CHAPTER 21 #4
I pressed forward, deepening the kiss, my hand sliding up his arm to hook behind his neck—his hot neck. His skin burned beneath my palm, as if the fire inside me was catching on him, lighting us both from the inside out.
Beck made a quiet sound against my mouth, and his hand rose, brushing my arm. For a beat, I caught his lower lip between mine, savoring the tiny moment that belonged entirely to me, prepared for him to break away.
But Beck didn’t.
Beck’s hand came up to my jaw, thumb brushing my cheek like he meant to tilt my face the way he wanted. His hand slid from my arm to my waist, and then from my waist around to the small of my back. All five of his fingers splayed wide on the back of my dress, pressing me closer.
I tightened my fingers at the back of his neck, bringing him a little closer and changing the angle before he could.
He paused—just long enough for me to feel his surprise.
Beck followed my pace instead of setting it, and when I pressed a little closer, he breathed out softly like he’d been holding something in.
I fell back from my tiptoes, and Beck chased the distance as if magnetized, shuffling his feet apart so he had easier access. I curled my fingers into his bleached hair, tugging on the strands, content with the idea of staying here forever.
There were no words to spell, no letters in my mind, just the roar of blood in my ears and butterflies in my stomach.
His lips pulled back a fraction of an inch to kiss me once, twice, again and again.
Surely I was about to explode, or float right away, and I knew I’d repeat this moment in my mind, over and over again so I’d never forget it.
From the beginning to the end.
“See, I told you! I told you I thought I saw them go out to the garden together!”
And just like that, the narrow window of time slammed closed at the sound of Lydia Johnson’s piercing voice.
Beck flinched away from me as if jolted by an electrical shock, but his hand still held my arm. The blood rushed into my head as I turned toward the horror scene to my right.
Lydia stood between a set of rosebushes, but she wasn’t the only one. She stood beside Mrs. Pembleton, with Dr. Pembleton behind her, and Carter beside his mother. The only other person was Daisy, whose eyes were wide, but in a dang, girl, get it sort of way.
“Carter, didn’t you say Nellie was your girlfriend?” Lydia reached for Carter’s hand. “She’s cheating on you already!”
Despite the horrifying scene, heat spread through me. I took a step toward her, ready to pop her air-filled head right off.
But Beck’s hold on my arm tightened. He, too, looked pale, except for the red kissing the tops of his ears.
My parted lips tingled, my mind too slow to do anything but cast letters around me like alphabet soup. “Nellie—she—it isn’t what it looks like,” I heard Daisy say, fumbling to save the scene before everyone. “They were just… talking.”
“That clearly wasn’t what was happening,” Lydia replied, far too many theatrics in her voice. Almost as if she were reading off a script. “They were clearly kissing!”
All of my anger in this situation was directed toward Lydia, narrating a scene that people with eyes could see. If she were smart, she would’ve kept silent. She wouldn’t have given anyone room to question whether or not this was a setup. But Lydia was not smart. Lydia did not think things through.
I’m not like you, who thinks things through and follows their strategy down to the letter. I am far more impulsive.
I thought of the way Beck’s eyes kept flicking to the mouth of the serenity garden, as if he heard someone.
Or was waiting for someone.
Someone like Lydia.
For a moment, I just stood there, fighting the urge to laugh. I-R-O-N-I-C.
Mrs. Pembleton stepped forward, past her dropped-mouth husband. “Are you two-timing our son?” she demanded, the bobbles on her earrings swaying violently with the way she threw her head. “How could you humiliate him like this?”
In this exact situation four years ago, I’d avoided the blame, slinging off the mud of it and throwing it onto Beck. I’d buckled under the pressure of being perceived as perfect. It’d been easy to do; second nature. And here I was again, face to face with the same choice.
H-U-M-I-L-I-A-T-E. I met Carter’s eyes across the garden, and at the worry in his, a pang of guilt hitting me square in the chest. I’d had one job—he’d asked one thing of me, and I’d screwed it all up. Because it had been me.
“I—I kissed her,” Beck said, but his voice lacked strength. “I kissed Eleanor. I—she—she tried to stop me—”
Now my jaw dropped open, and I turned toward him. “Uh, no, I didn’t—”
“Nobody buys that,” Lydia tried to interject.
To which Daisy groaned, “Shut up, Lydia.”
“I knew something was off about you,” Mrs. Pembleton went on, taking a step closer. She would’ve continued if her husband hadn’t grabbed her wrist. “You never wanted to meet us, and now this is why—you two-timing little—”
Beck pulled on my arm, tucking me ever so slightly behind him. “That’s enough.”
“Says the guy she was cheating on my son with!”
The bickering grew in strength, and for some reason, it made me think about the crackle of the rosebush flames all those years ago.
Lydia and Daisy were going bar for bar, and Mrs. Pembleton tried to advance on Beck, still held back by her husband.
Carter looked at me from across the cobblestones, expression pinched and sorry.
For a serenity garden, it had a bad reputation. L-O-U-D.
“Mrs. Pembleton,” I began, cutting through the voices. My brain wasn’t moving fast enough, too dazed by what’d happened with Beck. “Dr. Pembleton. I—I wasn’t trying to humiliate your son. Or you. I—I was just—” trying to think of an excuse and coming up empty.
And then Carter, with one great rush, broke. “It wasn’t real.”
My eyebrows shot up, and so did everyone’s in the garden. Beck’s hand slipped on my arm, fingers falling to my wrist, and loosely hanging there.
It took Carter several beats to work up the courage to speak again, his face pinched, as if he was bracing for a blow.
“I’ve been lying. Eleanor and I aren’t dating.
We… never were.” He curled his hands into fists and turned toward his mother.
“You kept pushing dating down my throat, setting me up with people I didn’t even know—I don’t want to date. Not Lydia, not Eleanor, not anyone.”
Lydia, at his mother’s side, wilted. Despite everything, I felt a pang for her.
“I thought that if I started dating someone like Eleanor, you’d finally leave it alone,” Carter went on, his chest rising and falling fast. “I had to ask someone else to help me, because I was too cowardly to face you.”
I watched his parents’ expressions as Carter faced them down. Mrs. Pembleton looked stricken, as if she couldn’t believe her son was saying these things in front of other people. Dr. Pembleton looked… amused?
“I get it, that I’m not the most impressive son. That I’m weird, and like weird things, and that you wish I were normal. But I’m not, Mom. I never will be. And I wish you’d stop trying to force me down a path you chose. I wish you’d let me choose my own.”
Daisy was nodding ever so slightly, silently cheering him on.
The garden fell quiet again, with everyone sort of braced for what would happen next.
I wanted to go over to Carter to be his moral support at his side, but he stood well on his own.
He might not have wanted to stand up to his parents, but I was proud of him for not backing down.
Especially given how fierce his mother’s eyes were.
Dr. Pembleton laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Maybe we should take this in private,” he murmured to her, managing to stifle the humor that’d been in his eyes. “Let’s not interrupt Eleanor’s birthday.”
Mrs. Pembleton didn’t seem too bothered by the idea of interrupting my birthday. But instead of saying anything, she gave her son a once-over and turned on her heel. They left the serenity garden in a huff, but Carter lingered for a moment, his eyes finding mine.
My shoulders drooped as I took a step toward him. “I’m sorry—”
But he shook his head. “No, I’m sorry.” And then, with one last awkward smile, Carter followed after his parents.
I decided I’d message him tomorrow, after everything had a chance to die down, and check in. Because even if I didn’t have feelings for him romantically, Carter-slash-Mr. ASMR was my friend, and guilt over messing this up squeezed me tight.
Lydia stomped over to us. “What happened to the plan?” Lydia demanded, eyes wild. “You—you were supposed to help me!”
It took me a second to realize she wasn’t talking to me, but to Beck. Beck’s hand, which had still been braceleting my wrist, tightened, as if he were afraid I’d yank away. “I never said—”
“What plan?” Daisy demanded, whirling on Lydia. “Did you make a plan to humiliate Nellie? On her birthday?”
I shook my head. “It’s okay, Daisy—”
“All right!” A figure stepped out from around the rosebush, clapping their hands together. “I was holding out during the first bout of back and forth, but I think I’ll interrupt the second.”
It was a voice I hadn’t been expecting in the slightest. A voice I’d heard earlier this week, though only for a moment, and through the crackle of Dad’s phone.
Destelle.
And when I lifted my head, I found myself looking directly at my sister.
Her brown hair was curly and a little frizzy in the humid night air, pulled out of her face to give me a clear view of amusement there.
She wore a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, so completely different from the attire of everyone else, but there was still something elegant about her, like just an air she possessed.
Except her presence made no sense, nor the affectionate look on her face. “What—what are you doing here?” I asked.
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “They’re looking for you to blow out the candles.”
“What are you doing here?” I tried again, taking a step forward. This time, Beck’s hand slipped off my wrist. “At Alderton-Du Ponte. I—I thought—I didn’t think you were coming.”
“You think I’d miss your eighteenth birthday?” Destelle quickly frowned. “Well, not intentionally. My flight was delayed twice out of Tulsa. Remind me to never have a layover there again. That’s why Dad was late, and why I’m dressed like this—he had to pick me up straight from the airport.”
I-N-T-E-N-T-I-O-N-A-L-L-Y.
F-L-I-G-H-T.
L-A-Y-O-V-E-R. The words whizzed by me, making less sense in my mind than they had when she’d spoken them. “You—”
“Unless you want Mom and Dad coming out here and finding—whatever it is that’s going on—” Destelle walked up and grabbed my hand. “We should go blow out your candles.”
I resisted at first, looking over my shoulder. Beck hadn’t moved, still looking at me with wide eyes and slightly swollen parted lips. For some reason, the sight had me feeling panicked. “Don’t leave,” I told him.
Beck, swallowing hard, only nodded.
Destelle didn’t waste a second before pulling me away, out of the serenity garden. Daisy was hot on our heels, but Lydia and Beck didn’t follow. I peeked over my shoulder, holding Beck’s gaze until a rosebush cut off our view.
“That went well,” Daisy said as she came up on my other side. “Right? Did that go well? I mean, it looked like it was going well when we got to the garden—”
I couldn’t answer her, though, my head too filled to the brim with everything that’d happened. Chess with Beck. Kissing him. Him kissing me back. Carter. Destelle.
“That your boyfriend?” Destelle asked as we hurried back toward the country club, jostling me closer to her.
Her hand was warm on my shoulder, and the familiar scent of her had the tension in my shoulders easing.
Despite everything, when I looked over at her, I felt my lips tip toward something like a smile. “Your big sis so approves.”