by S. Love
Babysit Mariah? Continue working in this house and risk another less-than pleasant collision with Ozzie?
Mariah looks at me with wide, hopeful eyes, and how the hell can I sit here in front of her and turn down Ray’s offer and not make it seem like I’m rejecting her?
“That’s a really difficult offer to say no to,” I start, the regret at having to turn him down cooling my tone. “But I live like an hour away, the commute’s too long for the occasional night of babysitting, and I don’t drive so…”
Ray doesn’t look at all affected by my padded rejection. “But you can drive? You have your license?”
“Yeah, but it’s pretty useless with no car.”
His easy smile narrates a different story. “I’m sure I can see to fixing that small inconvenience.”
I stumble for a second over what I think Ray’s implying, because I must have heard wrong. No way would he buy me a car, that’s crazy.
“How?” I ask, just to be sure.
Ray spreads his palm over his mouth, fingers grazing the dark, short stubble covering his tapered jaw. “I’ll buy you a car. The investment’s worth it if it keeps my daughter happy. The boys haven’t quite come around to the changes yet.”
Uh, hello? Understatement? This one’s for you.
“A car’s too much,” I tell him. “It’s kind of you to offer, but—”
“No buts,” he says sternly. He squares his shoulders and rests his forearms across his thighs. “Besides, you’ve earned it.”
And with those three words, he makes me feel even dirtier than I already do. I’m being used and bought left, right, and center. The price of my worth this time is a brand-new car. At least there’s no toilet-cleaning involved in the deal. I have that to be grateful for.
Ray gathers Mariah’s dolls from her lap and lies them on the bed. “There’s chocolate fudge popsicles in the deepfreeze, why don’t you go and get yourself one while I speak with Lyla?”
Wrapping her fingers around Tina, Mariah does as she’s told, earning herself a rewarding smile from her dad. I don’t know if he just doesn’t see that Mariah doesn’t want to leave, or whether he’s choosing to look past it for the sake of bribing me to stay, but he pays it no attention.
“Look,” I start, only to be immediately cut off.
Ray holds out a hand in what I can only describe as an incredibly rude gesture. “Before you tell me no and reel off a list of reasons why you won’t be able to do it, just forget everything else. The boys, my wife—me, if you have to—and think about Mariah. She isn’t settling as well as I’d hoped she would, and Clayton and Falcon are doing everything in their power to continue life as though she were never born. She needs you around, Lyla. Don’t do it for me, do it for her. Please.” The depth of sincerity in that word alone chips off a piece of my shredded heart. Mariah does need someone. I just wish that someone didn’t have to be me.
“I’ll need to run it by my mom,” I say, buying extra time before I make another commitment to this family.
“Sure. Of course.” Ray nods and runs a hand over the front of his white dress shirt, reaching for the doorknob with his other hand, eager to get back to work now he’s accomplished what he came up here for. “Thank you, Lyla,” he says prematurely. I haven’t even said yes and he’s already confident he’s getting what he wants. His sons literally took on all of his worst qualities.
Later, home when he would normally be at work, or lying that’s where he’s been, Ray insists I join the family for dinner. I’m envious of Mikel as he removes his chef’s apron and dons his thin black jacket, scurrying out the door like he can foreshadow the night I’m in for, and he’s relieved he just feeds them and doesn’t have to break the actual bread.
The day’s nearing its end, and I’ve changed into leggings and a zip-up workout jacket, heading straight for the door once I’ve swallowed the last morsel of food on my plate. I don’t practice running on a full stomach, but I’ll ease into it gradually, a long, mind-clearing walk preferable to the choking feeling of being under this roof, worrying Ozzie’s going to break my door down at any moment and manipulate my body into playing nice just to please him.
But despite making it through dinner and accomplishing a huge self-goal, Ozzie’s blocking my path to the door as I’m about to leave the house.
I stop, my gaze guarded as it levels on his face. “Get out of my way.” My voice is chilly, but he’s unperturbed by my cool tone.
His arms are crossed over his chest, his back pressed against the tall, glass doors like he’s been expecting me, and it was just a matter of when I’d show up. “Can’t do that,” he says. “I’ve got something I want to give you.”
A tight breath of laughter slips from my throat. “You’ve given me enough already, thanks. Now move.”
“I’m not going to do anything to you, Lyla. You’re safe.” There’s an implied ‘for now’ the way he leaves that statement hanging in thin air like the terrorist he is.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. And I don’t trust you, so that literally means nothing to me.”
“Thought you might say that.” Swiftly, Ozzie pushes off the door. He strides over to me, grabs my hand, and pulls me back toward the kitchen. His bone-shattering grip on my wrist leaves little chance for escape, and I’m in the mudroom before I know it.
A white surfboard stands against the wall, curls in varying shades of aqua spreading from the board’s center line like ink spilling and separating in water. The board’s tied around the middle with a black satin bow.
“It’s yours, “Ozzie says, then, with less conviction, “for your birthday.”
It’s a wonder my jaw doesn’t drop off and smash to the floor. “My birthday?” I reiterate. “You bought me this for my birthday?” Like, in what universe am I living in right now? Is this even real life? Maybe I should start checking for hidden cameras.
Ozzie increases my dismay with a blank look. “That’s what I said.”
“You’re out of your ever-loving mind,” I turn and say to the board. “Do you not understand what you did to me?”
“What did I do to you?” he asks with fake innocence.
“I could go to the police,” I say, my voice and my hands shaking from reliving him pushing me down onto the bed and then taking, taking, taking. I focus less on the part where I started to want it. That’s too much food for thought.
Eyes intent on me, Ozzie takes a stalking step toward me. “And tell them what? Once they hear you’ve been through all of us, don’t think the cops will be too concerned over the state of your virtue. Doesn’t sound like it’s worth the trouble of embarrassing yourself.”
My eyes sting with tears. “I hate you.”
“Yeah, so you’ve said.” Ozzie reaches for the surfboard and positions it under his right arm, bow and all. “We’re taking this out.”
“We are not.”
“Yes, Lyla, we are. So go upstairs, put on something skimpy, and I’ll meet you at the water.”
“No,” I say, mouth agape.
“Yes, and I’m not asking you again.” One dark eyebrow steadily rises, and Ozzie isn’t even trying to hide who he really is anymore.
“What can you do to me that’s worse than what you’ve already done?”
He takes another step toward me, one that I succeed in not backing away from. His tall, lean body overshadows mine, shrinking me beneath his domineering presence. “Keep telling me no and you’ll find out.”
“That must be satisfying,” I say, adding a sneer, but I focus only on him. “Getting everything you want through threats.”
“It is,” Ozzie replies with a faint, minatory smile, and it’s like I can’t see beyond him. Beyond those hazel eyes that are sucking the life right out of me. “Takes away any surprise or disappointment.” He wraps his hand around the brushed gold door handle. “Don’t take too long,” he says with a smirk. “Patience isn’t one of my strong points.”
Wearing the most conservative bathing sui
t I own, the DKNY hand-me-down from Talia, I trudge through the mounds of smooth, pale-gray pebbles in my flip-flops, making it to the soft, white sand.
The beach is awash in a golden glow of dying sunlight, the silhouette of Ozzie down at the shore a black blip in an otherwise perfect evening. There’s another silhouette with him, and as I get nearer to the water, my heart sinks when I see that it’s Topher.
I give him the cold shoulder, just as pissed with him as I am with Ozzie.
“Okay, you got me out here,” I throw my hands up and say loudly. “What else are you going to tell me to do? I’m here for instructions, obviously, not pleasure.”
Topher does a terrible job of avoiding looking at me, and Ozzie acts like my refusal to try and have a good time isn’t actually a thing beyond my own imagination. They’re both spiking my anger to unreachable heights.
“You know what,” I say, already backing up to the house. Ozzie turns his head, his eyebrow arched in question, the thrashing ocean spread out like a raging blanket of chrome behind him. “I forgot something. Be right back.”
Fifteen minutes later and my mood isn’t anywhere near as depleted as it was the first time I walked outside. Announcing my arrival, I say cheerfully, “I’m back.”
My return has the desired effect I hoped it would. Ozzie’s jaw steels as he looks at Mariah dressed in her black one-piece and colorful fish arm-floaties.
Topher couldn’t look more pleased I brought her, though, and I have to remind myself I’m not on speaking terms with him when he picks Mariah up and her legs circle his waist tightly. Clamping his eyes shut when locks of her blonde hair smother his face, he tips his head away from her and blows into her curls dramatically.
Mariah’s throaty giggle brings a smile to my lips. Guess I can not be pissed for a couple minutes. It’s not like I haven’t got the rest of my life to hate the Brothers Grimm.
“I should have probably tied that up,” I say to Mariah, but really to myself. Taking out my own hair tie, I move to stand behind her in Topher’s arms and bunch her hair together at the top of her head. I secure the hair tie three times, then smooth my palm over her soft curls.
As I take my hand away, Topher tries to grab my wrist. This time I’m quicker than him, and I pull it from his reach, throwing him a hard look with an implied ‘don’t touch me.’ Any friendship we might’ve had he’s effectively ruined by turning against me in favor his sadistic brother.
“Do you know how to paddle out?” Ozzie asks, coming over to hand me the surfboard he bought me. He’s even waxed it for me. She’s beautiful, and if I’d been given it under any other circumstances, she might tip this day into the best one ever. Ozzie’s made it so it’s one of the worst, though, and I take the board in two hands, brimming with resentment.
“I know how to paddle out,” I say.
I work harder than I ever have on a surfboard, lying down on my stomach and raking my hands through the water, over the bobbing wells. The waves are okay, nothing to get too excited about. Fine for a beginner like me, and it’s not like I’m in anyone else’s way. This far down the beach, near the house, its pretty desolate.
As we wait on our boards for a wave worth catching, I swallow my pride and say to Ozzie, “You didn’t need to force me.”
He looks at me sideways, frowning as though trying to understand what I’ve just said. Water glistens on his skin, blackening his lashes more. “I didn’t,” he says at last.
The ocean’s calm beneath the smooth surface of my board, but I’m putting in double the effort to stay carefully controlled. “You saw me watching Con and you didn’t like it.”
“Didn’t like it?” Ozzie’s voice sharpens, and so do his eyes. “What’s there to fucking like? You let them treat you like trash, Con included, but when I do it it’s suddenly a fucking problem?”
“Exactly.” I’m gripping the board as desperately as I am my waning control. “You just did it! No one asked you.”
“Tell that to yourself when you were coming all over my tongue.”
My tummy flutters in memory, and Ozzie’s eyes shade over like he knows. “You need professional evaluation.”
“I need more than that, Lyla. That’s what you’re for.”
Our boards bob over a larger swell, and I grip the lip of mine tighter, so I don’t fall off. I can’t help picturing Ozzie enjoying such a scene. Him coming to my rescue while I’m once again his weaker counterpart in this unofficial game of cat and mouse.
“Ozzie, I’m not doing this with you.”
He guides his board closer to mine, putting us side by side, the nose of our boards almost touching.
“I’ve been around stuffy girls like you. You’ve been good your entire fucking life. Don’t you think it’s time to experience for yourself what it’s like to be less of an angel and actually try living for once?”
“And be more like you, you mean?”
Ozzie’s careless arrogance is answer all in itself.
“As funny as that is,” I say, clearing the smile from my face and injecting a solemn note into my voice, “that’s not gonna happen. Besides, I never said I was an angel.”
Ozzie’s gaze coasts slowly, consciously, over my body, tearing me wide open with just that one look. He makes me want to say and do things that aren’t in the script.
And then he attacks me where it hurts.
“You aren’t now.”
Chapter 33
Late Sunday afternoon, Cindy drops the bomb we’ll be spending the evening at the country club, and my company’s required. Every one of us does a stand-up job of pretending the tension strumming the air doesn’t exist.
I was worried at first over what occurred last time we were here, but the waiter Cindy was making a mockery out of her marriage with either isn’t on shift, or he isn’t working at the country club anymore. Wherever he is, his absence means no confrontations, and Ozzie won’t have to rearrange anyone’s face tonight.
“Excuse us,” Con says, while Cindy and Ray are strung-up in light conversation with another couple.
I savor the glower Ozzie showers us with, gloating with a shrewd smile as I leave the patio table we’re sitting at with Falcon. No one but Ozzie seems to care about our departure, and I wonder if it would be pushing it if we stayed away all night.
There’s a familiar group spread out on the emerald banks of the pond, the Weeping Willow branches swaying languidly overhead, littering the water’s surface with its greenery.
Garrett’s missing from the faces staring back at us. I’ve made a point not to read up on anything surfing related, and since I don’t know the tour stops without checking the official website, he could be anywhere. He could be surfing great or he could be tanking. The less I know, the easier it’ll be for me to move on from him.
Con’s greeted by everyone, the group conforming to him now he’s arrived, like their leader’s returned to them.
We sit down at the crest of the freshly mowed slope. I flatten my legs in front of me, arranging my short white skirt and readjusting my off-the-shoulder sleeves when they ride too far up my arms.
Con shakes his head when he’s offered a lit joint, then turns his body away from the others, bending one knee and leaning back on the grass, his forearm holding his upper-body weight. I look down to see his face, pluck a stray daisy and roll the thin stalk between my fingertips.
“Are you sleeping with Oz?” Falcon comes right out and asks.
I pause with the daisy. “God, no. Why would you ask me that?”
Falcon stares into my eyes and beyond, a faint narrowing in the corners of his. “I don’t trust him with you, and he’s given me plenty of reasons already not to.”
I pick another daisy. “Your brother’s a head case.”
“Just don’t let him into yours. Unless…” An inflated pause. “You want him there.”
I deflect from answering honestly, looking away from Falcon and directly ahead at the pond and the fountain. “He’d plant himself there regard
less.”
“He doesn’t like being told no.”
“Boo-hoo,” I say, plucking more grass. I’m riling myself up, and he isn’t even here. “Did you bring me all the way out here to talk about something in particular?” I’m ready to get off the subject of Ozzie.
“Yeah.”
I glance down at Falcon, but he isn’t looking at me, his eyes are on the pond. Or maybe he’s somewhere else entirely. Here in body but definitely not spirit.
“That girl I didn’t want back? Turns out, I do. I’m just not sure how to go about it.”
I meet the remark with a slightly stunned expression, quickly pulling myself together. “So you don’t want to hurt her anymore?” I ask him bluntly.
“I can’t erase what’s already been done,” he says levelly, still staring at the pond, “but I need to put things right, do whatever she asks me to. I’ll do whatever the hell she wants.”
I’d say his mystery girl’s lucky, but I was here for the prelude.
“Does she know anything about me?” I ask. “About us? Or are you in the clear?” Falcon’s told me so little, the plan could’ve unfolded in my favor and all Falcon was getting out of our deal was me. Doesn’t seem fair, considering how important this other girl is to him.
He slants me a brief look. “If she does know, she’s kept it quiet. So it’s a safe assumption to say she doesn’t.”
I cast him a wavering smile. “She isn’t the silently scorned type, then?”
His initial response is a throaty grunt. “She’d slice my dick off first.”
“So tell her. And then grovel for the rest of your life if that’ll set you guys straight. If the original reason you broke up isn’t too big to stay standing in your way. Are you irreparable? Or is there a way to start over?”