When I get home that afternoon, my mother’s sleeping pills are nowhere to be found. As one last act of sisterly love, she ratted me out to my grandmother.
She was never interested in taking me with her. Instead, Claire charged me with the task of living for her, but I’m too preoccupied with her death to hold up my end of the bargain. I torment myself just thinking about the exact second when it happened—when her soul snapped like a dry twig and set her soaring into the great unknown. My grandmother said it happened in the still of the afternoon. It was peaceful. Claire closed her eyes and smiled.
I wondered what I was doing at the time?
I bet I was on that damn horse.
I never rode again.
Seven Years Later
I thought it was fitting that on the night I planned on taking my own life, I fell in love. Not real love, but a wave of lust-filled infatuation that everyone feels for at least six months before reality claws away the glamor, and all you see is another shitty person staring back at you. But I don’t have six months. I have maybe six hours give or take my patience to endure this spinning blue rock another second. It’s turning out to be a seat-of-my-pants plan. Had I thought far enough ahead, I would have left a note for my grandmother, maybe a dark poem for my mother to brood over, but it’s probably best they convince themselves it was an accident. It most likely will be.
Loud, harsh music bangs overhead like a toddler thrashing around armed with pots and pans. Bodies press up against me as I try to squeeze my way through the crowded room. The scent of new clothes mingling with expensive perfume nauseates me.
My father’s investment firm is hosting a mixer in Breakers Canyon, just an hour north of Los Angeles. If you split the difference, you end up at Rigby University where I’m currently a senior. But it’s the tail end of July, summer is in full swing, and not a person I know is willing to let the golden goodness slip through their fingers.
The party rages around me like the scene from some underground nightclub. Here I thought it would be populated with old men wearing beautiful girls on their sleeves like accessories, the smoke from their pipes choking me out hours ago, but it’s unmistakably chic and modern, and all of the people are typically L.A. reconstructed-to-be-beautiful. I head for the door, and that’s when I see Him—tall, black shiny hair you could admire your reflection in if given the chance, a pair of pale blue eyes that qualify as a color all their own. We’ve been exchanging glances intermittently for the better part of the last hour, sending a pang of heat through me like some sexual distress signal. Unlike me, he’s never alone. I lost track of my half sister, Kinsley, hours ago.
Women flock to him like pigeons, in droves like he might possess the fountain of youth in his boxers, or, in the least, he’s passing out a handful of dildos he’s cast himself. If that’s the case, I might be interested, or at least I would have been if I didn’t have a date with Claire.
I inspect him further as he moves casually through a crowd of estrogen. A dark-haired girl with a wicked grin hangs off his shoulder, playing with his ear. Her lips curl up at the edges while her mouth hangs partially open, and I stare a moment too long as if I might be adding an oral fixation to my long list of disorders.
Crap. I need to get out of here. I need air, and a physical buffer between me and the nearest warm body by at least twelve feet. I’m allergic to people. Since Claire died I’ve been hostile and angry and an all-around nightmare to be with, on purpose of course. The last thing I wanted was someone to coddle me, tell me how sorry they were. I hated their empty words—their sympathy without borders. Still do. Besides, I’ve got a suicide to tend to and a sister to give one long ghostly hug. Just the thought of seeing her again sends a pang of relief through me. She’s the only knife that could lance this festering wound. Without her I percolate with anger. But in all honesty, I sort of enjoyed the rage—the way it fueled me, made me powerful. I owned grief, made it my bitch. Just like I’m about to do with death. It may have caught Claire off guard, but tonight I’ll be calling the shots.
I hedge my way to the door, inspecting the tangle of bodies for signs of Lincoln or Kinsley one last time, my older half siblings, or at least two of them. I have one more, a sister, Aspen—she’s a bastard like me—children who entered this world through someone other than Daphne Lionheart, my father’s first and second wife. He divorced and remarried her, much to my mother’s horror.
Pearl Jam’s, Alive, breaks out through the speakers, and Eddie Vedder’s voice makes love to me, soft and unsuspecting—vibrating right through to my bones like a haunting lullaby. I mouth the lyrics as I inch my way to the entry of this goliath Mediterranean villa.
The double doors open out to the early evening, revealing a thread of pink clouds expiring in a line over a hot crimson sky. You can smell the brush fire that’s ripping through Tujunga Canyon. The spice of the flames perfume the air like an overgrown fireplace. The sky bleeds red in retribution as if it were God’s reverse gift to us. He burns the hillside to stubble, and, in exchange, he gives us a glorious mural to look at. I step onto the threshold making myself unsteady in my four-inch heels. Kinsley nearly choked when she saw I had them on. But I held true to my usual wardrobe staples of jeans and a T-shirt—no need to go overboard for corporate dingbats. It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone, well, maybe my father, but after twenty-three years on this planet, I think I’m well aware that’s a fruitless effort.
The scent of raw, earthy cologne wraps itself around me like new leather gloves until I moan with approval.
“Beautiful.” A voice rumbles from behind, deep as thunder.
My shoulders twitch with surprise, and I turn to find Him standing there—a ghost of a smile on his lips. Blue eyes, black hair—a face that demands the attention of every female in the room—he’s gorgeous in a cutting way that slices right through to my bones. My insides squeeze tight—a quick pang sirens through me just being this close to him. Heat radiates off his body like the summer sun off a New York sidewalk, and I’m drawn to his warmth. He’s massive, muscular, solid as sheetrock, and my fingers twitch just aching to confirm this hard-as-granite theory. He glances up at the sky as if he were having this conversation with himself, and I was simply listening in. The reserve of sunlight slices through his eyes giving off a reflective luminosity found in animals of the night. This one is a tiger. He’s got those almond eyes, a full mouth he could devour you with, and I’m sort of hoping he will.
I follow his gaze to the pink puffs staining the blood-red sky.
“Beautiful?” I balk. I can’t remember the last time I was truly impressed with anything or anyone. “I guess it’s beautiful—in the government-is-trying-to-kill-me-chemtrail sort of way.” I withhold the smile from blooming on my lips. Everyone knows that a blood-red sky means trouble, and, if my sexual intuition is right, that’s exactly what he’s about to offer. I take him in with his lean, mean I’m-going-to-eat-you-for-breakfast lewd hint of a grin, and my thighs quiver.
“Whoa.” He connects his silver-blue eyes to mine, and a jolt of electricity spasms through me, quick and viral like the hot lash of a whip. “No need to drag the government into this.” He grins as he says it. “That’s no chemtrail. It’s dragon’s breath—everyone knows that.” A deep comma-like dimple goes off in his cheek. He bears into me a minute too long as that amused look slides from his face.
“Go away.” I turn my back to him and continue to admire the landscape. There’s not a man on this planet who can chase me to bed with one wicked grin.
“Are you always so friendly?”
“Only to people I like.”
He steps into my view, and I turn slightly to annoy him.
“So you like me, then.” More dimples. “I’ll admit I thought it might be an uphill battle.”
“It will be.”
“Then we have a future.” An arrogant laugh gets caught in his throat.
“A future ‘restraining order’ if you don’t get out of my way.” Not th
at I plan on sticking around long enough to file one.
“My stepfather is a great attorney. If you want, I can introduce you. He’ll need a ten-thousand dollar retainer. I have to warn you, though, he’s a dick from the get-go.”
Something warms in me when he berates his stepfather. His features soften as he gives a slight grin, and my insides explode with heat. Girls are still twisting in his direction, listening in, looking for an opening so they can interject themselves into our conversation, or lack thereof.
“Are we bonding over familial issues?” Why am I still speaking with him?
“Bonding?” He steps in so close, his chest sears my bare arm. “Finally, we’re headed in the right direction.”
“I bet you’d like to bond, wouldn’t you?” I glance to his crotch then back to his guilt-riddled face as if I caught his penis in the nooky jar.
“You’re the one who mentioned bonding. All I wanted to do was spout off a few wishes.” He swallows a laugh. “I hear if you make a wish under a dragon’s blood sky it has to come true.”
Something in me stirs as he says those words. He’s older, maybe ten, fifteen years. He has slight crinkles around his smiling eyes, and his full lips twitch as if they have a secret.
My heart hammers against my chest, trying to kick its way out. My adrenaline gives a violent surge until it feels as if my head is about to pop off, and I wish it would. Something needs to stop me from falling under the dragon’s blood spell he’s casting. But it’s too late. I’m up for just about anything he has to offer. Nothing will matter tomorrow anyway because for me tomorrow will never come.
“Well then”—I clear my throat—“it looks like tonight was made for wishes.” My face burns with heat as he watches me with those expectant eyes—that hungry, disconnected gaze I’ve seen before on a thousand frat boys. Mr. Dragon’s Blood Wishes is fostering a hard-on, and it’s becoming crystal clear that me and my skintight jeans are exactly what he’s hoping for.
“I hear wishes have a better chance of coming true if you whisper them at the beach.” He rakes over me with his amusement.
The beach ball is in my court. I could volley this mattress tourney any way I wanted.
I cut a quick glance to a fleet of Town Cars and limos knifed over the landscape in the barren lot below the estate.
“I don’t have a ride.” It’s the truth. I came with Kinsley, and my only hope is bribing a valet to take me back to Rigby.
He plucks a lone key from his pocket and dangles it next to his white flash of a smile. A brown, paper tag is attached to the key ring.
I glance back at the valets with their white shirts rolled up at the elbows, their dark pressed pants and note he’s wearing the exact same thing.
“Are you a driver?” I whisper deliciously at the thought he had slithered his way into my father’s ritzy wannabe nightclub, trying to fornicate with the upper crust.
He raises a brow. “Yes, I am a driver.” He shakes his head. “And I happen to be taking off for the night, so, if you want to head down to Shipwrecks, you’re in luck.”
Shipwrecks Cove is a fifteen-minute drive. It’s saddled with rows of overpriced homes that have rooted themselves to the shoreline. My grandmother used to take Claire and me there until the great blue Pacific tried to swallow me whole, and then we never went back.
I consider this for a moment. It’s my birthday. It’s also the last night of my brief existence. The anniversary of my birth and death all on the same date. It’s almost romantic. The worst thing, and, perhaps the best that can happen is that this stunning stranger wraps his strong hands around my neck and spares me the privilege of sending myself into the great beyond.
I blink up at him, flirting, assuring his hard-on of things to come. I’m pretty sure wishes are low on his priority list tonight. The only thing he’s wishing for is me, naked in the sand.
“What’s your name?” I snap as the words swim around us for a moment.
He winces before taking a breath.
“Ford. And yours?” He shifts, expanding his chest as if he just bent the truth. His chest swells twice its girth, and I feel smaller than a comma standing next to him.
“Stevie.” I shake my head just enough as if I told my own lie right back. “Your worst nightmare.”
His chest vibrates as he swallows a laugh. He holds out his hand, and I accept his thick, rough fingers over mine, like falling into a warm bath.
“Stevie—beautiful name for a beautiful woman.” He rumbles it out with that lewd grin twitching on his lips again. His eyes rake over my body in a tactile manner, getting intimate with my every curve. “You seem more of a dream to me.”
“Well, then, tonight is going to be beautiful,” I assure him.
Here we are, just this side of strangers, ready to jog down powder white beaches, blowing wishes into a dragon’s blood sky. We are hinging on liars and lovers, and I have a feeling tonight we’ll be both.
In fact, I know we will.
Ford drives us down in a Town Car, and I can’t help feel like we swiped it out of the lot. He doesn’t strike me as a valet even if his wardrobe is playing the part. Half the guys there tonight looked like they could have parked my car. I give a slight smirk as I steal glances at his cut features, that inky dark hair that begs for my fingers to dig in and stay a while. I wish I wasn’t so attracted to him. I’ve always steered away from pretty boys, not that he is one. He’s much more rugged. His face is peppered with just the right amount of stubble, and he’s got those bedroom eyes he can’t quite turn down the volume on. A part of me wants him to like me, not just the girl in the skintight jeans but the heart and soul of who I really am, and I hate that feeling. I hate feeling helpless and desperate in wanting someone else’s approval. I’ve tried that my entire life with my father and failed. Besides, it takes all of my power away, and I’m greedy with how I spend it.
We hit Shipwrecks, and he pulls into a short, brick driveway. The garage door yawns to life like the mouth of a sleepy giant. We pull in, and he waits until the door closes before killing the engine. A prickling fear comes over me as the last bit of daylight exits the small space. I glance over at Ford and wonder if death is going to come a little quicker, and in a far less glamorous fashion than I suspected.
“Hope you don’t mind.” His teeth ignite the darkness like a flash of lightning. “It’s my brother’s beach house. He’s primarily based in New York.” His cheek tugs to the side as if he were being sarcastic at the mention of this beach-house-owning brother, but I’m stuck on the word primarily and wonder how many valets are using it today. “Let’s do this.” He pats my knee, and I follow him into a bright-lit home laden with nautical décor, an expensive leather sectional and a TV the size of the wall.
“Nice place.” It’s opulent and far more pretentious than I gave it credit for after experiencing the overgrowth and peeling paint in the front.
“He thinks so.” He smears it with a tired look and sums up his relationship with his brother with less than a facial gesture.
“It looks expensive. Your brother is obviously doing very well in New York.” I’m probing. I want to hear him bitch about his minimum wage career-move in the car parking business—hear him moan about how people never bother to tip. In truth, it was his everyman quality that lured me here in the end. After living in my father’s social bubble for the last seven years, a part of me craves the underdog just trying to claw his way to his next paycheck. In a world where everyone is handed a gold card upon graduation, it’s pioneering to see that some people still have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
“He’s doing okay. He thinks his boss is an ass.” His dimples bury themselves in his cheeks, and that sweet spot between my thighs cinches.
“Who doesn’t?” I run my finger along the matte limestone counter. “I have a brother,” I offer unprovoked. “Two sisters.” I leave Claire out of it for now, but I can feel her bubbling to the surface, demanding to be a part of the fornicating folly that’s
about to take place. She wanted to sleep with Billy Knoxville on her deathbed, and I wouldn’t let her, and, here I am, on my proverbial deathbed about to upgrade miles above Billy Knoxville. She must be pissed—either that or elated for me, and, knowing her, it’s the latter. My final night will be robed in ecstasy, with my limbs wrapped around this beautiful man. I can practically feel Claire rolling her eyes, accusing me of catching all the green lights. “I’m not a part of the core, though.” I shrug as he motions me through the double slider, and we step onto the porch. The menacing Pacific slaps me in the face like the hand of God. It’s brilliant, and mammoth, deep as it is wide, angry as it is strong. I trap a salted breath in my lungs as the panoramic ocean unfurls before us like a scroll. I’ve stepped into a dream—nothing but miles of snow-white shoreline—the hard line of the Pacific roaring to life like a lion threating to devour us.
“The core?” He lands his arm around my waist as we begin to walk along the sand, and, oddly, his hand warming my hip feels natural. I pluck off my heels and hinge them in the crook of my fingers.
“The core consists of my father’s true children, Lincoln and Kinsley. Lincoln works for my dad, and Kinsley is trying to kick her way into acting by way of her Louboutin stilettos. Then there’s Aspen, the brooding artist. She likes exclusive things. Her nightgown was hand sewn by Amish teenagers. She won’t wear jewelry unless it’s made by women in Africa selling it to make a living. She’s very ecologically sound—whatever that means. But for the most part, she’s amazing—very talented, married to a man who thinks he acquired her to his personal collection just like he did her art. Aspen and I are the unwanted counterfeits—the products of my father’s multiple affairs. He’s quite the lady’s man much to my stepmother’s horror.”
He barks out a laugh as if I just told a mean joke.