Summer Girl (Summer Girl #1)

by S. Love

  “The dementia turned Penny into a nasty bitch. Always fucking snapping and shouting at us. Accusing us of trespassing on her property and threatening the cops. It was shit watching her change like that. Didn’t put us off coming, though. Me and my brothers were always here, but… shit happens. Everyone dies. That’s life,” Ozzie says to the ceiling, his tone lifeless. Not at all like he’s talking about actual people—his grandparents. There’s no emotion there.

  “Not everyone dies like that.”

  “Imagine not being able to live another day without your wife. How can you love someone so much you can’t survive without them? Most days she couldn’t remember his name. Didn’t recognize his face.” Ozzie’s chest heaves, but not from sadness. It’s as if he can’t get his head around the notion of two people unable to be without the other. “What a joke.”

  His detachment only draws me in further. I want to understand him, but he isn’t making it easy. “How old were you… when they died?”

  He stares at the ceiling, unblinking. “I turned sixteen the day after we found them.”

  “Sixteen,” I whisper. What a sad, shitty birthday that must’ve been. I save my sympathies, though. Ozzie won’t appreciate or want it.

  Neither of us says anything more about it, and his story replays silently on a loop as we stare at the same ceiling. This house once had a loving family in it, and now it’s a shell. A partially stocked shell that’s beginning to rot with neglect and grief. It’s another page in this family’s story, though, and there’s so much more to all of them than what they show you on the shiny surface.

  “What are you doing, Lyla?” Ozzie turns his head to ask, confusion narrowing his eyes. “Have you stopped and asked yourself that?” He shifts into the position he was in before, so he’s looking down at me

  “What do you mean?” I frown in the darkness, picking apart Ozzie’s hard, critical stare.

  “I mean Falcon. What are you doing with him? Fucking using him like that.”

  “He used me, too. It was his idea,” I defend myself. Our scheming plan’s unraveled itself, and there are no reasons left to continue playing the fool with Ozzie. He knows, and Garrett’s no longer Catch of the Day. I fought for him, I failed, I’m done. I can’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth, and I’ll be pleased once he’s finally gone, taking the risk of running into him with him.

  Ozzie makes a deprecating face. “But the girl he’s trying to destroy by messing around with you isn’t some shithead like Jardine. Did it cross your mind that she might be worth him burning himself and the world down for? You’re fucking around in the deep with Con, head barely above water, and you should be in the shallow end with the other babies. Have you even been fucked before, Lyla?”

  “Have you?” I snap back. What an inappropriate question at an even more inappropriate time.

  He grunts out a noise that sounds like laughter. “Don’t be naïve all the fucking time.”

  “Who is this girl?” I demand in a sour tone. “Since she’s so much better than I am.”

  Ozzie’s eyes narrow in the corners. It’s like he’s disgusted with me. “I never said she was better than you. Not as fucking dumb as you—”

  I lean on my forearm, harness all my weight, and shove my hands into Ozzie’s bare chest, digging in my heels. The sheer force rolls me on top of him, and my wrists are captured in his hands. Overpowered, I’m pushed onto my back, and Ozzie rolls on top of me, both our chests heaving.

  Even as he says it, muscles tensed in anger, he’s trying to humiliate me. “What did Garrett do with you, Lyla? Did he touch you at all?”

  I buck underneath him, my hips slamming into his thighs. He’s straddling me, pinning me to the mattress. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  His faint smirk’s demoralizing. Threatening. “I can find out for myself.”

  The air sucks from my lungs, the dangerous void in Ozzie’s eyes tripping the switch for detonation deep inside my belly.

  Using one hand, he cuffs my wrists above my head, his fingers seizing me in a tight, painful shackle. With the other hand, he pushes my T-shirt higher up my stomach, his eyes coasting down to my black lace panties below his crotch.

  “What makes you think Falcon hasn’t already had me?” Baiting him doesn’t sound so wise when I hear it out loud, but the idea of me and Con in that way clearly sits crooked with Ozzie. He falters at the question, his nostrils flaring, jaw lined in sharp tension as his hand cinches tighter around my wrists.

  “Nah.” He shakes his head, his slow smirk sealing a fate I’ve set for myself. “Con might be like that, but you’re not. Playing Jardine for a braindead idiot’s one thing. You spreading your legs for the hell of it’s another. Bet you let him finger you, though.”

  “Who?” I search his eyes, looking for any sign of humanity in the cold, fathomless depths.

  “Con,” Ozzie says harshly, all his patience gone. “Has. He. Fingered. You?”

  “No.” I thrash from side to side, kicking my legs. “Get off me!” I try to peel my hands off the bed, but there’s no give in Ozzie’s callous grip.

  He fists the top of my panties, and through my cries for him to stop, rips them from my hips, the shredding material a vicious symphony to my unheeded begging to be left alone. My skin burns where the underwear digs into me, and Ozzie tugs them free of me like he has all the fucking right in the world.

  “Who’s been here?” He isn’t asking, he’s demanding to know. I could say anyone’s name—make one up—and he would still find issue with it. He needs fucking therapy.

  “Why do you care?” Cool air snakes up my thighs and between my legs. I feel like he can see all the way up into my soul, but he isn’t even looking at me there. His eyes bore into mine, icing over as the seconds cross into minutes. The longer he leaves me open and exposed, the more my body loses the fight not to rub against him for the tiniest bit of friction. I sicken myself.

  His hand around my wrists loosens, and blood rushes to my tingling fingers. I don’t know what’s happening, but I suddenly feel too light, too empty, too lost, without his body pressing heavily into mine.

  “What gives you the goddamned right to treat me this way?” I leave my hands where they are above my head. Where I can’t touch Ozzie or do something I’ll quickly regret.

  “Because you’re not his,” he says simply. Like that’s any kind of an answer at all. It isn’t, and his submission sends me spiraling deeper into the rabbit hole that Ozzie’s dug with his own bare hands.

  “Not whose?” I keep my voice low, in sync with the moment, so I don’t startle and wake the beast.

  “Any of them. They don’t get to have you, Lyla. I can’t let that happen.”

  I think he’s had a bit too much to drink, his raging cockiness bleeding into overconfidence.

  “You can’t stop that from happening. You don’t own me. I’m not your toy. Toss me aside when I don’t bend as far as you want me to or move the right way.”

  Ozzie’s face twists as his narrowed eyes roam freely over my face. “In what world would I throw you away?”

  I breathe out dry laughter. “In what world would you own me?”

  “In this fucking world. You said it yourself. I want something, I take it.”

  Jesus, how much alcohol has he had?

  “You don’t want me. You just can’t stand anyone else having me.”

  Ozzie leans over me, leaving me nowhere to go, and I flinch from how close he is. How tense his whole body is. His strained muscles restraining all that power. “I can’t stand anyone treating you how Con and Jardine do. Makes me want to fucking hurt someone.”

  Yeah, like me. The irony, huh?

  “How do you treat me any better? You destroyed the only pair of underwear I have with me.” I release a frustrated groan that rolls through my entire body. I have no underwear. What the hell am I supposed to do in the morning?

  None of what I’ve said fazes Ozzie, and it’s as if he doesn’t hear me when he say
s earnestly, “Would you let me touch you?”

  I read his expression, searching for the cracks in his sincerity. Whether he really expects me to give him an answer or I’m about to be ridiculed for falling into his trap. There are no cracks. No dents in his façade.

  “I’m surprised you’re even asking.”

  “I might not be so considerate next time. Answer me,” he part growls.

  “You’re an entitled fuckboy who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word no. I wouldn’t touch you if you were the cure for cancer! There’s your goddamn answer.”

  The meaning of time collapses around us. Ozzie jumps off me like a volcano erupted underneath him, wrapping a hand around each one my shins and pushing me away from him like I’m nothing more meaningful than a lumpy sack of potatoes.

  Chapter 24

  I lie on the bed alone, staring out through the window. The rain beats against the house in a violent torrent, but the winds have ceased. The gray sky hangs heavy and full as I listen for any sound in the house. There are none. Haven’t been any since Ozzie got in his jeep an hour ago and drove away. He didn’t say where he was going, and I hadn’t spoken to him to ask.

  Now I’m alone—not just in this house, but in this small, woodsy town I’ve never heard of before—the last three days come crashing down around me, burying me whole. I’ve kept myself elevated in an impenetrable state of denial, but I allow myself a few minutes for the ache to spread and take hold, gripping me in its icy, lonely clutches.

  It hurts, the thought of Garrett leaving Cape Pearl to travel the world and meet all kinds of interesting people. He’ll forget me in no time, and my first real relationship will be nothing more than a fading memory to him. A gray one at that, because his new life will be full of color and fascinating friends. Surfing the biggest, gnarliest waves and hanging out on the hottest, golden beaches. Tropical rainstorms and heart-stopping reef breaks.

  The world will be at his fingertips and I’ll still be here, wondering where I went wrong and why I couldn’t keep the only boy I’ve ever truly cared about. The one person who couldn’t seem to love me as much as he could reject me and keep me pining for him. He kept me hanging on even when I didn’t understand how or why.

  I should be glad he’s going. It’s freedom. An opportunity to concentrate on myself, without him or the push-and-pull relationship we’ve developed and mastered. It still cuts me open, but no one other than me has to know that. I’ll figure out a way to let him go. I have to, because he’s going, and I can’t stop him.

  I crane my neck to look over my shoulder at the creaking bedroom door. Ozzie walks into the room with a white plastic bag in his hand. I’ve been so lost in my head I didn’t realize he was in the house.

  “I didn’t hear you come back.” I sit up in bed. The comforter stays around my waist because, well, no panties. I eye Ozzie like he could pounce on me any moment, not trusting why he’s in here or what he’ll do to me next. He’s making me as unhinged as he is.

  He sticks his hand in the bag and throws a pack of underwear onto the bed. “Got you these. Bridge should be opening later today.”

  I pick up the set of three white, plain panties. No fuss. Cheap. “Where did you get these?” I turn the clear plastic in my hand, looking for a store label.

  “I went into town.”

  “There’s a town?” I don’t hide how surprised I am to hear that. Feels like we’re at the foot of the earth over here. Alone.

  “More like a street. Power’s back on, so you can shower if you want to.” Ozzie’s cautious look lingers, what he did last night, that dark place he pushed us to saturating the atmosphere like a residual haunting. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he was on the cusp of an apology. But I do know him better, so I think no such thing.

  “Thank you,” I say, holding up the itchy-looking underwear. I don’t know why I’m thanking him; the words just automatically roll off my tongue.

  When he’s gone, I maneuver my way around the shower, trying all the knobs and faucets until icy water bursts from the showerhead. There’s a bottle of men’s bodywash in the medicine cabinet above the sink, proving the Osborne boys do still come up here, and I grab that. I don’t hang around, relishing in the spray on my dried-out skin, and I avoid getting my hair wet. That’s a mountain to climb on another day.

  I step out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around me, the heady male scent from the bodywash clinging to the steam cloud that escapes the bathroom with me.

  My jeans are on the bed. The comforter’s gone, and so is the sheet, the room put back to rights. Ozzie must have put everything away.

  It’s a mystery to me how the boys can have so much respect for this house, which stands completely empty, and have such a lack of respect or care for the house they actually live in. Twelve hours together and I’m more confused by Ozzie and this family than ever. And I also shouldn’t care why they’re so defective. It’s not my business or my problem. Ozzie’s got my head spinning, though, and he won’t be so easy to ignore.

  In the harsh light of day, the interior of the house doesn’t look so scary. But the dark moodiness remains. Downstairs, Ozzie’s putting the candles away in the kitchen, and the house will be left abandoned once again when we leave.

  It crosses my mind briefly who the boys bring with them when they do come up here, and I wonder how often Falcon makes the trip, and when the last time was. It’s ridiculous, and I shut it down immediately.

  “You hungry?” Ozzie asks. He looks all set to go. “Here.” His hand dips into his jean’s pocket and he takes out my phone. “You left it in the Jeep.”

  I cross the kitchen, past the sad, wooden table, and take my phone. “I’m starving,” I admit. Then to back up my claims, my stomach rumbles loudly.

  Ozzie glaze slides over me, and he nods. “Okay.”

  He checks the house, and then we’re leaving. He locks the front door, slips the key beneath the loose board in the porch deck, and then we get in the Jeep. I’m not sorry to see the house go, and I never want to see it again. Being alone with Ozzie is dangerous—for me. Literally and figuratively. He’s bad enough around other people, alone he’s intolerable.

  At this rate it feels like the rain will never let up, and I detach from myself watching the drizzle run down the passenger side window. I didn’t sleep great, and the soft stab of a headache starts at my temples, probably from lack of food as well as sleep.

  Just when I start to think this heavily wooded road leads nowhere but over the edge of the world, signs of life appear in the distance. Scattered farmhouses at first, and then Ozzie turns right at a four-way intersection. Two of the roads are more like gravel tracks, leading deeper into the woods.

  It’s only two or three more minutes of driving until he’s parking in a horizontal space by the curb. I can see where the street ends and the quaint stores stop, opening up to yet more towering Spruce, but this slice of civilization makes me the happiest I’ve been in days. My stomach growls louder, in total agreement with me.

  I open the door and climb out of the Jeep, scanning the storefronts to see which one serves food. There’s a diner across the street that looks half-decent, but I’m so hungry I really don’t care if the food they serve is good or not. I just need to eat.

  “How about Rizzo’s?” I say to Ozzie as he gets out of the Jeep and pushes the door closed. He looks behind him, at the nineteen-fifties style diner that appears to be stuck in a time warp, same as the rest of this town. I might have a small soft spot for it. This whole street looks like it escaped an American history museum.

  “Fine,” Ozzie says casually. He strolls across the road, and I walk beside him. The pitter-patter of rain on the awnings and flower planters is a summery sound here rather than a wintery one, and every step I take sends me farther back in time.

  There aren’t many people inside the diner, and the jukebox in the corner plays an old country song, the mellow tune contributing to the slow, lazy feel of the restaurant.r />
  Ozzie slides into a booth next to the window, and I sit on the opposite side, reaching for the menu stand and plucking one out. The plastic’s a little sticky, but I get past that no problem when images of fluffy, buttermilk pancakes and turkey club sandwiches call out to me in all their glory from the laminated pages.

  “This all looks so good,” I say aloud to no one, my hunger doing the talking. I’m a slave to my stomach right now, and it doesn’t give a damn that the rest of me is holding a grudge with the privileged boy sitting across from me in the olive-green vinyl seat.

  I flip the large pages, my eyes unable to scan quick enough. It’s never a good idea to choose food when you’re this hungry, and I know I’m not going for the sensible, healthy option. I could eat a calorie-laden feast. The only thing stopping me from following through on that is the gut-wrenching moment I realize I don’t have my purse or any money with me.

  My heart sinks straight into my rumbling, empty stomach.

  My glaze flickers upward, to Ozzie, who’s looking over his own menu. I put mine down on the Formica tabletop, closing the pages.

  A waitress arrives, taking a notepad and pen from the pocket in her apron. “What can I get you?” she asks after a longwinded, welcoming introduction.

  Still reading his menu, Ozzie doesn’t even look at her when he answers, “Double grilled chicken burger with fries and a Coke.”

  “Please,” I tac on the end of that for him, narrowing my eyes at the top of his dark head.

  “And for you, hon?” the waitress asks me, slipping me an understanding smile.

  It pains me to say, “Just a glass of water, please.” It’s going to take ten glasses to shut my stomach up. It’s like I’m growing a baby gremlin in there. Right now, that gremlin isn’t my friend.

  The waitress nods, and Ozzie dishes out a weighty frown.

  “Get her the same as me to go with that water,” he tells the waitress. Even though he’s the one being rude, I’m embarrassed on his behalf. I hope his tip makes up for it.