Once I got in the pool, I noticed my sister and Hope were having a conversation that I didn’t want to be included in. I started doing laps, pretending that Hope didn’t get to me. Keeping my distance was the only way that I saw things could work out.
When we finally sat down to eat, Buffy had taken the spot next to Mark, which left me to sit next to Hope. This couldn’t get any harder. It was like teasing a dog with a T-bone. Not that I was comparing Hope to a piece of meat, but she definitely made my mouth water. Being next to her wet body was so intense. I wanted to look at her, to peek one time, but I couldn’t risk that my sister or Mark would see me. I’d just promised him I wouldn’t touch his daughter. If he only knew she was all I could think about, and had been thinking about for over a week, he would have me shot.
Buffy did most of the talking at dinner. I smiled when I saw Hope get up and run to the kitchen, only to bring back a bottle of ketchup, which she covered her steak with. Her dad looked like she killed a puppy.
“Do you want some meat with that ketchup?” I asked.
Our first words to each other in front of her father were about a condiment. We were both pathetic.
She gave me a dirty look and began eating her red covered meat. “Don’t knock it until you try it. I’ve always put this stuff on my steak.”
“I was just kidding with you anyway,” I said, but nobody seemed to care. They kept eating.
When dinner was over we all hung out by the pool. Mark and I were discussing plans for the house, while Buffy and Hope talked about different ideas for decorating her new room. Knowing that she was so close to me was burning a hole into my mind. I wanted to look at her, but there was never a safe moment to do it.
When the mosquitoes started to bite, I thanked Mark for the meal and retired to the pool house. I couldn’t stand being that close to her anymore. I was about to explode. A cold shower would be the only remedy for this fellow.
11
I did everything I could to avoid Chance Avery. One of the things included joining a father-daughter golf tournament with my dad. It was a few towns over so we spent the night there. It was actually nice being able to hang out with him, without Buffy. She was growing on me though, and I found myself enjoying her company more and more every day.
Rylee had been consumed with the new guy she’d met at the bar. She even told him that she was only eighteen and he was okay with it. I invited her over a few times, but between work and Kyle, she was always busy.
As the days went by¸ Chance and I refused to speak to each other unless we were around my dad and Buffy. I’d managed to avoid him for a whole week between going away and unpacking my room.
The moment we got home from our trip Buffy was on him like peanut butter to jelly. That night at dinner they gave each other googly eyes and looked like they were going to come across the table and start banging right in front of us. As disturbing as it was, my mind was in other places, like being left in a room with just Chance.
Later that night they came downstairs and announced they were going away for the entire upcoming three-day weekend. Before I could grab my cell phone and make plans with Rylee, Buffy got one of her great ideas. “Oh, I know what you could do this weekend. You could get your room painted.”
My father smiled. “I can leave you a credit card to buy whatever you needed, sweetie. Maybe you could have a friend over. No parties of course.”
“And Chance can help,” Buffy added.
I could tell that it was the last thing Chance wanted to do, but he put on a smile and agreed anyway.
I wanted to tell my father that it was a bad idea; that leaving was a terrible decision, but then I would have to give him a reason why. That was never going to happen.
I helped Buffy pack for the trip with my father, but I wished that I hadn’t. Her choice of clothing was not something I wanted to imagine my father being into. She may as well have been walking around topless.
For the past two weeks I’d been forced to watch countless hours of MTV with Buffy. We would sit in the kitchen and talk for hours. She told me about how she and Chance fought as kids, and what it was like growing up in Pennsylvania. She talked about her old boyfriends and being a cheerleader in high school. I tried to avoid talking about Chance, but since he was her brother, the topic always came up.
I learned that he hated grape jelly. Riding on anything that spins made him throw up, and he was afraid of the doll Chucky from the movie Child’s Play.
Even if Chance and I weren’t on speaking terms, or any terms at that, I found comfort in hearing about him. I couldn’t explain it. It was like the more I tried to stay away from him, and avoid thinking about him, the more I had to do it. I thought about Chance from the time I woke up, until the time I went to sleep. When I closed my eyes at night, the time we spent together replayed in my mind until I woke up gasping for air, feeling hot and bothered.
Being close to him was torturing me, but the thought of not seeing him made me even more upset. I didn’t know what to do, and I feared that this weekend would be even worse. Chance had made it abundantly obvious that we were not friends. I suspected that he’d found out I wasn’t yet eighteen. He’d never asked when we were together, and I hadn’t thought it would matter. I made the choice to be with him. I’d initiated it that night.
I still had about six whole months to be tortured by his cold shoulder and humiliating stares. Six months wasn’t long when I looked at the big picture. I could do this. I could avoid him as much as possible while they were gone.
It would be okay.
Leave it to my sister to plan a weekend away from the house. I was doing my damndest to stay away from Hope, and avoid her stares. After all this time I was certain she hated me. I couldn’t blame her. I hadn’t even begun to apologize for what I’d said to her after the night we spent together.
Living here with her was becoming unbearable. It would be better if she had a job or went somewhere, but she didn’t. Instead she lay out by the pool day after day in her skimpy bikinis, taunting me with her hot ass body. I found that I had to take several cold showers during the week to keep from going completely insane. One day I‘d climbed on the roof to fix more missing shingles. She set a lounge chair up directly under me and started rubbing oil all over herself. I got so caught up in watching her, that I almost lost my balance and fell to my death.
Yesterday she went for a run in the community. I had washed my bike around the side of the house and put it in the garage so it didn’t get dusty. She thought nobody was home, but I was in the pool house having lunch. The next thing I knew she was stripping down to her bra and panties, swimming laps in the pool. When she climbed out I could see her hard nipples through her white bra.
Day after day something would happen and I would see it firsthand. It was torture. I was back to smoking almost a pack of cigarettes a day just to relieve some of the stress I was undergoing.
My sister and Mark were due to leave in the morning. They decided to have a nice family dinner before they left. My sister had cooked Italian, which was my favorite. She made homemade bread and the house was filled with the scent of yeast and garlic. The formal dining room had finally been painted and the new furniture was delivered. Buffy had set out candles and lit them around the table. She looked on the internet to find how a fancy place setting should look and did her best to mimic it.
Per her request, we all dressed up and met in the dining room at a quarter to six. I decided on wearing what I had worn to the bar the night Hope had come home with me. Part of it was because I still hadn’t unpacked the boxes in my closet, but the other reason was because I knew it would drive her insane to see me wearing it again. The last time I had these clothes on; she had been the one to remove them.
When we got to the table I noticed that Hope’s seat was empty. She finally came running down the stairs and around the corner entering the dining room. Buffy had a huge smile on her face as Hope tottered in. She must have lent her one of her outfits. She w
as wearing a light gray skirt and a thin silk shirt that was see through, revealing a lace tank underneath.
I noticed her father’s face from the corner of my eye, and quickly turned my head so that he couldn’t see me admiring his daughter. Once again it took everything I had for me not to look at Hope. The table was a large rectangle. Buffy and Mark were at both ends and Hope and I on either side. I stared down at my plate as we ate our salads. When Hope passed the bread around, she reached the tray across the table to me. For just a moment our hands touched. I felt a jolt of electricity running from my fingers all the way down my legs. For that instant our eyes met and I could feel the same heated passion between us that I’d felt that night.
As quickly as it started, it had vanished. Hope looked toward her father and started talking about his cholesterol, and what he should and should not eat while they were away. He gave her a hard time, but promised he would try to pay attention to what he consumed.
Buffy talked about how long the bread took to knead. When Mark praised her good cooking, she blushed. I could tell she was beside herself with happiness. She’d dated such losers for as long as I could remember, but Mark was different. I knew he admired her, and I never got the pervert vibe from him like I had with all the ones in the past.
Mark treated her like a princess. He’d picked her up when she’d hit rock bottom and given her a new life. The day he and I went through those clothes and got rid of them, I knew he cared more about her than how she looked. Even when he gave her the money for the boob job, he specifically told her to do whatever made her feel happy with herself, and that if she didn’t do anything at all, he would be fine with it.
She was so happy, which in turn made me happy. Our mother had died at such a young age. We had each other now, and I would do my darndest to stick around and make her proud of me.
When dinner was all finished Mark and Buffy started clearing the table. I jumped up from my seat and grabbed the plates from their hands. “I think that Hope and I can take care of cleaning up dinner tonight. Right, Hope?”
She gave me a dirty look, but put on a fake-smile when she turned to face her father. “Sure, it’s a great idea.”
“Oh. Thank you, guys. I still have so much to pack,” Buffy admitted.
“Thank you both for helping. She really out did herself tonight didn’t she?” Mark said before he followed my sister upstairs, leaving me alone with his daughter.
As soon as they were on the steps I felt Hope burning a hole through me with her stare. “What?”
“Don’t ever make decisions for me without asking first.” She was pissed. Admittedly, she was cute when she was angry.
“Excuse me. I thought it was the least we could do. Did you not enjoy the meal my sister spent all day on?”
“The meal was great. It was the company that made my stomach hurt.”
I lifted a couple more dishes off the table. “Can you be civil for half an hour, so we can get this mess cleaned up?”
“Whatever, Chance.”
I couldn’t take her attitude. “What is your problem? What have I done to you since you’ve moved in that’s so horrible?”
She gave me a dirty look, and part of me thought that a bowl of marinara sauce was going to be flung at my head. “Obviously, whatever you touch turns to shit. Isn’t that why you live in a pool house? You’re an asshole, and I wish we never met.”
I felt like I was going to throw up, but instead I held my ground. I swallowed my pride and headed into the kitchen where I immediately started filling the dishwasher. I wasn’t going to let her see that her words had affected me. She was acting like a bitch.
Hope came in from the dining room, and instead of her lips being scrunched up in anger they were relaxed. She had a sorrowful look in her eyes when she sat the rest of the dishes on the counter. I watched her attempt to touch my arm. “Chance, I..”
I pulled away from her touch. “Don’t touch me, Hope. Don’t you ever fucking touch me again. I take it you can handle the rest of this.” I motioned to the pile of dirty plates. “I’m out of here.” I marched out toward the pool house, determined not to look back and see her face. I knew she was pissed, but it couldn’t have been anything like the way her words were destroying me.
12
I’d made a terrible mess of things. How could those words have come out of my mouth? Never in my entire life had I said something so hurtful to another human being. There was no way Chance would ever forgive me. I didn’t know if I could even forgive myself.
If he disliked me before, this was the nail in the coffin.
I took my time finishing the dishes, crying the entire time, hoping that my father wouldn’t come downstairs and ask why. When I finally turned on the dishwasher and threw the table cloth in the laundry room, I peeked outside. Chance was standing with his back against the pool house door smoking a cigarette. He had his hand covering his face. I held on to the door while considering going out there and apologizing, but I heard someone approaching from behind me.
I turned around to see my father walking to the refrigerator. “Hey, sweetie. Did you finish cleaning up already?”
I pretended to yawn so he would think my watery eyes were caused from that instead of tears. “Yeah, I just finished. I was thinking about swimming, but I can’t stop yawning. I think I’m just going to call it an early night.”
“Well give me a hug. We’re probably going to head out before you wake up tomorrow.” He reached over and pulled me into his chest. “Promise to behave yourself while we’re gone. If you need anything you just call. I won’t be too far.”
“Please tell Buffy that dinner was amazing,” I proclaimed.
“I will. She really likes you, Hope. You being around is good for us.” My father stated, before he headed back upstairs with a tall glass of milk.
I turned off all of the lights and followed behind him. All I wanted to do was bury my head in my pillow and forget how I’d made things ten times worse than they already were with Chance. He hated me, and now I wondered how we were going to coexist without him wanting to cringe each time we were close.
When I got to my room, sulking, I noticed my cell phone blinking. There were three missed calls from Rylee. I called her back as soon as my body hit my bed.
“Hey Ry, Did you call me?” That question was almost something I feared asking her. She was such a trouble maker.
“Yes. I have some amazing news.”
“What is it?” In the back of my mind I was hoping she somehow inherited a house that we could live in together.
“Kyle is taking me to the beach to meet his family. Isn’t that awesome?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I was jealous that she was so happy, while I continued to live with someone that loathed me so much. “Did you tell your parents about it?”
“Hell no! Are you kidding me right now? They would flip out if they even knew I was dating him.”
“You’re crazy, Rylee. How are you going to get away for an entire weekend without them knowing?”
“Well, that’s why I called my best friend. I figured you could cover for me.”
“Oh!” I should have considered that before questioning her. Of course she’d want to use me as an excuse.
“So will you?”
“I guess. I mean my dad is going away for the weekend anyway.” I went to tell her about Chance, but she cut in before I could.
“Yay! I can’t wait to tell Kyle. Thanks, Hope. I owe you big time. Bye!”
Before I could even reply to her goodbye I noticed she’d hung up. Talk about feeling worthless. Even my own best friend would rather do something else than hang out with me.
At least I hadn’t pissed her off so bad that she wished I was dead, which I had with Chance. In the morning I was supposed to go to the hardware store to look at paint colors. Instead of Chance going with me, like I’d wanted, he would probably tell me to ‘go to hell’.
I located some pajamas then headed into the bathroom. Luckily thi
s place came with great benefits. The large soaking tub had been calling my name for over a week and tonight was as good as any to put it to use.
The window that sat against the back of the house didn’t have curtains. The neighbors behind us were way too far for someone to see inside, but the pool house wasn’t. I climbed over toward the edge of the corner tub and looked down. Chance had turned out all of his lights. He probably went out, or to bed. Both would be my fault.
I considered trying to hang towels over the windows, but there wasn’t anyone outside that could see me. The water in the tub started to get warm so I poured in some bubbles and started to take off my clothes. I located a hair tie and got my hair high above my head, then slowly stepped in the hot-soapy water. At first it burned, so I had to stand there until I could cool it down. Finally, it was perfect. I sat down and closed my eyes, trying to forget all about tonight, and Chance Avery.
I’d never experienced this kind of animosity about another human being, until now. I know I’d been a total dick to Hope for weeks, but she didn’t have to go there. She didn’t have to escalate it to that level. Hope had no clue how hard my life had been in the past year. I was lucky to not be in jail. The pool house was fine with me, and I kind of liked it. I didn’t need a big fancy house to make me happy. I needed my family, my sister, who was all I had left in the world.
I knew I had to get out of that house before more was said that I wouldn’t be able to take back. My father had been such a nasty bastard, and for a second I felt like I’d sounded exactly like him. The thought made me cringe. I’d gone into the pool house long enough to grab my smokes. When I came back outside I turned off the lights in case she got a hair up her ass and tried to speak to me. Hopefully she would think I was sleeping.
I was standing outside my place leaning against the wall when I happened to see a light upstairs come on. It was pitch black outside and the brightness caught my eye immediately. Within a moment’s time I saw her looking out. For a second I thought she saw me too, but she just kept moving around.
A Hope and a Chance Page 8
