Hearts and Thorns

by Ella Fields

  Alarm sprinkled like rain, followed closely by devastating pain. He was talking about when I’d said I loved him. In many ways, I did, but it was in all the wrong ways that I felt it the most.

  He didn’t need to know that.

  And I didn’t need to feel it.

  It should’ve been fleeting, the constant sensation of falling, but it wasn’t. That didn’t mean I couldn’t do my best to ignore it.

  “Wil…” His voice was strained. A long sweep of his broadening frame showed tension. “I…” His lips shut, unsaid words clamped behind them, threatening to make something out of a force too big for us both.

  He couldn’t do this. If I was being honest, I didn’t think I could either. His eyes implored, screaming that what he needed was anything but this.

  What I felt was wrong, which was why he would never know. And how I felt didn’t allow the strength to hurt him.

  I never wanted to hurt him.

  “You’re like a brother to me.” The words were thick and sour, protesting as I pushed them out. Forcing a memory of when he’d eaten pumpkin stew as a dare, then spat it all over the kitchen floor, I was able to smile genuinely while I shrugged. “My best friend. Or, at least, you were. So, of course, I love you, if that’s what you mean.”

  He stared, expression unreadable, and his body still tense for drawn-out seconds.

  Then he licked his lips and sighed. “I’ve been a dick. I know I have. I’m sorry.”

  I nodded, folding my arms across my chest and straightening from the counter. “Why?”

  He took his time to answer, those eyes of his traveling over my face, dipping to my chest, then to the fridge. “I guess I thought something bad would happen if I didn’t keep you away.”

  I didn’t need to mention that something bad had happened because he had. Instead, I went to leave.

  Moving by him, he bumped my shoulder with his, jerking his head to the window as rain began to splatter against it. “Just a bad day.”

  Smiling up at him, I murmured, “So it is.”

  His smile faded, his throat rippling as his lashes lowered. “Can someone have a bad couple of months?”

  My smile faded too, and I forced myself to look away. To move away. It was surprisingly easy when it hurt to be too close. To have his cedarwood and mint scent and voice caress my skin.

  “Yes,” I finally said, throwing a hint of a smile over my shoulder. “I guess they can.”

  The news played in the background, a gentle hum to accompany the ever-present one I still felt in Jackson’s presence.

  It was nice, being able to hang out with him like we once did, though it wasn’t the same. Gone were the days when we’d fish in the creek, explore the cemetery, or go camping. Now, we’d do the quieter things. Things less likely to lead to trouble we couldn’t escape from.

  “Got any fives?” I asked.

  Jackson shook his head. “Go fish.”

  I peered at my new card, licking my teeth to make sure the apple pie I’d made for dessert hadn’t hung around. “So, how are things with Ainsley?”

  They’d been seeing one another for a while now, and although it never got any easier to see them together, I was able to numb myself to it after watching them enough.

  Jackson stilled, then casually threw a glance over his shoulder to the living room.

  Mom had been playing with us, but she’d left a few minutes ago to take a call, saying she’d be right back.

  “Willa.” It was a warning, the firm use of my name.

  “It’s just a question,” I said, smiling a little. “You don’t need to answer if you don’t want to.”

  He stared at me for a moment, and I feared if he kept doing that for too long, I might climb over the table and beg for his lips to touch mine. Soft, plumper on the bottom, and perfectly curved at the top, they parted when he blew out a breath.

  She got to kiss those lips.

  “Things are good.” His mouth had moved, and his voice sang with truth, but his eyes were downcast, focused on his cards.

  I let it go with a slow nod. “That’s good. I heard she left the cheerleading squad.”

  “Yeah, she wants to focus on dance now.”

  “She’s a great dancer,” I said. “Good for her.” I meant it, even if it hurt to line myself up next to her. I had my strengths, but I didn’t think a strong eye for detail and baking inspired awe next to the likes of Ainsley Brown.

  “Yeah.” Jackson cleared his throat. “She’s great.”

  My next question was likely a terrible idea, but it was too late to stop it. “Why don’t you ever invite her over?”

  Jackson looked up, his hands lowering to the table as his eyes scrutinized mine. “What?”

  I tipped a shoulder, taking a sip of lemonade. “I just never see her here, that’s all. I was wondering why.” He was turning seventeen next month. I’d be seventeen before junior year began. We were at the age when boyfriends and girlfriends were starting to get serious, meet parents, and visit one another’s houses.

  Another quick glance over his shoulder, and then he said, “Things are normal again.”

  “With us,” I said, smiling. “You mean.”

  His brows almost met. “Exactly.” After a few restless beats, he groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Don’t do this, Bug.”

  The use of the nickname warmed me in wicked ways. “Sorry.” I wasn’t sorry, but I wasn’t interested in digging at what solid ground we’d managed to lay over our transgressions either.

  Anger laced his low tone. “Doesn’t it get hard enough?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Do you still think about it?” The anger drifted before he’d finished asking that question, leaving his voice rasped.

  I couldn’t say a word. Paralyzed by fear and untamed desire, I felt my cheeks heat.

  That answered his question, and after a minute of staring down at his cards, his jaw tight and shifting, he mumbled, “Sorry.”

  I had to let it go. I had my answers. More than I thought I’d need.

  He wouldn’t invite her over because of me.

  Best of all, he still thought about kissing me.

  I forced back a smile that would surely give what little joy I’d found away. “Got any sixes?”

  Sighing, he muttered, “Go fish.”

  Willa

  Sixteen

  “Are you going to drop that thing or not?” Peggy called.

  Shifting out of my flip-flops, I kept the towel wrapped around me as I bent low to carefully situate them next to my bag.

  Peggy groaned. “Willa, quit stalling.”

  That was easy for her to say. The object of her every fascination wasn’t present and wading in the deep end of the salt water pool with another girl.

  Dash swam over, his expression strained, and when he neared Peggy, he sprayed a mouthful of water into her face. She screamed, laughing and splashing him. “You’re disgusting, oh my god.”

  Maybe I could just sit down, I thought. Read the book or magazine I’d packed.

  “Do those legs match your name?” a rough voice asked.

  I didn’t realize they were talking to me until I looked up and caught Raven grinning at me.

  “W-what?” I clenched the towel tighter around me.

  Dash chuckled. “Her name isn’t Willow, you fucking idiot.”

  Raven wasn’t deterred and swam to the side of the pool, his long hair slicked back, revealing bright blue eyes on a sculpted, sun-kissed face.

  His strong jaw worked as his eyes appraised my towel-clad form. “I know what your name is. I was just trying to make light of”—he scrunched his nose, gesturing at me—“whatever the hell it is you’re doing.”

  I appreciated that he’d kept his voice low, yet heat still glazed my cheeks. “I’m…” I had no idea what to say.

  “Coming in?” he offered, Peggy splashing and shoving Dash farther out in the pool now. Raven scratched his cheek. “Could you bring me some lotion when
you do?”

  Swallowing hard, I bent and dug through my bag, and when I rose, I left the towel behind.

  I wasn’t sure if anyone was looking at me, or if I could just feel eyes on my body due to paranoia. With my next breath trapped tight in my lungs, I kept walking, dunking my legs into the water as I took a seat on the side of the pool and handed Raven the sunscreen.

  He blinked at it, then up at me. “I’ve never seen a one-piece look so good.”

  I bit my smile and ducked my head. “Thank you,” I said, knowing in some backward way, he’d helped make an awkward situation less so.

  Taking the tube, he squirted a heaping dollop into his palm, then handed it back. “You can repay me by doing my back.”

  It wasn’t a question. He turned, rubbing the cream into his tanned arms, chest, and face while I stared mute at the broad expanse of his back.

  “You’ve got admirers,” he murmured so quietly I almost didn’t catch it.

  With a slight shake to my hands, I smeared sunscreen over the warm skin of his shoulders and upper back, and then rubbed it in. “What do you mean?”

  “Two o’clock. Green-eyed monster.”

  I snorted a giggle at the double meaning, then stilled when I glanced up to find Jackson staring at us. The sun bounced off the lapping water of the pools, making it hard to catch his expression. An unwavering hardness seemed to have overrun his features, though.

  When Ainsley bobbed closer to him and clung to his arm, smiling, I gave my attention back to Raven, unsure what to say.

  Thankfully, he didn’t push, and I had to wonder how much he knew, or thought he knew. I wasn’t sure there was anything for anyone to know.

  I thought all our filthy secrets were mine and his alone.

  “Stepsiblings, am I right?” I said nothing, and Raven hummed. “Don’t worry, it’s not overly obvious.”

  “What isn’t?” I tried to infuse as much confusion as I could into the question.

  Raven’s back vibrated with his rumbling chuckle. “That he’s obsessed with you.”

  Before I could ask him why he thought that, he pushed off the wall and disappeared underwater.

  I watched his long frame shift and sway beneath the surface until he appeared before a girl sitting with her friends at the other end. She laughed, her hand at her chest when Raven broke through the water.

  “He’s so gross,” Peggy said, pulling herself up to sit beside me a minute later.

  No longer did I worry about my blue and white modest, floral one-piece, and how my burgeoning chest might appear. No one else seemed to care, so I stopped too, and I even kicked my legs in the cool depths below. “What did he do now?”

  “Seaweed,” she said with a scoff. “He threw a wad of seaweed at my face. Ugh, I hate him.”

  Turning to her, I smirked. “Sure you do.”

  She scowled, her damp curls clinging to her cheeks, then screamed when Dash, from behind us, grabbed her and sent them both tumbling into the pool.

  When they emerged laughing and splashing, I felt like too much of an observer, so I pushed off the wall and slipped into the water.

  Cool warmth enveloped me, and as soon as I bobbed to the surface, I pushed my hair back off my face, wishing I’d brought a hair tie.

  Treading water near the edge, I let my gaze roam over all the people in the pool, but I couldn’t find Peggy or Dash. The only person I could see was Jackson, who was grinning down at Ainsley.

  A throbbing sensation wracked my chest, spreading to my head and eyes when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to meld her lips to his.

  I looked away before I could see it and tried to be content with bobbing about on my own, but I wasn’t. After a few minutes had passed with no sign of Peggy, I waded to the stairs and climbed out.

  Taking my time, I wrapped the towel around me, then grabbed my things and headed for the bathrooms. They sat atop the beach, and I was thankful they seemed to be empty when I entered them.

  I was used to it. I was. Seeing Jackson with Ainsley, watching him flirt with other girls, was nothing new even though the old ache didn’t fade. It grew new thorns that protruded every time I saw something I’d rather not. I’d grown accustomed to the pain.

  Sighing out a heavy breath, I went to close the stall door and then stumbled back, almost falling into the toilet, when it was pushed open and slammed closed.

  Jackson, dripping wet and clad in only a pair of black board shorts, loomed over me.

  His presence, his sea-salted scent, the heavy look in his eyes, swallowed the air and rendered me speechless when I attempted to open my mouth. “Jack—”

  “Don’t,” he said, nostrils flaring. “Raven?”

  I felt my brows pull. “Huh?”

  “Don’t play innocent, Willa. I saw you. Everyone fucking saw you rubbing all over him.”

  With my eyes rounding, I gasped out a shocked laugh. “Excuse me?”

  I backed up into the wall, its cool peeling paint pressing into my damp back, as Jackson took my chin in his stiff fingers. “Did you do it to make me mad?”

  “I did it because he needed help, and he asked me to.”

  Beads of water slid from his hair down his neck to his heaving chest. After staring, those green eyes sharp and studying, for the longest ten heartbeats of my life, he moved.

  His lips crashed into mine, his hand meeting the side of my face to keep them there while he pried my mouth open with his. “Jesus, this fucking swimsuit…”

  It was hard to draw a breath, to gather enough oxygen to fuel the riot in my brain. I shut it down. My hands found his strong forearms, gliding over muscle and smooth skin, making him groan as his tongue coaxed mine into stroking his.

  Velvet soft fingers skidded from my cheek to my chest, fire crawling everywhere they touched until he reached my lower stomach and stroked.

  Sensing his hesitation, my hands slipped into his hair, and I tilted my head to kiss him deeper, my thighs parting slightly on impulse.

  His fingers remained on my stomach a minute longer, rubbing and tickling over the thin barrier of damp polyester.

  Then they dipped lower, and a harsh breath fled me when they roamed to where it grew more damp between my legs.

  A gravel-coated groan vibrated up his throat, his fingers soft in their torturous game. Back and forth they slid, with only the slightest pressure, exactly where I needed them.

  Gull shrieks pierced the air, and flip-flop-covered feet scuffed over the floor of the bathroom, voices accompanying the sounds.

  Still, we didn’t stop, and I knew he wouldn’t until it happened.

  Dizziness swamped me, feeling his skin beneath my fingers, touching and tasting him… his mouth clamped hard over mine when a moan almost thundered out.

  When the voices left, his fingers pressed harder, digging into the fabric while his lips shifted from mine to my ear. “You’re soaking this swimsuit, Bug.”

  I could hardly breathe, let alone talk.

  His low voice rumbled into my ear, his finger flicking now, harsh strokes that caused stars to dance behind my fluttering eyelids. “He couldn’t do this to you. With just a touch. No one else could.”

  Kissing my cheek, he cupped me, hard, and I splintered. His other hand clapped over my mouth, his eyes boring into mine as I struggled to keep them open, and I shook against him.

  Sadistic, he smiled. “Don’t bring this up. Don’t say a word. It never happened.”

  My breathing slowed, and I nodded, trying to pull his hand from my mouth.

  “Say it, Willa.”

  “It…” I stopped and swallowed. “It never happened.”

  “Good.” Cold rushed in, blanketing me in waves of ice when he stepped back. Before he opened the door, he said, “Remember what no one else can do next time you think you’re helping someone.”

  The door shut with a bang, and disorientated, I peeled myself off the wall.

  I removed my swimsuit and dried off. Then, after throwing my blue checkered sund
ress on, I headed outside.

  Deciding I’d pretend to read in the sun rather than try to hide what Jackson had just done to me, I sat on a small patch of grass atop the hill that overlooked the ocean and pools.

  The heat was no match for the goose bumps pebbling my arms. The words on the page were no match for the constant replay swimming laps through my mind.

  A half an hour later, Dash, Raven, Cad, and Peggy all lumbered up the concrete path.

  “There you are,” Peggy said. “I was worried until Raven said you’d gone to the bathroom.”

  I smiled, then looked behind her. “Where’s Jackson?”

  “He’s heading out with Ains,” Cad said. “We said we’d take you home.”

  Bookmarking the page, I closed my book with a thud that matched the stalled beat inside my chest.

  Clouds filled my head. I squinted at the bottle in my hand, trying to make out the words.

  I said the name slowly, dragging it out. “Chardonnay.” Then I laughed to myself, took another sip, and decided I didn’t hate it enough to quit drinking.

  Mom and Dad were out of town for a Thorn Racing event. Jackson turned seventeen last weekend and had decided to throw his first party.

  I’d warned him it was a bad idea.

  Bad ideas always make for good times, he’d replied.

  I’d raised a brow at that, to which he’d laughed, then chucked me under the chin like I was seven years old again before wandering off. I’d taken that touch and stored it away with the forbidden moments he still refused to acknowledge.

  Two weeks had passed since he’d followed me into the bathrooms at the beach. Two weeks of lingering in rooms too long, hoping he might stay or follow me someplace else.

  He never did. He’d have to be home more for that to happen, and most evenings, he’d retire to his room as soon as he did get home or until dinner was ready.

  The thudding music matched the sluggish tempo of my heart as I did my best to avoid being in any room Jackson and Ainsley occupied.

  In the kitchen, as I scrambled for some water to rid the dizziness that’d taken hold, I almost choked when Ainsley sauntered in, a bottle of something pink in her hand.