Summer Girl (Summer Girl #1)

by S. Love

  He levels me with a careful look, pushes his hands into his short’s pockets and turns his face away. “What about them?”

  Laughter floats toward us from farther down the beach, the pier’s old, wooden structure looming larger from the lapping ocean waves. There are two fires burning and plenty of people around them that I needn’t have worried about being left alone with Ozzie. Judging by the mass gathering swarming the beach, there’s no risk of that happening.

  “I was wondering if I’d made the right choice staying on to take care of Mariah while Ray’s working.” I leave Cindy’s name out of it, because even though I’m still not entirely sure what she does with her days, taking on responsibility for her husband’s child isn’t likely to be near the top of her list. What Cindy does during the day is anyone’s guess. I’m more inclined to think she hired me to pick up the messy pieces of her shattered family, rather than keep the house clean. A stand-in to fill her unremarkable shoes while she does whatever, wherever. Not in the motherly, authoritative sense, but in the keeping shit together sense. Make sure the house doesn’t burn down and there isn’t a rat infestation from the dishes not being loaded into the dishwasher.

  Ozzie narrows his eyes. “You didn’t.”

  “I didn’t what?” I look at him and ask.

  “Make the right choice. Your decision making is fucking terrible.”

  I stare at the side of his head as he wraps one hand around the railing, hoists one foot up, and jumps down onto the pebble-strewn sand. I flick my gaze around us when he stands motionless, wordlessly staring at me.

  “Oh, no,” I say, breaking out into an ah hell no smile and backing away from the white-painted rail. “I’ll go around.”

  “Just get down here, Lyla. I’ll catch you.”

  I belt out a sharp laugh, giving him a look. “Yeah, sure you will.”

  Walking up to the railing, so he’s directly below it, he says, “Climb over. I’m right here if you slip and fall.”

  I look down onto the beach, nipping one side of my cheek between my teeth. It isn’t too far down, and the landing would be soft when Ozzie deliberately stepped back to watch me inhale a mouth full of sand.

  “Fine,” I say reluctantly, putting two hands on the railing and not so elegantly lifting my foot over the rail top. Before my foot can touch the ledge of the boardwalk, Ozzie has his hands on my waist, lifting my entire weight. I press my hands to his shoulders, my body flush against his as I slide down his front, the toes of my Converse eventually reaching the sand and pebble.

  In the bruised evening light, the sage green in Ozzie’s eyes shades darker, the brown and gold swirling together to reach into my throat and squeeze my chest in its mean grip. Soft, hard, dark, and light, I’m so confused by him I can’t make up my mind whether I want him to kiss me or put me down.

  His hands trail from my waist to my back, goosebumps rising on my skin, chasing his fingers as they slide either side of my spine. He draws me in with his delicate touch, the subtle movement almost imperceptible if not for the heat of his body crashing into me, lighting and exploding every one of my senses, the nervous flutters roaming frantically through my limbs, searching for a way out with nowhere at all to go.

  His lips tip easily and slowly into a soft smirk, his eyelids low over his eyes as I practically melt in his hands. There’s no one else here, this moment is ours, and everything else fades to white noise. It’s crazy. Obscene. This girl I turn into when I’m with him is a stranger to me, and every time I want her to leave and never return, Ozzie shows his face, and she comes running right back. He set his lasso, roped me in, and he’s got no intentions of letting me free.

  I don’t think I want to be free. I want him to take me deeper, see farther. Peel back his layers and find that one good layer that will bring clarity for why he’s got me acting the way I am.

  I study his eyes, like they can tell me something I’ve been missing. But if there’s anything there, that’s where it stays. All his eyes do is convince me of how much effort I’m putting into keeping my lips off his in front of what will soon turn into our audience.

  I’m rumbled by Ozzie’s perceptible look. “What’re you looking at?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “I can’t figure out what your angle is.”

  Ozzie’s smile broadens, in that smug way he’s nailed down pat. “That’s because I have no angle.”

  And what’s scarier still is I’m starting to believe him. It’s a monumental task, rationalizing my relationship with Ozzie. Mostly because there’s nothing rational about it. It’s absolute insanity, and he’s making me crazier with every featherlight touch and domination of my body. He’s invading me piece by piece, and once he’s done with me, I’ll either be broken or just as fucked up as he is.

  Taking my hands from his shoulders, I look past him, to the girl making her way across the sand with a friendly smile, crimped hair blowing behind her, eyes shining like two silver-blue stars. Rachel.

  “You’ve got company.” I point toward the fires closer to the shoreline. “I’ll be over there… somewhere.”

  My skin chills to a mystifying degree as I walk away, throwing Rachel a quick, lacking smile as we pass each other. Ozzie still has something going on there, and I’m still not completely over the car wreck that was Garrett to move onto someone else so soon. Ozzie’s a hurdle I’d like to be tough enough to get over, as eager to conquer someone as complex as him as he is me.

  Together, we would crash, burn, and disintegrate, only one of us able to rise from the flames.

  Chapter 37

  I’m on my second cup of lukewarm, watery beer, boxed in by people I’ve only seen the faces of, no names to go with the cheery, intoxicated expressions, when a more familiar faces cuts through the rest. The beer I just drank makes a hasty return, bile fizzing in my esophagus that I swallow deeply and push back down.

  I lower my eyes to my feet in the sand, but I’m too late in pretending I haven’t already seen him.

  “Lyla, hey.” Garrett says my name as though he isn’t sure he’s chosen the correct one, or I’m not the person he meant to call out to. I don’t know where the hell he’s supposed to be, but it isn’t here.

  I look up and meet his eyes, his face so open, like he’s happy to see me. But then a hand on my upper arm redirects my gaze. The persistent pressure there gets me to my feet, and I spare another look at Garrett, his face closing off now.

  Topher shoves another red cup at me. The powerful hit of anise wafting from inside stings my sinuses. “Chin, chin,” he says with an unruly smile, tipping his cup to his lips. The long hiss after he’s swallowed gives me immediate doubt about following through with mine, and I try to give Topher the shot back, but he won’t take it.

  In his left hand is a green, glass bottle, more than half full. I read the label: Pernod.

  Well, here goes. I chuck the drink back, my throat closing in on itself, rejecting the alcohol. I whack the back of my hand over my mouth and talk into my knuckles. “Yuck. Don’t give me any more of that. I don’t want it.”

  Topher’s dumb grin slips halfway off his face as he looks over the top of my head. “Yeah, G?” his tone is uncharacteristically firm.

  I turn around at the mention of Garrett and find him standing behind me. It seems like a million years ago these two hung out together like actual friends, without the sourness that’s stemmed from me. I’m cleaning up the Osbornes’ mess, but who’s cleaning up mine?

  The party closes in on me, the fire burning too bright, too hot. The smiles on faces too wide and threatening. The laughing and the chattering too monkey-ish, like I’ve been plonked in the middle of a zoo compound, captive with the animals, and left to find my own way out.

  Suddenly, like the crushing feeling crept in from my blind spots, I’m incredibly overwhelmed.

  “Topher, she isn’t a baby. Isn’t there some hapless female here who’ll fall for your bullshit?”

  Topher makes a production of cutting his gaze through
the many girls dotted around the beach. “Plenty.” His smile returns, bigger this time. “How about that one you were porking? Or is she so full of your bullshit you had to flush her down the toilet?”

  “Topher.” I hand him my now-empty cup. “I’ll talk to him for a minute. I’m all right.”

  Topher’s frown tells a different story. “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” I smile at him, but it sits in subsidence on my face. Completely wonky.

  “’Kay.” Garrett gets the stink eye, but Topher’s already starting to leave. “Holler when you’re done putting the trash out.”

  It’s awkward between us now, and I’m grateful to do something with my body other than just talking when Garrett asks if I want to take a walk along the shore. We stay close to the flat waves rolling in across the sand, walking farther away from the party and the noise. There’s no one surfing tonight. The waves peaked around noon, dying out a few hours later until they were only good for bodyboarding and swimming.

  I slip little looks at Garrett while his eyes stray to the sand beneath his feet. His hair’s longer than last time I seen him. It’s a mess on top, tumbling over his forehead in soft, loose waves. It blows around his ears, the close shave underneath growing out, too. His skin glows from the sun, his tan so deep I don’t think it would be possible now for it to fade. It’s a surfer thing, like nature’s leaked into his blood and stayed there. We’re pretty lucky over here, and we do okay for waves year-round, but nothing like in the winter. It’s a surprise to no one that the early-scouted talent part ways with the Atlantic for the west coast, or countries like Australia.

  When I’m as far away from everyone as I want to be with Garrett, I slow the pace, raise my eyes to his face and ask, “What are you doing here, Garrett?”

  “Break between events,” he says to the sand. He stops dead in his tracks, pulling me with him. “You need to let me set the record straight, Lyla.”

  I search his solemn gaze, curious how he thinks he can set me straight. Of course I’d rather not still care that he sweet-talked me and then put his dick in another girl in the same night, allowing someone to video it on top of that, but my heart won’t stay silent just because I ask it to. I’d gouge him out of me with a sharp spade if it would mean I could be free of him, but since I can’t do that, I’m letting him go the difficult way. The long, time-consuming way. The natural way, with time, and lots of it. One day I’ll be totally okay. I know this. One day it won’t pinch my chest to think I wasn’t good enough for him despite wanting so badly to be.

  That day isn’t today. I’m still hurt by what he did, but there’s no anger anymore. I’ve used it all up.

  “Your life is your own, right?” He ramps up the intensity, taking away any space left between us, and he sounds a little frantic, too quick with his words. “I respect that, and I don’t wanna be here saying any of this to you when I’ve already acted like a fuck-up.”

  “Saying what?” I can hardly wait for the rest of whatever he’s brought me all this way to say, the hair along my arms and the beck of neck prickling from intuition.

  He loses the last of his cool, his cheeks pinking and his gray eyes darting over my face. “I’m not excusing myself or what I did, but he practically pushed her into my fucking lap. Bet he never told you that part, did he?”

  “Who?” I ask, genuinely confused at where Garrett’s trying to take me. He’s switched gears without warning, and this is not what I thought he wanted with me.

  “Ozzie.”

  “Ozzie?”

  “Oh, man.” Garrett tips his head back, laughing breathlessly at the night sky. “Okay. I see how it is now. Fucks me over so he can fuck you.” It’s as though Garrett’s talking to himself, and I’m no longer here.

  I touch my fingers to his forearm, to bring him back. “Garrett, what are you talking about? You’re making no sense to me.”

  He raises his arm to swipe his hair back, and I grab his hand before he can reach it, yanking his arm down so he’ll just damn well talk to me. “What are you trying to say, Garrett? Ozzie made you have sex with Masie? He made you talk all that shit to me and then put yourself on video showing yourself as an utter liar?”

  Garrett’s thin smile is noxious, the anger he’s charged with intoxicating everything it comes into contact with, including me.

  “You’ve really got no fucking idea, have you? I held out for you for two fucking years.” He bends down and holds up two fingers to me, his manic expression beyond unsettling when I’ve put myself at such a distance with him. The way he looks and is acting right now, him dunking me in the sea by a fistful of my hair wouldn’t be too far out there on the crazy scenarios stretching my imagination. “Two fucking years, Lyla. What other dude do you know who would give up fucking for that long?”

  Garrett looks from his right to his left, shrugging with his arms out when he obviously finds no one there. Dick. “Pity I wasn’t meeting you for the first time now. So fucking quick to shoot me down, but you’re dripping for those three assholes.” He shakes his head, his disappointment in me spewing from every pore. “You know what? Forget it.”

  I jog after him when he makes his way back toward the pier. “Forget what?” He doesn’t get to just walk away after plowing me with just enough information that I need the whole shebang. No way. That is not how this is gonna go.

  “Garrett, look at me. I’m talking to you, damnit.” I tug on the sleeve of his T-shirt, yanking the cotton harder when he refuses to stop for me. “Garrett!” I demand, my voice threatening tears. He’s so fucking frustrating.

  He turns his whole body around, stomping forward and almost crushing me. “You want to fucking know so bad? Then you ask him who pumped Masie full of vodka. You ask him who’s holding the phone, and you ask him who hit record.”

  The blood drains from my head to my feet, my heart pumping in double-time to kickstart the flow before my head explodes. My eyes search everywhere and nowhere, raking over the busy part of the beach, yet seeing nothing.

  “Are you telling me this just to hurt me?” I shout to Garrett’s retreating silhouette.

  He turns around, continuing to walk backward, only slower now. “That’s how into him you are, huh?” His eyebrows steeple, his disapproval slicing me down the middle and leaving me completely exposed, guts and all.

  You did this to yourself. You knew he was capable of this.

  Aware I never actually had him, I gather every last morsel of dignity I have left—and it isn’t a lot—and drag myself back to the pier. The time it takes me to walk there is spent smoothing my features into a lax, unaffected mask that hides all my emotions. Inside, I’m screaming. Outside, I’m cooler than Siberia.

  I all but snatch the drink from Topher’s hand when I locate him and Falcon at the pier, Topher leaning his back against one of the thick, damp posts. The beer, which is colder than the last one I had, slips down easily, but it’s only a drop in the barrel for how much alcohol needed not to blow Ozzie’s head off when I get my hands on him.

  Falcon assesses me with his eyes, his taxing scrutiny one I haven’t got the patience for. I could do with opening my heart to Talia, knowing she’ll be on my side with nasty words to share about the awful creature that is Clayton Osborne. She would listen, agree even if she didn’t, and let me cry without a shred of judgement. That’s if she’d answer her phone, which she hasn’t.

  “Why were you just with G?” Falcon’s silent judgement comes crumbling down, and there’s a note of annoyance carrying on his voice.

  From the corner of my eye, I spot Ozzie standing talking to Rachel. Her hands cut through the air, like she’s trying to get a point across. The stoic look on Ozzie’s face says he doesn’t care a whole lot about whatever it is she’s passionately—and fruitlessly—getting off her chest.

  I turn to Topher, the metaphorical light over my head switching on. “Did Ozzie take that video of Garrett and Masie?” My lips are moving, and that’s my voice I can hear, but it’s like another enti
ty has entered my body and taken over, I’m so detached from myself and what I’ve stumbled into.

  Topher’s blank stare is confirmation I don’t think I could ever, in a thousand years, be ready for. The one person with an armory deadly enough to bring all kinds of pain, and he turns out to be the one person I really hoped wouldn’t dip into his artillery. I knew he would, and still, I ignored it. Closed my ears to my instincts. Hoped for the best like a kid too old to believe in Santa. You’ve seen he isn’t real, but you want it anyway. Believe in the magic regardless of the facts, the evidence presented to you right in front of your face. Because we’re only human and that’s what we do, pray for the best when we’re destined for the worst. Look on the bright side when there’s nothing but darkness both ways.

  Rachel must have finished her one-woman tirade, or Ozzie just got bored with it, because he’s heading this way, his features set in a deep frown that I can make out from all the way over here. The bonfire highlights the sharp, pinched angles as he walks right by it, the orange glow sharpening his bone structure.

  “Oh shit.” Topher drops his head back against the post, closing his eyes. “Here we go.”

  No. Not here, in front of everyone. I refuse. He can wait until I’m good and ready. He can stew in his own twisted doings. See what it’s like to be on the other side of someone’s demented games for once.

  He calls my name as I’m walking away, going where, I haven’t made up my mind yet, and I shut out his voice, quickening my steps until I’m hurrying toward the boardwalk, gaining an extra ten feet on him.

  A woman in a short, fitted black dress who looks a lot like Cindy Osborne stumbles through the doorway of a cocktail bar, screeching with laughter when her red pump tumbles from her foot and clatters to the ground.