Twisted Summer Read online

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Yeah, it is.” She grinned at Gabe, all conspiratorial. “You’re such a meanie sometimes, Danni.”

  “Not all the time,” Gabe called over, still wearing that strange almost-smile.

  I couldn’t bare it. I leapt up, ignored Esmé’s squeaks, and hurried to the bar where I bought a wet, cold bottle of pear cider. The first mouthful hit my throat in sweet prickles. God…I needed that.

  Back at the table, I placed the bottle firmly in the centre of the bar mat and tried to catch Gabe’s eye again. Please, I thought, let him notice that I’m drinking the same as him—our drink—that I’m peeling off the label in little spirals of damp paper, just like he’d been doing for the past hour.

  Yes, I watched his fingers. I’d been watching them all frickin’ evening because I couldn’t stop. But Gabe didn’t acknowledge my message in a bottle. That’s if he noticed it. I’m not sure he did.

  ***

  Esmé knew something was up. I’d done well to fool her this long, I suppose, but now I was practically unravelling, throwing off ripples as I collapsed. When we got home that night, she closed the bedroom door, leaned back against it and folded her arms.

  Here it comes, I thought. The serious face.

  “You’re a liar, Danni Warren,” she said quietly.

  I edged back, my legs touching the bed. “Um. What?”

  “You keep telling me you’re okay, but you’re not, are you?”

  “I…I suppose not.”

  “So what is it? You going to tell me? I can help, you know.” Her serious face melted into a concerned smile. The room was dark, just floodlights casting pearly shadows through the window, and it framed her in this inky, iridescent light. “Is it something to do with your uncle? You went all funny as soon as we met him.”

  Yes, yes it is, darling. He trashed my little heart like he was stubbing out a cigarette. Erm. “Sort of.”

  “Sort of? What d’you mean?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain,” I mumbled.

  She strode over, took my hand and pulled me down to sit. Then she pressed it into her lap, her cool, soft fingers tracing soothing patterns. “I’ve got all night, pixie.”

  “Right. Well. When I visited, he was asking me all these questions about uni and stuff, because he’s like, a lecturer.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “And…he made me question stuff a bit. About what I wanted to study, why I was moving away when I’d save money staying at home and things. It made me a bit uncomfortable.”

  “Oh, Danni.” She squeezed my hand. “And now seeing him has brought it back?”

  “Yeah. Sorry, that sounds really lame.” A really lame lie.

  “No, it doesn’t. Course not. But I wish you’d just told me, silly.” She ran her hand up my arm and rested it on my thigh. Rubbed gently. “Are you really having second thoughts about studying architecture?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know, Es.” I couldn’t look at her.

  “It’s a long course. And hard. But you’ve always seemed so sure about it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well.” She inched closer and teased the hair from my face, her lips just inches away. “I wouldn’t mind too much if you wanted to ditch and come to Portsmouth with me. There’s always clearing—you’d get a last minute place. Just think, going to bed together every night…”

  Her kiss was warm as ever, her lip gloss sweet and sticky. I’d already had four or five drinks by that point and felt dizzy, listless…vaguely aroused. If she wanted to make me feel better like this, I wasn’t about to say no. I hid it well, but I hated myself for it.

  Esmé, out of the bedroom, was kind of passive. Girly and chirpy and cute, just like her choppy, chin-length hairstyle. When we took off our clothes though, she was always the leader. So when she nudged me on to my back, eased my dress up and straddled my thighs, I fell back with a pleased little sigh and smiled as she pressed her crotch to mine. There were two layers of knickers between us, but I could already feel the heat of her.

  “Ahem.” I tugged up the bottom of her T-shirt, and she giggled as she obeyed. Two dark little nipples spilled forth and I bent up to suck them.

  “Ah, Danni…” She raked her fingernails through my hair, over the nerve endings hidden on my scalp. Her breasts were only small but they were firm, perfect for circling with my thumbs as I sucked her. Plus it meant I never had to fiddle around trying to get her bra off (no, not even gay girls manage that gracefully).

  Soon our clothes were heaped on the wooden floor and we lay in just our knickers, her mouth on my belly. Esmé was ever seduced by the flat expanse of skin there and liked to write pretty words with her tongue. Pixie, she licked, her fingers teasing my inner thighs. Love you. Gorgeous. In a few short minutes, she’d push her tongue somewhere else and I needed that pressure so much that I bucked up to chase it.

  Until, that was, she slid my underwear down my legs, and lying there all exposed for Esmé, I randomly thought of him.

  Esmé breathed over my flesh before she licked it. I usually loved the way she teased, but now I’d been flung miles away and forgot the girl who pleasured me. The lines of his letters came floating back, and as I heard his deep voice say the words, I moaned.

  “Danni,” Esmé mumbled into my flesh. “Your mum. Shh.”

  “I…ah…know…sorry…” I pushed myself back up to her mouth, and she laved me eagerly, pleased by the soft little sounds I made.

  I miss owning moments with you.

  Yes. Like that. I liked these moments in this wet, sucking mouth. Please—

  I’ve spent the past few nights in nasty hell without you, mostly wishing I was in nasty hell WITH you.

  I remembered the way he watched me. The prickles down my spine at the spread of his filthy grin. A connection, yes, like the orgasm beginning to work its way through my clenched muscles below.

  “Please, baby.” I panted as she eased her fingers in. Esmé always stroked, never fucked. God, why couldn’t she just fuck me? Why couldn’t she be more forceful with her circling tongue, the way he was?

  I want you back here so badly, but we can’t look too eager.

  Esmé took note of my bucking hips and worked her fingers harder. I contracted around them now, coated them in clear, slippery want. Not for her, but for the words he said to me in that bleak, desperate phone call.

  I want to come see you. No, scrap that. I’m driving up on Tuesday. We’ll book a hotel. I’ll have you seven different ways and you have to promise to laugh lots, because I need to hear your dirty laugh.

  Esmé always withdrew for a moment when she knew I was ready to come; then her mouth returned to work again, and my breaths turned to gasps, aches turned to throbs and tugs and fires. I came with my hands fisted into her hair, my mouth full of badly-stifled yelps, and my brain…full of Gabe.

  I don’t hate you. I just hate that we’re…wrong.

  The comedown hit. I sucked in the air, and Esmé trailed little patterns over my thighs with her damp fingertips. Wordlessly, she inched up the bed until she straddled my face, and I bit gently through her knickers. She liked to keep them on in this position, loved the sweet friction of wet lace; I simply pushed them aside. A few months ago, I used to pull her down on to my mouth like this and get utterly lost in the swelling tide of her flesh. Immerse myself in the salt-sweet scent of her. Tonight, it just wasn’t happening.

  She rode the lies on my tongue anyway, oblivious in her grip on the headboard and the practised skill of her jaded girl.

  Chapter Eight

  Pale moonlight. Silver shadows on our pillows. Esmé’s hair thrown across like melted gold, her breasts rising and falling in the soft undulations of sleep.

  I wasn’t quite so lucky.

  The knowledge that he lay a few rooms away was surreal, drunken, exhilarating and devastating. I wanted to burst through his door and clobber him over the head with a pear cider bottle. How dare he just show up after ever
ything? How dare he?

  An hour passed. Minutes and pixels melted away on my phone’s time display. In the end, I couldn’t stand it—I had to catch him while the house was quiet. Get some answers.

  I pulled my dress pack on, closed the door behind me and padded down the little corridor to Gabe’s bedroom. A soft knock didn’t elicit a response.

  “Gabe?” I stage-whispered. “You there?”

  Still nothing. Gah, was I really going to do this? My fingers were already closing around the door handle, so yeah, I s’pose I was.

  His bed was empty. I finally grew the balls to come find him, and he had the nerve to not be there.

  I stared at his neatly made bed, and swallowed hard. We’d all returned from the pub hours ago. It was two o’clock in the morning. It occurred to me for a second that he might have skipped out on us, especially after the awkwardness at the bar, but before my pulse could break through the skin of my wrists I spotted his battered old suitcase in a corner and his watch on the bedside table.

  Thank God for that.

  But I had to find him, had to talk to him. I hurried back to slip on my flip flops and cardigan, careful not to wake Esmé (though the girl slept like a log. Anyone would think I came roofies). The floorboards creaked as I checked the living area: no luck. His car was still in the drive. Maybe he went back to the pub…?

  Maybe he went back to go home with someone else. Acid stung in the back of my throat. Surely he wasn’t that crass. All those hours in his arms, in his bed, on the beach—

  I knew exactly where he’d be. Of course I did. I knew Gabe better than anyone here.

  As I hurried down the stone path, my steps made coarse grating sounds that panicked me after the quiet of the lodge. The night had turned chilly, and I wrapped my arms around my body, let my hair blow around my neck. All the while, I panicked that I was wrong, that he wouldn’t be there and that Esmé would wake up and think I’d gone batshit; the low-slung moon and its eerie white spill didn’t help, either. Just made the whole journey ominous and foreboding like I was the unwitting victim in an episode of Buffy.

  I blinked once, twice; no, I saw right. A shadow sat hunched on the rock where I’d kissed Esmé earlier. It was probably even colder down by the rising tide, but he wore only his shorts and T-shirt. The wind tugged at his mop of hair, and his profile was startling and perfect against the inky backdrop: gorgeous man, deep in thought.

  Magic. Bastard. Pudding.

  I skidded on a bit of seaweed, and he jerked up to see what the noise was. When he caught sight of me, that vague smile returned, as if he knew I’d come. Like he was just waiting.

  “Hey,” he said.

  I stumbled over, still brushing the sand off my cold, bare legs. I stopped a foot away. Safe ground.

  “Fancy seeing you here,” he said.

  “I could say the same to you.” I wouldn’t cry. No, no. Jesus, Danni—hold yourself together! I could barely keep the screeches in: you lying ball sack of a—

  “Yeah.” He shrugged, unusually robotic. “I’m sorry about that. I’m…I’m sorry about everything.”

  It was no use.

  “Like, for abandoning me?”

  “Oh God. Danni.” He crumpled back in on himself, his arms around his torso and his eyes pinned to the sand. “Yes. But…no. I’m sorry for being selfish. For encouraging you, leading you on. For the phone calls and the letters. We can never have anything like that—it just wouldn’t be right, would it?” His voice cracked. “I’m sorry I couldn’t let you go.”

  A tear escaped, already cold as it hit my cheek. “It doesn’t matter, I don’t care—”

  “You don’t care? God, do you have any idea what your Mum would do if she found out? She’d fucking crucify the pair of us.”

  He was right. With him here, this holiday was a cruel parody of what we might have: clandestine meetings, pretending to dislike each other in front of the family. Being separated by just a few inches that morphed into a roaring pit of despair, and all because we couldn’t hold hands when we felt like it.

  “She doesn’t have to find out. Nobody does,” I insisted. No matter how sharp these truths were, standing here beside him with the crash of waves in my ears, I felt better than I had for weeks. Better and crushed and worse.

  “We can’t go through life like that.” He sighed, kicked a stone. Turned back to me. “I was cruel to come here and drop Canada on you like this, I know.”

  “You meant to be cruel,” I said, coldly. “You think it’s the best way to be kind to me. Like I’m a pet you put down.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m right. You’re just here to make a point about how miserable we’d be.”

  “I applied for this post nearly a year ago—it was always going to be on the cards. You’re making it sound more twisted than it is.”

  “We are twisted!” I balled my fists. “But we were happy, weren’t we? I know it was only a few days and a few letters, but we were both so, so happy, Gabe.”

  Even now, when everything was going to crap, his features lifted when I said his name. “We are like that song, aren’t we?” I went on, forcing the words. “About how some of the most amazing things only last a day?”

  He gave a sarcastic little laugh. “It’s very accurate.”

  “Gabe, is that us? Is that what we are?” A pair of screaming butterflies…?

  “Esmé’s something. You’re lucky. You’ve got a bright, pretty girlfriend waiting in that bed for you—I’m almost your uncle. What the fuck are you doing down here?

  “You know why.”

  Silence. Even the whispers of the tide were sucked into a vacuum as I waited for him to speak.

  “I know.” He stood, still leaning against the rock, and beckoned with a finger. His brows lurched inward. He bit his lip in defeat. “Come here.”

  One minute I shivered and the next, I fell against his hard body and buried my face into his shoulder. He smelled like leaves and cider and the sea.

  “You’re going so far away, and we’ve got a whole week where we can meet up like this.” I looked up at him. “Give me this week.”

  “Heh. I remember when it was me trying to coerce you.”

  “I told you. It’s all your fault.”

  “Like I said.” His smile faded. “I took advantage. I’m not a very nice boy.”

  “You want to know what taking advantage is? It’s that bright, pretty girl asleep in my bed. If anyone’s taking advantage of anyone, it’s me doing it to Esmé.” I’d never looked at it like that until then, but the thought stung. “I’m not a very nice girl either, am I?”

  Gabe’s hands worked their way along my back. “Did you really think I’d abandoned you?”

  “You stopped calling and texting and writing. It was like suddenly, we never happened.”

  “I still thought about you every minute of every fucking day.” He dropped his cool forehead to rest against mine. “I just wised up and decided to do what was best for both of us.”

  Without thinking, I moved my hips gently against his, rubbing against the bulge in his strained shorts.

  “Baby,” he murmured. “Don’t.”

  “You’re going to Canada because of me,” I said, cautious. “You’re just running away like you did to Devon to get away from the family.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, stop it! Act your fucking age!”

  His mouth fell on mine like smack, bang, crackle, pop. Pear cider kisses—I missed these, missed his curious tongue and the will of his forceful hands. His lips had been curved around bottles of the stuff all night long, and mine…mine had been on Esmé.

  “Were you with her?” he said, panting. “Tonight?”

  “Yeah.” Please don’t let him hate me.

  “You know, when you were staying with me, the thought of you fucking a girl was kind of hot,” he confessed. “Now that I’ve met her, I…Christ. I never expected to be jealous.”

  “But you a
re?”

  “Yeah.” He kissed me again, ravenous. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s a lovely girl…but I was sitting there in the kitchen and all I could think was, can’t she tell?”

  Despite everything, I beamed up at him. These horrible things I felt, he’d been feeling them too. I worried that we barely knew each other, that it hadn’t been long enough, that everything we felt was somehow false—but no. He was right: we had an amazing connection.

  “She doesn’t know a thing,” I whispered. “Well. She could tell I was upset about something, but I made up some stuff about you making me uncertain about my uni choices.”

  “Ah, Danni. I know I told you to stay with her but you can’t keep telling her lies.”

  “I know it’s not fair. I’m just…I’m waiting until we go to uni. Until she sees this different life she could have. It’ll soften the blow, right? So yeah. Waiting.” I kissed his throat. “Unless somebody gives me a reason not to.”

  “I wish I could. I can’t.”

  “So how come you’re still trying to push your cock into me?” I grinned. He was unbelievably hard. “Maybe I should take care of you.” I’d read an unholy number of blowjob tutorials since I last saw him and had fantasised endlessly about putting them to good use. I went to kneel, but he caught me.

  “No. Not here—”

  “But I can? We can be together this week, really?”

  “I…” He put a hand over his eyes. “I need to think about it.”

  “You don’t want me?”

  “Of course I do. But come on—we’ve already done all this once. You really want to go through it again?”

  “Yes.” The word just crashed out. “Let me make some memories with you. Please. I need them.” In a fit of lust and hope, I tried dragging his hand down between my thighs, but he groaned and tugged it away. We couldn’t say the other l-word—if he even felt it, that was—and lust would have to do. Hope blurred its edges, made its knife-edge blunt and sweet.