Chapter 5
June
We spent forever at Amelia’s house. She couldn’t decide what bikini to wear, while Poppy did nothing but admire herself in the mirror.
When we finally arrived at the party location, we walked into a dark, trench-like underground space.
I couldn’t make out even one familiar face.
Everything was pitch black, illuminated by garish neon colors.
It felt like they’d cranked the heat up as much as possible.
The air was so suffocating that I wouldn’t be surprised if I passed out .
Everyone was wearing swimsuits with the exception of a few people including, obviously, me.
“It’s too hot, why don’t they turn the heat down?” I shouted at Amelia, who couldn’t even hear me.
“Because you were supposed to come here in a swimsuit, sweetheart,” a random guy mumbled.
“Eww,” I said as I stuck to my friends like glue for fear that another drunk guy would talk to me.
We stood around a small table. Two figures joined us.
“June! So they didn’t kidnap you.” Blaze said, wearing a T-shirt and long pants, while Brian was wearing a swimsuit that showed off his bronzed, tattooed figure.
“We’re among the chosen few, huh, June?” asked Blaze, pointing at my clothes.
“I have a swimsuit under, but I didn’t feel like . . .”
“Tell me about it. The competition is stiff.” Blaze smiled, patting his stomach while his eyes gazed at something behind me.
We mere mortals had already lost the competition, I thought as I admired Poppy, Amelia, and Brian.
But Blaze’s attention seemed to be captured by something at the entrance.
I turned around, and three figures theatrically made their entrance under the neon lights.
Jackson was burly with broad shoulders and above-average height.
William flaunted a halo of ashen hair that framed his angelic face and a lean figure that made him look like a runway model.
James was almost six-two, a block of veins and flexing muscles that were the result of countless hours playing sports.
“What do you care about them? We’re not at a fashion show.” I downplayed their entrance, my mouth unexpectedly dry.
“So? Are you gonna get something to drink or not? June and I need to talk.” Amelia tried to shoo them away.
Blaze rolled his eyes, and Brian hinted a smile at me.
I don’t know why, but I was embarrassed around him.
Maybe it was because he was attractive and half naked, not to mention being Amelia’s brother, and watching me like a hawk.
Jackson passed by us inspecting Amelia and me with such a haughty look that it seemed disdainful while James sneered as soon as he saw me.
“Idiot.” Amelia snorted. I looked at her.
“What happened at Tiffany’s party?”
I’d waited a while, so I wasn’t beating around the bush.
“First of all, how do you know that—”
Poppy hid behind a sticky menu while Amelia shook her head.
“Look, June, nothing really happened. James and I were trashed, and he tried to take advantage of me despite me refusing several times. Brian walked in and went ballistic.” I watched her without batting an eye. I was expecting another lie.
Poppy maintained that nothing had ever happened between Amelia and James. And my gut told me not to believe a single word from Amelia.
Not to mention she seemed extremely chill for someone remembering such a violent attempt. I thought about all the times Austin had come near me, and it still gave me the shivers. I remembered perfectly well the fear I’d felt during that experience.
“Are you sure about that? Did James really do something to you?” I pressed, whispering, as Blaze came back with two drinks overflowing with ice and alcohol.
“Yeah. I mean he didn’t, but I was really upset. Brian walked in right then and beat the crap out of him.”
“All here?” I asked, bewildered.
Blaze didn’t look up from the table.
“All here if we don’t count the time that that asshole broke two of my ribs the next day and sent me to the hospital.”
Brian’s calm, deep voice startled me.
“Do you mean when they sent him to juvie?”
He nodded, staring at Amelia.
“But it does beg the question, why’d James beat you up, Brian?”
Amelia blinked nervously.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Out of spite for what I just told you, for what I did to him the day before. Except he went off even more, and I ended up in the hospital.” Brian’s green eyes darkened, staring at something in front of him.
Marvin and Jackson were sprawled on a velvet couch with two girls next to them.
Will was talking with James, who didn’t look like he was paying much attention to him.
He was concentrating on painting a girl’s décolletage as she took a big swig of sparkling wine.
“Look at them. They think they’re kings of the world when they’re just criminals with too much money in the bank,” snarled Brian, grabbing a cup.
Blaze shot me a worried look, before walking away with him.
“Did James try to force you to do something?” I whispered in Amelia’s ear.
“I don’t really remember. I told you, I was drunk.”
“How can you be so casual about it? What if he didn’t do anything to you? It’s awful to accuse him if you don’t remember very well. But if he did do something, he needs to face the consequences.”
“What on earth do you mean? It’s James!” countered Amelia, as if that was a good enough explanation.
“So he’s your scapegoat when something happens?”
“Do you hear yourself, June? You’re defending him too? Why don’t you go be with him instead of us then?”
“Amelia, you don’t get it.”
“No, you don’t fucking get it. When something happens, you can always be sure he’s behind it.”
“Yeah, but what did he spend a year in juvie for? He gets into fights, but there’s a reason why he has such an issue with Brian, isn’t there?”
Amelia shook her head, disappointed.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you get dragged into shit because of him.”
Her words left me speechless. I watched her storm off.
“Why don’t you ask James or William about it? Let’s see if they have the courage to tell you the truth,” Poppy ordered, before following her friend with a disappointed look on her face that didn’t suit her.
I’d definitely gotten confirmation of one thing—the grudge they held against each other was much more serious than I’d thought.
I decided to go join Will. I didn’t intend to stay with that group, but it was getting pretty hard to be around Amelia and Poppy. I glanced at the couches, but Will wasn’t there with his friends anymore.
“Imagine coming here with the pajamas you were wearing yesterday.”
The warm voice that slithered into my ear made me jump. I turned around suddenly like I’d just been stung by a bee. I could only see his board shorts and his body completely covered in fluorescent paint.
They’re called hormones, June, hormones. Let’s stop doing the Savage dance, thank you.
“What’d you say?”
“I said you’re ridiculous.”
James didn’t move a muscle, just broke out into a smile.
“What if I pour this over your head? What do you say? That way we can see if the bullshit you spew is water-resistant.” I provoked him, motioning at my cocktail.
He laughed then ruffled the hair falling on his forehead without taking his eyes off mine.
“Why aren’t you in a swimsuit?”
“I’m sure that there’s enough bare skin to go around here to look at and paint.”
“Maybe that’s not what I want.”
I’d definitely heard that wrong. The music was too loud—so loud that it was piercing my eardrums and making me hallucinate.
I watched James kneel in front of me. He crouched down and looked at me from below.
“May I?”
He took two paintbrushes out of his swimsuit pocket, and I scowled.
“But you have to tell your mom that I have a talent.” He put the thin brush between his teeth and moved the other one along my inner thigh.
I shivered.
“What are you doing? Get up. Aren’t you uncomfortable?”
James lifted his bright eyes up. Seeing him smile from below had a strange effect on me. Surrounded by the darkness, he looked like a tempting devil with eyes that glittered like two sparkling gems.
“You know what? You’re right, White. Come with me.”
That was something else I learned and should’ve written in my Notes app—time and distance get shorter when there’s alcohol in your system.
And that was exactly what was going on then.
My head was spinning. I felt drunk. One minute, James and I were in the middle of the drunken crowd, and the next we were in a bathroom where the chatter and music were more muffled.
Someone was around us, scattered conversations between people who came and went, but I didn’t have any way of understanding who and what was surrounding me because James carried me and sat me down on the sink.
I could feel the heat of his body get closer to me before he even grazed against me as he situated himself between my knees.
A thought shot out from my head and spilled into the pit of my stomach, holding me in a vise that screamed to be careful. His scent was unmistakable, a clean, musk scented with vanilla and hormones. It was no joke; I really had to be careful of James.
If I’d been recklessly moving closer up until now, I couldn’t anymore.
And not because of what Amelia had told me, but because I barely understood the sort of power he had over my body, one that I couldn’t control.
There was something destabilizing about him, even though I despised him every time that he opened his mouth, every time that he messed with me or suddenly attacked me.
I was lost in my thoughts, and when I came back to reality, I looked at my hands and noticed that they were being maneuvered by colored tubes. He spread the color on his brush and then stroked the wet bristles against my bare skin. The tremors in my body multiplied.
“James . . .”
I was breathless.
“I’m not touching you,” he murmured, licking his lips.
I was suddenly gripped with fear. Not of him but of myself. It would’ve been enough to run away but I didn’t. I was hypnotized by his magnetic field, by his presence.
James continued to compose colorful fantasies in a burst of neon colors on my thighs.
“Take off your tank top now, Snow White.”
I burst out laughing. “Sure, and you take off your pants, Hunter.”
James stared at me. He seemed amused by my quick response, but then he got serious.
“Okay.”
He brought his hand to the edge of his swimsuit.
“No! I was joking!” I exclaimed, embarrassed by his sharp gaze. “And obviously I’m not taking off my tank top,” I added, grabbing the sink with both hands.
“Well, at least show your stomach, how else am I supposed to paint it?”
“No.”
At that point James lifted his hands in surrender.
“Suit yourself, princess,” he said, putting both palms between my thighs to spread them slightly.
I bit my lip to repress the quiver from that unexpected contact while his full attention was on creating light and shapes on my skin.
“What happened to ‘I’m not touching you’?” I teased.
“Would you prefer if I said ‘Open your legs’?’”
I was speechless. His crass comments never ceased to amaze me.
“Are you gonna tell your mom, White?”
“What?”
“That I discovered my newest talent. One of many.” He pointed at my legs, marked with multicolored brush strokes. “Do you want a little bit on the lip too?” he asked.
My throat closed up on me and my eyelids got heavier when I saw James put a little electric blue on his index finger to apply it directly to his mouth.
His fingertip slid back and forth on his lower lip, forcing me to watch every movement.
Then he did the same with the upper lip.
I was so entranced by the sight that I even stopped breathing.
“Give it to me. I’ll put it on myself.”
I tried to take the paint out of his hands, but James pulled away before I could grab it.
“I asked you a question,” he said seriously.
“Yeah, blue. Same as yours.”
A husky moan slipped out of his throat when he realized he was staring at my lips.
“Fuck.”
I felt my stomach turn, and a strange, warm sensation washed over my chest.
“Okay.” He panted slightly out of breath as I stared at the tube between his lightly spotted fingers.
“How many girls have you used that brush on?”
“I’ll warn you, the number might shock you.” I saw him suppress a sly laugh.
“Are you a moron? I wanted to know if it was clean. I don’t want to get a disease!” I screamed, pushing him.
“It’s new, you pain in the ass.”
Then he turned to the sink and put soap on his hands to wash off the paint residue. Two cackling girls walked behind James and shot him an interested look. They commented on his muscular bare back, his sculpted hips in his swimsuit, and then lingered on the reflection in the mirror.
I stared daggers at them so hard that they got annoyed and left the bathroom. After wiping his hands with some paper, James put the blue paint on his thumb.
“I’ll warn you, if you make out with someone, this goes away.”
His eyes slowly descended on my lips, and I started not to understand anything anymore.
I couldn’t handle the tension any longer.
I couldn’t look up; my gaze was glued to the floor when he started carefully spreading the color over my quivering mouth.
He pressed his warm fingertip along my lower lip and slowly made the paint flow on my upper lip too.
I looked up just in time to see him giggle smugly.
He quickly slid two fingers into my hair tie and undid my messy bun, causing my blond hair to fall across my cheeks.
Suddenly, the spell broke. James whispered with his low, soft timbre, “Will’s looking for you.”
Then he turned around, leaving me to admire the colors marking his imposing shoulders.
“You know something, Snow White? I’ll remember that.”
“What?” I fell right out of the clouds.
“That you asked me to take off my pants.”
I shook my head disapprovingly.
“James.”
He bit his lower lip, then left me alone to stare at the door that he left ajar behind him.