“Don’t be. I got you.”
The air thickens between us, like we’re caught in the midst of a heavy fog, the roar of the waves in the background louder now as we stare at each other. My heart accelerates and pounds against my ribs so hard, I have to open my mouth to breathe deep, panting as if I’d just finished a marathon. I’m pretty sure we’re talking about more than sneaking out on ladders right now, and the very thought of it dances under my skin like a shook-up snow globe. The space between us is magnetized, every molecule in our bodies pulling us closer, preparing for the collision.
I step into my Chucks then slide my legs over the sill, letting go of his hand to death-grip the window frame on each side as I plant my feet on the top rung and pivot to face the house.
Jett’s left fingers grip my hip. “I’m right here. We’ll do this together.”
He steps. I step. He steps. I step. We continue the majority of the way, my palms wrapped around the cold steel so hard it grooves my skin.
Jett’s feet hit the packed sand with a thud, but before I can unclamp my eyes and find him, his arms circle my mid-back and knees, pulling me off into a cradle position against his chest. The metal frame slips from my fingers, and I grab hold of the closest safety net available—Jett’s head.
His hair’s barely visible in the tangle of my arms, clamped tight around his forehead as he’s pressed face-first into my boobs.
Oh my God.
I drop my arms to his shoulders, and he lowers me to the sand beside him. The naked bulb burning under the house bathes us in a golden glow. His cheeks are red-splotched, eyes focused somewhere below mine. I follow them down. My braless form stretches the white cotton of my long-sleeve tee tight across my chest, my runaway heartbeat pumping blood through me so fast.
I wrench my arms across my chest, and Jett’s eyes flick to mine. “Uh…I, uh…” he stammers. Rosy flourishes swirl over his neck and disappear beneath the V-neckline of his shirt.
My brain lurches into overdrive, desperately searching for a topic of conversation to break the awkwardness. Wait, didn’t he say he’d come here to ask me something?
“You never did ask me that question,” I remind him.
“What quest…oh…yeah.” He plucks the white flower from his T-shirt pocket and holds it out. “I was an idiot last night at the party, leaving you alone to go talk racing. Not just that, but an idiot about so many things. What I want is a second chance, a do-over of last night.”
I pull the blossom to my nose, its heavy sweetness a fond memory of Mama’s gardenia bush beside the back porch steps. This smell blowing in our screens marked the official arrival of summer. Her favorite flower, she’d kept a constant supply of new buds in water bowls on the kitchen windowsill. “I was the idiot, drinking way too much, running my mouth. A do-over sounds perfect, but…isn’t it too late?”
He shakes his head and taps his watch. “It’s never too late for us, Cami. We’re right on time.”
I glance at the digital numbers on his watch. “4 a.m. is right on time? For what?”
“You’ll see.”
“We can’t go in someone else’s house.”
An expansive one-story home on twelve-foot stilts towers above us from the front steps. The roof’s low pitch is crowned by an elevated screened porch and above that, an open sun deck, which sits slightly higher than the surrounding palmettos. I size up the place, from window to window, waiting for lights to turn on once the homeowner hears us and figures out we’re trespassing.
“Relax. It’s my dad’s.” Jett pulls me up to the front porch. I almost have to run to keep pace with his long strides. “It’s a rental property. No one’s coming in until the afternoon, so this morning—it’s ours.” He motions toward the access stairs to the porch and the deck, which lay around the corner.
I follow him. At the top, the square deck spreads out before us like a private beach, open except for a couple teak loungers and an extra-large floral-printed papasan chair. During the day, this has to be one of the island’s prime locations for ocean views, but at night, the landscape stretches out in pitch blackness beyond the deck’s perimeter, despite the moon’s best efforts.
My fingers fumble along the railing, clutching tighter when I peer over the edge at the top of a palmetto. Dear God, we’re higher than the trees. My breathing quickens, the deck’s spindles pressing into my skin as my head spins.
Then Jett’s arms circle my waist, pulling me to him. His warm breath licks across my earlobe. “Hold on to me.”
He directs me toward the deck’s center, and I close my eyes, shuffling my feet in rhythm with his, absorbing the moment. The rustle of the breeze through the fan-shaped fronds. The chirping crickets playing soprano to the bass notes of the ocean’s in-and-out roars. That slight rotten egg scent of the marsh I used to find so offensive, now completely ordinary. My eyes flutter open to Jett standing as my mirror image, staring back at me.
“Better?”
I nod and blow out a breath. “Much.”
He leans forward, his lips brushing my cheek. “Now look up.”
Above us, a million shimmering pin-dots freckle the inky night. The brightest ones blaze through the dark, the fainter ones dissolving in my focus then reigniting when I shift my eyes. The sensation of floating among the milky rashes of stars grips me, propelling my stomach to my toes. I grab hold of Jett’s chest, my fingers slipping under the neckline of his shirt and sliding over his clammy skin.
He grasps my hips and tugs me closer, the roughness of his jeans rubbing against the fronts of my thighs. “You okay?”
“It’s just…wow…there’s so many…”
“This is the best time to see them.” Jett glances at his watch. “Sunrise is 6:19, so we’ve got a good two hours.”
I thump the watch’s face. “You and that watch. You got somewhere else to be?”
With a grin, Jett steps back, flips his wrist over, unfastens it, and then shoves it deep in his pocket. He grabs my elbows, hints of coconut and spicy vanilla with an undercurrent of gasoline wafting over me.
His smell.
“No. I’m just here. With you.”
“That’s such a line.” I roll my eyes and pull out of his embrace, trudging to the papasan chair. The disc seat tilts so far back in its frame, it swallows me, my body facing skyward, feet swinging over the edge a few inches off the wooden floor.
“It’s not a line.” He sits beside me, and the large rounded sides fold in, sandwiching us together in the middle, the contact points between our bodies like smoldering embers. “I’ve spent so much time running from everything. You’re the first person to make me want to slow down.”
The intensity in his eyes threatens to explode the embers into a full-fledged inferno.
“So you say.”
“So I know.” He crosses his arms behind his head, pushing himself back into the cushion. The motion makes me slide closer to him; obviously, this chair wasn’t made for two. My arm overlaps his chest, my fingers nudge the top of his thigh. “I know something else, too.”
I glance up at him, but he’s not looking back, only biting his lip and staring into oblivion. “What’s that?”
“You need to quit hiding.” His words slap me across the face. He rolls his head towards mine, our foreheads a whisper apart. “If you ever want to talk …” He slides his right hand down, reaching over his body to stroke my arm.
My throat tightens. Emotional one-on-ones are beasts I’d rather not confront. I once shared those with Mama and Noli-Belle, but since they’ve been gone, the words have piled inside, heaped in the murkiest corners of my brain. But here with Jett, a dam inside breaks, a flood of emotions roaring in my ears as I slide my palm against his, our fingers twining together.
Overhead, the stars pirouette in place as I contemplate the voids between them, as if searching for some hidden entrance to another dimension. Noli-Belle would’ve loved this view, would’ve stayed out here all night, and I would’ve loved to have shared it
with her. Instead, I’m compelled to share a piece of her with Jett.
“My sister loved science, especially astronomy. She had this huge telescope in her room and one of those constellation charts.”
She loved. She had.
Speaking out loud about my sister in past tense cuts to the bone every time. I sigh and add, “She would’ve been thirteen by now.”
Jett squeezes my fingers and shifts on his hip, his body curving toward mine. My arm smooshes into his abs, our touch unhampered by the two thin layers of cotton lying between. “I have a brother. He’s just turned fifteen.”
It’s the first time Jett’s ever opened up about his personal life, and something tells me this gesture is significant. Like it’s the reason he’s been hesitant, and he’s ready to fully trust me.
“Buck. My mom’s son. He lives somewhere near Beaufort.”
I scoot closer, facing him directly as we lay side by side in the papasan. “Somewhere? You don’t know?”
Jett’s Adam’s-apple bobs up and down, pressing his lips into a flat line with each swallow. “It’s been years since I’ve seen him.”
The distance and heartbreak ring familiar. Missing my family and my old life consumes me every day, but it’s never occurred to me Jett’s missing someone too. I stroke his cheek with my free hand, the slight stubble from his last shave poking me like little thumbtacks. Tears lurk close behind his lashes.
“Buck’s the product of my mom’s affair. She left, married the guy, and started a whole new family without me. It doesn’t make much sense when you’re young, but then you get older and realize how everything went down. That’s when I got heavy into racing…and it made my mom hate me.”
“Hate you?” I grab his hand again, squeezing it in mine. I can’t imagine a mom just up and leaving. Except when death creeps in and steals her away. My mother didn’t get a choice; she never would’ve left under any other circumstances.
But voluntary separation? I can’t help thinking about Memaw and Dad’s non-existent relationship for the past decade. Dad refuses to discuss it and Memaw labels it a “misunderstanding.”
All of it’s stupid.
“Racing’s the reason she cheated on Dad. He was never there, and she always worried something bad would happen.” He takes a deep breath and continues. “When I started racing, she distanced herself, and told me if I kept on, she’d have no choice but to ‘remove herself’ from my life.” He bites his lip. “She finally did. About five years ago.”
The pain rolls off him in waves.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Turns out no one does. Jett says it’s not something he shares with people, and his dad flat-out refuses to discuss his mother. So, for the last five years, Jett’s dealt with losing her, and consequently a brother, alone. Not even Bo knows the whole story.
Jett fidgets with the racing championship ring he wears on his pinky, twisting it in circles. “Trust doesn’t come easily for me, Cami, but I…I trust you.”
His words forge a steel connection between the two of us, and suddenly everything bottled up inside me spills out in a heap. “I’m so sorry I was drunk and stupid last night. I put you on the spot and…” I stammer. “And…I just want you to know that I’m here for you, especially for the hard stuff. If I could—”
He reaches over and presses a finger to my lips, his way of telling me he gets it. Because he’s been there too. In actuality, though, he doesn’t understand I have my own secret. A truth I’ve concealed from everyone around me wells inside, rising like steam off my guilty conscience. He’s confided in me, and now it’s my turn to trust him with what I can’t bear admitting to anyone else. Only him.
“Can I tell you something no one else knows except my dad?”
Jett leans in closer, nodding his head, his cheek sliding against the floral fabric.
I lick my lips, mustering my courage. “I didn’t tell you everything about the accident because…I didn’t want you to judge me.”
His eyebrows scrunch together above his nose. “Judge you? Why would I—?”
“Because the wreck was my fault. I was the one driving when my mom and sister died. It was me who overcorrected when that guy ran us off the road, when our car flipped and hit that tree.” I look away, my breathing labored. The knowledge is bad enough. Saying it out loud is worse. “It’s the reason why my dad wants nothing to do with me. Because I killed them.”
Jett tips my chin up, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Cami, their deaths are not your fault.”
“And the distance between you and your mom is not yours.”
We sigh in unison and recline against the floral cushion. The mood lightens, like a heavy blanket’s been pulled off and tossed away. Maybe all we needed was someone who “got it” to listen, to hear the hard things. Ironic. A couple of messed-up kids with family issues comforting each other better than the highest priced therapist money can buy.
And then Gin and Bo with their perfect family life skip through my mind. Hating them for what they have, envying their happiness, would be easy, but I don’t. Not even a little. They took me in and made me feel like family from the moment I rolled into town, a real-life example of what could be.
“I’m jealous of Bo and Gin. They’ll always have somebody to lean on.”
Jett swivels his head toward mine, and I stare back, our noses nearly touching. His voice is faint, a slight sound against the nighttime symphony of bugs and waves and wind through the palms. “Lean on me, Cami.”
I turn back to facing skyward, the stars burning brighter than ever and giving life to the darkness. But now—now everything is brighter than before, the flame stronger, the need deeper. Even if our connection might only last for a season.
“At least until summer’s over,” I say.
He props on his elbow, hovering over me. “Even after.”
“What comes after?”
“I don’t know? Everything?” He shrugs. “Maybe we should focus on what comes now.” He runs his fingertips along my hair, pinching at wisps frizzed out along the crown, and then tugs on the end of my braid. “Am I ever going to see you without this?”
I reach up and untwist the elastic from the end, sliding it onto my wrist before raking my fingers through the gnarled locks. They fan out around my shoulders, several chunky pieces swirling in the breezy night air.
“Happy now?”
He nods with a grin.
“So, what comes next?” I ask.
Jett smiles and leans forward, nose to nose. My heart pummels my ribcage when his arms circle my shoulders. I lick my lips, waiting.
“This,” he whispers and crushes his lips to mine.
Chapter Sixteen
Jett’s lips. Unbelievably soft and smooth when they pressed into mine. Everything I imagined, but so much more. The gentle pressure as he repeated the part-press-pucker rhythm a gazillion times. The way he slid his hand down my back, tugging me in closer. How my fingertips snuck under his cotton shirt and skimmed along his firm muscles.
He kisses with his eyes closed. I know because I looked, too afraid to close mine only to re-open them and find out it was all a dream. Jett’s hands moved in rhythm with his lips, probing all the right places. My skin crackled under each sweep of his fingers.
We got back to the house around 6:30, and I spent another hour, after curling up in my sheets, reliving the moments over and over, finally succumbing to sleep well after the sun was streaming in my windows.
“Rise and shine!” Memaw bursts through the door, metal tray in hand brimming with a breakfast assortment of muffins, fruit, and a steaming cup of coffee in the middle. “I had a hunch you’d be sleeping in this morning.”
“You did?” I scoot to sitting, my back pressed against the pillows at the headboard. She sits the tray in front of me, and I snatch a muffin, peeling the paper liner.
“After that party fiasco the night before last…” She pauses, her head tilted and eyes narrowed in my direction. “You wer
e pretty mopey there for a while, avoiding the boy’s texts.” She crosses her arms and studies me as I heap in mouthfuls of muffin. “But something’s changed this morning. You two kiss and make up or something?”
Kiss? There’s no way she could know about this morning. A fire circulates into my cheeks and burns below the surface. How on Earth did she even piece it all together?
The CIA. Memaw’s a freaking undercover CIA agent. There’s no other explanation.
“Just a misunderstanding.” The food in my mouth garbles my voice. “Fine now.”
She nods, a glint in her eye and knowing smile across her lips, then sits on the bed’s edge. “No use hiding from me, CJ. I know you and Jett have feelings for each other. That was evident from the moment you got here. It’s time y’all finally did something about it.” She gnaws the inside of her cheek as I sip my coffee, staring at the creamy brown liquid. “Talk to me. No subject’s off-limits.”
Since she brought it up…
I swallow hard, dredging up the courage to ask her something I’ve been dying to know. Something my “true confessions” episode with Jett last night rekindled.
“Memaw, what happened between you and Dad?”
She sniffs her nose and clears her throat. The whole forthcoming attitude evaporates in a blink. “Why are you bringing this up now?” Her bottom lip twitches, but I don’t give in, hardening my stare even more. Her smile fades, eyes dropping to my comforter. “Misunderstanding?” she offers.
Same old excuse, and I’m not buying it. “A ten-year absence isn’t a simple misunderstanding.”
“Actually, that’s the shitty thing, CJ. Most arguments stem from misunderstandings brought on by people’s own prejudices or fears or egos. I bet we could solve half the world’s problems if all the concerned parties would shut the hell up and listen.”
I reach out and grab her hand. “I’m listening, Memaw.”
She groans and launches into her side of the story. Dad cut ties with Memaw after accusing her of mocking Grandpa’s memory and destroying what was left of their family. I remember only bits of the funeral, but one thing vivid in my memory is that nothing about it seemed sad. Instead, it was like a party with tons of food and guests who milled around, talking and laughing and drinking champagne from glass flutes. According to Memaw, the whole affair was pre-planned by Grandpa, who’d said in his gruff Southern accent that he “didn’t want no sad-sacks looking at his dead body.” He wanted to go out with a bang. Have people remember him as being the life of the party, not the stiff in the coffin.
As Much As I Ever Could Page 13