by Ace Gray
That she only traced in the sand with her fingers, never her toes.
And she held her breath during any reality TV eliminations.
I loved that she bit her lip when she took photos.
Even that black olives made her puke.
“I’m gonna make breakfast burritos. Does that sound okay?” She drew me back to the moment, back to the physical embodiment of all the quirks of the universe that made sense because they were her.
“Sounds great.” My mouth already watered.
“I suppose I really should wake them up.” The reluctance was obvious in her voice.
“I’ll do it.”
They all had comments when we had sex. I expected nothing less from the guys I thought of as brothers. I even kind of liked that they knew she cried out my name. But Mercy…she still turned a beautiful shade of crimson whenever they said something. She tried to square her shoulders and dish it back, but I saw the truth in her eyes. What we had was ours, and she wanted to keep it that way.
“I said I’d do anything for you. Pretty sure this is the least I can do.” And for the version of her in front of me, with wild tumbled hair, pulling on my hoody, I meant it.
She tiptoed out of the room, leaving the door cracked. I was propped up on my pillows, basking in the afterglow, when Rousse crept by, sporting serious morning wood.
“Hey Mercy, Rousse is up. Literally,” I yelled.
“Fuck off, Dantè.” He twisted toward our room and flipped me off, managing a glare even though his gym shorts tented enough for an entire troop of Girl Scouts. “We don’t all have a perfect chick—” He started to threaten me but then rolled his ankle over his size fourteen feet on the same dipped floorboard that had caused him trouble since we’d moved in.
I couldn’t help but laugh as I stood and reached for a pair of my boxer briefs from my pile of clean laundry and slid them on before I grabbed Rousse by the shoulders, helping him back to standing, patting his back as he rolled his eyes and smiled.
“She’s making breakfast burritos.” I nodded toward the kitchen. He tucked his dick tip into his waistband and turned toward the faint crackle of bacon.
I turned down the hallway and kicked the beer cans littering the floor. “Diego.” I pounded on his door. “Get the fuck up, we’re going surfing.”
Only a groan answered from the other side.
“Mercy’s making breakfast burritos.”
The slow creak of the floorboards on the other side of the door barely preceded him appearing in the crack of the door. He wore his comforter like he was Mother Theresa, and his wild, chin-length curls shot out like an insane and overgrown Chia Pet.
“Mercy’s what?” he croaked.
“Making breakfast.”
“Mmmmmmm,” he purred as his eyes lit up, and he shuffled past me, blanket get-up and all.
I smiled as I caught a glimpse of both him and Rousse sliding onto stools at the breakfast bar and watching as Mercy flipped bacon and then her hair.
“Life ain’t so bad sometimes, am I right?” Danger emerged and leaned up against the doorframe, his thick arms crossing his tank.
“Life is fucking great.”
He side eyed me, and his thick, plump lips pulled into his trademark half smile.
“A promotion huh?”
“Monday,” I answered as I leaned against the wall.
“Things are going to change.”
“You mad?”
“I’m just pissed I won’t have anyone to skate with any more. You’re leaving me with Lifeguard Barbie and Baby Bambi.”
“No one wants to grow up less than me, but…” My eyes ran up Mercy’s beautiful legs and I thought about her breathtaking soul. I had reason enough to leave the all-night ragers and hungover surf and skate kick around days behind. College together had been great—this year after even better—but she deserved more. The responsibility and money this software company was going to offer me didn’t hurt either.
“I’m gonna miss mornings like this.” I sighed.
That same distant look pressed in behind Danger’s eyes. His smirk turned up, and he glanced over at me again. For a second, fear percolated inside me. Not only because of the unknown, but something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on.
“I bet you are.” He spoke as I shivered.
“I won?” I repeated into my battered flip phone. “For reals?”
“As long as you meet the eligibility requirements written on the form when you entered…” The voice on the other end of the phone was bored. I recognized that tone, it was one of two my father spoke to me with. The pang of panic gripped my chest for a single heartbeat before I blew out a deep breath. The girl on the phone wouldn’t hurt me. She couldn’t.
“Yes. I do. I am,” I sputtered as I made my mind shift gears and go through the checklist.
Sixteen? Just, but check.
Pacific Cove resident? The wrong side of the highway, but technically, check.
Used the hashtag in my photo? Obviously or they wouldn’t have found me.
Okay with my photo being used in social media marketing for Surf The Cove? Yeah sure, why the hell not.
“Great.” The bored girl drug out the word into seventeen syllables. “Your longboard is available to pick up at The Cove during normal business hours.”
She clicked off the line before I got a full okay out.
I looked down at my phone for a minute, a little unsure I’d heard correctly. I won. My mouth hung open in disbelief. See, of all the things I was, lucky wasn’t one of them. My mom had run out before I could remember, and my dad was too drunk to fix the leaks in our trailer roof. Winning a surf board seemed so small in comparison but it felt…Well, it felt like sunrise when the world brightened and its first warmth kissed my cheeks. It felt like hope.
“What are you smiling at?” my dad interrupted, and his tone made the hair on the back of my neck stand up; I’d let my guard down. “You’re so pretty when you smile.” He shoved his hand into my hair and tilted my head up. Up so I could see his yellowing irises focused on my breasts.
“Get your hands off me.” I said it sharp but soft as I pulled away from him and his grip.
“You know you’re my daughter.” He emphasized the word as if I was his toy and bile rose in my throat.
“Do you?” I swatted at him; I’d been fending him off since my boobs grew in.
“Good girls do what they’re told,” he snarled as he used his grip on my hair to pull me backwards. He shifted just in time to push me flat against the wall. This close, he smelled like body odor and cheap whiskey. I shuddered.
“I have to go,” I said, mustering any firmness left in me. “Let me go.” I twisted away from him but not before he slid his hand up my shirt.
“Stop!” I called out, wishing that there was someone, anyone that I could call.
“Who’s going to make me?” He leaned in, reading my mind, his hot and rancid breath stippling my skin. I’d pushed anyone who wanted to be my friend away—I couldn’t show them this. I couldn’t subject them to this. I only ever had me to rely on, and today, I was the only one that was going to save myself.
“Me.” I mustered the strength to roar just before I drove my knee up into his crotch.
The second his hands slid from my body, he did similarly to the floor, and I ran. Bare feet and all. Tears stung my eyes as the wind whipped against my face. I pushed myself, running faster and farther from that house.
It wasn’t until I was downtown among the ritzy shops that eventually gave way to the country club and the sprawling mansions of Cove Cliffs that I stopped to catch my breath. Doubled over, my rib cage split apart by the balloon of my lungs and the jack hammer of my heart. Only focusing on the small bit of blood beneath my big toe let me calm down. Then sit.
I lifted first one foot then the other for inspection. I’d torn them both to shit and now I had no idea what to do. If I mustered up the courage to walk into the public restroom by the beach, I could scrub them, but
that required walking bare foot on bathroom tile…
Tears pricked in the corners of my eyes for a single heartbeat before I swallowed them down. I closed my eyes as I started counting, numbering each of my very small blessings. One, I was alive. Two, I wasn’t homeless (even if my home was a shit hole and I lived with an asshole). Three, I wasn’t unintelligent. Or hopeless looking—four. Five, I could hear the ocean. Six, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Seven, I won a surfboard with an Instagram post.
I opened my eyes and smiled at the memory, and noticed I’d stopped just across the street from Surf The Cove.
Eight, I’m going to learn to surf today.
And with that, I shoved myself to standing, walked my bloody feet and slightly busted insides into the surf shop, and claimed my long board.
I looked over at Dantè standing with Danger and smiled. I’d met him exactly two hours after that. A nineteen-year-old Adonis, with cut muscles and a caring smile. White knights weren’t supposed to ride short boards and do kick flips, but mine had. And he’d brought me a whole family to replace the shit excuse for the one that I’d gotten.
That surf board had been a source of luck that I still held my breath over. I got the feeling one of these days it was going to run out.
“What are we going to do without you, Mercy?” Diego asked, shaking me from my maudlin thoughts. “Don’t go,” he added with a moan from beneath his blanket cocoon.
“You’re going to come over, I’m going to cook brunch on Sundays.”
“I for one, hope that Dantè cooks for you.” Rousse smiled at me with a wink.
“Anything for her.” Dantè strode over with that look on his face that said I was his only purpose in this life and wrapped his arms around me. I closed my eyes and leaned into him. When he discreetly brushed my breast, I swatted him with my spatula but only because it made me want him, not at all because I didn’t like it…didn’t want him to touch me.
Somehow I always wanted him.
But it wasn’t just his body. It was every word, moment, and molecule. It was that he made me feel safe and filled my heart up with hope. He gave me a future that I’d never thought I could have. He made me laugh. And as I looked around the kitchen, I realized the loneliness that used to color my shadow had disappeared. He changed everything for me.
The realization had that old feeling of panic squeezing on my heart.
“Stop,” he murmured into my ear, far too low for the others to hear.
“What?” I whispered back as I tried to shake him off.
“Worrying.” He pressed his lips to my temple, and the tension that had balled me up started to seep away in his arms. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know.” The words rushed out with my heavy sigh. “That’s not what scares me. What if something happens to you?”
He turned me in his arms and pressed me up against the cupboards behind me. I half expected him to lift me onto the countertop—my legs were already desperate to wrap around him.
“You listen to me, and you listen good, Mercy Graves.” He cradled my cheek. “I am not going anywhere. Mine,” he pressed his hand to his heart then his other to mine, “is actually stuck to yours.”
I tilted my lips up so he couldn’t help but kiss them.
“You will not be lonely or hurt again,” he whispered just before he sealed his promise with a kiss that made my toes curl against the hardwood much the way my hands did into his sides.
I took a breath to counter him but he swallowed it whole, his chest puffing up beneath my hands as if I was the very air he breathed. I wasn’t entirely comfortable kissing in front of Diego, Danger, and Rousse…but like this…like I was the very thing that kept Dantè’s lifeblood pumping I didn’t mind. Like this, I thought I was going to incinerate and take them all with me.
When Dantè Rogue kissed me like this, I was sure his words would come true. The world would bend to his will like it so frequently did. He breathed life into everything he held dear. He made little broken girls like me feel as if they were whole. No, better than whole. He made me feel like wishes came true, even if my only wish was to be loved like this completely.
“No way in hell you get it today Rousse. You’re gonna fall off again,” I yelled as I bushwhacked to the cliff trail.
“Fuck you! I’m gonna cut back like the pros.”
“Brah, you’re embarrassing. I’m gonna cut back like the pros. NarNar Teehee,” I mocked Rousse mercilessly but I was ten times worse about surfing.
“None of us are gonna cut back brah,” Dantè interrupted as the cove came into view. “Beach is taken.”
I shot down the steep hillside, board in hand and bare feet clinging to any solid soil they could find as I darted in front of Dantè for a better view of the dillweed who stole my surf spot. MY surf spot.
But then I froze.
The most beautiful girl I’d ever seen laid napping on a thick, wide surfboard. She had just the tip of it resting in the water and her body rocked with the rhythm of the waves.
I was in love.
“Dibs,” I called, laughing as I took off down the steep hill, admiring her tits and her ability to carry that giant board down this trail.
“You’re not calling dibs,” Dantè called behind me.
“Like hell.”
“She gets to decide who,” he argued. “If any of us at all.”
If? There was no IF with Dantè. He’d been 6’ 4” since freshman year of high school and had gotten busy honing his muscles in the last year, on the waves and in the park. He had dark hair and mischievous eyes. The all-American bad boy a la James Dean that everyone damn near died for.
“Dibs,” I repeated as I jumped over the last root and landed in the sand.
I shoved my board in the sand and walked over to her, all three of my blood brothers watching from a short distance. I smiled at them, winked, and then fluffed my hair. I was about to open my mouth when my words choked in my throat. Should I hit on her? Be sweet to her? Play it cool? I mean, this girl radiated “the one”…
“You’re blocking my sun.” She cut into my thoughts. “Take the waves if you want, but don’t take my sun.” She hadn’t opened her eyes.
I found myself silently begging her to open her eyes, to look at me. I knew we’d fall in love if only she’d open her eyes. She’d see me in all my glory, a god of surf meant to be with this goddess of freckles and sand.
But then she turned over.
And opened her eyes.
Seeing NOT me first.
One look back at the guys and she shot up, still staring back at them. I couldn’t help but stare down at her tits. She swallowed and shoved her hair up and over. Every flex and quiver of her taut, tan skin resonated inside me.
“I said you could have the waves,” she said to me with the slightest twist and a barely-there flick of her gaze.
Her eyes went straight to my hair. My wild, curly hair, bleached out by both Rousse’s amateur bleach attempts and the sun. She let her look fall down my shirtless torso, to my board shorts that luckily didn’t show how I felt about her, then to my bare feet then…Nothing. She turned back toward my buddies who were now walking toward us.
“Hope he’s not bothering you,” Dantè said with his easy smile on.
“Not b-bothering.” She stumbled over her words. “You guys can have the waves.”
“Thank you.” He lifted his hand to shield his eyes against the reflection of the sun on the water. “You’re welcome to share.”
“I…I…only stand-up paddle board.” She blushed, a pretty rose complimenting the light caramel of her tan. “I don’t know how to surf.”
“I can teach you,” I interjected and her gaze flicked to me again.
“That’s a nice offer but…” She let her eyes fall from me again, finding Dantè where he still stood looming over her. “Can you?”
There was a hint of desperation in her voice. Want and need too. It was that voice that played me like an acoustic gui
tar by the fire. But she played it for Dantè. Danger and Rousse recognized it with matching deep laughs as they turned for the ocean.
“He’s a better surfer than me.” Dantè jerked his chin toward me.
“Please?”
Dantè shoved his board in the sand next to mine then folded down to his knees. At eye-level, I could see it, their connection. It was as bright as the fucking sun above and burned twice as hot.
“I’m Dantè.” He reached out his big bear paw hands and her small one slid in. I saw her shiver.
“I’m Mercy.”
For the first time, I wished that Dantè, my blood brother, would drown.
I remember the feeling her name struck inside me the first time I heard it. It was beautiful just like her. And it patched up spots inside me I didn’t know were broken. She was transfixed by Dantè, so much so that she didn’t notice how I carved her name on my heart right then too.
Four years of watching Mercy from afar. Though, sitting across the breakfast bar from her wasn’t much physical distance, the fact that she had been moaning his name less than an hour ago was a million metaphorical miles away, across the goddamned Grand Canyon to boot.
I watched her smile in the sunlight and laugh at something Rousse said, while she pulled bacon from a frying pan and set it on a paper towel lined plate. The sound filtered out like always and the world around her started to fade away. I was left with Mercy as a beacon. The curve of her body seductive as she twisted and turned her Brazilian bikini body, the disheveled rumple of her hair sexy as she played with it between master spatula use.
She sautéed onions and peppers, scrambled eggs, then sliced avocados. She laid the plates out for us and finished warming tortillas on the stove. Danger plopped onto the stool next to me as Dantè followed her like a little puppy dog. She brushed her fingers against his as she moved in practiced circles. She even purred when she bit into the burrito she made last, feeding all of us first as she always did, selflessly waiting until last.
That purr. I’d heard it this morning. I could hear it through the wall each and every time they fucked. It punctuated her moans as he pleasured her.