingly, complete withdrawal.
“If you don’t want to move in with me you can just say so.”
I wrinkled my nose at his frosty tone. “No, Martin—it’s not about wanting or not wanting to move in with you, it’s about thinking through all the pros and cons of any proposed action.”
His jaw ticked. “Do you want to be with me after this week is over?”
“Yes. We’re dating. We’re officially two dating people who are dating each other, at least that is my understanding. We are dating, right?”
He nodded coolly, but said nothing.
I tried to pacify his sudden surly mood. “We don’t have to move in together in order to be dating, or be in a relationship, or see each other.”
“When?”
