Some Boy (What's Love? #1)

by Jenna Cox

  “Good.” Words. Words. Where the fuck are the words? “Uh, my exam resit is on Monday.”

  “Oh, you didn’t take that already? I thought you had,” my dad said, glancing at my mother. “Clare, you said she had.”

  “I thought she had,” my mum said to him, then turned on me. “You said you had. When I was in the hospital.”

  “I said I’d arranged the resit—that it had been approved. But I only take it on Monday. I definitely said that.” The looks of consternation on my parent’s faces was baffling. I shook my head slightly. “Why does it matter, anyway? It’s not a big deal.”

  My mother was muttering to my father, something about “I thought she said…” I couldn’t hear most of it. And my father had his indignant face on, the one he had whenever he felt like my mum had done something silly and should have known better, and why are you making my life so difficult, Clare? Don’t you know I’m a busy man?

  “What is going on?” I interjected. Too loudly. Several nearby heads swivelled in our direction. It stopped my parents, though. They were both staring at me in wide-eyed shock. And a little bit of suppressed rage on my father’s part. I could see the redness creeping up his neck.

  Just then, the food came, delivered with a flourish, but the waiter quickly noticed the terrifying tension at the table and scurried away without a word.

  And then my parents glanced at each other.

  That was the most worrying thing. They never looked at each other like that, not in public. Not in front of me, in our family meetings. Because I knew that was what this was, now. There was something to Discuss.

  The glance meant they were trying to decide something. That they were unsure of how to proceed. A full on PDA from them at the table would have been less shocking. Never in my life did my parents admit they weren’t sure.

  My mother gave a slight nod. And suddenly she looked tired. Like she’d finally been allowed to drop a heavy bundle, and never wanted to pick it up again. Like I could suddenly see through her heavily made-up facade to the weary woman underneath. My dad remained stoic, but the redness had crept into his ears now. I saw his jaw clench and release a few times. Then they both looked at me.

  I think my heart stopped, and my hand crept over to find Brendan under the table again, any part of him to hold on to. He found my hand with his and linked his fingers through mine. He squeezed.

  And if even Brendan could pick up on the strangeness of my parents’ behaviour without knowing them like I did, then something was up.

  And it was about to be dropped on the table in front of us, in the middle of our cooling soups.

  “Katherine, you know your mother and I love you very much,” my dad began. Do I? I thought. And then my brain went to money. They were bankrupt. I was losing my credit card. Or they’d spent my trust fund. I’d have to drop out of uni.

  Was that why they were asking about my exams?

  All this was whirling in my brain so loudly, that I almost missed what he actually said next.

  “You’re…what?” I stammered.

  “We’re getting a divorce.” My mother repeated my father’s words, but more firmly, definitely. She clearly wanted no room for misunderstanding.

  My first feeling was relief, and I almost laughed. I wanted to tell my parents they should be proud, since my first thought was money. And my second thought, in the face of my parents announcement, was relief that it wasn’t money.

  “You will still be provided for,” my dad was saying. “I will be putting more money in your trust fund, and we have decided to hand that over to you early, for your twentieth birthday. So that you know you are secure.”

  “We didn’t want this to upset you, Katherine. We had thought you would have finished all your exams by now,” my mum said, with a tone that made it clear she considered the matter of the upcoming exam my fault. “But there are things in motion, and we wanted to tell you ourselves, first, before anything else came out.”

  Like they were celebrities or something, and I was going to read about it in the tabloids? I had tightened my grip on Brendan’s hand until it was almost painful. But that was the only solid thing I could focus on. The solidness of his hand in mine.

  I was shaking my head, and then nodding and smiling. Stoic. Unemotional. Taking it all in my stride. Wasn’t that just how they’d always taught me?

  “Thank you for telling me,” I said, graciously. And they accepted it, and smiled, like they were proud of themselves for how they had handled this unpleasant business. And now it was over.

  I saw Brendan turn his head to look at me. I knew what he was thinking. Or I could imagine, because somewhere in my brain, behind the well-trained politeness, I was thinking it, too.

  What the fuck is going on?

  My parents had picked up their spoons, and were beginning to eat. With the business meeting over, they returned to pleasantries. I watched them with detachment, like it was a satirical play, a parody of civilised life. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head as I watched her lifting her spoon. “Spoon to mouth, dear, not mouth to spoon.”

  Nothing had ever looked more absurd to me in my life, than my parents did then, sitting stiff-backed and balancing their spoons all the way to their lips.

  “Good soup?” I asked, watching them. I saw a flicker of surprise in their eyes.

  “Yes, lovely. You should eat, before it gets cold.”

  “Oh, I should eat it should I?” I was nodding slowly. I looked at Brendan, still nodding. “We should eat our soup, Brendan,” I said. Even he was looking at me dubiously. I looked back at my parents. Stared at them.

  Then I picked up my soup bowl. The bowl. Between too hands. I didn’t lower my head but raised the bowl. The whole bowl, right up to my lips. And I drank the soup. I gulped it until it was gone, and then I laid the bowl sedately back on the table.

  “Needed salt,” I said, then I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my cardigan and stood up. The table rocked, clattering the silverware, and my mother’s hands shot out to grip the edge like she was in an earthquake.

  Then I walked out.

  *-*-*

  I went to the bathroom from there, just standing and staring at myself in the mirror until it felt like I was looking at a picture of someone else and not my reflection. That wasn’t me in that mirror, with the neatly pulled back hair, the diamond studs for earrings.

  Even though I’d gone with the maxi-skirt, everything else was for my parents. I pulled the pins out of my hair, the earrings out of my ears, and stripped off the cardigan with the soup smear on the sleeve. The cardigan I balled up and shoved in the bin. The earrings I held in my hand and looked at them. Brilliant clusters of tiny gemstones worth more than everything else I owned put together.

  I had no pocket, so I tucked them into my bra and left the bathroom.

  Brendan was standing outside the door, waiting for me.

  “Sorry,” I said, when I saw him.

  “For what?”

  “For cracking.”

  “That was brilliant. When you picked up your soup bowl, I thought that vein on your dad’s forehead was actually going to pop.”

  “I don’t know why I did that. I just…I just couldn’t bear it anymore. The properness of it all. Agh.” I shuddered and shook my arms out. I glanced back towards the dining room door. “I feel like I should go back in there and apologise. So instead, lets just go. Fuck them.” I started heading towards the lobby doors, but Brendan grabbed my hand.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, and he pulled a small white card out of his pocket.

  “Is that a hotel key? Where did you get that?”

  “Stealing cars is not my only skill,” he said and grinned. And then he was pulling me up the corridor.

  “Where are we going with that?”

  “Just come okay. Don’t you want to do something you’re not supposed to?”

  “Yes,” I said, but everything inside me clenched. And all the way, up the elevator, through the corrido
rs, I kept checking over my shoulder like any minute hotel security was going to put me in handcuffs. Which was ridiculous, both because I hadn’t even done anything but walk through the hotel yet, and because hotel security didn’t carry handcuffs.

  And then we stopped outside the door to the hotel pool. Brendan swiped the card. The door latch thunked, and he pushed it open, ushering me in ahead of him.

  I stumbled inside and looked around. It wasn’t a large pool, just a long rectangle with aquamarine mosaic tiles lining the bottom and the sides, glowing in the underwater lighting. There were no windows in the room, making the indoor pool area feel like some kind of undersea, sparkling grotto. It was kind of magical. But I couldn’t comprehend what we were doing there.

  I heard the door shut behind me and turned to face Brendan.

  He was looking at me expectantly, with a wicked grin. Then passing me, heading towards the pool edge, kicking off his shoes, and tugging his T-shirt over his head.

  “What are you doing?” I said it in a whispered hiss, glancing around us, like surely we were being watched.

  “Going swimming,” he said. “It’s heated,” he added, when I glanced at the water.

  “It’s not the temperature I’m worried about.” Brendan was already down to his underwear. “Are you going to swim in your boxer shorts?”

  “No,” he said, and he was hooking his fingers inside the waistband.

  “Wait!” I said, holding up a hand like a stop signal. Which he obeyed, with a bemused smirk.

  “What?”

  I glanced at the door. “We aren’t the only ones in this hotel. Someone could come in at any minute.”

  “No-one’s coming. Didn’t you see the out of service sign?”

  “No. There was one?”

  “Yes, because I put it there.”

  “Where did you get a sign?”

  Brendan dropped his last remain piece of clothing, and I felt myself blushing.

  “Until the other day, I worked here in maintenance. My job was pretty much putting up signs on things, and for convenience, all the signs are kept in the cupboard right beside the door.” He was still grinning. And stark naked. It was unnervingly persuasive.

  But I still stood with my arms crossed over my stomach, staring at the water dubiously.

  “Come on,” Brendan said. I looked at him, biting my lip. “One way or another, you’re going in.” He was approaching me.

  “No,” I said, holding up my hands in defence.

  “Get in yourself, or I’m dragging you in with me.” He grabbed me around the waist and picked me up, and I squealed.

  “No, no. Alright, alright. Just let me take my clothes off first.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes. Yes, I promise.”

  He kissed me then put me down, but only moved back one step, waiting.

  I slipped my skirt off and stepped out of it, then held it up from the floor while I looked for somewhere to lay it. Brendan just yanked it out of my hands and tossed it over his shoulder.

  I made a strangled noise in my throat as he did, but then stopped myself. I sighed. Then slipped my top over my head. And meeting Brendan’s eyes, I held it up, then flung it. It landed in a crumple on the floor, and I resisted the urge to pick it up and fold it—with difficulty, but I did it.

  Brendan grinned. And then he started moving towards me again, driving me backwards towards the pool edge.

  “And the rest,” he said.

  I couldn’t help glancing towards the door again.

  When I hesitated, he reached around and unhooked my bra. My hands flew up to clutch it to my chest at first, as the straps slid off my shoulders, but Brendan raised his eyebrows. So I dropped my hands away, and my bra fell to the floor between us. My nipples were hard in the cool air.

  I saw Brendan’s gaze flick down over them. Then he crushed me against him, kissing me, and I squealed against his mouth as we tumbled into the pool.

  “I’ve still got my pants on,” I gasped, as I resurfaced, swiping at my hair to get the wet strands out of my face.

  “Take them off, then,” he said, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Bit late now.” But I slipped them off anyway, and chucked the sodden ball of lace to the side of the pool.

  We just looked at each other for a moment. Then I grinned.

  “Okay, so this does feel bloody amazing,” I said, and I spread my arms out and lay back into the silky water. Brendan laughed and ducked under, resurfacing right in front of me.

  His hands slid over my skin, up my sides, and around my back, the sensation of the swirling water as he moved raising goosebumps all over my body. He circled his arms around me and pulled me close. His mouth tasted salty and warm. And even though we were in water, everywhere our skin touched I felt like I was on fire.

  He cupped my backside with broad hands and brought my thighs up to wrap my legs around his waist. I could feel his desire for me hard between us.

  We were bobbing a little in the gentle shifts of the water up to our shoulders, and Brendan moved until my back was against the tiled pool wall, so he could grip the edge and steady us. He kissed me again, deeply, and I grasped his shoulders, manoeuvring my hips until he was throbbing against me between my legs. He drove me harder into the wall as he thrust forward, gripping my hips with one arm, the tiled edge with the other hand for traction. He thrust again, and I cried out as he slid all the way in.

  It was mildly painful, from the frequent sex already, and from the friction of the water. But once he was in, grinding against me in small, gentle movements, the building ecstasy overtook any other sensation. We just rocked together, like a wave, the water swirling around us with every movement. I could taste the pool water on his lips, on his tongue; the mingling sensations of salty and sweet, of fiery lust and cool water, were building to a crescendo in my body.

  Every tiny movement of our hips together sent rippling shockwaves through my body.

  And then he was rocking against me harder, desperately, constrained by the slipperiness and lack of footing in the water. I reached over my shoulders and gripped the pool edge, holding myself in place, while he brought both hands to my hips, digging his fingers in to hold on. “Oh, God,” he moaned against my mouth. “Oh, fuck, Kat,” he said, dropping his head to my shoulder, panting against my skin. He dug his fingers in harder. Jerked his hips harder against me. The water was sloshing around us now, like it was boiling from the heat fizzing under my skin, all through my body. I arched my back and gave a strangled cry as I came, hard, in pulsing waves like the water around us. Brendan thrust once, twice, a last time, and groaned as he fell still, holding himself inside me as the throbbing slowly subsided.

  “Holy fuck, you feel so good,” he murmured against my neck, where he had pressed his face. The lapping water and his lips tickled me, and I smiled, prising my stiff fingers off the edge of the pool to wrap my arms around his neck.

  The water felt cool where our bodies shifted, exposing skin that had been pressed together. I shivered.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Don’t move,” I said, gripping Brendan. I hooked my feet tighter around his hips. I was still panting. “Just…stay for a minute.” The aftershocks were not quite gone, and I didn’t want him to move away yet, to stop being inside me and all around me.

  And he seemed happy to comply, settling back against me, but bringing his face up and brushing his lips against me. His eyes were open, shining and brilliant, if a little glazed still. I smiled in the middle of a kiss.

  “What?” he said, dropping his forehead against mine and watching me. I shook my head, but kept our foreheads touching.

  “Nothing. I’m just glad you made me do this.”

  “Me too,” he grinned.

  “It feels kind of appropriate somehow. I already started stripping off in the bathroom. Then to come here, and really just strip it all away. Completely. And be immersed in water.”

  “I’m glad this was such a spiritual experien
ce for you,” Brendan laughed.

  “Ha. Yeah. Fucking in the pool of my parents’ favourite hotel.” I grinned. And then I gasped, unlinking my arms from around Brendan. My hands flew to my breasts and I cupped them, wide-eyed.

  Brendan had pulled back. “What’s the matter?” But I had already disentangled from him, and was swimming to the side of the pool where we had first entered, leaning over the side and feeling around on the tiled ground where my bra had fallen.

  “My earrings,” I said, searching frantically. “I forgot, I put them in my bra.”

  “You put your earrings in your bra?”

  “I didn’t have a p—it doesn’t matter. Can you just help me find them?”

  He swam up to the edge beside me, and hauled himself out of the water. He squatted on the edge peering and feeling around, too. “They’re little square di—”

  “I’ve seen them,” he said, cutting my description off. And I frowned briefly at his abruptness. But then, under a lounger a little way from the edge, I saw a tiny glint.

  “Under there,” I said, pointing. “Is that something under that chair?”

  He moved over to it and reached under. “It’s one,” he said, holding up the small stud.

  “The other one isn’t there?”

  “I can’t see it anywhere,” he said, still searching the ground. Then he looked over at me, still in the water. “It could have gone in the pool.”

  “Shit.” I looked down at the water around me. A small diamond earring would be near impossible to see. And then I was crying, suddenly. It was unexpected, even to myself. Brendan lay the found earring carefully on a table, and then came over to me, lifting me as I clumsily tried to pull myself from the water. He wrapped a towel and his arms around me and rubbed my back..

  “I’ll find it,” he said.

  I blubbered something about it being impossible. And about how I didn’t even know why I was crying over a stupid earring. I wasn’t sure if Brendan could even understand what I was saying. He was ignoring me, anyway; he just sat me down on the lounger and slipped back into the pool.

  My ridiculous waterworks subsided as I watched him, diving under, emerging for a breath, diving under again, over and over. I picked up the one earring we had found and clutched it to my chest.