Capping the bottle, she looked sideways at me. “What, you don’t?”
She was trying to be funny so I rewarded her with a half-smile. “You seem tense.” I glanced around, but few people were actually paying us attention. “Parties still aren’t your scene, are they?”
Ignoring me, she turned to look out over the balcony. Below us, Keane was carrying Navy on his back as he ran down to the beach. Navy squealed—in excitement or protest, I couldn’t tell—and both of them ended up in the water as people laughed around them.
“Maybe,” I began, “you need to blend in.”
“I’m not drinking any alcohol.” She shrugged, glancing at me. “I just don’t drink. Especially when I have school.” When I didn’t say anything, she said, “Yes, I know I’m boring.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d said something unkind about herself. “Chill,” I said without heat. “I didn’t mean to make you feel pressured.”
When she said nothing, just stared out over the water, I got an idea.
“Okay. I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” I said it jokingly to myself, but Hollis didn’t even turn to acknowledge what I had said. In the kitchen I grabbed another beer and two plastic cups before venturing back out onto the deck.
Hollis hadn’t moved. I approached her and tapped her gently with the cups.
“I’m not sharing your beer,” she said, eyeing the cups and my beer, back and forth.
“No, you’re right. You’re not. This beer is mine. The cup, one of them at least, is for you.”
“I don’t need a cup.” She waved her water bottle at me like I was dumb.
“You don’t need it. But it might make you feel, I don’t know, one with the people.” I opened and closed my hand, gesturing for her to give me the bottle. When she did, I set the cups down on the railing.
“I want this one,” Hollis said, choosing the one nearest to me.
“Fine.” I uncapped her water and she watched me with shrewd eyes as I poured the contents into the cup. I tucked the empty water bottle into my back pocket and poured my beer into the other plastic cup. “Ready?” I asked, handing her the cup.
“For what?”
“To join the fun.” I angled my head over the railing. “Down there.”
“Oh, I don’t think we have to…”
“We don’t have to, Hollis. That’s not what we’re doing here. We should be seen though.” I held out my hand to her and she looked at it warily before taking it. “Come,” I beckoned, drawing her down the stairs to the ground below. Her skin was soft and cold. I brushed my thumb over the back of her hand, the instinct to warm her being at the forefront of my mind as I pulled her toward the throng of people. Off one side of the long dock above hung a tire swing that somehow was unoccupied.
Steering her toward it, I glanced at my watch. “Hey, sit here for a minute with your cup. I gotta give Casey a call and check up on her.” Hollis nodded, sliding her legs through the hole of the tire and resting her arms over the top of it. Tanned legs kicked against the ground, backward, and then she sailed forward. The hem of her skirt fluttered little a little, showing only another inch of skin, before she realized and tucked it down, between her legs.
I shouldn’t stare at her like that, I admonished myself as I walked away. She was too uncomfortable, too tense. If she caught me looking at her I’d only confuse us both. And potentially piss her off.
Before I made the call to Casey, I shot a text to Keane.
Get some candids of Hollis and me, please. She’s over on the tire swing.
His reply came quickly.
Aye, aye.
“Casey,” I said when she answered Gram’s house phone.
“I’m fine,” she said on a sigh and I imagined her rolling her eyes.
“Good because I wasn’t calling to check on you,” I lied easily. “But now that I’ve got you, how’s it going? Hanging out with Keane’s mom?”
“Yep. She’s cool. She just lit a joint for us to share and now she’s telling me about what a loose lady she was back in the day.”
It caught me so completely off guard that I was speechless for a moment until Keane’s mom barked a laugh and then some kind of remark that incited Casey to apologize. “What shit are you watching on television?” I asked her.
“Oh, just preschool stuff,” she said innocently and not at all believably. “We’re fine here. But can you bring me something to eat?”
“What about the lasagna?”
“I pigged out and finished it all.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I looked over at Hollis. She’d folded her arms over the top of the tire swing and rested her chin on her hands as she watched everyone else careening into the water. “I’ll get something,” I told her. “Don’t forget to do your homework, okay?”
Casey said something but I wasn’t listening to her anymore. Someone had approached Hollis and in the dark, with his back to me, I couldn’t make him out. But Hollis had stopped swinging, and her head had lifted. I said a hasty goodbye to Casey before sliding my phone back into my pocket and approaching Hollis from behind. I heard murmured words, but Hollis looked worse than when I had left her. Her brow was furrowed, and her eyes looked tired.
“Hollis,” I said, but it came out like a question as I came closer. Whoever was talking to her left, walking up the hill toward the front of the house. “Who was that?”
“No one,” she said. “How much longer do you think we have to stay here?”
“Who was it?” I asked again.
“Just someone who wanted tutoring.”
“Look at you, networking even when you’re not trying.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Yep. That’s me.” She was unsettled, resigned, and looked like she didn’t know if she wanted to curl up and sleep or cry. I had seen her cry once before, long ago, and had no desire to witness it again.
“You look nice, by the way.”
She lifted her head, confusion on her face.
“Your outfit.” I nodded at it, specifically at the skirt that showed off her long legs. “It’s nice.”
“Oh.” Her hands smoothed down the skirt. “Thanks.”
“Are you ready to get out of here then?” I asked her, when she stared numbly at her phone.
“I mean, do you think we accomplished anything?”
“We got a photo on Facebook,” I said, showing her the photo Blake had tagged us in. “That’s something.”
“We need more,” she said with great resignation. “Just us. We need a paper trail.”
If her face wasn’t in such a frown, I’d have laughed at the way she said it with such professionalism. A paper trail? Who even talked like that?
“Come on then,” I said. “Let’s go down to the water with everyone else and get a few more.”
She didn’t want to and if she decided to give up on tonight altogether, I wouldn’t push her. Whatever the guy had said to her while I had been away, it’d exhausted her. But if he was one of her students, why did she look so defeated? She fumbled her way through the hole of the tire swing until I held my hands out and gestured for her to put her arms through.
“Give me your hands and slide through,” I said, standing in front of her.
She grabbed hold and she slid through—legs first, upper body next. We were toe to toe, chest to chest. “You can let go now,” she said.
“You know,” I said, not letting go right away, “for someone so concerned with making this believable, you keep making excuses to avoid actual displays of affection.”
“Fine,” she said, setting her jaw as she peered up at me. In the moonlight her skin glowed like golden marble. Her eyes were impossibly dark, deep in a way that made me want to stare into their depths until she released even a small part of herself for me.
But I didn’t really want that. No matter what, she and I were fundamentally different. Her goal was money and mine was to help my sister out. Hollis wanted to be seen with me, but not really with me. I wasn’t sure if she
felt like she was slumming it with me, like I was convenient but not the first pick. Which only made me more defiant in my attempts to treat her—at least when we were around others—like she was a woman I was actually romantically interested in.
I pressed a thumb to the center of her palm, our fingers still clasped, just to see what kind of reaction she’d have. When she was frozen in place, still staring up into me, I leaned down a couple inches, hovering above her face. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. Slightly, but enough that I noticed. I felt a tremble in her hands. “Are you cold?”
“The sun’s gone down.” Her voice was hushed like a secret. I supposed to anyone looking on, we appeared to be in an intimate discussion. But I wasn’t really thinking about anyone else. I was thinking about her eyes, and how her long bottom lashes kissed the tops of her cheekbones. I was thinking about her mouth, berry pink and just the lightest gloss coating them.
The wind picked up, brushing hair across her face. I felt the flex of her fingers in mine and knew she itched to push it back, but I tightened my hold on her. The moment she let go of my hands, she’d have an excuse to stop looking at me in the eyes the way she was.
Her tongue wet her lips before retreating back into her mouth. Her mouth parted, and she squeezed my hands back. When her chest heaved, brushing her breasts against my chest, the feeling rocketed straight to my groin. Fuck.
I let go of her hands to run mine up her arms, to her shoulders. I was testing the waters, slowly, getting her accustomed to me touching her. Technically, I wasn’t holding her in place any longer. She could step away at any moment. But since she hadn’t, I moved my hands to her shoulders. All the while, I maintained eye contact. My intention was to make sure I wasn’t scaring her. The last thing I wanted was to make her feel pressured.
I grazed my thumb along the curve of her neck and her head tilted, giving me access to more skin. My caresses were smooth, gentle. The ground shifted beneath us, the sand pouring over my feet as she stepped closer.
Was I setting myself up for failure with her? Was this arrangement going to ultimately embarrass me? And, at that moment, why did I not give a damn if it did?
A clap on my back had me letting go abruptly to turn around. I was getting really sick of being interrupted, even though Blake’s interruption had actually helped our ruse. But it was just Keane.
“Where’s your beer?” he asked.
I swooped down, retrieving our two cups from the ground and handed Hollis hers.
“How’s it going?” he asked, looping an arm over each of our shoulders, sandwiching himself between us as he steered us toward the water.
Hollis looked at me over his back, willing me to speak first. “Good. Fine. Where’s the boat keys?” I asked.
“Nuh-uh. I just got done babysitting a two-hundred-pound drunk dude. I am not giving you those keys.”
“Was worth a shot,” I said, grinning at Keane. “Maybe another time.”
“Maybe,” Keane said and turned to Hollis. “Having fun? You never come to these things.”
“A blast,” she said through her teeth. She shivered, wrapping her arm around her waist.
“Cold?” Keane asked her and then whipped his head to look at me. “Your girl is cold, Adam.”
“She’s not my girl,” I told him at the same time that Hollis said, “I’m not his.”
“No shit, Sherlock. You two couldn’t look more standoffish right now. Why do you think I’ve got you wrapped together?” He squeezed his arms, bringing us closer, into a huddle. “Get down by the water. Ricky Aiken is showing off his water-resistant phone by doing stupid shit with it like taking photos under water.”
“Water resistant doesn’t mean waterproof,” Hollis retorted.
“Exactly. Now, come on kids. Join the others. Be young and free while you still can.”
“I really do need to head home soon,” Hollis protested, her feet dragging on the sandy shore as Keane led us toward everyone else. “I have studying to do.”
“Classes just started, Hols.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got a lot on my plate.” She shuffled her feet, staring at her toes dug into the sand. I wondered if she chased perfection naturally or if it was expected of her. I thought of her bedroom, how put together it was. How shocked she’d been when she’d knocked over a few books and pictures. And, unconscionably, I took pity on her.
“Let go, Keane,” I said, ducking out from under his arm. In a second, I grabbed his other arm and gently pulled him away from Hollis. “We’re probably going to leave soon.” I wrapped an arm around her to stifle the shivering.
“Leave?” Blake asked, coming toward us from the water’s edge and clapping me on the back. Again. “But dude, we got kegs.”
Even though I’d poured a bottle of beer into my cup, I held it up like it was directly from the keg. “It’s flat beer. No go, man.”
“Yeah,” Hollis added weakly, holding up her cup, which she poured out onto the sand. “It’s been fun, but I do have a lot to do this week.” This time, she reached a hand to me, and I took it without hesitation. “I’m ready to go,” she said, looking me in the eyes meaningfully.
“That’s our cue,” I said to Keane and Blake. “Send the host my thanks,” I added, already backing up toward the house. When we were out of earshot, Hollis tugged on my hand.
“Thanks.”
I nodded.
“Mind holding on a sec? I need to get the sand out of my sandals.”
“Sure.” I tightened on her hand when she started to pull as she leaned over. “Use me for balance.”
She did, bent forward to grab her shoe and shook it out. I looked around, not wanting to leer at her cleavage. It was tempting, but Hollis and I weren’t that kind of fake boyfriend/girlfriend. I was brought back to the first party we’d attended together—the first high school party we’d both experienced. My thoughts trailed from me like a cat chasing a ball of yarn and I struggled to hold on and reign it in before I thought of how that night ended.
“Okay, ready,” she said, flipping her hair over as she straightened. She had hair like a damned shampoo commercial. Under the spotlight shining off the house, it looked glossy, soft. The kind of hair that beckoned hands to run through it. But we were out of reasonable eyeshot now. I didn’t need to be running my hands through her hair. Or even holding her hands. So, I let go.
“Do you mind if we get burgers on the way back? Casey asked for some.”
“Sure.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “I’m starving myself.”
“So who was it you were talking to when I called Casey?” I asked, trying once again to get an answer from her.
“No one.”
“You looked upset.”
She sighed. “It’s not him. It’s my situation. I’ve done it to myself, really.” She glanced at me and looked away. “Why do you care anyway?”
She had me there. “I don’t.”
“Exactly.”
We didn’t speak in the car, which was probably for the best. My body was still on edge from being so close to her, from staring into her eyes under the moonlight. In Colorado, I had attended my fair share of parties. I had had plenty of good memories, had spent time with many women at and after those parties. Those relationships were usually brief blips of my life. Forgettable moments in the grand scheme of it all. So why was I so hung up on the spring break party from high school? The hour I had spent with Hollis had been unremarkable. It’d simply been light conversation. So why did it stick to me as long as it had? Was it because of the quick stab of betrayal I had felt when she’d played me, convincing me she wasn’t like the rest of them when she was? I was used to my dad playing me. I didn’t need it from anyone else.
The cashier handed my change back to me at the drive-through and then the bag of burgers and fries.
“Thanks,” I said and handed a soda and a burger to Hollis.
She took the burger but looked between me and the soda as I pushed it toward her. “That’s for you.
I don’t drink diet soda.”
“Oh.” She seemed she wasn’t sure how to take it. “I have money,” she said.
“It was a whole dollar, Hollis. Not a big deal.”
But it was, to her, I could see it. And I wondered at it. It was just a damn fast food soda. I’d be willing to bet she had enough change in the bottom of her purse to buy a dozen sodas. But still, she fingered the plastic lid, her fingers tracing its circle shape. “Thanks,” she said. “Fountain soda is the best.”
I tucked away that little admission for future use. “Diet soda tastes like chemicals, but whatever you say.”
She laughed and pulled out of the parking lot.
“What’s so funny?”
“That’s funny. The argument that certain foods are disgusting simply because of the chemicals in them.” She nodded at the bag of burgers in my lap. “I’m sure there are dozens of them in there.”
“Those for Casey,” I said defensively. It wasn’t a lie, necessarily, because some were for Casey. But I’d definitely eat my fair share of them before going to bed.
“So the chemicals are okay for Casey, but not you?”
She had me there. Before I could come up with an argument, she continued.
“And how many beers did you have at that party?”
I clenched my jaw. Was she judging me? I would never do what my dad did. “Two light beers. Over the course of three hours and on a full stomach.”
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply you shouldn’t be driving. Your blood alcohol level is definitely in a safe range. What I meant was, did you know that fermentation is a chemical change?”
I relaxed for a moment. “Sorry, not all of us have gone to college.”
“Okay, well I learned that in high school.”
“Sorry,” I said again, “not all of us stayed awake for Mrs. Croft’s chemistry lessons.”
She laughed lightly. “Mrs. Croft. Do you remember when there was that mini explosion in the fume hood in her class?”
“Remember it? Yes, it was one of the few classes I was awake for.”
Her jaw dropped. “You were in that class when it happened?”
One Little Lie: a hate to love rom-com Page 15
