33
“Do you ever miss it?” Sam says, propping up on the sunbed of Dad’s Sunseeker 86 and looking over at me. He gestures around us.
“South Carolina?” I clarify.
He nods.
“No.” I toss Savannah an apologetic look. “Sorry, but no.”
Sam nods again, thinks more. “Would you ever move back to America?”
Savannah glances at me, and I am conscious not to let any of the feelings I’m feeling inside myself turn up on the outside of my face—because something about the question feels loaded.
“Um.” I purse my lips, trying to imagine myself back in any American city any time soon. “I don’t think so.”
His eyes flick up, glance toward the right—he’s thinking, but he doesn’t say about what.
“I really like my job,” I tell him even though no one’s said anything, and Savannah looks at me—eyebrows a millimeter or two higher than normal—her interest is piqued. She looks back at Sam, waiting to see what he says.
“Yeah, no.” He shakes his head dismissively—thoughtlessly, actually. “I know you do.”
Quick as light, I give Sam these “what the fuck?” eyes and barely tilt my head in Savannah’s direction to tell him to be careful, and he does his best to pivot quickly.
“I mean. No, like—yeah—it’s a pretty niche job.”
Savannah sniffs a laugh and picks up her phone, starts scrolling.
Sam glances over at me, tosses me this “whoops!” face, and I stare back at him, sporting some subdued but undeniably felt mild horror.
“ Terrible !” I mouth at him. He rolls his eyes and glares over at me playfully and my heart stops dead in its tracks. He should never wear clothes. Ever. At least, he should always have his shirt off like this.
Sam Penny looks like someone who surfs every day, which maybe he does—he is from Australia. Broad shoulders, impressive chest, and that troublesome V hot boys have pointing somewhere southern.
Our eyes hold for longer than they probably should, but it feels okay because both my brothers are on the driving deck, and although Savannah’s with us, she’s texting someone.
I’m wearing the bubblegum pink Xandra bikini from Hunza G and Sam’s eyes fall down my body. Then he swallows as he looks away.
I think if my brothers hadn’t come today, maybe we would have—you know? I want to.
The way Sam’s looking at me right now clarifies for me that he wants to as well—his thumb pressing into his mouth, looking at me out of the corner of his eye with a half-cocked smile, and for all I know, someone could be actively tasering me, it feels so electric.
“I’m going to see what the boys are up to,” Sam tells me, tossing his phone onto the lounge.
He holds my eyes until he passes me, chuckling as he does, I think because the tension is too much. I don’t know what to do with it either.
It’s easier to keep in check when my brothers are there, because brothers are real sexual coolants, but without them here to hose us down, it’s getting increasingly difficult to maintain normal composure in Sam Penny’s presence.
“So,” Savannah says, putting her phone down. “How long have you two been hooking up for, then?”
I let out a single laugh that sounds more like an exhale, and before I can even say anything, she laughs too and rolls her eyes.
“Don’t even,” she tells me, eyebrows up.
I pull my sunglasses down from on top of my head so she can’t see my eyes, but they don’t cover my smirk.
“Firstly.” She sits up straighter. “You’re lying—and secondly, if you’re not, he was just eye-fucking you so hard, you’re about to be.”
I make this weird nervous laugh that I don’t mean to make, and her face lights up, and she races over to me.
“Oh my God!” she whispers. “Have you had sex?”
I shake my head. “No!”
“But you’ve kissed.”
I pause. The pause is damning—and I’m better than that—and I can’t come back from my initial reaction anyway; there’s no way I can. But also, I really want to be able to talk about him to someone.
I take my sunglasses off and look over at her. “Yes.”
She grins at me, but I frown at her.
“Are we being that obvious?”
“No.” She shakes her head, like it’s no big deal. “I just saw his hand on your leg at breakfast yesterday morning.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.” She holds my gaze to make sure I know she’s being honest.
“Not even Tenny?”
She shakes her head again. “But just so you know…” She gives me a bit of a grimace. “I think he already suspects something.”
I frown as though that’s not already apparent to me (which it is), but I’d like to know why she thinks that in case other people might think that too. “Why?”
“The other night, he asked me if I saw the way Sam looks at you, and I said yes, and he asked if I thought he was a good guy, and I said yes, and then he just kind of nodded and changed the subject.”
“Oh.” I purse my lips.
Savannah glances up at Sam, who’s laughing in the sunlight with my brothers, and if I could freeze-frame this moment, take out all the context and the subtext, it would nearly be perfect—but context and subtext is everything.
“He’s so hot.” She eyes me. “What are you doing? Why are you hiding it?”
I swallow and my brows bend in the middle. “I think Oliver has feelings for him.”
“Shut up!” She blinks. “No—really? Tenny said that too, but I just thought he was being an ass.”
I say nothing.
“Have you asked him about it?” she suggests.
“Oliver?” I clarify, and she nods. “Yeah. He said no.”
Her eyes pinch as she waits for the rest.
“He was lying,” I concede, and I cover my face with my hand. “Oh, shit! I’m a terrible person!”
“Sam’s not gay!” Savannah shrugs, helplessly.
“Yeah, but—”
She gives me a look. “If you liked a guy that was gay and Oliver liked him too, do you think Oliver wouldn’t be with him?”
Once upon a time, maybe. “Well, that’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not a masochist.” I roll my eyes.
“Who’s a masochist?” Oliver asks from behind us, then sits down.
Sam and Tenny join us too, and I eye Savannah, silently begging for her silence.
“Maryanne?” Oliver offers.
I shake my head, firmly. “Definitely not.”
Tenny snorts. “She’s more of a sadist.”
“No, she’s not.” I try not to be annoyed by him throwing around a term he clearly doesn’t understand.
My oldest brother rolls his eyes because he thinks I’m just being a smartass.
“Seriously,” I press. “She isn’t.”
Savannah cringes. “She’s pretty awful, Gige…”
She’s never called me that before, but I like her and I’ll allow it.
“Yeah, but—” I shake my head. “Sadists derive sexual pleasure from watching people in pain. They’re often, like, killers or rapists.” And every single one of them looks at me wide-eyed and horrified at the mention of the R word. I widen my eyes back at all of them for how silly they’re being.
“…Beckett isn’t one either,” I clarify.
Tennyson asks, “How do you know that?”
“Well for one”—I glance over at my brother—“when you confronted him, the first thing he said out of the gate was that I enjoyed it. He was justifying what he did.”
I stare at them, waiting for them to all go “ahh,” but they don’t, so I keep going.
“Beckett needed me to like it for him to like it. Which is untrue of a sadist. If he was a sadist, he’d have needed me not to like it.” I pause, watching them to see if they’re following along. “That’s how I know Maryanne isn’t a sadist.”
Sam frowns. “How?”
I give him a long look. “Because if she was, she would have watched.”
Tennyson makes a sound at the back of his throat, and everyone looks a bit traumatized except for me, because I dealt with it a while ago.
Savannah thinks about it. “But she didn’t stop it.”
“Right.” I nod. “Because she’s a narcissist with sociopathic tendencies.”
Oliver lifts his eyebrows, waiting for more information.
“The day after the first time it happened and Maryanne walked in, she came home from school and they were…together. I don’t know what the parameters around that were—I don’t know if they ever discussed it, if there were rules or an official decision was made—but Maryanne, in a spilt second, had an opportunity to advance socially and get what she’d always wanted. It didn’t matter that it was at my expense.” I flash them a quick smile. “Typical narcissist.”
“Fuck.” Tennyson sighs as his eyes glance upward and left. “You know, I remember when you were like, one, and first learning to walk—it was at Grandma and Grandpa’s—and you took your first steps, and everyone was clapping and cheering, and Maryanne was like, four—and she just came and shoved you over.”
That actually makes me laugh—like, properly makes me laugh. Because for one, a nonnarcissist kid could do something like that, but in context of Maryanne, it really is very funny. Oliver lets out a dry laugh too, and Tennyson gives me a long look with ragged eyes, trying not to smile—but not Sam.
Sam is solemn. Very much so. I get the distinct feeling that making light of anything that’s caused me pain will never roll over well with him. But laughing at things that hurt you, almost no matter how you slice it from a psychological standpoint, is usually positive. It’s often considered a coping mechanism, or in my case, a sign of psychological recovery.
“Do you think there are going to be any surprises in the will?” Oliver asks.
And Tenny clocks me, I see it from the corner of my eye, but I don’t look at him because that would tell everyone there was something to consider, so I just say a bored and toneless, “No.”
No mouth shrug, no nose crinkle, no eyebrows lifting, just a straight “no” and a slight shake of the head.
“Dad was so straight-laced,” I add. “What could be in there? He has a secret kid?” I scoff.
Tennyson’s jaw juts forward subconsciously, but Oliver sniffs a laugh. “Yeah, right.”