Moment of Impact

by Lisa Mondello

  Lily bites down on her lip and then slides herself on the board. Her paddleboard is about six feet in front of mine so I grab the back of the board with my hand so she can’t drift away too far. She turns her head and peers at me over her right shoulder, giving me a sexy grin that makes me practically self-combust. The long line of her body is stretched out in front of me like a banquet table and she’s the feast. The slight curve of her ass reveals just how toned and how smooth her body is. My fingers itch to touch her skin, to feel her. Those images that I’ve fought to rid from my mind continue to assault me like the waves crashing against the beach.

  “Is the view good from over there?” she asks with a purr.

  I blink hard to pull myself from the trance that has a hold on me. Heat sears my cheeks and my body goes ridged. I slide off my board and push Lily’s away from me.

  “Don’t fucking play with me,” I say.

  Confusion, and maybe even a little bit of fear fills her expression as her board goes adrift. “What?”

  She jumps off the board but is now in deeper water than she was in when she mounted it. She clings to the board with both hands. My fear of her getting in deeper than she’s able to handle overshadows the guilt I feel for setting her adrift.

  “Grab the handle,” I say. It sounds more like a bark, but I can’t help it. “Now slide on the board.”

  She attempts to pull herself up, but is struggling. I pull myself up to a kneeling position on the board and paddle out to Lily, coming up along the right side of her board. Bending low, I reach my hand over her board. “Grab it.”

  She grabs my hand.

  “Now bring one leg over.”

  With all her strength, Lily pulls herself up to the board.

  “My paddle is drifting.”

  “So are you. You can paddle with your hands to get it.”

  She’s shaking and I know it’s because of my impulsive move at setting her adrift. I quickly paddle out until I reach her paddle and then paddle back to her, placing the paddle on her board.

  She’s pissed at me. Pissed I can handle.

  “Don’t fucking do that again,” I say.

  “Me? You’re the one who practically drowned me.”

  “If I’d wanted to drown you, you’d be under. What the fuck were you doing coming on to me like that?”

  “You’re a fine one for getting pissed off. You’ve been looking at me for weeks as if you had a right to. So what’s the deal? You get to the play the game, but the first time I play back you get pissed.”

  She was right and I hated her for it. Watching her dance on the beach had been my little thing. It was something safe while she was yards away and I couldn’t touch her. But now, the game had changed.

  “You said you wanted to learn how to paddleboard.” I can’t let go of the anger that has built up inside me. Edmond would be proud that I hadn’t lashed out. But why would I? Lily isn’t some fucking drunk sporting for a brawl in the back alley of a pool hall.

  “You’re really stupid, aren’t you?”

  I should have taken offense to what she was saying. I know I’m not Harvard material. But I ain’t dumb.

  “I wanted to be with you. The paddleboard just seemed like a good way to break the ice.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  She laughed, slowly lifting her face up to the sky as if she wanted the sun to kiss her cheeks.

  “You don’t think much of yourself, do you?”

  “I try not to.”

  “Why?”

  “It usually lands me in jail.”

  #

  Chapter Five

  Lily

  He’s looking at my lips. I feel the moisture from the water but my mouth is bone dry. I run my tongue over my lips and give him a smile.

  “Lesson over,” Gus abruptly says.

  Okay, I know I’d pushed him. But I don’t want it to end this way. I know I really pissed him off, though I don’t exactly know why.

  “Everyone on your terms.”

  “Yes.”

  “And it doesn’t matter if people don’t like it?”

  “Yes.”

  I follow him out of the water and get about knee deep when I say, “I don’t like it.”

  “Tough shit.”

  I sigh as I drag the board behind me, careful of where I’m stepping as the immediate shoreline is filled with rocks and broken shells. “We’ve only just gotten started.”

  He’s a few paces ahead of me, so he turns and looks at the way I’m holding the board. “Carry it under your arm or you’ll damage the board on rocks. Now the lesson is done.”

  “You’re an ass.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  I giggle because something tells me he likes being a prick. And not in a dick sort of way. It’s almost a game to him. So I play.

  “We’re grilling at the house tonight as soon as Jenna and Bobby get back.”

  “Jenna and Bobby?”

  “My roommate and her…I guess he’s her boyfriend. She hasn’t really said much to me about it, but they always seem to be together. She went off island and texted me they’d be back around eight. We’re going to have a fire on the beach.”

  “Good for you.”

  I sigh and can’t keep the chuckle from escaping my lips. “That was an invitation.”

  “Really?” he says, cocking his head to one side. Then he takes his finger and brushes a drop of water from the edge of his mouth as he looks out into the ocean. “Because I sort of missed the ‘do you want to come’ part.”

  I dig my wet feet into the sand only to regret it because there are freshly crushed shells beneath the sand and my skin is soft and wrinkly from being in the water. I don’t need a cut on my foot to keep me from practicing.

  “Okay, would you like to come have dinner at the house?”

  His gaze is fierce and smoldering the way it always is when he looks at me while he’s thinking. “Sure, why not.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” I grip my paddleboard and start to turn. “I need to return my board to the rental place.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” he says. “At your house I mean.”

  Turning back at him, I see him holding the paddleboard and paddle under his arm. He glances down at it.

  “Oh, right.” I point down the beach. “Um, it’s the big white beach house down past—”

  “I know where it is.”

  “You do?”

  “We’ve dropped Penny off after work a few times.”

  “Oh, right.”

  The grin he gives me…I can feel it from my toes to the cheeks. “You said that already.”

  “I’ll see you around eight.”

  As I walk up to the wooden building where I’d rented the paddleboard, my anticipation grows. And then it hits me. What if he doesn’t show?

  * * *

  Gus

  I shower and change into a pair of cargo shorts and a loose t-shirt quick enough when I get back to my place. I contemplate not going. I’ve kept my nose clean this long. I only need to make it through a few more months to satisfy Edmond that I’m on the right track. Then I can go anywhere.

  I head out the door and figure what-the-fuck. It’s free food and something to do for the night.

  As I walk down the beach and see the big white house that starts a row of houses with private beach areas to the south, I know I’m full of shit. Seeing Lily, no matter how annoyed I was with her for practically making me cum in my wet suit, was all that I wanted tonight. Not the food or the party.

  A few people are sitting on the deck when I arrive. A girl with bleached blond hair is sitting on a chair with her legs draped over the arm. She’s deep in conversation with Penny. Penny sees me and waves.

  “I didn’t know you’d be coming tonight.”

  “Surprise, surprise.”

  “I’m glad you came out to play,” Lily says, walking out the screen door with a plate of raw
meat arranged in a circle.

  I walk up the stairs and stand on the top step.

  “Gus, this is Heather,” Penny says, introducing me to bleached blond girl.

  “What’s up?” I say.

  “That’s right. You two work together,” Heather says, untangling her legs from the chair. “Want a beer?”

  “I’m good.”

  Lily winks at me. “How are you with a grill?”

  “It’s fire. I can handle it.”

  “Cocky as always, I see,” she says as she walks over to the side of the house. A small eight by eight concrete patio was set up with a picnic table and a gas grill.

  “Not cocky. Confident.”

  “Ah, is that what they call it these days.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Yeah? What makes you think that?”

  “You’re a dancer. You should know.”

  She laughs and I suddenly feel foolish. “What?”

  “Dancers are the most neurotic bunch of people I know. And I know a lot of them.”

  I chuckle, but it doesn’t fit what I see in Lily. “You always look so confident when you dance. It’s like it’s a natural part of you.”

  “After fifteen years it should be.” She delicately put the beef patties on the grill one by one as she spoke. “My parents paid a small fortune for my dance lessons. It was supposed to make me more refined.”

  “It did.”

  She glances over at me as if I’ve missed some crucial part of the conversation. “It didn’t. It gave them something to talk about. Just like me getting into Harvard early.”

  “Early? How old are you?”

  She appeared uncomfortable with the question. Most people he knew liked the brag about their smarts. Harvard wasn’t small stuff. It was a way out of nothing to something even if all you did was go to school there. It opened doors that were shut to the rest of the world who, even if they’d accomplished the same degree, would never see.

  Edmond had told me that many times. Unlike all the bullshit artists of the world who told you that you could be anything if you just applied yourself, Edmond told me the truth. I could work my ass off but there would always be some doors that were closed to me. Some people who wouldn’t care why I was in juvie, or why I’m on parole now. They’d only see a criminal and want nothing to do with me.

  But Harvard? A Harvard person could shut down the entire NY Exchange or be the biggest drug runner on this side of the Mississippi with some new business tactic and someone would still hire him for seven figures and give him a golden parachute to boot just for showing up for work.

  Lily had that kind of future. She was going places I was never going to be allowed to go, except maybe to press my nose against the clean glass while peeking inside. And then it’d just be another reason to get arrested.

  It had been a bad idea to come here tonight. I’d gotten past the I’m-shit stage of life, but looking at this house and the smile on Lily’s face as she talked only made it clear that I’d be a stain on her life. I touch her and I’ll break her. That’s just the way it is.

  “Gus?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re not answering me.” I glanced down at the burgers on the grill. “It’s time to flip those before they’re ruined.”

  * * *

  Lily

  A cloud had come over Gus in a matter of seconds. There was light and then there is darkness in his eyes all in a matter of seconds.

  Come back to me Gus. Where do you go?

  I flip the burgers and see that some of them are indeed a little more charred than they should be. But they’re still edible. I reach up, about to close the lid of the grill, but I stop. Gus is looking directly into my eyes and it’s mesmerizing me. I don’t want to look away from him because it’s so rare that he lets me in like he is now.

  All afternoon he’d been bouncing from hard-ass instructor to something else. Something more. I want to know more.

  But then his face changes and he grabs my hand, pulling it away from the grill lid. The lid falls down hard with a clang. Penny and Heather stop their conversation and look over.

  “You’re not on the menu,” he says quietly as he inspects my arm.

  His gentle touch sends shivers up my spine. “I didn’t burn myself.”

  “If you’d left it there a little longer, you might have.”

  Warmth spread through me. Most of the time I’d spent with Gus he acted as if he didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone. And yet, here he was examining my arm for burns that weren’t even there. The feel of his fingers gently stroking my elbow makes my arm tingle right up to my shoulder, leaving me lightheaded. He keeps his gaze fixed on mine.

  “Something’s burning over there and it’s not the grill,” Heather says, laughing as she gets up from the chair. “Are we ready for rolls yet? I’m starved.”

  “Ah, in a minute,” I say, pulling my hand away. But Gus’s smoky eyes never leave mine. They penetrate me so deeply, I can feel my skin burning more than it had when it was over the hot flames. And I want to burn with him. It surprises me just how much I want that. But not with my roommates thirty feet away as witnesses.

  I hear the screen door slam as Heather walks inside. Penny is sitting on the railing, occasionally looking out at the ocean and then at me. She’s worried. I can tell. But Penny is always suspicious about men. I begin to wonder what she knows about Gus that isn’t obvious.

  Okay, yes, he’s been in jail. He told me himself that he was on parole for fuck’s sake! What was that all about?

  I should be scared. For all I know he murdered his family when he was ten and spent all this time in juvie. Except…it can’t possibly be something like that. He wants to play a badass, but there is an innate gentleness about him that I can’t ignore.

  He was being suffocated and I know suffocated. Gus has a wall wrapped tightly around him as if it were a blanket. And I understand those walls, too. Lord knows I’ve spent my life putting up walls so I could please my parents. There are days I wonder if they know me at all. Did they ever even want me? Or was I their reason for conversation at the dinner parties they held with all their uptight friends? I’d listened in enough times at the conversation to know that bragging was as big an art form as dancing. The only difference is that my parents didn’t get sore legs and feet from it.

  “You went somewhere again,” Gus says.

  I realize I did and it sends a flash of fear skirting through my body. It’s not good to wander, even if it’s only in my mind. When I wander, I remember things I don’t want to recall.

  “Don’t do it again or I’ll have to take over the grill.”

  I chuckle because…I don’t know why. I feel light, almost like I do when I’m dancing. Except my feet are firmly planted on the concrete patio.

  I hand him the spatula. “Be my guest.”

  Gus had been quiet the rest of the evening. He manned the grill while Heather, Jenna and I set the table with everything we needed. We anchored napkins and paper plates with glasses and beer cans to keep the wind from blowing them off the table. Bobby, Jenna’s boyfriend, arrived with a twelve pack of beer that was gone before dinner was through.

  Jenna had been quiet during most of dinner and didn’t seem like her normal self. Bobby had been by her side the entire time. And when he wasn’t, he was watching her. Gus and Bobby talked about sports, something I couldn’t be a part of since sports was never my thing. And when dinner was over, Heather disappeared somewhere down the beach. She was most likely going to the Windjammer. She wasn’t scheduled to work. At least, she wasn’t dressed for it. But Jason was there and it was a sure bet she wanted to see him.

  “I’m headed to bed,” Jenna said with Bobby by her side. “We need to get up early to catch the ferry. We’re headed to Boston for the day.”

  “You’re going on the mainland?” Penny asked.

  “Yeah, do you need us to pick something up for you?” Bobby asked.

  �
�If you could just drop off some letters at any of the post offices on the mainland, that’d be great.”

  Jenna frowned. “Why not just mail them from the post office in town?”

  Penny waved her off with her hand. “You know how long it takes anything to get mailed to and from the mainland. It’ll get there faster if you mail it from Boston.”

  “Okay. Just leave whatever you need mailed on the kitchen table and I’ll pick it up when we leave,” Jenna says. She yawns as if the beer was getting to her and making her tired. But I know that Jenna hadn’t had any to drink. She also didn’t eat much.

  “Goodnight,” I say as Bobby takes her by the hand and leads her up to Jenna’s room.

  “I wonder what they’ll be doing in Boston,” I say, clearing the table of the last of the paper plates and leftover food.

  “If they’re going all the way up to Boston for the day, it’s going to be a long day. No wonder they went to bed early,” Penny says. But then she winks at me and I know she doesn’t buy their early retreat to the bedroom to get sleep. “I’m headed up too. I want to get up early tomorrow to see them off and make sure they have my letters.”

  Odd that Penny would care that much about letters, but I let it go. Her retreat meant that I’d be alone with Gus.

  I grab the tray of condiments and glasses that we’d used during dinner off the picnic table and carry them into the house. Gus pulls the plastic tablecloth off the table and gives it a shake. It hadn’t been wiped down, but he folds it anyway and follows me inside. I don’t bother to tell him to wipe it down first. I’m just impressed that he’d take the initiative to fold it when I don’t think I’ve seen Heather do it even once.

  I open the fridge and put the condiments on the door shelf and then close the door. I grab the glasses from the tray and put them into the soapy water in a bowl Penny had filled in the sink and when I turn around, I see Gus standing by the back door.

  “I should go,” he says.

  “Why? The fire just started. I have some marshmallows. Pretty soon the fire will be good and hot.”

  “It’s not the only thing,” he says under breath. But I hear it and know what it means. I’ve seen it in him all night and felt it myself.