Her voice was low and full of wonder instead of the terror I’d experienced. “All I remember is jellyfish scattering and a flash of panic—just a few seconds, really. Then a sort of peaceful feeling, and the smell of Mama’s churros, and darkness. Darkness, and then nothing.”
I stopped by my boat but didn’t put her down, staring into her face. Her dark eyes shimmered, reflecting the stars.
“And then there you were… staring down at me like you are now, but with the sun behind you instead of the moon,” she whispered. “You had tears in your eyes. Why?”
Jesus fucking Christ, this girl. “I thought you were dead.” My eyes burned, and I braced myself against the memory of the last time I’d held her like this—when she was heavy and lifeless, her head drooping over my arm.
“So did I. When I opened my eyes, I thought you were an angel—but those tears… And you were holding my hand.”
I smirked. “Accusing me of being a player back in the day, Pearl?”
“I used to dream that you’d kissed me then, in front of all those people.” Her gaze flicked to my mouth. “But you didn’t.”
Goddamn. I swallowed. “Well. I could kiss you now, to make up for missing my cue when I was seven.”
Her lips twisted, just barely, and I waited for her to laugh, but she didn’t. “Okay,” she said, and everything inside me went still.
I lowered my mouth to hers, hovering a breath away. Our eyes locked and she didn’t back down, didn’t close her eyes like she was just yielding ground. She held my gaze like the lit end of a firecracker. I’d been kissing girls for years, had popped my cherry with an older townie girl on the beach the previous summer, right before I turned sixteen. But none of that prepared me for kissing Pearl. I was starting from scratch.
Pearl
When I mentioned the sandbar as a possible burial spot for his father’s ashes, Boyce started to reply, hesitated, and then stared at his boots. I wasn’t sure if I’d said something wrong or if he was remembering the same thing I was.
I was nearly twenty-one years old and a college graduate, but my mind could still summon every precious second of a kiss that had happened when I was fourteen. I couldn’t decide if that was sweet or pathetic.
Adam Yates had been my first (unsolicited and revolting) kiss, not ten minutes prior. When he’d nuzzled the back of my neck, it was almost pleasant until he’d wrecked it with a slavering onslaught seconds later—all tongue and alcohol breath and drool. Blech.
I’d seen Boyce making out with girls on the beach or pushing them up against lockers to steal a kiss at school. Girls like Brittney Loper, who was dumb as a stick but stacked and sort of pretty. Hooking up whenever it suited her with whatever guy was interesting and interested, Brit was a carefree, perpetually cheerful pothead. Hating her felt mean-spirited, and honestly I wouldn’t have cared what she did, except Boyce. Watching him with her made me spitting mad. And restless. And aroused. Which made me more furious.
I was appalled to realize that I was jealous. Not just of Brittney, but all of them. Boyce had been mine for years, or so my heart had—unbeknownst to me—decided, and now suddenly he was touching and kissing and who knows what with all those girls and I didn’t want to see it or think about it stop stop stop.
I couldn’t tell my best friend, who would think I’d lost my mind or needed to schedule an exorcism. I couldn’t tell my mother, who still considered me her nerdy, quiet, undersized bookworm who hadn’t hit puberty and who certainly hadn’t dreamed and fantasized and hungered for Boyce Wynn’s lips on hers.
So when I found myself in his arms that night, practically alone (passed-out Adam hardly counted) for the first time ever, when he said I could kiss you now, there was no way I was saying no. I wasn’t capable.
He stared, eyes hard on mine, as if he’d misheard my whispered, “Okay.” He pulled me tighter and leaned so close that we were exchanging breaths, but hesitated for a long, silent moment as if I might revoke my consent. I returned his stare, afraid he would say something funny or smartass or indifferent.
“Pearl,” he said against my mouth. The subtle brush of his lips when he spoke my name spiked down my body and curled my bare toes and shot to my fingertips where they twisted into his T-shirt. “I’m gonna kiss you. Unless you tell me not to good and loud right now, I’m gonna kiss you, and I’m not gonna be sorry.”
I didn’t move a muscle, except for the tremors I was afraid he would feel. I couldn’t distinguish that fear from desire, though perhaps those two emotions—where Boyce was concerned—had entwined until they were indistinguishable. His fingers grazed my shoulder, triggering a flood of goose bumps, and my thigh, triggering a flood of something altogether different. I mewled, a sound I had never made in my entire life, and he closed the microscopic gap between us firmly, his lips soft, warm, decisive. He claimed my mouth as if he was tasting me, coaxing me to taste him in return—minty, spicy-sweet—sucking my lower lip with a hungry growl, licking and teasing the upper, all slow, deep, unrelenting persuasion. He lifted me higher, closer, his tongue thrusting deeper, and my head swam.
And then I gave him mono. Or more accurately, Adam Yates gave both of us mono.
Me: Thank your stupid BF for me - Adam Yates gave me MONO.
Melody: That’s what you have? SHIT. I got that in 7th grade. It totally sucked. ☹
Melody: Wait. You hooked up with Adam? I thought you kneed him in the balls and left him there?
Me: I DID. But not before he shoved his tongue down my throat.
Melody: What an assmunch.
Me: You think??
Melody: I said I was sorry! I didn’t know Clark was going to do that!!! He’s such a dumb boy.
Me: More like an aiding-and-abetting-an-attempted-rapist boy.
Melody: Adam wouldn’t have gone that far!
Me: How do you KNOW?
Melody: You’re right and I’m sorry and I told Clark if he ever did anything like that again I’d cut him off for a month.
Me: So can you bring me assignments in the classes we have together?
Melody: Sure. You’re lucky on one thing, btw – we’re dissecting a FROG tomorrow in bio. GROSS.
Me: What?!? *crying*
Melody: OMG. I know you want to be a doctor but I can’t believe you WANT to cut open a disgusting dead reptile!
Me: Amphibian
Melody: Whatever!! I’m going to make Landon do ALL OF IT because Boyce is out sick too weirdly enough. Hey he didn’t get mono from you did he?? Haha! JK!!!
While we were out sick, our best friends each lost their only remaining grandparent, and neither of us could attend the funerals. By the time we returned to school, there was a different vibe between the two of them. I liked Landon well enough, but Mel had a boyfriend, and though we had escalating evidence of Clark’s douchebaggery, neither of us yet knew just how big of a tool he really was.
“Clark keeps asking me about Landon—like, suspiciously,” Mel said. “As if I’d cheat on him! I’m not a cheater. If anyone should be mistrustful, it should be me after some of the rumors I’ve heard.”
I’d heard them too—but Melody was the most beautiful girl in our school, they’d been together over a year, and gossip in a small town was often just chin-wagging jealousy.
“You believe me, right?”
“Of course,” I said, meaning it. “Cheating in a town this size would make no sense. Everyone would know by yesterday.”
What she was or wasn’t doing with Landon didn’t matter, though, because that was when Clark was filmed screwing the spring-breaking college girl. I arrived to find Melody ripping the teddy bear he’d given her into fluff-filled smithereens.
I picked up a severed arm. “Aww, poor Beauregard.”
“Fuck Beauregard!” She snatched an empty box from the floor and began loading bear fragments into it. Next in—jewelry he’d given her, accumulated homecoming mums, dried flowers and printed photos, all torn into tiny pieces. “Let’s go.”
I d
rove to the public beach where she marched up to Clark, who had a girl on his lap. From the box I held, she showered him with armfuls of petals and photo bits and bear parts. She threw a bracelet at him and called him a cheating bastard.
Feet away, on the other side of the fire pit, Landon watched her, eyes blazing, tense and ready for Clark to do something stupid, and Boyce watched me, a lit cigarette in one hand and a koozied beer in the other. We hadn’t spoken since that kiss, other than his usual juvenile quips during biology—the ones that drove Mel and Mr. Quinn insane and made Landon smirk and shake his head and had me biting the inside of my cheek to suppress my smile.
At first I’d been confused, then disappointed, and then angry. I’d worked my way to acceptance, like when I’d known I was drowning and there was nothing I could do. He’d merely gone back to being Boyce Wynn, who did what he wanted and who he wanted. And I’d gone back to being Pearl Frank—star student, social royalty, good girl.
But I couldn’t forget that kiss. The fixed glint of his eyes across the fire said that neither could he.
chapter
Eight
Boyce
“The sandbar might work,” I said, staring at my boots and still thinking about the feel of Pearl in my arms that first time—her sweet, sweet mouth and her unexpected surrender to being kissed. I wondered what she’d do if I pulled her into my arms like that now, standing my kitchen. If I dared her to tell me no. Dared her to kiss me back.
She could have asked me to put my dad’s ashes in a rocket launcher and light the fuse right then and I’d have done it. I cleared my throat and shifted, raising my eyes to hers. “Maybe back in a marshy part.”
“Do you still have the boat?”
“Got a better one a few weeks ago—actual seats, no leaks in the hull.” I smirked. “It’s almost a damn yacht.” Her stepfather owned a Cruiser 275—which had a sofa and a bed and a damned bathroom on board. But for guys like me, ballin’ meant parking my ass on a padded chair for a day of fishing instead of a cold, hard metal bench.
“Mel’s going back to Dallas Saturday morning. Can it wait until then?”
Her question was an ice bucket of fucked-up reality. What the hell made me think anything would change just because we were adults? I was still her dirty little secret. I downed the rest of my beer, shoved off from the kitchen counter, and tossed the bottle in the green bin by the back door. “Sure. Unless I just flush him before then.”
Her laughter rang out, but the smile died off and her mouth fell open when she realized I might not be joking. “Boyce—you can’t… do that? To your father?”
“You know as well as anyone what a sadistic motherfucker he was.” My mother, wherever she was, knew. Maxfield knew.
I’d meant to unbalance her. I hadn’t counted on this goddamned hunger for her approval. Her sympathy even. What the actual fuck.
She walked to me, eyes searching mine, forehead furrowed, and I couldn’t move. Taking one of the fists at my side between her small hands, she said, “I know he made your life hell, Boyce, and it’s going to take you a while to work through it. I’m sorry I judged you—I didn’t mean to. You just shocked me a little, that’s all.”
My fist loosened between her palms. She saw right through me. She got me. It scared the hell out of me—how solidly she got me and how much I wanted her to, because that kind of need made me weak where she was concerned.
I nodded. “I wouldn’t do it.” Lie. If I hadn’t been concerned about the substandard plumbing running to and from this tin can, I’d have already dumped him.
She quirked a brow, her lips pursed like she wanted to make some smartass comment.
“Okay, yeah I would,” I admitted. “But he can wait till Saturday—he’s not goin’ anywhere. It’ll give me time to compose a eulogy and get flowers.”
“Right.” She chuckled, sliding her hands away from mine. “So… this place is all yours now. And the garage?”
I nodded. She couldn’t possibly be impressed with this shack masquerading as a home. “There’s some red tape to process. Mr. Amos—Dad’s old attorney—wanted me to look through his paperwork for a will, divorce papers, and anything to do with the business.”
“Did your dad even make a will?”
I shrugged. “No idea. So far I haven’t found anything but a bunch of useless crap. I took over running the garage almost two years ago—billing and accounts payable, dealing with the distributors, manufacturers we order from, that sorta thing, so that’s already separated out, thank Christ.”
“You’ve got your own business now, Boyce.”
Maybe I should have been a little pissed that she looked surprised, but I wanted to beat my chest. That’s right—I run my own business. I am The Man. In Pearl’s defense, she wasn’t the only one to be dumbfounded. I’d worked on my high school principal’s SUV last week—not only fixed it quick, but fixed it cheap. When Ingram came in, she was gushing oil like a West Texas rig—left a line of it straight up the driveway and thought the whole engine was about to fall out. I told her that unless she’d been driving off-road or slamming over curbs like a bat outta hell, that scenario was improbable. I think she expected me to gouge her in revenge for what a bitch she’d been in high school, but I stopped giving a crap about her the day I took that diploma from her hand. A fifty-dollar part and one hour of labor and she was on her way.
“That’s really cool.” Pearl rinsed her bottle before dropping it into the bin. “Here I am, still playing the what do I want to be when I grow up game, and you’ve got it all figured out—a career, a place of your own. Independence.”
“Jesus, Pearl—you’re shittin’ me, right? You could do anything. Fixing cars is what I do—all I can do. And yeah, I’m lucky that it’s also what I want to do. But you’ve got the world in front of you and the brains to do whatever you want. To make a difference in the world. Don’t go acting like you should have it all figured out by now just because I narrowed down to the one and only thing I’m capable of doing without fucking it up.”
She blinked at me. “You don’t think I’m possibly screwing up, quitting med school?”
I grinned. “Lemme pass on a little Boyce Wynn wisdom. You can’t quit if you don’t start.”
She laughed. “That’s what I tried to convince Mel and Mama of. They weren’t having it.”
“Melody gave you crap? Your mama’s one thing, but I thought Dover was your best friend.”
If Maxfield had quit college one semester in, or moved home after graduation and said he wanted to work on his dad’s boat instead of going after the work he’d trained to do, I wouldn’t have given him any shit about it. Having each other’s back is the foundation of any friendship. If your foundation is shit, your friendship is shit.
“Yeah, a bit. She was just alarmed, I think—afraid it was an impulsive decision. I never told her I was considering not going. In her mind—and everyone else’s—me heading for med school and ultimately becoming a surgeon was never in question. It was just… presumed.”
“You told me and not Dover?” Interesting.
“When I got accepted at the institute, yeah, you were the only one I told. Maybe because I knew you’d see right through me. You could see I wasn’t going to follow through because I was a coward.”
“Pearl—”
“It’s okay. It was true. I was afraid of what people would think or say, afraid of disappointing Mama and Thomas and anyone who’s ever had a hand in my education. I guess I still am. But it’s my life. My choice.”
“Damn right.” I literally clamped my jaw shut to keep from asking her if her choice could include a night in my bed. One more night to try to cure this never-ending ache, though I knew—and I’d known for years—I’d never get over her.
As if I’d broadcast that thought into the room, she set her half-full bottle on the counter and said, “I’ll see you Saturday then?”
The words hung between us, thick and unsaid: Dare you, Pearl. “I close up at three on Saturda
y, but I’ll have some end-of-week bookkeeping to do, and I’ll need to clean up. Get Dad ready.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed, and I pulled her into a hug for another round of self-torture.
Pearl
As I backed down the driveway, Boyce watched me from the top step of his trailer, both hands tucked into his front pockets. The tarnished porch lamp mounted next to the door left his face in shadow but shed a weak blue light over his shoulder, accentuating the shadowed lines of muscle along his arm—biceps brachii, brachialis, brachioradialis, triceps brachii, extensor carpi radialis and digitorum… I wanted to trace each one with my fingers, skimming the rock-hard curves and the valleys between them.
Back home less than two weeks and my long-concealed addiction had returned full throttle. I’d been so sure that college would abolish it—the two-hundred-mile separation, the thousands of guys on campus (there’d only been seventy-something boys in my entire high school), the parties and rushing and pledging, and last but not least the pressure that came with attending an academically distinguished university.
With my course load and sorority obligations, I hadn’t had much time to date, so I’d only had two official relationships: freshman year, lasting a whopping six weeks, with a frat douche named Geoffrey who had no clue what the title of “boyfriend” actually entailed, and two years later, Mitchell. Between them there were a series of standard hookups and almost-but-not-quites, most of those encounters so clumsy and unsatisfying that they were happily forgotten.
In four years, nothing had erased or even dimmed my memories of Boyce. His kiss. His touch. The disorienting intensity of his gaze. I was a different person now, and so was he, but apparently those transformations didn’t matter to this thing I felt. For my heart, he was a grounding wire, the needle of a compass, a gravitational pull.
For him, in high school, I’d been no more than a fixation, a conquest to be won. Before that, who knows? An obligation, perhaps—some odd sort of debt incurred the moment he’d saved my life. As I turned the corner at the end of his street, I glanced in the rearview mirror where he was still framed, half-eclipsed by the dark, a motionless silhouette.