Chapter 10
THE THINGS WE WANT
Winter
“Everyone better be—oh shit.” The voice echoes into the alcove.
My stomach drops when I realize it’s a police watercraft, and the officer holding a megaphone happens to be Lovey’s brother.
BJ shifts my bikini top back into place so I’m not flashing Logan my tits. I slide off BJ’s lap and adjust my bikini bottoms, so half my ass isn’t on display either. Not that Logan can see it, but still. My face feels like it’s on fire.
Logan’s eyes flare with surprise, and he rubs his chin, like he’s hiding a smile. “Hey, BJ, Winter. Sorry about that. I thought you were Mav and Clover. I’m trying to get him back for the shit he pulled on me last week.” He looks at me. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just wet.” In more ways than one.
“Mav and Clover are on a date, I think. What shit did he pull last week?” BJ gives me an apologetic look.
“Uh, just…uh, making things awkward.”
“Right, okay. Well, Lovey is out there somewhere with Quinn, and Rose is with Dracula.”
Logan’s brows pull together. “Laughlin? What’s he doing hanging out with your crew?”
BJ shrugs. “Dunno, but he was on my dock when I got home.”
“I’m gonna go make sure Rose and Laughlin haven’t tried to drown each other.” He salutes us and starts his machine. “Sun goes down fast these days. Might want to head back soon,” he adds before spinning around and speeding off.
“Sorry about that,” BJ says.
“Not your fault. Kinda glad he didn’t see my come face, though.” I bite my lip. “I was hoping I could return the favor. For equity’s sake.”
“Why don’t we save that for later? He has a point about the sun setting.”
“Aren’t you uncomfortable?” I trace the flower on his chest and let my fingers drift lower.
He catches my hand and brings it to his lips. “I’ve been dealing with nearly constant erections all week while I’m around you. I can handle waiting a little longer. And now that Logan knows we’re back here, it’s only a matter of time before someone else comes looking for us.”
“I didn’t think about that.”
“We’ve got nothing but time, Snowflake. No need to rush through all the fun parts.” He reaches around me and passes me my life jacket. It’s wet, and so is his, but we shrug back into them and buckle up.
We do a circuit around the lake, and he shows me where all the retired hockey players live.
“The Kingstons and Winslows are just there, down the road from you.” He points to a huge A-frame and a two-story cottage set into the side of the hilly terrain.
It boasts a beautiful view. Although most of the hillside cottages have great views.
We’re close to the shore, and I let my gaze skip across it, my stomach dropping when I spot our decrepit dock less than fifty feet away.
Sitting in a folding lawn chair is my father, a six-pack of beer beside him, a cigarette in his hand, a pair of binoculars around his neck.
Sometimes my mom likes to bird watch. Sometimes my dad likes to be a giant skeeze and watch people—namely women in bikinis—but I expected him to be out tonight, not at home, and certainly not on the dock.
He lifts the binoculars, following us. Even as BJ turns us and heads for the center of the lake, I know Dad saw me.
I feel it in the way the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“You okay?” BJ either heard my curse or feels the sudden tension in my body.
“We should head back,” I say.
By the time we reach his place, I’m anxious to go home and deal with the consequences. I hate that my dad’s potential anger so easily wipes out everything good about this day.
But I don’t want my dad to take my lie out on my mom.
I let BJ guide the watercraft to the dock and jump off as soon as he has it tied up.
He climbs off after me. “Was that your dad on the dock?”
“Yeah. I need to get home.” I struggle to free all three buckles, nerves making my hands shake.
“Will you get in trouble?” He runs a hand through his hair, his eyes concerned.
“I’ll be in less if I’m home sooner.” I shrug out of the jacket and hang it on a hook, re-clipping the buckle so it doesn’t blow into the water and disappear down the lake. That’s how my grandma inherited a few life jackets over the years, based on the names Sharpied inside them.
“Aren’t you allowed to hang out with friends?”
“Yeah, I can hang out with friends. It’s just…complicated.” My dad has a grudge against everyone who has more than we do.
“Do they know you’re here?”
I sigh. All that truth I laid out earlier is biting me in the ass. “I told my mom I was going to the library. My dad for sure saw me on the lake with you, so he’ll know I lied.”
“It’s not okay that your plans changed?”
He seems genuinely confused, and I guess if I were him, I’d feel the same way.
“It’s just different for me, BJ. I gotta get changed and go.” I start toward the boathouse, and he falls into step with me.
“I’ll drive you.”
“You can’t drop me off at home.” My dad will lose his shit, especially if he’s already downed a six-pack, and I definitely don’t want BJ to witness that. Dad gets mean, and it’s embarrassing.
BJ’s brows pull together, like he’s reading between the lines. “Can I take you to the T-intersection?”
I can’t let him see how bad my home life is.
Right now we’re having fun, and I don’t want him thinking he needs to save me.
But it’ll take half an hour to bike home.
That’s too long for my mom to be alone with my dad without a buffer.
If I get a ride, it’ll take me five from the T. “Yeah. Thanks. That would be great.”
I slip past him into the boathouse and quickly change. My stomach twists when I check my phone and find new messages from my mom. I can’t read the tone, but they’re short, and I imagine she’s upset.
I shouldn’t have lied. It was stupid. And now she’s probably getting grief, my dad believing she hid this from him.
It doesn’t matter that he knows she can’t lie for shit; he loves to be angry. He just needs someone to direct it at. It’s a miserable fucking existence to live with someone whose primary life goal is to make people feel like shit. Less than. Not enough.
I message back and tell her I’ll be home soon and that I’m sorry. I don’t offer an explanation. It’s pointless. I’m in shit no matter what I say. Less is better.
I meet BJ in the driveway. “Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah. Thanks.” I climb into the passenger seat, uncomfortable. The weight of today settles around me, including my admissions, and how despite it all, I seem to be right. I can’t have nice things.
BJ buckles up and puts the Jeep in gear. “Will you be okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine. Just need to deal with the fallout.” I stare out the window, unable to look at him.
He’s silent for a few seconds before he asks softly, “Should I be worried, Winter?”
My knee is bouncing, and I press my palms against the top of my thighs. “My mom isn’t like me. She’s soft. And when my dad gets angry, he says nasty shit. I just don’t want him getting pissed at her when I’m the one who lied.”
“Does your dad get angry a lot?”
“He’s reactive. My mom doesn’t deserve his anger because I fed her a line of bullshit.”
“I just don’t understand why you’re not allowed to hang out with friends.”
“Well, you wouldn’t get it because your family is basically hemorrhaging money.
” I cringe, hating my caustic words, frustrated that I’m defensive and that I sound a lot like my dad does when he’s being his asshole self.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. It’s not like we’re given a choice as to what family we’re born into, and I sound like a dick.
Look, to you, it’s just hanging out with friends, but to my dad, I’m shirking my responsibilities at home by not helping keep food on the table.
It’s me wanting things I can’t have instead of being thankful we have a roof over our heads. ”
“You have a job, though, so you are helping, and you’re taking college courses, so that’s good too, isn’t it?”
I sigh. I’m sure he’s trying to make sense of it.
To understand my life. But his dad is a stand-up guy, and his mom is his coach.
He doesn’t know what it’s like to live with constant emotional warfare.
“He doesn’t see the value in college,” I explain.
“Not when I can get a perfectly good job at the ice cream factory and bring home a paycheck we could use.”
He reaches the T-intersection and turns down my road.
“You should stop here. I don’t want to add fuel to the fire.”
He doesn’t push, just pulls over so he’s not in the middle of the gravel road. He helps get my bike down, and I sling my backpack over my shoulder.
I’m about to hop on my bike when he links our pinkies and steps into my personal space. I put a hand on his chest. “I don’t need to be saved, BJ. I can handle myself.”
“I know, but should you have to?”
I look at the sky. “I need to go. Thank you for tonight. Fingerbang Friday was totally worth the wait.” I meet his eyes, imploring him to let this go. To let me walk away and deal with things. To not get involved.
His expression is somber as he takes my face between his palms. “You don’t have to fight every battle on your own.” He brushes his lips over mine. “I’m going to text you in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be fine.” I kiss him one last time, sling my leg over my bike, and pedal up the road, leaving behind my escape from this shitstorm I call a life.
When I reach my driveway, I take a deep breath, wishing I hadn’t started today with a lie I can’t get out of. I prepare for the coming argument, for the corrosive vitriol my dad will spew.
Words leave invisible wounds, the kind that won’t heal no matter how much time passes. They fester and ooze and infect the heart. So anytime someone tries to get inside it, it infects them too.