by Tara Brown
Maggie nods, "Fine. Let’s get drunk first though, huh? I hate it when they make you sing."
I grin, "Yup." I don’t actually get drunk, but I too hate it when they make me sing. I don’t mind the stage but an intimate gathering makes me feel funny, too close to them all maybe, considering they all fear me or hate me, or both.
As we walk up to the door, Maggie looks up, "You ever notice the way the leaves fall, even in the spring, around yo . . ."
I turn my face sharply and stick my finger to her lips, "Shhhhhh. Don’t say it. Don’t acknowledge it."
Her eyes grow wide as she nods and walks through the door. "You get weird sometimes," she mutters.
I whisper and close the door, "I'm normal. It's you all that are crazy—and no—the leaves do not fall when I’m around." The wind hits the door, making it rattle. I ignore it. She turns and notices the way the door is rattling, like a horror movie. When she sees the desperate look on my face, she turns, "Yup, totally normal." She leaves, as if she doesn’t see it, and walks into the house.
The party is in full force with dancing going on in the living room and drinking everywhere else. Shots are at the dining room table, so I saunter that way. It looks like Fort Lauderdale, but it’s the sweater version. Coldest June on record, I swear.
"Well, well, look what the devil dragged in. Did you miss me all year, Lynnie?"
I grin at the boy taunting me. "Be nice, Sam." He is always nice, as a friend. I can’t help but stare at his mouth when he talks and wish he could be nicer.
He smiles, flashing the dimple in his cheek, “I missed you. It’s been a hard year not seeing your face every day. We need to get you a cell phone, for real. Then I can FaceTime you. Or better, you could just move to Boston. I could show you around.”
I sigh and wish for a second that things could be different. He runs a hand through his dark-blond hair, giving me a look that makes my stomach instantly ache. Everything about him is taunting me with the one thing I can never have—love. His sparkly blue eyes stare at my lips for the briefest of moments as he points to the shots. "You want one?" He seems so serious and weird. Sometimes when he gets drunk he gets like this, maybe not as intense as this though.
I sigh and realize I too am staring at his mouth. He is so tanned and stunning. Golden skin, dark-blond hair, bright-blue eyes, and strong nose and jaw line. His football-player's body is rock hard. I've seen him in his swimsuit, it’s good. He looks like a Calvin model. College has only improved him. His body is even more taut and hard than last year. I almost moan as I pry my eyes from his chest and sigh again. I drop into the oversized dining room chair and nod, "I can do one shot."
He looks cocky as he sets up seven shot glasses in front of me. He gives me a sideways glance as he pours seven different shots from the bottles in front of him. "How about one round instead? You need to catch up. Everyone else has had several shots." His eyes sparkle with mischief. I want to read more into it than I should, but I remember who he is and who I am. A year hasn’t changed anything. He will never be reckless enough to kiss me, let alone date me. And I would never gamble with his life.
I lick my lips and lift the first glass, "To catching up!" Everyone in the dining room is watching me, watching the freak. I just want to be one of the normal girls for once. I still feel like the little girl standing in front of the class, listening to the whispers as the teacher introduces me as the new girl. She says my name, Lake, like it’s poison. It is, but I was only ten; she didn’t have to say it so harshly.
Someone interrupts as I put the glass to my lips, "You shouldn’t drink that many shots. It's too many for a small girl."
I recognize the voice; it’s deep and different and makes the wind rattle the glass in the dining room next to me. His accent is something, I swear, I have heard before, maybe on TV. Maybe West Coast or even European but really faint.
His eyes are the first thing I notice when I turn around. They’re weird—grey. Grey like the weather in Maine. Stormy maybe. He’s tall and lean, in a way that makes me think he plays preppy sports like tennis or swimming. He isn’t solid and bulky like a football player, like the boys in Maine. They fish, log, hunt, and are brawny.
He is posh and trim. My eyes roam his face, noticing the chiseled jaw and soft-looking lips. He’s sexy, stuck up maybe, but sexy. The way he leans against the wall, with a cocky grin and his grey eyes challenging me from under his shaggy, light-brown hair, is smug. Smug is the word for everything about him. It's like he hates me even before meeting me. It’s not something new for me though.
"Who are you?" I ask.
He ignores my question and continues, "You weigh what, a buck five, maybe ten? You drink those shots and we'll be taking you to the hospital. This is a pretty sad little town, not the place I would want to spend a night in a hospital." He sounds mean the way he speaks, like I am nothing or a child.
Brandon, a huge football player I graduated with, slaps the tall guy on the back. "This is my cuz, Bastion. He's here to hang with us for the summer, get to know the family and all. His parents are away in Africa. Doctors Without Borders. We just met, never even knew about each other."
Bastion cocks an eyebrow, "Super excited about it too."
I offer a smug grin back, “You have to stay with your cousin while your parents are away? Aren’t you also nineteen? You can't stay on your own?”
He nods, “I’m old enough, and yes, I can.” He isn’t bothered by the fact I’m mocking him, and he doesn’t offer an excuse. I like that, I just don’t know why.
I meet Bastion's stare as I lift the first shot to my lips, accepting the challenge in his eyes. I lift it like I’m saying cheers to him and shoot it back. It makes me shiver when I swallow, "Yuck. Nice to meet you, Bastion."
He shakes his head like he’s unimpressed. I slam back the next shot and smile at the face he’s making.
Lune slinks into the room and slides up next to me, resting her arm on my shoulder. "Where you from, Bastion . . . not Britain is it? You sound like you have an accent." Lune asks, sitting at the table next to my shot glasses. She drinks one, all the while watching him, waiting for his answer.
His eyes narrow, "I'm from, er . . . Oregon."
She crosses her legs, flashing her bare skin. He glances at her legs, running his eyes down to her silver platforms. His lip twitches. I watch him, feeling a cheeky grin crossing my lips. No one can resist Lune. Deep inside of me I wish he would look at me like that.
She drinks a second shot from my lineup and puts a hand out, "Lune."
He frowns, taking her hand, "Lune?"
She grins, "Luanne, but nobody calls me that. This is my girl, Lynnie."
When his gaze meets mine, it doesn’t stray from my eyes. His gaze doesn’t travel beyond mine and it definitely doesn’t look at my legs. "Lynnie and Lune?" His tone is mocking. I don’t think he has any other tone.
I slam back the next shot and let the shiver warm me as I continue staring at him. The tension is thick but fleeting. It’s broken by warm hands touching down on my shoulders. I can feel the heat of them through my sweater, but they are nothing, compared to the whispered breath that hits my ears next, "Lune keeps stealing your shots, Lynnie. I'll have to pour you two more." Sam starts to massage my shoulders. The contact is making Bastion and me uncomfortable, though why he is bothered is beyond me. His eyes watch Sam's hands with emotion, anger maybe or disgust. It makes me feel dirty either way, like he knows about the curse. Or he just hates me.
Sam never touches me. Guys don’t ever touch me, beyond a slap on the shoulder or a light shove.
Ever.
I wonder how pathetic I would look if I closed my eyes and let myself savor the moment, because I know it’s innocently done. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend we were somewhere else, and I was someone else. I almost hate that it's Sam touching me. I have missed him more than anyone. I've missed staring at him and daydreaming about the things we might do if I weren’t me.
Glancing back, I
realize I haven’t missed setting him up with other girls. That was always the worst—watching him be with girls he could actually touch.
Instead of savoring it, I nod at the glasses Lune just drank from, "Just reuse them. We share everything else." I look back at Bastion and grin, "I weigh a buck twenty-five, for the record."
He laughs, "Not a chance."
I shrug.
Sam leans over me and pours more drinks. Lune gets up from the table and brushes past Brandon and Bastion, as if it is nonchalantly done, but she has a plan. She looks up through her lashes and smiles as she slides between the two large guys. Her chest presses against Bastion's abdomen. He looks lost for a moment. It bugs me that she’s flirting with him. It bugs me that she can. I don’t even know him, nor like his smug attitude, but I wish I could torture him that way. He looks like he deserves to be tortured, like he's stuffy and haughty. I almost wish she would do to him what she does to all boys—love and leave them in a public display that rips their hearts out. I almost wish it, but something about him guts me. I hate that his eyes wander her body and his lip fights a twitching grin. I want him to look at me like that. It’s a bizarre feeling to be so conflicted.
My agony is interrupted by a voice, "You gonna sing, Lynnie?"
I glance over at Brandon and shrug, "I guess."
He smiles wide, slapping his 'cuz' again, "You're in for a treat. She's our very own star. She sings every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night at the local bar. She packs the house. Been singing there since we were kids."
"Down boy!" I blush.
He laughs, "I’m surprised you never went to LA or Nashville, or somewhere with a wicked music scene."
I shrug, "I had to work for the year to save up money before I could leave. My dad’s inheritance only comes to me if I stay with Mary till I’m nineteen. I don’t have parents paying for everything like you guys." I frown at the overshare and suck back a shot. It makes me shiver as I breathe through the fumes, glancing back at Sam, "Ouzo? Really?" I can barely talk through the twitching.
He laughs, "Just thought I'd mix it up."
I gag, "Don’t do that again. Sick." I shoot the next shot to rid my mouth of the taste.
Bastion's grey eyes sparkle like stars, "You really that good?"
I shake my head, "I don’t know. It's not exactly like Nashville's music scene here. We don’t have a lot going on." I quiver from the drinks.
"You want to drink all of those before you sing?" He sounds like he could be my dad, if I had one.
Sam grips my shoulder, "You seem pretty bothered by her drinking, dude. You got a problem with her having some fun? Poor Lynnie's been here all year waiting for us to get back." He is touching me again.
Bastion's eyes gleam, "I just think drinking to the point of passing out is pretty immature. We aren’t high school kids."
I snort, "I don’t get drunk, Bastion." It’s true. I don’t. They blame the curse, I blame the practice—we used to drink every weekend.
"She's a beast. She can drink all night. She can out-drink every linebacker on the team, including Miles over there who weighs in at 285 pounds." Sam slaps me on the back, like a friend. Because we are friends—and never will be anything but, regardless of his touching my shoulders.
Bastion folds his arms and watches me. I slam back the last shot in front of me and cough a little. It tastes like death in a glass. My right eye won't open from the shudder that rips through me. I wince when I’m finally able to, "What was in that one?" The group around me laughs. I see Miles make a face from the corner, "He conned me into that one too. Damn dude, she’s a girl."
Sam rubs my arms, "That was a rocky mountain bear fucker. It would fuck up a bear."
I shake my head, "So bad."
Sam bends my head back and plants his lips against my forehead, "You are now my hero."
I feel a shiver of heat rush through me. I glance over at him and frown, "How many of those have you had?" He has pressed his lips against my face; he must be more drunk than he seems.
He shakes his head, "I don’t do tequila and sambuca together. Yuck."
I swat at him, "That’s what you put in there?" When my stomach gurgles, I rub it and frown, “What did you do? My stomach sounds like I’ve been eating spicy food.”
Miles laughs, "I almost threw up, Lynnie."
Sam laughs again.
"You are all kinds of reckless, aren’t you?" Bastion asks and shoves himself off the wall. He turns away from me and walks into the crowd of people in the living room.
"What?" I shake my head and look at Brandon and speak quietly, "Dude, what's with your cousin? Why does he hate me?" I brace myself for the obvious answer—hundreds of years of killing men left, right and center.
Brandon shakes his head, "He's pissed about being here. Hell, we didn’t even know we were family. My dad’s brother met some lady and he’s her son. They decided to go do Doctors Without Borders and left him with nowhere to live. He just showed up yesterday with a letter for my dad from his brother explaining he was coming. We didn’t even know he existed or that my uncle had remarried. No phone call or email or even a text. Nothing. He had an old-fashioned handwritten letter.” He rolls his eyes, “My uncle’s always hated being from Podunk Maine, always been a bit snooty. My dad said he was like that when they were kids even. So poor Bastion's being forced to stay with my family for the summer because he was in residence at Yale and couldn’t find a rental in time for the summer. He thought he was going home to Seattle to work at the hospital with his mom. Nope! They booked Africa, and then even let one of the doctors from their hospital stay at their house. So then he had nowhere to stay. They kinda just dropped this bomb on him and us. So yeah, he's not pumped about being here. Dad’s excited though, cheap labor for the summer.” He winks at me.
I laugh, “He’s going to work at the store?”
He nods, “Yeah, not exactly a hospital in Seattle. Dad said maybe he could also work at the school. Ya know, help people with tutoring for summer school. Dude’s a genius.”
I roll my eyes, “Great.” I am doing classes at the community college, in case the music thing doesn’t work out. Hopefully I will be done before he is working there.
Brandon shrugs, “He’s gonna be a surgeon or something. He seems pretty straight-laced. He spent the whole morning reading old classic books from the library. You should have seen how excited he got about it. It was a little weird. I think watching you act like a seasoned drunk is making him leery of us all. He probably thinks we're all drunks now. Thanks, Lynnie." He winks at me again and leaves the dining room.
A giggling brunette comes bouncing into the room and lays across the table, "Pour it in my mouth, Sam."
He flirts with her the same way he did me, rubbing her shoulders. I hate myself for liking him more than I should. I don’t look back at him as I leave the room through the opposite door that Bastion left through. Sam is a daydream, nothing more. I need to be real about the things in my life.
I weave and snake my way through the crowd. I see Sarah, Maggie, Jenny, and Lune sitting on the couches in the huge living room. I walk through the dancing kids and find a seat with my girls. My eyes never leave Sam. He kisses a girl in the hallway on the lips. She shoves him back playfully. I don’t hate her for kissing him. I wish I were her. I wish it were my lips placed against his, pressing into them. Letting him suck my bottom lip the way he did hers. I hate the way his eyes search out mine when he’s done kissing her.
"Okay yum. Brandon's cuz is hot. Like H.A.W.T," Lune shouts loud enough for him to hear it.
I roll my eyes, "Not my type. He’s stuck up. He knows he's hot. Yuck."
She nudges me, "That is a sexy boy. Plus, he goes to Yale. If he isn’t your type then no one is your type."
I nod, although it’s not true. Sam is my type. He is my secret type. Hard to have a type publicly, when the threat of them dying is lingering over them at all times.
I leave my seat after a few songs, in search of a bathroo
m. A huge hand grabs mine and I’m pulled into a closet.
"Lynnie, you look really hot,” Sam whispers down on my mouth.
My heart aches. He’s so drunk. I have always wished for him to say that very thing to me, but not drunk. His warm face brushes against mine.
"Sam, don’t," I push at him.
"Lynnie, I have always wanted to do this. Just one kiss. I’ve missed you so bad," he whispers. His hands roam my back and butt.
I am in the moment I have always wanted to be in. Instead of doing it, instead of having my first kiss, I shake my head against his hard chest. "I can't—we can’t." I close my eyes and let it feel good for the moment I can afford to give it. I push him off of me and walk from the closet.
My hand is grabbed again, "Come on. Time to sing." Sarah hands me my guitar, beaming. She can't see my aching heart or the pain in my throat where the lump is sitting. Something has changed in my world. My unrequited love might not have always been so unrequited.
It’s something I let myself have. Sam likes me back, even if it is just a little, and even if he only really shows it when he's drunk. That has to be enough.
I walk with the guitar, more nervous about playing for the intimate gathering of sixty kids in a house, than I was in the rowdy bar. I close my eyes and lower my face. No one talks, in anticipation. It feels weird.
I have a storm of things brewing inside of me.
My fingers start it, they usually do. They stroke the strings a few times. I open my mouth and start to sing. Nothing else matters once I start. My voice scratches through the ballad. Maggie and Sarah sing backup for me. They know I hate singing alone in a house full of people. I don’t mind the stage where everything is impersonal.
The song is mine. I wrote it when I was fourteen. I wrote it for the boy who nearly kissed me. Who nearly died to kiss me, if the curse is true? If it’s not, he’s still braver than I am. I ran home, terrified of his kiss.
We sing and I strum until the end of the song. I finish, feeling my cheeks burning. I glance up and catch the stormy eyes of Bastion. He glares at me. I can't help but notice his handsome face, even with the evil glare. It isn’t something I have seen before. My singing has never made someone glare at me before.
