Full Share (Shore House Book 1) (11 page)

I smoked with Tank until my eyelids slid shut, threatening to take my consciousness with them. He was still singing to the latest song he’d selected on the old boom box on the kitchen counter. His energy was endless. I didn’t even say good night. I couldn’t. I slithered into my bed and passed out. When I woke Saturday morning, Tank was sleeping in Jack’s bed. He was sprawled across the top of it with the covers bunched beneath him like he’d actually crashed into it.

No one was where they were supposed to be. Except for Blaire and Rob. They were constantly in motion and always at the exact same place—fighting. I was standing in the kitchen, watching the coffee drip into the pot when Jack walked by me. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow at the angry yelling coming from Rob’s bedroom next to the kitchen. No one reacted to Rob and Blaire, whether they were fighting or happy. I suspected the lack of relevance bothered Rob more than the fighting. What was the point of a spectacle if it had no audience? Rob had to be in the center of the ring, and he was willing to torture Blaire to get there. He wasn’t used to being inconsequential and he wasn’t comfortable with it.

My stomach felt like an empty tin cup, and Blaire’s shrill voice made it feel like acid was being poured into it. I swallowed and held my hand to my head to steady my shaky existence. It was going to be a long day.

The half share who was hanging on Jack when I’d left the bar the night before stopped by our room twice throughout the morning. Both times to giggle and shake something. Her hair once, her ass another time. She seemed nice, although I hated her laugh, and the way she talked, and her hair color, and pretty much everything about her. Other than that, she was perfect.

She hung on Jack as we walked to the beach as a defeated brigade. In fact, she was the only one talking. Her energy and the sound of her voice pounded against my aching head like a drum. Jack was silent, and I knew she was grating on his nerves the same way she grated on mine, but he deserved this morning for having her the night before.

“Ow! Fu—” I hopped on one foot as a pain stabbed through the bone of the other. “What the—” Tank stopped and looked at me. “I hurt my foot.”

“I can see that,” he said, as I continued to hop around. Tank dropped his boogie board and towel and came to help me. I steadied myself with a hand on his shoulder as he lifted my foot and turned it toward him. It was covered in dirt and blood.

“Ugh. That’s disgusting,” I said and turned my head away from the damage.

“Shells . . . or a piece of glass.” He searched for the weapon that had attacked me.

“I have flip-flops on.”

“Just makes it more impressive. Here.” He handed me the string attached to his boogie board and leaned down with his back to me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m giving you a piggy-back ride. You need to stick your foot in the water so we can see the wound better.”

I turned to the house. The ocean was closer. I climbed on Tank’s back, and he shifted my weight higher up on him. We bounced to the bottom of the dune with me dragging his boogie board behind us.

“What are you doing?” Mila asked us when I dropped my bag from the safety of Tank’s back.

“She stepped on something.”

Mila’s face twisted in disgust as she noticed the blood covering the bottom of my foot. Tank ignored her and walked toward the surf.

“This is going to hurt,” I said near his ear.

“Nah. The salt water is good for it.”

“It’s going to hurt. The air hurts it.”

“You’re going to be surprised.”

“By how much it hurts?”

He leaned down, and I slid off his back, still holding my right foot in the air. He laughed a little and gently pressed my knee down until the water reached my wound.

“Ah!”

“Just a little bit more. Move it around. Clean it out.”

I did as I was told, and the pain dissipated with the blood. When I pulled my foot from the water the second time, the gash was visible and clean. It was an inch-and-a-half slice across the bottom of my foot. Tank examined it. It wasn’t bleeding until he pressed on both sides of the cut.

“It’s up to you if you want to go to the hospital. It might need a stitch, but what do I know? We can bandage and elevate it.” Bandage and elevate made him sound like he knew something.

“What’s your degree in?”

“Biochemistry.”

“I don’t even know what that is.” I laughed. “You’re really smart.”

Tank straightened and looked me in the eyes. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

I stopped laughing. “I’m not.” I wasn’t. “I’m really not. How come you work at the bakery, though?”

“I’m kind of between jobs. The first one didn’t work out.” Tank bent down, ending our conversation and offering me a ride back to the rest of our group.

“I think you’re very smart,” I said before we reached them. I needed him to know. I didn’t want there to be any question of how impressive I found Tank to be.

Mila had Band-Aids in her bag. I covered the cut with a tissue and then secured it with the Band-Aids. It would suffice until I drove offshore to the drug store on Route 1. I’d wait until later in the day when all the weeklies were safely parked at their rentals.

“What are you reading?” the half share asked Jack. I couldn’t stop laughing at the torment on his face. She wouldn’t even be quiet long enough for him to read.

“I found this novel in the house. It’s a mystery, I think.” He held up the book for her to see.

“Read it aloud,” Tank demanded.

“I’m on vacation,” Jack said and returned to his book.

“Yeah. We can all listen and try to guess who did it,” Mila said.

“Who did what?” Jack’s brilliant half share asked.

“According to the back cover.” Jack was patient as he answered. “‘Who dared to murder the last living member of the Cromwell Clan?’”

“Oh, that sounds like a good one,” I said. I couldn’t help myself.

“Read it.” His new friend interrupted our moment.

Jack sighed but read aloud beginning with, “Chapter one, The Rise of the Unknown.”

We all laid around him on our towels or perched on our chairs and listened as he read through the first few chapters of the novel. As I listened to the words, I surveyed our group. The only person missing was Heather, but unlike the last time she hadn’t made it home on Friday night, no one seemed to notice.

Jack’s voice and the story of the Cromwell Clan soothed my thoughts and carried me away to Europe in the eighteen hundreds. The last time I remembered being read aloud to, I was in elementary school. Maybe that was why it had such a calming effect on all of us. No one said a word until he stopped near the end of chapter three.

“Why did you stop?” Mila asked.

“A page is torn out.” Jack held up the book, displaying the missing page.

“Interesting.” Mila nodded, noting the missing page as part of the plot.

“The girlfriend did it,” Tank said and broke all of our concentration. “Someone write that down. It was the girlfriend.”

I mulled the idea over in my head. I liked the theory, but I thought it was Cromwell’s partner who killed him.

Jack dropped the book on the towel next to his chair. A dog ran up to our group and excitedly greeted each of us as if he’d been waiting for a break in the story to introduce himself. He cocked his leg and peed on the corner of Stone’s chair.

“What the fuck?” Stone roared, and the dog ran over to me. He cuddled next to me as I rubbed him behind his ears.

The dog’s owner was apologizing as she ran to us. He wasn’t even allowed on the beach until after five thirty, and Stone’s chair was the reason why.

“I’m so sorry,” she said over and over again. Stone never accepted her apology.

“He’s so cute,” I said more to the dog than to his owner. He was a beagle, and his sweet little face was impossible to be mad at. “Aren’t you?” I asked him. He moved even closer to me.

“He’s cute, but he’s bad,” his owner said and hooked a leash to his collar. When I stopped petting him, he ran alongside his owner to the dune.

“I fucking hate dogs,” Stone said. I rolled my eyes.
How can someone hate a dog?

“I think that one has excellent taste,” Jack said and stared at me.

“Animals can sense the good in people,” Tank added. Every word from his mouth sounded like the absolute truth on a subject. I wondered if Rufus would ever be able to run up to a group of people like that dog had.

The tide poured onto our towels and into our bags. It surprised all of us before it pulled stray flip-flops and boogie boards out with it as it rescinded.

My towel was soaked. My foot hurt. My beach day was done. I wrung the excess water from the towel and grabbed my bottom-soaked bag before limping over the dune and back to the house.

The shower set my foot on fire for the second time. I washed my hair furiously and dragged conditioner through the strands. I needed to get to the pharmacy for proper bandages as soon as possible. I wrapped myself in my towel and stepped out onto the concrete surrounding the side of our house. I kept my weight off my foot as I walked to my porch.

Jack stood next to my bed with a bag in his hand. “I got you some bandages.”

I glanced at the bag and back at Jack. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to. I figured you’d need them as soon as you got out of the shower.”

I was a little overwhelmed. “Thanks,” was all I managed to get out.

“I brought you some shells, too. I put them in your pile.” He motioned toward the mound of shells on the floor. I could barely take my eyes off him to look their way. He’d brought me shells. “A lot of those are broken.”

“I know. I love them anyway.”

“Sit down, and I’ll help you.”

I tightened the towel around myself. Jack appeared as if he were holding back his laughter as I did it. I sat about three feet from him, and he picked up my foot and placed it gingerly on his lap.

He grimaced as he used his thumb to move the cut around.

“Gross. I know.”

“I’ve seen worse.” He opened a few large sterile pads and placed them on the bed next to us. He grabbed the corner of my towel and dried my foot completely. I winced and pulled my foot back.

“That didn’t hurt,” I said. “My feet are really ticklish.”

“Interesting. What about the rest of you?”

“I can do this myself.”

Jack silenced me with a wave of his hand. He squeezed antibiotic cream onto the cut and then covered it with several pads. Relief flowed through me just from not seeing it. He wound tape around the pads and the top of my foot until everything was secure.

“Thanks. I owe you.”

“You know how you can pay me back?” I only raised my eyebrows at him. “Marry me.” I was dumbfounded, and so was my expression. “Or at least lie and tell people you married me. Like, today.”

I finally caught up. “Your new friend driving you crazy?”

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny. She seems great,” I said with overt sarcasm.

“She’s insane. I shouldn’t have hooked up with her.”

“Why did you then?” I heard the words but couldn’t believe I’d spoken them. They’d chipped away at my insides until I’d finally set them free.

Jack held my foot in his hands and looked at me, surprised. “I don’t know.” He slowly spoke. It sounded like a response that would come from me rather than Jack. I held my breath until he continued with, “It was late . . . and she was persistent. She smelled nice.” He sighed. “It sounds very animalistic, I admit. It was far from intelligent.”

I don’t know what I was hoping for, but his honesty left me cold. I needed to change the subject. Anything to make him stop regarding me as if he’d disappointed me and was apologizing. Jack didn’t owe me a thing. This was the summer, and we were at the beach.

“It’s not even the Fourth of July. You guys still have months together,” I joked, and Jack pushed against the bottom of my foot. “Ow!”

“Sorry. You okay?”

“I’m fine.” My voice was terse. I pulled my foot back from his hands.

“I’m really sorry.” He ran his fingertips up my ankle. “You probably want me to have sex with you now,” he said and immediately repaired my hurt feelings. “Please don’t beg me.”

“I’ll try to control myself.” I reached into my bag for my brush and began brushing my hair. Jack observed me. It was like being at work. I wasn’t sure he was ever going away. He might hide in my bed for the rest of the summer. “You’re going to have to deal with it. She’s here every other weekend. Give it a chance. Maybe she’s just excited. Maybe she really likes you.”

Jack fell back flat on my bed and covered his face. I used the time to stand and slide my strapless dress on before letting the towel drop to the floor. I slipped my foot in my flip-flop and placed my full weight on it. It hurt like hell.

“This weekend sucks,” he said without uncovering his eyes.

“Yes.” I hated the girl he’d hooked up with. “It does.”

AND THEN THERE WERE SEVEN

E
ven before the large drunk man stepped on me, I couldn’t take it any longer. I was sure my foot was bleeding. I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my cheeks. I knew without looking that it had to be re-bandaged.