“It’s not really like Mum, is it?”
“No.” He snorted. “But maybe losing this Malcolm guy reminded her she’s got a few nice bones in her body.”
“Maybe.” I shielded my eyes; Esmé had walked back to look for me, and when she caught me next to Gabe, her pretty brow furrowed. She wouldn’t come over here, I knew that.
I should have hurried back over. But I didn’t.
“Esmé commented on me not being in bed last night. I told her some crap about being in the bathroom, but…”
He looked up from the burger he was about to devour. “Really? Shit. We need to be more careful.”
“We’ve only got four nights left.” I stared hard at my cider bottle, watched the bubbles rise to the surface and die as they hit the air. “It’s not long enough, Gabe.”
“I know, baby.” He dropped his voice to say these things, and we both knew it was risky to talk about them out in the open. But we were forbidden. This was something we could never have. If words were our only rebellion, bitter words it would have to be. “You like Canada?”
I shrugged. “Never been.”
“Shame.” He smiled faintly. “Nice place for a gap year. Canada.”
A prickly heat shot down my spine and unfurled at the base, making me sit bolt upright. “Are you…are you being serious?”
“I don’t know,” he said sadly.
“Because it was only a few days ago that you were all resigned to running away from…us.”
“I changed my mind.” He exhaled. “I broke.”
“What if we don’t get chance to be together, Gabe? What if you leave in a few days and we haven’t…I mean…”
“This,” he gestured to our cosy little chat position, “isn’t enough.”
“No.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean it like that.”
“It’s okay, Danni. That’s what makes everything so complicated, eh? That we need the physical stuff.”
He said need. Not want. Not it would be nice.
Need.
“I could take a gap year,” I said slowly.
He nodded, looking ahead as if we chatted about the weather or something. “The visas over there can be a bit complicated, but the people who’ve hired me might be able to help out. I mean, there are ways.”
“I don’t know what the hell I’d tell Mum. Or Esmé.”
“If…if you were to come out there with me, like that, we’d manage it.”
“Like that.” I pressed my lips together to stop the huge smile. “Like, a couple?” I whispered.
“Nobody would know, would they? We could be normal.” He glanced down. “If we were in Canada now, I could hold your hand. Kiss you. We’d just be a gorgeous girl and some lucky old dude.”
“Oh, shut up. You’re not even thirty.”
“Still older than you.”
“You love it,” I shot back.
“Yeah.” He went to touch me, but pulled his hand away. “I…I do.”
“We should eat these burgers before we start looking suspicious.” I checked mine for tomato; a big wedge sat squashed beneath the bun. When I looked back up, Taylor had accosted Esmé. “Esmé’s giving me evils.”
“She knows she’s going to lose you.” He took a bite.
“What? What do you mean?” I drew patterns in the sand with my toes while I waited for him to finish. “She doesn’t know about us. How could she?”
“Not that, baby. Just generally. She’s clingy, possessive. You said before; she’s always been like that. She probably knew the moment you started acting off with her or maybe even from the time you got together, but now you’re both going off to different universities…Danni. She’s a clever girl. Of course she knows she can’t keep you.”
I’d never thought about things like that before, but now it was so painfully obvious that I couldn’t look at either of them. Tears lanced the corners of my eyes. I might have fallen for Gabe, but there was a time not too long ago when I was crazy about Esmé and even more than that, relieved to have someone to be crazy about. She did that for me, and I appreciated it—even if from her point of view, it was all a big heap of crap and lies.
“I did love her,” I said defensively. My voice cracked with the restrained tears.
“No, you didn’t. But you wanted to.” He brushed his palm to my knee very quickly. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Christ, you’re eighteen. Still figuring everything out.”
“Not everything.” I smiled again, despite the weeping that threatened. “Not you. I’m sure about that.” Chemically, my body hadn’t let me deny it.
“Tonight. We’ll try again tonight. Maybe a little earlier…depends when everyone’s in bed.”
“Okay.” Please.
“But you need to be careful leaving. Don’t be gone too long this time.”
“Not my fault I fell asleep,” I grumbled. “Frickin’ Taylor.”
Gabe winced. “Never had him pegged as a stoner.”
“We need to make sure he doesn’t end up back down here, doing that again,” I said. “And maybe we should avoid the beach. We could go into the woods instead, meet outside or something.”
“Maybe.” He took another bite of burger and chewed slowly. “Let’s see how tonight pans out, and I’ll send you a text later, yeah? Just be sure to delete it straight after.”
“I will.”
“Now you better get back to Esmé before she burns straight through me with her evil eyes.”
I laughed. “I don’t know what’s up with her, sometimes. I mean, you’re privileged—you’re a bloke, but she actually likes you. Yet she won’t come over here and join in.”
He shook his head.
“It’s not like that,” I went on. “I think she just feels a bit threatened sometimes, like guys who watch us and get off on it are kind of intruding.”
“Because they weren’t invited to the party,” he mused.
“Precisely.” I slipped back off the rock and lingered in front of him, his feet almost brushing my calves. “Guess I’ll be heading back, then.”
“I’ll see you later.” He pressed his lips together in a very brief kissing pose. “And Danni?”
“Yeah?” I breathed.
“Maybe…think about Canada, yeah?”
“I will,” I promised.
I will, I will, I will.
Like a couple. Nobody would know, would they?
It was like my heart grew a fifth ventricle full of liquor and crack.
Chapter Eleven
I couldn’t stop thinking about his letters. Our first kiss, the bead of sweat he tasted. The balmy Devon evening when he took my virginity. In heartache years, we’d been apart for at least ten; maybe that’s why after just two months, he was talking about running away together. Because that’s what it would be.
When he stopped writing and texting and calling, I thought it was because he stopped feeling. I blamed myself, though I knew it was irrational; I was the one who gave in, in the end. If I hadn’t decided to sleep with my not-uncle and cheat on my girlfriend, none of this awfulness would have happened and we’d be spared the void of never knowing what we could be. If we weren’t family, if I wasn’t with Esmé, if he wasn’t going away.
But now he wanted to remove an if. I could, if I grew balls big enough, take away another if with Esmé. Suddenly, I was playing for keeps.
And for three gorgeous words that he hadn’t even said.
***
Around ten o’clock, we finally dragged our barbecued-out asses back to the lodge. Gabe plied Taylor with beer after beer, and he ended up spread-eagled and snoring on our sofa. Mum passed out in a chair. Esmé wasn’t far behind, and another of my patented massages settled her in ten minutes flat.
I brushed my teeth. Put my hair up, retouched my makeup. Slipped into a clean dress and cardigan, and out of my bikini bottoms. The clock struck midnight and in true Cinderella style, I crept out of the lodge to find Gabe leaning up against his car. No words passed b
etween us, not even smiles; he just reached for my hand and tugged me toward the woods.
The canopy of trees made the night thick like treacle. Bracken and old twigs snapped beneath our shoes. Gabe used his phone to light our way, and we followed the trail of pale glow like pixelated breadcrumbs. My hand felt so small in his. When we reached a snug little spot with a round, flat tree stump, he pulled me against him for a cool drink of a kiss.
“I scoped this out earlier,” he whispered. “We’re in deep enough to be safe, I reckon.”
Somewhere not too far away, young voices yelled and whooped. Our party might have ended, but for some, the night was just beginning.
I shoved him down on the tree stump and giggled as I straddled his lap. Then I wound my fists into his soft caramel hair and devoured his mouth again. We could make a little noise here, could be free…only the fabric of his shorts prevented him from entering me. Stupid, stupid shorts.
“Slow down, Danni.”
“No. I’m not waiting to be interrupted again.” I dragged his hand between my thighs and gasped at the way he probed me. “See what you do to me?”
“I love how you seem to keep losing your knickers.” His face moved along my cleavage in a hot-cold cocktail of stubbly cheek and kisses, and his thumb worked at me with slow, firm strokes. I wanted to keep still and just think on how wonderful it was to have him touch me, but no use. I bucked and writhed like a puppet on strings.
“It’s more convenient.” And I knew how much he liked it. Hell, we were already wrong enough. What was a little slutty behaviour thrown into the mix? What was wrong with any of it if it felt so unbelievably good?
In a fit of need, I shoved his hand away so I could pull open the button fly of his three-quarter shorts. He twitched in my palm as I squeezed.
“God.” He struggled for breath. “Do that again.”
So I did. Hard. He moaned into our wet kiss. We both knew what the other wanted, and with a twist of my hips, we were close enough. He thrust up, I slid down, and I shoved my face into his shoulder to muffle my yelps. Two months since I’d had him inside me and it was like losing my virginity all over again. I kept trying to contract around him and with every ripple, he felt bigger. This man, his flesh, his sea-liquor smell…only he could give me all of this.
“Good girl,” he mumbled into my neck. “You feel so fucking good.”
The world snapped in on us and everything else fell away; just me and Gabe and this spasming melt of shivers, just us and the air we stole breath after breath from as we moved.
We sped up despite our awkward position and the acid groan of my hamstrings. I turned the curve of his broad shoulder into a damp mess, exhaling and whimpering against it, hiding from a world that probably didn’t want us but suckered us into this anyway. Dark, dark, nothing and everything and him.
The ache of impending orgasm flushed heat through every limb, made me lighter, and I coiled and sprang on each stroke.
“Just think.” He sucked my bottom lip, let it go, sucked again. “If we went away, we could have this all.” Thrust. “The.” Harder. “Time.”
Oh—
“Gabe…please…”
“I love you.” His words were staccato, like gunfire.
“You…what?”
He barely got the sounds out between gasps. “I love you.”
There are all sorts of corny ways to describe orgasms. Fell off the edge, came apart, blow your load, whatever. In Gabe’s lap, I split right down the middle as a shrieking flock of shudders fell out only to sink their hungry teeth into my skin. Over and over, I trembled. Moaned his name. He kept going until my inner thighs were sticky.
“I love you too,” I said finally. Triumphantly. “Always, always.”
Still panting, I pulled his head back and kissed his mouth raw. Only when he seemed to struggle, did I pull back.
“Danni,” he hissed.
“Wha…?”
“Danni.”
I frowned at him. Wondered why he looked so spooked. Then it hit me like a smack around the head: a sob.
Behind us.
A great, heaving girly sob.
I shook as Gabe hurried my skirt back down. Every scrap of heat surged out of my skin, leaving ice burns that only added to the trembling.
“Well?” She whimpered. Her voice cut a haunting path in the dark. “Aren’t you going to look at me?”
Gabe swallowed. Urged me around. I climbed off, paused while he tucked himself into his shorts, and closed my eyes as I turned. They were the longest five seconds of my life.
When I opened my eyes, I made out Esmé’s shape just two feet away. She wore her coat over tiny pyjamas. Next to her stood Taylor, shivering in his T-shirt. His mouth formed a thin, drawn line; if she was fury, he was empty. Blank.
“I don’t know what to say.” I’d been caught cheating…with my not-uncle. Exactly which bit of that should I panic about first?
Esmé began to weep again—full-on, shoulder-scrunching sobs. Taylor put a comforting hand on her arm and she threw it off like a bucking bull.
“Don’t you touch me!” she shrieked. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
Leaves crunched as Gabe stood. He stepped in front of me, braced for a fight.
“Esmé,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You’re sorry? Oh my God.” She went to walk to me, but seemed to change her mind. “How could you, with a man? With him? Do you have any idea how sick this is?”
“I kno—”
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” said Gabe, his tone surprisingly steady. “Or at least, not like that. Esmé, it wasn’t Danni’s fault. It was me, I—”
“You’re her uncle!” Taylor said it so scathingly, like we were a pair of moronic contestants on a grisly morning chat show. “I mean, what the fuck?”
Adrenaline still spiked my blood and my vision; Gabe’s hand sat protectively on my hip. In the space of a few minutes, our relationship had gone from dirty little secret to me and him against the world. Staring at Esmé and Taylor’s horrified faces, I didn’t think we could win this one.
“You said you loved me,” Esmé spat. “People in love don’t do things like this!”
Gabe squeezed my hip. “They do.”
Oh.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You sick fuck. I…both of you…” Her bottom lip baulked again.
“People go to prison for this stuff,” said Taylor. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah.” Gabe gave a single nod. “Some people do. Danni and I aren’t related by blood.”
Not that it seemed to matter right now, despite the fact it could save everything.
Esmé shoved past Taylor and before I could breathe, she had my hair in handfuls, yanking it violently. The shock was electric.
“And you don’t even have the nerve to speak to me? Talk to me. Talk. To. Me!”
I squealed as she pulled at me, and it took Gabe several moments to get her off. She’d barely got her breath back before she went for him, all claws and anguished grunts. When he retreated, his arms were scored with cherry scratches.
“That’s enough! Esmé. God. She doesn’t deserve that.”
“I do.” My own tears battled through, slimy on my cheeks. I clutched my sore scalp. “Es, I’m so sorry.”
“No, you’re not. But you will be. You will be.” With that, she tore off back toward the lodge, her footsteps punctuated by raw little sobs.
Taylor glanced between me and Gabe, and Esmé’s empty space. The moon hung low over the three of us.
“This is some messed up crap,” he managed, starting after her. “You better hope she doesn’t tell your Mum, Danni.”
I went to follow him, but Gabe tugged me back. If it was possible, he held me tighter than ever. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered. “I promise, we’ll make this okay.”
But the pulse that throbbed in my ears said otherwise. “You can’t promise. Not with this.”
He turned me to fa
ce him, and took my chin in his palms. “I can. I am. Fuck them all, Danni. We’ll be gone in less than a week.”
He didn’t say because we have no choice now, because we’re not welcome here, but the truth spiked its forked tongue at me anyway. Of course I wanted to be with him but I never realised quite how much it could cost.
“We should head back,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Separately, in case she hasn’t told.”
“Let’s hope so.” He began to lead me by the hand.
“Or in case Taylor tells,” I added.
“He won’t.” Gabe squeezed my hand, but it didn’t help.
I pulled my cardigan around me, tried to ignore the cold, and traipsed back to the lodge to salvage what was left of my life.
Chapter Twelve
Empty bed. No Esmé.
Great.
I couldn’t find her anywhere. Mum was still drooling in the easy chair, her snores and snorts peaceful. Mine and Esmé’s bed was unmade, which was unlike her…she left in a hurry. How the hell did she and Taylor know to come looking for us? It was obviously what they were doing. I mean, how had they even been conscious enough? They were passed out when we left.
Gabe stood outside his bedroom, his arms folded, gray eyes low. I peered out to shrug at him.
“Not there,” I mouthed.
He gestured over his shoulder, as if to suggest we look for her. I shook my head. Taylor wouldn’t let her get into any trouble, and she evidently didn’t want to talk to me. I checked around before blowing Gabe a kiss; he caught it, bit his lip, and mouthed I love you.
Then I climbed into bed, and insomnia’s sweaty fist leered down to squeeze. Exhaustion threatened after three nights of broken trysts, but no rest for the wicked.
Story of my life.
***
Somebody was rattling drawers. Throwing clothes about in little swishes. How inconsiderate—couldn’t they see I how tired I was?
Twisted Summer Page 13
