HER EYES ALMOST glow in the dark.
We rest on our sides in my bed, facing each other with my hands tucked under my cheek. We can’t sleep, though, and I hadn’t been able to give her the shower she wanted. With my brothers being home, she preferred to stay in my room.
She scoots in, and I can feel her breath. “Tell me about your first time.”
I shift, a little uneasy. “It was in a car.”
My late father’s old Chevelle that Macon sold a year later to help pay for my junior year at Marymount.
I stare at her, drawing in a breath. “The carnival had come through the day before, and we’d spent all afternoon on the rides,” I tell her, “laughing and eating junk food and getting sun-scorched.” I can still feel the hot plastic of the sticky seats as my mind drifts to the memory. “I remember being so sweaty with my hair plastered to my back, but I’d never felt so alive. It was like everything vibrated off of my skin. The wind in my hair as the Spider whipped us around. The dizziness in my head, the tingles on my skin when she touched me, the cotton candy on her mouth… It heightened everything, and I didn’t care about the heat, because I was throbbing.”
I pull out my hand, sliding it down between her legs.
“I was throbbing here,” I clarified, starting to feel my pulse beat again at the curve of her through her panties. “She took me and laid me down on the back seat in the parking lot.” I licked my dry lips. “It was midday, the sun still bright overhead. I didn’t… I didn’t come. I was just too nervous, but I liked it. I wanted it again.” I laugh at myself, sounding bitter. “I thought I was in love. Jesus.”
Clay stays silent, and I’m grateful. I don’t want to talk about it, but I feel the tears spring up despite how many years it’s been and how I barely remember what she looked like.
I swallow. “She slept with Iron that night.”
Clay’s head shifts just a hair, but she still doesn’t say anything.
“Turns out she was just looking for a way in the door,” I murmur, dropping my eyes and remembering that slice of pain like it was yesterday. Her attention was an instant addiction, and for a just a little while I felt like I wanted to die. She wanted someone else. She wasn’t thinking of me every second like I was of her. “He never found out.”
It isn’t uncommon for things like that to happen. Thinking back now, I remember how girls would move from one bed to another in my house, using Trace to get to Dallas or using Army to get to Macon. Sanoa Bay is a small community. There aren’t many women at least one of your buddies or brothers hasn’t slept with. It never struck me as anything other than normal. Until I was the idiot who got played.
“How old were you?” Clay asked.
My eyes strain, aching. I close them. “Fifteen.”
Tears spill out, and I turn my head into my pillow to cover my face. Why am I crying? My body shakes, and I don’t know if I’m laughing at how ridiculous I am or trying to hide a sob.
I tilt my face to her again. “Why do people think sex doesn’t mean anything to us?” I ask, but don’t wait for an answer. “I was alone, and it felt good to have someone, but sex wasn’t all I wanted. I’d had nothing of my own, and maybe she was an escape for me that afternoon, but in hours it went from feeling like I finally had something to look forward to, to feeling like nothing. Used. Degraded. Trash. Like it meant everything to me and nothing to her.”
Even my own family. Not one of my brothers gives a shit about who I sleep with, because they think pregnancy is the only way I can be hurt. They don’t ask about girlfriends. They don’t think this is anything more than fun.
But Clay dives in, pressing her body flush with mine as she lays a hand on my cheek. “Stop crying,” she whispers, pressing her forehead to mine. “Please stop.”
I go to grab hold of her, slip my hand around her waist, but I hold back. I already told her too much.
But the tears keep coming, no matter how I try to hold my breath to stifle the crying.
“All right, I’m gonna shave her head,” she says. “Where can I find her?”
I break into a laugh through the sobs, wiping my eyes. But when I look at her, she’s lifted her head off the pillow, and while I can’t make out her whole expression, she’s not joking.
“Seriously,” she says, pushing me onto my back and climbing on top of me. “You’re under my protection now and I get shit done. Want her fired? Arrested? Her car repossessed?”
I smile, no more tears stinging as I slip my hands under her shirt—my T-shirt—and caress the fucking amazing skin on her smooth stomach.
“Porta-potty shit dumped on her lawn, maybe?” she goes on. “I know a guy.”
I snort, almost able to see her waggling her eyebrows with mischief. She wears my black “Headlines don’t sell papes. Newsies sell papes.” theater T-shirt, the sleeves cut off and the sides cut out. I pull my hands out from under and slip them under the arms, her bare breasts so easily accessible.
It takes no time at all for my body to stir.
“Tell me about your first time,” I tease, breathless, as her nipples turn rock hard under my fingers.
I’m not sure if the locker room, the shower, or the hotel constitutes our first time, but I damn-well know it was me.
She pulls my black top hat, a relic from the discard pile when we sorted old costumes last year for donations, from my bedpost and fits it on top of her head. Underwear, T-shirt, freshly fucked hair falling down her body…God, she’s hot.
She drags her fingertips down my body, playing. “Well, I always thought it would be a huge endeavor,” she sighs. “I’d know exactly when it was going to happen. I’d be in total control, planning out every detail.” And she lists on her fingers, “The location. The music. Protection. Looking my best. I’d do everything I could to make it perfect.”
I can imagine she even had an outfit picked out. Clay’s a micro-manager.
“But the perfect moment found me, instead.” Her voice softens, serious. “And I couldn’t stop it.”
I scale my hands underneath her arms, and we meet, her coming down and me rising up until her arms are wrapped around me and we crash to the bed. The hat tumbles off her head.
“She was better than I’d dreamed,” she tells me against my cheek. “Nothing could tear me away from her.”
Nothing. How hard it would’ve been to stop if she’d asked me to in the hotel room. I would’ve, but it would’ve been painful. There was no music. We weren’t alone. We didn’t plan it, and we were both disheveled. Nothing went according to her idea of perfection, because you realize everything you end up wanting is the last thing you expected.
But it was perfect. God, it was good.
“I’d dreamed of her a lot before we did it,” she says. “Sometimes I’d lock my door at night and take off my clothes.”
A jolt hits me down low. While she was busy hating me, she was fantasizing about me, too.
She settles her head on my shoulder, her lips tickling my neck. “I wanted to feel my sheets on my skin like I would if I were in bed with her.”
Like now . My brothers’ laughter carries up the stairs, and I wish I was alone in the house with her, because I’m tired of worrying about being interrupted or caught.
But I can already feel her growing heavy on me, her speech getting sleepy, and we have school tomorrow.
“Did you dream about me holding you like this?” I ask her.
She nods. “Except in the dream, you’re the boss, and I’m your assistant and we’re going to New York on a business trip for the weekend. It was kind of hot for you to abuse your authority on me in bed when I simply bring you papers to sign to your room that night, but then…”
“Yes?”
She holds her breath for a moment and then sighs heavily. “I was in a turtleneck on the plane.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“A black one,” she spits out. “Me. In a black turtleneck. And you made me style my hair in a ponytail like Ariana Grande, and you know I don’t look good with my hair pulled away from my face. It was awful.”
I laugh, holding her close and shaking. I feel her smile on my neck.
Threading my fingers through her hair, I pull her lips up to mine. “I like ponytails,” I tell her, layering our lips. “I need a good handle on you.”
She shivers, and we kiss, going in for more and more. Visions of wrapping her hair around my fist, her on her hands and knees… My stomach swims.
“How about I dream of you tonight, instead?” I ask her. “I’ll be thinking about that dance for the rest of my life.”
She nods once, sounding pleased with herself. “Good.”
I don’t think my brothers ever got lap dances they didn’t pay for. I’m loving my sex life lately.
Gently, I slide out from underneath her. “I’ll be back, okay?” I leave a kiss on her cheekbone. “Get some sleep.”
“’Kay.”
She tucks a pillow under her head, remaining on her stomach on top of the covers. I pull on some black cotton shorts, my loose white tank top a little see-through with my purple bra, but they’ll live with it. I need water.
We need water.
I walk for my door.
“Liv?” she calls.
I stop and turn my head, my hand on the knob.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
I shake my head, amused. “Is this becoming a habit for you? What are you sorry for now?”
“You said you were fifteen,” she says. “We knew each other by then. I wanted you by then.”
When I lost my virginity in the back of a car.
“You should’ve been at that carnival with me,” she tells me.
A knot tightens in my throat. I would’ve loved that. For her to realize sooner that this was going to be good. We might’ve been happier years ago.
But Clay has hurt me as much, if not more, than anyone else, so who’s to say anything would’ve been different. She might’ve broken my heart back then, too. It was always a risk.
“Go to sleep,” I tell her. “I’ll be back.”
I leave, closing the door quietly and heading down the stairs, my bare feet picking up the dirt my brothers tracked in. I growl under my breath, knowing who’s going to have to clean it up.
“Did you see him limping away?” I hear Trace shout. “I was like bam! I almost broke his damn neck.”
I pass them in the living room, grab a cup and pour some water from the Brita pitcher into the glass.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Dallas replied. “We’re not done with them.”
“You got that right,” Iron adds. “And I hope they fucking come over here. God, please.”
I step back into the living room, the TV playing Castlevania on low volume, while Trace throws up his booted legs onto the coffee table, knocking over empty beer bottles.
They’re drunk. But at least they’re safe. I walk over and swipe up three bottles by the neck with one hand and dump them in the trash. I plop down on the couch, next to Trace, Iron on his other side and Dallas in the chair.
Where the hell were Macon and Army? Did they know about the fight?
“Where’d you disappear to?” Dallas asks me, picking up his bottle off the end table.
I sip my water. “Were you looking for me?”
He makes a face, and I breathe out a laugh. Of course, he wasn’t. Probably didn’t realize I was gone until just now.
Trace belches and scoffs at the same time. “Just have her out of here before Macon sees her,” he says.
I look away, not sure how he knows I have Clay in the bedroom. But before I can respond, headlights flash through the front windows, and we all turn our heads.
In less than five seconds, Macon is barreling through the front door, and my heart leaps into my throat, seeing the rage all over his face.
His eyes dart over the room, his jaw set, and he lands on Iron, rushing over with his arms flying. He swings at Iron, and I drop the glass to the rug, curling into a ball and turning away.
“Macon!” Army shouts, coming through the front door next.
But no one moves.
“You fucking fought?” Macon bellows at him.
I steal a peek, nausea rolling through me as he slaps Iron again and again, and even though Iron is nearly as big, he doesn’t dare fight back. He just holds his arms over his head, trying to protect himself.
“You goddamn motherfucker!” Macon growls and then launches over and swings at Dallas. He shields himself best he can in the chair.
“Macon!” Trace yells.
“Goddammit!” Macon fires back, slamming Iron over the head again. “Goddammit, you lousy sons of bitches!”
“We had to, Macon,” Trace tells him.
“Shut up!” And Macon slaps Trace twice over the skull, as well.
He rises, breathing hard and fists balled as he glares down at his brothers. I look away, my whole body in a knot.
Then, Macon kicks the coffee table, sending it toppling over to its side and everything onto the floor.
“You think those fucking little shits will spend a single night in jail with their connected mommies and daddies?” he shouts. “Do you? Huh?”
“Macon…” Trace tries, but my brother isn’t listening.
“Goddammit,” he growls and storms out of the room, shoving a small table in the foyer to the floor as he passes.
Doors slam, and I look over, seeing Dallas beet red and sweating, but sitting in the chair quiet and frozen. Iron has a cut on his cheek, a thin line of red glimmering in the light. Trace leans his elbows onto his knees, the laughter and pride they felt five minutes ago all gone now.
Dex cries upstairs, and Army turns to go, but he stops and faces us. “You guys got any goddamn idea how much pressure he’s under?” He only pauses a moment before he slams his hand into the wall, shouting, “Do you?”
He steps up to Iron who can’t face him eye to eye. He stares at the floor.
“What’s he going to have to give them to keep your ass out of jail?” Army grits out. “You ever think of that? You’re tying his hands, Iron!”
I blink, reminded that our situation in Sanoa Bay is growing precarious. Or more precarious than I let myself believe.
And Macon hasn’t told us.
But he’s scared. Very scared. That’s very obvious now.
I still sit with my knees up to my chest, but my muscles have relaxed a little as Dex cries.
I almost rise to get him, but Army turns to leave.
He stops once more at the entryway. “You know, we were supposed to grow up someday,” he says over his shoulder. “Eventually, we were supposed to grow up, and he wasn’t going to have to do everything alone anymore.”
I bite the corner of my mouth to stifle the sudden guilt. I want to leave. Dallas has zero attachment here. Trace and Iron are constantly fucking up and putting themselves at risk. Army has a kid who takes precedence.
“He wasn’t always going to be the only one to care about this family,” Army says, something strangled in his voice. “That’s what he thought anyway.”
And he leaves, heading up the stairs to his son.
It was a helluva thing, to put this burden on people. To stay someplace you weren’t happy. To support people who expect rather than appreciate. To know that a richer life is out there and not have the freedom to seize it.
For a long time, I’ve known that Macon is just as trapped as I am, but for the first time, I pity him, because he must know this is all for nothing. Even now, he must feel it. Are we worth saving?
I trail back up the stairs, hearing Army in his room playing Van Morrison for Dex, and spare a glance across the hall to Macon’s closed door. There’s no light coming from underneath, and for the first time, I realize he sleeps in the room where my mother killed herself. Every night he sleeps in there.
I enter my room, my gaze lingering on Clay sleeping soundly on the bed, but I don’t go to her. Heading to my desk, I pull open a drawer and take out the chain I wore tonight, slipping the key off of it. I turn around and lean back against the chair, watching her again. My insides cripple with the same fear as I look at her. This will all be for nothing.
But I’m going to have her for as long as I can.
I stare at it in my palm, the sharp copper glinting in the twinkle lights wrapped around my wrought-iron headboard.
When you’re in the eye of the storm, the only way out is through.
You win, Macon. I’ll protect the family.
