Rebels Like Us

by Liz Reinhardt

There’s a shift in the air, a spark that reignites flames I was sure were stomped dead. Whatever Doyle and I have been fanning bursts back to fiery life. And in the midst of this transformative relationship magic, life plods on like it always does. The food comes. He lets go of my foot, but keeps it in his lap. I press it up and down his thigh every now and then just to watch his face contort.

  I’m sure everything tastes great, amazing, even, but my memory gets foggy. We talk. I have no clue about what. I try to grab the bill, but my mind is so wrapped up in his smile, he beats me to it. I argue with him, but not too much.

  He’s teaching me when to hold on and when to let go. Not always the easiest lesson for me.

  After dinner, I drive him to a place my brother’s friend, who lives in Savannah, recommended for great dancing. Which I’m picky about because I’ve been dancing since before I could walk.

  My parents used to dance in the living room on Friday and Saturday nights, putting on La Banda Gorda CDs and teaching Jasper and me to dance merengue, teaching us to focus on the feel of the music while we balanced with our little feet on their toes and followed the back and forth of their feet and the sway of their hips. My brother and I even competed locally until he got old enough to put his foot down about the gaudy sequined costumes and dancing to sexy Latin music with his little sister.

  My friends and I went dancing all the time in the city, and Ollie and I used to make up our own intricate steps on the polished concrete floor of her living room. Lincoln said I never looked hotter than when I was dancing, especially if I sang along with the songs in loud, off-key Spanish.

  I don’t need to stoke the fire Doyle and I are building, but I don’t want to play it safe again. And I want to be a little more me, a little more of that brave, crazy girl I feel like I left behind in Brooklyn.

  The club is crushingly full and the music is ear-ringingly loud. I recognize the Oro Solido song filling the room. My grandmother has a soft spot for them because they’re New York–based, local guys. The memories of all of us dancing at their concerts, my grandmother’s feet flying along with the steps, her head tilted back as she laughed, make homesickness grip hard at my throat.

  “I know you can dance,” I yell over the beat that already has my hips rolling. “But do you think you can handle this?”

  Doyle’s watches with intense focus, taking in the frenetic foot movements and the slow turns, the joined hands and pressed bodies. After watching one song’s worth of dancing, he grabs hold of my hand and drags me onto the floor.

  He doesn’t get every step just right. We have a few offbeat turns, a couple of false starts, but he picks it up fast. What he lacks in technique he makes up for in enthusiasm and a natural grace that’s impressive.

  Whatever disconnect has been tearing us apart the last few months, it’s bridged right here on the dance floor. He pulls me close, my butt planted against his hips. I circle my arm back around his neck as our hips and legs move in perfect sync, and I pause to catch my breath when he draws the back of his fingers down my arm, taking my hand and twirling me again and again until I’m dizzy from laughter and out of breath.

  We dance until we’re covered in sweat, until my feet scream, and as we dance, he accepts less and less space between us. The rest of the dancers, the room, the music—everything—fades away and it’s just the rhythm that’s as natural as my heartbeat and the touch of his hands on my body.

  When there’s a break between songs, he tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear, smiling that contagious smile again, and looking like he wants to ask me something. I lean close, not sure what I hope he’ll ask—

  “You want something to drink?” he blurts out.

  The bubbles of excitement exploding through me fizz out.

  I have a feeling it’s not what he wanted to say, but I go with it. Plus I’m thirsty. “Sure. The water here is probably twelve dollars a bottle,” I warn, reaching into the tiny pocket in my skirt where I stashed some cash.

  “Dontcha dare.” He puts his hand over mine and leans close. “Let me be a gentleman tonight—to make up for being such a jerk the last few weeks.”

  “You weren’t,” I object, but he moves in and brushes his lips, salty with sweat, over mine. It stops me from dissecting the last few weeks of our relationship in the middle of the dance floor, which was probably his goal.

  The second he’s out of sight, I feel someone sidle up next to me. A tall guy, muscled, handsome, and I’d guess in his early twenties.

  His smile is so wide and bright, I can barely look straight at him. “I been watching you all night.”

  I have no idea how to answer this, so instead, I look over his shoulder and hope I’ll see Doyle. The crush around the bar is several bodies deep, so that’s pretty assuredly not happening.

  “You’re not from here, are you?” His eyes rake up and down my body. “The way you move? You’ve got to be Dominican.”

  “I am.” The words fumble out. “How did you know? I mean, no one ever guesses right.”

  “Dominican women are the most beautiful women in the world, so you gotta be Dominican.” He edges into my personal space with an ease that’s disarming. The scent of his expensive cologne is so overpowering, it makes me nauseous. “Plus no female dances merengues the way you just did unless they have Dominican blood in their veins. Dígame usted habla español.”

  “Sí.” I can’t resist speaking Spanish to him, but I pull back. “Estoy aquí con alguien.” I point to Doyle, whose reddish-blond head is finally visible.

  “¿Quiere decir que el vaquero?” He says it mockingly, dismissing Doyle out of hand, confident he’s got me snared, I guess because we share some random cultural bond.

  “He’s not a cowboy.” My voice instantly ices over. “He’s my date. And I’m going to dance with him now. Nice meeting you.”

  “Búscame cuando estés lista para un verdadero hombre,” he taunts just as Doyle steps next to me.

  Doyle looks from me to the guy, his expression hard and twisted.

  “Él es mucho mas hombre de lo que tú quisieras ser,” I yell when the guy snorts and starts to walk away.

  A few people turn around, nosy for the drama, and his handsome face goes dark. “Puta.” He spits the word out, and I feel the hot burn of shame roll over my face and neck.

  “What did that asshole say to you?” Doyle demands. He drops the water bottles and starts stalking after the guy so quickly, I barely have time to yank him back.

  “Stop. So not worth it. He’s just an arrogant jerk who didn’t like getting turned down.” I clutch at his arm. “Seriously, no fighting.”

  “I can take him,” Doyle insists.

  I know size-wise Doyle would be sorely out of his depth, but it’s not size that makes Doyle the fighter he is. That said, I’m not ready to see the guy I love getting violent again. I’ve seen enough hate, anger, pain, and suffering in the last few weeks to last me a lifetime.

  “I never said you couldn’t. But you don’t need to. I’m actually pretty tired.” I bend down to pick up the water bottles. “You know what I wanna do right now? I wanna drive to the beach and drink twenty-five dollars’ worth of bottled water. You in?”

  Doyle’s pretty eyes are like sights zeroed in on this guy. His back is up, his shoulders stiff, but breath by breath, he relaxes and focuses on me like he’s coming through some thick fog. “Yeah. Okay. That sounds good.”

  We leave the club, find our way to the car without further incident, and head for the beach. Doyle knows a stretch that’s not crawling with tourists and navigates me to it. We eventually pull up at a huge house.

  Make that a mansion. A massive, gated one.

  “Uh, this is someone’s private place.” I glance around nervously, waiting for some hired-gun security guard to drive us off.

  “My family does the landscapin’ for all the Youngblood homes and businesses. I have insider knowledge that they’re all in Europe right now. Croatia or Hungary or something.” He raises his eyebrow
s and elbows his door open. “C’mon, scaredy-cat.”

  “I’m not a scaredy-cat.” Despite my brushes with the school administration and law down here, I’ve managed to keep a squeaky-clean criminal record, and I’m not overly anxious to be caught trespassing.

  Especially here, in this very ritzy, probably very white neighborhood.

  Especially looking so very Dominican like I do tonight.

  But Doyle is a natural-born leader, and I can’t help but follow his lead. He leaves his boots and socks scattered on the cobblestoned driveway and cuffs his jeans high before he heads into the beachfront sand, waving his hand for me to follow. I kick off my heels and make a second set of prints just behind his.

  “Gorgeous, ain’t it?” He breathes the salty air in deep and wraps an arm around my shoulders.

  The waves are calm tonight, their hiss and crash a purr that lulls us. The air hangs heavy, wet with cool water. My toes sink into the damp sand and maneuver through a million grains to find his.

  I lean my head on his chest and hear his heart with one ear and the ocean with the other. I’m trapped between infinities.

  “It’s the same ocean you’d see in Connecticut. Or New Jersey.” I nuzzle against him, waiting a few overlong seconds before I ask the question I don’t know that I want to hear the answer to. “Does any part of you want to leave this?”

  “Every part of me has thought about it every day since the first day I met you.” His quiet words are almost lost in the crash of the waves. He switches gears fast, on purpose. To avoid. “You ever play I Never?”

  “I think I have. Only we called it Never Have I Ever.” I look at him curiously. “Why?”

  “I think we should play it.”

  “I need to drive home. I’m not drinking.”

  “Not with alcohol.” The up-tip of his lips manages to do so many things—dare me, tempt me, draw me in.

  “So if you don’t drink…?”

  “You strip.” He loosens two buttons on his shirt.

  I whip my head left and right, scouring the beach for elderly strollers, families collecting shells, or optimistic surfers, but it’s completely deserted.

  “The same family owns the houses on either side. I promise, no one’s gonna see.”

  “Are you sure?” Instead of answering directly, he starts a game I’m not sure either one of us is ready to play.

  “I never got a naked pic of anyone I dated. Not for lack of trying,” he adds with a twisted smile.

  I blush, remembering the way I went light-headed when I got an unasked for—but much appreciated—texted picture from Lincoln, his toned body and dark skin so incredibly gorgeous my hand shook just from holding the phone. “Can I go put my shoes back on before we start stripping?”

  One eyebrow elevates slowly. “Really?”

  I’m not sure if he’s shocked that I want to rewind and put on more clothing or that I’m agreeing to take something off at all.

  I take off my bangles and lay them in the sand instead of answering him or getting my shoes. “I never…” I pause and try to think about how to get Doyle Rahn out of his clothes. “I never…saw the Pacific.”

  “Cheater.” He sheds his shirt without a second’s hesitation. “You already knew I went to Hawaii.”

  “I forgot,” I lie. Badly. I do make an effort not to stare at the lean, hard muscles of his body, the skin still faintly yellow around his ribs from the pummeling his father gave him.

  “I never had a pet.”

  I don’t make a move, and when he gives me a look that begs for an explanation, I oblige.

  “Me neither. Apartment living. Also, my dad’s allergic to dogs and my mom said keeping a litter box in a thousand square feet of apartment would kill her.”

  “My granddaddy’s got coonhounds, but they ain’t pets. They’re huntin’ dogs, and he keeps them outdoors in a barn on our far property. We’re forbidden to interfere with their trainin’. They only listen to grandaddy anyway. When I’m on my own, I think I’ll get myself a dog. A pet dog.”

  “A boy and his dog.” I move my hand close to his and link our pinkies. “I like that plan.”

  “Your turn.” He pulls my hand up to his lips and kisses the place where my palm meets my wrist.

  I tell him I’ve never ridden a dirt bike.

  The whine of his zipper pulling down makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

  He tells me he’s never had braces, and I tug my top off, muttering, “Cheater.” It was Doyle who unpacked the picture of Ollie and me at our eighth-grade dance, braced faces glowing with excitement.

  I tell him I’ve never seen a Godfather movie, but he keeps his boxers on and tells me he’s only seen Scarface and that we should have a gangster movie marathon.

  When he tells me he’s never been on the receiving end of oral sex, I shimmy out of my skirt with my face on fire.

  I wonder if he’s been on the giving end.

  I wonder if he wants to try it. With me.

  I wonder if it would be as good as it was with Lincoln.

  Or even better.

  I bet it would be better. Everything else has been.

  I’m down to my lacy black underwear and leopard-print bra. Doyle’s navy boxer briefs hang low on his hips. Our clothes lay crumpled in a heap next to us, just beyond where we sit. The moon is covered with clouds, the waves caress the soft sand. He reaches out and drags his fingers along my thigh, down to my knee and back again, then pulls away.

  “That last one wasn’t gentlemanly. There’s havin’ a good time, then there’s pushing it, and I oughta know better than to cross that line.” His words are heavy with an apology I don’t need him to make.

  “I can’t play this game anymore, Doyle.”

  “I understand.” He runs his hand through his hair and nods.

  “No, you don’t.” I want to cover myself, but at the same time, I want him to see me exposed and vulnerable and to like what he sees. I want him to want me the way I want him. “If we go any further, I’m not going to say stop. And I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you.” His words make my body shake. He reaches out to touch me, but pulls his hand back and fists it in the sand. “I’m a coward, Nes. You’re the only person who’s ever seen the real me. I’m sick of keepin’ my head down and not being brave enough to say what I want or do what I want…with who I want.”

  Now he does touch me, but his hands tremble. I circle his wrists and hold his hands away from my skin.

  “I don’t want this to be another one of your regrets.”

  “I don’t wanna be some temporary distraction till you head home.”

  “I feel like I am home… I feel like I’m home when I’m with you.” I close my eyes and wait for his mouth on mine because I can feel what he wants to do next like my brain is in his body.

  As he’s kissing me and my head spins and my heart pounds like it’s willing to work overtime for this, he whispers, “The only thing I’ll ever regret is all that wasted time when I coulda been with you but was too scared.”

  We say each other’s names like we’re laying claim, like we’re granting our own wishes and sealing a fate we refuse to be careful about anymore.

  But I trounce the magic.

  “Wait!” I fling a sandy hand through my disheveled hair, then push it between us. “Wait. Not here. Last time, we got caught up.”

  “I swear, I won’t be a dick like I was last time—”

  “It’s not like that.” I stand, and sand rains off my skin. I curse myself for choosing the tight clothes. Not good mixed with sand. Not good at all. “We can drive back. We’ll drive, and I want you to think. When we get to my house, you can come in with me or…”

  How will I survive this drive now? This is insane. And tortuous.

  And necessary.

  So necessary.

  No regrets this time.

  THIRTY-THREE


  The drive is silent—no punk, no small talk. Just this thing we both want hanging uncertainly between us.

  When we pull into my driveway, Doyle clears his throat before he says, “So.”

  “You don’t have to come in,” I assure him.

  “I want…you. I want this.” He stares at his hands.

  Instead of answering, I get out of the car and head to the house, fumbling my key in the lock. I walk down the hall to the sound of his truck pulling away. My heart slip-and-slides into my stomach, but the way he looked at his hands instead of me? I should have known.

  I remove my makeup and start to take off my jewelry, trying to be happy that Doyle and I had such an amazing date instead of sad that I’m spending tonight alone, when I hear a knock on the window and jump. I throw it up and pull him in under the arms.

  “Why didn’t you use the door?” I laugh.

  “Didn’t some dumb hick tell you he’d fix your doorbell? Guess he never got around to it.” He presses my hair back and just looks at me.

  “I thought you left,” I breathe, reaching out to touch his face, tug on his collar so he’s close enough to kiss, like I’m proving to myself he’s really there in front of me, flesh and bone, complicated and mine.

  “Jest moved my truck up the driveway.”

  “So, do you plan on hanging here with me tonight?”

  “Oh, I got lots of plans. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to follow through on ’em though.” His Adam’s apple jumps when he swallows. Both my hands reach up and grab his collar again, and, this time, I drag him close and kiss him.

  It moves from sweet and cautious to full-on, five-alarm steamy so fast, it steals my breath away. We don’t break the kiss as we walk back and bump into the edge of my bed. He relaxes, falling back on my mattress, which is finally set up on the bed frame.

  “You put your bed up,” he says into my mouth. “The pyramid of boxes is gone.”

  I kiss down his jaw and bite his neck gently. “Someone told me to stop being such a coward and make a decision. I took his advice.”

  “Damn. Sounds like a smart fella.”

  “Oh, he sure thinks so.”

  Before the banter can go any further, we get ensnared in more heated kisses that lead to more frantic touches. My fingers fly over the buttons on his shirt. Once I push it off his shoulders, I can’t stop running my hands over his skin, hard with muscle, warm with his freckled tan, scarred from fights I’ve witnessed and beatings I don’t even want to imagine. I feel like I know him better than I’ve ever known anyone, and, at the same time, like he’s a mystery I could spend the rest of my life unraveling.