by L. J. Evans
“What?”
“Do you want to go first? Change?”
I laughed. “No, I’ll change here once you get out of my hair.”
He swallowed.
“In here?” He glanced toward the open windows.
“Jesus. There’s nobody for miles. It’s all ocean. No one is going to see, and if they do, it’s not going to be anything they haven’t seen before. Do you want me to show you?”
I reached for the bottom of my T-shirt, and he actually paled before flushing a color so beautiful that it made me want to run my hands over his cheeks.
“No! Shit. Wait till I go inside,” he said and stormed toward the bathroom door.
“Chicken,” I called after him quietly.
“I learned not to play that game a long time ago,” he said back, but I swear there was a tone in his voice that stated he wanted to play very badly. It made me smile. It lightened my mood from my sadness at leaving Jenna behind. And it continued to make me want to stay.
I heard the shower start before I undressed. Then, I took my notebook, my chair, and a water and headed down the path to the beach when I really should have been heading my car toward Tennessee.
The boys joined me again. They played football and taunted each other into doing stunts off the dock. Flips and twists and all sorts of typical guy stuff. They mostly left me to myself on the other end of the dock, with my feet in the water, scribbling my notes. My music.
It was nearing dinner when Mac threw out a challenge. “I bet music girl could do that flip better than you.”
I heard Truck guffaw, but it was Eli’s silence that got to me. I looked to their end. Eli’s eyes were hooded as he watched me. I couldn’t tell his assessment. Did he think I could or couldn’t do whatever the hell Mac had challenged Truck to?
I put my stuff down and joined them at the end.
“Okay, pansy boys, what’s the challenge?”
Eli crossed his arms across the wide expanse of his chest. Muscled. Contoured. All three of them were built that way from the military exercises they did at the academy.
Mac grinned. “Run, jump, somersault, land without a splash.”
“Seems pretty basic. What did you do, dumb it down for the girl?” I asked.
Truck swallowed, and I could tell I’d made him nervous. Little did he know, I couldn’t do any of this. I could swim. Swimming was demanded by my dad. I’d been on a swim team until I was fourteen when I’d used my period as an excuse, making him blanch a pale white I’d never seen on him before. It had been a small win that I wasn’t used to having. He’d punished me for it, though. I’d stopped swimming, so he stopped paying for my guitar lessons.
“Who’s going to judge?” Truck asked.
“Me,” Eli said.
Truck laughed. “Well, hell, we both know you’re going to pick her.”
“Mac then,” I said.
“No way. He would pick anyone over me.”
“Who do you suggest?” I asked.
Truck eyed the shore. Down a way on the beach was an elderly couple. They had binoculars and a book in hand as if they were birdwatching.
“If you can get them to agree, I’ll even give you a point advantage,” I teased, knowing already that I was a lost cause. What did an extra point matter?
Truck was off down the beach at a jog. We couldn’t hear what he said from where we were, but he was gesturing with his whole body and pointing to the dock, and I knew without even seeing it that he was grinning that huge Truck grin.
When all three of them started back toward the dock, Mac swore and Eli laughed. It was like his smile. Unexpected, stunning when he did it. I looked up with my own smile into his eyes.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” It was a statement instead of a question, but there was still a smile on his face. I liked the smile. I wanted it to stay there.
“I’ll just follow the wise words of Gail Sheehy who said, ‘I dare to do things - that's how I survive.’ What could go wrong?” I told him with a shrug.
When the elderly couple got on the dock, it was obvious that Truck had already explained the situation. The man looked slightly dazed, but the woman was smiling an impish smile.
“Young lady, you challenging these boys to a duel?” Her voice was wavery but full of humor.
“More like they challenged me.” I grinned back.
After a few more rules, which only served to remind me how big I was going to bomb this, Truck and I headed back to the middle of the dock.
When we stopped and turned back, getting into a running stance, he looked over and winked. “Last chance to admit failure.”
“In your dreams, pansy.” I grinned and took off with him swearing behind me.
I had no idea what I was doing. When I got to the end of the dock, I pushed off as hard as I could with my feet and tried to twist my body into a somersault I hadn’t done since I was little, and then somehow hit the water on my back.
The air rushed out of me. Pain seared through my body like ice picks shooting across my entire backside, and then I was sinking. No air in my lungs, body not even responding.
I heard my name. Heard who called it. Knew it was Eli. But didn’t really register it until the water around me was moving and arms were surrounding my waist, pulling me from under the water, pulling us both to the surface.
I was drawn up against him. Skin to skin. Heat from his body filtering into mine that had started to shiver even though it wasn’t cold. I was still trying to breathe. No air there yet.
“Ava?”
I couldn’t speak, could barely move. I tried, but my body was still objecting to my brain.
Mac and Truck pulled me out of the water, laying me on the dock, and then Eli was there again, his eyes scanning mine. I blinked. He let out a breath I don’t think he even realized he was holding.
“Is she okay?” It was the lady.
“She just had the air knocked out of her,” Eli said just as the air came rushing back, hurting like nothing had hurt since I’d broken my toe kicking my bedroom door after Dad had told me he was making me change schools.
“Slow, steady breaths,” Eli said, brushing my hair off my forehead, meeting my eyes with his own, staring like I usually stared.
Eventually, I felt almost normal. The pain in my lungs had almost subsided, but I did feel like I’d run a marathon.
I smiled at him, and he smiled back. That smile that changed his face from hard planes to blurred happiness. Like when you’re on the tilt-a-whirl, and the world is passing by in a hazy swirl, but you’re still smiling.
I was the first to look away. I moved my head toward the lady who’d come to judge us and said, “So, I won, right?”
She laughed, and she was joined by everyone there.
I sat up, and Eli steadied me when I seemed to waver.
“Take it easy. Take some more breaths.”
He was rubbing my back, and that wasn’t helping my breathing, his skin making mine tingle again, but with a pleasantness that was intoxicating.
I pulled away and slowly got to my feet. Eli hovered close, and I ignored it.
“Truck didn’t win, did he? I mean, after all I just went through, I believe I should be declared the winner.”
The lady laughed again. “Honey, if you were dumb enough to challenge him knowing you couldn’t do the stunt, you’ll just have to lick your wounds when I conclude that you lost by a landslide.”
We all smiled, and Truck did a victory dance.
The couple left with a look that said we’d been the most excitement they’d had in a long time. I walked to the end of the dock and picked up my belongings. Eli was by my side, and he took it all from me.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Shower. I think I’ve had enough for the day,” I told him truthfully. I was still sore. Shaky. I was done.
He didn’t let go of my things and just threw back over his shoul
der to the guys, “Going back to the house, asswipes. Want me to order pizza?”
“Do dogs bark at the moon?” Truck asked.
“I don’t know, do they? I thought that was wolves,” Mac replied, and they were shoving at each other as I turned away.
Eli was quiet on our way back. He got the door for me, and I couldn’t help a weak smile at him as I passed by, the hairs on my arm reacting as his bare chest grazed against my skin. He watched me, eyes dark and stormy.
He even followed me to the bedroom but then just put my stuff down and left me to shower in peace. I wasn’t sure I’d ever have peace when he was there. I wasn’t sure I wanted it. It reminded me of how desperately I needed to leave.
Chapter Seven
Eli
WILD CHILD
“A kaleidoscope of colors in her mind child
A touch of crazy hides behind her wild smile
So simple yet experimental
Innocent but still a little wild child.”
—Performed by Kenny Chesney & Grace Potter
—Written by Chesney / Mcanally / Osborne
I ordered the pizza while Ava showered. Truck and Mac showed up just afterwards. They seemed surprised that I was standing in the kitchen even though I’d said I’d order pizza.
“Dude, why are you out here?” Mac asked.
“Opposed to?” I replied, knowing exactly where his mind was heading.
“In the shower, with our little daredevil.”
I shook my head and reached into the fridge for a beer that I was in desperate need of. “Not going to happen.”
“She wants it to,” Mac said, pulling my beer from my hand before I’d even had a chance to open it. I eyed him with disgust but just pulled another from the fridge.
“Not. Going. To. Happen,” I said, shooting glares at them both over the bottle as I took a swig.
Mac shook his head in disappointment, but I think Truck got the risk of it all better. We were already tempting fate enough by staying there with her. I wasn’t going to shoot my life goals in the foot on purpose by adding to the reasons Abrams would have us kicked out of the academy.
By the time the pizza had come, Ava had joined us.
She was in yoga pants and a T-shirt that just barely covered her ass but slipped from her shoulders whenever she moved, showing her bra strap like all her tops seemed to do. I itched to touch the exposed skin. I knew the guys would have been all over her if I wasn’t there to stop them, one or both of them taking turns to hit on her until she caved. But I had a feeling that Ava would never cave to them. I don’t think she’d cave to me either, even with the attraction that seemed to fill the air between us.
After we ate pizza—inside this time—with her on the coffee table and us at the kitchen table, she pulled out a bunch of board games from a closet. Scrabble, Monopoly, Life, and Clue all littered the floor around her.
“You planning on babysitting some eight-year-old that we don’t know?” Mac asked.
“I don’t feel like going out,” she said with a shrug.
“Are you still hurting?” I asked.
“Nah,” she responded. She’d hit the water with such ferocity, I was sure she felt bruised and battered, but I didn’t force it.
She took us all in, a smile appearing on her face, and said in a voice full of sass, “In the great words of Mikhail Bulgakov, ‘I challenge you to a duel!”
“Our daredevil hasn’t gotten enough yet?” Mac asked.
“You know what happened to Michael J. Fox when he couldn’t resist a dare in the Back to the Future movies, right?” Truck added on.
“I get to travel backwards and forwards in time? That’s okay by me. Doubly good if it’s backwards, and I actually get to meet my mom,” Ava said.
It hit me hard. The smile she sent to Truck as well as the fact that she hadn’t known her mom. Like I’d barely started to get to know my dad.
“You didn’t know your mom?” Truck asked the question that I wanted to ask.
She shrugged. “Nope. She died when I was only six months old.”
That seemed to stun us all.
“What happened?” Truck asked again.
“Plane crash. Took her and my grandparents—her parents—out at the same time.”
That reached into even Mac’s tough heart and pulled on the strings, because he joined her on the floor, lying on his side and stretching out his long legs till they almost touched her. I watched his feet and could feel the frown appear on my face that I tried to shake off.
“What’s the challenge, D.D.?”
She gave him a curious look.
“Daredevil. D.D.,” he explained. Mac was in charge of all the nicknames at the academy, assigning one to every freshman that came in.
I grabbed us all more beers from the fridge and joined them on the floor, Truck following me. Ava grabbed one of the beers from my hand, and I didn’t stop her like I should have.
“I bet that I can beat you at all four of these games.”
“I don’t know, Eli’s pretty good with words,” Truck told her, eyeing the Scrabble box.
“Mr. Silent Grumpy? Does he even know words?” she teased.
“We’ll save the words for last then,” I growled at her, but I was smiling on the inside.
True to her word, she beat the pants off of us at the first three games. To be fair, I didn’t know the last time any of us had played these games. Just like I didn’t recall there ever being a strategy to winning them. I’d remembered them being games of luck based on the roll of the dice. But Ava beat us, telling us that we sucked at strategy.
We were all groaning while she imitated Truck’s victory dance on the coffee table. She’d only seen it once but had every move down pat. Except, her moving that way was pure sex, whereas Truck had looked like a giant idiot.
“You better stop before Eli starts throwing dollar bills your way,” Mac laughed as he got up to get more beers.
I was buzzed. More than I had been in a long time, because I normally didn’t like being out of control. Didn’t like the way my body responded when my brain had been dulled.
Ava turned to look at me, her dual-colored eyes flashing with mischief, the corners of her lips quirking up. “I could use the cash.”
She pulled at the bottom of her T-shirt as if to lift it over her head. “Don’t even think about it,” I said and instinctively reached out a hand to pull the shirt back down. Our hands tangled together in a dance that had chills breaking out along the back of my neck.
“You’re such an old man,” she harassed. I was glad that she hadn’t called me Dad. Dad, I hated. Old man I could live with. It was something I’d been called before. Back at home, in Connecticut, after Dad had passed, I’d spent my days helping Mom at the bookstore, acting much older than I was.
“Dude, you have to win now. She celebrated early. It had to jinx her.” Truck stood and joined Mac at the door to the deck.
“Where the hell you two going?” I complained.
“You know we don’t got a shot at a goddamn word game,” Mac shrugged. “It’s all on you, oh Captain, my Captain.”
I cringed.
“What’s the deal with the captain stuff?” Ava asked once the boys had gone outside. “You’re not a captain. None of the butts make captain.”
“Technically, I’m a zip instead of a butt.”
The academy terms for the cadets were old news to me, and I shouldn’t be surprised that she knew them so well with her dad at the academy, but it wasn’t often I found someone who could speak our lingo.
“So, you’re a captain?” she asked.
I shook my head. I was higher ranked than that, but I wasn’t getting into it with her. It wasn’t why they called me Captain, anyway. That had started our freshman year.
“If you don’t tell me, I’m sure Mac Truck would be happy to.”
She had set the Scrabble board up, and I’d picked the highes
t scoring letter from the bag, so I got to start. I pulled my letters and assembled them in the little tray.
“It’s a poetry thing.”
Her hand stilled in the bag.
“Wait. Did you just say poetry?” I could hear the laughter in her voice and could see how hard she was trying to keep a straight face.
I liked that I’d surprised her, because she was always surprising the hell out of me.
“Walt Whitman’s ‘O Captain, My Captain,’” I told her and returned to fiddling with my letters and trying to find a word that would give me the biggest head start I could muster.
“Do the boys expect you to die at the end of your illustrious career at A&M?”
I guess it didn’t surprise me that she knew the poem. Knew the death that came at the end of it. It was why there was so much meaning in their nickname. Me. My dad. The Dead Poets Society. But, somehow, that all seemed too much to disclose to this female who I needed to keep at a distance.
“Har-har,” I said. I laid down my letters and scored thirty-seven points. Not my best. Not my worst. I was rusty, having to shake off a few of the old cobwebs in my brain.
“Eli, are you some academic prodigy they didn’t tell me about?”
“Hell no. I have to work damn hard to pull my grades.”
“What’s your G.P.A.?”
“It’s your turn, Ava. We going to bullshit about my college career or you going to try to whip my ass?”
Her eyes sparkled. “Can’t we do both?” Then, she leaned in and whispered, “You can’t tease about ass whippings and leave me hanging.”
I swallowed hard. “Put your words on the board, and we’ll talk about whose ass gets whipped when it’s over.”
That made her smile disappear. The tease was gone, and I could see the pulse in her neck throbbing against the stray curls escaping her bun. I heard her breath hitch.
I loved it.
I was so screwed.
It was hours later when I had to concede defeat. Conceding wasn’t anything I was good at. I usually played to win when I played anything. Instead of repeating her dance on the coffee table, Ava leaned in, and in her deep, throaty voice whispered, “Looks like I’m the one doing the whipping after all.”