Untouched: A Cedar Cove Novella Part 5

Larry stares me down, waiting for me to bail-or for me to try and tell him no. For a split second, I think about ignoring him and his uniform, and marching Juliet right on past, but Larry reads my mind.

"Just try."He tells me with a smirk. "I've got a drunk cell at the station with your name all over it."

"I'll be fine." Juliet says quickly. She puts a soothing hand on my arm. I don't even realize until I feel her touch that my muscles are tensed and ready for a fight. "I promise, my parent's will be fine." she says again. "What can they do? I bet they never even noticed I was gone."

I force a breath out and stand down, even though everything in me is screaming not to leave her alone. "Text me when you're back," I tell her, taking her phone and programming my number in.

She sends me a final shy smile, and then follows Larry back to his patrol car, but I don't head home like I was told. I get in my truck and drive behind them, following Larry's car all the way back to her house.

After everything we shared tonight, I have to see her home. I need to know she's safe.

I leave the engine on idle down the driveway, watching as Larry takes her up to the front porch. The lights are already on, and when the door opens, her mom rushes out, looks panicked. She hugs Juliet tightly and drags her inside, but her dad stands, kidding around with Larry for a moment, a drink in his hand. He offers one to the deputy, but Larry shakes his head, and walks back to his car.

I wait until the lights go out inside, and my phone buzzes with a new text.

Safe and sound xx I exhale. Sweet dreams, I write back, and finally turn the truck around and head for home.

Back at my place, there's n.o.body waiting up. The house is dark when I let myself in, and I'm halfway to the closet I'm using as a room when I see mom's door is open, and the bedroom is empty inside.

She didn't come home again.

I sink to the floor in the hallway and lean my head back against the wall, staring at the dark room and the unmade bed, and everything it represents.

I've slumped here before: waiting for her to stumble home. I don't know how many nights I've spent in this exact same spot, cursing her, and G.o.d, and anyone else I can think of for all her f.u.c.ked up failures. It burns at me through the long night, all the guilt and failure. A heavy fire that never seems to die away.

But this time, it doesn't hurt so much.

I can still feel Juliet's soft touch, still taste the sweetness of her kisses. My salvation. Because now I know there's her goodness in the world, the rest of it doesn't seem like such a bleak wasteland.

You're a good man Me? A good man? I could laugh, if I didn't hope so desperately for it to be true. My whole life, n.o.body's seen anything in me but a waste of s.p.a.ce, a bad influence. That Emerson Ray, they say. He didn't even know his daddy, but the man was no good. And you know about his momma. That boy will sure enough wind up just like them one day.

You hear something long enough, you start believing its true, until soon enough I figured, why not prove them right? It was in my blood, after all. Poisoned. Worthless. If they thought I was past saving, then I wouldn't waste my breath trying any other way. I would fight and screw and do what I d.a.m.ned h.e.l.l pleased.

Except... It wasn't what I wanted, I see that now.

All I wanted was her. Someone to look at me, and see past my bulls.h.i.+t. Someone to think I was worth a d.a.m.n.

Juliet.

I catch my breath, just thinking about her. The way her body leapt to my touch, the innocence to her pa.s.sion. I've f.u.c.ked a hundred girls, but I've never watched them like that: stared into their faces as the feeling flooded over them, pushed them higher just to know the look in their eyes as they fell. It was something precious, sharing that moment with her. Holy.

I hear a creak in the hallway and look up. Brit has come out of her room, yawning, in PJs and an oversized s.h.i.+rt.

"What are you doing?" She frowns at me.

"Just thinking."

"Don't break anything," she quips, stepping over my outstretched legs to go through into the kitchen.

I pull myself up and follow her. She opens the cabinet, and pulls down a box of Oreos. Gets milk from the fridge. I fetch two gla.s.ses, and we sit around the table in the light from the porch outside.

"Can't sleep?" I ask.

She shrugs.

"Mom leave a note?"

She shakes her head.

We dunk cookies in silence for a moment.

"So how's the girl?" Brit asks.

I play dumb. "Which girl? You know I've got them in every state, baby."

She snorts, and tosses a chunk of cookie at me. I intercept, and shove it in my mouth. "The one from here," she says."Julia."

"Juliet." I correct her.

Brit smirks. "See, I knew you liked her."

"I didn't say that."

"Juliet." She mimics me, drawing out the word. "Please, you don't have to say a thing, it's written all over your face. Emerson's in looooove," she adds, singsong.

I glare at her. "How old are you again?"

Brit laughs. "So when do I get to meet her? With her clothes on, I mean."

Now it's my turn to shrug. "I don't know..." I say slowly. "The party got busted, Larry took her home."

Brit pauses. "She's got the kind of parents who care?"

"About this?" I remember her mom's face, seeing Juliet escorted up the front steps by a deputy sheriff. "Yeah."

"Must be nice." Brit says, and the wistful sound in her voice hurts me like h.e.l.l. I give her the last cookie.

"It won't always be like this, you know." I tell her softly.

"Yeah," Brit sighs. "Maybe one of these days, she won't come home."

The truth sits between us, the elephant in the room. We've both thought it, how could we not? Equal parts guilt and hope, shame and anger.

Because it would be so much easier if, one of these nights, mom didn't come home. If she could just stay gone. Then we wouldn't go through this cycle over and over again: Brit waiting for her to shape up and be a real mom, and me hoping for... h.e.l.l, I don't even hope anymore, I lost that a long time ago. But I'm left to clean up the mess, every time, and when I think about a version of my life without that without waiting for the call to come get her, wondering what she's gone and done this time...

What would that life be like? Safe. Normal. Easy.

The kind of life worth sharing.

"You should get back to bed," I tell her, getting up to rinse our gla.s.ses.

"You too."Brit replies. "You need your beauty sleep. You look like h.e.l.l."

"Gee, thanks."

"Tough love, big bro." Brit circles the tale and wraps her arms around me in a quick hug. "Be careful, OK?" she whispers, face pressed against my chest.

"What do you mean?"

"This girl... she's a summer girl, right?" Brit tilts her face up to me, eyes sad. "That means she's leaving. They all leave, in the end."

I break the hug, and shove her gently towards the hall. "Don't worry, I'll be fine." But my words catch in my throat, and the question lingers, long after she trails back to bed, and I'm alone in the dark kitchen.

Just one week, and already, I'm in so deep with Juliet, I can't see the surface. But what happens next week, and the week after?

What happens when summer's over?

JULIET.

My mom loses it. I've never seen her so mad.

Dad smirks his way through it the way he always does, like I'm just a joke to him, but the minute the deputy leaves, mom flips out. She yells and screams about responsibility, and strangers, and wandering off in the dark alone.

I stand, arms folded, and take it. Nothing they say can ruin the warmth I have blazing from my chest, a fierce glow of joy radiating out through my entire body, surrounding me with safety and hope.

Emerson.

Emerson.

Only him.

"Do you know what could have happened to you?" Mom is still yelling. She's wrapped in a threadbare bathrobe, pale and drawn in the 3AM kitchen light. For the first time, I feel a pang of guilt that I left her to worry alone.

"I was fine," I rea.s.sure her. "Emerson would never let anything happen to me."

I hurry upstairs to bed before they can quiz me anymore. When I come down the next morning braced for more lectures and yelling and lord know what other parental disappointment they say nothing. I eat breakfast in silence, suspicious, listening to mom chatter about a farmer's market in the next town, and the family bike ride we can all take along the coast. I wait for the catch, but none comes.

"What do you think?" Mom asks me with a nervous smile. I look from her to dad, who is sitting there, totally disinterested, reading the newspaper. They've clearly made some deal, or, more likely, mom has decided that this is all teenage rebellion, and that making a big deal over it will only drive me faster into Emerson's arms.

"Fine." I answer shortly. I'm already counting the minutes until I can see him again, but after the look of panic on her face last night, I don't want to cause her any more grief. "Whatever you want sounds great."

I spend the next couple of days sneaking texts to Emerson, under mom's constant supervision. I know I'm eighteen now, and technically free to do whatever I want, but there's something so desperate about her mothering that the guilty part of me finds it easier to give in. Carina as good as ignores her these days. My sister spends all her time out tanning on the beach, b.i.t.c.hing to her friends on the phone about how bored she is. And dad? Well, he's either sleeping off a hangover, or quietly drinking his way to a new one, sitting on the porch with a thick novel and a Long Island iced tea, "since it is vacation, after all."

I don't care. I don't care about anything now, not with Emerson flooding my memories, taking up every free corner of my mind. I find myself drifting off, lost in the thought of us together on the beach that night. It takes my breath away, every time. I can be rinsing dishes at the sink, or standing in line at the 7/11 for milk, and in the blink of an eye, I'll be gone, back there again. The warm sand pressing into my back, Emerson's hard body pressed down the length of me. All day, I can feel the burning imprint of his hands on my skin: the soft tease of his fingertips, tracing down my torso; the possessive graze against my breast. I have to snap out of my reverie and catch my breath, blus.h.i.+ng furiously, trying to keep the memories at bay until I'm alone in my room and can let the scene play out to its end: Emerson's jaw clenched with tension as his fingers work their sweet magic and send me spiraling into a hot, dark world of pleasure I've never known before.

"I'm going to teach you. You're going to come so many times, you won't remember your own name."

I lay in bed, hearing his low rasp like it was inches from my ear. Morning suns.h.i.+ne pools on the floor through the open window, I can hear the sound of the waves cras.h.i.+ng on the beach below, but if I close my eyes, I'm back in his arms, aching for him. I can't stop my hands from playing over my stomach, circling lower, my pulse kicking as I imagine my hands are his, my searching fingers, his own...

My cell buzzes with a message, and I s.n.a.t.c.h my hands away, as if caught. I roll over and grab the phone from my nightstand, heart skipping another beat when I see it's from him.

I have to see you. Pick you up in 20 minutes.

There's no question, just a statement. Sure and certain.

I leap out of bed and quickly dress, picking out a cute sundress to throw on over my bikini. I stuff a sweater into my beach bag, grab my camera and wallet, then pad cautiously downstairs. I'm ready to deflect mom's questions, but instead, I find she's still in bed, looking tired.

"Are you OK?" I ask, lingering in her doorway.

She gives me a smile, looking up from her book. "Just a bit under the weather. I think I caught a chill yesterday, you know how the winds get at the beach."

"I told you to pack a sweater," I tell her. "Where's Dad?"

"He took Carina back to the city for the day," mom replies. "She has that engagement brunch, one of her friends."

"Oh," I pause. "Do you need me to bring you anything?"

"No, I'm fine." Mom waves away my concern. "You look nice, where are you going?"

"Just, out." I answer."I thought go for a bike ride," I add quickly. "Take a picnic or something and spend the whole day out. Let me know if you need anything. I can bring you back some soup."

Mom waves away my concern. "I'll be fine. You go have fun."

"OK, see you!"

I skip downstairs and out the door before she can take it back. My heart races with guilty relief. I don't want her ill, but with mom in bed, I have the whole day to myself. To Emerson.

I send him a quick text to let him know the coast is clear, and ten minutes later, his red truck comes speeding up the dirt road. I meet it at the end of our driveway, hopping up into the pa.s.senger side almost before he's even stopped moving.

"Hey," I say, breathless. I've got a smile a mile wide, but I can't help it. Eagerly, I drink in the sight of him: worn white s.h.i.+rt pale against his golden tan, muscles taut and straining under the fabric. He's wearing faded jeans, and flip-flops, Ray-Bans on, and all the windows down. I can't help but bring my camera up, and snap a photo, right there.

He looks like summer, like everything good and bold and dangerous in the world.

Mine.

The world whispers in my mind, but I push it down. Don't get ahead of yourself, Juliet, I warn sternly. You don't know what this is.

"Hey yourself," he grins, easy, and slides his hand around the back of my neck, pulling me in for a long, lazy kiss. My heart is racing as I taste him, mint and coffee, and something else, something all Emerson.

Last night was hot and hard, but this is slower, languid. He teases my mouth open, his tongue finding mine as his fingers gently twist in my hair. I exhale, sinking into him, the sun beating hot and the stereo playing something that sounds like summer.