by Natasha Boyd
Interesting.
I can’t help seeing if Joey caught their interaction. He’s facing sideways watching the marsh glide by, but I have no doubt he was listening to every word.
If Jack is going to be filming here, he’s going to be around for a while, and that means Joey is going to worry about Keri Ann. I want to tell him to chill out. My girl can take care of herself. I take that moment to catch Keri Ann’s eye and wink. I’m so happy for her.
Honestly, the way Jack keeps looking at her as if she might disappear in a puff of smoke, you can tell the guy is crazy for her. They just need to figure some shit out without Joey getting in their way.
I sigh.
Clearly, Keri Ann was spot on. She needs help with Joey today. I get to be buffer. Yay. Of all the freaking times. I lie back on the white vinyl cushion and soak up the rays. Although when it comes to me and Joseph, is there ever a good time?
Devon, Jack, and Keri Ann are talking about Marsh Tacky horses. I tell them I’ve heard about Marsh Tacky races on the beach on Daufuskie Island.
“That must be a sight to see,” says Joey, joining the conversation. Hallelujah.
“I spoke to a local guy who keeps a few on the island,” says Jack. “So that’s what we’re headed to do today. Race horses on the beach.”
I sit up abruptly. “Oh my God, seriously?” My excitement comes out as a squeal. “That is so freaking cool!”
DAUFUSKIE ISLAND IS only accessible by boat, so it feels like you’re a million miles away from real life when you’re there. It helps that the whole island has such history and legend associated with it, from Indians to pirates to plantations.
The stable owner’s land is right next to the ocean, and in true Lowcountry style, the trees are a sparse mix of snaking live oaks and pin straight pines causing dappled sunlight to filter through to the pine needle carpet at our feet.
I’d lagged behind to make sure I was lathered up with sunscreen, and now I get to hear the tail end of Jack challenging Joseph to a race. I laugh as I realize Joseph’s told the stable boy he’s defending his sister’s honor and the kid’s gone running off to get him a faster horse.
God, Joseph needs to take a freaking chill pill about his sister already. But I have to say, annoyingly, it’s kind of endearing.
Jack looks serious for a moment as he assesses Joey. “If I win,” Jack tells him. “I get to stay on this island tonight with your sister. Alone.”
Beside me Keri Ann practically melts.
“Shit, that was hot,” I say, wishing someone would feel as intensely about me one day as Jack clearly does about my best friend. We follow the guys and the horses out to a marked out section of the beach.
Jack toes off his shoes and then abruptly pulls his shirt over his head, leaving him just in jeans. Oh holy mother.
Joey pulls his shirt off too. For the seventeenth time that day I’m glad I have my sunglasses on. Jack is chiseled and lean. Joey is slightly broader but no less drool worthy. And bigger, stronger, bodies just … do it for me. “Oh my …” I lose capacity to speak.
I fish in my purse for a napkin to wipe my drool or at least get my phone out. This has to be recorded for posterity. Lana Del Rey’s words float through my head.
“Oh that grace,
Oh that body,
Oh that face,
Makes me wanna party …”
The two finest specimens of male I’ve ever laid eyes on sit shirtless and barefoot astride their mounts. I’m so turned on, it’s hard to look. So sue me for being shallow. “I think I just orgasmed,” I whine.
“Shut up, Jazz,” says Keri Ann amused, but her voice tells me she’s equally mesmerized. She’s also going to be cheering for Jack to win so they can stay on the island together tonight. They are basically eye fucking right now already.
I can’t cheer for Jack, that would be weird.
But ugh. I have to cheer for someone. This is too cool and exciting. With a yell, the race starts. And Joey immediately pulls ahead, the wind making his hair wild.
Double fucksticks. I give in. “Go, Joey,” I yell and point my phone straight ahead because, my God, I never want to forget this.
“Are you seriously cheering for me not to get laid tonight?” Keri Ann laughs incredulously. “Go on, Jack!” she screams.
I have no new words. “Seriously, this is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Sometime during the turn and the last half of the race, Joey loses his lead. He almost slides off the horse in the water, and my heart skips a beat. But it’s amazing to see that he doesn’t care. He’s smiling as he races, a look of pure, awed, joy on his face. I’ve never seen Joseph look like that. He always has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Like if he has too much fun, someone might die. Maybe it comes from losing his parents so young and feeling so responsible. But as long as I’ve known him, he’s always carried a crease between his eyes and a burden behind them. Seeing his radiant carefree happiness in this moment, punctures something in my chest. I swallow down an odd panicked feeling and keep screaming for him to win.
AFTER THE BOYS cross the finish line, Keri Ann and I get a turn to ride, and instead of racing, we walk the horses along the beach and into the waves.
The sun is high and hot, and the water feels cool against my feet.
I’m not sure why I do it, but I can’t stop looking up to see where Joey is, and each time I do he looks away as if I’ve caught him staring. And if he’s not looking at me, he’s watching his sister and Jack. It’s starting to wig me out.
After deciding to ride the boat over to the sandbar and go swimming, I stay close to Devon in an effort to avoid the awkwardness with Joey. I ask so many questions about the movie industry, I think Devon’s starting to think I might hit him up for a job.
When we reach the sandbar, a stretch of sandy ocean floor that appears only at low tide, we drop anchor. On the weekends and during the summer, we’d be lucky to find a spot. But during the week in May, we have the place to ourselves.
“Who’s going in first?” Jack asks.
“No way,” says Keri Ann. “I’ll wait ‘til the boat drifts closer then I’ll wade in.”
I chuckle. “Pussy,” I tell her.
“Like you’re going to jump in,” Joey says, a challenge in his eyes. I walk over to the controls and look at the depth finder, making sure there are no submerged oyster beds lying in wait, and then I climb up to the roof of the boat.
“You’re crazy,” calls Keri Ann.
“Probably,” I reply. In the bright sunshine and without my shades, the white roof of the yacht is bright and blinding and really high. I gingerly stand, keeping my legs bent for balance. Grabbing the bottom of my skirt, I pull my dress up and off, tossing it down to Keri Ann. I just hope I don’t lose my bikini when I jump. I loosen my bun, putting my band on my wrist. The cool wind immediately picks up and tosses my hair.
I glance at Joey who’s no longer hiding his blatant staring. My heart thumps heavily. “You wanna jump with me, Joseph?”
A few seconds pass, then I don’t wait any longer for his response. Counting to three in my head, I take a deep breath and scream as I leap off the roof.
I leave my stomach behind, and my breath stops as I hit the cold water. The sea closes over my head and for a moment as my momentum slows, I’m weightless. I haven’t done this in years. I revel in the feeling of the cold water surrounding me, staying as long as I can before my lungs feel it.
The face I see as I close my eyes is blue eyed.
Things have changed.
Why now?
I can sense it. Sense him changing. Opening up.
Now? Now, when I’m not sticking around. I guess now it’s convenient for Joey. He’s home for the summer before residency. I’m a sure thing. He didn’t have a problem walking away before. Why would now be any different? I’ve loved him so many years, I wonder if it’s still real. Or whether it’s just become this thing that I believed so long, it’s separated from me. If I c
ut the cord, will it still exist?
My lungs burn. The water explodes in front of me as a body sluices downward. I kick to the surface. My bikini is still on, I adjust the top and burst through the surface. I kick for the sandbar, not waiting to see who jumped in after me. My feet find sand and I pull myself from the water into the cold breeze and bright sun, the salt thick on my lips.
I trot up the sand and find a spot to collapse and worship the sun, the sand sticking to my body. Keri Ann is on Jack’s shoulders as he wades heavily from waist deep water. She has my towel and my shades.
“Bless you, my love,” I say to her as she drops them down to me.
It wasn’t Joey who jumped in after me, it was Devon. Joey wades ashore with our picnic supplies, and then swims back and around the boat several times with powerful strokes. I guess it’s his workout today.
I help Keri Ann unpack the food. I’m starving.
Joey walks out of the water, rivulets streaming down his body to his faded navy board shorts. He flicks his hair, made darker from being wet, and runs his hands through it, combing the longer hair off his forehead.
I fiddle with the colored thread and jewelry around my ankles, taking a sudden, massive interest in whether the clasp on one of them is coming undone. It’s not.
I look up as Keri Ann thrusts a sandwich under my nose. She lifts an eyebrow at me, flicking a glance at her brother. I scrunch my nose at her and take the sandwich.
After we all eat our fill, we loll about on the sandbar chatting until the tide starts coming back in to shrink our little island. It’s so weird that Jack Eversea, currently one of the most famous actors on the planet can act so down to earth. People always say about celebrities, that they’re just human. It’s so hard to see it that way until you actually see it that way. Jack, Joey, and Devon talk about sports, music, the best burger they’ve ever had, funny stories about being stuck in a hotel room because of a security issue, and one of the film crew blowing the doors off the bathroom, and none of them could get away from the stench. Normal human stuff. Joey grosses us out with stories of cadavers from med school.
On the surface, it’s one of the most relaxing days I’ve had in so long. It’s the undercurrent that seems to be turning into a riptide every time I glance at Joseph that I’m concerned about. There’s a tsunami of energy swirling between us. It’s unresolved feelings about what happened in the kitchen, poured like lighter fuel on the smoldering remains of what happened between us years ago. And those few words he uttered that changed everything. I’ve tried to keep them out of my head since I heard them because they make no sense, but now they are all I can think about.
I never said I didn’t want you.
The boat heads back to Daufuskie Island to drop Jack and Keri Ann off for the night. I give her a tight hug. My friend is on the cusp of throwing her entire soul into this relationship with Jack Eversea. None of our lives will ever be the same no matter what happens. Today seems like a pivotal moment in life for all of us.
As we head back to Butler Cove, Devon claims he has calls to make.
I climb up to the front sun deck, my towel around my shoulders over my dress to keep me warmer in the evening wind. As we head across the Calibogue Sound, I spot fins from a pod of dolphins, and it makes me smile. I sense someone behind me, and then the smell of Joey envelopes me as he folds a sweatshirt around my body. I close my eyes behind my sunglasses and breathe in slowly. I feel him settling down beside me.
When I open my eyes, he’s next to me, his knees bent, arms leaning on them and staring out at the horizon. The low sun makes his skin glow. He’s so beautiful. Painful and beautiful. I swallow the lump in my throat. My photographer’s brain captures the image, the straight nose and forehead. The curve of his Adam’s apple. The wind whispers through his hair. He looks for a moment as if he’s lived lifetimes since he was born. And I suppose in a way he has. How does that song go? How a face can change when a heart knows pain? Or is it fear?
“You’re staring.” He turns to look at me. His eyes have something in them I can’t decipher. I hold his gaze, not knowing how to respond, but not looking away.
He reaches up and hooks his finger on my sunglasses, gently pulling them off. My instinct is to retreat, pull them back, look away or crack a joke. I do nothing, and he looks into my eyes. I feel suddenly naked.
Only milliseconds pass, but I can feel myself tensing incrementally, drawing up my armor, locking and sliding each piece into place.
“Don’t,” he says.
“Don’t what?”
“Back away.”
I roll my eyes, breaking his gaze. “I’m not moving.” I push my sunglasses back to my eyes, and he lets me. It disappoints me on some level.
He’s looking at me like I’m lying to myself, and I try to mentally shrug it off and glance back out to the metallic colors of the water before us as the sun sinks lower.
He lets out a long breath next to me. A sigh maybe, but it’s caught in the wind.
“You seem to be liking Eversea more,” I say to make conversation. Albeit a prickly subject.
“I’m worried he’s going to crush her.”
“I know. Me too.”
“Really?” he asks sarcastically. “You seem to be cheering them on.”
“I want her happy, you idiot. Of course, I’m cheering them on. He makes her happy.”
“All I’ve seen is him making her miserable.”
“Then you’re not looking close enough.”
He shrugs. “Didn’t he come to Butler Cove in the first place because the tabloids were ripping him apart? Now he’s going to have my sister as collateral damage the next time they decide to go after him. And worse than that, they could go after her. The whole thing is just a fucking disaster waiting to happen.”
“What did he say to you on the beach after the race?”
Joey squints out into the sunlit horizon. “He said, he knew I didn’t like him, but that he was completely in love with her, and that he’d … he’d rather rip his own heart out of his chest than ever let anything hurt her. That he’d protect her from his life the best he could. And he promised me he wouldn’t interfere with her plans for college and what she wants to do with her life … whatever she decides that is.” Joey rakes a hand through his salt and windblown hair. “He said he’d give up his dreams before he let her give up on hers.”
I’m silent.
Absorbing.
Wow.
“So.” He clears his throat. “So, your mom must be proud of you. Congrats on finishing in three years.”
Subject change. I tell myself I’m grateful. “Thanks,” I say. “You know it’s not that hard. I’m not quite sure why they make college four years anyway. You know in Europe, actually pretty much everywhere, it’s only three years.”
“Well, obviously they have to have built in goof off time for us Americans.” He chuckles.
“True. Send people off to college to live without rules before they are even allowed an alcoholic drink, and watch them implode from the freedom. It’s like the country’s largest social experiment.”
He nods. “Highest rate of alcoholism is in college age kids.”
“Is that so, Doctor Butler?” My tone is flirtatious before I even realize what I’ve done. Oh shit, and I’m mentally back in the kitchen.
He looks at me sharply. I guess his mind went there too.
I grunt. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Between your legs is hardly the gutter.”
Oh fuck. Oh fuckity fuck. My stomach freefalls off the side of the boat.
I have nothing to say. Like, nothing.
“Do you know something?” Joseph asks.
No. I know nothing. “What?” My tone wavers.
When he doesn’t answer, I look up to meet his eyes. We’re disconnected because of my sunglasses. For some reason, I pull them off and watch as surprise registers, and his eyes flicker. Jesus, the color of them is something else. Bluer than the ocean aro
und us. A tiny speck of brown like a beauty spot below the pupil in his left eye. It fascinates me. That tiny mark of imperfection.
“What?” I ask again.
“You haven’t looked me in the eye for three years.” His voice is full of grit.
He’s right. I haven’t. Apart from in the kitchen the other night. It’s been a childish attempt to avoid the pain of it. Looking into his eyes hurts.
It’s hurting me right this minute. But I keep doing it, like holding my hand to a hot stove.
His gaze pulls from mine and wanders over my face as if he hasn’t seen me for a while. He takes a piece of my hair and wraps it around his finger.
My heart has clawed its way up my chest into my throat. Obviously I lost my stomach several nautical miles ago. Gone are all my witty jabs I can usually pull out at his expense. I hardly register we’ve entered the mouth of the estuary that is Broad Creek.
It’s only when we pass the spot where my father’s boat used to be that I become aware of my surroundings. Joseph is aware too I think because he looks around at some of the other boats anchored here and there.
And as if we’ve fallen into some vortex or portal that occurs only on this piece of water, he drops his hand to mine on the white vinyl cushion and slides his fingers between my fingers. It’s both erotic and shocking.
He looks up at me. “Spend the night with me tonight.”
“STOP THINKING,” JOEY says as we pull up outside the grocery store in my car.
He shocked me on the boat when he asked me to spend the night with him. I keep reminding myself that we are two consenting adults. It doesn’t mean anything that he asked, or that I said yes.
Ever practical, we also need to eat dinner.
I have zero appetite, it’s been taken over by a bundle of nerves. But Joseph, being a guy, has to eat before having sex apparently.
“God knows I’ve had to.”
“Stop thinking?” I’m finding it hard to even stay focused on the conversation because I can’t stop thinking.
Sex.
Joseph.
Spending the night.
