Hale Maree

by Misty Provencher

  “I wish I...”

  “Don’t keep saying you wish it didn’t happen like this! It did happen!”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Sophia.”

  “I want you to say that you made a mistake!”

  “But I didn’t,” Oscar says, “and I don’t know what else I can say about it. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but...”

  “But you did.”

  “I suppose so,” he says. “But I didn’t mean to.”

  Sophia hangs up on him. Oscar touches the buttons that turn off the phone, before he slips it in his pocket.

  “Sorry,” he tells me. “I don’t know what I can do for her.”

  “You broke her heart.”

  “That’s what she tells me,” he says, “but she doesn’t believe that I didn’t expect this to happen either.”

  “Did you tell her about Rick Tatum?”

  “No, but I wasn’t referring to that. I was talking about meeting you.”

  “Oh,” I say. I’m glad it’s dark out, glad that he can’t read my expression or my blushing. I try to change the subject. “You haven’t told anyone about what happened? Not even Landon?”

  “No,” he says. “But Landon does know that I plan to marry you. He knows our fathers are working together and that, the moment I met you, it was over with Sophia.”

  “What’d he say to that? That you’re crazy, right?”

  “Not at all. I think you’re forgetting that Sophia and I were only together a few months. Land knew that things weren’t perfect with us. When I told him about you, he told me to do what makes me happy. That’s Land.”

  “He told me that at the kitchen table too, when you were outside on the phone with your dad.”

  “When Land says something, he means it.”

  “What about Amy? Does she mean it?” I ask. “She went from hating me to wanting to be my best friend. She’s kind of scary.”

  “Not really,” he says, as though he means to say she is. “I think of her as more determined than scary. When she gets something in her head, she’s determined that that’s the way it should be, but when she changes her mind, she changes it completely. Does that make sense?”

  “Kind of,” I say. “She still freaks me out though.”

  “Don’t let her. You’re with me and that’s that. Amy will figure it out, if she hasn’t already,” he says. “What about you? Have you figured it out?”

  “That I have to go through with this? Yeah, I figured that out,” I say.

  “That’s all you’ve got?” The disappointment in his voice is darker than the shadow of his face. His head scoops down toward mine. “Hale, don’t you have any feelings for me?”

  Oh my God, what do I say? Do I tell him that he surprised me, and melted me, and that he’s worn me down to the point of accepting the whole idea? Do I say that I’m falling in love with him, when I’ve never done it before and have no idea if that’s really what this is? Do I tell him that the chemistry churning between us has made me want to wad up my virginity and throw it right at him? I have no idea what to say, so I play it safe and say, “I’m really starting to like you, Oscar.”

  “You like me?”

  “I do.”

  “Oh Hale,” he chuckles. “I want more than that from you. A lot more.”

  I see why Oscar wanted to take a walk on the beach now. He’s got me in the eye of a perfect storm. His warmth prickles against my ribs, and the waves are lulling me with their methodic lapping on the shore. Most of all, the pitch darkness makes me feel like anything we say, or do, right now will be erased anyway, once we’re back in the bright lights of civilization. Nothing matters except this moment. I feel brave beside Oscar’s shadow and, when he leans closer to me, his breath dancing on my cheek, I don’t move away.

  “I want everything,” he whispers. “Will you kiss me?”

  In the darkness, my brave fingers reach for him, moving into the short hair at the nape of his neck. I pull him to me. I open my mouth against his lips and accept his tongue. His atomic waves come crashing through me all at once, and my entire body explodes in tingles. I let out a low moan that seems to get lost in his throat.

  Oscar lays me back in the sand. He trails gentle kisses down my neck, pausing at my collarbone.

  “Let me,” he murmurs. I don’t bother to answer or stop him as his hand slides beneath my shirt, his touch like a combination of radioactive particles that sends shocks of excitement blasting through me. I arch my back as he takes my breast in his palm, but this time, the moan we share is his.

  His knee slides between mine. Oscar slips his arm beneath my back, while his mouth remains warm against mine. He lifts me off the sand, and pauses only long enough to peel away my shirt. The moment it is off, his reassuring, kiss returns.

  The dark is so dark that it feels like my eyes are straining trying to see anything, so I just shut them and let my skin just feel. The sand is cold on my back and I shiver.

  “Too cold?” Oscar asks. He sits up and pulls off his own shirt. He presses his bare skin to mine, and all my senses mix in delicious confusion. The definition of his muscular chest against my soft breasts, the heat of his skin on top of me, and the cold sand beneath my back, it all tangles into a beautiful kiss that engulfs my entire body. The begging words are suddenly in my throat, arching my spine again, but they dissolve as soon as his tongue warms my nipple.

  I moan out loud again and Oscar stops long enough to murmur against my skin, “That feels good, doesn’t it?”

  I open my eyes as Oscar’s lips move over my ribs. My ear is against the sand and in the darkness, a ways off, there is a sudden flash of light. It is a quick flash, but I see it, like a flashlight beam that grazes through the tree line and then dips out of sight.

  “Oscar,” I whisper, wiggling away while I try to cover the upper half of my exposed body.

  “What’s the matter?” He sits up, and I scoot around to cling to his back, raising my shadow-hand to point in the direction that I saw the light.

  “I saw a flashlight.” I whisper. We stare into the darkness. “Shine the lantern on it.”

  “The light won’t reach. Are you sure it was a flashlight?” Oscar asks, when the light doesn’t reappear. He waits a minute longer before turning to face me. “You know, it’s okay, Hale. If we’re moving too fast, you can just tell me, and I’ll slow down.”

  “It’s not—no, that’s not what happened,” I say, with a hot blush warming my face. “I saw a light, I swear I did.”

  “Maybe it was just a shooting star,” Oscar says.

  “On the ground?” I ask. “It wasn’t a star, and there’s nothing else out here.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “I think you’re just nervous. It’s okay.”

  “I saw something,” I tell him, swooping down to feel around for my shirt. I find it and slip it on, without shaking out the sand. Oscar retrieves his too, but doesn’t put it on.

  “Come on,” he says, taking my hand. “Let’s get back to the house.”

  #

  Although we don’t see a trace of any other flashlights, Oscar doesn’t rub it in when we enter the wide ring of light cast by the beach house floods. We go in the front door, after Oscar announces us through the screen. Amy yells, Come on in, like her life’s been ruined. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, when we walk in.

  “Landon’s sick,” Amy says, pointing to the bathroom. “Diah-screama. He’s been locked in there, howling and hanging onto the towel rack, ever since you guys left.”

  “Serious?” Oscar says, and shouts toward the bathroom, “Land? You okay, buddy?”

  “I’m going Sea Cucumber in here, baby,” Landon hollers back. The toilet flushes. “Stay out!”

  “No problem,” Oscar says. “Hale and I can just hang out upstairs.”

  I gulp. Just like I suspected, back here under the regular lights, I feel a little more self-conscious and reserved. How good it felt to let go with Oscar, out on the beach, seems a little fast
and loose now that Sophia’s best friend is staring at me again.

  “Hey, don’t go,” Amy says, before Oscar can grab my hand and drag me upstairs. “Let’s play Scrabble or something. I don’t have anything to do if Landon’s locked in there all night.”

  “Sure,” I say, but Oscar flashes me a look that is pure disappointment. I slide into a chair at the table and turn to Amy. “Were you out looking for us?”

  “Outside?” Amy asks. “No, why?”

  “I swore I saw a flashlight out there. This isn’t hunting season, is it?”

  “It’s always some kind of hunting season,” Amy says. “Good thing you didn’t get your heads blown off.”

  Oscar, who had wandered out of the room, wanders back in with the Scrabble box. He lays it on the table and takes off the top.

  “I think her eyes were playing tricks on her," he says, shooting me a grin.

  “Out there?” Amy says. “There’s no light to play tricks with.”

  “Thanks for helping,” Oscar says. He lays out the board and tiles, as the toilet flushes again.

  “Sophia’s been blowing up my phone,” Amy says. “She’s saying you won’t talk to her?”

  “I tried,” Oscar says. “Help me out, would you? Talk to her. I understand she’s upset, but like you said, just a couple of weeks ago, she was thinking of breaking it off too. I wouldn’t mind talking to her, if she’d listen to what I have to say.”

  “Oh no, she doesn’t want to hear any of that,” Amy says. She glances at me. “Don’t worry about it. She’s just slammed that you ended everything first, and had someone waiting in the wings. The rejection stings a little, but I’ll straighten her out.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” Oscar says.

  We play two rounds of Scrabble, in which I seem to get the tiles that spell nothing more complicated than ‘cat’ and ‘sit’, but Oscar strings together ‘x’ words like infix and Xis that I challenge and lose on. Amy tries to make every word have some dirty root to it, spelling out suck, nip and lick, and then insists she should get extra points for working all her words into close proximity on the board. Landon flushes the toilet enough times that we lose count.

  “Tomorrow,” Amy says, when I object to another game. “Let’s go shopping. There’s that great outdoor mall...”

  “What do you want there?” Oscar says.

  “Stuff,” Amy says, as if she can’t believe he’s asking.

  “Oh...stuff. Actually, I could do with some stuff,” Oscar laughs as the toilet flushes again. “If your old man can get off the toilet, we could.”

  “He’ll be fine, I gave him a bottle of Pepto.” Amy says. She leans back off her chair and shouts toward the bathroom door, “You’re drinking the Pepto, right?”

  “Yeah,” Landon answers.

  “Romantic weekend, his ass,” Amy says, giving me a wink, and blowing some hair off her forehead. She smiles at me. “Better stack your wallet for tomorrow, Hale. We’re going to be gone a while, because my man owes me all kinds of stuff tomorrow.”

  The bathroom door opens and Landon steps out, looking a little pale.

  “Stuff?” he says, closing the door behind him. “We’re going on a stuff trip?”

  “Yup, shopping. Our favorite,” Oscar says with a dry smile. “You gonna make it there, buddy?”

  “Hope so. Must’ve been the fish and chips I had in town.”

  “Poor baby,” Amy croons, jutting out her bottom lip. “A shopping trip will make it all better.”

  “Sure will.” Landon grimaces as Oscar grabs my hand and pulls me up out of the chair.

  “We’re going to hit the hay,” Oscar says. I would object simply on the grounds that I don’t want to be told what I’m going to do, but it’s not like I’ve got options. There’s no TV, no bookcases, no nothing. Only Amy, putting away the Scrabble board, and Landon fanning at the bathroom door with his newspaper. The prospect of staying down here, versus going up and fending off Oscar if I need to, seems like a no-brainer.

  We say our goodnights and skitter past the bathroom and up the stairs. I go in first, and Oscar closes the door behind me. I hear the snick of the lock and turn back to him.

  “Just so you won’t feel uncomfortable,” he says, and his expectation sends a shot of resentment straight through me.

  “You’re making a pretty enormous assumption,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “Just because things got nuts at the beach doesn’t mean I’m just falling into bed with you now.”

  “It doesn’t?” He tips his head to the side with a grin. He steps forward, and I step back. “You’re shy now?”

  “I lost my head,” I say. His hands reach out and wrap around my waist.

  “I could try and help you lose it again,” he says, but he doesn’t try to kiss me. He keeps his gaze on mine. I can’t help it when my eyes dart away. Oscar brushes his thumb against my shirt to bring me back.

  “Listen,” he says. “I told you before, if it’s going too fast, you just say so. We’ve got the rest of our lives to figure this part out. I don’t need you to rush into it. What I need is for you to trust me.”

  “We’re going too fast,” I blurt. “I mean, I liked being on the beach with you, but--I just think—I don’t know.”

  “Ok, I think I understand what you’re saying,” he says. “We’ll just keep it at the beach level for a while, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, but even agreeing to ‘beach level’ feels kind of dirty. Then again, when I think of his hands on me, an excited shiver radiates over my skin, covering me in goose bumps. I’m not going to say I don’t want what happened on the beach to happen again, but I’m not sure that it’s going to feel like that again either.

  I stand there, rigid, waiting for him to try to kiss me or make a move for the edge of my shirt. But he doesn’t. Instead, Oscar reaches into his pocket, takes out his phone, and steps away, touching buttons to turn it back on.

  “If you want to talk to your friend, after I check my messages...” he begins, holding the phone to his ear. He frowns, presses his finger to the screen, listens, and frowns again. I scoot closer to listen. My stomach turns upside down, as he repeats the action several times. He paces across the room, too far for me to hear anything but a nondescript murmur that is probably actual yelling up close. He turns the phone off and hands it to me.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask, taking it from him.

  “Sophia,” he sighs, turning away to remove his shirt. He draws the fabric over his head, and I almost forget what he said the moment the weave of his back muscles are exposed. I suck in a breath and bite my lip, so the pain will jar Sophia’s name loose.

  “What did she say?” I ask. His skin is such a perfect shade of brown, as if he’s been poured from a cappuccino machine. I think of how Sher once said she had fantasies about covering a boy she liked in whip cream. I lick my lips at the thought of sliding my tongue over Oscar’s sweet, cappuccino skin.

  “I don’t know. I’m not listening to the messages. She’s taking this way too hard.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The first message, she said we needed to talk, but she sounded pretty calm. Then she left a message that just said call me. Then, Call Me NOW. The last one, she was yelling. Hale, we were together for three months. Not years, months. We tried making it work, but it’s not like we were the perfect couple. We were having problems from the start.”

  “Like what?”

  “She was always going out with her friends. I didn’t mind a few girls’ nights, but even our time together was always a group event. I got tired of it never being just the two of us. Then, I found out that all the girls’ nights were always at a nightclub. The main reason I have for going to a nightclub is to find a girl. She didn’t see it as a problem if she danced with other men, as long as she ended up at my house at the end of the night. But I had a big problem with it.”

  Faithful, loyal. That’s the problem that he means. I’m beginning to feel like I know him bet
ter than Sophia ever did.

  “Didn’t you ask her not to go?”

  “Sure,” he says. “She insisted she was never doing anything, but I thought it was disrespectful that she went at all.”

  “That’s why the thing with Rick Tatum...”

  “It made perfect sense,” Oscar finishes for me, “but when she came up here, and I spoke to her, she didn’t seem to have a clue as to what I was talking about. I don’t know that she could’ve faked it that well. All her calling seems a little psycho, but Sophia isn’t nuts. I think she was as shocked to find out about you, as I was to hear about Tatum, but now I really don’t think she had a clue who he was.”

  “Then who sent the guy?” I ask.

  My stomach turns to lead. I’m scared to death that he’s going to say he suspects my father. Ever since I overheard him wondering to Sophia, I’ve wondered too, if my father could be capable of doing something so devious, just to get some money out of an old friend. It seems impossible, but so does the idea that my father would make a deal and just hand me over like livestock, to marry his friend’s son. The part that still confuses me is how my father could just accept it all; how easily he accepted the truck and the tractor service, how easy it was to give me away to marry a stranger.

  And, if Oscar suspects my father, he will suspect me too. I don’t know what that will mean, if I am married to him. I don’t know what it will mean, if I’ve fallen in love with him. I am hardly breathing when Oscar says, “I don’t know yet. But don’t worry. I’m going to find out.”

  “Do you think it’s anyone you know?”

  “Yes, I think it might be,” he says, turning his sharp gaze to me. “But I’m not going to falsely accuse anyone, Hale, so that’s all I’m saying for now.”

  “Okay,” I squeak. When he’s stripped down to his boxers, it’s not like I don’t notice every inch of him, but I’m just too worried now. What if it was my father? I want to ask, to know if that’s what he’s thinking, but I’m scared of what the answer might be.