Vance answers my video chat as I’m about to hang up. “Merry Christmas.” His usually rare smile is toothy, and he looks like he’s dressed for church.
“Merry Christmas!” I beam, hoping to appear like a seven-year-old girl showing off her Santa loot and not a twenty-one-year-old girl hiding her disappointment.
“Are you at The Seam?”
I nod, cursing myself for not finding a backdrop that didn’t include a neon Bud Light sign. “Yeah, we’re heading home soon.” I don’t know when exactly, but I’ve reached my tolerance for drunks and depressing family stories that make mine look like excerpts from the Brady Bunch family album. “How was your Christmas? How’s your family?”
He leans forward over his lap, and I can see the warm glow of a house full of lights behind him. “All is good. How ’bout yours?”
I don’t know where to start. Pop-Tarts or pizza? Joe or the absence of my mother at dinner? It’s a tough one to call when he’s probably stuffed to the gills with prime rib and Christmas carols around the family piano. “Well, we didn’t kill each other, and my stomach is full.”
“Tell me I’m not missing you for nothing. Is Bristol at least happy?”
“Define happy.”
“Brenna?” He takes me with him as he steps outside. “Talk to me.”
“She’s happy. She’s just not happy, happy. It’s complicated.” She’s happy about spending time with me alone, but that’s about it. She’s not happy about being broke, which she mentioned ten times while we shopped for my mom and Uncle Rodney on Christmas Eve. She’s still not happy about me and Vance or Mom and Joe or the pact she swears I’m not honoring, and if we’re laying it all out there, she hates Uncle Rodney’s relationship with Vance too. Bristol has diverse unhappiness, and no one, not even me, seems capable of changing that with any sort of permanence. “A lot has changed for her in a short time. She’s still adjusting to not being number one all the time.”
“What has honestly changed for her, Brenna? What of any major significance, anyway?”
It’s an obvious answer to me, but to outsiders who don’t know our tight bond and the family dynamics that forged it, it probably isn’t so easy to spot. “It may not seem like much to you, but we made a pact when we were ten not to let boys come between us. You’re a boy, in case you didn’t know. It’s never really been tested until now, and she’s never had to share me before. I’m the one constant in her life. We live together, sleep together, work together, play together. The longest we’ve been apart was the fifteen minutes between our births, until you.” The fifteen minutes is an exaggeration, the pact is not. I need him to understand that Bristol’s seeming craziness maybe isn’t crazy at all. “It’s going to take time for her to get used to the idea of it not just being her and me against the world anymore.”
Vance is obnoxiously silent. He’s probably thinking he hasn’t noticed a difference in her standing where I’m concerned. She still gets her way with me, today is a testament to that, so in his mind, the change to her life is probably negligible. I can’t stand the dead air, so I continue trying to defend Bristol.
“We’re at odds for the first time ever, and we’re trying to get through it the best we can.” I think he can hear how torn I am, and he finally has mercy on me.
“Look, I don’t want to ruin our time talking about Bristol or making you feel worse. I love you, Brenna. I hate that I’ve made this hard for you.”
“I’d rather it be you than someone else. I just have to get through New Year’s, and then I have you all to myself.”
“Actually, you have to get through tonight. I changed my flight and I’ll be in tomorrow at seven. I don’t want to be anywhere but with you.”
After a traffic delay getting to Milagro Beach from the airport, Vance is mine by eleven the next night, and my body is marathon-fatigued by two. I haven’t been this tired in a long time, and I see no end in sight as his breath fans over my cool skin sometime after five in the morning, light and then heavy, as he scrapes his teeth across my shoulder.
“It’s still dark. What are you doing up?” I whisper. I can barely keep my eyes open, and the faint sound of waves outside his bedroom window lull me back toward sleep. Three hours of sleep isn’t enough, but I have to take my time with him when I can get it.
Winter break ends shortly, and I think he’s feeling the time crunch more than ever. Since his arrival from the airport, we’ve shut the world out, and too soon we’ll be dealing with schedules and separations again. Right now, Vance is all mine and wanting me, but the pull of sleep seems the bigger temptation. I do my best to wake up, but my eyes flicker closed again.
Vance presses his erection against my hip bone and rolls me from my side to my back, hovering above me with a grin I can barely see through the crack in my lids. I touch his chest with a flat palm and then skim my nails down his skin, stopping when I get to his pelvis. “Again?” I may ask like it’s a chore, but my body is already responding.
“Mm hmm,” he moans into my neck, coating me with kisses and swipes of his tongue at the base of my throat. That tongue, most recently at my hot spot, now taunts and caresses me awake.
I wrap my legs around his hips, eyes still closed, mouth smiling. “You are going to kill me.” I run my fingers up his side delicately to pull goose bumps from his skin.
A nip of his teeth on my bottom lip sparks something between my legs, and I can’t imagine sleep any longer. “Are you complaining?” he asks against my mouth.
“Uh-uh.” My response is uttered in conjunction with my hands reaching his ass. I squeeze, pushing him against me. He rubs his erection right where I need and soaks up my soft moan into his mouth. I roll my hips.
“If you won’t marry me and you won’t move in with me, I have to take care of you this way.” Shifting his hips to stroke himself over my pulse, he sucks a nipple into his mouth, nipping enough to make me groan and buck beneath him.
I arch my back, pressing my chest toward him. “Then stop stalling.”
He thrusts hard, entering me in one seamless motion and I groan, bucking to build off his momentum and my close proximity to orgasm. Too soon, I fall over the edge, panting but still aching. Groaning, Vance flips me over, enters me again, and moves until I can no longer tighten around him.
“Ah, fuck,” he growls, picking up his pace. “One more. I want to hear you.”
Not one to deny him, I lift my face as his fingers roll my sensitive clit. I arch my back, and his name escapes on the tail end of another plummet, seconds before I go limp. He grips my hips, the only thing in the air now, and he finally finds his own release. Spent, he collapses over me, taking me with him as he drops to his side to lay beside me. Spooning me, he kisses my shoulder, and I melt with ease into his sweat-slicked chest. Draped in his warmth, with a cool taste of fresh air trickling in through the window and a feeling of all-around contentment, I drift off.
“Brenna?”
“Hmm?” I mumble through a closed mouth that hasn’t even begun to drool yet. There is no way I can keep up with him and function for my afternoon with my mother if he’s going to wake me every fifteen minutes for extracurricular activities. How am I going to survive more than a week apart from him if this is how we come back together?
Vance hands me my phone as he climbs out of bed. “Answer your phone. Your mom is calling.”
My eyes peel apart, and the sun blanketing the entire room makes me question the time of day. I can’t sleep through wind chimes, but I’ve managed to sleep through my outdated ring tone and the rising sun? I bitch under my breath and answer my phone as Vance steps into the bathroom to shower.
“Hello.”
“Brenna?”
“Yeah, it’s me. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you could meet me for lunch a bit earlier. I have something I want to talk to you and Bristol about, and I think we’re going to need more time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I join Bristol at The Seam several
hours after mom told us at lunch that she is thinking about moving Joe in and turning our bedroom into his man cave. Rough translation: “You girls are holding my relationship back, and this is the only way I can have what I really want.”
It took us both by surprise, but Bristol perhaps a little more so. She sees it as abandonment, not evolution, and despite my mom’s protests to the contrary, Bristol shut her down and stormed out. I should have followed her, but my mom wasn’t the only one accused of abandoning her for “a pussy prowler.”
Bristol is sitting at the bar, an untouched shot of liquor in front of her. Uncle Rodney is wearing one of his parental faces and trying to talk her off a ledge. This isn’t how I wanted to spend one of my remaining days in town, but this is where her unhappiness has led me.
“Glad you’re here,” Uncle Rodney calls out before the door can close behind me. “I’ve called your mom, and she’s on her way. We’re resolving this shit today.” Today is boldly spoken, like he’s not kidding, in case we were wondering.
“There is nothing to resolve. Men have been chosen over me yet again. I know where I stand.” The liquor is gone in one slug, and she slams the glass back down.
“I haven’t chosen anyone over you.” My voice is so firm, it sounds harsh.
“No?” She turns on the stool, facing me as I approach. “What would you call it then?”
“Bristol, we’re not ten anymore. You had to know that change would inevitably come with age. What would you do if the roles were reversed and you fell in love? Would you leave him to make me happy? Would you sacrifice your own heart for one more day, a month, a year of appeasing mine?” Tears break past my bravado. “Because that’s what you’re asking me to do.”
“I would,” she says, infinitely sure, and I finally understand the impossible situation I’m in. It’s been the two of us against the world since we were born, and now I’m asking her to take a step back so I can take on the world with someone else. She’ll never see my growth as anything but a threat to her status quo. I don’t know how to combat that, short of her having a true love of her own.
Uncle Rodney’s sigh is the first indication of my mother’s arrival. Bristol and I turn simultaneously, an air of dread already evident in our postures even before we see Mom’s miscalculation. As usual, she has completely misread the situation and brought Joe along. She holds his hand as she tries to explain herself.
“I need you girls to see that we’re happy. I’m not trying to push you out. I’m trying to move on.”
I’m temporarily immobilized while her words penetrate my thick, heartless, sanctimonious ass. For the first time in years, I really look at her, and in this frame of mind, I see a grown woman trying to find the love of her life without taking the opinion of others as gospel. She just told us what I’ve been trying to say to Bristol about me and Vance. Are Bristol and I holding our mom back because we don’t want change?
Holy shit! I’m my mom.
I’m speechless. Bristol, however, is not.
“Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll move my shit out tonight.”
“Bristol!” my mom shouts, surprising us all, including the patrons who didn’t know they were going to get three Sloans for the price of two. “I told you so you could prepare, not so you’d move out. We’re not changing the room until you graduate. You have a place to live with me as long as you’re in college. But sweetheart, you graduate in a little over a year. It’ll be here before you know it.”
“Got it,” Bristol snarks bitterly. She’s already turned around and is asking for another shot before I’ve even closed my mouth.
When I’m finally able to focus on the scene again, Joe stands modestly absolved of his sins at Mom’s side, a transition I’m sure he’s been hoping for since he grabbed the chick’s ass at the beach. Maybe he deserves a second chance, maybe he doesn’t, but I’ve learned today that it’s not up to me. While I’ve been simultaneously criticizing and emulating her, I’ve missed their progression. Maybe Bristol is right. I’ve been too caught up in my life to recognize what’s happening in anyone else’s. Am I so far out of touch that I missed a working reconciliation?
The phone to The Seam rings, which it’s done more times since the press found out about Vance than it has in the last five years. Uncle Rodney answers with a polite greeting despite the tension around him
“She is. May I tell her who’s calling?” His face whitens as he lifts his eyes to mine. “Brenna, it’s Grace something or other with Candid magazine. She’s wanting a comment on Camille?”
“Camille?” I question what I think is his mistake until I grab the phone and it’s made clear that Uncle Rodney didn’t have a brain fart.
“Ms. Sloan, Grace Arlington with Candid magazine. I was wondering if you’d like to comment on the claim that Amber Dietrich, the stripper Van has been reported to be dating is actually his sister, Camille Hatfield?” The questions continue in a blur of vomited words, none computing, while my mind reels that they know about Camille. “Were you aware of this? How long have you known Amber Dietrich’s true identity?”
The floor is threatening to meet my face as realization dawns, and I have to grab the lip of the bar to stay on my feet. “H-how did you find this out?”
“So, it’s true? You did know? Do you have something you’d like to add?”
“How?” I ask again. “Who?”
“Candid’s sources are confidential, Ms. Sloan. Will you be adding a comment?”
I hang up without answering. The phone immediately rings again, prompting me to pick it up and slam it back down again. It rings another five times before Uncle Rodney pulls it from the wall.
And I thought my mom’s news and Bristol’s reaction would be the worst part of my day. I’m stunned, shaken to my core, and ready to accept any and all handouts for stability when Joe departs to smoke a cigarette he’s already jammed into his mouth, and Bristol’s phone rings, drawing everyone’s attention away from me.
She looks at her phone and then at me before silencing it and putting it in her back pocket with a look of anguish I’m not sure is over the confrontation with me and my mom.
“Who was it?” I ask, because Bristol, like me, doesn’t get a lot of calls from anyone other than the people in the room with us. I’m hoping it’s a coincidence and not an answer to one of my questions.
“Telemarketer.”
I release a breath, ready to explain so they don’t find out about Camille the way the rest of world is about to.
With three sets of eyes back on me, I fight for composure so I can alleviate their curiosity and get to Vance. “Candid is about to—”
Bristol’s phone rings again, and this time she silences it without looking and encourages me with a gesture of her hand to keep going. Yet another call follows that one, and her face loses some of its color.
“Who is it?” I ask again.
“Telemarketer.”
“Bullshit,” I accuse, advancing on her with shaking legs that make me look more like Bambi than a confident girl putting two and two together. “Give me your phone.”
“No.” She keeps a firm grip on her phone as I grab for it and fail to come away with it.
“Is it Candid? Are you their source?”
Uncle Rodney, beet red and sweating, steps between us, a hand on each of us. “Girls!” he admonishes, and usually it’s enough to draw us back, but not this day. Not for me.
“Give me your phone or—”
“Or what?” she yells, stumbling off the stool and backward to get away from me.
“Or I’ll assume it’s Candid and cut you out of my life for good.”
“Brenna! Don’t threaten things like that.” My mom’s two cents would have been better spent after finding out who in this conversation is in the wrong.
“Unless you’re picking sides, stay out of it!” I yell, with none of the reserved calm I typically use with her. I turn my attention back to Bristol. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I don’t want to believe it. I
can’t. “You pinky promised.” The last sentence is more for me than her as the gravity of what she’s done hits me.
“Brenna, those are serious allegations. Stop and think.” Again, my mom’s advice is unwelcome.
Bristol’s phone, vulnerable in her shaking hand, hits the floor and I lunge, coming up with it after she practically tackles me on top of it. With one hand I keep her at an arm’s length while the other fumbles with her phone.
“It’s going to look bad,” she says, pulling back with rare resignation after I slap at her. “I swear to God and on every oath, promise, and pinky swear we’ve ever had, it wasn’t me.”
With my jaw clenched, I enter her password and check her missed calls. The last several calls are from the same number. We both know whose it is before I call it back.
“Grace Arlington.”
My world peels away. The foundation that has supported me for twenty-one-and-a-half years crumbles beneath me as Grace Arlington of Candid continues speaking as if my world weren’t shattering.
“Are you there? Bristol?”
I throw the phone at my traitorous sister, who catches it in two hands against her chest while Grace is still chatting away. Tears have slowly begun to descend in thick streaks down her cheeks, and I can no longer see the other half of me.
“Did you even once think about your promise to me, or just about what was best for you?”
“It wasn’t me! I kept my promise to you. Even though I wanted to break it a hundred times, I didn’t.” She’s desperate, but red blotches on her skin have yet to bloom, leaving the smallest room for doubt.
I watch her closely knowing her body will give something away in time even if her answers won’t. She’s a die-before-you-break kind of person, but she’s not infallible, and lying straight to my face isn’t easy for her. “I don’t believe you!” I scream, feeling every raw wound as my world breaks open.
“I don’t know how to change that if my word isn’t enough. I’ll pinky swear it.”
Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1) Page 28