Hot Water (3 page)

I start to chew on my lip, but before I know it, he slides his hand behind my neck and pulls me to him. Then he slides his tongue deftly between my lips. Completely breathless, I fall against him, my body pressing into his. He threads his hands through my hair and suddenly we are devouring each other’s mouths. I should probably be concerned that it’s five in the morning and I’m likely looking like hell, but the only thing I can really concentrate on is the very manly scent of cigar and scotch and cologne on him. We are still not close enough, so he pushes me against the lush leather seat and falls on top of me, still sucking on my lips. For a moment, we just lie together, trading breaths, until the limousine comes to a sudden stop. He groans into my ear, “I think
this
is your stop.”

Suddenly, the glass separator begins to roll down. I quickly straighten and smooth out my hair. Karl asks, “Is this it?” I realize we’ve pulled up at Bow’s house. Her home is bathed in the day’s first rays of sunlight.

Angry Guy reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, which he hands to me. “Give me your number.”

The way he says it, I’m sure he has a thousand girls’ names on file. He’s older, and he’s beautiful, and this will never work. Can never work. The only thing I feel is my own heartbeat, and the acute need to kiss him again. But Karl is there, and Bow’s neighbors are probably looking out the window and wondering what’s going on with the limo in her driveway. Fingers shaking, I start to type in my name, but then I decide against it, since I’m probably one of a dozen Cicilies. So I just type in Limo Girl, and my number. “So did that solve your girl problems?” I ask him as I slip the band of my wristlet onto my wrist.

He shakes his head, his face a little sad as he buries the phone back in his pocket. “Knowing me, I probably just started another one.”

Chapter Three

Caden

This is fucking insanity.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, I was trying on tuxedoes, getting ready to kiss my single life goodbye. After years and years of prodding from the old man, I’d finally decided to suck it up and tie the knot, raise a few kids.

Frankly, singledom was starting to get old.

 I’d found the perfect woman to spend the rest of my life with, too. Everything was just perfect.

And now, now . . . everything’s up in the air. Again.

I pour myself another scotch and lean back as Karl pulls on to the turnpike. I’d blown my chance. I knew Rhys would get on me for not getting with that while she was drunk and vulnerable. She had a little mouth on her. But despite that, she also had an air of innocence about her. The way she bit her lip and batted those eyelashes . . . it was pure poetry. She was so hot and perfect with those big lips and long limbs, I’m sure she could make a guy forget all his troubles.

Exactly what I was looking for.

 We’d had her picked out the moment we walked into the club. Oh What a Night was playing. She looked up at me with those big, baby-blue eyes, and I was a goner. All of my buddies wanted her. They would have done her in a second. But they knew she was mine.

I tried to summon my old charm. I really did. My buddies always said that one look from me would make girls everywhere drop their panties.

But I don’t know. I’m sick of that game. Sick of that shit that doesn’t mean anything. There’s no fucking point to it.

Maybe I’m softening in my old age, turning into a big pussy. But looking at that girl, with her dick-sucking lips and long legs that would wrap around me nice and tight . . . while all my friends wanted to screw her, I just wanted to protect her. Protect her from people like . . . me.

I look at the text from Rhys:

Did you do the deed?

And type in:

Yeah
.

He comes back with:

So was she is as good as she looked?

I type in:

Better
.

Then I throw the phone on the floor of the limo,
Whatever, Rhys. Maybe now you can leave me the fuck alone.

Cicily

Rainbow shrieks the moment she opens the door. “Oh my God!” she shouts, pulling me inside. She has her black hair piled on her head and her olive skin is scrubbed of make-up. Unlike me, she got the requisite eight hours of sleep in her own bed last night. She shrieks again as she watches the limo pull away. “Why did you not text me?”

Rainbow’s parents are in Europe, so I don’t feel bad throwing my sandals in the sparkling entryway and undressing right there. My feet are caked in city grime and beer, and my clothes smell like cigar. “I need a shower,” I groan.

“Hello?” she asks again. “Are you still drunk? Why didn’t you text me?”

I close my eyes and rub my temples. Why yes, I am still drunk, which is probably because I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve imbibed in my life. No tolerance whatsoever. “Why did you leave me with all those guys?” I counter.

Her face is blurry. I finally concentrate enough to have it come into focus as she rolls her eyes. I notice that one of them is rimmed in red, and a little swollen. She points to it. “That’s why.”

My jaw drops. “I—“

“Punched me? Yes. You did, you angry drunk, you. When I tried to get you on the train. You told me that you were in love with Max and you were going to marry him and have his little metrosexual babies,” she mumbles, collapsing on a barstool in her kitchen. “And then you told me to leave. I tried, Cic. I really did. But you were out of control.”

“Oh my God, Bow, I’m sorry,” I say, trying to give her a hug. At first she nudges me away, but then she gives up and hugs back.

“Fine. Just tell me what happened. Please tell me you did not do that Max guy.”

“I didn’t,” I say.

“Good.”

I still have the FIJI water. I undo the cap and take a sip. “Why good? You said he was hot.”

“Hot, yes. But also cocky, conceited, self-absorbed. All of them were. Not to mention old enough to be your father.”

“Come on. What were they? Twenty-five?”

“Thirty, Cic. They were all thirty. At least.”

I swallow. Thirty-year-olds had wanted
me
? I can’t help being really impressed with myself. Somehow I thought falling for that stupid Sex Master game made me look like a twelve-year old moron. Not that they were looking for rocket scientists, I’m sure. “And that’s old enough to be my father?”

She ignores me and begins checking her phone. “I can’t believe they took you home in that limo.”

“It was only one of them.” I try to think of his name, and then I realize he never told me. He’s just Angry Guy. “I don’t know what his name was. He took my number. He probably won’t call, though. He was
thirty
?”

“Yep. Maybe older.”

“He was kind of a cocky jerk, though. It’s probably better if he doesn’t call,” I say. Because I know he won’t. The larger part of me is fine with that. He’s so much older, and I don’t even know how I’d explain that to my mom. And yet . . . “He was the best kisser, though.”

Bow laughs. “So you kissed him? And . . . ?”

“And that’s it.” I shrug. “First he came off like a real asshole . . . and then . . . I guess he seemed okay. I figured I’d never see him again. So whatever. I’m going to take a shower.”

I head upstairs, and she calls after me, “We’re doing the beach today, right?”

“Right,” I tell her. I can sleep on the way down, while she drives. It’s my last day of freedom. My last day before I have to wake up at dawn to catch a train to the city for my summer internship. And I’m going to enjoy it as much as possible.

Chapter Four

Caden

That girl I just left? The one I was supposed to fuck, but didn’t?

I can’t stop thinking about her.

Which would be just fine, if I wasn’t getting married in three weeks.

Perfect.

I don’t want to go home. Home is fine, but I don’t want to go back to her, because no doubt she’ll be waiting for me. She might even want details. No doubt she’ll be sitting at the dining room table, sipping coffee and pretending like everything between us is just fine. As if things could just click back into place after pushing the button and nuking everything I knew to hell.
Riiight
.

So I tell Karl to go a different way. “I need to see my family,” I tell him.

I see them every two weeks. The day and time varies; it’s usually whenever I can make it around my schedule. I’m in the city, and they’re all the way out in Short Hills, where I grew up, so it’s not a quick trip. But it’s a priority.

I’m the middle kid. Growing up, Meghan, who was six years my junior, would always look up to me. Even though I was the worst example ever, always getting into one shitstorm or another. She should have looked up to Cameron, but he was twelve years her senior and out of the house by the time she was in elementary school. Me, though? My world revolved around my older brother. At least, at first. If he did baseball, I did baseball. If he took Latin, so did I.

After a few years, though, I realized I could never excel at any of those things. He already had. It just bored my parents that try as I might, I never could do as well.

And so I started carving my own path.

When we arrive, the sun is blazing over the tops of the trees. I step outside the limo and the slam of the door echoes across the empty expanse. Then I cross the damp lawn. The place smells like dew and freshly cut grass. It’s a vast labyrinth of stone, but I know this path by heart.

Finally, I see them. “Mom,” I say. “Meghan.”

Two weeping stone angels stare down at me. The flowers I left last time are nothing more than brown stalks.

Head down, I move silently past them. I wonder if, wherever they are, they know what I’ve done. How I’ve fucked things up.
Again
.

“Cam,” I say, placing a hand upon his gravestone. His is very bare, which I know he would appreciate. It says:
Thy trials ended thy rest is won.

I don’t know who chose that. Trials? Even my brother would agree that everything came easily to him. What trials?

I can imagine Cameron inspecting me. “Wow, man. Looking
real
good.”

This was our joke. I can’t tell how many times he’d be coming downstairs for work while I’d be stumbling in, bleary and disheveled, after a night of fucking around.

I smile at the ladies. “Can you give us some room? I need to have a private conversation with my brother.”

Of course, they don’t answer, but I can imagine what they say. Meghan was a little brat, always tagging along. She would pout. She wouldn’t let me alone with Cam for a second, and if a door existed, she’d be listening at the other side of it. My mother had a soft voice. “Fine, dear,” she’d say, and corral Meghan into another room by telling her she’d paint her nails or give her ice cream.

I sit beside him, in the grass. “So,” I say. “Three weeks and counting.”

My big brother wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in now. Though in appearance we were nearly identical, the similarities ended there. Girls were always my number one distraction, and it’s gotten me into trouble in more ways than one. With all those girls to choose from, how could I realistically settle on just one? He was the responsible one, always wanting to get married, have a family. I might have grown up, become more responsible in the past two years, but that wasn’t enough to erase the reputation I’d built from a decade of fucking around. I can almost hear his voice now: “What are you dragging your feet for, Cade? It’s far from a death sentence.”

He’d laugh. He liked telling goofy jokes like that.

I nod. “You’ll like her.”

He’d more than like her. If he’d been around, Andrea wouldn’t have given me a second glance. She sure as hell wouldn’t have given any other man a second glance, either. Cam had a way of standing above it all, invincible, untouchable. “I know I will,” he’d say, putting me in a headlock. “She’s your girl. Just . . . don’t mess this one up.”

He always added that. Not in a mean way. It’s in my nature to fuck things up.

I don’t tell him that I think I already have.

 My brother went to church every Sunday. He didn’t smoke or drink, and I can count on one hand the number of girls he dated. Hell, he didn’t even curse. He was twenty-eight, and spent every minute of those twenty-eight years preparing to follow in my father’s footsteps. He lived and breathed and loved the family business. It was clear who the winner in the family was. And yet, he never once made me feel like the loser. I was just his kid brother, I was different, and he respected it.

My parents tolerated it, but only because there was Cam.

“So yeah, the company’s doing well. We’ve been up the past three quarters,” I mumble, shredding a blade of grass. “Dad’s still calling me every name in the book, but I feel like he’s a little
gentler
about it.”

I bow my head. “But he still wants you,” I mutter. “It’s been twelve fucking years, and he still wants you.”

I don’t realize I’ve clenched my fists until they start to hurt.

“Look,” I whisper, the tears stinging my eyes. No, it’s allergies. Just allergies. I lean in closer, even though there’s no one in the whole fucking place at eight on a Sunday morning. “I need to let you know something. On that day . . . don’t let the names fool you.
You’re
my best man.
You are
.”

I pull myself to my feet and smack the top of the headstone. “You got that, fucker?”

I imagine my mother casting me a severe glance. “Language, Caden!”

“Sorry, Mom.” I touch two fingers to my lips, planting them on the top of each grave, and then I find my way back to the car.

Cicily

It’s noon, and I’ve been sitting out on my board, in the middle of the ocean, for nearly an hour. The waves are nonexistent, which is the story of my life—the one day I’m here to enjoy them, they’re MIA. But that’s okay. I’m floating on my belly, chin on the nose of the board, feeling the sun bake my salty shoulders. Complete relaxation.