The smile on his face spells out his thoughts in block letters: he’s grateful to not have to talk to the loner girl next door for any longer than is required to be polite. I don’t mind so much. I’d rather keep to myself.
When I return to the house, I notice the smell of stale smoke is nearly gone and has been replaced with the scent of pine cleaner and my spectacularly underwhelming lasagna. I remove the dish from the microwave and head up the stairs to my mother’s room to look in on her. Her body is nothing more than a lump under the covers that she has pulled over her head to block out the rays of the sun. Spinning on my heel, I head back down the stairs, hoping the minute-long detour has cooled the lasagna enough to eat by the time I get to my room.
This space hasn’t changed since I was small. It wasn’t until five years or so ago that I moved up from a single bed to a double, but other than that, everything is identical, down to the pencil marks on the door frame charting my growth. Those were back in the days when my mother sometimes still acted like one. Sure, she’d let me stay out too late and feed me canned SpaghettiOs for dinner, but she’d also take the time to put my hair in ribbons and comment on how remarkable my height was. She’d tell me how gorgeous I was, and that with legs like mine, I was destined for greatness.
Things didn’t exactly work out that way. I wasn’t even sure if I came close.
I’d love to think my room is unchanged because my mother is sentimental and keeps it as a shrine—a tribute to her only daughter, untouched and undisturbed. I’d be kidding myself, though. In truth, my mom hadn’t spent enough of her lifetime sober to care that I outgrew the cotton-candy-pink walls about ten years ago.
The lasagna is overcooked and bland. The soggy noodles require some real effort to finish, but when I’m done, as a reward, I allow myself to remove a cardboard roll from my backpack that contains something I treasure. I twist the end of the tube open before tipping it over. The contents spill out on the bed and my adrenaline spikes at the prospect of something, anything, being comfortable and familiar, even if it is just a bunch of maps. I go to work setting them all up until not even a speck of the pink shows through.
Maps both old and new cover the walls. There are a few of the entire world and smaller ones of North America, Europe, and Asia. I insert pushpins into Boulder, Stonefall, and Mexico because I’ve been to all of these places. I stop, wondering what it would be like to eat seafood in Japan or walk through the streets of New York while devouring a hot dog from a street vendor. One day my world will be so much more than a sad display of pushpins on a map.
I feel disgusting after scrubbing this place clean, so I take a shower and blow-dry my hair. When Marley shows up at precisely seven o’clock, I’m wearing a tank top with a hooded sweater, jeans, and my favorite sandals, all accessorized with a fake smile.
THREE
Tristan
I can’t decide if watching Mateo eat a pizza is disgusting or fascinating. Maybe it’s both. He’s ordered a meatlovers, and the thing is piled high with dead animal flesh that I’m not even sure he’s tasting because he’s inhaling it like a vacuum cleaner.
Luigi’s is packed. All the younger residents of Stonefall have arrived in droves to load themselves with carbs that they can divest later. I sip on my cola and find my eyes darting around the room in search of the sad girl who runs. Part of me hopes to see her until the more sensible part—the one that sometimes thinks—reminds me that a girl like her is the very last thing I need.
Instead of finding Emma, I find Jenny Jenkins. She’s walking to our table, swinging her hips as if she’s donned an invisible hula hoop. She’s wearing a white romper, strapless with no bra, and she looks fucking incredible.
“Looking for me, hot stuff?” she asks.
I smile. “Always.”
She straddles me and grinds against my jeans. When my body reacts the only way it knows how, she bites her bottom lip and smiles seductively. “Ooh, Tristan. Is that for me?”
Could be. Jenny grew up here. She’s a great girl, and the two of us have a very simple understanding to help each other out. No strings attached. Neither of us is in a committed relationship, we’re both grown-ups, and we know each other well enough that nothing is forced or weird. She’s wild in bed. Even so, I know she’s not going to gift me with something nasty. She’s clean but likes to have a little fun, and that makes her just about perfect.
I run my hands up her thighs and trace my thumbs along the inside of her legs. She lets out a tiny moan. “Maybe later,” I tell her. “If you’re good.”
Jenny grabs my bottom lip in hers, bites, and whispers something about wanting to be bad. She stands and says, “Find me after the party.”
“I will.”
As she walks away with the same swagger in her hips, Mateo has stopped eating long enough to glare at me.
I smirk. “What?”
“You don’t even have to try for it.”
“You wouldn’t either,” I point out, “if you wanted anyone other than Marley. You need to open up your options. You’re perpetually wanting what you can’t have.”
He shoves the last of his pizza in his mouth. “Whatever.”
“It’s true. You aren’t lacking in choices. You’re limiting yourself being hung up on some chick.”
Mateo crumples up his napkin and tosses it on his now empty plate. “She’s not—”
“Some chick,” I finish for him. “I know. Sorry. You’re limiting your options being hung up on Marley Scott and her surreal beauty.”
“Better,” he says.
“Are you done?”
“Even if I wasn’t, pretty sure I just lost my appetite.”
I stick my bottom lip out in a pout. “Aww, muffin.”
Twenty minutes later we’re at the beach and I’m already wishing I could go home. The whole party scene isn’t for me anymore, but Mateo hasn’t come to the same conclusion, so I find myself attending these parties far more than I want to.
I people-watch as carloads of attendees arrive. When some girl I’ve never seen before slips her phone number in my hand, Mateo chugs his beer back. “Is there anything you don’t service?”
I shake my head. “Nope. I think I got everything covered.”
He’s about to reply to me when Paige Kramer approaches. Paige has wanted Mateo for about as long as Mateo has wanted Marley, so basically forever. The problem is, Mat has tunnel vision where Marley is concerned.
Paige plants her feet in front of his, her finger twirling around her red locks. “Hey, sexy.”
Mateo waits a second before responding. “If it isn’t the ravishing beauty, Paige. How’s it going?”
She extends her pointer finger like it’s a weapon and runs it from Mateo’s chest all the way down past his gut. “I’ll be better if you take that shirt off and come and do some body shots.” She pulls the side of her shirt down, revealing a toned, tanned, perfectly curved shoulder. “I’ll let you go first,” she says.
What happens next is how I know Mateo’s feelings for Marley are very, very real. He hesitates. He actually fucking hesitates until I elbow him in the ribs, shocking him into speaking. “Uh, can I take a rain check, sweetheart?”
Okay, so maybe Mateo’s feelings have morphed into certifiable insanity. I make a conscious effort not to gape, to sip my beer and shut my mouth. Paige pouts and walks away, and I’m about to give him hell when Marley’s black Mustang rumbles into the parking lot.
Mateo grabs the railing of the boardwalk like it’s the only thing keeping him standing. “Fuck. There she is.”
“Relax, man—isn’t she the reason we came? ’Cause the stars are aligned and crap like that?”
“Yeah, but look at her,” he says. “She’s beautiful.”
I’ll give Mateo that, Marley is beautiful, but as they get out of the car, my gaze belongs to Emma. She walks a good five feet or so behind Marley like
she’s content to stay in the shadows, her lips drawn in a straight line.
Her hair is dry now and curled on the ends, hanging loosely almost to her waist. She’s got on tight jeans that hug every single curve on her body. Even covered, her legs once again go on forever because she’s got them planted in that same impressive pair of sandals she wore earlier. I think she’s wearing a sleeveless shirt, but it’s hard to tell because she has a sweater on. It’s my favorite part of her whole ensemble because there are two bright green skeletal hands silkscreened on the front. One for each of her breasts, which are full and a lot less hard than they were last time I saw them.
“There’s trouble,” Mateo says.
He has no idea.
Emma
The speed with which Marley can move in wedge heels stretches far beyond admirable. It’s downright inspiring. I can walk in them, but Marley could run a five-mile race. The way her legs move her hips side to side, she’s turning heads the second we step out of the car. Tristan and Mateo stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the top of the boardwalk. Tristan looks past Marley to me. No doubt he’s wondering why he was forced into helping a charity case and how I’m going to pay for my car, while Mateo is looking at Marley like she’s the only thing keeping his feet anchored to the ground. My thoughts wander to what it would feel like to have someone look at me like that—as if I were the only person on earth who matters.
“Mar?”
She puts the brakes on her rapid pace and strolls more leisurely beside me. “Yeah?”
“Have you ever dated Mateo?”
“Cruz?”
“You know any other Mateos?” I ask. “Of course I mean Cruz.”
“No, that’s ridiculous.” Marley gives a nervous laugh.
“Why is it ridiculous? I think he’s cute.”
Marley’s eyes hone in on Mateo like a missile securing its target and the left side of her mouth inches upward. “Cute? No. Sweet, hot, gorgeous, steamy, sexy, and exotic. Yes. He is all of those things.”
Her confession stuns me. I nudge her shoulder while we walk. “What’s stopping you, then? The two of you would be perfect together. You could fall in love, get married, and have beautiful little M-and-M babies.”
“M-and-M?”
“Marley-and-Mateo babies.”
“I’d be a horrible mother,” she says. “And jeez, it’s Mateo.” She says this like it is a satisfactory answer. A reasonable explanation as to why she has never put the moves on him.
“Wrong answer, blondie,” I say. “He’s hot and seems super nice.”
She nods. “He is.”
“I repeat my original question: what’s stopping you?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure he loves boxing more than the idea of a girlfriend, which is maybe why he’s so hot. He didn’t get those abs without a lot of work.” Marley’s tongue, consciously or not, slides along her bottom lip as her head tilts almost imperceptibly to the left. “He doesn’t want me.”
“You’re blind.”
“And you’re crazy.” She moves to dismiss my suggestion with a flick of her wrist, but not before stating, “But I guess you would know with the way you’re looking at Tristan.”
“I’m not looking at Tristan any particular way.”
Marley huffs. “Okay, so do you do that to everyone with your eyes, then?”
“Do what?”
“Oh my God, really? You’re practically screwing him with your eyes.”
I give her a horrified look and she smiles.
“Oh relax, we’ve all done it at one point or another. Tristan is a lot of things—obnoxiously confident, brooding, and mysterious, maybe even a little screwed up—but above all of that he is so sexy it should be illegal. The two of them are like a double hazard or something.”
Tristan straightens and squares his shoulders. I freeze until I realize there is no way he could have possibly heard us. He leans closer to Mateo, who is speaking animatedly.
I reel my gaze back like he’s a fish on the end of my hook, and suddenly my desire to flee the situation intensifies. Who am I kidding, really? Tristan may as well possess a button on his hand that he can push to bend the will of women everywhere. One look from those baby blues and any girl will be in danger of surrendering her panties. Tristan Banks, panty pirate extraordinaire. This is something I cannot forget. I won’t allow it.
As we get closer, I urge Marley on like a regular cheerleader. “Go on,” I tell her. “See if you can get Mateo alone for a few minutes.”
Her cheeks flush and she looks at me. “I won’t leave you alone at the party. Girls over bros, right?”
“I’m fine,” I assure her. “Look, you make historically bad decisions when it comes to men. I can’t believe it takes me coming back to this godforsaken town to state the entirely fucking obvious for you to realize how into you he is.”
She smooths her skirt with her hands and shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
“We could just ask him,” I offer.
She glares at me. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I won’t. But talk to him.”
Her eyes narrow. “Is this your way of getting rid of me so you can make the moves on Tristan?”
“No. I was going to look for Logan Spade,” I lie. I hadn’t really thought about the consequences of my gentle nudging, most notably being alone with Tristan. I backpedal. “Well, you can talk to Mateo another time. Maybe ask him for coffee?”
But it’s too late. Marley senses what I’m trying to do and maybe as payback for my failure to return for the past few summers, she’s not going to allow it. She loops her arm through mine. “You know something, Mateo is ridiculously good looking and I think you’re right. I mean, I’ll never know unless I try, right?” She practically skips to the boardwalk. Tristan is leaning against the railing as if he doesn’t have a care in the world, and Mateo’s eyes are glued to Marley.
She heads straight for him without releasing my arm from her grasp, stands on the tips of her toes, and plants a kiss square on his lips.
All the color washes from his face and I’m pretty sure he’s going to hyperventilate. His eyes are wide and his pupils dilate so much that the amber color of his irises is hardly visible. “What was that for?”
“You,” she says.
“Why?”
“Do I need a reason?”
Mateo shakes his head. “No.”
“Then what does it matter?” she says casually. “Where’s the party at?”
Tristan nods to an area farther down the beach illuminated by citronella lanterns. “They’re doin’ body shots over there,” he says. “Tequila.”
The idea of any male touching me, let alone licking salt off my body, is repulsive. I tug at the edge of my sweater that already covers my shoulders because I feel vulnerable.
Marley scans Mateo’s body in appreciation before turning to me and offering a hopeful smile. “What do you say, Em? You want to do body shots?”
Tristan speaks before I have a chance to reply. “She’s obviously a beer girl, Scott. Aren’t you supposed to be her best friend?”
Marley glares at him. “I am.”
“Then you should know,” he continues, “a girl like that will choose an ice-cold beer over hard liquor any day.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “What makes you so sure?”
I perk up, because I’m wondering the same thing.
“Her sweater,” he says simply.
“Her sweater?”
“How do you figure?” I ask Tristan, more curious than ever to hear how he came up with this.
“Among other things,” he says, “you’ve got a pair of skeletal zombie hands on your boobs. That, combined with picking you up soaking wet and without a drop of makeup, makes me believe you aren’t too concerned with appearances, which means you probably are
n’t very high maintenance, which means that a decent beer would probably be enough to keep a girl like you happy. No offense, Marley,” he adds.
His quick generalization about a girl like me may be unfair, but it’s also true.
Marley’s gaze dances to my face for confirmation. “Tristan is right,” I say. “I don’t really like tequila. But you two go ahead.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure,” I reply unconvincingly. “’Course.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Tristan says.
Mischief gleams in Marley’s eyes as Mateo offers his arm gallantly and smiles. She loops her arm through his and as they take off, my heart skips a nervous beat. Alone with Tristan.
I wrap my arms around my belly protectively; Marley’s absence leaves me exposed. “Have you been here long?”
He reaches over the wooden railing that hedges the boardwalk, glass clinking as he gets a beer and hands it to me before swigging his own and winking. “No. Just came for Mateo, to be honest.”
I take the beer from him and sidestep, hoping to put some distance between us.
“Do I make you nervous, Emma Fletcher?”
“No,” I lie. “I’m not nervous at all.”
Tristan
Yeah, sure she’s not nervous. That’s about as true as saying Mateo is not obsessed with Marley. Lies. She’s been shifting her weight from foot to foot, rubbing her thumb up and down her beer bottle, and repeatedly running her hand through her hair since Marley and Mat took off.
I could flirt with her, but the melancholy vibe she emits stops me. She’s like a giant contradiction: stunning to look at, a real prick tease until her energy—the sadness she carries— breaks into the atmosphere. It’s like she cock-blocks me with her mood.
I decide there is only one way around this and unfortunately for me, it doesn’t involve her ending up horizontal in my bed. I’ll get over it, no doubt, because for now she’ll have to be that friend-zone girl who is super fucking gorgeous but untouchable, like a painting in a museum. I’m not in the market for a girlfriend, not by a long shot, but holy hell, I can appreciate what this girl has to offer. So when she suddenly hauls ass to the lifeguard tower, I hesitate for only a moment to grab the case of beer and then watch her hips sway before I follow. Maybe not something a friend should do, but I can’t help it.
The Enchantment of Emma Fletcher Page 3
