The Wright Brother (16 page)

The cold water was an immediate shock to her system and she kicked to the surface with a spluttering laugh.

Roman was already waiting for her when she surfaced.

Her skin broke out in a rush of goosebumps.

With a grin he flicked water at her face and shrugged. “See, have fun, Elisa Jane. We won’t bite, though I can’t promise that I won’t try to kiss you again. You are so hot!” He wiggled his brows and, with a wink, turned and swam away, moving toward a group of guys who were whistling and catcalling as he neared.

With her cheeks stained crimson, she couldn’t fight the silly grin that seemed firmly embedded on her face. He was right, have fun. That’s all this was, all it was supposed to be.

She didn’t look over to where she knew Julian still watched her. She didn’t look for Mandy to see if she’d seen her in her bikini. Because it didn’t matter. Being petty and silly and mopey wasn’t going to solve anything.

Just like her father said, sometimes you couldn’t change things. But the key to living was just to do it, even when it hurt and it sucked, because eventually things would get better.

No longer worried about impressing anybody, she sank into the coolness of the water, remembering that she had other passions in life. Like swimming.

Like feeling the waves wash over her skin. Feeling as the water parted beneath the flex and pull of her body. Kicking into a clean stroke, she swerved around the bodies, swimming the length of the pool three times before deciding she couldn’t really enjoy the swim as much as she would have liked with the press of people all over the place.

Lifting herself up the wall, instead of using the ladder, she climbed out of the pool and walked to her chair.

She’d forgotten to bring a towel, but the sun was out and there was a nice breeze. Putting her sandals back on and grabbing her phone and ear buds, she looked around for Christian or Roman, but both of the guys were doing their own things and she didn’t want to seem like a clingy crybaby.

She didn’t see Julian at all.

Which was fine.

Really.

She’d seen him and she’d not become a blubbering mess; she’d passed her first test admirably and was rather proud of herself when she decided to go take a stroll through the maze.

Nobody seemed to care as she left, no one called her name to tell her to come back, and even though she was surrounded by countless people, she no longer craved attention.

Elisa just wanted to be alone for a little while. Tucking her wet hair behind her ear, she walked over to the white wooden garden door and pushed it open. It really was a maze. A massive, green wall of ivy, like the kind you’d see in a romantic drama movie.

Glad she’d decided to come out after all, she walked inside and put her music in her ears, humming “House of the Rising Sun” softly beneath her breath.

How had Julian figured out how to play?

Silly, random, nonsensical question, and yet she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since the day she’d seen him banging his drum kit in his garage. He wasn’t like Tommy Lee good, but he was good.

Elisa shook her head. Why was she thinking about Julian? Why couldn’t she just stop thinking about him for like a second? Just one freaking second of her life, was that too much to ask?

Purposefully making her thoughts go blank, she shoved everything out of there except the rhythm of the music. This was her time, and by God she was going to enjoy it, even if it killed her.

She took twist after twist, getting hopelessly turned around, but eventually she’d find her way out. If not, the boys would just have to send search and rescue to find her.

Hopefully they were hot.

She snorted and took another turn before stopping dead in her tracks. The music had helped to mask the sounds of a fight.

Julian was gesturing furiously at Mandy, who was screeching and stomping her foot.

Pretty sure that whatever kind of issues they were having should be private, she made to turn around, and it was just at that moment that Mandy noticed her.

“You little shit!” she yelled, and it wasn’t at Julian.

Taking her buds out of her ears, she shook her head. “What? Are you talking to me?”

Planting her hands on her hips, she snarled. She might have said something else, but Julian grabbed her and shook his head hard, his glare hot on her face.

Her already pale face seemed to drain of color, and giving him a violent shove to his shoulder, she turned and ran past Elisa. Forcing her to plaster herself against the wall of ivy so that Mandy didn’t bump into her.

For such a little thing, the girl was fast, and she was gone in a blink.

Snapping her mouth shut, heart banging so hard in her chest Elisa didn’t know what to do. They stared at one another for an awkward silent minute.

“Sorry,” she signed. “I’ll go.”

“No.” He held out his hand and his brows furrowed. “Stay.”

She wanted to go. Desperately. Her legs felt shaky, her toes tingly to move, to run away as fast as Mandy had, and yet she might as well have been a chunk of concrete for how fast she moved.

“What do you want?” she asked him vocally, dropping her hands to her sides. Signing just felt too intimate with him now.

He walked up to her, his steps measured and slow, as though he were approaching a wild animal caught in a snare.

And she did feel like one.

She was a riot of emotions. Anger. Desperation. Desire. Fury. Want.

Elisa flexed her fingers.

“We should talk,” he signed to her.

She snorted, and suddenly everything she’d bottled away just came pouring out of her. “We should talk? Yeah, let’s talk, Julian. Let’s talk about the way you bailed on me. How about that? Or how about that letter, because yeah”—she hated that her eyes were getting hot and that soon he’d see her crying; it was the last thing in the world she’d ever wanted him to see—“that was awesome.”

She clenched her jaw, turning her face to the side.

Elisa wanted to bite his fingers off when he touched the side of her jaw, nudging her to turn her eyes back his way, she batted his hand away. But Julian was persistent.

“What?” she snapped, tossing her hands up in surrender. “What do you want from me?”

“You, Smile Girl. I screwed up. I thought I knew what I was doing—”

Knowing he’d understand her better if she signed, she moved her fingers with purpose. “Have you told her? Did you tell her what happened that night between us, huh? Because you owe her that much. I told Tom. I broke it off with him. Did you know that?” She didn’t give him a chance to respond. Everything came pouring out of her, everything she’d sworn she’d never share with him, never tell him, she told him now. “And not for you either, Julian. But because he deserved better than what I did to him. He loved me and I—”

He grabbed her hands and brought them to his chest. And even through the thin layer of cotton she felt his heat, felt the electricity of his body. When she inhaled, she smelled his soap and mint. This was her Julian. Her passion and her anguish, it was all rolled up into this one man.

Elisa wanted to shove him away, wanted to kick him, wanted to scream at him, even while her body ached for his. No one had ever made her feel the way he did.

She was breathless and terrified, like standing on the edge of a tall cliff, knowing the fall would kill her but excited by the thrill of adrenaline that would come before it.

Those sea-green eyes of his shaded by long black lashes stared down at her with the same type of longing and intensity that raged inside of her.

Finally, it was Julian who let her go.

“I thought I could do it, Smile Girl. I thought I could, but I can’t. I just can’t. I came home and I told Mandy that day.”

She frowned. “You told her?”

He nodded. “I tried to dump her. Because she wasn’t you. It just didn’t feel right anymore. But she wouldn’t let me. She said that if she wasn’t willing to let me go, then I couldn’t just leave her that way. So I stayed, I tried, because you’re right, she deserved better than what I’d done, but it’s been fake and she knows it.”

Where before the beating of the sun had felt inviting, now she felt scalded by it. Too hot. She wanted to get away from here, from him. From this.

“I love you,” he signed.

“No.”

“Es,” he croaked, and stepped in closer to her, so close that his chest brushed hers, breathing in her air, and making her feel like she was a fish on dry land, gasping for breath.

His hands slid down her waist, his touch gentle but firm. Possessive and wonderful and she couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. She felt his fingers speak to her.

“Love you.” He whispered it over and over. “Love you so much. Only you, only you.”

And then he claimed her lips, taking her with a fierceness that only Julian could. She was so lost to his touch, crying into him even as she wrapped her leg around his, as she plastered herself to him. Every fracture, every tear that she’d worked for months to mend ripped open. As his tongue slipped along side hers, she remembered the days in her bed after the note.

When his legs spread and she felt the thickness of him brush against her aching center, she remembered the weeks she’d spent talking late into the night with Chastity about how she was sure she’d never be able to forget him, that no could ever compare. That it was all her fault because if she’d only been honest from the beginning…

And when his hands massaged her breasts, she remembered herself bent over that toilet and heaving, gasping for breath as the reality of just how much she actually did love him had seized her by the throat. She’d given Julian all of herself and he’d left without a word, and even though she’d done it once too, she’d had valid reasons, but when he’d done it, it hadn’t felt so valid. She hadn’t felt okay with it. Her soul had been devastated and the truth of it was, she still wasn’t okay.

“No,” she snapped, shoving him back. “No. I can’t do this again, Julian, I don’t think I’ll survive it.”

He reached for her, but she was done. They were over. So over.

Elisa ran.

It took her over an hour to find her way out of that damned maze, by the time she did the worst of the tears were over. She didn’t say a word to either Christian or Roman, and she was so grateful that even though her nose was red and her eyes puffy, neither one of them had asked.

And when Julian and her had climbed into the bed of the truck and Mandy was nowhere to be found, neither one of acted like anything was wrong.

When she got home and didn’t say goodbye, neither of them made her feel bad about it, either.

And when she refused to come out of her room for the next three weeks, even her parents had seemed to understand.

No matter what she had to do, or how long it took, Elisa would get over him. There was simply no choice in the matter.

“Elisa, you have a week left before you go back to school, would you please get out of the house?”

Her mother’s tone was more than exasperated—it was worried. Which bothered her. She didn’t want to make her parents worry.

“Mom, please, just tell them I don’t want to go to the movies.”

Crossing her slippered feet and leaning against the doorframe, Elizabeth Adrian gave Elisa the look.

The one that’d always made her squirm when she was a little girl. The pinched lips, raised brow, and the one pointer finger that tapped, tapped, tapped across her freckled bicep.

Elisa squirmed on her bed, hugging a pillow to her middle.

“We’ve been patient, Elisa Jane. More than patient, really. We’ve not asked you what’s going on, but I know that it has something to do with those Wright boys and if you don’t tell me right now what it is I’m going to march my butt over to that house and ask Lori what’s going on.”

Intelligent brown eyes glared at Elisa.

“Mom, please,” she moaned. “It’s nothing, okay.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, and I’ve got ocean-front property in Arizona. You think I don’t know my own daughter by now? You’ve been moping from the moment you got here. And, oddly enough, Lori tells me that Julian has been too. In fact, he refuses to come out of his house.”

Her eyes widened.

“Yes, now I think you see where this is going. How long?”

“What?” She gave a stuttery, nervous chuckle. “Are you talking about?”

Impossible as it was, her mother’s lips pinched even tighter. “Do not play me for a fool, young lady. Now I want to know what’s happened between the two of you.”

She opened her mouth and then promptly snapped it shut. Her mother knew. There was no way she didn’t know. She might not know the particulars, but her asking was merely her method of getting Elisa to confess what she already suspected.

Elizabeth sighed, pushed off the doorjamb, and made her way over to the edge of Elisa’s bed, before sitting down. “Baby, what happened?”

What hadn’t happened, really? That was probably the more appropriate question. She doubted her mother wanted to know about her sex life, and besides, that was private anyway.

She shook her head.

“He told you he loves you.”

She frowned.

“Oh, come on, Elisa. I’m no fool. I’ve seen the way that boy has looked at you, well, worshipped you really.” She snickered. “Ever since he was just a baby in diapers. So what happened? You turned him down?”

Obviously her mother didn’t know everything.

“No, I didn’t turn him down.”

Her pencil thin brow shot into her forehead. “Oh. And did you…” She cleared her throat, and then did something with her fingers that Elisa was pretty sure was a horrible pantomime of them having sex.

“Mom!” She tossed a pillow at her as her face heated crimson.

It took Elizabeth a second to gather herself, by the time she did, she was shaking her head and chuckling beneath her breath. “My baby has finally turned into a woman.”

“Mom, oh my God, please, I’ll leave this room if you keep it up.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She held up her hands and tried very hard to wipe the smile off her face, but she did a poor job of it.

“You don’t seem disgusted by it.” Elisa picked at a loose thread on another pillow. A heart-shaped one—well, really more of a blob—she’d been forced to sew at her grandma’s house one summer, and this lumpy monstrosity was the end result.