by Jamie Magee
He’d barely breathed a smile before Georgia’s grandmother came looking for her, and Lucas found Easton and took him fishing.
Today, Easton had nothing to offer Georgia and he knew it. They were not kids who were scared and lost. Well, maybe they were lost and scared, but they were old enough to know they would make it through this.
Right now, feeling the buzz in his head, he still couldn’t look up at her, meet her eyes, the vibrant blue glimmer she’d covered in thick, black makeup.
***
To Georgia, Willowhaven had never felt like home, not entirely. Right now, it was a suffocating weight—a hellish nightmare—she wanted to escape. She didn’t like the way everyone looked at her, how they acted like they knew her. How they told her they felt her pain—she didn’t believe them for a minute. She knew it was improbable to understand how tragic it was to lose a father before you figured out who you were, before you felt safe in the world…unless you walked the same broken road.
She was looking for an escape, somewhere to hide, to think, and had found her solitude against a tree at the edge of the graveyard.
Oddly, she’d sensed Easton coming long before she saw him. She told herself she’d simply smelled his cologne on the wind. But deep down she knew—she’d always had an unusual awareness when it came to the likes of Easton Ballantine. She’d watched him approach the bench he was on and begin to drink.
Awareness or not, she didn’t know her brother’s friends well. Still…she’d had a secret crush on Easton Ballantine since before she could remember. She hadn’t really seen him, beyond photos Memphis would show her. But she heard about him often, daily really, when she and Memphis spoke on the phone, a nightly ritual they’d had since their parents split.
Right then, the last thing she wanted to do was come face-to-face with a crush, but somehow her feet had led her to him. She’d never been one who could stand by and watch anyone hurt themselves, even if the pain only came from dark thoughts.
It was hard for her to look right at him. She feared she’d stare a bit too deeply into his jade eyes, at the thick, dark lashes which surrounded them, if not let her gaze wander over his chiseled features and lips which rarely curled into a smile.
He always looked so mad, even as a boy he looked mad. Then again, then and now, he had a right to be.
The kinda guy Easton was, the clean-cut southern boy, didn’t run with the kinda people Georgia spent her time with. Somehow moving from town to town with her erratic mother had always landed Georgia in the Goth crowd. She liked it, simply because when people saw the way she dressed, they gave her space. Which is what she wanted, the thing that made her feel safe.
She almost walked away when the expression of anger he was wearing like a stoic mask deepened, but then she remembered her father’s words.
“The first instinct is made with the heart, the second is with the mind—your heart knows no fear, and without fear you’re invincible. Always be invincible, Georgia. Help those who aren’t.”
She was terrified of Easton Ballantine, but he was the only one who was acting the way she felt. Who seemed to bear the same grief.
Sit down, Georgia Armstrong, her thoughts bellowed, daring her not to run.
So she did.
Chapter Two
Easton shifted uncomfortably on the bench as Georgia made herself at home next to him. Once again, she’d caught him on the edge of losing his composure which did nothing but piss him off. All he wanted was a few hours alone to sort through all the shit running through his head.
He didn’t have the strength to comfort her, repay the favor she’d given him when they were children.
He glanced to his side, caught her stare, and found himself completely transfixed. Her eyes were so blue they seem to inhale him…they looked past the point where most ventured.
…a trait she’d gotten from her father.
Her eyes were shrouded in black makeup she didn’t need, along with dark circles, which testified to the amount of sleep she’d lost, the tears she’d surely cried.
If he didn’t know for a fact she was Georgia Armstrong he would’ve never guessed so.
When Georgia was a girl her hair was long, too. But it was blonde. Her eyes were the same, but then her cheeks were full, innocent, like a porcelain doll. Then, like now, she was tiny, fragile compared to his size.
He pulled a long neck out and said, “I’ll give this to you if you keep it between me and you. I don’t feel like fighting with Memphis right ‘bout now.”
“I don’t drink,” Georgia said, noticing he refused to look at her for more than a brief second. She wasn’t trying to hit on him, was far from the mood to do so, but it still hurt her self-esteem.
“How old are you now? Sixteen?” Easton asked, assuming he’d gauged her as older than she was before.
“I’m almost eighteen,” Georgia said as her cheeks flushed and she looked down at the moist ground, smelled the beer saturating the earth.
“And you don’t drink?” Easton asked, cocking a brow as he took another long pull on his beer.
“Not after losing a friend to it,” she said, keeping her stare on the ground.
Easton hesitated, lowered his beer then set it beside him. He leaned forward as he cleared his throat. “A wreck?”
Georgia moved her head side to side. “Overdose. He started with drinking, then mixed it with everything he could. One night it was too much.”
Every time Easton looked her way a burn in his chest would flame, the wacky feeling in his head became worse. He could swear he felt her soul pulsing next to him, some kind of energy coming off her, all at once an electrifying and numbing feeling.
He’d never felt this way about anything or anyone before, and if he wasn’t walking through hell right about now, sitting next to his best friend’s kid sister, he would have already been plotting his move, figuring out why she didn’t seem to be like anyone else he’d come across in his adventures. Why he gave a damn about what she said or thought.
Instead, he kept his body tense, his eyes in any direction but hers. It didn’t help. It only made him notice this feeling around her more so.
Most times he knew his limits with drinking, when to stop, but right now he was sure he’d miscounted. The beer is jacking with me…not her. Not. Her.
“Boyfriend?”
Georgia hesitated before she answered. In a way the friend she’d lost was, but it was one of those middle school slash freshman relationships, not deep, but it still hurt she lost him…it hurt knowing she wasn’t able to stop him from destroying himself.
After a slight nod she said, “I tend to attract the broken.”
“I’m not broken,” Easton nearly snapped in a hiss of words.
She felt her body tense before her next bold words came. “Did I say you were?” She lifted her chin. “Am I attracting you, Easton Ballantine?”
He looked right at her, green to blue, a stare reaching past the fraudulent calm surface. Yes, she was. Which only pissed him off more. Not only was she not anywhere near his type, she was Memphis’s kid sister, Lucas’s daughter—she was seventeen. No way in hell this is going down.
He smirked to break the gaze they shared, to put a wall between her and him—to do anything to block the way she was messing with his head.
“I’m every kind of bad habit you don’t want or need, Georgia.” He meant every word. He never said anything he didn’t mean.
Even though she was doused in a Goth image, looked hard-core from a distance, he saw innocence in her, felt it radiating off of her.
Georgia had no idea where her nerve was coming from, but she held his stare. It was hard to do, he was intense in more ways than she could comprehend.
She wished this conversation could’ve happened at any other time in her life. Then again she was sure the constant pain in her soul, along with the notion no tomorrow is ever promised, was giving her nerve.
“A dare, Ballantine?”
“A promise,” he sai
d in a husky voice before he looked away, even leaned away. He shook his head, arguing with the urges he felt. Pull her to you…smile. He shook his head, arguing with himself. Mainly because he knew losing himself deep inside of a girl might make him forget the hell his life was once again…but this girl—she was off limits.
Just the idea of touching her forced him to squint his eyes closed. Want had never hurt this bad.
“Are you all right?” she whispered, leaning forward, not understanding what emotion he was trying to push down. One second he looked miserable, the next furious, but his eyes…his gaze was all but begging her to come closer.
“Me?” he said with a half laugh as he shook his head. “I’d ask if you were, but I’m sure you’re sick of hearing it.”
“You just changed the subject on purpose—I rather liked talking about habits I didn’t need.”
He shook his head then reached for his beer once more.
“Talking is not my deal.”
“Hands on kinda guy?”
He nearly choked as he tried to swallow.
“Yep, called it,” Georgia said, leaning forward on her knees.
“What?”
She glanced over him. “I may not spend a lot of time here but I know you have a way with the girls.”
He glared. “Whatever you’ve heard is bullshit.”
“Is it? You mean you don’t just nod to a pretty face and they follow you to some dark corner?”
Easton felt furious and embarrassed at once. “I haven’t been with anyone in this town for years.”
“This town.”
“What’s it to you?”
Georgia went to stand. At first she was just joking with him, but now she felt sick in her gut and had to get away. She’d always remembered him as this knight in shining armor kind of guy. She’d lost enough over the last few days, she didn’t want to stain his memory along with it.
Easton gripped her arm. “Sorry,” he rasped.
Hesitantly, she settled back into place. “I wasn’t calling you a male whore or anything.”
He smirked. “Good to know.”
A comfortable silence emerged between them as the sun set in the distance.
“You drink with your dad a lot?” she asked, nodding to the beer soaked ground.
“You trying to fix me?”
“You’re not broken, or so you say.”
His stare caught hers again. Even though he still felt a thunder in his chest, an odd burn, there was something surreal about her…
He told himself it was because she was real, she wasn’t doing all the fake stuff girls do around him. Right now he was seeing the raw version of Georgia Armstrong.
“This is the first time,” he finally said.
“Those are the ones he drank?”
Easton glanced down at the bottle he no longer wanted.
“No…” It was her father’s favorite.
Easton had been in Georgia’s place before and knew the last thing she needed were more stories about her father. So he chose not to tell her about the time Lucas caught him drinking. How he made Easton drink the entire six pack just so he’d puke and not touch it again—he was only thirteen. Lucas’s punishment held true until Easton was about seventeen or so.
“I only stop here now and again on my way to the river.”
“Creek,” she corrected.
“River.”
Georgia lifted her brow. “It’s, like, four feet wide.”
“Well, yeah, right there, it’s been dry, but it’s a river.”
“I may look like some indoor girl to you, but I’m not naïve.”
He narrowed his eyes on her. Almost laughed just because the boldness in her voice didn’t match her eyes or the slight tremble he was sure he heard in her tone.
He stood up and grabbed his empties, then reached for her hand.
“What?”
“I’m taking you fishing.”
“It’s dark.”
“And?”
Georgia sat still as a statue, mainly because she was sure her legs would not work if she wanted them to. Easton Ballantine just asked to take her somewhere. The boy she’d had a crush on since before she knew exactly what the difference between boys and girls was, a boy every girl whispered about. The worst kind of boy to have a crush on—he was perilous, sexy…and didn’t give a damn.
“Is it cooler to hang out in a graveyard after dark?” he dared.
“Oh, so now you’re a Goth hater—I dress like this so I must dig the morbid. Purple haired demoness.”
He reached forward, and before he could tell himself it was a bad idea, his fingers rushed through the purple locks across her shoulder. “You’re too pretty for all this black,” he said as his fingertip traced the dark line edging out from the side of her blue eyes. “But I get it.”
“Get what?” Georgia puffed. She was trying to be bold but it was hard to do without breath.
“It’s your safe place, a wall you stay behind.” Hopefully it keeps assholes away from you, was the thought he managed to keep to himself.
“It’s not a wall, this is me.”
“Yeah it is, and you’ll need it for a while. This shit you’re going through ain’t easy. You’ll manage though.”
“Do your walls help you get through it? Then and now?”
“Nah, still behind the wall,” he said as he reached for her hand, not surprised at all she understood losing Lucas was just as hard, if not harder than losing his own dad.
She waited until they had reached the top of the hill, and then climbed down before she spoke. “Why are you giving out advice you haven’t taken?”
He was still holding her hand—he’d told himself he was doing so because the footing was bad. He squeezed it and said, “It’s good advice I was given, merits repeating.”
“My dad,” she breathed.
He didn’t answer. The path they were on narrowed, and he’d pulled her against him. Oddly, he sighed on contact…what the hell is she doing to me.
She felt so fragile, so thin, he had a good mind to take her to get some food instead of out fishing, but right now he didn’t want to be around another soul but her.
When she put her arm around him he felt himself relax a little, a ghost of a smile traced across his lips.
Maybe he was coming out from behind his wall after all.
Before, with anyone else he was careful about every touch, wanted to make sure girls didn’t read too much into it. There was no reason for them to get hurt just because he was an ass.
By all means he should have his guard up even more so around Georgia, his boy’s sister. He even told himself so, but she calmed him down and right then he felt like being selfish, he felt like not thinking.
There was a small dock just before them, and with any luck, the fishing boat he’d used more times than he could remember would still be covered in the brush. It wasn’t really his boat; it was available for use to anyone who knew about it. There were a few of these stashed around the bank as you followed the path of the river.
He let go of her hand, dropped his empties in the wastebasket then moved through the brush. He knew even if the boat was gone the chance of finding a pole or two was good. Luckily, a moment later he emerged pushing the boat.
“You for real have a boat?”
“If I say it, I mean it,” Easton said in his classic, deep southern tone.
Georgia was nervous as hell but willing to try or do anything. Mainly because being nervous almost made the pain she was feeling vanish. It almost made her forget her dad was gone…really gone.
“We’re going to catch fish?”
His laugh was deep and quick, almost carefree. It didn’t match his personality, not all, at least what she knew of it anyway.
“I’m proving it’s a river. Bait, finding some? Might be hard, but I do have the poles,” he said as he nodded to the boat then reached for her hand once more. “There might be bait at the next dock,” he said still holding his grin.
When she stepped on the boat it rocked. She let out a squeal. Which was so far out of her character it wasn’t even funny, then lurched forward, landing in his arms.
Hard as a rock.
She expected him to laugh, but instead there was silence. The only sound, over the symphony of crickets, was their breaths and the thunder of her heart…a sound she would swear he could hear, or at least feel, as it clamored all the more so with her chest pressed into his.
Slowly his hands moved down her back, the blameless sensation had all but mesmerized Georgia. She was by no means innocent, not really, but he made her feel untouched all over again—next to him everything felt new, unexplored, even dangerous. Easton was right—he was a dare she didn’t need, not on this night, but craved just the same.
Easton cleared his throat, then after balancing her, set her down on the plank bench.
Using the wooden oars riddled with splinters, he pushed the boat out into the stream. He knew this river, knew it when it was swelled, knew it when parts of it were dry as a bone. It was one of the things he missed out on the road, a safe pocket he’d go to alone, or even with one of his boys.
His eyes stayed on her. It was a moonless night, but he could still see the blue in her gaze, see the distant light of the constant fireflies bring a glow to her skin.
She was confusing the hell out of him. One moment she seemed bold, the next shy. Her hands were clenched on the bench, her eyes trained on the water. She would tense each time the boat rocked with the current, and since she had fallen into his arms she had refused to look him in the eye. It might be best for her not to engage…she felt too good against him. Good enough for him to tell all the ‘you know better’ warnings in head to go to hell.
“I thought you were an outdoors girl?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. I asked if you thought I liked graveyards because I had purple hair.”
“It wasn’t the hair, it was black lipstick,” Easton teased.
Georgia brought the tips of her fingers to her lips. She wasn’t wearing black lipstick, not today. Somehow, knowing he’d seen her when she wasn’t looking made her heart thunder even more.