Depths

by Liz Reinhardt

  Maren lets out a tiny laugh around the gulp of wine she just drank. “Please. We all know you’re only working for your folks to help them out of a bind. If it weren’t for the economy tanking, you’d be off doing something you love.”

  “I love my family,” I say before I can stop myself, because it sounds douchey and weak, but it’s true.

  Her eyes are wide and this soft blue, like the ocean in the spring, right when the bite is gone from the water, and they flick to my face over the rim of the wineglass. Her words are half muffled behind it. “I know you do. It’s one of the things I like best about you.”

  Something. I need to say something to that, but all I do is nod like an asshole while she puts the glass down and runs one finger around the rim in quick, nervous circles.

  “Ahoy?” Ally says from across the room, pointing to the ship’s wheel. “What is this thing for?”

  “Yeah, man, what are you, a pirate or something?” Jason makes a hook with his finger and squeezes one eye shut, and he and Ally explode into laughter that I don’t fully understand.

  Which is a relief. Something tells me not quite grasping their humor is a good thing.

  Maren rolls her eyes, and I just smile at her, loving that there’s this feeling when she’s in the room, like she belongs and always has. Like I never want her out of this room again.

  Her boyfriend is sitting right across from me. I gotta turn that kind of thinking off and fast.

  “It’s like a talisman,” I explain, and leave it at that.

  Or I intend to leave it at that. Except Ally and Jason stare back at me, blinking. Stumped.

  “It’s, you know, for good luck, or hope. It’s supposed to bring good fortune,” I say, hoping they’ll understand at least one explanation.

  “Right, and he lives at the beach, so you know, it sort of goes,” Maren says, her voice dripping with annoyance.

  “If you say so.” Jason shrugs and raises his eyebrows. “Hey, if it’s supposed to be a good luck charm, maybe it’ll bring you a babe like Maren.” I cringe as he reaches over and squeezes her ass. “How about that drink?”

  I hand him a glass of Maker’s Mark. There’s no way I’m wasting the Pappy’s on him.

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Maren says, cupping her glass close to her chest and looking at the ship’s wheel like she’s feeling exactly what I’m feeling: that she wishes we could hop a boat and sail away from these assholes.

  “You’re beautiful, doll.” Jason crosses the room and sets his already empty glass down on the counter next to her.

  “Hit me with another, bro,” Jason says without looking my way as he taps his glass with his knuckle. My fist curls around the neck of the bottle tight enough that I have to force myself to loosen it.

  If I need to kick this prick’s ass later, it’ll be easier to do without a bloody palm.

  “You don’t want to slow down?” Maren says under her breath, her lashes shadowing her eyes.

  Jason ignores her.

  “Sure thing,” I growl as I hand him his drink and offer one to Ally, who declines. I hand her a bottle of water anyway.

  I fill my own glass with bourbon and toss it back quickly while I watch Jason trace circles on Maren’s back. Ally is on the couch looking somewhere between bored and pissed. What am I doing?

  “You guys want to go out back?” I ask, but Jason’s already walking across the room and picking up one of my gaming controllers.

  “You got the new Call of Duty?” he asks, and Ally perks up. Maren groans.

  “Yeah.” Deo and I play. Not obsessively. Sometimes obsessively. It’s not necessarily something I drag out when I have a girl over. For one thing, there’s only two controllers. I point that out.

  “That’s alright. Maren hates this kind of stuff anyway,” Jason says, flicking on the TV and grabbing a controller. “You wanna play, man?” he asks reluctantly, eyeing Ally.

  How kind of him. To offer to let me play my own game at my own house.

  “Uh, no thanks. Help yourself though.” I glance at Maren, but she’s looking like she might be making a wish that involves huge holes and getting sucked into them.

  Weird, but the thing I hate the most about Jason is the way Maren seems to feel like she has to apologize for him.

  “Get over here, Al,” Jason orders, and Ally giggles, plops too close to him on the couch, and takes the controller he holds her way, bumping his shoulder as the game loads up, the volume turned on high.

  She’s not my girlfriend, so the whole scenario doesn’t bother me. Or shouldn’t. The thing is, Jason is Maren’s boyfriend, no matter how much I wish he wasn’t, and it’s just dick the way he’s cozied up to Ally right in front of Maren’s face.

  We watch in silence for a few minutes. Jason was wise enough to drag the Maker’s Mark over to the couch, so, with a cheap girl at his side and some cheap liquor in his glass, the douche seems like he’s content to make a night of it in front of my video game console.

  I look over at Maren, her face a perfect blank.

  “Hey, you want some fresh air? My head’s pounding,” I say.

  She glances at Jason and narrows her eyes, then smiles at me. I usually love seeing her smiles, but this one reeks of revenge, and there’s no way I’m cool with being her ammo against Jason.

  “I’d love to go walk,” she says loudly, but Jason is too busy screaming with triumph as he and Ally score a helicopter and blast through the CG landscape.

  “C’mon.” I grab an extra hoodie on my way out, and, sure enough, Maren shivers the second we step onto the sand and feel the first whip of ocean breeze. I hold it out to her wordlessly.

  “What’s that?” she asks, staring like she’s never seen outerwear before in her life.

  “That is a hoodie, which I guessed you’d need because that Angels shirt, besides hurting my soul, is not going to keep you warm.” I press it closer to her. “The Angels find so many ways to suck, don’t they?”

  She yanks the jacket away and inspects it. “I was afraid for a second it might be a Dodgers jacket, in which case, I’d have to freeze to death, because I’d never let it touch my body.” She slides her arms in the overlong sleeves and flips the hood up over her tousled hair, grinning at me. “Thank you.”

  “For not grabbing the awesome blue hoodie that was right next to that one?” I ask.

  She’s still smiling, but it looks like it might slide off her face at any second. “Thank you for thinking to grab me a jacket. That was sweet.” When I shrug, she pokes me with her elbow. “I guess you’re pretty nice. For a Dodgers fan, of course.”

  We walk along the wave line, jumping to the side to avoid getting too soaked.

  She presses her hands deep into the jacket pockets and says, “So, about Jason—”

  “Hey,” I interrupt. “Let’s not talk about Jason right now, okay?”

  “That bad, huh?” She shakes her head. “I’m so sorry—”

  I’m not usually a big interrupter, but I have to cut her off here. “Don’t.”

  “What?” I can’t see the exact color of her eyes in the near darkness, but I can tell they’re wild and desperate.

  “Don’t ever feel like you have to apologize for Jason. You’re not him, you’re not his keeper. If I’m pissed that he’s acting like an asshole, that has zero to do with you.” I let my feet sink into the damp, receding sand as a fresh wave gets ready to break in.

  I wonder if she’s going to argue on his behalf, maybe say something about them being a couple or whatever, but she doesn’t. “I didn’t realize you had a sister who was a lawyer,” she says instead.

  It’s way out of left field, but it’s not talking about Jason

  Though, speaking of assholes…

  “Yeah. Lydia. What made you think of her?” I ask, trying to see her face around the hood.

  She pushes the cloth back, and I think her face might be even more gorgeous in the moonlight, if that’s possible. “You told me your dad said I remind him of L
ydia.”

  I groan. Awful comparison. “You are nothing like my sister,” I say. You are nothing like any sister of mine, thank God, I think, Because otherwise, all the dirty things I’ve been thinking about you tonight would be pretty damn horrible. “My dad just meant that you’re super smart and driven.”

  Maren snorts. “Hardly. Funny thing is, actually, Lydia sounds a lot like my sister, Rowan. Super smart, super driven. She has a masters in business already, top of her class. She runs my mother’s bakery.”

  “I had no idea your mom had a bakery.” I try to think if Maren ever mentioned her mother before, but I don’t remember it if she did. “Lydia’s a lawyer, and my parent’s kind of act like she walks on water.”

  Her smile is very real this time, and very proud, in a way. “Can you blame them? You guys are all so amazing. You especially. Your parents must be so damn proud of you.”

  I shrug, pretty much loving hearing Maren’s high opinion of me from her own mouth. “I don’t keep them up at night, you know. But it was more like they expected me to do what I’m doing. They just want me to live and die for the business. They wanted that for my brother, Enzo, too, but he basically told them it was never happening and took off.”

  “They’re lucky they have you.” Her hand brushes against mine, but she pulls back fast.

  “I guess.” I stick my hands in my pockets. “Enzo is kind of drifting right now, so it’s not like I want to have his life. But he never had a girl dump him because he’s boring. My brother is one of those people who could start a cult or run for president. He’s just…it’s hard to explain. He’s got, like, this weird charisma.”

  “You have charisma,” Maren protests, but she’s just being sweet. “So, you have four siblings?”

  “Yep. Lydia, the brain. Enzo, the damn prophet.” We both laugh. “Gen is the family basket case. And Cece, my favorite sister, is in a PhD program for her women’s studies degree. She’s actually home for a break now. I gotta get home to see her.”

  Maren’s shoulders seem to slump a little. “It sounds great. You guys sound super tight.”

  “You don’t see your sister so much?” I ask. I get that. Lydia flits in and out, breaking Mom’s heart on half the holidays because she’s too busy skiing in Vail to come home for Chanukah or off on another Caribbean getaway with her girlfriends over Passover. Even Enzo is better about showing up for the big stuff.

  “Hardly ever in the last few years.” Maren wades out a little farther than is comfortable. She’s going to freeze if she doesn’t come back.

  She doesn’t say anything else about her sister, and, when a rough swell comes in, it looks like she’s going to fall over. I dart into the water and grab her.

  We stand in the middle of the cold ocean, lapping with more dangerous intensity as the tide rushes, my arms around her, her face tilted up to look into mine, the hood knocked back when I pulled her close.

  “Your pants,” she says, her lip shaking, from cold or fear or what I don’t know.

  “Forget them. Are you okay?”

  She nods, but the waves suck back, and she almost loses her footing again, grabbing onto my jacket with her small hands. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” I tell her for the second time tonight.

  We walk back out of the waves, and takes my hands in hers, her fingers so cold, they have to be numb. “We need to go in. You need to change or you’ll freeze.”

  I want to tell her that I don’t give a fuck how cold I am, because I want to be alone with her, so I’ll put up with any amount of discomfort. I want to tell her that I am thinking of taking off my pants, but that’s because I want to get naked with her, right here if I thought she’d agree. I want to tell her that she has a mouth that makes me think of sex every time she smiles or purses her lips or sips wine.

  But I say, “I’m cool.”

  She licks those lips, the ones I’ve been imagining licking, nipping, feeling pressed all over my body. Good thing I’m half soaked with frigid ocean water, because otherwise, I’d have an uncontrollable hard-on.

  “I should get back to Jason.”

  Her eyes are apologizing, but the words piss me off anyway. Go back to what? Watch him flirt with Ally? Feel some twisted sense of shame every time he opens his stupid mouth and something idiotic comes out? Back to some asshole?

  Back to Jason instead of here with me.

  Pissed off as I might be, I’m glad she has the good sense to suggest it. It’s the right thing to do.

  “Let’s head back,” I say.

  When we get back in, the game is on the home screen, blaring through the weirdly quiet house.

  Ally is balled up on the couch, snoring lightly, but I don’t see him. I make my way upstairs and almost trip over his sprawled body. At first I assume he’s dead, but I look close and see that he’s breathing.

  Jason’s passed out. Unbelievable. I mean, what did I expect after those four generous glasses of booze, but shit. I head back down and tell Maren, who starts pacing at the foot of the stairs, her fingers linked together nervously.

  “What am I supposed to do?” she finally says. “I mean, what is he? Fifteen? Passing out. I’m so sorry about this, Cohen, I feel like such a complete jerk.”

  “It’s fine. No sweat at all.”

  “But, Jason drove. Even if I could get him into it, there’s no way he’d let me drive his car home. Ever.”

  I seriously hate this guy.

  “Just stay here,” I say.

  “Cohen, I can’t. It’s too weird. Right?” Maren says.

  “Nope, it’s fine.” Okay, so it’s a little weird. But there’s no way in hell he’s going to be able to walk to the car, let alone drive. And there’s no way I’m hauling him downstairs. Jason stumbled upstairs like a drunken fool to do who knows the fuck what and passed out on the sofa in the loft. Maybe he and Ally had an argument? I don’t even want to know. I head back to the living room and toss a throw blanket over Ally. She may be a sneaky little brat, but I’m nothing if not hospitable.

  Damn my parents and all those manners they drilled into my head.

  “Where should I… Where should I sleep?” Maren licks her lips, and I try to read on her face what she’s feeling, but it’s a thousand different things: regret, embarrassment, exhaustion. I hate that this is the way she’s reacting to the first time she came to my house.

  Honestly, before tonight, I never pictured Maren at my house at all. Now? I hate that she’s not happy here, even if it has nothing to do with me. And I hate the thought of the house empty of her, but that’s probably the bourbon and my general loneliness taking over my brain.

  “You can take my room. Um, the mattress is the best, and I can hook you up with clean sheets, of course. I’ll crash in the spare room.”

  “No. No way. There’s nice and then there’s just crazy. I will be more than happy to take the spare room. You should sleep in your own bed. Of course.” She leans so close to me, I catch that coconut smell and have to reach one hand out to steady myself on the wall.

  “Nope.” I shake my head and my voice drops. “You’re my guest, and I’m not letting you sleep in the guest room. I won’t be able to get any sleep leaving you on that mattress.” She slides her hand along the smooth wood of the banister, but she’s looking at my arm. I want her to touch me so badly, I know I need to end this and get to the damn guest room now.

  “You’re sure?” Her voice is barely a whisper.

  “The guest room is better than fine,” I assure her.

  I leave out the part about how the spare room only has a blow-up mattress crammed in the closet because it’s the one room in the house that isn’t put together yet. I usually crash at my parents’ or Deo and Whit’s. I don’t have guests…or didn’t until now.

  And now that I’ve had her here as a guest, I’m feeling all beast in the castle. I hate the idea of her going tomorrow and tonight’s not even over.

  She takes her hand off the banister and reaches out, he
r fingers hot on my skin, her eyes dark and sexy as hell. “Okay. But don’t worry. About the sheets, I mean. We’re all tired, and I’m not a germaphobe or anything. I really appreciate this, Cohen. I didn’t expect things to turn out this way. I feel really bad about everything.” Maren motions to Ally with her chin, but her eyes don’t break contact with mine.

  I clear my throat, rub my neck, look away before she and I lock more than eyes and I’m in deeper than I need to be.

  “No sweat. Room’s up at the top of the stairs to the left. Get some sleep,” I say, managing to keep my voice steady. Maren nods and avoids my eyes like she agrees that we should stop before…whatever might happen happens.

  Damnit.

  She turns away from me, and I watch that sweet little ass twitch its way up the small staircase. “Oh, Maren?”

  She stops and turns to me with a hopeful look in her eye that shouldn’t be there. Not when her boyfriend is sleeping twenty feet away.

  Regret chews through me, and, for a single second, I consider throwing caution to the wind and scooping her into my arms so I can join her in my king sized bed.

  But I don’t. I can’t. She’s worth more a cheap toss while her dickhead boyfriend sleeps in drunk oblivion. If this ever goes anywhere, it will because it’s right: right time, right intentions, right everything.

  Because, if this is going to happen, I want it to last.

  If it’s going to happen.

  I know it’s probably the bourbon talking, but, damn, I want it to happen more than I’ve ever wanted anything before.

  But it can’t. Not yet. I hope she can read the regret in my eyes when I tell her, “There’s some shirts and stuff hanging in the closet. Help yourself to something to sleep in.”

  She presses her lips together and nods. “Thank you.”

  I stand on the stair long after she shuts the door quietly behind her, gripping the banister like I’m planning to tear it out of the fucking wall, Jason’s snores rubbing my nerves raw. Finally I head to the guest room where the insistent whine of the air mattress motor is the only sound in the room. Which is fine by me, because I need something to dull the thoughts of Maren that run through my head in a way they really shouldn’t.