by Wood, Vivian
“So when you look at… say… a page of the dictionary. What does that look like for you?”
He rolls his eyes. “It looks like exactly what it is. But the words are gibberish. They sort of look like some alien language or something. If I really focus and the words are big enough and bold enough, I can usually make sense of them. Or… I can make sense of some of them, and then use the context to piece together an idea.”
“Hmm. That workaround is tough, I imagine.”
His smile is bone dry. “Yeah. It’s tougher when I’m in public and the spotlight is on me. Like when I’m at a restaurant with people and the waiter comes to take orders.”
My eyebrows arch. “Really? What do you do?”
He looks amused. “I go last, and order something that one of my friends ordered. Or I ask the waiter what’s best. Like I said, I figure it out. I may not be able to read very well but I’m not dumb.”
“I would never think that,” I reassure him. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you’re one of the smartest people that I know. The fact that you’re working twice as hard as the rest of us and I still think that…” I shrug. “It’s impressive, is what I’m saying.”
He rolls his eyes again but lets that pass without commenting. Instead he changes the subject.
“There are a bunch of hot springs around,” Aiden says, looking around. “And Native American burial sites.” He pauses. “My mom was crazy about Native American stuff. When we were kids, she would drag us all over New York and New Jersey to see different kinds of ruins.”
I swallow hard. It’s the first time he’s ever mentioned anything about his mom, aside from her death and the fact that she might have lived on the Morgan estate.
“That must’ve been interesting,” I chip in.
He laughs. “Are you kidding? Taking two kids under the age of ten to study old artifacts? Eve and I thought it was torture.” He smiles ruefully. “In retrospect, I think that she just wanted to get us out of the house and away from my father for a little while.”
I’m not stupid. I know that Aiden’s dad was pretty terrible to him, even though I never met the older Moreland. So I just let that slip by. While I’m thinking, though, Aiden starts packing up.
“Please don't let that mean that we’re going to hike again,” I groan.
He slides me a look. “I thought that we could roll up our pant legs and dangle our feet in the water at the hot springs. There is one just up there.”
He points to the river behind me. I glance in that direction, then nod. “Okay. But only if I can carry the trail mix with me.”
He grins, shouldering his backpack. “Deal.”
I pick up my own backpack, even though my feet protest at the slight burden. It turns out that he is right about the proximity of the hot springs. It must be a popular destination, because a path is cut out of the riverbed. He leads the way around the rushing river, only going about a thousand feet before it slows to a gurgle. There is a post driven into the ground, topped with a little weathered gray paint.
Aiden slings his bag to the ground and starts rolling his pants up. I drop my bag beside him and walk to the river’s edge. There I find a flat shelf of dirt and the clearest water I think I’ve ever seen. I judge it to be about chest high, if I were to climb in. I can just barely make out a little steam rising from the water.
“How deep is—” I start to ask, turning toward Aiden.
But he surprises me by being right behind me. I’m thrown off balance, waving my arms in a manic pinwheel as I start to topple backward. Aiden reaches for me, grabbing my arm. I clutch at him, shifting his balance too.
My eyes widen as we both fall headfirst into the water, landing with an indelicate sploosh. It’s surprisingly not freezing cold. My brain registers the warmth of the water, like putting your head under water in a hot bath. For a moment I’m submerged in the water, helplessly falling underneath Aiden’s heavy form. But then something kicks in, some survival instinct or something, and I struggle to the surface of the water.
I gulp huge breaths of air as I come back up, wiping my face. Aiden is doing the same thing right beside me, scowling. He looks like a very grumpy and very wet pet dog.
I can’t help the smile that stretches across my face, or the breathless laugher that bursts past my lips. He glares at me, paddling halfheartedly against the river’s current. I sort of doggy paddle toward the riverbank, only to have his hand grab my arm.
I whirl around to face him. “I can’t swim!” I remind him. “Let me go.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re not going to drown in here. It’s waist deep.”
To prove it, he gathers me in his arms and stands briefly, the water sluicing away from his body with ease. We steam gently in the open air, making me shiver. Then he drops back into the water.
But he doesn’t let go of me. I cling to him, breathing hard. He looks down at me with a smirk. His eyes drift briefly down to my lips and he swallows. All I can hear is my heartbeat sounding its ballad in my ears.
Oh my god, are we about to kiss?
“You really should learn to swim,” he says, looking back into my eyes. “Can I teach you?”
I try not to deflate like a balloon. “Oh. Sure?”
He releases his hold on me and I stand up in the river, blushing furiously.
Aiden purses his lips. “Okay, I think it would be wise if we started with learning to hold your breath…”
He does teach me to swim, there in the dusky summer afternoon. But I can’t help wishing that he would do more than that…
Chapter Ten
Aiden
The sun beats down on me, almost as relentless here as when I was in Afghanistan. I’m stripped down to my waist and wearing a ton of sunscreen, but I’m still going to be pink by the time I’m done today.
“Aiden!”
I look down at the ground from the ladder I’m balancing on to find Margaret at the bottom. Scaling down the ladder, I wait until I am almost at the bottom. Then I make sure to make my voice loud, as if I’m on stage in a play.
“What can I do for you?” I wipe the sweat from my brow.
Margaret, I notice, is wearing a sweater over her dress and still manages to look cold. I hold my breath, thinking that I should just ask her if she remembers my mother. She might be refreshed by my asking.
Then again, she might fire me on the spot. I wrinkle my brow.
“Carter is picking me up and taking me to see my daughter. Will you let Olivia know that I will be gone for a few days? I would, but she hasn’t come back up to the main house for a while.”
Looking off in the direction of the path to the servant’s quarters, I nod. “Of course.”
“What?”
I clear my throat, then speak louder. “Of course! I got it.”
“Thank you!” she says, smiling. Then she shuffles off, around the front of the house. I head back up the ladder, listening to a car pulling off down the lane a minute later.
Olivia.
Her name echoes in my head. I have to give my brain something else to think about, otherwise it defaults to playing the exact sound she would make as I go down on her on loop. I bet she’d whimper.
Or is she more of a moaner?
That truly is something to ponder.
Scraping the paint off the outside of the manor is both mindless and so fucking boring. It actually reminds me of being in the Navy, in the early days at least. The long hours of back breaking menial labor and endless tedious tasks were sort of soothing, in retrospect.
Also the sweating. I remember sweating a ton in the Navy, maybe more than I sweat here.
Leaning against the second story of the house with the sun beating down on me, I scrape at the old wood of the house. But my mind wanders a lot. And more often than not, it ends up in one place.
On Olivia. Her dark hair, her shy smile. The way her ass looks from behind.
Okay, if I’m honest with myself, it’s a lot more of the latter
. I also spend hours trying to imagine what her small breasts would feel like in my hands and how her nipples would taste on the tip of my tongue.
It’s probably only because there is no one else to fantasize about, but I obsess about her a little. My work is monotonous and hard, moving the ladder and chiseling away at forty years of grimy paint. But having Olivia to focus on makes it more bearable.
Knowing that she’s actually here though… that is pretty tough. I could act on any of my fantasies, at any time.
Except I won’t, because Grayson would be so, so angry at me. I can’t disappoint the one person who has been my friend for so many years. I’ve never made friends easily. It’s not exactly like I can go out and pick up another best friend, anyway.
As the sun dips lower and lower, I finally reach a stopping point. Climbing down from the ladder, I try to decide what to do. It's still hot as fuck outside. I guzzle down the water I left for myself in the shade of the house.
Picking my shirt up from where I tossed it earlier, I squint up at the sun. A quick dip in the ocean would be really nice.
Olivia comes up behind me, catching me off balance. “Hey, have you seen Margaret?”
I whirl, shooting her a look. “She told me to tell you that she would be gone for a few days. Actually… that was hours ago.” I look her over, taking in her very casual outfit. Teeny tiny shorts, a white tank top, and sandals. If I’m not very much mistaken, I think I see a hint of a blue bikini tied around her neck. That makes my body tighten and my voice deepen. “Where have you been?”
She lifts a hand to shade her eyes. There is a tote bag on her shoulder, probably carrying some book that she’s engrossed in. She squints off into the distance toward the driveway.
“I’m surprised that Margaret didn’t see me. I spent the whole day carrying boxes of files upstairs to the ballroom, to give myself more elbow room to work.” She pauses. “Did you know that there is a frigging ballroom here?”
I hesitate. I want to quiz Olivia about whether she has come across anything that I’d be interested in, but I don't want to spill my secret. So instead, I focus on what she’s wearing.
“Are you thinking of heading up to the beach?” I ask.
“Err… yes.” She colors, lifting the tote bag that is on her shoulder. “I brought a book and a towel.”
“And sunblock, I hope,” I tease her. She is pasty white, after all. “I’m just about done for the day, so I’ll come with you.”
I feel her gaze slide down my chest. She bites her lip, turns even redder, and then nods. “Okay.”
She turns and starts walking away, leaving me to grab my water and catch up. As we walk, I keep an eye trained on her.
Olivia has never said anything even remotely romantic to me. But gazes like the one she’s giving me now speak volumes in their own way. She thinks I’m hot. I can tell.
Well… I am hot. I work my body hard to maintain it. And a regular rotation of other women seeking me out for a quick fuck certainly hasn’t hurt my ego at all. Still, the fact that I’ve been getting those looks from her for years is… well, flattering, for a start.
“So, um…” She ducks her head as we walk, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’ll be ready to start actually reading some of the documents soon, once I’ve finished moving them around.”
My heart speeds up. “Yeah?”
“Mmhm. So I was thinking that maybe you could tell me what names to keep in mind as I read? Or at least when your mother was here? That way I can make a mental note of what to update you about.”
Blowing out a long stream of breath, I nod slowly. “That makes sense. My mother is…” I stop myself, feeling my cheeks heat. Her death still isn’t real to me, I guess. Correcting myself, I continue. “Was. My mother was named Anna De Luca. And she would’ve been here…” I scrunch up one side of my face, doing the mental math. I guess it would be my birth date, minus a year. “I think in 1989.”
Olivia nods thoughtfully. “I’ll keep you apprised as I get to work.”
My lips turn upward at her phrasing. How very Olivia, to use one big word instead of countless smaller ones.
We reach the road, where the forest suddenly falls away. Before us, the road gives way to the sloping beach. It’s rocky after we cross the road. The ocean glides gently up toward us and then back again, leaving a sandy beach in its wake.
Olivia picks a spot, laying her tote bag down. “God. It’s beautiful out here.” She shivers. “Outside of the forest, it’s unexpectedly chilly. I guess there isn’t anything to keep the wind off of us.”
I toss my shirt down next to her bag. “It’s brisk. I like it. But I don't think that I want to get in the water, though.”
A smile tugs at her mouth. “I suppose not. Maybe I’ll just sit here and read.”
She purses her lips and sits down in the pebble-strewn sand, well away from the water. Normally I would just look at the sea for a minute and then head back to the shelter of the trees. But since Olivia seems intent on staying, I sit down next to her.
She is pretty quiet, dragging her book out. It’s big and thick, not beach reading at all. My knee accidentally brushes hers as I settle in, and my touch leaves traces of crimson on her cheeks. Then she apologizes, as if she had done something bad.
“Oops, sorry!” she says, scooting herself another inch away from me.
My first instinct is to drag her a little closer, put my calloused palms against her smooth skin. Just to see how she would react.
Cool it, Moreland, I remind myself. Think of who she is. Don’t do something that stupid.
So I change the subject. “I hate to be one of those people, but what are you reading?”
She wrinkles her nose, showing me the cover. The cover is abstract, a swirl of gold-brown under the title. “It’s The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.”
“Faulkner. I think I had to read something by him in high school.” I pause. “Well, I don't mean read. I mean listen. It was one of the few books that my school had on audiotape.”
She lifts her eyebrows. “Oh? You didn’t want to read the novel?” She chuckles. “Actually, most people don’t. He is very wordy.”
I look at the sand in front of me, reach out two fingers to trace a figure eight. “I’m like… laughably dyslexic. When I was growing up, I failed two grades before the school realized that I couldn’t really read.”
“Oh,” she says carefully, gripping her book to her chest with both hands. “Right. I knew that. I just never really put that together in my head. I just assumed that you were as good at school as you were at… everything else.” She wrinkles her nose. “All I ever did as a kid was read.” Her cheeks stain again. “Actually, my childhood wasn’t that different from my life right now in that regard. I’m still a giant nerd.” She crinkles her face up. “I know you were a jock at that age, so… thanks for hanging out with me.”
She huffs out a laugh.
I smile a little. I’ve known her since she was a little kid, her nose always stuck in a book. “I wished I was a nerd sometimes. My dad was this big corporate lawyer who was so angry that he had a dumb kid.”
She straightens her spine and frowns. “You aren’t dumb, Aiden.”
I roll my eyes. “My dad would probably disagree. His fuckup of a son, who joined the Navy straight out of high school, and now spends his days hiking around the forest. I’m a profound disappointment to him and he doesn’t waste a single opportunity to remind me of it.”
Her eyes widen. “Your father actually told you that?”
I push myself onto my back, laying out against the sand. “Yep. In much, much more explicit language than that. That’s why we don't talk anymore. We haven’t even made an attempt since my mom died.”
Olivia pushes her hair behind her ears, her expression a little angry. She reaches out and touches my arm ever so gently, causing goosebumps to raise all over my body. “Aiden, you’re one of the smartest people I know. You always have been. I’m sorry that anybody
ever tried to tell you differently.”
Her words are so earnest, making the back of my neck heat. It’s a little weird that she has such complete faith in me when I’ve never really given her a reason to feel so strongly about me. It feels awkward and clunky.
“We don't really need to talk about that,” I deflect. “We should be talking about something more interesting. Like…” I grasp for straws, eager to put the ball back in my court. What am I good at?
Sex. How do I work that into the conversation?
“Okay…” I say. “Ah! Who was your first crush?”
Her cheeks color. “I don't know…” she hedges.
I’m enjoying her embarrassment too much. “Mine was Mrs. Collins, my fifth-grade math teacher. She had sort of this breathy voice. And she used to wear these short, tight little skirts… and she would lean over when she fixed the projector… Mm. How about you?”
Olivia looks at the ground. “I had a crush on Mr. Rodger,” she mumbles. “I liked how neatly he dressed.”
“Oh man,” I say, cracking up. “That is nerdy. You liked how neatly he dressed.” I laugh about that for second, my eye on Olivia. “Alright. How about a tougher one?”
She gives me a look that says she couldn’t imagine anything she would rather be talking about less. I grin, my shoulders feeling looser.
“How about… are you a boobs girl or a butt girl? Or… what’s the female equivalent? Hot arms or strong back muscles?”
She scrunches up her face. “I would rather crawl under a rock than answer that.”
I bump her with my shoulder. “Relax. I’m not going to tell anybody. Me, I’m a butt guy, all the way. Boobs are great, but I like an ass. Gives you something to hold onto when you’re fucking.”
Olivia pinches her eyes closed. “I hate you.”
“Just tell me. Which do you fantasize about? Arms or back? Oooh, or abs maybe?”
She grabs her book, holding it in front of her face. “I like the Adonis belt, I guess…”
That gives me pause. “The fuck lines, eh? That’s pretty raunchy, Olive.”