Beneath the Stars

by Emily McIntire

  He looks me over slowly from tip to toe. I see the amusement drain from his eyes, and when he’s done with his leisurely perusal, his stare is heavy.

  “Goddamn Goldi, the hell are you wearing?” His tongue peeks out and sweeps across his bottom lip, drawing my attention to the wetness left behind.

  My breath hitches.

  In moments like this, where the air is thick with unspoken emotion, I can almost convince myself he feels it, too. Whatever this is. Over the past three years, the vines of our friendship have grown and twisted, wrapping tightly around every single piece of me until I don’t know how to get untangled. It’s big and scary and I don’t know how to handle it, so I pretend things are the same as they’ve always been.

  But they’re not.

  I move my gaze from his lips, drinking him in. Gone is the gangly preteen with too short hair. In his place is a full-grown teenager that sparks a fire low in my belly. Sculpted muscles ripple under his shirt, his hair mussed from fingers that always find a home in the strands. His hazel eyes are so deep, I’m surprised anyone can find their way back again. I force my eyes away, moving to grab the robe that’s thrown haphazardly on the back of my desk chair.

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head over what I’m wearin’.” I wrap the robe around my body, looking up. His dimples are on full show, a rare occurrence in the world of Chase Adams.

  “How you feeling today, Goldi?”

  I pout. “A little too big, if I’m honest.”

  He cocks his head, eyebrows drawing in. The last thing I want is to talk about my struggle with puberty, so I change the subject. “How was your vacation?”

  He shrugs. “Sandy.”

  I giggle at his answer. A conversationalist, Chase is not, that’s for dang sure.

  “Well, there’s been a whole bunch goin’ on around here. Eli got offered a scholarship for basketball in Ohio, so naturally, Mama has lost her mind cryin’ every day. She’s dead set on tryin’ to convince him to pick a local school, instead.”

  I roll my eyes. Eli’s always talked about getting out of our small town and making something of himself. No way he’ll stay local. He’s got big dreams of making it all the way to the NBA and I’ve half a mind to believe he will.

  “No shit? Good for him.”

  I nod. “Oh, and there’s a new guy that moved into the neighborhood last week. I went over and met him today. Took him some of Mama’s banana bread and everything. I’m sure Becca will be thrilled to have fresh meat to chew up and spit out before school starts,” I laugh.

  “Why do you say that?” Chase asks.

  “Well, you know how Becca is with boys, and this one’s a looker.” I remember how he was weaving magic with his words the second we met. “I’m also pretty sure he could charm the knickers off a nun.”

  Chase’s demeanor shifts, his jaw clenching. “Are you saying this new guy charmed you?”

  I smile. “I definitely give him an A for effort, that’s for sure.”

  He scoffs. “Is he even your age? What kind of a guy flirts with a girl he just met?”

  “I imagine most of them, Chase.” My forehead crinkles as I answer him.

  “Well, he sounds like a douche.”

  “Okay…” This conversation took a turn I did not see coming. “Anyway, I told him I’d do my neighborly duty, and send you on over to introduce yourself.” I give him the same look I get from Mama when she means business.

  “Fuck. That.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

  “Oh, come on,” I laugh. “You don’t even know him! Just go say hi. I’ll go with you if it’ll make it easier. I know how much you dislike conversatin’ like normal folk.”

  “No,” he barks. “In fact, you need to stay away from this guy. I mean, he’s my age, but he’s flirting with you?”

  My smile drops. I step closer, anger swirling inside me. I don’t stop until the tips of my toes touch the front of his boots. I poke him in the chest to punctuate my words. “I’m fourteen, Chase, not ten. I’m not such a little girl anymore, whether you wanna admit it or not.”

  He doesn’t move an inch, but his fists clench, his eyes traveling down my body. “Believe me, Goldi, I know.” The muscle in his jaw tics and he takes a step back, squeezing his eyes shut and climbing out of my window without another word.

  He doesn’t come back.

  Every night since, I’ve laid in bed, listening for the slide of the window and the whisper of his voice, but the only sounds are the cicadas chirping and the silence of his avoidance. It’s been a week since I’ve seen him.

  It’s also been a week since I’ve seen Lily. I keep expecting her to drop by and regale me with tales of Florida, but she hasn’t given me so much as a phone call—which is why I’m so surprised to see her standing on my porch.

  “Well, hi there, stranger.” I lean my shoulder against the doorframe.

  “Hey, girl!” She walks straight into me, grabbing me around the waist and squeezing tight. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

  “Probably ‘cause you haven’t seen me in forever.” I pull back, looking in her eyes, but she’s got those giant sunglasses on that make her resemble a bug, and I can’t see anything other than the bright-pink smile she has painted on her face.

  “Ugh, I know, and I’m awful for it, but I have so much to tell you! I met this guy. He lives a few towns over in Sweetwater. I totally gave him my V-card and stayed at his house for the past few days.” She brushes by me, ignoring my slack jaw, and walks into my living room, lying down on the couch.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. You met a guy?” I repeat, my words slow.

  “Yeah,” she sighs.

  “In the week since you’ve been back…”

  “Yep.”

  “… and you had sex with him?”

  “Sure did,” she nods.

  “… at his house. Where you stayed for multiple nights.”

  “I know, right? It sounds crazy.” She laughs, throwing an arm over her face.

  “You can say that again,” I mumble. “How on earth did you get your folks to okay this?”

  She drops her arm by her side and gets a sheepish look on her face. “I may have told them I’ve been with you and Becca.”

  I stare at her in disbelief. This is out of character for Lily, to say the least. She’s always been a fly by the seat of your pants kind of girl, but never reckless.

  “Don’t be mad, Lee!” She sits up, putting her hands together like she’s praying. “I know it wasn’t right to use you and Becca that way, and I’m sorry… but they never would have been okay with me going over there.”

  “Were his parents gone or somethin’?”

  “No, he doesn’t live with his parents.” There’s an edge of defensiveness to her tone.

  “He doesn’t live with his parents,” I repeat her words back to her again. “Who even is this guy? And how old is he if he has his own house?”

  “His name is Darryl and he’s older…”

  “How old, Lily?”

  She cringes. “Twenty.”

  My stomach bottoms out. I feel sick. I don’t know much about people in their twenties, but I do know nothing good can come from one who wants to mess around with a fourteen-year-old girl. I collapse onto the couch, too shocked to process how I’m feeling. I’m angry at her for bringing me into her lies. I’m sad because I think there’s more going on than she wants to tell. I’m worried because I don’t think she knows what she’s getting herself into. I close my eyes and lean my head against the back of the couch.

  “Does your brother know?” I whisper.

  She stays quiet, but it doesn’t matter. I already know the answer.

  4

  Chase

  Sixteen Years Old

  I get the feeling Anna wishes I would call her “Mom.” Lily had no problem, taking up the moniker as soon as the ink was dry on the adoption papers, but I just can’t bring myself to. Honest to God, I start every day with the intenti
on of getting over my shit and just doing it. I can give this to her. She deserves the title after everything she’s done for Lily and me. But then I think of my real mom, and even though I try like hell to erase her, she’s still the biggest part to the ugliest sides of me.

  I keep Anna firmly in her place, but Sam is another story. I connect with him on a level that has me swallowing back the word “Dad” daily, and I’ll be damned if I know why. Maybe because I don’t have a real dad to compare him to? All I know is he doesn’t push. He just takes me to Sugarlake Construction and lets me disappear into the work. I shocked the hell out of myself when I realized how much I enjoyed it. There’s something peaceful about the methodology in building something from nothing. There’s no room for error, no guesswork. Everything is exact. Precise. Controlled.

  Two years ago when Sam bought the construction company, he sat me down and laid out his plans of eventually passing it down. I’ll never tell him, but that was one of the best days of my life. I’ve never had someone believe in me, and while the feeling is intoxicating, mainly I’m just terrified of disappointing him.

  I’ve been dying to talk to somebody about it, but the only one who I’d want to listen is Goldi, and it’s been ten days since I’ve seen her. That hasn’t been an accident. She has this way of making everything around me disappear until all I see is her, and that’s not good for either of us.

  I thought with some space I’d be able to get my shit together, maybe gain some perspective. Instead, she invades my mind to the point of insanity. My thoughts are far from platonic.

  It’s not right.

  Fuck, I know this.

  She’s my little sister’s best friend. Hell, she’s my best friend, and even worse she’s only fourteen. A fucking freshman. She’s just learning about what it means to become a woman, and here I am jerking off to thoughts of how perfect her lips are, and imagining what it would feel like to slide my cock between her tits.

  It doesn’t matter though—I’d rather torture myself into eternity before I give in. Our late-night talks mean too much for me to ruin it by losing my self-restraint. If that means I have to put some space between us and fuck all the other girls in town to get her out of my system, then that’s what I’ll do. I’d rather have her in my life from a distance than not have her at all.

  I am, however, going to introduce myself to that prick who moved in behind her house. What’s that saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Yeah. Guess who’s about to be your new best friend, buddy.

  The front door slams.

  I look up from my breakfast as Lily walks into the kitchen, makeup smudged under her eyes from the night before, and a sour look on her face.

  “What the hell happened to you?” There’s only been a handful of times where Lily hasn’t been one-hundred percent put together, and it usually coincides with sickness or “Aunt Flow.”

  She plops down in the chair across from me and groans, grabbing my bowl of cereal.

  “Nothing, dude. I just had a rough night. I’m trying to recover.”

  “A rough night?” My brows furrow. “Didn’t you spend it with Goldi and Becca?”

  She’s shoveling cereal into her mouth, but pauses and points her spoon at me. “She hates it when you call her that, you know.”

  “She doesn’t.” I shake my head. “Answer the question.”

  “God, what are you, my father?” she snaps.

  I lean back and raise both my eyebrows, because what the fuck.

  “Yes, okay?” she continues, rolling her eyes. “I was at Becca’s with Lee last night. We stole some wine coolers from her mom’s hidden stash, and my head is pounding, so just lay off a little.”

  She’s avoiding my stare, her eyes bouncing around the room like she can’t decide where to focus.

  I lean forward, resting my elbows on the table. “You’re lying.”

  Her body stills. “I’m not.”

  “You’re telling me if I walk over to Goldi’s right now, and ask her about last night, she’ll have the same story?”

  “Obviously.”

  I rub my chin. “And they both were drinking, too?”

  “Mmhm.” She nods. “You gonna go over there and give them the third degree, too?”

  I’m pretty sure she’s full of shit, but I won’t push her anymore. I reassure myself that if something serious was going on, she would confide in me. We’ve been one another’s source of support our entire lives, no way that will change.

  Sighing, I stand up. “Whatever you say, Lil.”

  I leave Lily to wallow in her self-imposed misery and grab my keys, heading to the house behind Goldi’s. Time to introduce myself.

  It’s a few days later when I realize I might have been a bit preemptive in my assumption that Jackson was a prick. We’ve been hanging out, mainly at his place while he works on restoring the ‘67 Mustang Fastback his dad left him. His mom isn’t around much due to the fact she works twelve-hour days, three times a week as a nurse, and picks up shifts as a bartender at Mac’s Dive here in town.

  “How come your mom works so much?” I ask. It’s a hot August afternoon, and we’re sitting on his back deck, sipping beer he charmed one of the housewives in town to buy us.

  “So we can live like kings, man.” He spreads his arms wide, looking around, a carefree smile on his face.

  “Clearly.”

  “She won’t be. Not for much longer. As soon as I convince them to hire me as a mechanic at the shop in town, I’ll do enough to support us both.” His fingers tighten around his beer bottle. “Our healthcare system is fucked, you know? When my dad got sick, it was… aggressive. We spent every dollar to our name doing whatever we could, just to give us one more day.” He shakes his head and drains his beer, grabbing at the chain underneath his shirt. “But cancer’s a business in this country, just like everything else.”

  Our conversation is interrupted by loud laughter and a slamming door. I glance toward the noise, my heart beating faster because I just know that’s Goldi out there. I can feel it. I focus on the condensation from my beer bottle dripping onto my fingers to keep myself from doing something insanely stupid, like jumping the fence, apologizing for ignoring her, and shoving my tongue down her throat. I look back up and Jax is watching me, a knowing glint in his eyes.

  “What?” I snap, setting my beer on the table.

  “Nothing, man.” He raises his hands up in surrender like he wasn’t just staring a hole through me. “It’s just interesting, you know? I could have sworn Miss Alina May said you were her best friend when she pranced her cute little ass over here bringing me baked goods, but you haven’t mentioned her once.”

  My body coils tighter with each word he says.

  “Honestly, I got the idea in my head that maybe there was something between the two of you. I mean, what sixteen-year-old guy can hang out with a girl like that and not want to get it in, you know?”

  Nope, I was right the first time. He’s a fucking prick.

  “But I’m happy she’s still up for grabs,” he continues, oblivious to the wrath building inside me. “I’m gonna snatch that up before some other guy has the chance.”

  I’m imagining my fist meeting his face in vivid detail. Maybe breaking his legs so he can’t go anywhere near her when he throws his head back and laughs. “You should see the look on your face.”

  I grimace, unclenching my hands from where they had a bruising grip on the arms of my chair. They tingle as the blood rushes back into them, and I take deep breaths to calm back down.

  “I should fuck you up,” I say, running a hand through my hair.

  He’s still laughing when he stands, pausing by my chair and clapping a hand on my shoulder. “I’m just messing with you, bro. But you should figure your shit out and either lock that down or move the hell on because believe me when I say, a girl like that? She won’t stay single for long. You want another beer?”

  I nod stiffly, his words running through my mind on a loop. He’s
not wrong. It’s unrealistic to think there won’t be a guy. I groan, throwing my head back. The thought of having to watch someone else touch her makes me sick to my stomach. But I’m no good. I’ll hold on too tight and suffocate her with my need to stay close. To never leave.

  She deserves more than that—more than me. She deserves the soft and sweet kind of love. So, even though it fucking kills me, I’ll stand back and let someone be that for her.

  I drain the rest of my beer, the jealousy rising up my throat like acid.

  I’ve been staying strong, keeping away from Goldi. For three weeks, anytime I’ve seen her, I turn and walk the other way. But it doesn’t stop my heart from reaching out for hers, trying to match its rhythm.

  Tonight though, I’m too weak to resist. It’s been a shit day with shit memories, and I’m suffocating without her.

  As I open her window and climb inside, I tell myself that tomorrow I’ll throw my feelings in a box and lock it up tight.

  Tomorrow, I’ll be strong.

  It’s dark other than the glow ‘n stick stars on her ceiling. I made her promise never to take them down. She hasn’t asked why, but if she did, I’d tell her it’s because they light the path straight to her. Fucking pathetic. Still, my chest warms knowing that even without me here, she’s kept them up.

  She’s sleeping when I reach her bed, and I lean down to brush the strands of hair off her face. My eyes drink her in, gliding over her features, and memorizing every inch.

  She’s so fucking beautiful.

  She stirs as I trace my index finger down her cheek.

  “Chase?” She blinks.

  “Yeah, Goldi. It’s me.”

  She stretches her arms, her tank top lifting and revealing her midriff. I swallow hard and look away. I feel her stare, though. She’s the only person in my life that looks through all the bullshit and dives straight into my soul. The only person I’d ever want to.

  “What’s the matter, Chase?”

  I crawl over her and slip under the covers. “Nothing’s wrong, I just wanted to see you.”