by Emery Rose
“You done yet?” he asked, exasperated.
I nodded and took a deep breath. “What’s in your hand?”
“My secret weapon,” he said, keeping his fist closed. “Now close your eyes.”
Seconds later, my eyes were closed, I wasn’t peeking, and I smelled the cherry scent and his minty breath inches from my lips as the tube of Chapstick glided over them. Then he cupped my chin and his lips captured mine in a slow, dirty kiss that wiped my lips clean and had him smacking his.
“Mmm. So fucking sweet. All done,” he murmured.
My eyes flew open. “All done? Chapstick isn’t makeup.”
He leaned back on the daybed, fingers laced behind his head, his tongue slowly gliding over his bottom lip. “It’s perfect. I like to see your face. You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice low and husky, and what I heard instead was, I love you.
Forever the optimist. Forever the believer in Dylan St. Clair. And two weeks from facing the firing squad. Lord, help me.
Dylan
I lit a blunt, using the flame from one of the twenty-seven candles in glass holders that covered every surface of our room, compliments of my little fucking ray of sunshine, and watched her through a haze of smoke. She was lying on the Egyptian cotton sheets, her skin bronzed by the sun, her blonde hair framing her beautiful face, naked except for the secret smile she wore.
I wasn’t sure what had possessed me but tonight at dinner, over margaritas and Mexican food under the moon and stars, I’d told her more about myself than I’d ever told anyone. I had talked about my mother, I’d told her the truck stop story and about the places we’d lived and how sometimes there hadn’t been enough food so me and Remy used to dumpster dive. I told her about all the fights I’d gotten into and I told her that my mother had always told me and Remy that she loved us but never backed it up with actions. The words had become meaningless, and I thought she understood what I was trying to tell her. Why I found it so hard to say three simple words that tripped off her tongue with ease.
Leaning over her, I moved my mouth over hers, covering it. Her lips parted and I shotgunned the smoke into her mouth. Pulling back, I studied her face as I took another drag. She was beautiful. She made me ache for her. Crave her like a drug. I wanted to climb inside her skin and live there.
I had nightmares now. I’d wake up covered in sweat, my heart pounding, gasping for breath. It made me angry that my mother wouldn’t leave me alone, not even in death. But Scarlett… she was always there with her soothing touch, her sweet voice telling me it was just a dream, her arms wrapped around me, holding on so tight like she alone could protect me. I hated it. It made me feel weak and pathetic and needy.
“I love you, Dylan,” she said now, not expecting to hear it in return.
“Show me.” Sex. My go-to when all else failed. I put out the blunt and knelt over her.
Snuffing out a candle, I dipped my finger in the melted wax.
“What are you doing?” Her eyes widened as I held the candle over her.
“Trust me?” I asked. It was a test, and she knew it. I was always testing Scarlett and she always passed because she was good and honest and true in all the ways that mattered most. She wore her heart on her sleeve and unlike me, she never harbored a grudge.
Her eyes locked on mine and I waited for her answer. She placed her palm on the handprint I’d tattooed with a Sharpie over my heart, and she nodded, her eyes and voice unwavering. “Yes.”
I love you. I’m in love with you. I fucking love you.
But I didn’t say the words. They remained locked inside me.
I tipped the candle. Warm wax dripped onto her bare stomach. She gasped, her back arching off the mattress as I poured wax over her tits, circling her pebbled rosy nipples.
“Oh God,” she moaned, writhing below me, her eyes closing, her lips parting as melted wax dribbled over her silky soft skin while I knelt over her, worshipping without touching her.
Had I ever even loved Sienna? It felt like a distant memory, but I don’t remember ever feeling like this with anyone, including Sienna. Maybe this was how it felt when you found the right person. You could just be yourself, in all your fucked-up glory, and the other person accepted you as you were.
With Scarlett, I felt like I was enough. I’d never had that before. I’d never had someone believe in me the way she did.
“What are we, Dylan?” she asked now, like she often did.
“We’re everything, Starlet. Every-fucking-thing.”
Her smile told me that I’d finally gotten it right. What she didn’t know was that I had no intention of letting her tell Sienna on her own. We were in this together, and I’d never been one to shirk my responsibilities, so I would be right by her fucking side when she told Sienna about us. I already knew it was going to be a shit show. I knew that Sienna wouldn’t take it well. But she’d just have to get over it.
No way in hell was I giving Scarlett up. She was mine, and I was hers, and it was just that fucking simple.
31
Scarlett
“I can’t believe he’s four months old already,” I told Remy, tickling Kai’s belly. He kicked his legs and gave me a gummy smile. I wiped the drool off his chin with a cloth then smoothed my hand over the blond hair on his head.
“I can’t believe it either. He’s getting so big. He keeps outgrowing all his clothes.”
“That’s what babies do. They grow up, don’t they?” I cooed, holding out my finger for him to grasp.
“I want him to stay a baby forever,” Remy said wistfully.
I gave her a little smile and sat back on my heels, my gaze drifting to the glass doors as Shane and Dylan came out of the house, their dishwashing duty fulfilled. Sunday barbecues at Shane and Remy’s had become a weekly thing now. They were both cool with me and Dylan being together. For the most part. Although Remy did advise me to tell Sienna before she found out another way. Which I planned to do next Saturday when she came to Costa del Rey.
Something like this couldn’t be done over the phone. It had to be done face to face. I was dreading it but even if Dylan and I broke up tomorrow which I really hoped we didn’t, it was still wrong to keep this from Sienna.
Regardless of the consequences, I wanted my relationship with Dylan to be out in the open. My biggest fear was that my parents would see us together and report back to Sienna. So, I needed to get it all out there before that happened.
Remy checked her phone for the time and stood up. “It’s bath time for Kai.” Remy had him on a strict schedule and bath time was our cue to say goodnight to him.
Dylan swooped Kai up into his arms and nuzzled his neck. “Hey little buddy. See you soon.”
I watched him holding his nephew and stood up, brushing the grass off my shorts. I rubbed Kai’s back and gave him a kiss on his chubby cheek before Dylan handed him to Remy.
“Ready?” he asked me, spinning his key chain around his finger.
I nodded, jamming my feet into my flip-flops, my hand slipping into his as we said our goodbyes.
The sun was setting but it wasn’t dark yet when we drove away from Shane and Remy’s house, so I slunk low in my seat, my bare feet planted on the dash.
A warm breeze floated through the open windows, bringing with it the scent of Dylan and the sea. He reached for my hand and clasped it in his. I lifted it to my lips and kissed his scarred knuckles then lowered our hands to my lap and traced my finger over the tattoos on his hand. The skull. The rose. His tattooed fingers.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this happy.
“Do you need ice cream?” he asked, glancing over at me before his eyes returned to the road.
“Maybe. Are we binge-watching Netflix tonight?” We were cool like that.
“None of that Riverdale bullshit though.”
“Secretly, you love it,” I teased. He didn’t.
He parked in front of the convenience store, and I hopped out of the car and met him by the glas
s entrance doors. We cruised the aisles, stocking up on junk food and microwave popcorn and stopped in front of the freezer section. I debated over the ice cream flavors, my brow furrowed like I was trying to come up with a solution for global warming.
“Need some help, Starlet?” He wrapped his arm around my middle and kissed the side of my neck. I leaned my back against his chest, playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe with the ice cream flavors.
I tapped my chin with my index finger. “I can’t decide between Caramel Choo Choo and Chubby Hubby.”
He snickered at the names, reached inside the refrigerator and grabbed both tubs of ice cream. He handed them to me then grabbed two more random flavors for good measure and strode to the counter.
“This is excessive. I don’t need all of these,” I said, taking two of the tubs off the counter to return to the freezer.
“Ring up all four,” he told the guy, taking the ice cream out of my hand and setting it back on the counter with an exasperated sigh. None of this was unusual behavior for us. I was always trying to be more frugal, Dylan was always insisting that more is better. We’d grown accustomed to these little tussles.
“Fine. You win,” I said like I was doing him a huge favor.
He just laughed and shook his head, putting his credit card back in his wallet and tucking it in his back pocket. Dylan grabbed the bags and slung an arm around my shoulder, pulling me in for a kiss before we pushed through the glass doors of the air-conditioned store and into the muggy evening.
“Fuck,” Dylan said under his breath, his arm falling from my shoulders and dropping to his side.
I looked up at his face first then followed his gaze and I froze. Not a sound came out of my mouth. My feet were rooted to the spot. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
I was barely breathing.
Dylan recovered first and stowed our bags in the back of his car then closed the hatch and returned to my side, jerking his chin at Sienna. “What are you doing here?”
That was his first question? What are you doing here?
I stared at my sister’s tear-stained face, her eyes red and puffy as if she’d been crying for hours. She was standing right in front of us and her BMW was parked at the gas pumps.
“What am I doing here? I came to see my sister and I find…” She exhaled a shuddering breath and shook her head. “I can’t believe this.”
She was in shock. That made two of us.
I cleared my throat, forcing myself to speak. “I’m sorry, Sienna. I was going to…"
She ignored me, her gaze focused on Dylan. “My sister? Of all the girls you could have gone for, you went for my sister? Do you hate me that much, Dylan?”
He carved his hand through his hair and let out a breath. “I don’t hate you.”
“Are you trying to get revenge? Is that what this is?”
“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then tell me what this is. I came back here to see Scarlett because I needed someone to talk to who might understand. Instead, I find my sister and my ex-boyfriend… oh my God. I can’t…” She shook her head. “How could you do this to me?”
I didn’t know if that question was directed at Dylan or me. Either way, we’d both done this to her. I took a few steps closer, searching for the words, any words that would help this situation. But there were none.
“I’m so sorry, Sienna,” I said, trying again. “I was going to tell you next weekend. I never meant to—”
Her gaze swung to me. “You never meant to what? My God, Scar. Dylan wasn’t just some guy I hooked up with. I loved him. And you knew that.”
“I know,” I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, and I knew that all the I’m sorry’s in the world weren’t going to mean a thing. “How long? How long have you been hiding this from me?”
I stared at my indigo blue toenails, wishing the ground would swallow me up. “Since January.”
“You were with him when you came to my engagement party?” she asked incredulously. I lifted my head, not bothering to explain that we hadn’t been together then. It was irrelevant. “You’ve been with him all this time and you never said a word to me? You know what’s funny. I was coming to see you because I thought we could talk. If anyone would understand, it would be you.”
“Understand what?”
“I left Chase.”
“What? But why?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to marry my father. I don’t want to end up like my mother. And now my sister… betrayed me in the worst way. I thought you were the best one out of all of us. You broke away. Did your own thing. With my ex-boyfriend. My God. How stupid am I?” She laughed hollowly, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m so stupid.”
“Sienna. You’re not. This is all my fault and I don’t know how to…”
“It was my fault,” Dylan said, stepping up.
Sienna wiped her face and averted her head. “You know why I left Chase?” She focused her gaze on Dylan. He shook his head a little. “Because I don’t love him the way I loved you. Because I’ve been trying to get over you for years, but I still haven’t found a way to do that. I loved you, Dylan. So much it hurt. I loved you. So. Much.”
She was crying harder now. Instinctively, I moved closer and reached out to hug her. She held up her hands to ward me off and I took a step back.
“But nothing we ever said or did to each other has ever hurt me like this,” she told Dylan.
Oh God.
She turned and stumbled across the parking lot to her car, her shoulders shaking from the tears she was crying.
“You can’t let her leave like this,” I told Dylan.
His eyes locked onto mine. “I’m not leaving you."
“Go to her,” I said. I didn’t know why I thought that she’d accept his help when she’d pushed me away, but I got the feeling that she’d rather talk to him, not me. “Please.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face and then he nodded.
I stood in the parking lot and watched my boyfriend stride over to my sister. I watched him stand in front of her and cradle her face in his hands, lifting it up to his. I watched his lips move as he said something that made her close her eyes and clasp his wrists in her hands. I watched him brush her tears away with the pads of his thumbs. And I watched him pull her into his arms and hold her, his hand stroking her hair and his eyes closed while she cried on his shoulder and held onto him like she never wanted to let him go.
You belonged to her first.
I’ve never belonged to anyone.
It’s almost funny, the lies we tell ourselves. The way I actually believed that he could ever be mine.
I forced myself to stop watching them.
Grabbing my bag from Dylan’s car, I slung it over my shoulder and hazarded one more glance at Sienna and Dylan.
I didn’t want to give him up for anyone or anything. But I had to.
Neither of them noticed when I walked away. Nobody heard the sound of my heart shattering. Nobody but me.
32
Dylan
It had been nearly two years since I’d laid eyes on Sienna. She looked the same. Blonde beach waves, a golden tan, in one of her little designer skirt and tank top ensembles. She felt familiar. Like a song I used to know by heart but hadn’t heard in a long time. She even smelled the same. Like citrus and flowers. My muscle memory kicked in and as her hot tears soaked into my T-shirt, my hand stroked her hair and my eyes closed. We’d been here before. With her crying on my shoulder. Too many fucking times.
When I’d imagined confronting Sienna about me and Scarlett, I’d conveniently forgotten there might be tears. I could deal with Sienna getting angry. Screaming at me. Calling me an asshole. But I’d always hated a woman’s tears. I wanted to make it better. Fix it. Find a solution to the problem as if it was a math equation. But there was no solution. She was her, and I was me, and the sum of our
parts had disaster written all over it. Always had. Always would. No amount of time or distance would ever change that.
I released her and took a step back, my eyes going to the spot where I’d left Scarlett. She was gone, and I wanted to chase after her. Eat ice cream in front of the TV. Laugh, fuck, talk about stupid shit. Just be happy.
“Dylan.” I turned my head to face Sienna. “Can we talk? I mean, really talk?”
Oh hell, no, here we go. I opened my mouth to tell her there was nothing left to say. I had a girlfriend to chase after.
“If nothing else, you owe me that much. I tried to call and text you so many times, but you never responded, and you never answered my calls.”
I’d blocked her number, that’s why. I rubbed the back of my neck and even though it was the last fucking thing I wanted to do, I nodded.
We bought a six-pack and a fresh pack of smokes—thanks to me, Sienna was a closet smoker—and we drove to the beach in separate cars. On the way there, I considered calling Scarlett to make sure she was okay. But it was a short drive and that would be a long conversation, so I decided against it. After I got this talk over with, I’d go to her apartment and we’d figure out a way to get through this. Together.
Sienna and I got to the beach in time to watch the sunset. It felt wrong, being here with her on a deserted strip of beach with the bluffs behind us and the ocean in front of us, and my ex-girlfriend sitting close enough that I could smell her floral shampoo and the scent of her skin. I drank my beer, my gaze on the horizon. As far as sunsets went, it was a beautiful one, my favorite time of day on the West Coast. Maybe I should have spoken first. Maybe I should have apologized. Maybe I should have said a lot of things. But I sat in silence and watched the seagulls circle and dive. I watched the waves build and crash against the shore, and I waited for her to speak.
I lit two cigarettes and handed one to Sienna, falling into an old habit without even thinking about it. It was my first cigarette in weeks. I’d been trying to kick the habit. Cigarettes not weed. So much for best intentions.