by Penny Reid
“We can’t change the past. But we can change how much importance we allow it to have over our future.”
His lips tugged to the side and his eyes drifted shut. He shook his head slowly, but I was gratified when his hands settled on my hips.
“Who told you that?” he asked without opening his eyes; his tone told me he was reluctantly amused.
“My dad, when I didn’t study for a trigonometry test in high school and then subsequently failed it.”
Martin’s laugh burst forth with a tsk and a wonderful scoffing noise; it was adorable because it sounded involuntary. Best of all, when he opened his eyes and gazed at me, he didn’t appear to be angry.
He looked a little helpless, a little lost, a little hopeful, and a lot vulnerable.
“Oh, Martin.” I stepped all the way forward and pulled him into a hug, which he returned immediately. I felt a surge of fierce protectiveness for my Martin. It took my breath away, caught me off guard.
My Martin…oh, sigh.
In that moment I hated his father—a man I’d never met—and his stepmother for their treatment of him. I hated them for being too blind or evil to recognize how sacred his heart was, how he needed tenderness, care, and love. My heart broke a little as I wondered whether he’d ever experienced genuine affection from another person.
Given what I knew so far, I thought the chances were slim.
Yet, there was something about him that made me think he knew what normal was; he seemed to want normal for himself. He knew that mutual respect, honesty, and affection were essential, even though those closest to him had never demonstrated any of those character traits.
His enemies were now my enemies. I hoped he knew that, no matter what happened between us in the long run, whether we ended as friends after all this was over, he had a safe place with me.
After several wordless moments, I kissed his neck then spoke against the spot. “We have several strange conversations queued up for today’s agenda, but for right now I say we just hug it out for a bit, then maybe go swimming.”
He tsk-laughed again, a little longer this time, then pulled away so he could look at my face. I gave him a bright smile; my heart didn’t hurt quite as badly now he was looking less lost.
“Also, I hope you brought food because I’m hungry.” I patted his shoulders. “Please tell me there’re cookies.”
“Are you always like this?” he asked, his eyes narrowing in mock suspicion.
“Like what?” I pretended to be confused. “Amazing?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, finally smiling, “amazing.”
***
At the stern of the boat, we ate at a table that popped up from the deck. Martin set some fishing poles up and left them in these neat fishing pole holders that buzzed when there was a bite, then reeled the fish in on the line. I didn’t even know that kind of thing existed.
“You mean you don’t have to hold the pole in order to fish?”
“Nope.”
I felt slightly outraged. “But…that’s the whole point of fishing, to hold the pole, to reel in the fish.”
“The point of fishing is to catch fish.”
“That’s cheating. You’re cheating at fishing.”
He shrugged. “Outcome is the same.”
A light breeze picked up his hair and tossed it about a bit, playing with it, as though the wind couldn’t resist touching him. Behind Martin was the endless green-blue of the Caribbean and the endless, cloudless soft blue of the sky. The unmistakable, but not unpleasant, salty smell of seawater made the palette of greens and blues feel sharper somehow. Martin’s gorgeous eyes almost glowed on his tanned face.
I smiled at him, because he’d just placed the last of the grapes from lunch on my plate. “Well, where did you even find this infernal contraption? At the lazy fisherman dot com?” I teased.
“No,” he said, “but that’s a good domain name. I invented it.”
“What?”
He popped a grape into his mouth, chewed, then took a drink of his bottled water before finally answering. “The lazy fishing pole. I invented it.”
I stared at him for a beat. I couldn’t decide if I was outraged or proud.
“When did you do that?”
“It was my eighth grade science fair project. The first mock up was very crude since I’d built it myself. But I did a Kickstarter for it my junior year of high school and they’re now manufactured in Switzerland.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know quite what to say, so I studied the grapes.
He was so full of surprises. He was unexpected, and not at all who I thought he’d be. Yet at the same time, who he was made total sense. Martin seemed to really know himself, have a level of comfort and confidence in his own skin. This confidence was wrought by multiple trials by fire, and it manifested as not caring what anyone else thought.
I envied that. I envied him.
Everyone I met always presumed to know who I was because of who my family was, and therefore, what I would do with my life. I had huge, impressive, worthwhile shoes to fill—so obviously that’s what I would do.
Abruptly, apropos of nothing, I blurted, “I don’t think we should move in together.”
Martin’s hand stopped midair as he reached for another grape on my plate and his blue-green eyes told me I’d caught him off guard.
“Really…” he said, like he was stalling for words.
“First of all, I’ve already renewed my dorm room lease for the entire summer, and Sam is counting on me. As well, I’m very regimented about things like dishes and messes and such. I wouldn’t want us to be roommates and find that we can’t stand living with each other. Sam and I keep a chore list and we’re both really good about sticking to it. Would you be that kind of roommate? Also, there is the matter of cost, size, and personal taste. I don’t mind living in a small space, I actually kind of like it. I also like how inexpensive it is compared to an apartment. It is likely that where you’ll want to live wouldn’t suit my budget or my size preference. As well, the opposite is probably true…”
Martin watched me through my well-reasoned speech. His surprise at my subject choice changed to a leveling glare of cynicism, then frustratingly, complete withdrawal.
“If you don’t want to move in with me you can just say so.”
I wrinkled my nose at his frosty tone. “No, Martin—it’s not about wanting or not wanting to move in with you, it’s about thinking through all the pros and cons of any proposed action.”
His jaw ticked. “Do you want to be with me after this week is over?”
“Yes. We’re dating. We’re officially two dating people who are dating each other, at least that is my understanding. We are dating, right?”
He nodded coolly, but said nothing.
I tried to pacify his sudden surly mood. “We don’t have to move in together in order to be dating, or be in a relationship, or see each other.”
“When?”
I frowned at his question because I didn’t know what he was asking and he looked extremely frustrated.
“When what?”
“When are we going to be together? When will I see you when we get back?”
“You want specific dates and times?”
“How often? Will I see you every day? Or will it be once a week?”
“Martin—”
“Maybe we should make a chore chart for it.” He stood abruptly, looking menacing and angry. “Then you can allocate just the right amount of time to maintaining an adequate relationship.”
I stood as well, heat spreading from my chest to my neck. “That’s not how it would be.”
“I’m going for a swim.” Martin turned from me and pulled off his shirt; he shook off his sandals as I rounded the table, trying to reach him before he jumped off the boat.
“You’re overreacting. Just stop for a second and think about this. I know if you think about this you’ll see that I’m right.”
Martin’s attention was on his watch
as he removed it from his wrist. “All I know is that I’m completely crazy about a girl who doesn’t want to move in with me because she’s worried I’ll be messy.”
“That’s an oversimplification of the issue, Martin Sandeke. You can’t let your passion make every decision for you.”
“No, you’re right.” He stilled and glanced up at me then, his eyes glinting like daggers, his voice hard. “It’s much better to be a musical prodigy, to love something passionately, but give up and bow out gracefully. To not fight. To talk yourself out of caring about what matters to you, because then you’ll have all those fine deeds and reasonable decisions and logic to keep you warm at night.”
My mouth moved but nothing emerged. He was being completely crazy and irrational and I had no idea how to interact with someone who was being completely crazy and irrational.
But then I looked at him more closely as he placed his watch on the table and saw the unhappy curve of his mouth. I realized I’d hurt him.
“Martin.” I placed my hand on his bicep to stay his movements. He winced a little at the contact, but I took heart in the fact he didn’t shrug me off. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I just want us to be—”
“Smart,” he finished for me, his resentful gaze softening as it moved over my face. “I know. You always want to be smart and do the right thing. But the problem is, Parker…I just want you.”
CHAPTER 7
Covalent Bonding and Orbital Overlap
Martin went for a swim. A really, really long swim. I was a little jealous of the water.
I distracted myself by finishing up my last term paper.
He returned and I tried to keep from gawking or drooling as he pulled himself out of the water. He was wet, so very, very wet. As such, all the oxygen seemed to abruptly disappear from the atmosphere. He dried himself off and I pretended not to watch. Eventually, mostly dry, he disappeared into the captain’s cabin.
I sighed unhappily then distractedly studied for my math test. Then I heard a strange buzzing and clicking and realized it was coming from Martin’s infernal lazy fishing pole contraption.
He’d caught two yellowfin tuna by proxy and I had to make a split decision: I could go get him and risk losing both fish, or I could try to haul up the smaller, more manageable of the two. I was successful in bringing up the one, but the other broke loose and swam off in the three minutes it took to get my fish netted, unhooked, and deposited in a huge cooler of sea water set on the deck.
“You’re pretty good at that.”
I looked over my shoulder and found him leaning against the doorway to the upper deck cabin, watching me as I bent over the cooler and untangled the fish from the net. He was still shirtless and droplets of water were clinging to his hair.
“I lost the bigger fish.” I straightened and said this apologetically. “I didn’t think I could bring it up by myself and I didn’t want to lose them both.”
He shrugged and moved away from the door, walking to me until he crowded my space. His hands slipped under my T-shirt and caressed the expanse of my stomach.
“Hi,” he said, looking down at me. He looked a little cagey and regretful.
“Hi,” I said, then lifted on my tiptoes to give him a kiss. It was just a soft press of my mouth to his, but I needed it. When I went back on my feet I saw he needed it too.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You’re forgiven,” I said.
He smiled, and those thorny feelings in his gaze gave way to relief. “I haven’t told you why I’m sorry.”
“You’re still forgiven.”
His thumbs dipped into the waistband of my shorts, rubbing down the line of my hips. “I did overreact. And all your points are valid ones. I just don’t want to get back to campus and for this to go away. I need to see you, often.”
I wound my arms around his back and pressed him to me. Really, I wanted to feel his skin against mine, but for now I decided to settle for just his warmth.
“This isn’t going away. I don’t think I’m going to disappear into a chemistry lab cabinet when we get back. And besides, if I did, you’d know where to find me.” I kissed his collarbone. Damn he was delicious. Being so close to him had my hormones throwing a parade and making a Slip ’n Slide out of my pants. It would have been embarrassing if I’d cared, but I didn’t. I’d grown to love the way he made me feel.
“Promise me that when we get back, maybe in a month, or when finals are over, you’ll reconsider moving in together.”
The idea of dating Martin—or still dating Martin—during finals made what we were doing here feel very real, and it gave it a sudden gravity. It was a fixed time point in the future. I thought about meeting him for study sessions in the library and coffee shop. How it would be. How he might spend the night with me on those odd weekends when Sam went home.
I realized, or understood better, why he wanted to move in together. If we shared an apartment our default would be together—like it had been here—and he didn’t want to give that up. Neither did I.
“Where are you living over the summer?” I asked, smoothing my hands up and down his back just so I could feel more of him.
“I was already planning to move out of the house in April. I was thinking of an apartment downtown.”
“So far away?”
“Yeah, but then I can catch the train to New York easier.”
“What’s in New York?”
He hesitated for a minute, watched me, and his hands stilled. “A project I’m working on.”
“What kind of project? A class assignment?”
He shook his head, his fingers moving around to the back of my shorts. “No. It’s not for class. It’s a…a venture capitalist thing.”
My eyebrows bounced up and down as I oscillated between surprised and impressed. “Just a little venture capitalist thing, in New York?”
He huffed a laugh, his voice low, rumbly, and delicious as he said, “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Does it have anything to do with your cheating fishing poles? Maybe a golf club that plays eighteen holes all by itself?”
“No, it has nothing to do with fishing. It’s, uh, it’s satellites.”
“Oh.” I nodded, made sure I looked like I thought satellites were as impressive as a finger painting. “Oh, satellites. Who doesn’t have a little venture capitalist side project in New York about satellites? I have twenty at least.”
He was full on chuckling now, looking at me like I was cute and hilarious. “Really? We should compare notes.”
“How much money are you trying to raise for this little cosmic endeavor? Five? Ten million?” I’d thrown the figures out there because they sounded preposterous.
He shocked me by responding seriously, “Sixty and some change, but I have a way to raise the capital, so we’re golden.”
My mouth fell open and I struggled not to choke on my bewilderment. “Who are you? Why are you even going to college?”
“College is good for making contacts, meeting the right people—smart people who I might be able to employ later— and networking.” He shrugged, like the college experience was one big social networking conference or a giant job interview for all of his classmates in the inevitable Martin Sandeke Empire. He added, “I also like to row and I like to win.”
I couldn’t help but tease him. “Am I one of your right people? Are you planning to employ me later?”
“No.” He grew sincere, introspective, and his tone mimicked his expression. “You were a complete surprise and you might ruin everything.” Then he added as a distracted afterthought, “You might ruin me.”
I felt a little stab of sober hurt just under my heart. “I wouldn’t,” I implored, my fingers flexed into the muscles of his back. “Martin, I would never ruin you.”
“You wouldn’t do it on purpose,” he soothed, looking resigned. “But you could if you wanted to.”
“I won’t want to.”
He merely smiled wryly in response and let
me look at him. Then he took advantage of me being distracted by reaching into my shorts and swimsuit and touching my bare skin.
“Let’s go downstairs.”
“Why?”
He bent his head to my jaw and kissed it, then kissed a path to my ear. “I want to do very bad things to this bottom.” He growled, grabbing and massaging me, making my breath hitch and liquid heat race to very nice places…in my pants.
“What kind of things? Give me some details. Maybe a numbered list.” I was teasing him but my voice betrayed me, as it was breathy and uneven.
He lifted his head from where he’d been biting me; his gaze was heated, hooded, and full of sexy promise.
“Let’s get you naked and I’ll show you.”
***
I was naked. He was not.
He’d kept his swim shorts on all day, then changed into boxer briefs and pajama bottoms for bedtime.
I wasn’t comfortable being naked in general. Over the course of my life I was only ever naked right before, during, or after bathing/a shower or changing into a bathing suit; therefore, being naked while alone with Martin specifically, felt like an epic skydive outside of my comfort zone.
I briefly wondered if this made me an odd duck. Did other nineteen-year-old girls—less sexually repressed girls—spend minutes and hours alone with themselves naked? Admiring their knees, becoming acquainted with their elbows, discovering the dots and indents of their backside? Somehow I doubted it, at least not girls from the United States of America.
This was the country where Janet Jackson’s inadvertent boob exposure during the 2004 Super Bowl led many to believe it was a sign of the Apocalypse. Movies frequently displayed death, violence, and gore with a PG-13 rating, but god forbid a nipple be exposed, or an ass crack. Cuss and swear and maim and kill, but the sight of the human body is lascivious, offensive, and shameful.
Really, in the USA, there were only two sure ways one could ever see a human male penis without having sex: porn, and anatomy/physiology 101. Part of me wondered if zoos were so popular as a direct result, giving kids an opportunity to assuage their curiosity with animal anatomy, and therefore labeling the experience as educational.