Clover

by Cole, Braxton

  “My dad asked me about you earlier.”

  Her words made his heart beat a little faster than usual. “What about me?”

  Clover slowed gradually to a stop, then turned to face him. She looped her arms around his neck and looked into his eyes. “He wanted to know if I’m going to change my plans for you.”

  His heart rate accelerated even more until all he could hear was the blood rushing through his ears. He took a deep breath as he stared at her, trying to find the answer she was hinting at before she gave it. He wasn’t even really sure what her plans were. “Are you?”

  She smiled softly and played with his hair where it curled around his ears. Her touch calmed and excited him at the same time. She brought everything into clear focus and obscured everything else around them. “No, I’m not. But I am seriously tempted.”

  “Oh.” The pressure in Jake’s chest deflated. He hadn’t given any real thought to their relationship beyond August, but to have the possibility dangled in front of him, then yanked away left him feeling bereft. “I understand.” To his own ears, he didn’t sound understanding at all.

  “Oh, Jake.” She pulled him into a hug. “If I thought I’d be able to live with myself after, I’d say screw it all. But I’m just not wired like that. I need to finish what I start.”

  “And what about this?” He pulled away slightly so he could take Clover’s hands in his own. He clutched them to his chest until he was sure she could feel his heart beating. “What about us? We’re definitely starting something here, right?”

  She nodded, her eyes glistening in a way that made his heart beat a little harder. “Yes, we definitely are.”

  Jake swallowed back a lump of emotion and asked, “So what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 18

  Six Years Ago

  Having a license changed everything, but not the way Clover thought it would. She’d imagined limitless freedom and escape from her brother, from her house, and from all the noise that went with the two. Instead of freedom, however, she’d just been given increased responsibility, especially with R.J..

  When her dad gave her the keys, she’d been lulled by the shiny gleam of wax on the paint, and it had taken her too long to register him saying, “You’ll be in charge of taking R.J. back and forth to practice this summer.”

  R.J. played baseball and had made the all-star team that year. That meant he had practice in town five out of seven days. The wax gleamed a little less with that announcement, but Clover hadn’t been fully deterred. She had a summer job for the first time and now a car to go with it. She wouldn’t let taking her pain in the ass brother to practice ruin her good feeling.

  It’d taken less than a week for her dad to realize that she could also take care of some of the household chores. He’d handed her the grocery list and his debit card and sent her on her way. Between running R.J. around, doing errands for her dad, and working, Clover barely had time to breathe. She’d just about reached a point where she wanted to trade the keys for a good book. It’d been too long since she’d had just a few minutes to spend reading.

  “Don’t forget. I’m going to Mark’s after practice.” R.J. wore his uniform, complete with dirt and grass stains on the knees and all up the side, and smacked his hand in his glove. He took baseball very seriously and put his glove on with his uniform, leaving it on until practice was over. He was also a superstitious player and refused to let Clover wash his game uniform. Their dad had purchased an extra for R.J. to wear to practice, but today R.J. had heard a rumor that the middle school coach was going to be there. He was a couple of years away from middle school still, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to make a good impression. Because he was convinced he played better in his game day uniform, he left his clean white practice uniform hanging in his closet at home. As a result, he smelled a little ripe.

  Clover rolled down her window. “I hope you brought a change of clothes.”

  “Mark has a pool. I’ve got my suit.” R.J. snapped the band on his uniform and she suspected that meant he was wearing it underneath.

  “Gross.” She loved her brother, but he really was disgusting most of the time.

  “Screw you.” R.J. had recently added ‘screw you’ and ‘bite me’ to his go to list of things to say. It was getting old.

  “Screw you.” She’d spent too much time driving him around this summer and all of her clever comebacks had been replaced by nine-year-old retorts.

  He banged on her arm and pointed at a person walking on the side of the road. “Hey, that’s Jake. Pull over.”

  As much as Clover hated having one more interruption in her already packed day, she couldn’t justify driving past and pretending she hadn’t seen Jake. She barely got the car stopped before R.J. had climbed over the middle console to the backseat to make room for his friend.

  “Hey, Clover.” Jake was sweaty and his hair stuck out at odd angles. Sometime over the school year, his voice had stopped cracking.

  “Get in.” She gestured at the passenger door.

  He smiled gratefully and climbed inside before she could change her mind. “Where are you guys going?”

  “Baseball practice.” R.J. held up his glove as though that would help clarify any mystery that the uniform itself didn’t clear up.

  “I’m headed to the pool. What about you?” Clover pulled back onto the road and rolled up her window. With R.J. sitting behind her, she couldn’t smell him quite as much and Jake looked like he could really use the air conditioning.

  “Oh, nowhere. Just walking.”

  Jake was an odd guy. His parents sent him to spend the entire summer with his aunt every year. Clover couldn’t remember a time in her life since she’d lived in southern Oregon when Jake wasn’t a part of summer. He showed up in June and left in August.

  She’d never asked why his parents didn’t want him for three months out of the year, because she couldn’t figure out how to word the question the right way. No matter what, it sounded awful in her mind. Her dad knew, she was sure, but he wouldn’t tell her either.

  When her mom had died, Clover had been seven, almost eight, and R.J. was just a few months old. Their dad had packed up everything, sold the house, and moved them to a place where he could be a “more present” part of their daily lives. In L.A., he’d worked twelve hours a day and spent another two in his car. She never saw him. Since then, he’d done everything he could to provide for them financially, but also to teach them how to be good people. He would never send her away for an entire summer. He would miss her too much.

  Maybe Jake was really bad and his parents needed a break. Although he was really nice to her, even if he did follow her around with that dopey grin on his face all the time.

  “Do you want to swim?” She couldn’t just dump him back out on the side of the road and they were close enough to town that it didn’t make a lot of sense to go back home.

  “Yes!” Jake smiled all bright and happy, but just as quick, he frowned. “I don’t have a suit.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll check lost and found.”

  Jake nodded and started humming along with the radio. He didn’t talk much, just sat there smiling out the window. R.J. chattered enough for all three of them-- about baseball, his friends, the pool, a girl at school who chased him all last year and how he hoped she’d leave him alone this year, and about the awesome blueberries Brandon brought into the house yesterday.

  Clover was used to R.J.’s non-stop babble, but she was also used to Jake trying to keep up. That had changed gradually over the past two summers, but this was a whole new level of quiet. She didn’t understand it.

  “When did you get here?” She asked him.

  “A few days ago. I’ve been helping Aunt Tammy. I’m big enough to be useful now.” He had such a sincere, serious look on his face that Clover wanted to give him a hug.

  “Does she know where you are now?”

  Jake shrugged. “She told me to go
for a walk.”

  Clover handed him her cell phone. “Why don’t you call and make sure it’s okay for you to hang out at the pool while I’m working?”

  He took the phone, but didn’t dial. He just looked at it like he wasn’t quite sure what to do.

  “Here, let me show you.” R.J. grabbed it and asked Jake the number. Jake still hesitated, but eventually gave in. Clover doubted that he’d actually needed help working the phone.

  The phone call lasted less than thirty seconds, before he hung up and returned her phone. “She says it’s fine.”

  “Good.”

  Clover pulled into the pool parking lot and R.J. jumped out before she came to a full stop. He ran to the ball field across the road where his friends were already assembled. Turning, he waved at Clover and Jake as they were still getting out of the car.

  That afternoon, Clover decided that having Jake around while she worked wasn’t completely terrible, even if he did spend too much time staring at her like she was the eighth wonder. She’d check with his aunt to see if she could bring him more often.

  Chapter 19

  Present Day

  “I met a guy.” Clover answered the phone as though they were already in the middle of a conversation. Because Lexy was her best friend, she rolled with it. That’s what they did. Even though it had been over a month since she’d seen or spoken to Lex, it was a pattern that they both fell back into easily.

  Clover felt a pang of something—guilt, maybe?—at calling Jake just “a guy.” He was so much more than that, but her feelings for him were too new and fragile. What did it mean that she didn’t quite know how to explain him to her best friend?

  “Oooh, tell me about it,” Lexy said. In the background, Clover could hear the sounds of the beach. The gentle break of waves against the sand, birds overhead, and a group of people nearby laughing. It was Lexy’s first time calling since she’d landed on the island and it was so like her to do it while working on her tan.

  “Actually, it’s not a new guy. I already knew him, but I didn’t recognize him when I first saw him.” Clover lay on her bed and skimmed a magazine while she talked. It was weird to be in her childhood bedroom talking on the phone about a boy. It felt like she was back in high school.

  “Now you’re making no sense.”

  “Yes, I am. His name is Jake and he’s my neighbor’s nephew. He’s spent summers here for years, but I haven’t seen him since I left for school.”

  Since the day her car broke down, Clover had seen Jake almost every day. That had been almost two weeks ago. Her car still wasn’t fixed, but she didn’t care.

  “Tell me everything.”

  “He rescued me when my car broke down on the side of the road.” The memory of the sun hitting Jake’s hair as he sat in his truck, one arm resting on the open window, hit Clover at a visceral level. That moment, she realized now, was when everything changed. He looked ridiculous with all that hay clinging to his hair, yet she still couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful he was. Even her cursory concerns about her safety had been more ingrained from the years she’d spent living in Seattle than based on the situation.

  Lexy laughed. “You got your very own white knight, huh?”

  “Not exactly. He was driving a pickup, not riding a horse. But he kept me from dying of heat stroke. And later he rescued me from my boss.”

  “Your boss?”

  Clover sighed. “He’s a dick. I’ll tell you about it later. Let’s talk about Jake more.”

  “Have you fucked him?” Lexy cut to the meat of the conversation. With her, it always came back to carnal pleasures. She’d probably slept with half the guys on the island by now. Lexy believed in the power of instant gratification.

  “Jesus, Lex, not everyone sleeps with a guy within ten minutes of meeting him,” Clover sputtered. She wasn’t a prude by any means, but compared to Lexy, Clover was a born again virgin. Rather than a real virgin like Jake. She didn’t know how to explain that little detail to Lexy. Clover was still astounded by it. Lexy would flat out think he was lying.

  “But you want to.”

  “Of course I want to. He’s hot. But it’s complicated.” That might have been overstating the issue. Sex wasn’t complicated at all. Clover knew this. People either have it or they don’t. It’s awesome to do it and frustrating not to. For her and Jake, the desire to proceed was definitely there. They just needed to get past his insecurity about it. She was at the point where she would probably come if he so much as touched her clit. They were well past technique being an issue. She just needed him to believe that.

  “So what’s the problem? Is he gay?”

  Clover sat up and put the magazine down. Jake damn well better not be gay. The way his body responded to her said he wasn’t, but she could see Lexy’s point. Every other guy she knew had either had sex by nineteen or was dying to do it. But Jake’s hesitation was understandable under the circumstances. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Clover, you’re hot. If a man doesn’t want you, he has to be gay. There’s just no other option.”

  “I’m pretty sure he wants me.” She’d felt his erection pressed against her while they kissed too many times to have any doubt about his intentions. It was the clothes between them, not his desire, that was the issue.

  “Then what in the world are you waiting for?”

  “Jesus, it’s only been a couple of weeks.” No matter how much Clover wanted things to move to the next level with Jake, at least she could admit that two weeks really wasn’t that long in the scheme of things.

  “No, it’s been years. You said it yourself. You’ve known him forever. I’m not being slutty here, sweetie, just practical. You only have so many weeks of summer and you’ve already wasted half of them. Remember, we’re moving into our apartment in Portland in less than a month.”

  How could Clover forget? They’d talked about nothing else for their entire last year of undergrad. Clover had been accepted into the Master’s program at the University of Portland, and Lexy had lined up an amazing internship. While Clover worked on her MBA, Lexy would be working at a local radio station as a production manager. They signed the lease on the apartment before they graduated. The move-in date was set for August fifteenth.

  As much as Clover had wanted to spend the summer with Lexy, she didn’t argue too strongly when her dad said no. She was one of the lucky few to make it through school without any debt and that was thanks to her dad’s careful planning and spending. If he wanted her to work this summer to help pay the upcoming year’s rent, then she needed to work. It was the right thing to do.

  “What do you want me to do? Climb the man like a mountain and plant a flag?” As much as she wanted to get laid, she didn’t want to be an asshole and force Jake to move faster than he was comfortable moving. At least that’s how she felt most of the time. Sometimes she was so desperate for it that she would trade all her convictions and nice ideas for one really good orgasm.

  “I would.” From Lexy’s tone, Clover could picture her rolling her eyes and shrugging.

  “Well, I’m not you.”

  “No, but I have gotten you to loosen up some.”

  Lexy’s approach to men and sex when they’d first met had been drastically different than Clover’s. No doubt some of her casual attitude had rubbed off. “Yes, you have.”

  “So tell me about the dickhead boss.”

  Clover filled Lexy in on what a misogynistic asswipe Vince was. Since the day her car broke down, she’d managed to avoid him, but she still caught him staring at her every time they were in the same area.

  “He hasn’t done anything else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” One proposition from a man like that was too many. The fact that he’d tried more than once only increased the ick factor, rather than wearing her down like she was sure was his intention.

  “Maybe you should take him up on it. At least then you’d be getting some action.”

  “Oooh, Lexy, gross.
You haven’t seen this guy.”

  “And I don’t need to. I just know I couldn’t go an entire summer without getting laid. And you’ve gone without for a lot longer than that. Jesus, I hope your vibrator has rechargeable batteries.”

  Clover blushed. Despite their years of friendship, she was never quite prepared for Lexy to say things like that. Besides, Lexy knew damn well what kind of vibrator Clover had. She’d given it to her as a present on her last birthday.

  “Be serious. I really like Jake.” She wasn’t quite ready to give voice to everything she was feeling, even to her best friend. She knew that it went deeper than like, but that was the best label she could give it right then.

  “Great, so tell him that.”

  “I have.” She’d been very clear about her feelings and where she would like their relationship to go. Then she stuffed her libido back in a box and promised not to pressure him. Last night he’d gone so far as to touch her boob--like full-on hand cupping, nipple swiping bliss--and she’d just about passed out from excitement. Too bad they’d been on her back deck at the time. Her family could have walked out at any time, so she’d stopped him. When Brandon joined them, Jake had blushed bright red and it didn’t fade for quite a while.

  “So, what’s the hold up?”

  “He...” Clover hesitated. Lexy was her best friend. One day she’d like her to meet Jake and she didn’t want her to hold his virginity against him. Sex was a powerful motivator in Lexy’s life. Clover didn’t know if she’d understand Jake’s decisions. Ultimately, though, she had to talk to someone about it and Lexy was her only real option. “He’s not very experienced.”

  “Oh my God. Is he a virgin?” Lexy all but squealed into the phone.

  “Lex, you are not allowed to tease him about it. Promise me.”

  Lexy’s voice softened. “You really do like him, don’t you?”

  “A lot.” More than she should given the circumstances. Yes, she’d known him forever, but she’d never known him like this. That they only had a few more weeks together scared her.