by Marie Hall
Whichever one of the boys was playing, was actually not too bad. She didn’t play an instrument, and didn’t know the proper terminology for things, but the banging of the cymbals and the steady beating on the drums reflected some sort of skill. There’d be an occasional cringe-inducing sound that came out, but overall, not too bad.
Skipping under the half-opened door, she smiled. “Guess who’s back?”
Her smile died when not Roman or Christian glanced up at her, but Julian.
He had his shirt off and there were definitely more tattoos on him now, highlighting the sculpted planes of his muscled stomach.
Her pulse went from zero to sixty and her mouth watered the moment her eyes landed on the dark hint of hair that trailed beneath his jeans.
His longer hair had been cut too. But it still wasn’t a pretty boy look. His head was shoved close on the sides and longer on top, which should have made him look stupid, but, because of the thickness of his hair and the way that it naturally feathered out, looked amazing on him.
Julian seemed stunned to see her there, the whites of his eyes large as he yanked ear buds out of his ears.
The sudden lack of silence was the only reason why she finally noticed they weren’t alone.
A loudly clearing throat caused her to jerk and yelp in surprise, twirling around to look into the very hostile face of a glaring brunette with electric purple eyes that could only come from wearing contacts.
The girl was slim, and dressed almost exclusively in black. Her lips were painted a dark, rich red, and her hair was caught up in a sweeping ponytail that highlighted her razor-sharp cheekbones.
“You must be Elisa Adrian,” the girl snarled and from the way she said it, with such venom behind it, Elisa knew exactly who she was too.
This was clearly Mandy.
Humiliated, Elisa didn’t look back at Julian as she did a sharp about-face and ran away from there like the hounds of Hell were nipping at her feet.
She was halfway to her car when a pair of strong hands landed on her shoulders and turned her roughly around.
Julian was panting heavily, and his throat working furiously, and she didn’t think. She slapped him.
Hard.
Hard enough to leave an angry red mark on his cheek.
His nostrils flared and he gazed at her with a look that she couldn’t possibly decipher.
“Smile—”
He started to sign, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t look at him another second. Forgetting all about unpacking her car, or even hiding out in her parents’ house, she yanked the key out of her pocket and, jumping into her car, took off in a squeal of rubber.
Elisa didn’t return again until much later that night.
She’d gone swimming at the quarry, knowing she needed to call her mom and dad and at least let them know where she was. They’d have no idea why she’d run away the way she had. They had no clue about her and Julian. No one did.
But she was weak and ashamed, because as much as she’d told herself it wasn’t true, the second she’d seen Julian her soul had crumbled.
Her mother stood up from where she’d been sitting on the bottom step when she finally returned home.
“Where have you been?”
In twenty years Elisa knew she’d look just like her mother. They were pretty much the spitting image of one another. Blonde hair and light brown eyes. Her mother had a few extra wrinkles, wrinkles Elisa had probably added to tonight, but her look wasn’t hard or angry. Merely worried and confused.
“The quarry for a swim.”
Her mother held out her arms, and Elisa fell into them with a heavy, shuddery, sigh. Squeezing her eyes shut when her mom brushed her fingers through Elisa’s long blonde hair.
“Julian told us you were home.”
Just then a light flickered on in the Wright house. As if just the mere mention of his name had beckoned him to his window. Julian stood silhouetted in his room, and she knew because of the absolute stillness of him that he was looking out at her.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispered. “I really am.”
Elisa didn’t come out of her house for the next two days.
By the time she finally did, she’d come to one unmistakable conclusion. She was just as much in love with Julian Wright now as she had ever been, and she hated him for it.
Chapter 9
“Roman.” Elisa rolled her eyes when he snapped her with his beach towel. “C’mon, you know you want to.” He grinned a supermodel smile down at her.
Julian wasn’t the only Wright to have grown into his looks.
Roman and Christian by any definition were the epitome of male sex gods. They’d been swimming a lot judging by the lighter tone of their hair, which now had an almost burnished look to it, their skin was nice and tanned, and their muscles…well, they pretty much dripped muscled yumminess.
Both boys had their shirts off, they were sitting on her large bedroom window sill, and flexing their pecs with raised brows, being as absolutely goofy as possible as they wheedled and tried to get her to agree to go hang out with them at Chris’s girlfriend’s pool house.
“Why, do you want me along?” She sighed, placing a bookmark on her Kindle page before powering it down. “I’m an old, uncool college nerd.”
“Hells yeah, you are,” Roman nodded, giving her big wide eyes, as if to say, Duh. “Can you imagine how much game I’ll get if I stroll in with a sexy co-ed on my arm?”
“Oh Lord have mercy. You do know that the world isn’t actually one giant porn movie, right?”
One thing she knew about her boys, they were horndogs. Sexy as hell, but they were typical eighteen-year-old horny bastards.
“C’mon, Lisa.” Roman sat next to her on her day bed and squeezed her kneecap. “You’ve been hiding yourself away in this musty room half the summer already. You need to get out, act like a person, and like you’re, you know, twenty-one instead of sixty.”
She stuck her tongue out at him as he rolled his white tank top on. She knew what this was. Neither of the boys was really coming here to ask her because they were just that desperate to hang out with her. Lori had most definitely put them up to it.
Which almost made her feel worse.
“You guys don’t really want me there.”
“Well…” Christian rubbed the back of his neck. “Thought maybe if you came you could buy us some beers.”
She scoffed. “Get bent, losers. I’m not contributing to the delinquency of minors.”
Roman growled. “Fine. Whatever. But you really should come. It’s gonna be fun, and I heard that Joshua got a kegger anyway.” He said the last part to Chris.
“No way, bro. His dad’s gonna shit a brick if he finds out.” Christian grinned and then fist-bumped his brother.
She gave them both a droll look. “You’re not going to leave until I say yes, are you?”
Rome shrugged. “Nope.”
“Fine.” She jumped to her feet. “Get out of my room so I can change.”
“Well if it’s all the same to you”—Christian waggled his brows and leaned against her dresser—“I think I’ll just stay and watch.”
“Freak.” She shoved him out of her room. “No, you will not, you want me to go, you act like good boys.”
Christian panted like a dog in heat. “I’m good. I can be real good.”
“Lord help me,” she said with a roll of her eyes and slammed the door in their faces. Those boys were ridiculous.
But they were right. She really did need to get out of the house. Apart from her morning swims she’d been pretty much locked away in her room for the past month. Trying as best she could to avoid Julian, which hadn’t even been possible because her room and his were right across the lawn from each other.
Every once in a while she’d see him walk past his window and even though she’d been hidden, she could swear that he knew exactly where she was.
Did it make her a chicken?
Hell yes.
Did she really care?
Hell no.
But she was bored out of her mind. And if she had to brave seeing him in the flesh, than that was just what she would do. She was tired of feeling like a prisoner in her own home.
Ignoring the small voice that kept asking her why she was pulling out her sexiest two-piece she owned—a white thong bikini bottom with a lacy off-the-shoulder top that had a little frill flowing down to her navel—instead of the black one-piece she swam in for her meets, she fluffed out her hair, deciding to leave it down for a change, and even applied a hint of nude lip gloss.
She was a woman. Not a hermit. Not a nun. Julian didn’t want her. So what? She didn’t want him either. She might be older than all the boys that would be there today, but she was going to at least make them drool when they saw her, dammit.
Yanking out the shortest pair of blue jean shorts she had, she threw on some slinky leather and beaded flip-flops and opened the door.
“Well, boys, how do I look?”
She tossed her arm out to the side and modeled for them. Christian blinked several times, and Roman’s mouth dropped.
Smirking, she grabbed her gold aviators off her nightstand and slipped them on. “You can look boys, but you cannot touch.”
And when they finally laughed, she did too. It felt good to feel alive again.
She was still smiling, until she got to their truck. They’d traded in their beat-up Corolla for a shiny silver Hemi V-8. A boy’s toy for sure.
Sitting in the bed of the truck was not only Julian, but Mandy. Julian was dressed in black and white board shorts and a white shirt that made his tattoos pop. Mandy was dressed in a cherry-red bikini top and shorts. Her pale skin was almost entirely exposed.
If she wasn’t wearing sunscreen, that girl would burn in minutes. And quite frankly, Elisa almost hoped it did, which was probably totally evil, but true.
“Get in the back seat, hot stuff.” Christian winked at her and then glanced at Rome. “Hey you, think if I tell Melissa that I found me a real woman she’d get too upset?”
“You guys do know riding in the bed is totally illegal, right?”
Rome and Chris rolled their eyes. “Oh God, who invited the mom?”
“Hey!” She slapped Chris’s chest and snorted. “I’m just saying, don’t cry if you get pulled over by a cop.”
Sighing, Roman gave her a cross-eyed look. “Okay, Mom. But just so you know, if we see a cop, we’ll pound on the door, and that means lay down and stay out of sight. Got it?”
Giving him a jaunty salute, she said, “Whatever. But don’t expect me to pay the fine if you get ticketed.”
“Get in the truck,” Christian grumped good-naturedly and Elisa laughed when he pinched her side, but Julian glowered. He had his arm draped across Mandy’s shoulder. There were words written on the bottom side of his arm, she couldn’t make out what it was, since the script was so elegant and swirly, but it made her curious because it was clearly a new tattoo.
Even though her palms were slick and her heart raced a little harder than it had when she’d been up in her room, Elisa was determined to make it through this day.
She’d already allowed Julian to ruin too much of her summer.
Averting her gaze from both of them, she scooted as far away as she possibly could and to make it even more obvious that she wasn’t in the mood to talk, pulled out her cell and popped in her ear buds, playing whatever she had on her phone. Which just so happened to be a blues record.
The country road zoomed past her periphery.
She could do this.
She could.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she swayed from side to side as the truck bounced along the paved road, imagining that she was seven again, the boys were five, and they were just headed to the beach to have a little fun.
Gradually her heart rate slowed and her shoulders relaxed. How many times had she done stuff like this with them in the past? Countless.
And regardless that she and Julian were no longer what they once were, it didn’t mean she had to shut all of them out.
When the truck finally rolled to a stop, she took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
Julian and Mandy were already climbing out of the bed.
Getting up, she scooted down, ready to hop off. Julian turned and held up his hand to her.
Just that simple gesture was enough to make all the nerves she’d worked so hard to squash in the truck ride over come screeching back to life. Averting her gaze, she ignored his hand and got down herself.
Mandy slapped Julian’s arm, jerking him furiously back toward her. She couldn’t be sure, but Elisa didn’t think Mandy knew any—or very little—sign. The few times she’d seen them interact it was with gestures that weren’t actually words so much as motions.
If you were going to date a deaf guy, you ought to at least take the time to learn how to talk to him. Just saying.
Roman came and stood beside her just as Christian jogged off, picking up a slim, somewhat attractive blonde and twirling her around with a loud whoop.
That was either Melissa or Christian was seriously about to get dumped today.
“I don’t like her.”
“Who?” She frowned, turning to Roman.
“Mandy.” His lip curled.
Her heart thumped. Not that it should matter to her what Roman thought of Julian’s girlfriend, but she’d be a liar if she said that it didn’t feel like a small victory to know he at least was on her side.
“I don’t like her either.” She shook her head. “Can she even freaking sign?”
“Not a damn lick.” He growled. “Anyway.” He flicked his wrist. “Let’s go have fun.”
Already she regretted her rash decision. The pool house wasn’t just a tiny little bungalow tucked away behind a larger home.
The pool house was massive, and because all of its glass doors were opened, it had a sort of inside/outside kind of vibe. The lawn was perfectly manicured and so green it would have made a leprechaun envious. There were also gardens.
Not the kind her mother had either. Like this was a garden-garden. With hedgerows and wildflowers, topiaries cut into the shapes of animals. There was also what looked to be an actual maze of vines.
The pool itself was as wide and large as an Olympic sized one, tiled a deep, rich blue, it shimmered like the deepest part of an ocean. The whole place had a kind of Wonderland vibe to it, whimsical and almost fairytale-like.
There were white tables laid out on the lawn, and just like Christian had said, there was a keggerator. Well, actually two of them—and judging by the way the males attacked them, they wouldn’t last long.
Elisa recognized a few of the faces as kids who’d been on the boy’s soccer team back when she’d gone to school with them.
A few girls waved hi as they passed by on their way to the snack and drinks table, but on the whole, she was pretty much ignored.
She blew out a heavy breath, forgetting for a second that Roman stood right next to her.
“You okay?”
“No. Not really. Rome, I don’t know anyone here.”
“C’mon, you know me.” His blue eyes twinkled. “And Chris. And Jules. Who else do you need to know, really?”
She snorted. Wrapping his arm around her shoulder, he led her toward a row of white wicker lounge chairs.
“Let’s go swim, okay?” He gave her one of his swoon-worthy grins, and yeah, she was helpless to resist him.
“It’s no fair, how you use that thing. You’re so dirty, Roman Wright.”
He chuckled and then immediately stopped once she’d pulled her shorts down. She’d completely spaced on the skimpiness of her bottom. In fact, when she glanced up, it was to note quite a number of heads turned her way.
To include Julian’s.
He sat in a chair across the pool and she felt his eagle gaze like a hot brand, breaking her out in a wash of goosebumps.
“Dayum, girl.” Roman laughed, tossed his shirt on the c
hair, and then without even so much as a bit of warning, grabbed her by the waist, hauled her into his body, and laid a hard kiss on her.
The shock of it made her go limp in his arms. And she had to ignore her immediate impulse to glance up and see if Julian had noticed.
Whether he had or hadn’t, she didn’t care.
It was a lie she’d continue to chant to herself until she believed it.
“When did you get so hot?” Roman chuckled less than a second later, and then he scooped her up with a wicked gleam in his eyes and she knew immediately what he was planning to do.
Squirming, she tried to kick out of his arms. But he was much stronger than her.
“Roman! Don’t you dare!” she screamed just a second before he jumped feet-first into the pool.
The cold water was an immediate shock to her system and she kicked to the surface with a spluttering laugh.
Roman was already waiting for her when she surfaced.
Her skin broke out in a rush of goosebumps.
With a grin he flicked water at her face and shrugged. “See, have fun, Elisa Jane. We won’t bite, though I can’t promise that I won’t try to kiss you again. You are so hot!” He wiggled his brows and, with a wink, turned and swam away, moving toward a group of guys who were whistling and catcalling as he neared.
With her cheeks stained crimson, she couldn’t fight the silly grin that seemed firmly embedded on her face. He was right, have fun. That’s all this was, all it was supposed to be.
She didn’t look over to where she knew Julian still watched her. She didn’t look for Mandy to see if she’d seen her in her bikini. Because it didn’t matter. Being petty and silly and mopey wasn’t going to solve anything.
Just like her father said, sometimes you couldn’t change things. But the key to living was just to do it, even when it hurt and it sucked, because eventually things would get better.
No longer worried about impressing anybody, she sank into the coolness of the water, remembering that she had other passions in life. Like swimming.
Like feeling the waves wash over her skin. Feeling as the water parted beneath the flex and pull of her body. Kicking into a clean stroke, she swerved around the bodies, swimming the length of the pool three times before deciding she couldn’t really enjoy the swim as much as she would have liked with the press of people all over the place.
