It was only Reef who made ‘public Dean’ more palatable. He seemed to be able to keep his friend in check and interject when Dean was getting out of hand or… aggressive.
At first, I thought he was over compensating because he didn’t want anyone to figure out that we were together, especially Reef, but then I realized this version of Dean was the one I was used to seeing in public and the other side of him was mine alone.
Reef seemed to be on the outskirts of the three of us. It wasn’t noticeable when we surfed because one of us was always chasing a wave, but when we were in school or eating dinner at one of the houses, I sensed that Reef was becoming isolated, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.
The best way out of it I could see was to come clean. If Dean and I went public then we’d all know the score, find our place with each other and move forward.
Bringing our relationship out into the open was the only thing Dean and I ever argued about and that didn’t last long. When we were alone, we tended to remember that we lived for the snatched moments and didn’t want to waste them. I spent enough of my life feeling alone and I didn’t want those times that I had something to look forward to to be like that as well.
Charmayne wasn’t giving up either.
She was hanging onto the idea of her and Dean for grim death. I’d seen her behavior with some of the other girls and it wasn’t pretty. For someone so beautiful, she was maladjusted. Reef and Callie were still dating, and according to gossip, that was a big deal. Reef didn’t date for long and usually not the same girl, so at times our awkward gang of three expanded to four.
That was the part I couldn’t settle. Reef seemed to be happy dating, yet Dean believed he would see us being together as betrayal of their friendship. He convinced me that trios of friends could work, but when two of the three become a couple, the third wheel automatically started to distance themselves, and Dean and Reef were too close to chance that happening. Reef was the brother he’d never had, and he wanted to handle our situation with the best of care.
College applications had been sent and the acceptance letters had started to dribble in. I’d had my offer from Hawaii a few days ago and it was still hidden in my nightstand. I didn’t want to ask Dean whether he’d been accepted yet, so I was waiting to see if he mentioned it first. If he got accepted and Reef didn’t, we had a problem. If I got accepted and Dean didn’t, I had an even bigger problem, one I wasn’t ready to face yet.
Too many variables—too many things to think about.
I was tactfully swerving the college conversation with my mom. She’d barely remembered that college applications had gone in, but I still knew that telling her I was going back to the place where her life had fallen apart would hurt her. I prayed she would understand. After all, she had a full life now, but I sensed she’d see it as a betrayal and our already fractured relationship would crumble to nothing. Thank God my dad was willing to pay my tuition. I’d already made some enquiries about working as a lifeguard and teaching surf school at the beach back home to pay for my living expenses.
I was pretty much all sorted; I was just waiting for Dean and Reef to come forward and confirm they were, too.
“Where’s Dean?” I asked Reef, who was sat with Callie and trying not to laugh at the fact that she’d just dumped chocolate milk on the table in front of her.
“Uh… probably with the she-devil.” Thankfully, he was helping her mop up the mess and didn’t notice the dismay I was sure was strewn across my face.
We were sat outside the school on a picnic table, supposedly studying for finals. The end of our time at high school was within reach.
“I’m such a klutz,” Callie bleated.
“Yeah, but a cute one,” he whispered back, and my own chocolate milk curdled in my stomach.
I looked around the buildings, and in the distance I saw Dean walk around the corner of the art block, shortly followed by Charmayne who was pulling her skirt down with one hand and her bra strap up with the other. My eyes blurred. Dean had mentioned that that he was still doing all he had to do to keep Charmayne ‘sane’ but seeing what that entailed was something else entirely. I knew once Charmayne suspected, Reef would suspect, and then the house of cards would come tumbling down.
“I don’t feel well,” I mumbled, my throat thick. “I’m gonna head home.”
Reef’s head spun my way, Callie and her milk mess forgotten instantly. “You okay?”
“Just a sore head. I’m thinking a bit of time on the waves and a snooze might help.”
He looked at me, puzzled, and then began to pack up his tray. “Babe, just gonna make sure she gets home safe. I’ll see you later, okay?”
Callie looked devastated but understood the nature of my friendship with Dean and Reef. That was the thing about Callie; she was a sweet, honest girl, who had the best of intentions and thought the best of everyone around her. “Want me to come? I can do… something?”
She always tried to connect with me because I was one of her guy’s best friends, but it just didn’t feel natural. There was no way I wanted someone else to know that I was living in a shell of a house with my mom only a part time participant in my life. I lived in blissful ignorance that Reef had my back and hadn’t told her.
“No, thank you.” I smiled in an attempt to let her down gently. Callie just wanted to be the best of girlfriends and I wasn’t looking to add another person to my life who I’d end up lying to in the end. “I’ll send him back as soon as he’s done his duty.” I smiled again, feeling so far removed from smiles that it wasn’t even remotely funny.
“Let me tell Dean,” he mumbled, pulling out his cell.
“No! He’s… busy.”
“True. Come on.”
We rode home on the public bus, sat amongst the melee of normality. Reef’s knee touched mine, and every bump and turn reminded me that I was already being touched by his best friend. My secret lover. Even just that normal contact made me feel guilty. Guilty for being with him without Dean. Guilty for being with Reef with this huge secret between us.
I didn’t know how much longer I would cope under the stress of it all.
We were in this fucked up cycle with Charmayne and Reef, and they didn’t even know they were part of it.
Reef insisted on carrying my bag up to the houses. “You serious about a surf?”
“Yes.” I was sure about that—not much else, but definitely that. The water would give me the solace I needed.
“I’ll come with.”
“You don’t have to. Go back to Callie.”
I wanted him to stay, but I needed him to leave. Being alone with him hurt my soul. I was dishonest and he didn’t deserve that. My mom said that if my dad had only slept with someone else once, it could have been a mistake, but to do it again and again, that was intentional.
I should have made Dean tell Reef straight away, after the first time we kissed and definitely after we’d had sex. The longer I kept silent, the more it was intentional, and I was complicit.
“Callie will be fine.”
“I wouldn’t be fine if my boyfriend was more bothered about checking some other girl was fine instead of her.” The words fell from my lips before I could stop them.
He looked at me with a raised brow, surprised by my outburst. I knew this was the most emotion I’d showed him in ages. I’d kept my outbursts, feelings and general emotions on lockdown since me and Dean had got together. I was that afraid that I’d slip up and expose us.
“Firstly, I’m not her boyfriend. We’re—”
“Exclusively dating,” I interrupted.
“Among other things,” he agreed.
“Definitely some other things.”
“But she knows the deal with you, me and Dean. We’re friends. The best of friends and we look after each other.”
His friend speech slashed like a knife.
“Besides, the Morrisons get to keep you safe at night in their spare room. Right now, it’s my turn and I’m tak
ing it.”
The lies piled on and on. I hadn’t been under the Morrison’s roof in a while. Dean had perfected the art of sneaking out and sleeping at mine. At mine, we could pretend we were a blissful couple and do all the naughty stuff we shouldn’t have been doing.
“You want to take care of me while I surf away my bad mood?” My heartbeat jumped when it shouldn’t, but I figured it was because Dean was ‘taking care’ of Charmayne.
“Absolutely,” he confirmed.
“Alright, shore in ten minutes.”
I left him to go and grab my gear, wondering how I’d keep it together once we were alone out on the ocean without Dean to keep the conversation neutral and me from opening my big mouth.
I raced to get out onto the water first. I felt nervous and I knew it was because we’d be alone together, and we weren’t alone often anymore. Dean and I, yes. Reef and I, rarely.
I floated on my board, knowing I’d made the right decision to ditch studying and come here. I watched Reef hustle across the shore, his need to connect with the deep blue sea as desperate as my own. When he was in earshot, I mumbled, “When I was a girl, I wanted to be a mermaid.”
“Good career choice.” He laughed.
I laughed along with him. “I seriously thought it was a career option.”
“You’re virtually one anyway. Think about it—your desperate need to be in the water, the way your heart beats in tune with the rolling waves.”
“Now I just need to master the whole breathing under water thing.”
“And grow a big fin,” he reminded me.
“And find a coconut bikini. That one is doable.”
I looked down at my breasts and considered the possibility. When I looked back up, I noticed he, too, was looking at them. In all the time we’d been in the water, I’d never felt more raw, more vulnerable to Reef than I did then.
This was all wrong.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked seriously. It was a conversational switch I wasn’t prepared for. If I answered, I’d be betraying Dean. If I lied, it was just one more deceptional sin on the growing pile, and if I left to go surf, I’d be admitting there was something going on and Reef would only dig deeper.
“In what way?” I opted for the classic—answer a question with a question.
The smirk on his face told me he knew I was stalling.
“Is it your mom? College? A… boy?” He laughed.
“Alright, Dad, the heavy isn’t helping the mind fuzz.”
He laughed again. He had such a genuine smile. I knew the good in him, and there was a lot of it, would be happy for me if I told him about Dean. “You can tell me anything. I’ve got your back, Mal.”
“I… it’s just, me and—” Before I could finish the sentence, a seagull squawked above us and dumped a load of shit on me. “What the fuck?” I yelled. There was so much of it; it was all over my rash vest, pretty much covering my shoulder and the top of my head.
“Shit!”
I pinned him with a glare as Reef put his hand to his mouth in an effort to cover his hilarity. “Not fucking funny,” I wailed.
“Get in the water and wash it off.” I flopped off my board. “Come here. I’ll help you balance while you take that off.”
I ducked under to get it wet then swam over to Reef. I clung to the edge of his board while working to remove it. “Damn it!”
“Come ‘ere.”
I put two hands to the board and felt him lean over the top of me and reach for the bottom of my vest. His fingers grazed my back as he pulled it up, but I couldn’t concentrate on that because my head was in his lap and I was overwhelmed by our closeness. His scent, a mixture of the salty ocean, and sunscreen. His stomach was so close that I could pop my tongue out and run it along his six pack. My mind reminded me that his dick was… there, just in front of me, and I froze.
Reef, unaware of my battling hormones, carried on as I removed one arm at a time so he could drag the wet top off me. “Stay there and tilt your head back to the water. Don’t know what the fucker was eating, but it looks like you’ve got burger meat matted in your curls.”
I gripped the edge of his board and tilted my head fully back. Water filled my ears so the only sense I had to go on was touch. His touch. Before Dean, I’d lived for this moment. His fingers worked gently through my curls as I closed my eyes to shield them from the glare of the sun. “Oh,” I whimpered, savoring the contact. The word was released before I had the chance to filter it.
Reef took his time as he worked the poop from my hair, and when he was done, I felt a small tinge of devastation that it was over.
“All good.” I pulled my head from the water and folded my arms on the board, leaving my body floating in the water. I felt hot and bothered from all my emotions, all the lies, and staying in the cool water seemed like the sensible option. “You were saying?”
I looked at him, confused. “I was saying what?”
“Don’t know. You were about to tell me something before the bird had a really bad day.”
“Trust me, that bird isn’t the one having the bad day.”
“So, what was it?”
“I… well…” I needed to get it out.
“Hang on. Dean’s waving like mad from the beach. Best go see what he wants. Coming?”
The universe was clearly working hard to keep me from spilling my guts. I looked to where Reef had already started moving and followed. Dean, fully clothed on the shore line, had his arms crossed over his chest, and the closer I got, the more I could see from the look on his face that something was wrong.
“S’up?” Reef asked him, shaking the water from his head as he climbed up the beach out of the surf.
“Nothing,” he spat. “Malia, your mom’s called my house. She wants to talk to you.”
“Really?” I asked. She’d never called for me during the day.
“I best get back to Callie,” Reef muttered. “Hope your head feels better.” He was up and running towards his house as I picked my board up.
Dean waited patiently, but from the look on his face, I was dreading talking to my mom. I walked off and he followed, and when I turned to enter his back yard, he grabbed my arm. “Your mom hasn’t called,” he snapped. “I made that up to get rid of him. Your place now. Looks like we need to talk.”
He shoved me in the direction of my house. “Ow, shit! No need to grip so tight.”
“Really? Looks like I do. Looks like I need to keep a really firm grip on you.”
I stopped in my back yard. “What?”
“That little fucking display out there. Good job I came looking for you. Fuck knows how far it would have gone. Have you forgotten that you’re mine?”
Dean was angry, really angry. It was part of his personality I only saw when other guys came onto me, but that didn’t bother me in that moment because he’d clearly forgotten where he was and who he’d been with a few hours ago.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled.
“Do you see me laughing, Mal? You let him touch you.”
I shook my head in despair. “I let him wipe bird shit off my head. You’re still fucking Charmayne. You have no room to talk.”
Dean pushed me up against the wall. “I am not fucking Charmayne.”
I looked at his face. “Don’t lie to me. I saw you and her today.” His faced changed slightly before he replaced the mask of stoicism.
“I told you. You’re it for me. She’s… struggling.”
“Yeah, well so am I,” I whispered. My emotions were so up and down, threatening to overwhelm my anger, and I needed my anger.
“Baby,” he mumbled, leaning down to kiss me. “I’m worried she might hurt herself, or worse, you.”
“Are you saying she’s unstable?”
“I’m saying she’s unpredictable and until she’s come to terms with it all, I can’t keep you safe and sort out the Reef side.”
I kissed him back. His anger had dissipated, and I felt his fingers f
loat around the neck tie of my bikini top. “I can’t deal with you and her,” I admitted.
“I can’t deal with you and anyone. I’m protective of what’s mine. Everyone wants you, Mal.”
“No, they don’t. Reef doesn’t.”
“Of course he does. Don’t be dense. Another reason why we’ve got to play it carefully.”
I was stunned. Was this the real reason for Dean’s reluctance to come clean?
My lips touched his as his thumbs brushed over my nipples. “I need you to get this. You can’t let him touch you.”
“He was washing shit out of my hair!” I protested again.
“I. Don’t. Care,” he reiterated. “He doesn’t touch you. Clear?” I hated that he was demanding this of me. It felt like I was being controlled. No one controlled me. “I’m saying it for Reef as much as me. Us going public will hurt him enough. Distance will help him come to terms with it, not confuse him.”
When he said it like that, I knew he was right. Our level of deception already bordered on unacceptable and I didn’t need to confuse him anymore. I’d do whatever it took to make this as easy as possible for Dean and Reef.
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Good,” he smiled. “Now, come here and help me forget that someone else had their hands on you.”
Reef
“I think that might be an acceptance letter on the breakfast table.” Mom nodded in the direction of the envelope propped up against the juice carton by my place setting.
“It could be.” I didn’t look at it as I grabbed a bagel from the side.
“Are you going to open it?”
“Yeah, later.”
“Later?” Mom’s bark was one of disbelief. When I walked to the table, she breathed in relief, thinking I was going to get on with it. But when I knocked it to the side, poured a glass of juice from the carton it had been against, gulped it down and ran out of the door, she went nuts. “Reef! Reef Bryant!”
“I’ll do it later.”
School was insane right now. The end was in sight and the pressure was mounting, but like generations before us, that pressure came second place to the party arrangements that were also being made. We had less than a week left at school.
Malia: A Black Sentinels MC Novel Page 6
