“You did the right thing,” Lake said.
Not really. I wasn’t sure what the right thing would’ve been, but it wasn’t that. “Mads had this friend next door, Beth. They had a secret, not-so-secret hole in the fence they’d use to get to each other’s houses. That’s where she was going.” She’d run so fast out the back. Because of me. If I’d known it was the last time I’d see Madison, I wouldn’t’ve threatened her that way. She’d surely been as afraid of me as she was of him in that moment. “My dad and I fought. Took down everything in the kitchen—the table, dishes, pots and pans.” There’d been so much shit all over the kitchen. Noodles on the linoleum floor from an overturned pot. I couldn’t remember getting scalded, but I’d had a burn from the water for a while after. Broken dining chairs. Blood on my knuckles. Everything falling away in a second . . .
“I swear, I would’ve taken my baseball bat to him if I hadn’t heard the screaming.”
“Maddy?” Lake whispered.
Hearing Maddy’s name out loud, reliving the moments leading up to it, I needed to take a breath. I looked out my open window. “My mom. She found my sister floating face down in the pool. After the autopsy and all that, we figured she’d slipped while running, fallen in, hit her head on the way down. She was unconscious long enough—while we were all in the house . . .”
I didn’t dream, but once in a while I had nightmares. Getting Maddy out of a pool red with her blood, the shock of pulling a cold body out of warm water. Trying to give life to a stiff mouth. Breathing so hard into her that I nearly passed out.
“When the cops showed, I was still trying to give Maddy CPR while Mom sobbed on the ground next to me. But my dad had cleaned himself up and calmed down. His anger was like that, quick to explode, quick to flame out. He knew they’d see the bruises on Maddy and my mom and the mess in the kitchen. He hadn’t landed a punch on me, but he was bleeding from a busted nose. I was the only one unscathed. When the officers asked what’d happened, he’d explained that I’d snapped. Beat Maddy up and them, too.”
“No.” Lake covered her mouth. “He blamed you?”
It was fucked up, but my dad had always been a dick. Aside from the death, it wasn’t the part I still wasn’t over. “My mom couldn’t speak to save her life, she was a wreck. But when the officers asked if it was true, she wouldn’t say I didn’t do it.”
“She let you take the rap?”
“She was afraid if she said no, they’d take my dad away.”
Lake readjusted her hold on her knees. “Did they arrest you?”
I sat forward and ran my hands over my face. Every time I thought about it, it renewed a sliver of my faith in humanity. “They took us both to the station. I told the cops what’d really happened, and they saw right through the bullshit. Figured out my mom and dad would rather send me to juvie than have Dad get in real trouble. Beth’s parents vouched for me, too, said they’d heard our parents arguing a lot and that I’d been good with the girls.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t, though. Good. I should’ve had him locked up the first time it happened.”
“But you must’ve been a kid. How long had it been going on?”
“All of their marriage, but it didn’t happen that often. Something inside him was just . . . off.” And I had to wonder, how did I know I didn’t have the same thing? I got angry like any man. I tried never to put myself in a situation where I might test the switch, though.
“What happened to him?”
“My dad? Prison. Hard as it was, I had to go up on the stand and convince them that he’d hurt us before, even though we’d never filed a report. My mom wouldn’t do it. She tried to get me not to, didn’t see what good it did if Maddy was gone anyway. I didn’t see it that way, though. I wanted the max sentence.”
Lake fidgeted with the bracelets on her wrist, kept twisting whatever was in her hand. “All this happened when you were fifteen?”
“You see why I get so worried? It’s not just because of Maddy. I saw and did a lot of things a kid shouldn’t. It changes you. Can’t ever go back.”
“I get it,” she said softly. “Of course I do. I just can’t believe . . . what about your mom?”
“Still in Pasadena. I guess.”
“You don’t know?”
“I went to live with Dad’s sister. My mom was my mom—I loved her. I tried to protect her. But she picked a monster over me.” I finally let go of the steering wheel, flexing my aching hand. “I couldn’t go back after that. I realized once I moved out, I resented her anyway for staying with him all that time.”
“I wouldn’t go back, either,” Lake said.
It was her way of showing support, but just thinking of Lake in a situation like that got under my skin. “My aunt was all right. She didn’t forgive my dad like Mom did but she kinda checked out. She was torn up about Madison and felt bad she hadn’t done anything sooner knowing my dad’s temper. So we left each other alone. I couldn’t give her anything. I had nothing.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
“Do you?” I asked.
“No. You have something to give, I know it.”
I nodded. “I’m going to help others. That’s how I’m going to give.”
“Because they believed you,” she said, piecing it together. “That’s why it means so much to you to become an officer.”
“One of the cops who’d been there that night, he stopped by my aunt’s to check in on me from time to time. Made sure I stayed on track and graduated high school. I never met anyone like him before that or since. Henry’s a good man. That’s why I want to be a cop. Help people like he does.”
It wasn’t exactly a happy ending, but it was something. It was all I had. Everything else was mistakes and broken relationships and loss.
“I never would’ve . . .” Lake’s voice trembled. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have run off like that.”
Without thinking, I put my hand on her knee, covering it and then some. She was far away, but I could still reach her. “I know. It just reminded me of everything, you disappearing like that.” Her cheeks were wet. “Please don’t. Don’t cry.”
“But I . . . I love. This. Our . . . you . . .”
I squeezed her leg. I understood Lake and her broken words. She didn’t mean it like she was in love with me. She was trying to say she couldn’t help her tears. Couldn’t stop her heart from breaking for Madison. I loved her for it, too, for a tenderness so altruistic and pure, it overflowed outside her control. She released her legs and extended the one I was holding. I slid my hand down to her ankle, slower than I meant to, appreciating the smoothness of her calf. I wanted to say come here and wipe her tears. Hold her until she understood she was still safe, and I wasn’t mad. My hand encompassed her ankle. I realized the thing clamped in her hand was her bra. She was still the young girl I wanted to protect. No toenail polish. No makeup. Wet hair. Wanting what she wanted, no price too high. But there was more to her tonight, there always had been. The look she gave me, as if she could sense me responding to her small tits and pink mouth. Those gaping shorts.
She was breathing hard again, but not out of fear. Her tears had dried. She dug her foot between the seats, where I’d shoved the cigarettes, and nudged the pack out. “You look like you need one.”
I wondered if my face was as gray as hers had been a minute ago. She seemed warm now, loving, but now my hands shook, even the one holding her ankle. She sat forward without moving her legs and turned up the stereo.
I recognized the beginning chords of a song before the DJ even introduced it. “. . . slow things down with a little Sophie B. Hawkins,” he was saying. “This request goes out from Naomi C. to John M., and I don’t think I have to tell you what Naomi’s trying to say. It’s right there in the title.”
Lake scooted closer, bending her leg between us. She picked up the pack and took out a cigarette, studying it. When she went to put it in her mouth, I caught her wrist.
“I just want to see what it’s like.”
I let go of her. It wasn’t as if she had anything to light it with.
She put it between her lips, rolling them around the butt, then took it out and pretended to blow smoke. “Did I do it right?”
She held it in the “V” of her index and middle fingers like her sister—of course. She probably didn’t know anyone who smoked besides us. She held it up to my mouth, and I was suddenly aware of my breath against her fingers. I took the butt between my lips. It tasted sweet. Sometime between the lake and the car, she’d made herself taste like watermelon candy.
I wanted it. The smoke, the girl. My vices. But here she was, trying to be something she thought I wanted. Something I was trying to protect her from. I took the cigarette, snapped it, tossed it out the window. “I told you. I’m quitting.”
Before I even had the words out, she leaned in, stopping inches from my face. Her sugary breath became mine. It was so easy to forget everything else with her around. Being close to her didn’t feel wrong. I could just sink into it, didn’t have to be cautious like I did with other people, as if I knew on some level she’d protect me. She’d care for me. As a side effect of trying to restrain myself, I squeezed her ankle hard enough to make her gasp. She went for the corner of my mouth, pressing her lips to my skin soft and slow.
“I feel very protective of you, Lake,” I murmured.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to change you.”
“You already have. I want this. I can decide for myself.”
“It’s not that simple.”
She smoothed her cheek against mine. To me, it was like nuzzling a peach but because I hadn’t shaven, it must’ve been rough for her.
“I’ve never even kissed someone,” she said close to my ear. “Never wanted to before.”
It was more than I could handle. It made me happy she’d never been kissed, never wanted it with anyone else. She was maybe too young for that but I also wanted to be her first. I put my other hand on her shoulder, meaning to pull her off. She ducked her head, planting supplicant little pecks behind my ear that might as well have been her saying please, Manning, please, please. My head dropped back against the headrest. “Damn it, Lake.”
With one leg still folded between us, she hooked the other over my knee and moved my hand to her thigh. She hummed along to the song, “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover.”
My heart pounded. I had to stop this, but she was heavenly. So soft, her lips and downy thigh, so inviting, her leg warming mine. Even her damp hair felt good in my palm. That’s when I realized my fingers had tangled themselves in her hair, spanning the back of her scalp, holding her in place. While I was distracted trying to control my body parts, her kisses traveled up around my mouth. Her hand guided mine up her leg. All at once, I went from pleasantly warm to burning up. My neck, my face. My lap. The base of my cock constricted. She was bold but tentative, bringing us to the edge, but not brave enough to take the leap. Her balmy kisses made blood rush to my crotch, flooded out my guilt.
She took her hand off mine, but I didn’t pull away. I slid it up into the hole of her jean shorts. She reciprocated with a hand on my zipper, right over my dick. Her panties were wet from the lake. From the water. That fucking dangerous, black water. I was no better than it, drowning her, taking what wasn’t mine, turning beautiful things ugly.
“Lake.”
“Please.” Her breath fell on my lips. “One kiss. Then we can stop.”
I wouldn’t be able to stop. No fucking way. My hand got caught in her hair, and I yanked it by accident. She jerked back just long enough for me to take her shoulders and hold her at a distance. “We can’t.”
Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “Nobody has to know,” she begged.
Headlights flickered in my side mirror. I immediately spotted the reflective red and blue top of a cop car, even though the lights weren’t flashing.
“Fuck,” I said, switching the song like it was porn I didn’t want to get caught with.
Lake looked out the back window. “The police?”
“Yeah.” He had no reason to pull over, but he might. We looked damn suspicious, sitting on the side of the road in the dark.
“Can we get in trouble?” she asked.
“I can.”
She vaulted herself over the back of the bench, her long limbs nearly knocking me in the face. There was no backseat, just a narrow space behind the front one where I’d found the towels.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
“Hiding.” She looked up at me, eyes wide with fear. She was still just a kid.
I had about ten seconds to make a decision. I respected law enforcement, but I wasn’t naïve. I knew not all cops were good. But what kind of trouble could I get in just for sitting in the car with her? Would he believe we hadn’t been doing anything?
“I think you should come back up here,” I said.
The cop flashed his lights once, a shock of red and blue. He wasn’t going to pass.
“I can’t.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want you to get in trouble. He’ll tell Gary. Maybe even my—my dad . . .”
If the cop wanted to see her ID and she didn’t have one, he wouldn’t just let that go. She didn’t look eighteen, not yet. I was with a minor who’d taken off her bra. We were both wet from swimming. I really doubted he’d just let us go, which meant taking us back to camp, telling Gary. Gary and I were cool, but he’d never let me get away with this. These kids meant everything to him.
He’d tell Charles Kaplan. Lake’s dad would obliterate me, no doubt, but what about her? He was her world. If he thought she’d snuck off with me in the middle of the night, how would that change their relationship?
“You’re right, he might escort us back, probably will,” I said, checking the rearview mirror. The officer had parked behind us. “But we’ll get in worse trouble if he finds you.”
“He won’t. I can be quiet.”
The black-and-white driver’s side door opened. We were out of time. “I’ll handle it,” I promised her. What else could I do? “Just stay still. Don’t make a sound.” I wiped my upper lip on my sleeve. “I’ll handle it.”
He took his sweet time walking up to the window, checking my plates, looking over the truck. I turned off the heater and stereo. Crickets chirped. I’d been pulled over before. The window was already down, so I put my hands on the wheel where he could see them. My palms sweat around the leather. Thank fuck we’d been interrupted, not that I would’ve taken it any further. Would I have?
Boots shuffled in the dirt. A uniformed man not much older than me appeared at the window. He aimed his flashlight into the truck, barely skimming the back. “Evening,” he said. “Car trouble?”
“Yes, sir. It won’t start.”
“Why’d you turn it off in the first place?” He looked around. “Not going to find much help in the middle of nowhere.”
“I almost hit a coyote, pulled off, and the car just died on me.”
“I see.” He squinted at me. Or past me. I couldn’t tell. If he were to lean in, really get inside the window, I doubted he’d miss Lake’s blonde hair. “License and registration.”
I considered arguing. He had no reason to suspect me of anything. It might’ve made things worse, though, and he was just doing his job. I pulled out my wallet and gave him my ID before leaning over to the glove compartment. “I’m sorry, Officer. It’s a friend’s truck.” Fortunately, the paperwork was right where I needed it to be. “He was drinking, so I offered to do a beer run.”
He read my license. “What about you, Mr. Sutter? Been drinking?”
“No, sir. That’s why they sent me to get alcohol. I’m just on my way back.”
“Oh, yeah? Where you headed?”
“Next exit. Young Cubs camp.”
“You a counselor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pretty sure you guys aren’t supposed to be drinking, but . . . I would be if I were in your shoes. All those damn kids.�
� He nodded at me. “Where’s the alcohol then?”
Fuck. It was in the backseat. I blanched, a deer in cop lights. I had to come up with something. If I didn’t, he’d have reason to doubt me and who knows where I’d end up. Probably at the station, a deer in the spotlight . . . of an interrogation room. I stuck an arm over the back of the seat. My hand brush against something soft. Lake. She pressed a bottle into my hand, and I handed it to him. He stuck his notepad under his arm and tried the top. “It’s sealed, so there’s no problem.”
“Great,” I said, trying not to sound too relieved as he gave it back.
The tension in my chest eased as the officer backed away from the window. “Step out of the vehicle, Mr. Sutter.”
At first, I thought he was dismissing me. I almost answered him with “thanks.” When his words registered, though, I was suddenly frozen to the spot. “Sorry?” I asked.
“Out of the vehicle.”
I pulled sluggishly on the handle. The door stuck, so I had to ram my shoulder into it. The officer moved back as it popped open.
I wanted to ask why. I’d just had a little car trouble—there was no reason to make this into a thing. But I didn’t. I was guilty. Not of what he thought, but I’d done a bad thing tonight. If I argued, he might get suspicious and look for more than what he had, which was nothing.
“What’s this about?” I asked, stepping into the dirt. I sounded guilty even to my own ears.
The officer pointed to a spot in front of me. “Go ahead and walk in a straight line for me.”
21
Lake
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
If I let out even a peep, the officer would find me in the back of the truck, take us back to camp, tell Gary and my dad, maybe even arrest Manning—and it’d all be my fault. I’d made Manning bring me along, go for a ride, get in the water.
My heartbeat filled my ears. I didn’t know what was happening. Couldn’t see anything, contorted in the small, dark space. The last I’d heard, Manning had asked why the cop wanted him out of the car.
Something in the Way: A Forbidden Love Saga: The Complete Collection Page 22