by Sophie Swift
He rises to cover my mouth with his as I writhe and twist and moan into him, the waves of pleasure rocking me like a helpless dingy on a stormy sea. His finger surges deeper, throbbing, fluttering, pulsing. I clench around it, the edges of everything in my field of vision shimmering in and out of focus.
The steady, adamant rhythm of his hand is intoxicating. I buck my hips against it and he quickens his pace. I tilt my head back, desperately sucking at the ocean air, attempting to breathe against the dizzying swirl of his touch.
He grunts and recaptures my mouth in his, reclaiming me with his soft, searching lips. I tangle my tongue around his as he thrusts another finger deep inside.
My body splinters into a thousand tiny slivers, as fine and numerous as the grains of sand at my back. The pressure is smearing my thoughts. The beautiful ache is causing every muscle in my body to coil like a spring, ready to burst.
His mouth releases mine and I cry out, the sound quickly swallowed by the gentle hum of the waves. And then he’s moving. Descending. My skin prickling as the stubble on his face grazes over my breasts, my stomach, my thigh.
I whimper quietly as his fingers pull free and he’s tugging on my panties, sliding them down, down, off. My inner thighs quiver as his mouth teases its way across my hip bones, tickling, tasting, imprinting on my skin.
He grabs my knees, forcing my legs further apart, and burying his head between them. When his tongue finally laps against me, the world implodes. The sand disappears under my back, the stars in the sky twinkle out, the ocean breeze stops blowing. There is only the sweet texture of his tongue against me, splitting every cell in my body in two, drizzling every inch of my skin in glimmering raindrops of ecstasy.
Grayson’s fingers slip back inside me and I feel my body hurtling toward the edge, building toward one final, gratifying shudder. The coils tighten, preparing to spring me into blissful oblivion. Every part of me is ready: my tingling skin, my clenched muscles, my quickening pulse.
But when I close my eyes, surrendering myself to the precipice below, suddenly all I see is her.
Alex.
Her satisfied smug in the bathroom, as she stood up and wiped Grayson from her mouth. Her sparkling grin as she waved her engagement ring across the table. Her provocative moans as she seduced him over and over again in the bedroom next door.
Everything comes crashing to a halt. I sit up with a jolt, pushing him from between my legs, and scramble to my feet. I yank the hem of my dress down over my hips, and try to pull the neckline up to cover my bare breasts. Then I bend down to scoop up my underwear, crumpling it in my hands.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” Grayson is on his knees, gazing up at me, his breaths ragged.
I fling the broken straps of my dress over my shoulders but they do nothing to hold it up, so I’m forced to grip the fabric between my fingers.
“What the fuck are we doing?” I pant.
Grayson looks taken aback, as though it’s the last thing in the world he expected me to say. But I think it’s a pretty fair question.
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean?” I shoot back. “What is this?”
He wilts, acknowledging how wrong it is. “I don’t know. I just...I can’t get you out of my head. I can’t stop—”
“But you’re engaged! To my sister!”
A dark shadow clouds his expression. “You think I don’t know that!?”
“I don’t know what you know anymore. You kiss me like you’ve forgotten all about her. You...do things to me like she doesn’t exist.”
“When I’m with you, she doesn’t,” he admits miserably. “I don’t understand it.”
“We can’t keep doing this,” I say, my voice breaking into a whisper. A cry. The truth is bitter and refreshing and wretched and liberating all at the same time.
“I know.”
I watch him vigilantly. He looks like a little boy. So confused. So wounded. So vulnerable.
“What do you want?” I ask him, point-blank. I can’t believe the words that are coming out of me right now. They’re too direct—too confident—to be mine.
He rubs his chin. “I—” he starts to say. “I want this.” He motions to the sand where the imprint of my body still lies.
My soul rejoices at the words, but I’m careful to keep my exhilaration in check. It’s not that easy. There are too many emotions tied up in his answer. Too many towers that have to crumble to the ground before it can be real.
“Don’t you?” he asks.
I close my eyes, letting the release of an eight-year-old secret shudder through me. “Yes.”
I know it’s not enough.
I know it doesn’t even begin to describe the agony that I’ve kept locked inside for nearly a decade. But it’s a place to start. A cautious one.
Because I’m still not ready to throw caution to the wind.
“What about Alex?” I press him.
He pushes his fingertips into his forehead, cringing. “I don’t know.”
The sting is immediate. Like a sneak attack from a thousand wasps. The venom is released into my bloodstream. The poison starts to eat away at my hope, my confidence, my joy.
“You love her,” I offer up the truth for him, scolding myself the second it’s out of my mouth.
Why would I remind him?
Why would I make it so easy?
The answer is almost instantaneous.
Because he has to decide. And because I don’t want to be an uninformed choice.
“Yes,” he replies quietly. Agonizingly.
“You’ve always loved her.” The words are sour in my throat. Soaked in acid.
He looks away. “It’s complicated. With Alex. She has this hold over me. This...spell. I can’t get out from under it. I’ve tried. And I keep coming back to her. I keep wanting to.” He draws in a breath, raises his gaze to me. Finds me. “I...I’m sorry.”
I feel my heart start to crack. The familiar ache of longing flutters through me. Except this time it’s worse. Because this time he knows.
He felt the way my body responded to him.
He saw the way I reached for his touch, hungered for his mouth, moaned for him to take me. All of me.
This time I can’t hide from the misery behind a pair of headphones and a closed door. I can’t pretend that this doesn’t destroy me.
And I certainly can’t go on, knowing that I will continue to be second place. Second choice. That Alex will always have a massive, permanent claim on Grayson Walker’s heart.
But honestly, what did I expect? For him to cast my sister aside after a cheap hook-up session on the beach? That a few minutes of passion with someone like me could erase nearly a decade of being in love with someone like Alex?
“I’m sorry, too,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m really fucking sorry.”
“Lia,” he begins to argue, his voice fragile and pleading.
But I hold up a hand to stop him from even trying. “Don’t follow me.”
I turn and take off down the beach. I don’t know where I’m going but I can’t stay here. There’s nothing about this place that’s safe anymore.
Eight years ago...
There was no courting Alex Smart. We didn’t date. Or talk on the phone. Or exchange cryptic text messages. With Alex, right from the start, it was all or nothing.
And for me the answer was always all.
I couldn’t not fall for her.
I couldn’t not be completely consumed by her.
I couldn’t not love her like a desert traveler loves water.
And it wasn’t as though these things were demanded by her. It wasn’t as though she sat me down at the beginning and spelled it out for me. “Listen, Grayson, let’s not beat around the bush. You either love me with everything you are, or you move on.”
No.
Alex never had to demand things.
She expected them and that was enough.
Alex had a confidence about
her that never ceased to amaze me. She wasn’t like any of the girls at the hundred other schools I’d attended. Their self-assurance was store-bought. Applied with a mascara wand and a dollop of expensive moisturizer. Alex was the real deal. She oozed fearlessness. She embodied strength.
I used to think she got it from her mother.
Until her mother cowardly split town and left her family in pieces.
Now I know she got it from herself.
It’s like she has some bottomless well of courage that she taps into daily. It fuels her in every argument we have. It quenches any jealous thirst that threatens to overcome her.
When I walked up on the beach that day, I felt the confidence seeping out of her. It entranced me. Mystified me. Made me want to drown in it.
I watched her wade into that ocean like she owned the whole fucking thing.
When she invited me to join her, I tossed my shirt onto the sand and ran into the surf like a dog chasing a stick. We laughed. We teased. We frolicked.
In my seventeen years of life, I’d never frolicked.
Nor did I imagine I’d ever use the word frolic.
But that’s what Alex did. She brought the fun out of you. She sawed open your guard gates with the jaws of life and lured your hidden spirit out with nothing more than a giggle and a flash of white teeth.
Under the cover of those warm waves, she touched my arms, my waist, my stomach. Not in a sexual way. In a playful way. In a casual way. As though we’d been frolicking in that ocean for years.
And that’s what made it sexual.
She let the waves knock her into me. She let my hands slide over her as I caught her from falling. She pretended not to notice when my eyes were momentarily captivated by her flawless figure.
And she pretended not to care when we both knew I was picturing her naked.
She made me feel like the horniest teen boy alive.
And yet, she made me feel like there was nothing wrong with that.
When we finally tired, we dragged ourselves from the surf, and staggered up the beach to the lounge chairs. That’s when I noticed that both of them were empty.
“Where did Lia go?” I asked.
Alex didn’t seem concerned as she straightened her towel and sat down. “Probably back up to the house. She’s been really moody lately.”
I eyed the wood-plank pathway that led up to the two-story Cape Cod-style house on the hill. “Should we go check on her? Make sure she made it back okay on those crutches?”
Alex chuckled like it was a silly idea. Then her hand slipped into mine and she pulled. I collapsed next to her on the chair. “I’d rather stay here,” she said.
She leaned in, the aura of gravity billowing around me like smoke.
I was helpless in its wake.
I’d never been able to tell whether she kissed me or I kissed her. The mutual attraction was always undeniable. We both felt it. We both understood it. We both knew better than to ever question it.
With Alex and me, it was never a tentative toe-dip to test the water. It was always a running-start, don’t-look-back, splash-worthy cannon ball straight into the deep end.
But knowing what I know now about Alex Smart, I think it’s pretty safe to say that she kissed me.
I wake up Monday morning to someone slapping my face. When I open my eyes I find that I’ve been mounted by a five-year-old girl in army fatigues. She’s sitting on my stomach, poking at my cheek.
I rub my eyes and try to muster a smile. “Well, hello there. You must be Ava.”
“Why are you sleeping in my sleeping bag?”
“Ava.” Danika marches into the room and suddenly the weight on my stomach is lifted as Ava is hoisted into the air. “What did we say about sitting on people?”
“But she’s the enemy!” Ava defends, thrashing violently. Danika manages to hold the restless child far enough in front of her to avoid a knee to the chest.
“She’s not the enemy. She’s my friend.”
“She’s a zombie!”
Danika sighs. “She’s on a zombie kick. Tomorrow she’ll be convinced everyone is a cyclops.”
“What’s a cyclops?” Ava asks.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
I groan and prop myself up on my elbows. Danika sets Ava down and hands me a glass of water from the nightstand. I guzzle it. “Feeling better?” she asks.
I eye the small child kung fu fighting the air next to me. “No.”
Danika begins picking up toys that have magically materialized in her bedroom overnight and dumps them into a chest in the corner. “You’re more than welcome to hang out with us today. If you want to avoid you-know-who.”
Ava stops mid-kick and frowns. “No. She can’t come. She’s a zombie.”
“Ava,” Danika warns.
“It’s fine,” I tell her, “I have plenty to do at the restaurant. I can keep busy. Besides, right now I pretty much feel like a zombie.”
“See,” Ava says triumphantly.
“Ava, go change your clothes. You can’t wear your army fatigues to gymnastics.” The little girl protests for a solid thirty seconds before finally succumbing to Danika’s orders.
I unzip the Dora the Explorer sleeping bag and swing my legs out. “Thanks for letting me crash here. I don’t think I could have gone back into that house last night.”
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“Not a chance.” I kneel at the edge of the sleeping bag and begin rolling it up. “That ship has sailed. I tried to talk to him last night. I tried to ask him what the hell was going on and he couldn’t form a coherent sentence to save his life.”
“Well, to be fair, he did have a massive boner at the time.”
“No excuse,” I assert.
“It’s actually a pretty good excuse. You can’t expect men to think clearly when all their blood is...elsewhere.”
I tuck the rolled-up bag under Danika’s bed. “Whatever. I can’t do this anymore. It’s exhausting. It’s like when we’re together, that’s all there is. That’s all there ever was. It’s more intense than I ever imagined. But when my sister’s around, it’s suddenly like I’m back to being that stupid little girl with a stupid little crush, and all he wants to do is save me from being stupid.” I stop, gasping with realization. “Oh my God. I’m Lois Lame!”
Danika snorts. “You are not.”
“I am,” I resolve. “Lois Lane is this totally strong, independent chick who’s got all her shit together until Superman appears, and then somehow she magically morphs into this weak, vulnerable damsel in distress who always needs to be rescued.”
“See, there goes your entire theory right there,” Danika argues. “You don’t have your shit together.”
I sigh. “Sad but true.”
“You said the S-word!” a small voice shrieks from the doorway. I turn to see Ava dressed in a sparkly red leotard, pointing an accusing finger at Danika.
Danika sighs. “I’m allowed to. I’m an adult.”
I roll my eyes. “I wish I could say the same for me.”
I take my time walking up the beach. I’m in no rush to get home. But I have to at least grab a hot shower and a change of clothes. Plus, I left my car at the restaurant last night so I need my dad to drive me into town.
My plan is to try out yet another recipe tonight. The one yesterday didn’t go over too well. Three people sent their food back claiming it had a funny taste. I didn’t have the heart to tell them it was my shattered dignity they were tasting.
I have no idea what I’m doing wrong.
With that restaurant.
With the recipes.
With life.
Why is it all such a disaster?
When I reach the back porch, I peer through the windows to see my dad and Alex at the breakfast table sipping coffee and reading the paper. So far, no sign of Grayson. I breathe out a sigh of relief and pull the door open.
If I’m lucky he’s still asleep and I can tiptoe past Alex’s bedroo
m door without an unfortunate encounter in the hallway.
“Hi,” I say, trying to sound cheerful.
Alex glances up from the Finance section. “Where were you?”
Fortunately, I already have my lie all teed-up and ready to go. “I wasn’t tired when we got home last night, so I went to Danika’s to hang out and ended up passing out there.”
I pull a cup from the cabinet and fill it with coffee. The hot steamy liquid smells amazing. Rejuvenating. “Grayson still asleep?” I ask, trying to sound casual as I take a small, cautious sip.
“He left,” Alex says, matter-of-factly, her face buried in her newspaper.
A scalding hot river of coffee streams into my mouth, scalding my tongue. “Fuck!”
My dad and Alex both look up. “Burnt my tongue,” I mumble as I rub it against the roof of my mouth. “Um, why did he leave?”
My heart thuds in my chest. For a minute I think Alex is going to tell me that he came clean. That he confessed everything. They broke up and now it’s over. And by the way, I’m going to beat the shit out of you just as soon as I’m done checking the stock prices.
But she just casually flips the page and says, “He had to work. He took the earliest train out this morning.”
Work?
That can’t be the truth. I practically give him an ultimatum on the beach last night and the next morning he miraculously gets called into the office?
No. That’s not a coincidence.
It’s a choice.
It’s his choice.
If it wasn’t already clear last night, then it’s certainly clear today.
He’s opting out. Unsubscribing. Canceling his account.
The rejection tastes bitter in my mouth. More bitter than the burnt taste buds on my tongue.
I dump the remainder of my coffee down the drain and drop the mug in the sink.
“You okay?” my dad asks, glancing up with concern.
I’m already halfway to the stairs. Halfway to shutting down. Halfway to total numbness.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I call back.
I turn my key in the lock of the back door and push it open. I flip the light switch, illuminating the restaurant’s small kitchen. I launch into my usual opening routine—turning on the pizza oven, booting up the computers, gathering the mail from the slot in the front door.