Lunangelique (The Lunangelique Series)

by Campbell, Kristin R

  “Everyone should be here in about an hour. Will you get the cooler out and fill it while I start the grill?” he asks. I notice that he didn’t mention Cole.

  “Sure. Just let me change into my suit. I need to get some towels out for everyone too,” I answer him. I’m really curious to know if Cole did stop by after I left but I don’t want to appear weak in front of Alex. I’m sure that if he did, Alex would have told me. This thought makes me angry because that means he didn’t come over and he’s continuing to play a game that I don’t like. Well, screw him. Internally, I’m screaming. Why am I so irrational? I don’t even want to date right now. What is wrong with this picture?

  “You look like you’re going to be sick,” Alex disrupts my thoughts.

  “No, I’m fine,” I say, abandoning the groceries on the counter and going upstairs to change.

  I have this cute white bikini that is a little old but looks amazing on my tanned body. I slip the pieces on and then go into the bathroom to shave. I shaved yesterday while taking my long soaking bath but it doesn’t hurt to touch up again. I run the water warm in the sink and jump up on the counter to get to business. Then I slather on some oil to give my body a smooth, glowing effect. Back in my bedroom I slip into some white shorts and a pair of flip flops before noticing something lying on top of my pillow. Curiously, I walk across my room and bend over to retrieve a small, silver object.

  “What is this?” I whisper to myself. It’s about the size of the palm of my hand and has the imprint of feathers on both sides. It appears to be wings but not like a birds that our stretched out horizontally. These are more like what you see in pictures of angels with the wings hanging vertically. The metal reminds me more of white gold than silver; it has a golden undertone to it. I notice there is a hole near the top’s center, like it used to be a part of a necklace.

  I wonder how it got here. Maybe it belongs to Kaitlyn, though I don’t ever remember seeing her wear anything like this. I slide it into my back pocket so I can ask her about it when she gets here and then I head downstairs, stopping to grab an armful of towels on my way down.

  When I get downstairs, Alex already has the grill started and is organizing all the food next to the grill for easy access. The grill is stationed on our large patio, near the kitchen. We also have a patio table, opposite the grill, that already holds some plates and cups for our party.

  Our backyard is beautifully landscaped around the fence line with primroses, gardenia bushes, lavender, hydrangeas, lemon mint, hyacinths, moonflowers, gladiolus, foxglove and so many other flowers and plants I can’t name them all. Their effect is beautiful as they all blend together masterfully. You can walk along the flowers and breathe in the most beautiful array of fragrances.

  The pool is right smack in the middle of the yard but we still have room in the back of the yard for a gazebo, which replaced our old play set years ago. There is a large oak tree that still holds our tire swing and an open space that’s good to play catch in, or volleyball, as the net is set up there now.

  I start to speed up my pace, as I notice I only have about twenty minutes before people start to show up. I get the ice and drinks in the cooler and then start setting out the condiments and side dishes. I don’t like to cook, I can, but I hate how time consuming it is. So, instead of making the potato salad and macaroni salad, I bought them at the deli. And instead of cleaning and cutting up fruit, I bought platters from the produce section. I know, I’m ridiculously lazy. I just don’t have time for everything.

  I drag the cooler outside when the doorbell rings. “I got it,” I call to Alex as he starts plopping the first batch of hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill.

  I rush to the door and swing it open to Kaitlyn, Hope, Nathaniel and Ollie. Kaitlyn is dressed similar to me except in a bubble gum pink bikini with jean shorts. Hope has on a dress over her bathing suit and the guys have on their swim trunks with tee-shirts.

  I forgot how unbelievably cute Ollie is. His hair is a little long, hanging down over his forehead and into his eyes. It makes him look boyish but in a cute, I want to squeeze those cheeks, kind of way. Forget Cole. I have Ollie here to swipe the memory of him from me.

  “Hi, you guys, come in, Alex is in the back working on the grill,” I inform them, giving Kaitlyn and Hope individual hugs. I notice that Ollie makes sure he is the last one to come into the house.

  “How have you been?” Ollie asks me with a sweet smile on his lips.

  “Great, thank you. How about you? Have you got a chance to get out and meet more future classmates?”

  “Yeah, Nathaniel and Hope are under the impression that I’m their kid and have been dragging me around everywhere.” He laughs and I smile watching his dimples stand out when he laughs.

  “They’re great.” I loop my arm through his before taking him through the front door and toward the backyard. Eat that, I think, hoping Cole saw us.

  After answering the door a few more times, I’m finally able to sit back and hang out with everyone. I shouldn’t be too surprised that Cole didn’t turn up; I mean he wasn’t even invited, so it would have been rude for him to show up. Still I can’t help the feeling of rejection.

  Everyone seems to be having a great time. Half the group is in the pool, while the other half is sitting around, picking at scraps of food and spiking their drinks. Me and Kaitlyn try to clean up some by throwing empty plates and soda cans away but I give up and leave the trashcan next to the grill before going to sit next to Ollie.

  “Ready to get in the pool yet,” he asks me.

  “Sure, have you ever played water volleyball?” I ask him while raising my eyebrows up and down.

  “Of course,” he answers, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Alright everyone,” I shout. “Form into teams.” I start to slide my shorts off when I remember the angel wing pendant in my back pocket. I take it out and call over to Kaitlyn. “Is this yours?”

  She shakes her. “No, I haven’t seen it before.”

  I hold it up over my head. “Does this belong to anyone? I found it in my room earlier.” Everyone shakes their head and mumbles “no,” more interested in shedding their clothes and getting into the pool.

  I shrug my shoulders and put it back in my short’s pocket, noticing Ollie is staring at me as I fold my shorts and set them on a chair. At first I vainly think he’s checking me out but then I notice he’s staring worriedly at my shorts.

  “Is the pendant yours,” I interrupt his thoughts.

  He seems a little startled. “Uh, no. Sorry, I just think I’ve seen it somewhere before.” He gives me a smile, shrugs and walks over to the pool. So I shrug too and follow him.

  There is a lot of commotion as everyone starts forming teams. Alex and his friend Sammy setup the volleyball net over the pool. The guys are trying to pull a ‘girls versus boys’ competition but I’m not having that. So we draw up team captains. Me and Kevin, one of Alex’s friends, are the most competitive when it comes to sports so, of course, we’re the captains. I pick Kaitlyn, Alex, Ollie, Sarah, Sammy and Clara for my team. Kevin has chosen Hope, Nathaniel, Ethan, Mandy, Jenny, and Anthony.

  The game turns out to be unevenly matched from the start. Ollie is an awesome asset to our team; he doesn’t hold any spikes back. Kaitlyn and Alex have been playing with me for years so they can hold their own. Kevin, however, did not pick his players well. He chose based on sinners and winners. Ethan and Nathaniel are great sportsman with a drinking problem. Where they have a wicked arm and can move fast, their spikes are wild and their movement is erratic due to the drinks they were mixing prior to the game.

  Kevin keeps cussing everyone out as his guys are laughing and playing around with the girls. Nathaniel has Hope on his shoulders and Anthony keeps swimming underwater in-between Mandy’s legs. They look like a bunch of idiots compared to my team who are looking forward and focused on the game.

  Ten minutes into the game the score is already 9-3 and we’re only playing to ten. Sarah sets up for
probably the last serve and slams it right towards Anthony who has just come up from under water. Kevin flies over the water, knocking Anthony back down and manages to keep the ball in the air so Ethan can hit it back over. I move to follow the ball as it comes our way but it goes over my head and towards Ollie who hits it up toward me and closer to the net. I jump up in the air and slam the ball smack into the water, right in front of Kevin.

  “Woooohoo,” everyone on my team starts screaming and high-fiving each other, spreading our congratulations. Ollie comes over and I start to high-five him but he picks me up and lifts me instead, spinning us around in a circle. I laugh at his antics, too much in high spirits to make him put me down.

  “You are amazing,” he tells me.

  I laugh and dislodge from his embrace, still holding on to one of his hands so he won’t get offended from me pulling away. “You too,” I admit. “I didn’t know they had water volleyball in Italy,” I tease him. He responds by giving me a dimple-filled smile.

  I move away from him and start lapping the pool before getting out. Ollie is great and I am sure we would have a great relationship but he doesn’t give me those fiery feelings that Cole has summoned up in me. And I like those feelings; I wish I had them right now. Cole has made me feel so many things in the past few days that I’ve never felt combined throughout my entire life. Desire, excitement, eagerness, happy, want, anger, hurt, disappointment. I don’t entirely like all those feelings but I can’t help but think it has to mean something if he is the one who put them there. But still, I’m determined to stick to my plan and not even touch foot on his side of the street until he comes to me.

  I wrap a towel around me and walk over to the fruit platter, picking up pieces of the juicy pineapples, strawberries and grapes. Kaitlyn casually, but purposefully, makes her way over to me.

  “Ollie really likes you,” she whispers next to me as she starts to pick up some grapes.

  “Gee, you think?” I reply. “I don’t know how to brush him off without being rude and hurtful and still keep him as a friend.”

  “I’m sure if you keep yourself at a distance, he’ll get the point,” she says.

  “True.”

  The rest of the party/get together goes on without any complications. Kevin, Ethan, Nathaniel and Hope had a little more to drink than I presumed and Ollie ended up driving Nathaniel and Hope home while Sarah took home Kevin and Ethan. Kaitlyn stayed later than everyone else to help Alex and I clean up. Neither one of them said a word about either Cole or Ollie. They know me well enough.

  Mom and Dad came home around eight o’clock. They had promised to go on a date after work while we had our end of summer party. I love my parents, they’re the greatest. I will say that a reason why they are so great and not the kind of parents that ban everything is because Alex and I cleaned up the house after the party so there was no tell-tale signs that anything even happened. One of many reasons why they trust us.

  After talking to my parents about the day for a while I go out back to be alone. I sit by the pool with my feet dipped into the water, alternating between watching the water dance across the surface of the pool, the stars twinkling in the sky and the angel wing pendant sitting in the palm of my hand when I hear the latch lift up at the gate. I look over to see Cole slipping through the gate.

  I feint interest by staying where I am as he walks over to me.

  “Mind if I join you,” he asks, still standing next to me.

  “Not at all,” I tell him. I feel so shy around him again, like I did the first night I met him. Maybe you have to work up immunity to someone when you really like them. Or, like the effect they have on you is a type of drug that you have to build up a tolerance for.

  He slips off his flip-flops and sits down next to me, putting his feet in the water. He leaves a small, unpromising gap between us. Finally after giving up on me initiating any talk he asks, “What are you doing out here?”

  “How did you know I was out here?” I counter.

  “Alex told me,” he replies.

  I take a deep breath and answer his question, “I just needed to calm down from all the craziness of the day.” Which is mostly true. I feel like my mind is on two settings. Really, really slow and super-duper fast. When there is a lot of activity and people are surrounding me, I can’t focus on anything. The entire day felt like it went by in seconds, in a blur. And now that everything is calm and quiet, I feel like I have to take a deep breath for every second of the day that flew past me until I can recall all those lost, hectic moments.

  “It sounded like fun. I’m sorry I wasn’t invited.” He looks at me with a small apologetic smile. “I know that the fault was all mine.”

  “Maybe,” I say and smile back at him, which makes his smile broaden.

  “Then, am I forgiven?” he inquires.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” I tell him honestly, losing my smile.

  The smile vanishes from his face too. “Lexi, how can I make it up to you?”

  “I don’t know.” I shake my head and cover my face with my hands. “I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know how we left off. I don’t know what to say to you.” I let my hands drop from my face as I turn to look him in the eye, daring him to say something meaningful.

  “I see that you got my present,” he says, motioning to the hand that is holding the pendant.

  “This?” I lift the pendant up. “How did you give me this? I found it in my bedroom this morning.”

  “I asked Alex to leave it somewhere where you would find it,” he tells me.

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” I ask more to myself than him. “I asked everyone today if it was theirs and he never said a word.” I’m getting a little miffed that Alex kept something from me but I have to remind myself that I kept something from him too and he was probably trying to get back at me.

  “When did you come over?” I ask but I already know.

  “This morning. You were already driving away from the house when I started coming over. I’m really sorry I missed you.” He looks at me sincerely. “Alex also told me about the party but since you weren’t the one to invite me, I thought it better not to come,” he finally admits.

  “I’m sorry about that. As you can probably guess, I was a little mad at you,” I finally admit to him. “And I’m sorry for Alex bombarding you last night. I had no idea he went over there until he came home and told me. What did he say to you?” My voice sounds desperate, I’m afraid Alex has ruined my chances to be with him. Maybe he scared him off and is here to tell me there won’t be anything serious between us.

  “You’re lucky to have a brother who cares about you. Not too many would feel it necessary to defend their sister’s honor.”

  “Oh, God. How bad was it?” I start fumbling with my bottom lip with my teeth, worrying.

  Cole laughs. “It wasn’t bad at all. Seriously, Lexi. I promise you I was not offended or embarrassed. I would have been mad if he hadn’t spoke up for you.” He’s quiet for a few seconds and then he asks, “So, have you come up with a way to make this, us, different?” His hand comes up to brush my matted hair. It’s still a little damp from being in the pool all day.

  “Maybe,” I say as a sensual chill runs through my body from his touch.

  “And,” he lets the word linger between us as his head starts to move towards me. But I can’t let him distract me before I get to explain to him the conversation my mother and I had so right before our lips touch I push him in the water.

  It’s pretty funny watching his expression as he falls over the side of the pool. I quickly jump to my feet and head over to the deck where the light switch is located to turn the pool’s lights on. And even though I pushed him in the water so he couldn’t distract me with his great kissing abilities, I have managed to distract myself by bringing another swimming session into play.

  I laugh as he comes up from under water and takes off his shirt to ring it out and set it by the side of the pool.

  “Th
at was not very nice,” he says playfully.

  I just continue to laugh at him.

  “Come here so I can get you in the water.” He swims to the side of the pool to start pulling himself out.

  “Nuh, uh,” I tell him, standing with my hands on my hips. “Not interested in getting in again today, thank you.” He stands at the edge of the pool, staring at me. I know he’s thinking of a way to get to me before I can run inside or something.

  “Don’t run,” he tells me. And all of a sudden it’s like my body wants only to listen to him. So I stand there, frozen, letting him come up to me and wrap his cold, wet arms around me. I let him lift me up into his arms and I don’t struggle when he goes back to the edge of the pool and steps in, still holding onto me.

  I squeal when we resurface and I wrap my arms around his neck.

  “How do you do that to me?” I ask him.

  “What?”

  “Make me do what you want me to do and not what I want to do,” I clarify but letting the words roll back in my head, it still doesn’t make sense. I think he understood though.

  “I don’t make you do anything you don’t want to do,” he laughs at me. “I don’t think anyone can do that.”

  “I’m serious,” I say and let go of him to swim to shallower waters. “Just now you told me not to run, which was what I was thinking about doing, but I couldn’t. So, I’m asking you, how do you do that?”

  He just shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know. But you can’t say I was making you do anything against your will. I’m sorry if you felt like you had to do it. You didn’t feel threatened did you?” he asks me seriously.

  “No, of course not. Forget it,” I mumble. Still confused over what I have been experiencing.

  “Anyways,” he says swimming over to me. “So, your maybe comment? What were you implying?”

  I smile at him, instantly forgetting the previous conversation. “My mom has no problems with us seeing each other. She recommends that we just play it cool at school and nobody will get hurt or fired.” I raise my eyebrow to him. I dare you to reject that.