Chapter 7 - Bellamy
SEVEN
BELLAMY
The TV bathes the room in blue. It catches on the walls, the rumpled sheets, the half-eaten popcorn tilting precariously on the nightstand.
I stretch out on my side, half-propped on one elbow. On screen, a girl sprints toward a cliff edge while her friends scream behind her. The ocean waits below, dark and endless.
My laugh escapes before I can catch it. “God. I forgot how much I love this movie.”
Beside me, Gage shifts. The headboard creaks as he adjusts, one arm tucked behind his head, the other hand splayed across his stomach. His damp hair curls slightly at the temples. A purple-red mark blooms along his cheekbone, but his eyes remain half-lidded, relaxed.
“I didn’t,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting. “It was the first movie we watched together.”
Our eyes meet. My smile widens despite the ache in my cheek where I took a hit earlier. “No, it wasn’t.”
His brows dip toward one another. “What? Yes, it was. You wore these frayed jean shorts and a faded Nirvana tee that you turned into a crop top.”
My pulse stutters. I drag my teeth over my bottom lip with a slow shake of my head. “No. As much as I love that you remember—and I did love that shirt—it definitely wasn’t the first movie we watched together.”
“Are you messing with me, Bell?” The corner of his mouth lifts, eyes crinkling at the edges.
“Are you?”
“Nah, I remember everything about you.” He shifts closer, voice dropping. “And how you stretched during the movie, arms over your head, and I got so distracted by the flash of your stomach that I spilled soda all over my shorts.”
I chuckle. “Not everything. The first movie we watched was Romeo & Juliet. They were doing a revival run at the Downer Ave Theatre.”
He taps my knee with his fingertips, leaving warmth where they touch. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I remember that too. And we were with Cruz, so it doesn’t count.”
I’m outright laughing now. “What kind of logic got you there?”
He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it slightly mussed. “First movie, just us. No brother or friends. So you see? This was our first movie. That’s why I put it on.”
He seems awfully proud of himself, all boyish grin and sleepy eyes. It makes me want to kiss him. Instead, I focus back on the TV.
“Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that.”
On screen, the girl leaps. The camera plummets with her—wind rushing, water approaching, gravity pulling her down, down, down. My stomach drops with her.
“Remember Black Point Cove?” I ask, gaze fixed on the screen. “That ledge couldn’t have been more than forty feet, but it felt—”
“Like a hundred,” Gage finishes. His laugh is soft. “Your teeth were chattering in ninety-degree heat.”
“They were not.” I roll my eyes.
“I could hear them from five feet away.”
“Five feet? You were holding my hand.” I twist toward him, the mattress dipping between us. “And it doesn’t matter because I still went over that edge.”
“You did.” His voice drops lower, something shifting in his eyes as they hold mine. “Every single time.”
The words hang there. One second. Two.
I hold his gaze. My smile slips at the corners when his eyes darken, pupils widening just enough to notice.
“We were something once, weren’t we?” His voice drops half an octave, rough at the edges.
My throat tightens. I drag my tongue over my bottom lip, tasting salt. “Yeah.” The word comes out barely above a whisper. “We were.”
He watches me, jaw working slightly, then exhales. The warm air brushes my cheek. “I’ve missed you.”
The six inches between us on the mattress suddenly feels like less. The sheets rustle as I shift, my knee bumping his. Neither of us pulls away. My skin prickles where we touch.
“Careful,” I say, forcing lightness into my voice even as my pulse quickens. “You’re getting sentimental on me.”
“Don’t spread that around.” His fingers inch closer on the rumpled sheet between us, pinky almost touching mine. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”
“Oh, do you?” I arch a brow, ignoring the warmth spreading up my neck.
“I’m a Calloway, aren’t I?” He huffs, the corner of his mouth lifting, but his eyes never leave mine. His pinky hooks over mine, calloused skin against skin.
“I know.”
My stomach drops like I’ve just stepped off that cliff again.
The teasing fades. The movie flickers blue against the walls, dialogue reduced to murmurs beneath the sound of our breathing.
His eyes catch mine. Hold. The air between us thickens.
My split lip throbs. The bruises forming along my body pulses with each heartbeat. Yet beneath the pain runs something electric, something that makes my fingertips tingle against the sheets.
Six inches of rumpled cotton between us. Then five. Now four.
His fingertips find the back of my hand first. Calluses catch against my skin as they trace the ridge of my knuckles, the lines between my fingers. The pad of his thumb circles the hollow of my palm.
I don’t move, and I can’t look away.
“Tell me if I hurt you, okay?” he murmurs, dragging his fingertips up my forearm and along the hollow of my elbow.
I swipe my tongue across my bottom lip, anticipation snapping inside my veins like popping candy. “You won’t.”
The mattress dips. His breath fans across my cheek, smelling faintly of mint toothpaste and something uniquely him. Our noses brush. A heartbeat passes.
It feels agonizing to wait, but I force myself to hold my nerve. I let my anticipation build and build until my fingertips feel like they’re vibrating from the suppressed urge to touch him.
And then, when I feel like I’m about to burst, his mouth is on mine.
Soft at first. Testing and teasing. My fingers curl into his shirt. His heartbeat hammers against my palm, strong and steady and real. He winces when I press too hard, a sharp inhale that makes me ease back, but his hand slides to my waist, keeping me close.
His tongue traces the seam of my lips, and I open for him. The world narrows to the pressure of his mouth, the scrape of stubble against my chin. Minutes blur. The TV screen fades to black, then blue, then black again. My leg hooks over his hip, pulling us flush.
He groans into my mouth, the sound vibrating through my chest. The hard length of him presses against my inner thigh. My hips rock forward without permission.
Down the hall, a door clicks shut. Footsteps pad past our room. A low voice murmurs something. Is that my brother? Or one of his?
And why the hell does the idea of one of his brothers sound somehow enticing and terrible?
I freeze. Gage’s mouth stills against mine.
“Bell,” he whispers against my lips, voice rough with want.
I press my forehead to his, our ragged breathing the only sound in the darkness. “Not like this.”
“Not like this.” His voice is gravel. His fingers flex at my hip, then release.
I roll away, sheets tangling between us like a border. The clock reads 3:17 AM.
“Fuck,” I whisper to the ceiling.
“I know,” he says with a low chuckle. “C’mere, Bell.”
His hand finds mine again. Fingertips featherlight against my skin, tracing each knuckle, each valley between fingers, circling the pulse point at my wrist. My shoulders sink an inch lower with each pass.
My limbs grow heavier against the mattress. The room tilts slightly when I blink.
I should sleep. My eyelids droop, but my brain keeps spinning.
"I feel like we came close today, you know?"
Gage exhales through his teeth. "Yeah, I know. They should’ve finished us.”
I turn my head on the pillow, eyebrow raised.
The corner of his mouth twitches up. “Because when we find them—and we will—we’re gonna finish them.”
Something electric ripples down my spine, like the first warning tremor before a wave breaks. The promise of violence in his voice shouldn’t heat my blood this way.
I let my gaze roam over his face, feeling brave under the cover of darkness. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Trying to figure out what went wrong. What I missed.”
“You didn’t miss anything. If there was something overlooked, then it falls on all of us. Not just you.”
I lick my lips, trying to wade through the thick pit of trepidation. “Maybe.”
“We all signed off on it.” His thumb traces circles against my skin. “All of us.”
The ceiling fan clicks with each rotation. One, two, three. The sound fills the silence between heartbeats.
“Besides, there are too many unknowns tonight,” he continues, voice dropping lower. “But we’ll figure it out. We always do.”
We. The word settles in my chest like a stone. Gage and his brothers move as a unit—always have. Four brothers moving as one shadow across so many memories I have of this town.
The walls I built between Hollow Beach and everything after suddenly feel paper-thin. And now my siblings sleep down the hall while I lie in Gage’s bed, the indent of his body beside mine like a question I can’t answer.
He leans in, his lips brushing my forehead. The contact lasts one heartbeat, two, before he pulls away.
“Sleep now, Bell,” he murmurs. “I’ll be right here.”
My eyes close before I can stop them.
The mattress cradles me like quicksand. His breathing settles into a rhythm that pulls at something old and familiar, something I thought I’d buried.