The Men of Laguna

by Kim Karr

  With a nod, he picks up two containers. “Moo shu pork or sweet-and-sour chicken?”

  “I think I’ll have the chicken. No, the pork. No, no, the chicken,” I answer indecisively.

  His dazzling grin is as bright as he is charming.

  “How about we split them both?”

  I pick up my chopsticks. “Bring it on.”

  He laughs and then dishes out the food. I find myself wondering what the small bit of laughter was for. Once we both start eating, he says, “You’re not like the girls around here.”

  I swallow a bite of deliciousness. “What do you mean?”

  He finishes chewing. “You’re just so real.”

  I dig into the pork and laugh. “Oh, I’m real alright. I turn up drunk on my brother’s front porch and then almost drown trying to get rid of my hangover. You can’t get any realer than that.”

  He laughs too.

  Then there’s a heartbeat of silence.

  “You asked me about your father before,” he states after taking a sip of water.

  I grab a piece of chicken between my chopsticks. “Yeah, I did. That was an unfair question. It’s just I found out some things about him the other night that…well, to be honest…kind of crumbled my world.”

  Brooklyn sets his chopsticks down and sits back in his chair. “Who told you?”

  Not surprised that he knows, I answer truthfully. “Vanessa. I saw her out on New Year’s Eve. That’s why I’m here—to talk to Cam and make sure it’s all true before I confront my father.”

  As if nervous, Brooklyn rubs his hands on his pants.

  I have to say, I don’t know him well, but I can tell he knows. And if he knows…that must make it true.

  My heart stops.

  My life is a lie.

  I’ve lived in a bubble and now it’s popped. Like with a big bang. Trying to ease the uncomfortable feeling in the air, I give him an out. “Well, you don’t have to say anything. I get that you don’t want to betray Cam’s trust.”

  Brooklyn takes a sip of his water.

  After shoving another forkful of food in my mouth, I turn to him. “Do you have any weed?”

  He practically spits his water out and then starts to pound his chest to stop from choking. Once he recovers, he turns to me. “Did you just ask me for pot?”

  “Yes, but think of it as for medicinal purposes.”

  Standing up, he rounds the island and cracks the fridge. “Sorry—even if I had anything, which I don’t, there is no way I’m getting high with Cam’s little sister. That is not happening.”

  Frustrated, I sigh. “FYI,” I point between the two of us, “we’re the same age.”

  Grabbing two beers, he sets one on the counter and opens the other. “Yeah, but you’re still Cam’s little sister.”

  “And you’re Keen’s little brother. What does it matter?”

  “It matters.”

  “Tell me why?”

  “Because you’re a girl.”

  I raise my brows. “And you’re a boy.”

  He huffs in frustration. “It’s an unspoken rule.”

  My eyes narrow. “What is?”

  He shrugs.

  “Tell me!”

  “Come on, Amelia, everyone knows you are, well, good.”

  Beyond annoyed, I point to him. “And that’s the problem right there.”

  Opening the top, he slides one of the beers across the counter. “What exactly about that is a problem?”

  “I’ve always had to be good. I’m sick of it. What if I don’t want to be good anymore? What if I just want to be bad?”

  Tipping his bottle, he takes a sip of his beer. I never noticed how sexy a man could look when swallowing. “Aren’t you a little old for rebellion?” he asks.

  I shrug without answering.

  As if testing my resolve toward rebellion, he pushes the bottle in front of me my way.

  I glance at the clock on the wall, which from the second hand moving I can tell is battery operated. “It’s not even noon.”

  Brooklyn shifts his gaze toward the clock and gives me a little shrug. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  I laugh. He’s right. Staring at the bottle, and then at him, I finally decide to answer him. “Yes, I’m sure I am a little too old to rebel, but that doesn’t change how I feel.” Lifting the bottle, I tip my beer in his direction. “Drinking before noon—that has to count as bad, right?”

  He raises both of his brows. “You, Amelia Waters, are certifiably insane.”

  Taking a sip, I look at him and think, Boy, he is good-looking.

  Not my normal type. Not the kind of guy I could see myself with long term. Too wild. Too unsettled. Too rough around the edges. Too much sex appeal. Not Mr. Right by any means.

  Still, does going after the one even matter anymore?

  After another sip and another glance, I remember to respond to his comment. “No, I’m not.”

  But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be.

  Insane has a good ring to it…don’t you think?

  9

  Betty Blue

  Brooklyn

  It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, but looking outside, you’d think it was midnight.

  The power is still out and the storm has only let up slightly. I started a fire to get the chill out of the air. Even still, it is cold enough that I had to grab a hoodie.

  Amelia added a layer or two as well. I have to admit, I kind of liked looking at her tiny nipples as they popped out from her tank top before she added more clothing. In fact, I was becoming a little obsessed by them. Wondering how pink they are, how soft, if they would turn to hard peaks with my tongue lapping around them.

  Yeah, yeah, I know—I shouldn’t be looking at them or thinking that way. Cam would take my manhood. And yet still, I pictured them until I bit the inside of my cheek so hard, I drew blood. That’s when I finally stopped. I already scolded myself, trust me.

  The room’s hazy glow makes it hard not to think that way. Amelia found some candles in Maggie’s room and she’s placed them around us for light. Good thing, because the only flashlight in the house has no batteries in it. Go figure.

  Just as the final chords of the theme music for Jaws fade away, I shut the lid to my laptop that serves as a great divide between Amelia and me and stand up to stretch. “I can’t believe you’ve never seen that movie.”

  She’s staring at me, watching me.

  Is she checking me out?

  “I don’t think I’ll ever go in the ocean again,” she proclaims.

  Okay, so not checking me out, but instead, she’s in what I like to call Jaws shock. It’s hard to argue with the original. The sequels don’t come close. Shit, if it wasn’t for Jaws, the idea of a great white shark attack probably wouldn’t cross your mind at the beach—they’re so very uncommon. Yet more than a few decades after the movie’s debut, everyone’s eyes are still peeled for a fin on the horizon.

  Or mine are, anyway.

  Blinking out of my own Jaws shock, I laugh. “Sure you will. That’s the thing. We all do. But next time, you’ll be looking around—I guarantee it.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “That’s just mean.”

  “What is?” I laugh.

  “You’re trying to make me paranoid.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  She glares at me.

  I pinch my fingers together. “Okay, maybe just a little, but it will keep you from going out too far and drowning.”

  That glare turns into a leer. “That’s enough. I told you, I was trying to cure my hangover, and it worked.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I just don’t like the fact that something could have happened to you on my watch.”

  “Your watch?”

  “You know what I mean. Cam would fucking kill me if a hair on your head was harmed and you know it.”

  Amelia gives me a sad smile and then stands. “I am not your responsibility. In fact, I’m not anyone’s. I am an adult and
can take care of myself.”

  “Yeah, tell that to your brother.”

  “I plan to,” she says, and then lifts her arms over her head in a stretch that lifts her sweater just enough that I can see her belly button. Images of flicking my tongue in and out of it flash through my mind. Drawing my gaze up her body, my eyes travel to the slight curve of her hips, to the waistband of her yoga pants, to her perky little breasts, to her long neck, to her mouth, to those lips, and picture what she might be able to do with them. How she could wrap them around my cock, lick me with that pink tongue of hers, and suck me with that luscious mouth. Make me come with her name on my lips.

  Shit, I shouldn’t be having those thoughts about her—at all.

  “Let’s watch The Deep next,” she proclaims.

  “Yeah, sure, anything,” I say, preoccupied with watching the way she moves. Then it registers. “Wait. What?”

  “The Deep. I love that movie.”

  I have to maintain eye contact to avoid looking at her hot little body. “Isn’t that about the Bermuda Triangle?” I ask.

  She nods, and with a smile says, “Don’t tell me there’s a movie out there you’ve never seen?”

  So yeah, I might have told her while we were finishing the leftover Chinese that I’ve seen every water movie ever made. And it’s true. There are only a few I haven’t seen. “That is not a choice, just so you know.”

  Something devilish gleams in her eyes. “We are so watching that next.”

  I tuck my hands in my pockets. “Nope, can’t do it.”

  She walks my way and stops right in front of me. “Are you scared of a little black magic?”

  “No, I’m not afraid,” I say incredulously, “but Wicca, voodoo, Santería, black magic—whatever you want to call it, that stuff creeps me out.”

  “Are you superstitious?”

  “No,” I say with conviction.

  “Yes, you are. I bet you don’t walk under ladders, believe in beginner’s luck, you probably pick up every penny you find, despise black cats, and believe luck comes in threes.”

  I tip my head to the side and want to scratch it. She’s good. “Well, I don’t like cats at all, the color doesn’t matter, and who walks under ladders? Everyone knows it’s bad luck.”

  Amelia doubles over in laughter.

  “Hey now, everyone has their thing.”

  She looks up and once she sees my face, she stands straight and draws in a breath. “You won’t share your weed with me, so you can at least watch my movie of choice.”

  “For the last time, I don’t have any weed.”

  She casts me a doubtful look.

  I raise my palms. “I don’t. I don’t do that shit anymore.” I don’t. Don’t smoke cigarettes anymore, either. And besides, even if I did have any, there is no way in hell I would be getting high with Amelia.

  She’s still staring at me with expectation in her gaze.

  “Okay,” I concede, “I’ll watch the movie as soon as I make a run to the grocery store for some dinner.”

  Amelia’s eyes light up. “You ride a motorcycle, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  I look out at the rain, and then back at her. “You want to ride on the back of my bike in the rain?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  No chick I know would get her hair wet.

  She smiles as if she just won a prize.

  I narrow my gaze at her. “I’m not taking my bike, I’m taking the Cruiser.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “We’re in the middle of a storm, Amelia. What’s this about?”

  She shrugs. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  I raise a brow. “Talk to me.”

  With a sigh, she looks at me. “When I was a teenager, my father strictly forbade me from doing anything like that. He had me so ingrained with his expectations that even when I wasn’t under his thumb anymore, I never wanted to disappoint him. There are so many things I’ve never done that I want to do, and that’s one of them.”

  “Later, when the rain stops,” I tell her, and I’m already picturing her arms wrapped around me. Her beautiful tits pressed up against my back. Her breath hot in my ear.

  “Really?” she asks excitedly.

  I snap out of my daydream, because really, there’s a sadness about Amelia’s quest that shouldn’t breed sexuality.

  And believe it or not, I get it.

  In fact, I more than get it.

  I understand it.

  I feel like I’ve walked in shoes like hers, under my mother and father’s shadows, and that’s why I ended up here in Laguna trying to figure myself out.

  Yet, I can’t help but get the feeling that I need to put a wall up or I might end up being one of those things she’s never done…and just wants to try.

  Because she’s good and she wants a little bad.

  But just a little.

  Not too much.

  There was a time that would have been just my thing.

  But I’m not sure I’m up for that kind of ride anymore.

  Not anymore.

  10

  500 Days of Summer

  Amelia

  Princess Amelia.

  The memory of Sir Towhead addressing me as such makes me smile even in my dreams.

  Sir Towhead.

  I pop up in my bed, having just remembered that was what I called Brooklyn that day we played together.

  My brother Brandon always called him a towhead because his hair was so blond when he was younger. When he came to our house that day, I adopted the name and knighted him so. You see, it was my brother Cam who forced me to play with Brooklyn. He said we were the same age and it only made sense. I didn’t really want to, so I acted bossy. I wondered why he did everything I told him to do.

  Fear of my father.

  I should have known.

  I fall back onto my pillow.

  Trying to get comfortable, I have the strangest feeling in my belly as I lie on Maggie and Keen’s bed, and I have no idea why. I’m not hung over. I’m not hungry. Maybe too many Doritos before bed.

  Who knows?

  In the state I woke up in yesterday, I should have slept soundly all night and a good portion of the morning, too. Perhaps I should have gone to bed earlier, not as late as I did. Somehow, though, The Deep led to Brooklyn making me watch Creature from the Black Lagoon because I hadn’t seen it before. Or perhaps he had to cover up the Haitian black magic with a big green creature.

  The thought makes me laugh.

  When that movie ended, Brooklyn asked me a very important question. “Would you rather get taken out in a few big chomps by a shark or in tons of vicious nibbles by a piranha?”

  Rather thought provoking. Wouldn’t you say?

  When I couldn’t answer, he made me watch Piranha. After that, the answer was clear. Hands down, I’d take the sharks any day of the week. That’s how much the Piranha movie freaked me out.

  For some reason I’m lying here and forcing myself to stop thinking about Brooklyn, when it’s Landon I should be thinking about. Yet, if he really is my unicorn, my prince, I wonder why I haven’t thought once about him until now. From what I know of him in the short time we spent together, he is perfect for me in every way. If I had my phone, I’d send him a text. Ask him what Brooklyn asked me—piranha or shark? I wonder which he’d choose.

  The wind is howling as my thoughts start to wander again. Something has me jerking my head toward the beach. The French doors are rattling as if someone is attempting to get in. Trying to remain calm, I turn the bedside lamp on, but nothing. The power has gone on and off all night. Looks like it’s off again. It has to be close to six in the morning because there is the faintest amount of dawn light coming through the windows.

  With the flashlight Brooklyn bought at the grocery store last night, I hop out of bed and navigate to the stairs that lead to his room.

  Maybe he could check it out for me?

 
Once upstairs, I hear something else—nothing scary this time, but something that sounds an awful lot like a groan.

  I’m not certain.

  Immediately, I turn the flashlight off.

  The door is slightly ajar.

  I know he’s alone, or I’d think—well, you know what I’d think.

  The thought of what is going on between the sheets makes my pulse start to race with an odd excitement. Listening for more sounds, I hold off on knocking, my heart beating faster and faster with each passing second. Then I hear it again.

  Peering inside the room, it’s dark except for the faint light of the sunrise through his partially opened blinds. Brooklyn is on his bed, sheet just below his waist, his hand right where I thought it might be.

  I should turn around and leave.

  I don’t.

  I can’t.

  I mean his hand is on his cock. And, well, I want mine there, but since I can’t very well walk in and ask to join him, to help him jerk off, I settle for watching.

  I hold my breath as his hand moves beneath the sheet. He goes up and down his cock in long, strong pulls and pushes. And then he kicks the sheet away and arches his back. One hand going to his balls, the other gripping the tip of his cock loosely so he can thrust up into it.

  So turned on, I slap my hand over my mouth to stop my moan.

  I have never actually seen a man pleasure himself before in person, and this is beyond what I ever thought it would be. Sure, I’ve seen it happen in the porn movies that Carter watches, but in those, the guy is always yanking his cock so hard, it looks painful.

  That is not what I’m watching now.

  This is so much more erotic.

  Slower.

  More intense.

  I want to touch myself. To rub my fingers over my clit in small circles in tandem with the rise and fall of his hips, but I don’t.

  All of a sudden, Brooklyn’s fist pumps faster, and his hips rise and fall to meet every quick stroke, which in turn causes my heart to beat at an alarmingly high rate. Now I want to finger myself and press my thumb against my clit with enough pressure to make myself come.