by Amber Rides
“She was laughing at the beginning,” one of them lied.
“It just got carried away.”
I jerked my head up at the blatant falsehoods. My vision was still blurry with tears, but I could see Delia and Ennia nodding to each other.
“She’s practically a mute,” Bex told him. “She couldn’t answer you even if she wanted to.”
“Let me get this straight,” my rescuer said slowly. “She’s a mute, but she was laughing as you tried to drown her.”
“Exactly,” the brunette said.
“You’re so stupid, Delia,” Kirby muttered, then spoke to the man again. “Bex said practically mute. Not totally mute.”
He inhaled. “Any chance any of that bullshit is true?”
It took me several seconds to realize his rumbling voice was directed at me.
I wanted to shout out that no, it sure as heck wasn’t true. But now that I felt a little safer, a little less like death was an imminent inevitably, my usual instincts for emotional guardedness had kicked back in.
Almost imperceptibly, I nodded. Once.
He felt it. I knew because the only part of him I could see – his jaw – clenched.
Let it go, I prayed silently. Please.
And he did. Almost.
“Well, girls. It’s clear to me that it’s not funny anymore,” he stated in a measured voice.
“Not to her,” Kirby replied under her breath, and the other three giggled.
“Hey, Kirby?”
“What?” she snapped.
“You still fucking that married man?”
The giggles cut off abruptly.
“Oh. My. God. Who is it?” Bex demanded. “I knew you weren’t alone the other night!”
Kirby flashed my savior a furious glare, but Ennia had already grabbed her hand, begging for details and calling her scandalous in a delighted voice.
I let out a relieved breath and the man’s arms tightened around me again, this time in a reassuring squeeze. I knew he’d redirected them on purpose. If I’d been the gushing type, I would’ve been all over him with gratitude. As it was, all I could do was sink back into his chest gratefully and enjoy a blissful, attention-free moment.
“Are you really almost mute?” He asked the question right into my ear, sending a warm breath across the sensitive skin there.
I shot a surreptitious peek in the direction of Kirby and her unpleasant entourage. They were too wrapped up in their own salacious gossip to be looking our way. At least for the moment.
Very slowly, and without taking my eyes off the foursome, I shook my head. I knew he would feel the movement against his chest.
“Listen,” he said quietly. “I can tell you’re scared out of your fucking mind. So I’m going to get rid of these four bitches on your behalf. But when they’re gone, you’re going to tell me exactly what happened. Understood?”
I didn’t bother to answer him. I knew he wasn’t really giving me a choice. Because even though he finished with a question, his tone told me it wasn’t really a request at all. It was an order. With an expectation of absolute obedience.
If I was a different sort of girl, I might’ve been offended. I might’ve argued.
But if I was a different sort of girl, I also wouldn’t be stuck in a situation where four complete strangers felt it was acceptable to torment me in the first place.
“Delia? Ennia?”
All four girls turned our way and I couldn’t quite suppress a cringe. They didn’t notice. Or they didn’t care because they couldn’t get to me.
“Yes?” the blonde and the brunette replied in unison.
“I saw your dad up on the promenade. He looked pissed.”
“Shit,” one of them said. “How long ago?”
My defender shrugged. “Two hours?”
“Damn it! We’d better find him.”
There was a pause, and for a second I thought they weren’t going to go anywhere after all. Or that the other two were going to stick around.
Then Bex sighed. “Fine. If your dad’s looking for you, he probably called mine and now he’s probably looking for me too. Kirby?”
I didn’t have to look up to feel the heat of the redhead’s gaze. It seared into me.
“Fine. Yes. I’ll come. But I’m sure we’ll be running into this little peach again soon.” If the threat in her voice wasn’t obvious with the first statement, she made it totally clear in her follow-up. “Maybe not when her hero’s around though, right girls? I heard now that he’s back, he has to work all summer.”
“Fuck off, Kirby,” he snarled.
“Just about to,” she replied sweetly.
I clung to the strange man until their giggles faded away and he announced, “They’re gone.”
I thought – though I wasn’t entirely sure where the feeling came from – that his words had a deceptively gentle ring to them. Maybe it was just because they contrasted too sharply with his earlier command. Or maybe his strong physical presence made such a soft tone seem unnatural.
Or maybe it’s because it’s just been so long since someone was nice to you.
I shook off the last conclusion simply because I didn’t like the way it filled me with self-loathing.
“Do you think you can stand?” he wanted to know.
“Yes,” I replied, not quite above a whisper.
Admittedly, the sound of my own voice startled me a little. It seemed like it had been quite a while since I used it.
But it really hadn’t been. Had it? Surely, I’d spoken to someone in the last few days.
Groceries! I thought triumphantly.
Yes. I’d bought some things this morning when I arrived at the beach house and I definitely, definitely spoke to the cashier.
Thank god.
“Hey?”
Whoops. I was still in his arms.
“Yes,” I repeated, this time a little more firmly. “I can stand.”
His hold on me loosened and I slid down. I was slightly less steady than I would’ve liked, but I still managed to hold myself up. I looked down at my feet, grateful that they’d found hold in the sand.
“Are you all right?” he asked, the deep timber of his voice tinged with concern.
I dragged my gaze up from the sand, preparing myself mentally to meet his eyes – an unusual and stressful task for me at the best of times – so I could answer him and thank him properly. But my eyes slowed on their own as they made their way up his body.
The man’s feet were bare, and striped with a tan that gave away his preference for flip-flops. His calves were well-defined and muscular, and dotted with just the right amount of hair to make them ooze masculinity. Knee-length board shorts covered his thighs. But the shorts were damp, and his quads strained against the fabric.
I tried to force my stare up more quickly, but it only got as far as his stomach before it resumed its unhurried pace.
His abs were the kind which graced the covers of fitness magazines; they were lean and toned and they made my pulse jump unexpectedly.
His hands rested just below his waist, pushing down the band on the top of his shorts and exposing the rigid line of his hip bone.
Sexy.
Never before had I understood the meaning of the word so completely.
A slow, creeping heat carried up my own body as I examined his.
The balls of my feet tingled. Goosebumps rose on my legs, clashing distinctly with the warmth between them.
Oh! The little gasp in my mind very nearly escaped from my mouth too.
The man lifted one of his hands off his hip, and my eyes followed it up as it found its way to his mess of sandy-blonde hair. I watched it give his locks a yank, then finally, I turned my attention to his face.
And I froze.
He wasn’t a stranger at all.
His chiseled jaw. His amber-flecked eyes. His curved lips.
I’d seen them before. Yearbook photos. Halls of fame. I knew him because everybody knew him.
; Theodore Kimball Marcus.
The guy who saved me was Teekay M., the playboy, swim-star drop-out who once owned the keys to the kingdom that was my high school.
And my knees threatened to give way once more.
2)
“Whoa, whoa!” He grabbed my arm and held me up as he made the exclamation.
His hand seared an invisible imprint into my skin and I started to shake.
“I have to go,” I gasped.
“Go where?”
“Home.”
“You live close?”
I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again as I realized there was no recognition on Teekay’s face. None whatsoever.
Of course he doesn’t know you, I chastised myself. The guy whom everyone knows doesn’t need to know everyone in return.
And really, why would he? We’d had no overlap at the school. I’d transferred to Collingwood High the year after he’d left. I’d still been wrapped up in my father’s death and by the time I caught up to who Teekay was, he was more like a legend than a real person. Because that’s the way high school is. Bright or dark, it burns out quickly.
And, I reminded myself, as bright as Teekay was – as dark as I was – that part of our lives was over.
He seemed very real now, though.
I let out a little breath. “Yes. No. For now, yes.”
A little smile touched one corner of his mouth. “Are you being deliberately evasive? Or are you going for sexy and mysterious?”
My cheeks warmed up. “Neither.”
“You sure about that, darlin’?”
There was that endearment again, spoken in the slightest bit of a deliberate drawl. It made the heat spread from my cheeks to the rest of my face and I stumbled over my reply.
“No. Yes, I mean. I should go. Really.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…going anywhere alone seems like a bad choice. And while I’m all for bad choices in my own life, when it comes to pretty girls like you…” He raised an eyebrow.
My eyes widened. And this time, my silence was pure speechlessness.
He was flirting with me.
I was almost sure of it.
And for the life of me, I had no idea why.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“M-m-maggie,” I stammered.
“Hi, Maggie. I’m Teekay.”
I bit down on my lip to keep from saying that I already knew. He wasn’t done speaking anyway.
“Let me ask you something, Maggie. Did you do something to upset Kirby and the rest of the fuck-wad foursome?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“No,” Teekay repeated. “Now let me tell you something, Maggie. It’s not going to take long for Delia and Ennia to figure out that I lied to them and that their dad has no interest in where they are or what they’re up to. They’re going to be mad and they’re not going to be able to take it out on me. Who do you think they’re going to look for?”
He was right. They’d seek me out. It wouldn’t be the first time I was ambushed by a group of girls looking for someone to hurt. But a small, defiant part of me – a part I wasn’t even sure existed until that moment – wanted to argue with him.
Teekay seemed to sense my intentions. His eyes glittered dangerously.
“Are you going to say no to me, Maggie?” He’d dropped his voice low and he took a step closer.
Was I? I didn’t know for sure.
Teekay took one more step. He was close enough to touch. To touch me. All he had to do was lift a hand.
My blood rushed through me and settled in inconvenient places.
I swayed light-headedly.
He didn’t react. Or he didn’t notice.
“Do it, Maggie. Please. Because quite honestly, I could go for a bit of fight. Those girls pissed me right the fuck off. If they were men, I would’ve beaten each of them to a bloody pulp.” He paused, then repeated, “Do it, Maggie. Say no to me. I fucking dare you. It’ll give me an excuse to throw your ass over my shoulder and drag you forcibly back to the only place I know for sure is safe – my house.”
“You wouldn’t,” I gasped in shock.
Teekay raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t I? I saved you and you haven’t thanked me. You promised me an explanation and you haven’t given me one. I’m a man accustomed to getting what he wants. By any means necessary.”
His words were violent. Furious and cruel and probably bordering on sociopathic. They immobilized me and they should have horrified me. But my skin was on fire, burning white hot from head to toe. An odd, burgeoning promise of something unfamiliar filled me instead.
Because it was for me.
He was that angry, that protective, because someone – some people – had tried to hurt me.
I should’ve been ashamed by my reaction.
But one word echoed through my mind for the second time in just a few minutes.
Sexy.
And this time my definition was less concrete. It snuck up on me the way the subjects of my drawings did.
“Well?” Teekay prodded. “Are you going to join me willingly?”
I was back to not trusting my voice. So I just nodded my assent.
“Too bad,” he replied with a not-quite-dark smile. “I think I would’ve enjoyed having you at my mercy. Who knows? Maybe we would both have liked it.”
I watched him as he bent down to retrieve each of my belongings from the beach. He grabbed them all – even my big straw hat – and tucked them into my oversized beach bag. His back muscles flexed with the small, pointed movements. When he finally placed my sandals right in front of my feet, stood up, and winked at me, I still hadn’t moved.
“Let’s go, darlin’,” he said
He started up the beach, his wide strides moving him quickly and forcing me to scramble to keep up. I walked behind him, fascinated by how comfortable he seemed with a feminine, floral tote bouncing against his shoulder. I supposed that he didn’t have any doubts about his manliness. And why would he, when he looked like that and sounded like that and acted like that?
With some men, it might’ve been an act. False bravado and exaggerated masculinity to compensate for insecurity. But not him. It was all real; I was sure of it.
A hundred feet into our sandy walk, Teekay stopped moving and I nearly crashed into him.
He sighed loudly and impatiently. “Does this shadow-walk have something to do with that gang of bimbos back there?”
I frowned. “What?”
“You’re walking behind me, Maggie, by a couple of steps.”
“Oh.”
“That’s it? Oh?”
He took my chin in his hand again and this time I didn’t stop him when he tipped it up. The simple, assertive touch made my brain fog up.
“Why the hell are you walking behind me?” he demanded.
“I just don’t usually have anyone to walk beside,” I burst out.
I waited for him to ask if I really, truly meant no one. Not a friend. Not a family member. But he didn’t. He just smiled crookedly.
“So. You can string together more than a few syllables at a time.”
It took me a second to clue in that he was teasing me good naturedly. The smallest of smiles touched my lips and Teekay leaned close so he could brush each corner of my mouth with his thumb.
“That,” he said, “I could sure stand to see more of. And Maggie? Now you’ve got me to walk beside, all right?”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me so I was standing next to him, then started walking again without letting me go.
I didn’t tell him that the last hand I held was my grandmother’s as she closed her eyes for the last time. Or that never – not once – had anyone other than him, at that very moment, threaded his fingers through mine in that perfect interlocking of appendages. It shot tingles up my arm and made some unfathomable emotion sweep through my heart.
Teekay walked me up the rest of t
he beach, careful to keep his pace matched to mine. He was silent until we reached the upward slant of dirt that led to the gravel parking lot above. At the bottom of that, he stopped and faced me, still holding my hand.
“You didn’t fight back. I watched from right up there.” He pointed to the parking lot. “It was the damnedest fucking thing. You were like…a rag doll. They dragged you down and your whole body was just fucking limp. I couldn’t even react at first because I almost thought you were dead. I thought fucking Kirby and her little bitches had finally gone off the deep end and were disposing of a body.”
“I’m sorry,” I said automatically, sensing I’d somehow offended him with my defenselessness.
He pulled his hand away, making me feel helpless again.
“Sorry?” he replied in a voice that walked the edge of both incredulous and enraged. “Why the fuck are you sorry?”
“I don’t know.”
He lifted his arms and put both hands on the back of his neck. “Are you sorry for not fighting back? Or are you sorry that I caught you not fighting back?”
“Both?”
“Maggie. Don’t answer my question with a question of your own.”
“Sorry.”
“And don’t fucking apologize for shit you’re not – or shouldn’t be – sorry for.”
“S—” I clamped my mouth shut, unsure of what to say or not say.
“Why the hell would you just sit and take that back there?” Teekay wondered out loud. “Didn’t you think for one second that maybe if you told them to go fuck themselves, they might’ve thought twice about what they were doing?”
“My grandmother taught me not to swear.”
I don’t know where the joke came from, or what possessed me to make it. Teekay narrowed his eyes and I thought he might explode at me again. But his scowl relaxed and a little chuckle escaped from his mouth.
“Well then I bet she’d just fucking love me, wouldn’t she?”
A lump formed in my throat. My grandmother might very well have liked Teekay and his brashness. She might’ve said he had spunk and that I could use a little of that myself. Or she might’ve enjoyed putting him in his place. But I would never find out.
Three months.
