CHAPTER 11
MYLES
We decide to spend the day by the lake. No competition, no rivalry, no separation—just good old fashioned sunbathing and open-water swimming.
In principle, it’s a brilliant idea. Genius. Bonding without looking for a way to cause a rift. No team captains and picking sides. It’s basically a day of napping.
Except it’s so hot that the girls are all in bikinis, including Sheridan, and I’m like a man starved. I can see all too much and yet nowhere near enough. That ivy tattoo teases its way around her limbs in a way that has my mouth drooling—like the sole purpose of it is to make men (and women, and every fucker else) gaze at every inch of her spectacular body.
I have to make a conscious effort to look away before Beau can have another go at me for not being good enough for his sister. What-the-fuck-ever. I’m probably not good enough for her, but I’d treat Sheridan like a bloody queen if I was lucky enough for her to let me. I’d be worshipping that damn ivy and all those birds every night for the rest of eternity, and that’s only the least she deserves.
Instead, I find myself sitting as far away as possible with my nose pushed up against the inner spine of a book that I’m not making any attempt to actually read.
In other non-Sheridan-related news, Beau and Bailey—as Shez astutely predicted—are carrying on about their lives as if their evening of debauchery and loud sex never happened. I mean, sure, I’ve had my fair share of one-night stands, but I’d never been quite so…ambivalent towards them the next day. Kudos to them, I guess.
Sitting out in the open so obviously with Beau and JP has garnered the attention of pretty much anyone who pays attention to football, which seems to be most of the men—and boys—and at least a third of the women. Every now and then someone will notice and whisper to someone else. By the time we’ve been sitting down for thirty minutes there’s a lot of people looking at us.
I’m still reading without taking in a single piece of information when Beau plops himself down beside me. Oh good, I think, he can bring all that attention my way. Although this next conversation has the potential to be awkward as shit, I’ll take it over pretending to read any day. I close the book without keeping my page and set it down.
“What’s your book about?” Beau asks.
“No idea,” I admit.
He snorts, shaking his head. “Not like you.”
I shrug, wondering if I can get away with a lie. “There’s too much going on. Too noisy. I’ve never been able to concentrate when it’s loud.”
“You’re about to become a teacher to a bunch of teenagers…”
“That’s different. I won’t be trying to read when I’m in a classroom.”
“Perhaps,” He muses, and then we’re quiet again. This is, hands down, the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been around Beau, and that’s a damn shame. “So…are we going to talk about it?”
I don’t know why, but I decide to play dumb. “About what?”
“The fact that we haven’t had a private bloody conversation since we got here.” He scoffs, all tight features and tense shoulders.
“I think you know why that’s happened, Beau.”
He sighs, brow furrowed deeply. “I didn’t mean to offend you, man.”
“Well, you failed.”
“Come on, don’t be like that. If you really knew Shez the way I do, you’d know exactly where I was coming from. Not just because she’s my sister. I love her to pieces, and I don’t want anything to fuck her up. Not more than she already is.”
“Wow, flattery is really not your strong suit.”
He lets out a frustrated grunt. “You just don’t get it, Myles.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” I stand up and brush any sand off my backside. “And this is a shitty apology attempt, by the way.”
“I didn’t come over here to apologise.” Beau follows me as I start walking up the beach to the path. “I wanted to clear the air.”
“You’ve failed at that, too. Solid nil-nil on the achievement front this week. Congrats.”
“Fuck off.” He catches my arm and turns me to face him. “I know you went out for a walk with her this morning.”
“So what? You expect me to let her go out alone?”
“You could’ve asked me.”
“And get an eyeful of your dick? No, thank you.”
“Nothing you haven’t seen before.”
I roll my eyes and start walking away again. Dense bastard. “Bailey was there too, you know. It’s impolite to walk into a woman’s room unannounced. And that woman is your sister’s best friend, which actually makes you a complete fucking hypocrite. Brinsley basically drank her weight in Laphroaig after seeing the two of you sucking face. So, I guess that takes the list of people you need to apologise to up to three.”
“Who’s the third?”
“Sheridan, for having such little faith in her.” I stop my walking and whirl around to face him. We’re far enough away from our group that they wouldn’t be able to hear us anymore.
That taunting beast is scraping at the walls again, testing the hundred locks I buried it behind for any give. “You know what, Beau? I do fancy your sister. I think she’s cute as hell and any fucker would be lucky to have her, but it would be all her choice. And maybe a few days ago I would’ve shoved the attraction I have to her down because I value our friendship enough to let it go. But since you’ve insulted both of us in the process, I actually just want to say a massive fuck you. I deserve better than that, and so does your sister.”
“Don’t fucking touch her, Wilson. I swear to Christ.”
“I’d never go there if I knew she wasn’t into it, Bennett. But if she decides she wants me? I’m not gonna say no.”
I start stalking away again, needing to clear my head, to calm the raging savage in my head locked in its prison.
“Where are you going?!” Beau calls after me.
I don’t have an answer to his question, so I just give him my middle finger instead.
* * *
I do two loops of the lake on the cycle path before I come back to the group. My mood is still shitty, and Beau outright refused to look at me. Coward. I don’t want to look at him, either.
If Beau said anything about our disagreement while I was gone, no one mentions it, because when I start rummaging around everyone asks how my walk was. I play it down with a non-answer and head down to the water for a swim.
I’m so hot my balls are sweating, and the cold lake water does me wonders. After a couple of minutes, Brin, JP and Emma decide to get in with me. We chat about nothing in particular while we tread water up and down the lake. It’s nice. It feels more like a vacation than it had while storming a path around the open water.
Every so often my gaze trails to Sheridan. She’s been sunbathing under an umbrella since I got back and has only moved to turn from her front to her back or top up her suncream. Bailey has been good at helping her with it, but fuck do I wish it was me. I’d find any excuse to touch her at this point, and not just to spite Beau. When she’d playfully knocked into me this morning my heart had soared. Pathetic, I know. But when everyone tells you the girl is socially awkward yet she’s comfortable enough to touch you… Yeah, I was smug.
The next time I look over at her she’s given up the sunbathing and is setting up her sketch pad. Beau and Nash have taken up residence on either side of her, so she’s in a Bennett brother sandwich, and I have to stifle a frustrated growl. Overprotective prick.
We give it another fifteen minutes or so before we get out the water to feed ourselves. Turns out, an angry hike followed by an hour of open-water swimming can make a man hungry. I’m ravenous when we sit back down.
We eat lunch as a group before splitting off to do our own things again. I end up hijacking Gemma’s sudoku book because I can’t face the thought of opening that bloody book again.
Fortunately, it isn’t long before someone else sits with me, and this time it isn’t Beau, or anyone else looking for a fight.
Sheridan confiscates the puzzle book and leaves her sketch pad in my lap, turned to a new blank sheet. “Come on, Myles.”
I turn to face her, and my breath gets stuck in my throat. She’s caught the sun with all her sunbathing—her eyes are glittering denim, her skin is warmer in colour, but doused in a billion tiny freckles that spread across her nose, cheeks and chest, it takes all the strength I have not to turn her over so I can inspect every inch of her. She’s lovely on a normal day, but sun-kissed? She’s fucking gorgeous.
“What’s this?” I manage to ask, voice but a husk.
“I want you to draw me something.” She taps the page with her index finger. And now I’m noticing her pretty painted nails. They look like pink marble.
“Isn’t it bad luck to draw in another artist’s sketchbook?”
Her nose turns up and I feel a strange urge to stroke my finger down the slope of it. “I think you’re making shit up. Now, come on.” She shoves a pencil in my hand. “This page isn’t gonna fill itself.”
I twiddle with the pencil in my hand. I’m more a charcoal and pastels king of guy, but I’m not going to complain, even if she is asking me to ruin her work with my own. “What do you want me to draw?”
“I dunno. The lake. A tree. Hector. You pick.”
“Why don’t you draw one of those things?”
“Because I draw them all the time.” She huffs and starts turning back through the book to show me each of her drawings. Just as I expected it would be, Sheridan’s work is freaking incredible. Why she wants an amateur like me to spoil her portfolio I’ll never know. I’ve seen some of her stuff before in Brian and Shirley’s house but seeing it raw and unrefined like this makes me feel like a six-year-old next to Pablo Picasso.
“Wow,” I mumble. “Sheridan, you’re really good.”
“Thank you.” She says, and even though her cheeks dust with pink, it feels like a brush off. “Now show me what you’ve got, Mr. Art History.”
Better than Mr. Wilson,I think to myself. Christ, my dick had stood to attention this morning when she addressed me like that. A terrible thing to happen mere weeks before my official start as a high school teacher.
“I don’t know, Shez. I’m a bit rusty.”
“Come on,” she whines. “Anything you want, Myles. I want you to. I don’t mind. Even just a little squiggle.”
I study her face again—the line of her neck and the swell of her cheeks—and all I really want to draw is her, and the way her pink and blonde curls are piled on top of her head. That thought gives me pause.
And then I think, fuck it.
I twist in my spot to face her, getting the pad into a comfortable position. And I start drawing.
“What are you doing?” Sheridan demands after a couple of seconds of me throwing intentional glances her way.
“Drawing like you asked me to.”
“You better not be drawing me.”
I decide not to answer her, and she starts fidgeting. “Myles.”
“What?”
“Tell me you’re not drawing me.”
“Okay. I’m not drawing you.”
Sheridan leans over my knees where the sketch pad rests, blocking my view. She gasps. “No. Not me. Please?”
“You said anything I wanted,” I retort, nudging her back so that I can carry on.
“Yeah, but I didn’t mean me!”
“Well, you’re the only thing I want to draw. So.” I shrug. Then, because I can’t help myself, I pinch her chin and angle her head the way I want it, displaying the smooth plain of her neck. “If you can keep looking that way for five minutes, that’d be great.”
I return to my work for another moment. The next time I look up to take stock of another feature and translate it onto the paper, she’s gawking at me like I said the Earth is flat. “What?”
“Nothing,” she mutters, and settles back down.
Perhaps I was too forward, but I don’t care. I want her to know I think she’s beautiful, and I hope this stupid fucking portrait proves it.
I don’t force her to sit still for very long, because she’s not very good at it. I’ve noticed she always needs to be doing something with her hands.
It starts with fiddling with the ties on her bikini bottoms—which is bright pink—and then twirling her fingers through the curls on top of her head. Then she buries her hands in the sand and sifts the grains through her fingers. Then she gives up completely and spends the rest of my drawing time on her phone.
It makes me smile—her little tick. I understand it, too. She doesn’t like being looked at, which is a shame because I damn like looking at her all the same. If I could get away with doing this all day just to keep looking at her, I absolutely would. But she’s more perceptive than that and would no doubt call me out on it the second she sussed me out.
“Are you done yet?” She asks, following it up with a sassy sigh.
“Can’t rush perfection, Shez,” I tell her with ridiculous nonchalance. She goes to open her mouth again, but I cut her off, failing to hide my smirk. “Two more minutes.”
“If I’d known you’d take this long, I wouldn’t have asked.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Who knew you were so impatient?”
“I get fidgety.”
“Yeah, no shit.” I grin. “Right, I think I’m done.”
I turn the pad around to face her with a proud smile. Considering I don’t use pencil and I haven’t drawn for months, I think I did a pretty good job.
Sheridan stares at the page for a moment, then she blinks and snatches the whole book off me. “Oh my God. Myles!”
“What?” I try to look at the page again, feeling a jolt of dread through my chest. “Is it bad?”
“Bad?! No, it’s not bad! It’s—It’s…” she struggles for words while I struggle for breath. Please don’t say hideous. Please don’t say dreadful. “Amazing. Seriously amazing.”
I breathe a sigh of relief while she beams at me. “Oh, thank God.”
“At least we know that degree of yours wasn’t a complete waste,” Sheridan jokes, and gives my knee a pat that sends my brain into overdrive. “Now my turn. And I’m giving this to my mum, by the way.”
Feeling like a man close to the edge of his wits, I give her the biggest smile I can muster. “I think I can live with that.”