Defiance Falls

by Ali Dean

  Okay, not so subtle, but it gave the Malones an out. If I just made the offer a little sweeter, they might take me up on it. It’d be a means to prevent the fight without looking like they were backing down.

  As I moved toward Blake, my eyes roamed the bonfire, even as I felt eyes from both sides roaming me. Right, my already-tight clothes were clinging to my body. Ah, there she was. Hanna was inching her way closer to Blake. But no, if I invited her and some of my other teammates, it would be a blow to Cruz. This wasn’t just one of his many parties. This was his birthday party. I knew he didn’t necessarily care if a few girls left to go hang with someone else, but under the circumstances, it would be a diss. It would look like the Malones won. But if only I went, and it was with my ex-boyfriend who apparently some people believed I was still with, it wouldn’t be a big deal. So instead of calling out to Hanna, I started moving towards Blake.

  Blake’s eyes widened. “Yeah,” he said on a swallow. “My place.” He turned to the Malones, but before he could get them on board, Cruz’s hand snaked out and grabbed mine. I was too surprised to react and the next thing I knew, I’d been yanked to his chest.

  My back was flush against his front, and when he spoke, it was just loud enough for Branden and Sean Malone to hear. “Hazel, you can warm up here. I’ve got a hot tub.” I wasn’t sure if he was bluffing. I didn’t remember there being a hot tub at the cabin. But mostly I was confused about why he was doing this. Even those who couldn’t hear him saw what he’d just done. It didn’t make sense. I’d given everyone an out, hadn’t I? Did he want a fight?

  Branden and Sean exchanged a look, and my body tightened, ready for fists to fly. Instead, they turned to us with smug expressions. Cruz’s arms tightened around me instead of pushing me away to defend himself. And then, the Malones turned around, nodded at their crew, and led the way back to their cars without another word.

  Their backs were straight, chins held high as if they hadn’t just lost some sort of power struggle. I didn’t understand it. They were the ones leaving.

  “Fuuuuuuck,” Emmett hissed from behind us, barely loud enough to hear.

  We watched the Malones as they spun out of the dirt drive in three separate vehicles. Cruz didn’t release me immediately and I felt his breath, hot and steady at my ear. What was that? Had I made the wrong move?

  A strange sensation prickled my skin, and it wasn’t a good one. It was more than confusion. I was uncomfortable in my skin. I thought I’d been smart, helpful, a peacemaker. But maybe I’d acted like a pawn. Walking around in wet skimpy clothes, thinking I could sway these guys. Was that shame or embarrassment coursing through my veins? I didn’t know, because it wasn’t something I’d felt before.

  When Cruz’s arms still held my hips with no sign of softening, I pulled away. With my head down, I made my way toward my truck. I’d change, hang far away from these guys the rest of the night, and drink water. Maybe I’d drive home in a few hours, or sleep here. Either way, I was starting to think coming to this party hadn’t been such a great idea.

  My path to the truck was interrupted when Blake stepped in front of me. He placed a steadying hand on my hip and I flinched. My nerves were wrought, and that particular spot on my body was still scorching from Cruz Donovan’s touch. With nothing more than two hands he’d gotten deep under my skin.

  Blake frowned at me and I plastered on a smile.

  “Are you pissed at me?” he asked. It almost sounded like the idea intrigued him.

  “No. Why would I be pissed at you?”

  He waved in the direction the Malones had driven off in. “I didn’t want them to come, you know. I didn’t even invite them, not really.”

  I shrugged, not interested in his reasons. He was teammates with them from hockey, would be going to Harvard, where Sean’s older brother Neil was captain of the hockey team. If he’d been hanging out with them when he decided to come here, it made sense that they tagged along. Sort of. It was the end of summer and people wanted to party and let loose. But… “Did you know about Cruz and the Malones?” I didn’t know how to characterize what had just happened. Did you know they apparently hate each other, or at least Cruz seems to hate them?

  Blake adjusted his Red Sox cap. “Not exactly. I had an idea. If I’d known it would be that bad, I would have tried harder to talk them out of coming with me.”

  I reached to pat him on the shoulder in reassurance and when I did, I spotted the guys, all five of them, standing in a circle. They turned their heads to look over at us at the same moment. And they looked just as scary now as they did when they were facing the Malones. Even my cousins had a glint of violence in their gazes. A shiver ran down my spine, but I didn’t think it was from the cold.

  Still, I remembered where I was headed.

  “I’m going to change. Then we can catch up more,” I offered Blake, whose eyes had traveled to the guys as well. He glanced at me again, visibly swallowing.

  “Uh, yeah. Okay.”

  When I peeked over my shoulder as I walked away, I found all five of them approaching Blake with hard expressions. Cruz, however, was looking at me.

  Chapter Four

  Given how much thought I’d put into looking smoking tonight, I couldn’t help but chuckle as I peeled off my wet clothes and slipped on my dry cotton sleep shorts over fresh undies. I didn’t even care anymore. In fact, the less attention I attracted for the rest of the evening, the better.

  Here I was, in my pajamas before midnight at Cruz Donovan’s birthday party. Sitting alone in my truck, stripped of the brave attitude I started the night off with. Had it been brave or reckless? It didn’t matter, I’d felt more emotions in the last two hours than I’d felt in months, and even if some of them sucked, it was good for me. This was what I needed in my life. I couldn’t make big decisions about who I was and what I wanted in life if I kept coasting.

  This was normally when I would hide in the car. Drive home if I felt I was sober enough. But the old Hazel wouldn’t have even come to the party in the first place. And now that I was here, I wasn’t going to hide.

  You are awesome. You are sexy. You are a badass.

  I chanted some encouragement to myself as I stepped out of the truck a second time and shut the door. I was still in control. Perhaps not entirely, but I had enough of it to keep moving forward.

  I kind of wanted to turn on my car and put on some pump-up music. Maybe stretch and shake my legs out like I did before games. But there wasn’t a team surrounding me to cheer with or throw around high fives. So I just took a deep breath and walked toward the people.

  As I was squeezing between two parked cars, a shadow stepped in front of me. My heart practically jumped out of my chest and I started to shriek from shock, but strong arms wrapped around my middle and pulled me back into a solid chest. The scream stayed lodged in my throat and was replaced with calm as my body somehow recognized who was holding me. I didn’t know if it was his scent, his body, or the brief outline of shadow I’d glimpsed. None of that made sense anyway. I wasn’t intimately familiar with Cruz. At least, not for a long time.

  “I told you to stay.” His voice was low, just above a whisper.

  I tried to pull back to look at him, but his hold was firm. Instead of loosening his grip at my movement, he tightened it.

  “So? Why would I listen?” The question would have been appropriate for just about any other guy. But with Cruz, it wasn’t. He didn’t give orders just to be bossy.

  “There are a lot of things you don’t understand, Hazel.” I tilted my face up to look at him.

  His eyes searched mine, trying to find something or convey something, I couldn’t be sure.

  I huffed. “Yeah, whatever, Cruz.”

  Cruz’s mouth tightened, like he was trying not to smile.

  I couldn’t hold his gaze. With his hands on me, his body this close, I was afraid I’d do something stupid. Looking away, I asked, “What are you doing creeping around over here anyway?”

  “
What does it look like? Getting you.”

  My eyes snapped back to his. “Getting me? Why?” I don’t know why I was so pissed, why I was giving him sass. I didn’t like him telling me what to do, sure, but I believed him that he had his reasons. No, I sensed that something else was going on, and like he’d said, I didn’t understand. However, I had the sinking suspicion that it might involve me, or that I’d inadvertently put myself in the middle of it.

  “Wanted to make sure you weren’t driving home.”

  I let out another huff, now with a valid reason to be annoyed. “I’m not going to drive after drinking and smoking.”

  He did smile then, and his eyes lowered. “I know.”

  But he didn’t try to come up with another excuse, and the implication settled between us. He’d come for me… just because.

  It really did look like he was wearing eyeliner and mascara. I knew he wasn’t, it would have been smudged from the water if he had. It was only that his eyes were impossibly intense. So captivating. I got lost in them. Images of a younger Cruz flashed before me. Even then, at fourteen years old, he was a fantastic kisser. I bet he was even better now.

  Cruz leaned down, and our noses brushed. Was I imagining it, or was he about to –?

  A body crashed into me from behind. “Whoa!” a guy said in surprise.

  I turned around and a kid I didn’t recognize was standing there with wide eyes, mouth open. “Oh crap,” he said. “Sorry. I was just. Yeah. Sorry.” He backed away, and as he did, I realized where we were. Still standing squeezed between two bumpers, my hands on his chest, his hands on my waist.

  “What are we doing?” I asked Cruz.

  “I was about to kiss you,” he said. So easily, so smoothly. No hesitation, no apology, no regret.

  I pushed his chest, and he wasn’t expecting it because he stumbled back, enough for me to squeeze past him. What the hell?

  Storming forward, I wanted to be sucked into the party that I could see had grown to hundreds of people since I’d first arrived. I also wanted Cruz Donovan to kiss me. Of course I did. Everyone did. But I knew it was a terrible idea.

  A hand snagged around my waist just before I came into the clearing by the bonfire, and this time, I wasn’t as surprised. He pulled me back to his chest.

  “Hazel.” Cruz’s voice wasn’t as steady this time. “Please.”

  Please? My body sagged without me even making the decision. I couldn’t deny Cruz Donovan anything. He was my weakness.

  “Why?” My voice was so quiet, I wasn’t sure he heard me.

  His hand slid ever so slightly until his palm was touching the bare skin just above my shorts.

  I didn’t really know what I was asking, and he didn’t answer. Instead, he let out a long, slow breath into my ear. It was warm, and I didn’t know if it was intentional, but it shot heat right down to my center. Cruz Donovan turned me on by breathing. And that was so dangerous.

  His lips brushed along my neck. “I missed you so damn bad.” He groaned the words along my skin and I wondered if I was in a dream.

  “Where the hell is Donovan?” I heard Spike say from not too far away.

  “I think he went after Hazel. This way,” Moody answered.

  And then, Bodhi. “Uh, no. We’re not crashing that party.”

  Someone laughed. “Hazel wouldn’t let him get her naked here, man. Chill.” That would be my other cousin, Emmett. My body tensed, hearing my cousins talk about me naked. About Cruz getting me naked. Seriously, this night was such a mindfuck.

  Cruz’s chest vibrated behind me and I elbowed him in the ribs. The little shit was laughing. He finally let me go, but not before stealing a peck just below my earlobe. I was sure that wasn’t what he had in mind when he said he was going to kiss me earlier, but it had the same effect. I had to squeeze my legs together to keep from jumping him when he started moving us out of the darkness. His hand grasped mine though, and the guys didn’t miss it when they spotted us.

  I was in a daze, in more ways than one, but I watched each of their reactions. Spike crossed his arms and lifted his eyebrows as if to say, “About time,” but I couldn’t be sure if he was referring to Cruz disappearing for a few minutes or our hand-holding.

  Moody lifted one side of his lip in a crooked smile and winked at me before nodding at Cruz.

  Emmett grinned and Bodhi actually rubbed his hands together, like it was game time.

  I’d taken three hits from a joint. One sip of whiskey. That was over an hour ago. I couldn’t be so buzzed from that. But I felt wild. Off-kilter.

  Time seemed to slow. There was a gravity, a weight, as we all acknowledged… something. A shift? An R&B song rippled over the treetops and the summer air started turning cool. Loud voices, a guy shouting, a girl squealing. But the six of us remained in this little moment together. I was frozen in place, following Cruz as he led me to his friends. He paused, looking over his shoulder where I was mid-stride. My lips parted but I didn’t make eye contact with him. First, I took a little memory snapshot. This was significant. I didn’t know why, but I knew it to be true. It was like we were a team, all on the same page. On the precipice of something. I recognized it because it was something I had felt on the field occasionally. With the right group. The right team. The right game. A worthy opponent.

  Only I didn’t really know what the game was, why I was on the team, or who we were playing.

  I shook my head and blinked. Maybe drinking and smoking wasn’t for me. It was making me nutty. Except I knew that wasn’t the case. I felt it in my bones. In the steady pulsing of my heartbeat. And now, when I finally let my eyes meet Cruz’s, it was right there too. Clear as the night. He dipped his head an inch, almost a nod.

  Then Isaiah’s booming voice broke it. “Piñata!”

  We were moving, the guys laughing, urging Cruz forward. This must have been why they were looking for him. Someone gave him a bat, and his hand dropped from mine. The crowd from the bonfire moved toward Isaiah’s voice, and I was swallowed up. A girl tripped behind me, making me stumble into another person. Three of us went down and I had to laugh as others raced past us. It was like a stampede for this damn piñata. Except we were a bunch of teenagers, not four-year-olds. Didn’t they know they could buy whatever candy they wanted themselves now?

  When I was back on my feet, I made my way down a hill with the others and stood in the back. A lion piñata hung from a giant oak tree. I wasn’t surprised to see it, since the mountain lion was Mayflower Academy’s mascot. Just like boys to take a bat to the rival’s mascot. It was the tree itself that had me frozen in place, remaining back on the hill overlooking the scene below. One large branch extended over the land leading to the lake, another over the lake itself. The party was on the other side from the cabin, a ways from the dock. But this tree had been our spot. Before the parties took on a life of their own, we’d come here to be alone. Our first kiss had been right under where the lion was swinging in the breeze.

  Bodhi was wrapping a blindfold around Cruz, tying a knot in the back. Emmett started spinning him around in circles, passing him from one guy to the next until Cruz was stumbling, laughing.

  What did he think about when he saw this tree? Did it mean anything to him?

  My heart was torn as I watched Cruz swing the bat around, striking air. They had him twenty feet from the piñata, facing the wrong direction. I wanted to laugh and cheer with everyone. But my heart also ached. An ache I hadn’t felt in years. The back of my eyelids burned.

  When Cruz finally found the piñata, and broke the thing with one single whack to its neck, he ripped off the blindfold. Before registering what had erupted from the papier mâché, or fighting the hordes swarming to get their loot, his eyes searched the crowd.

  People whooped as they discovered not only candy, but, apparently, condoms and other sex toy goodies on the ground. The guts of a mountain lion were quite naughty, it seemed.

  As Cruz’s eyes continued searching the bodies, moving up the hill, I sa
nk down to my bottom. I needed to hide. Only for a second. Otherwise, I might explode, just like that lion.

  Chapter Five

  I was exhausted at tryouts the next day. Normally playing soccer in any capacity jolted me awake, got the energy flowing. Tryouts were different. By now, my role was more about facilitating a solid tryout environment. Keeping the scrimmages even, the drills rolling smoothly. No one was assessing me; I was meant to pass to people who needed to show off their skills, position myself to give everyone a fair shot. That morning I think I did three dozen corner kicks, giving others a chance to show their ability to bring it home.

  It was a reminder why I was bored. Once the season started it would be better, but I was ready for a change. A new challenge. I loved the game, but this place, these girls, it wasn’t invigorating like it used to be.

  Last night? That was the opposite of boring. After the piñata, I spent the rest of the night avoiding Cruz and the guys. I knew I couldn’t forever, but it’d all been too much. I’d resorted to my usual approach in social situations, drifting from one group to another, never fully committing.

  Cruz and his boys didn’t drift. They stayed put and people came to them.

  I tried not to watch him, but couldn’t help it. I found his gaze wandering too, and I’d always look away when it found mine. The urge to go up to him was strong. My hands itched to wrap around his middle, nuzzle into his chest. Now that I’d had a little taste, a tiny itty-bitty feel of him, I was losing my mind.

  I’d gotten caught up in a conversation with some of the theater kids who took AP classes with me, and when my eyes landed on the guys again, they’d dispersed. I’d found my cousins and Moody surrounded by a group of girls on the volleyball team. Spike and Cruz had been nowhere in sight. People had been pairing off, the party growing a little smaller. My gut told me Cruz wouldn’t have gone off with another girl. I still hadn’t decided if I’d wanted him to come find me when he was ready to crash.