I open my mouth, but words stick to the back of my throat.
“Why are you so upset? You’re Maximoff Hale,” he practically spits out my name. “You can do anything by yourself and then some.”
I think about Jason again. I think about how I was holding onto Charlie at Harvard like a familiar lifeline. If he wants to bail on college…that’s fine. I can’t trap him, but I just don’t understand why he’s doing this all of a sudden.
And yeah, I want an answer.
Is that so fucking bad of me? “Just tell me why—”
He nears, bridging the distance, but not in a good way. “I can’t stand to look at you. To be around you, and I’d rather bathe in peroxide than suffer four years of college with you.” Charlie watches my face contort. “Can’t handle the fact that someone dislikes you?”
“Oooh,” an audience says, ogling us from the yacht. They push up against the railing and stare down at the wooden dock where I combat my cousin.
“Fuck you.” I glare. Charlie knows classmates have hated me. Just not family. I point at him. “You’re just an immature sixteen-year-old kid who likes pretending he’s an adult, but you’re one of the most irresponsible, self-involved—” I see his right hook, and I slip left, dodging the blow.
I’m on autopilot, a reflex, and I swing at him. My fist lands with a thump against his jaw.
Shit.
I raise my hand, not wanting to seriously injure him. I’m more muscular, stronger. Even if he’s an inch taller. “Charlie—”
His narrowed eyes drill into my skull. And he launches another punch. His knuckles smash into my cheekbone.
“Ohhhh!” the audience clamors.
I wince and shove him back hard. He tries to nail my ribs. I shove him again.
“Isn’t this what you’re good at?!” he yells. “Hit me!”
I’m wound up, about to snap, and when he comes at me for a third time, I seize his shoulder. I slam a fist into his abs, and he barrels his weight into me. Until we’re on the dock. Wrestling with one another. Spit flying, fists digging, and pulses pounding.
I bust skin on his cheek.
He pummels my already battered ribs. Some kind of hate brews like acid between us, and I can’t end it. I don’t know how.
I’m on my back. And right as I turn my head towards him, he launches an uppercut. His knuckles bash my chin and catch my nose—goddammit.
Blood just pours out of my nostrils. Charlie stands off me, and I sit up, cupping my hands to my face. Breathing heavily.
I try to ignore the cacophony from the damn yacht, the “oh shits” and “fuuuucks”.
I rise to one knee, my muscles on fire.
Wanting to scream.
But I look up. Charlie touches the wound on his cheek, his whole body as badly beaten as mine, and he inhales a strong, sharp breath.
“Don’t do this, Charlie,” I say, voice muffled with my bloodied nose. I don’t want us to be distant. I don’t want to return to what we were when we were younger.
Charlie sways, but he catches his balance, then steps closer. Towering. “You want the cold-hearted truth?” His voice is a deep, pained whisper, so only I hear. “I’d be better off if you never even existed.”
My eyes burn. A hurt I’ve never felt before plunges through me like twenty knives to my lungs. Worse than any punch or kick.
Charlie turns and leaves for the marina’s restaurant.
Blood seeps through the cracks of my fingers, dripping down my bare chest. My pulse is lodged in my throat. But I try to distract myself by focusing on the blood. Not Charlie, who disappears out of sight.
I try to staunch my nose with my bicep, and then a wadded up black shirt suddenly lands by my knee. I glance at the yacht, looking for the person who threw it at me.
The audience already starts dispersing. Faces too hard to recognize from down here. I gratefully ball the shirt and press the fabric to my nose. And I rise to my feet.
Back on the yacht, I manage to bypass most people. I make my way to the empty bow, darkened since all but one torch is snuffed. Beige cushions form a sunbathing pad, but I don’t sit.
I squat, slightly wincing, and rifle through a blue cooler. Ice all melted, cans of beer and soda float in lukewarm water.
I stare faraway. Charlie’s words ring in my ears. I’d be better off if you never even existed.
You can do anything by yourself and then some.
Have you ever felt like you need something or someone? Just for one moment.
Just one damn second.
I’m rarely alone, but I’m not talking about Jane or my parents or any of my siblings or family. Have you ever felt like you’re missing something? Like a void exists, and you’re not sure how to fill that space?
Maybe it’s not supposed to be filled. Maybe this is it, and I have to be satisfied with this carved out chunk, this hollowness.
I’d be better off if you never even existed.
Yeah.
“Move, wolf scout.”
My head swerves abruptly towards the only guy who calls me that. The concierge doctor’s twenty-four-year-old son.
Farrow Redford Keene.
Black swim trunks hang low on his muscular waist. I almost drink in his body. He’s lean-cut and sculpted, but instead of a swimmer’s build like mine, his stature screams MMA fighter.
What’s more, his bleach-white hair is pushed back, nose pierced, and the sexiest tattoos crawl up his fucking neck and down his chest. Inked pirates, skulls, ships, daggers, sparrows and swallows.
I’m trying my hardest not to give Farrow an obvious once-over. But he hovers close. Like actually right beside me while I’m frozen in a squat.
How long has he been there?
Farrow raises his dark brows at me. Like I’m not catching on fast enough, but he chews a piece of gum with a sense of unhurriedness. Then he rolls his eyes and just squats beside me.
I watch him rummage through the cooler.
Fuck, he wanted me to move out of the damn way.
I rake a hand through my hair, waking up out of a dark stupor. “What do you need?” I ask, licking my lip a few times, tasting iron from blood. I keep the black shirt wadded in my hand.
“Don’t worry about it.” Farrow grabs a couple of beers and then glances at me for a short beat. “You look like shit.” He stands.
I stand. “Thank you,” I say, sarcasm thick. “For a second there, I thought blood was an attractive accessory. You know, like a hat, a scarf, a goddamn lightsaber.”
His lips upturn. “You would find lightsabers attractive.”
I almost groan, trying not to crack a smile. He’s irritating four-fifths of the time. The one-fifth makes me almost break into a weird grin. I give him a look. “Did I say that lightsabers were attractive?”
“In so many words.” Farrow stacks his beer cans in one hand, like he’s about to leave. But he hones in on my bloodied chest from my nosebleed.
I lick my lips again, inhaling a deeper breath. Something powerful surging into me. Stay.
“Farrow!” a guy calls from inside the galley. Farrow keeps his gaze on me.
I keep mine on him.
Then he walks backwards to the yacht door, towards that voice. “Need anything, wolf scout?”
Yeah.
I shake my head. “No.”
His gaze drops to the black shirt in my hand, and his smile stretches wide. “Keep it.”
“What?”
“My shirt. I don’t need it back.”
Holy…shit. I have no time to protest or offer to return the shirt—he already exits into the galley.
You’ll never believe this, but I’m smiling. I laugh to myself, my chest swelling with a better, lighter feeling. I glance back at the shut door, then the dark horizon. Ocean ripples below, calling me, to free me.
Fuck it.
I run. Onto the sunbathing cushions, and I leap and dive off the bow. Water cocoons me like a hug and a welcome home.
1
MAXIMOFF HALE
Hurrying, I pull on a plain green shirt in a lake house bedroom. My elbow catches a bear-shaped lamp—I reach out too late. Fuck.
Glass crashes on the hardwood and shatters.
I quickly squat, barefoot, and pick up the larger shards. All things considered with my family issues, a broken lamp isn’t a big deal.
I can handle it.
As I gather the pieces, Farrow lowers to a crouch and helps collect the sharp glass—also while fitting in his earpiece. A radio is already clipped to his black pants.
I open my mouth to protest. To say, I got it.
But I stop myself and just watch him. My tattooed-childhood-crush-turned boyfriend. We were just watching The Fast and the Furious on my laptop. I paused the movie only fifteen minutes in.
Because both of our phones rang unceremoniously. I should already be halfway downstairs. But I’d much rather be dealing with a broken lamp with Farrow.
He sweeps the tiny slivers into his palm, his focus on the fragments near my feet. And the more I watch him, the more I think, lucky me.
Seriously, I’m damn lucky.
A few hours ago we hiked the top of a mountain.
I told him I loved him.
He said he loved me.
Adrenaline still pumps hot in my veins from the moment, but the current fallout from the media clings to me like a backpack of cement. He’s the only one I’d even consider unbuckling the backpack for and passing half the weight.