by L.J. Shen
Love destroys. These weren’t just words for me. They had weight, and a scent, and a tainted color that never faded. Every single person I’d loved had hurt me.
I still had to find a way to get my hands on Trent’s flash drive. I knew he carried it with him everywhere he went—he’d told me it was in his pocket while he’d had sex with someone else—and also knew he was too smart to leave any of the things my father wanted to get his hands on, on any of his devices. That made my task impossibly hard, but at least I was beginning to find the patterns of his everyday life, which Jordan had also asked for.
I put the book down, watching the Pacific Ocean from the window.
“It gets better,” someone in my vicinity said, and I wasn’t sure whether they were talking on the phone or to me, but it didn’t matter, because I didn’t believe it. Not for a moment. I fished my phone out of my backpack and checked my messages.
Bane
Are you coming to surf tomorrow?
Unknown
If she comes with you tomorrow, I want her grandmother to be there.
Trent.
The idea that he’d taken the time to open a message and write to me—spent this time on me—was pitifully thrilling. What was it about this man that made me want to break all my rules? No getting attached, no complicating things, and absolutely no poking the tiger—Jordan Van Der Zee—giving him a reason to pounce on Theo.
I tried to tell myself that this was innocent. I was taking Luna to the beach. Trent was not going to be there. It was reasonable enough. And Luna could really use a one-on-one with the ocean. I opened the first text message, to Bane:
No can do. I’m taking my boss’ daughter to the beach to collect seashells. Next week. x
Then I opened another one, writing, deleting, amending, correcting, deleting again, before finally pressing the send button.
8am/Tobago Beach/by the surfing club.
I walked into the house to find my father sitting at the dining table, which meant he was about to initiate a conversation. One that I most likely didn’t want to have. I slowed my steps, watching him dragging out the chair opposite him with his foot, silently ordering me to take a seat.
Reluctantly, I did.
My life was not seamless. It was made out of patches. There was the surfing and Bane patch. The mentally ill mother patch. The controlling father patch. The Theo patch. And even though they were stitched together, there was never an overlay. Each square stood as its own island. And if there was one thing I hated, it was bathing in the softness and cleanness of the Theo patch before jumping to the rough, worn-out Jordan patch. Which was what was happening right now.
“How is Theodore doing?” He surprised me by asking, but predictably did so while he checked the stock market on his laptop on the table. His eyes were glued to the screen and I tucked my hands between my thighs, trying not to gulp.
“He’s been better.”
“Oh?”
You don’t care, you cold-hearted bastard. So don’t ‘oh’ me. “There’s this special program where they let you visit your family at their house and monitor you throughout. Two nights. He wanted to go.” This time I did swallow the lump in my throat, because how could I not? It sounded too much like a plea, and hearing a ‘no’ would crush me.
“That’s wonderful for the families, Edie. Any news on Rexroth?” He shot me a look, and I faltered.
For the families.
As in not ours. I didn’t have a family.
Talking to Mom about this would get us into an argument again. She’d tell me that she needed to run this by my father and that she was feeling pressured. And Jordan…he took pleasure in ripping us apart. Besides, he’d just said no in his own way.
“Edie?”
I looked up, blinking. He gave me a tight, warning smile, shutting his laptop screen and pushing it aside, folding his arms on his chest. “Rexroth’s flash drive?”
“Still working on it.”
“Why is it taking you so long?”
“I only ever have time with him on Tuesdays,” I said, conveniently leaving out the fact that I’d babysat for him on Friday. If my father cared at all about my whereabouts—which he didn’t—he might’ve thought to ask. Telling Trent not to say anything was pointless. We both knew how dangerous it was—especially after he’d given me so much money.
If he’d felt like a secret before, now he was covert sin.
“And he carries the flash drive with him everywhere. That’s the only place where he keeps everything important.”
“Huh.” Jordan stroked his chin, looking out the window. The sun was beginning to set, and a bluish glow filtered through the curtains. It was time to show him what I’d managed to retrieve from Trent’s apartment when I’d gone there on Friday. I wasn’t proud of stealing it, but that was before he’d given me the money. The fact that he’d barked at me, degraded me, practically thrown me out of his place only helped a little to soothe my burning guilt. I stood up and walked to my backpack, taking out a paid invoice I’d found on his counter, tucked under a bunch of other invoices which were neatly stacked, waiting to be filed, no doubt.
“What am I looking at?” My father frowned at the invoice.
I tapped the upper left side of it. “Amanda Campbell, PI. She is a private investigator. He is using her for something.”
“Where did you find this?” Jordan asked.
The lie slipped from my mouth without a blink. “His office.”
“What do you think this is about?”
“I don’t know him very well, but I’d be surprised to find out it’s about you.” Trent never spoke about my father. Not to me or anyone else at the company. He seemed to disregard him completely. But then what did I really know about the guy? Other than he didn’t like me one bit.
“I know who it is.”
“Oh, yeah?” I cleared my throat, trying not to sound too eager.
“His child’s mother.”
His child’s mother. After I’d found out Trent was Luna’s dad, I’d snooped around with Camila, finding out that her name was Val, she was from Brazil, and that they’d never been together. Not in a relationship, anyway.
I watched Jordan’s face carefully. Watched how it morphed from boredom and disdain to interest. He really was fascinated with this guy, and it irked me. He folded the paper, pocketing it.
“More,” he said. “And soon.”
Deflated, I pushed some hair from my eyes, groaning. “Can I please fill out the papers to have Theo visit me sometime this summer? Just for the weekend.”
Me.
Visit me.
Be with me.
Heal me.
“Absolutely not.” Jordan got up from his chair, making a show of preparing my mother a cup of tea like he was Husband of the Year. For him, this conversation was over. For me, it had only just begun. He took the steaming cup and sauntered out the kitchen. I jogged after him down the hallway, the sleek marble, the beautiful arches, the ugly truth beneath these walls. Tempted to yank the sleeve of his Prada suit, I decided against it when I considered the consequences.
“Please,” I said.
“Parading him around for a weekend is going against our agreement, Edie.”
“Jordan…”
“Father.”
“Focus on your Rexroth task and forget about this. You need purpose. This is it. Helping your family. Theo is my family!”
My father stopped in front of the closed door to the bedroom and spun in place. The expression he wore told me I’d crossed the line.
“If you don’t deliver—I will make sure Theo is thrown out. I want everything there is to know about Rexroth. Everything. And I do not negotiate with children.”
“You won’t do this to me.” My voice trembled. What if I couldn’t find more dirt on Trent? What if finding this dirt made it so difficult for me to look in the mirror I’d want to throw up on myself?
“I will. You know I will.”
“You’re breaking m
y heart.” The admission felt sour on my tongue, like defeat.
“It’s all broken anyway. There’s nothing left to be ruined.” He meant Theodore. I knew.
I opened my mouth to answer when he slammed the door in my face.
My father had given me two choices—take Trent down to save the person I loved, or compromise the person I loved to keep an innocent man safe.
I knew what option I was going to choose.
It just made me sick to my stomach.
I WATCHED TOBAGO BEACH FROM the comfort of my terrace, smoking a fat blunt in my designer briefs, my Bling H2O water still at room temperature despite the unforgivable heat thanks to my housekeeper, who kept sliding one ice cube into it every ten minutes. I tipped my Wayfarers down, staring at the black dots spread around the golden beach. I didn’t fucking know why anyone would buy water at forty bucks a bottle, but I still did it because I could. I did it because, once upon a time, I’d been so poor that the soles of my old shoes were too thin and I’d had to smear superglue on them and let them dry in the sun so my feet wouldn’t burn against the concrete.
I was fascinated with my bank account, as all poor boys who grew up to be rich men were. Flaunting my money was almost mandatory—a flaw I wasn’t proud of—and money made Edie Van Der Zee sick. It was easy to see why we disliked each other.
Anyway.
I tapped the ashes into the ashtray beside my lounge chair, smoke rising with lazy spirals from my mouth. When I looked back down, my eyes focused on my targets, the ones who’d poured out of my building moments ago. They were walking closely next to each other. My mother, Luna, and Edie.
They were moving almost in slow motion, and I couldn’t see who was who. Other than Luna. She was the smaller dot. One of the women set a red towel on the beach—my mom, probably—the color barely recognizable from the distance. The two other figures ran to the ocean closely, maybe even hand in hand. My heart stuttered in my chest as I put the water to my lips, my eyes chasing them before they slowed down close to the wave breaking on the shore. They were just dipping their toes. Nothing more.
Calm the fuck down. Luna is fine.
I needed a distraction. I took out my laptop and started working, glancing down every now and again, trying to guess which dots were the girls I cared about. And Edie. Half an hour later, my phone began to vibrate and I snatched it. It was my mother, calling through a video chat. I slid my finger across the screen. My mom appeared, blurry but happy, smiling to her phone camera and waving. “Hey!”
“Mom.” I couldn’t help but smile. For all the shitty things I had to say about growing up poor, I wouldn’t trade places with any of my friends. My parents were the bomb, which no one else in my group could say.
“This girl.” She turned her head to the ocean before whipping it back and laughing. “She’s amazing! You have no idea how much fun she is having with Luna. She’s been teaching her how to surf.” My eyes must’ve bulged out of their fucking sockets, because she was quick to add, “On the sand. She just put Luna flat on her stomach on a surfboard and showed her what to do. They’re collecting seashells now. Edie said she will surf out to the deep part and get the real special ones. Luna…she’s never looked so happy, Trent.”
I swallowed, standing up and taking my phone with me as I slid open the screen door and entered my living room, dragging my hand over my face.
“Show me.” I nearly choked on the request. “Show them to me.”
Mom’s phone danced in her hand as she tried to zoom the camera to the two girls sitting by the ocean. I saw Luna in her little black bathing suit (no pink for this girl), on her knees, watching carefully as Edie counted, or examined, a pile of seashells. Both their heads were down, their tongues poking out from the corner of their mouths, like they were concentrating hard. Edie was wearing a red bikini bottom and a long surfer’s elastic top—red, too—and her long, wavy hair was partly tied into a bun at the top of her head, with the rest cascading down her shoulders.
“Closer.” My throat bobbed with a swallow.
The camera wobbled as Mom stood up and walked over to them. The more I saw, the less I felt like I was in control over the Van Der Zee situation. Luna was fucking glowing. There was no mistaking the grin stamped on her face.
“What do you think about this one, Germs?” Edie plucked one seashell from the pile and creased her nose. Luna rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Yeah, it’s meh, right? I thought so, too,” Edie said. She was about to throw it to the ocean—watching them for a couple of minutes, I noticed the shells that were deemed unworthy were thrown back to where they’d come from.
At the last minute, Luna stopped Edie, jumping up to her feet and holding Edie’s fist, shaking her head. Edie opened her hand, allowing Luna to take the shell from her hand.
“What is it?” she asked. They were so busy sorting through their shells, they hadn’t even noticed my mom was documenting the whole thing. Luna pointed at the shell, then arched one eyebrow.
“It’s broken,” Edie said. Luna nodded again. I wasn’t following.
“You want to keep it because it’s broken.” A smile spread across the blonde teenager’s face.
Luna shrugged.
“That’s beautiful of you, Germs.” Edie rubbed Luna’s arm before realizing what she was doing. She withdrew her hand quickly. I didn’t know why, but I made a mental note to tell Edie she can always touch Luna. If there was one thing I was good at, it was hugging the shit out of my daughter. She wasn’t scared of affection when it was given by the right person.
“Hey, I have an idea. Can you give it to me? I promise I’ll keep it safe and give it back,” Edie said. Luna hesitated, but dropped the shell in Edie’s palm.
They shared a smile. I collapsed on my couch, watching as history unfolded. The camera spun, my mother appearing again, this time with the hugest grin.
“Edie is the best thing to ever happen to this family, Trent.”
My mother was wrong, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her who Edie really was.
The end of her son.
Luna came back home full of stories she couldn’t tell. My mother suggested she put her in the bath and make dinner for her, and I jumped on the opportunity to get out of the house and sort through the jumbled mess that were my thoughts.
“Edie is still there, surfing, bless her heart.” Trish frowned, twisting her David Yurman watch. If only she knew that was the same girl who grabbed her bag all those weeks ago. “Actually, I think she might be leaving right about now. The sun is beginning to set.”
Without thinking much about what I was doing, I slid into my sports gear and went downstairs. I told myself I was going to jog on the beach again, but that was total bullshit.
I was going there to find her.
I was going there to catch her.
And once I had…what the fuck would I do with her?
Spotting her was easy. She was the only person left on the beach. The promenade was still bustling with people, rich and colorful like a festival, but all the surfers and tanning ladies were long gone now. She was lying face up to the sunset, her head resting on her black backpack, with nothing but her bikini. Her surfer top was discarded along with her sunglasses, the cool sand pressed against her skin. Her eyes were closed, and she was mouthing the words to whatever song she was listening to in her earbuds. Her yellow-ish surfboard was there beside her, like a loyal companion. A living entity. Like a pet.
I closed the distance between us, simply watching her. Standing over her. Fuck, I was one step away from a restraining order, but it was hard not to look. She revived something in me, just as she had with Luna. I didn’t know what it was, but I relished the unsolicited warmth that came with it. What was really shitty, though, was that both Luna and I were fucked, because this girl had her heart somewhere else.
And that might compromise my daughter and me in the process.
“Holy shit!” Her voice pitched high, and she was up in a second, y
anking her earbuds out and slamming them against her backpack. “You have to stop sneaking up on me like Pervy McCreepson, dude. What are you doing here?”
I don’t fucking know, but you need to make me leave.
Everything about her felt ripe. She was alluring, more than just physically. Like an old song with a sweet memory stapled to it. Or like a first. First beer. First joint. First kiss. I knew she was going to haunt me to my grave if I didn’t do something about it—and would do worse to me if I acted on it.
I watched her tits rising and falling, the way she sucked in a desperate breath when I stepped toward her with confidence I wasn’t entirely feeling for the first time in years. She backed away slowly. The beach was deserted. The sun had already set. I was cornering her, probably scaring the shit out of her, and I was too fucked to care. I wanted to get wet and let the tide wash over me without dipping a toe in the ocean.
I wanted what was forbidden, and wrong, and fucking crazy.
I wanted my partner’s daughter, who was nearly half my age.
The tango stopped when her back clashed against the blue-painted lifeguard station. Her spine hit the wooden rails and she had nowhere to go. I got in her face, inhaling her. The sea, fresh sweat, and her singular sweet scent drove me up the wall. I wanted to bury my nose in her wind-tossed hair and never come up for air. And I wanted to kiss her, which was insane, because I never wanted to kiss anyone.
I cupped her cheek in my ravenous palm, and it was cold. Her whole body was shivering. I was wearing a long dri-fit shirt, but she was still in a bikini. I looked down like the fucking asshole I was. Her nipples were puckered and hard, pointing at me. My hand moved from her cheek slowly to her neck. She didn’t withdraw or look away. I caressed her soft skin, moving down to her collarbone, then flicked one of her nipples through the fabric of her bikini. I stared at her silently, too hot to feel the shame accompanying messing around with a teenager.
She looked up, fear and lust swimming in her pupils, their bottomless depth luring me to jump in.