Come to Me Recklessly (16 page)

Jared howled, tipped the neck of his beer bottle in her direction like a high five. “Now, that is embarrassing.”

“Told you. Most embarrassing moment in my entire life.”

“But not the worst we’ll hear tonight.” Jared slanted his eyes at me. I wondered which of the billion dumb-ass things I’d done to embarrass myself as a teenager he was going to call me out on.

“Watch yourself, man,” I warned, feeling the wry smile forming on my lips in the same second a smirk landed on his. I wasn’t exactly
shy
. Hell, everyone around this table knew it, too. I just didn’t need to prove what a dumb-ass I could be.

He cocked his head. “Oh, you’re not getting out of this, my friend.”

“I thought this was about telling our own stories. What makes you think you get to tell mine?”

“Uh… because there’s no way in hell you’d ever speak this one aloud.”

Jared looked around the table, gestured in my direction. “So when we were fifteen, our boy here decided it’d be an awesome idea to break into the school and go skinny-dipping in the team pool. In the middle of the night and with three girls.”

“Oh, dude, you wouldn’t dare go there,” I warned, amusement growing thick in my chest.

He smirked. “Oh yes, I would, and I am.”

Aly moaned. “Oh, gross. I don’t want to hear anything about my brother naked. I was traumatized enough when I lived with him.”

“See. What did I say? Gross,” Megan shot out. Both of them fell right back into hysterics, all at my expense. “And with three girls?” Megan shook her head and pressed her hand to her chest, like it made no sense at all. “What on earth were they thinking?”

“That they wanted to see me naked.” I added a drawn-out “Duh” for good measure.

“I give up,” Dad said, throwing his hands in the air, and Samantha started chewing at that lip again, trying not to fall into the same fit of laughter Aly and Megan were rolling in.

Jared chuckled. “Without giving it a second thought, Christopher stripped down, tossed his shoes and all his clothes onto the bleachers, and jumped right in.”

I just shook my head, scratched my chin, laughing at how crazy we’d been, what a great time Jared and I’d always had when we were young, back when we didn’t care a whole lot about anything but having fun. It was the year before Samantha and I had gotten together. I remembered that night so clearly. The whole thing really hadn’t been that sexual. I mean, I’d be lying if I said we weren’t feeling on top of the world when those three hot girls willingly followed us out there, thinking we were about to get an eyeful of what we were dying to see, but it was more about being young and free.

“Dumb-ass didn’t stop to take into consideration it was December. He surfaced, screaming and hollering that it was freezing. Two seconds later, all the outdoor lights flipped on, and there was Dale, the security guard, coming barreling through the field toward us. Christopher hauled out, stark naked, trying with his hand to cover up his junk that was all shriveled up from the cold. He just started running, yelling at us to get out of there. We all were right behind him, watching his lanky white ass sprinting across the parking lot and into the next neighborhood.” He pointed at me. “Dude had to walk two miles home in the shadows while the four of us were laughing our asses off. Next day we show up at school and all his clothes are on display with the announcement that they were looking for the owner. Turns out Dale couldn’t make out faces from the distance.”

“Entire school knew it was me, but not a soul fessed up. Got away with that shit. Never got back my favorite shoes, though.”

“Christopher, that’s terrible,” Mom admonished, wide-eyed and a little in shock.

“Oh, come on, Mom, don’t tell me you never went skinny-dipping when you were a kid.”

She laughed, flushed a little. “Well, I never broke into the school,” she said, as if it made it any better.

Aug covered his ears. “Oh God. Please stop. Don’t need those images in my head.”

“Oh hush.” Mom both frowned and smiled. “Don’t you think your mom should have some fun once in a while?”

“Uh… no… not that kind of fun, and I most definitely don’t need to hear about it.”

“Well, Aly and I definitely have experience with skinny-dippers, don’t we?” Megan said. “All our friends used to think stripping off all their clothes and diving into a pool was the highlight of the night.” Megan grinned over at Aly.

“Ugh… yes,” she groaned toward the sky. “I always stayed as far away from that train wreck as possible. Was not getting mixed up in that mess.”

Jared hugged Aly a little closer. “See, Courtney, you should totally take after Aly here. Boys start taking off their clothes?” He pointed at her. “You get the hell out of there.”

“Jared!” Courtney almost whined, almost rolled her eyes, but was too embarrassed to do either.

“What?” He shrugged. “The last thing I need is to have to take a trip out to California to kill someone.”

Rubbing my hand over my mouth, I tried to contain my laughter. Dude was so overprotective it bordered on criminal.

Megan slanted me a coy smirk before she looked back at Samantha. “What about you, Samantha? Do you like peeling off those clothes to relish the cool water?”

Little bitch. She knew exactly what she was doing – taunting me, teasing me with fantasies that hit me hard and fast. Thinking about Samantha naked was about the last place my mind needed to go.

Scowling, I slouched in my chair, shuttering my brain from going in those dangerous directions. But I couldn’t stop my thoughts from going damned near haywire, blinking out as I visualized what that sweet little body would look like all glistening wet.

Goddamn.
 

As much as I didn’t want to listen to Samantha’s answer or watch her reaction to the question, there was nothing I could do to stop from latching onto the sight of that rush of heated embarrassment that flamed on her chest and rushed up her neck, splashing crimson all over her cheeks. They glowed red, almost as dark as the red on those pouty lips.

I sucked in a shuddered breath.

Keep it together, man.
 

“No,” she finally said, hesitantly, before she quietly confessed, “I don’t swim, let alone do it naked.” She pushed out the last like a joke.

“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me,” Jared accused, grinning wide as he tipped a bottle of beer to his mouth, his foot propped up casually on the edge of the table as he rocked back. “You live in Arizona and you don’t swim? There has to be something fundamentally wrong with that.”

“She’s scared of water.” The words slipped from my mouth before I could stop them, and they weren’t mean or hateful or filled with the vengeance I’d wanted to spew at her hours before. Instead I was remembering how intensely real her fear was.

An awkward silence filled up the backyard, everyone frozen when Samantha turned those shocked blue eyes on me. Something heavy passed between us. It wasn’t beyond anyone here that those words were the first time either of us had acknowledged the other since we’d come out back.

“Can’t believe in all these years you never got over that.” I let the words come soft, because that’s what I’d felt for her then, back before every place she’d once inhabited in me had been left hardened when she’d gone. Instantly, I wanted to steal them back, because for a flash she looked at me like she really saw me, like she recognized the person I’d once wanted to be.

I’d have done anything to be him. To be good enough for her.

“Some fears hold on forever,” she whispered, and she swallowed hard, still clinging to my gaze.

A gentle breeze blew in, rustling through the trees and swaying the lights strung up overhead, a low howl uttered from the skies that whipped through her hair. I felt myself flailing within, a mayhem of nerves and memories of all the love I’d had for this girl that had turned sour, what had blackened my beliefs and slaughtered the only pure hope she’d bred somewhere in my spirit.

God, I wanted it back, the chance to prove myself to her.

Aly cleared her throat. “I’m going to go in and check on Ella.”

Everyone around the table nodded, like maybe they were nodding away their discomfort.

My mom stood as Aly headed inside. “I think we’d better call it a night, too. It’s getting late.” She pulled Courtney up, hugging her close. “I am so glad you’re here, sweet girl.” She dropped an affectionate kiss to Jared’s temple, then leaned in to brush another to Samantha’s cheek. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t,” Samantha promised.

Mom rounded the table, hugged me and Megan, while Aug and Dad casually said their good nights. And I knew I should make my call, too, bail out and go find something or someone to pour my frustrations into, but I stayed rooted in my chair.

A thick quiet had taken over. The five of us who remained just sat there suspended in it, surrounded by it, comforted by it. Even though it was excruciating all at the same time.

Hesitating, I leaned my elbows on the table, picking at the label on my beer. Finally I lifted my head, catching those blue eyes trained on me. It was like she could anticipate what I would say.

“How is Stewart?” I stumbled over the words that were filled with those fears and worries I’d been feeling since the second Aly’d told me he’d had a recurrence.

Blinking, she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, fighting that same war we’d been fighting all night. Did she take the easy way out? Act like those vile words I’d spewed at her were the truth? That she was dead to me and I was dead to her? Or be the one to take a chance and whisper one solitary truth.

The expression that transformed her face was one I’d witnessed so many times, when she’d come to me at night and I’d hold her after she’d been holding Stewart all day, when all her fears had caught up to her and, just for a moment, she’d needed someone else to be strong for her. Her mouth trembled. “He’s sick, Christopher.”

No doubt she already knew I’d heard about Stewart. It was clear in my question. But her words weren’t an answer. They were an admission.

That lump in my throat throbbed, and I rushed my hand over my face, my head inclined as I leaned in closer, whispered lower. “How bad is he?”

A phone chimed and buzzed on the table, the plate lighting up against the peace, bursting the secluded bubble we’d all been in.

I’d forgotten anyone else was even there, and I sat back uneasily, my eyes darting between the three others. Some kind of curious satisfaction spread on Megan’s face, while a deep sadness had fallen over Jared’s. The guy just always got it, even when I didn’t want him to.

Cringing, Samantha grabbed her phone, swiped her thumb across it to reject the call.

“Everything okay?” Megan ventured.

Samantha shook her head, as if she were flustered and distracted. “Yeah… it was just Ben. He’s probably just checking up on me.”

Ben.
 

In a straight-up stupor, I blinked, a fog clouding my brain as the name pressed and pushed at my consciousness, vying for a way in. Finally it crashed through. Awareness settled hard and fast. A torrent of anger surged, a rogue rush of hatred pounding through my veins. Beating and battering until all I could see was red.

Ben.
 

My face pinched. “What did you just say?” I seethed, my voice coarse and ragged, filled with all the rage I probably didn’t have a right to feel. But fuck, could anyone really blame me?

I wanted to crawl across the table and rip the phone from her hand, spew all the words at him I should have told him years ago, then smash that fucker into a million tiny pieces.

Him or the phone, I wasn’t sure.

She jerked her head up. “What?” she asked, completely at a loss. Oblivious.

“I said… what did you just say?” It was nothing less than a bitter accusation, but I couldn’t stop it from spilling out.

Eyes narrowed in confusion, she scrunched up her little nose, her head shaking the slightest bit.

“I said it was Ben checking…” She phrased it almost as a question, before she suddenly trailed off. Like it’d just occurred to her that this bit of information might matter to me. That it might fucking matter because that asshole had always wanted her, and I’d always known it, too. That slimy bastard was always playing the protective big brother when really all he’d wanted was to take what was mine.

“Motherfucker,” wheezed from my mouth as I dragged my hands erratically over the top of my head. Slowly, I shook my head, all those repulsive images I’d wanted to shun, the ones of Samantha with the man who’d taken my place assaulting me. Only now that man had a face.

My stomach turned and bile burned up my throat. All that fiery heat pulsing through me combusted, shooting me to my feet. I felt my insides curling, my skin blistering. Hot summer wind blasted across the yard. It scraped across my face and arms, rubbing everything raw, reminding me just how insanely bad loving someone can hurt.

I turned and slammed my fist into the closest inanimate object.

A fucking brick wall.

In fury, in agony, I screamed out, because I didn’t want to pretend anymore. Didn’t want to keep pretending she was dead when she’d been the only person who’d ever made me feel alive. Didn’t want to keep pretending she meant nothing when she meant everything.

I stumbled back, right into Jared, who’d come out of nowhere and stood directly behind me. His voice was calm, placating. “Come on, man, let’s go cool off.”

Just then, the sliding door to the house opened. I saw my sister in the doorway. I felt her panic race along the lawn as she watched her carefully constructed plan crumbling to pieces.

“Oh my God, Christopher.” Assessing the damage, her eyes darted around all of us. “What did you do?”

“What did I do?” I flung my arm out in her direction, all my hurt bleeding free. Yeah, she meant well. I got that. But goodwill didn’t mean you had it right, and my sister had gotten this terribly wrong.

“What did I do?” I repeated. “What the fuck did you do, Aly? You did this. You brought her here.”

Jared’s hand fell heavily to my shoulder, gripping me tight. “Not tonight, man. We’ll hash this shit out later. Right now I think you need a little breather. Let’s go walk it off.”