“You want me to turn around?” I know she’s going to say yes, but I have to at least give her the option to try something new.
“No,” she mutters.
“Really? I mean, are you sure?”
She looks up at me as she tosses the pajamas onto the rollaway bed. “Yes. I’m sure.”
She pulls off her tank top and I try not to smile too wide when I see her white bra and the soft curve of her breasts. I’ve seen her in a bra before, but it was in the heat of the moment, with our bodies pressed against each other. Not like this, with her standing before me, her body on display.
She reaches up and lightly touches her fingertips to the six-inch scar over her breastbone.
I step forward, keeping my eyes focused on hers as I pull her hand away from her chest. “You’re gorgeous. Every inch of you.”
She lowers her head as she reaches behind her back to unclasp her bra. “You don’t think my boobs are too small?”
She slowly slips the bra straps off her shoulders and her breathing quickens as she peels it off and tosses it onto the bed next to her tank top.
“Too small?” I reply, unable to take my eyes off her slightly pink nipples. “No way. They’re perfect.”
She chuckles as she reaches for her pajama shirt. She pulls it on, then she undoes her shorts and shrugs out of them. Her skin has a bit of a bronze sheen from spending this week on the beach. I’ve seen her in her one-piece bathing suit almost every day since we came here, but something about watching her change in front of me feels more intimate.
She pulls on her pajama pants and throws her clothes in the hamper before she gets in under the covers. “I know it’s a small bed, but I don’t know where the spare blankets are for you to sleep on the floor. So I guess you’ll have to sleep with me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” she replies, scooting over and patting the mattress for me to lie down with her.
I turn off the lamp and slide into bed with her. The bed squeaks under my weight, and for a moment I worry that this will wake someone up. But then Abby snuggles up to me with her head on my shoulder and her arm draped over my belly, and all my worries disappear.
I kiss the top of her head and give her shoulder a light squeeze. “Goodnight, sunshine.”
“Goodnight, turtledove.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I OPEN MY EYES and the first thing I see is Caleb’s black T-shirt. I smell his warm skin through the fabric. When I look up, I’m not surprised to find Caleb is wide awake and watching me.
“How long have you been awake?”
“About an hour. I didn’t want to wake you up until 7:30 ’cause we don’t have to go to CVS until eight.”
“Are you saying I need all the beauty rest I can get?” I say as I push myself up onto my elbow.
“Exactly what I’m saying. Look at you. You’re hideous with that blonde hair tumbling over your graceful neck, highlighting the exquisite bone structure of your hideous visage.”
I shake my head as I sit up, but the bed is too narrow for me to sit cross-legged. “Is everyone else awake? You should go back to Ryder’s room.”
He chuckles at my suggestion as he sits up. “You know that boy is still asleep, but everyone else is awake. I heard Claire and Jimi arguing. Anyway, there’s no hiding this. Someone’s going to see me coming out of this room.”
“Wait. Aren’t they supposed to go to a music festival at Carolina Beach today?”
Caleb’s emerald eyes light up. “You’re right. And your mom said you couldn’t go.”
I roll my eyes at this. When I called my mom yesterday morning, I told her how the Knights were taking me to a music festival in Carolina Beach. She told me I couldn’t go because there would be too many people and I could easily overheat or get sick. Heart valve disease makes me more susceptible to endocarditis, an infection of the heart lining, vessels, or valves. I had endocarditis after the last surgery to reshape one of my leaflets, and my mom claims I almost died. Not that I don’t believe her, but I’ve come to realize that my mom will say just about anything to make me do what she wants.
Since endocarditis is caused by bacteria that enter the bloodstream, the chances of me getting it just by being around a bunch of people is ridiculous. But, as it is, she’s already overly skittish about me swimming at the beach in that “nasty” ocean water. I don’t want to press my luck by insisting on going to the music festival. Or she may drive down here herself and kidnap me.
“Well, I guess that means we have the house all to ourselves today,” I say, looking over my shoulder at him.
“Don’t get any ideas, Abby. I plan on holding onto my purity until my wedding night.”
“What about that girl you had sex with before we started going out? The one who tried to break us up. What was her name again? Bitch whore slut?”
“Abby!” He clutches his chest, pretending to be appalled. “That is one dirty mouth you’ve got there. Are you sure you’re a virgin?”
“As sure as I am that you’re going to try to feel me up today.”
He nods. “You’re pretty sure.”
“Should we go down there and have breakfast with them? Or should we just wait until they’re gone?”
Caleb swings his legs over the side of the bed and I feel a twinge of guilt to see him still in his T-shirt and jeans. “I wonder why they haven’t come in to check on us.”
“Maybe they don’t want to wake us? Maybe they figured you slept in here so you wouldn’t wake Ryder last night when we got back from the pharmacy? Maybe they’re actually cooler than we thought?”
As soon as I say this, we hear footsteps coming up the stairs. The footsteps pass right by Jimi’s closed bedroom door and continue down the hallway toward Ryder’s room. Junior yells at Ryder to get up and get his swimsuit on. They’re leaving early so they can find a place to set up their stuff on the beach.
“Let’s just wait until they’re gone,” Caleb whispers. “Then we can go to CVS and come back.”
I nod and sit perfectly still for fifteen minutes until they’ve all left the house. I shower in Jimi’s bathroom while Caleb uses the shower downstairs. Then we set off to the pharmacy. Once I have my prescription in hand, I dial my cardiologist’s emergency phone number and leave a message asking if it’s okay for me to take the pill on a Sunday.
“So what do you want to do today? Want to go swimming?” Caleb yells at me to be heard over the roaring rush of wind in our ears as we fly down Highway 74.
I tuck my skirt under my legs, then I close my eyes and the wind washes over my face, coaxing the moisture out the corners of my eyes and making my skin feel stale and tight.
“I want to stay in,” I shout back at him.
When we get home, I see I have a voicemail message from my cardiologist, Dr. Rosenthal. I get out of the car and listen to the message as Caleb puts up the ragtop.
“Good morning, Abby. This is Dr. Rosenthal. I received your message and I’d rather have you skip the dose than take it a day late. Just try not to engage in any strenuous activity this week and call 911 immediately if you have any symptoms of a blockage, such as numbness, speech problems, severe headache, or loss of balance. Hope you’re enjoying your summer at the beach. It’s important for a young girl such as yourself to have some fun. See you next month, Abby.”
“What did he say?” Caleb asks as we climb the steps to the back door.
“He said not to worry about taking it today.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and he said it’s important for a young girl such as myself to have some fun.”
Caleb laughs as we enter the cool air-conditioned living room. “I guess we know what that means.”
“What does that mean?”
Caleb closes the back door then looks at me as if I should know the answer to this question. “Hel-lo? Monopoly!” He grabs my waist and pulls me close. “I’ll be the race car. You can be the thimble.”
I lay my hand
s on his chest and my stomach flips as he gazes down at me with a hungry look in his eyes. “So, because I’m a woman I have to be the thimble? How sexist. Now I want to be the boot so I can kick your race car in the—”
“Whoa there! No need for violence.”
He leans down and plants a soft kiss on my lips. I reach up, curling my arms around his neck so I can return the gesture with a bit more passion. His lips are so smooth and kissable. I suck on his top lip and he groans softly into my mouth. Then something prods my thigh and I realize it’s the erection growing inside his cargo shorts.
I pull my head back to look at him. To let him know that I can feel how much he wants me. And that I want him just as much.
“I love you, Caleb.”
“I love you more, sunshine.”
He gazes into my eyes, his nostrils slightly flared as he slowly bends his knees and scoops me up into his arms. My heart races the second my feet leave the ground, but Caleb has carried me in his arms plenty of times. I’m not afraid he’ll drop me. I’m nervous about what’s going to happen when he puts me down.
He kisses my forehead, then he sets off up the stairs. He pushes Jimi’s door open with his foot and I feel a strange urge to giggle as he gently lays me down on the rollaway bed. Am I really going to lose my virginity on a creaky rollaway bed?
He lays half his body on top of mine and the other half on the bed. I press my lips together to keep from laughing.
“Are you nervous?” he asks, brushing my hair out of my eyes.
“Are we really going to do this?”
“Do what?”
I let out a nervous giggle. “This.” I look down at the place where his hips are lying on top of mine.
He looks confused. “What do you mean? We’ve done this plenty of times. Did you—” A smile spreads across his face. “Did you think I was bringing you up here to have sex?”
“You weren’t?”
He chuckles softly. “No, but now that we’re talking about it… Is that what you want?”
“Here?”
“Anywhere.”
My heart is starting to pound painfully against my chest. “Maybe I should take a Nitro before we talk about this.”
“Good idea.”
He jumps off the bed and we both kick off our shoes as he grabs my purse off the dresser. He sets it down on the bed and watches as I pop a small white tablet under my tongue. Once it’s dissolved, I hand him back my purse and he sets it down on the dresser. When he turns around, his eyes are closed. I wait a few seconds, but he just stands there.
“Caleb, what’s wrong?”
He opens his eyes and the muscle in his jaw twitches as he grits his teeth together, but the tears begin to fall despite his best efforts. I’ve never seen Caleb cry. Not even when his father died. I’ve seen him get down and I once saw him so angry with his life that I feared he might hurt himself. But I’ve never seen him cry. And just the sight of it scares me and instantly brings tears to my eyes.
“It’s not fair that you have to take medicine just to talk about something that other people take for granted. You deserve better, Abby. You deserve a real heart that’s just as strong as your figurative heart.”
He sits on the bed next to me and I sit up on my knees so I can wrap my arms around his neck. He pulls me into his lap and buries his face in my neck.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re all I have left.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Caleb.”
We hold each other for a while in silence, just breathing each other in, one slow breath after the other. Every once in a while, I plant a kiss on his jaw and he responds by squeezing me a bit tighter. Finally, I tilt my head back to look at his face and he’s not crying anymore, but his eyes are still a little red.
“I want to have sex… here.”
His eyebrows perk up. “Now?”
I sniff loudly as I nod. “Yes, now.”
He reaches up and his gaze is fixed on my mouth as he brushes the backs of his fingers over my cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you. Will you promise to tell me if I hurt you?”
“Of course.”
He slides his hand behind my neck and pulls my mouth to his. His tongue pushes forward, parting my lips, and I let out a soft sigh. His breath is hot in my mouth as I curl my fingers in his hair and suck on his tongue.
I pull my head back as I slide my lips down to the length of his tongue. Opening my eyes slowly, I smile when I see the surprised look on his face. I chew on my bottom lip and wait for him to say something. Instead, he takes me in his arms and flips me onto my back.
I giggle a little, but the nervous laughter quickly goes away when he rests both hands on either side of my head and leans down to kiss me. He kisses me slowly as his hips rock gently back and forth. With each stroke of his tongue and each slow thrust of his pelvis, the throbbing sensation between my legs intensifies.
One of his hands slides down between us and slowly gathers up my skirt until his hand is cupping my mound and I am so glad I took a Nitrostat or I’d be having a heart attack right now. I wonder if he can feel my flesh pulsating against his fingers as he gently strokes me through the cotton fabric of my panties.
He pulls his head back to look me in the eye as he touches me. His eyes light up as my mouth drops open and I suck in a sharp breath. He continues to stroke me softly until I’m panting heavily.
The bedroom door flies open and Caleb and I sit up quickly as Jimi storms in, no apology for interrupting us.
“Um… excuse me, but we kind of wanted some privacy,” I say, pulling my skirt down as I swing my legs over the side of the bed.
She glances at me then continues searching through her desk for something. “Um, excuse me, but I’m not the one who said you had to share a room with me. If you want some alone time to bone each other, maybe you should take it up with your parents.”
Jimi grabs a set of keys out of her desk drawer then turns on her heel to leave. I can feel Caleb looking at me, but I’m too stunned to move or speak. She hates me. She isn’t just threatened by me. She truly hates me.
It takes me a whole eight minutes to get my black suitcase out of the basement and get all my stuff packed up. All the while, Caleb just watches me in silence.
“You’re not even going to wait until they get back to say good-bye to them? You’re not even going to think about this, Abby?”
“Think about it? You want me to think about it? All I’ve done this week is think about why someone who has everything could envy someone who has nothing. I don’t even have my health, and she still thinks it’s okay to treat me as if I’m some princess who rode in and dethroned her.”
“You have nothing? What the fuck am I? Who the fuck are all the other people in this house who love you as if they’ve always known you? Do you call that nothing?”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I say as I try to drag my suitcase off the bed and it ends up falling on my foot. “Shit! Just take me home.”
“I’m not taking you anywhere until you calm down.”
“Fine. I’ll go without you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I FOLLOW ABBY out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door to the beach. We trudge through the hot sand in our bare feet, straight toward the water, not saying anything. When we’re far enough from the beach house, I finally ask the question that Abby needs to consider.
“How many times do you think Jimi has imagined what it would be like when you came back into her parents’ lives?” She turns when we reach the water’s edge so we’re walking parallel to the shore, but she doesn’t reply. “She’s probably thought about it a lot. She’s had years to think about it. She’s lived most of her life contemplating what it would be like. Don’t you think that at some point, she realized there was a chance things could go wrong? That the moment you arrived, she would no longer be Daddy and Mommy’s only girl? She would
no longer be special.”
“Her pain doesn’t invalidate mine, Caleb. Nice try, though.”
“I’m not implying that her feelings make your feelings invalid. All I’m saying is that you’re both entitled to have those feelings.”
“Does that also mean she’s entitled to treat me like a hobo? Like I’m here because I have nowhere else to go?” She stops walking and rounds on me. “I have a home with parents who love me. I don’t have to be here! I can leave whenever I want.”
“Which is exactly what she wants.”
“Oh, please spare me the ‘if you leave, Jimi wins’ speech. I’m a little too old to fall for that. This isn’t a competition to see who wins.”
“Just because it’s not a competition to you, it doesn’t mean that’s not exactly how Jimi sees it.”
“Ugh.” She throws up her hands then spins around and continues traipsing through the damp sand, while the families on the beach look at her as if she’s crazy. “If she wants to play a game she’s guaranteed to win, she should just challenge me to some strenuous activity.”
She puts air quotes around strenuous activity and I realize it’s not just Jimi that’s getting to her. She’s also angry that Jimi interrupted us when we were about to have sex.
I grab her hand and dig my feet into the sand to stop her. “Abby, there will be plenty more times for us to do what we were about to do. It doesn’t have to happen now. It doesn’t have to happen this year. But it will happen, eventually. And when it happens,” I take her face in my hands and kiss the tip of her nose, “it will happen somewhere where no one can interrupt us. God damn it, Jimi. Hey, want to go back and plant a rubber snake under her pillow?”
She shakes her head at my attempt to make light of the situation. “Okay, fine. I get it. I’m not going to let her get to me anymore. And I’ll stay… on one condition.”
I swipe my thumb across her bottom lip as I admire how beautiful she looks with the sunlight in her hair. “What condition?”
She puckers her lips to kiss the pad of my thumb, then she flashes me a smile so seductive it’s practically indecent. “I want to have sex today.”