by L.J. Shen
“Of course, you’re a catch!” she exclaimed.
Yeah.
It was just that I wasn’t as good a catch as she was. The need to prove her wrong burned every bone in my body.
“Please leave me alone.” Resting my arms on the table, I buried my face between them.
She did.
I closed my eyes, letting misery carry me down a river of self-pity, and banged my head against the pristine white tablecloth three times.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
Welcome to Todos Santos, Rosie.
What makes you feel alive?
Running barefoot. Feeling the branches smack my face, my chest, my feet. Getting hurt. Aching. Taking chances.
DEAN PICKED ME UP IN a red, older model extended cab truck. I had no idea where he got it from, but at that stage, I was willing to jump into a huge van filled with balaclava-wearing strangers offering a suspicious stack of candy to get away from this place.
Unwinding was never in the cards for me that night, or so I thought. I simply wanted to steal a few, peaceful moments of steadying breaths somewhere I wouldn’t be criticized.
The minute Dean’s vehicle parked in front of the mansion’s gates, I bolted out, hauled myself into the passenger’s seat, and buckled up.
I looked like hell in my denim skirt and baggy white shirt—it was Darren’s Podiatrists Association tee he got at a convention earlier this year—and my hair told the story of a five-hour flight and a restless nap.
“Drive,” I ordered, staring ahead, still unsure of how Dean ‘Manslut’ Cole had somehow become my savior, and what did it say about my overall situation. I didn’t want to look at him and chance showing him what was behind my eyes, because if he could decrypt those feelings, he’d see everything. Every ugly truth.
He didn’t ask where. Just pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam and said, “Roll your window down. I’ll put some music on.”
For once in my life, I was glad he was a borderline-alcoholic. I snatched the bottle the second it entered my vision.
“Cheers.” I raised it to the air before taking a generous gulp.
We circled Todos Santos for an hour, driving through Liberty Park, passing by All Saints High and the well-lit marina that attracted tourists from all over the world. The salty wind of the ocean hit my face and provided some solace. I drank more. The pirate radio station played sad love songs in Spanish, and even though I didn’t understand a word, they still made my world tilt. I tried to use the time to regulate my heartbeats and remind myself that everything was okay.
I drank half the bottle, but that wasn’t why my vision blurred and my fingers shook as I wrapped them around the neck of the Jim Beam. No. That was the anger.
You can’t be choosy.
You had your chance and you blew it.
Screw them. Screw them with a ten-foot pole.
Dean never once said a thing, giving me the space I obviously needed, driving aimlessly and looking ridiculously hot doing so. It was quite possible that this stoner guy was the only man out of the four HotHoles who actually possessed some emotional IQ cells. Not that anyone would guess by talking to him. Or looking at him. Dean Cole had the lovable pothead act down to an art. He never let anyone see what was underneath the surface. Which reminded me…
“Got weed on you?” I was the first to speak. He stared at the road, gold winking at his wrist in the dark—how much did that watch cost? More than all of my worldly possessions was my educated guess—one hand tapping the steering wheel, the other tousling his milk-chocolate, satin hair.
“Are you wearing underwear?” he quipped.
“Of course.” I scoffed.
“Then I’m carrying weed. For me, it’s a necessity as much as undergarments.”
“Charming.” My eyes rolled on autopilot.
“Apparently so, because that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile in a day, and it’s because of me.”
Was I smiling? Shit, maybe I was.
He parked on a grassy hill overlooking Todos Santos. The small SoCal town was pressed neatly in a valley between two mountains. This little reservoir provided the perfect view to the lights of downtown. The large blue pools of nearby mansions shimmered in the inky night, lampposts littered across the marina.
The reservoir was deserted, save for a basketball court a few hundred feet from us. It was well-lit, and there were teenagers throwing a ball back and forth, but they didn’t seem to mind the truck or us.
“Where did this thing come from?” I motioned with my index finger around the truck, angling my body to face him. From what I could remember, Dean’s family owned an infinite amount of Volvos. It was the perfect brand for the perfect type of family.
“My uncle in Alabama.” He wet his lower lip, scanning me with those twinkling emeralds. “Only gift he ever gave me. I’m not even sure why I kept it, but you wanted to be discreet, so I came in a vehicle Vicious wouldn’t recognize.”
“You saved a beat-up truck for the off chance you would ever need it?” I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Who are you, Dean Cole, and does the CIA know about you?”
Dean pulled his head back, his fingers laced behind his neck, and laughed.
“Shut up.”
And it was true that I was one of them. Those girls I pitied, who let his looks, his muscles, and his status seep into their brain and crawl all the way down to their panties, making the unnecessary stop in their chest. Because it felt like he grabbed my heart and crunched it in his fist.
“Okay, Mr. Shady,” I teased.
“That’s not fair. I haven’t had a dead body in this thing in ages.”
“Could have fooled me. The thing kind of stinks,” I hiccupped, knowing full-well that I was drunk. “Is this where you took your flings when you were in high school?”
“Nope. I’m a sentimental prick. I will never tarnish this baby with a random fuck.”
“You’re full of surprises, Dean Cole.”
“And you’re about to be full of me, Rosie LeBlanc.”
The grass was wet from the sprinklers, but I walked barefoot anyway. It provided cool comfort against the unbearable heat of August in SoCal. I made it to a bench on top of the hill, overlooking the city, and sat down. The good thing about Todos Santos was the lack of industrial factories and pollution. One of the reasons my parents took a job here when I was a teenager was to help my mucus problem, to make sure my lungs were unsoiled. A blanket of shiny stars above our heads reminded me that we were small and that they were big.
Dean produced two cans of PBR from the bed of his truck—I didn’t ask what the hell they were doing back there—and cracked one open, handing it over, before gulping the second one and plopping down inches from me.
“You know,” he said, the tips of his disheveled, sexy hair playing with the tips of mine. He smelled of boy, sweet hash, and a hint of a citrus, clean cologne. “Every star you see in the night sky is bigger and brighter than the sun.”
“What?” I snorted out a laugh. “That’s bullshit. The sun is huge!”
Dean looked at me, serious as a heart attack, and it was that moment that I realized what I had just invited into my heart. What I willingly opened the door to. It was like throwing your body off of a cliff, with eyes wide open, arms stretched, and a smile on your face. This is tragic, I thought. I forgot what it felt like to spend real time with Ruckus. Forgot the mayhem he stirred inside me.
“The sun is just a yellow dwarf star, Baby LeBlanc.” His voice was flat, his heated gaze—not. “She’s glorified because we’re familiar with her, and she is the closest. Most people love whatever’s the closest. What they’re used to.”
He wasn’t talking about the stars anymore, and we both knew it.
His knowledge of astronomy caught me off guard. Maybe because I wanted to reduce him to the stoner guy who didn’t care or know anything other than his football, women, and boring numbers.
He produced a blunt from his back pocket, rai
sing his hips up to fish for it, and tucked it into his heart-shaped lips, the fire from his lighter illuminating every curve of his Adonis face. Taking a hit, he passed it on to me.
There was a moment where the blunt hovered between his fingers. I waited for him to withdraw. To scowl. To tell me I was mad for smoking. But none of those things happened. He let me make that decision for myself.
He made me feel like a grown-up.
I took the blunt, allowing myself a little smile that I hid in the dark. Everyone else treated me like I was made out of glass. Only Dean ever did things that could break me. Took one hit. Inhaled. Exhaled. Stayed alive. That was a win in my world.
But of course, I had to cough like a dog who was about to throw up a lung or two. Dean gave me a sideways glance, smirking. “Next time you wanna get high, I’m baking your ass pot brownies.”
I ignored him, looking up to the sky. It was nice to forget about my family, even if for a second. Even if it was with the man I considered somewhat my enemy.
“I once heard the sun gets closer to us every year. That one day it’ll burn the whole planet,” I said, circling the sky with my finger and passing him the blunt. Dean took a swig from his beer, everything about his body language light and youthful and reckless. He looked like a teenage boy for a second.
The teenage boy I loved once upon a time.
“Well, the sun is likely to last seven billion years more than its current four point five billion age. Then it will most likely balloon into a red giant star and collapse down into a white dwarf. Safe to say that by the time that happens, neither my stoner ass nor your perky one will be here to witness the shitshow.” He patted my head with the hand that held his beer, like I was a precious toddler. “Unless you’re planning to still be around? You’re gonna make a fuck-hot old lady. Even a few billion years old.”
I laughed so loud my voice echoed in the sky. “Suffice to say, I won’t be here.”
“None of us will.” He shrugged, passing me the blunt. Our fingers touched, and electricity rolled down my skin, making it tickle. I ignored it, thinking, But my time will probably come long before yours.
How many years more did I have? Twenty? Ten? Less? That was the problem with cystic fibrosis. It wasn’t as immediate and urgent as cancer or ALS. I still had time. Just not as much as everyone else.
Maybe it was the alcohol, or the weed, or life in general, but it happened. After a few, good years it happened. Again.
My ex-therapist once said it was completely normal, considering my circumstances. The realization of dying—how real it was—gripped me and panic coursed through my veins in alarming quantities. I froze. Stopped breathing—not by choice—when images of my body rotting inside a coffin assaulted my mind. These panic attacks have been going on for a long time. Since I was ten and the concept of death started making sense. That was around the time I knew I wasn’t going to die of old age.
I was having a panic attack while hanging out with Mr. Chilled, but he couldn’t have known that, because these attacks weren’t extreme. After a few seconds, I resumed my breathing, and the only physical thing that bothered me was wave after wave of uncomfortable heat that seemed to have smacked my face and an out-of-control pulse.
Back when I saw my therapist—my parents took me to someone who specialized in teenagers with terminal diseases—we tried to find the root of my problem. Everyone was uncomfortable with the idea of death, but I was one of the rare teenagers who spent sleepless nights lying in bed imagining her dead body being cremated. The therapist was good. I’ll give her that. She asked if I remembered being a fetus. I said no. Then she asked if I had any memories of not living. I said no. “That’s what death feels like, Rosie. You won’t remember it happened, so, in a sense, it’s almost like you live forever.”
Mostly, when my panic attacks found me, I tried to remind myself of this conversation, but usually it helped to just get distracted by something else entirely. So I shook my head, peeking into Dean’s tranquil face, and asked, “What else do you know about stars? And spare me the fun part where they explode and we all die.”
He tucked a lock that fell on my forehead behind my ear. “By the time the sun explodes, no one is going to be here to witness it. Well, other than the Kardashians. Those people are always fucking everywhere.”
I swatted his shoulder, playful without meaning to be. “Don’t go there, Cole. Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami is my one guilty pleasure.”
“That’s just plain sad. Especially when the neighbor upstairs can take you anywhere in his penthouse. Now that’s a pleasure worthy of the guilt.”
“Focus,” I groaned. He put the blunt out on the bench and flicked it into a nearby trashcan. He laughed his one hundred percent genuine laugh, the one no girl stood a chance against. His voice felt good against my skin. In the air. Everywhere.
“So I have this filing system in my head, and if you tell anyone, I will deny it, never speak to you again, and tell everyone we know you have hepatitis and that you dumped Dr. Dickface because he gave you athlete’s foot.” He propped one hand on the wooden headrest behind us and angled his body toward mine.
“Now you’re just downright begging me to do it.” I pinched my lips together, conscious of all the flirty smiles I was throwing around.
Dean finished the remainder of his beer before taking mine and chugging it, too, letting out an intentional burp before he continued. “I’m a closet astronomy geek. I label people by what part of the solar system they might be. For instance, Trent is Jupiter because he is so fucking big. Vicious is Arcturus. Red and angry all the time. I can go on, but I have a feeling I’m going to regret it.” He scanned my face, waiting for me to laugh. When I didn’t, he cautiously continued.
“Easier to box people into something concrete, ya know?”
The airhead. The stoner. The party-loving manslut. Ruckus.
Yeah, I had an idea.
“What kind of star am I?” My voice came out thick. I was drunk. I was lusty. I was out of my freaking mind.
Our arms were glued together and our sweat started to mix, but neither one of us made a move to break the touch.
Not even a second passed before he answered, which made me believe he had thought about it before. “You’re Sirius.”
“Sirius?”
“Yeah.” He shifted on the bench, scrubbing at the non-existent stubble along his square jaw. I tried to ignore the fact that he was looking at me with something more than naked desire, but it was becoming too hard with every passing second.
“Contrary to general belief, stars don’t twinkle. There is only one star that sparkles that scientists can agree on. It twinkles so bright, sometimes people mistake it for a UFO. It’s not big, but it stands out. That’s Sirius, and it’s also you. You shine, Baby LeBlanc. So fucking bright sometimes you’re the only thing I see.”
I didn’t know what I was thinking. Perhaps I wasn’t thinking at all. But at that moment, I felt brave. So brave, honesty took hold of my mouth before logic stopped it.
“I want you to make me forget, Dean. Just for one, freaking night,” I mumbled. Staring into space. “Forget about this goddamn town and my judgey parents and…” I let out a giant sigh. And dying.
He tilted his whole body toward me and cupped one of my cheeks, groaning like touching me only frustrated him even more. “Hey. Look at me.”
Not worthy.
Not enough.
Not as good as Millie.
“You’re my sister’s ex-boyfriend,” I mumbled, not protested, trying to reason with myself. Hoping to scrape together some logic and back out.
“We were together for one second,” he snapped.
“You took her V-card.”
“She took off,” he enunciated, crushing the last word between his teeth. “She took off without even sparing me a courtesy phone call. She was never mine. And, for that reason among others, I was never hers.”
“She told me you once asked her to never leave you.” I swallowed
, my hands tucked under my sweaty butt as I stared at my flip-flops.
“No offense to Millie, but I don’t want anyone to leave me.”
Silence, and then.
“I don’t want to make you forget. I want to make you remember. And I’m about to, Rosie.” He breathed hard against my skin. “I’m about to rewrite the pages of our fucking history, baby.”
His mouth came crashing down on mine, and his fingers found my hair. I clutched his collar in my balled fists and dragged him down with me, lying on the bench and spreading my legs for him. His lips were hot, wet, perfect, and they didn’t hesitate or ask for permission. They took. They hungrily demanded. My whole body buzzed with heat and ecstasy. He fisted my hair with one hand and dragged his free one between us, cupping one of my breasts and squeezing hard.
His tongue invaded my mouth, conquering me, melting every rejection I had on the tip of my tongue into warm butter. Was I really that drunk, or was he really that good? His hand moved farther south. He flipped my denim skirt and brought his hand to my underwear, rubbing the fabric, creating friction that made me moan into his mouth and lose the remainder of control I clung onto.
Hot. Everything was hot.
My face.
My nerves.
God, it felt like my heart was on fire.
“Fuck, you’re wet,” he said, pinching my clit through my panties. I scraped at his shirt and arched my back, begging.
“Fuck me,” I groaned into our filthy kiss. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever experienced. Our tongues were at war—his winning—our hands desperate and we were grinding against each other like we were trying to start a fire.
Soon, I knew, we would succeed. Dangerous chemistry. Our bodies were attuned in a way souls are. Faultlessly. His skin on mine was like being kissed everywhere down to the most isolated corner in my body.
Ironically, my request made him unglue his mouth from mine and frown.
“How drunk are you?” He scanned my face, stone cold sober. He only had a beer, and by his standards, that was like drinking herbal tea.