Riptides (Lengths) (14 page)

“I’m not telling your sister, Enzo. You need to be man enough to at least tell her goodbye,” Adam demands. He tugs on my arm, trying to pull me back into the car. “If you don’t come with me to tell Gen, I’m going to give you your second ass kicking for the night and take you to Cohen’s place.”

“Cohen and Maren are on their honeymoon, dickhole,” I say, not wanting to admit how relieved I am that my brother is on a plane and unable to exert his older, more responsible sibling bullshit on me.

Adam shakes his head and grins like he knows he’s got me. “Not catching their flight until the morning. You want me to drop you at your anal retentive brother’s house on his wedding night?”

“You’re kind of an asshole, Abramowitz,” I say, but I concede because I’m tired and I really don’t feel like having my face bashed in again. Plus, much as I hate to admit it, Adam’s probably right. Gen would murder him in his sleep if I took off and Adam didn’t physically try to stop me.

“I’m alright with that,” Adam says, pulling away from my apartment complex.

“Hey, take me by my car after all,” I say.

Adam cuts his eyes toward me. “No way.”

“I’m not going to bail. I’ll follow you to your place, I swear. I just… I’m thinking after I tell Gen I’m taking off, she’s going to need you around, you know? I don’t want you to have to leave her to bring me back here.”

I give him a look that lets him know I would never screw my sister——or him——over, and he nods. It’s like something shifts between us, and Adam suddenly feels way less ‘married to my sister’ and way more ‘my brother.’

“Okay, bro, I can do that.”

***

“You’re doing what?” Genevieve's voice cuts through the dimly lit apartment like a red hot poker.

“I’m taking off in the morning,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady so it sounds less like the adult form of running away from home when shit gets bad. 

“How long are you going to be gone?” she demands, pushing her hair out of her face and crossing her arms tight over her chest. “And what did
you
have to do with this?” Her eyes dart back and forth between Adam and me.

Adam holds his hands up surrender-style and I preempt whatever excuse he may be about to offer up. “He didn’t have anything to do with this, Gen. I just think it’s a good idea to put some miles between me and Silver Strand for a while.”

“You mean between you and this girl, that damn baker! What’s her name? You give me her number
now
!” She’s so worked up I expect she’ll start spewing her venom in Spanish any minute now.

I can’t help but chuckle. “What are you going to do, Gen? Is this middle school? You going to go pull her hair for hurting your brother? I can take it. I just need some room to breathe.”

Repeating the words Jess said to me so many times out loud is like a sucker punch to my lungs. My laugh cuts short, and I grip the side of the couch for a second.

“Where are you going?” she asks, her voice wilted like she’s resigned to my leaving.

“I’ve got a few ideas,” I say, remembering the business card that Rowan slipped me. I basically have a job waiting for me in Napa. Maybe I’ll head that way.

“Such as?” Gen is tapping her foot.

“I haven’t worked it all out yet. But you know, we live in this miraculous age now, Genie. We have these newfangled things called iPhones, and you can both call and text me on your little device.” I try to give her a full smile, but my lip cracks, and I’m pretty sure fresh blood pours out.

“This is funny?” Genevieve says, her mouth pursed together in an angry pout. “Mami is going to go ape shit. Did you stop and think about that?”

It doesn’t feel funny to me at all. It feels sad. It feels desperate. It feels like the only thing I can do. But how can I explain that to my sister?

“It’s like a bail-dive,” I say, running my hand through my hair.

Genevieve rolls her eyes. “A surfing reference? Really, Enzo?”

“You know I’m right. It’s the same thing, Genie. Think about it,” I say, looking at my sister. Our eyes meet and I know she’s remembering all the times we waded out into the water as little groms with our boards tucked under our arms: me, Gen, Cohen, Cece and even Lydia caught waves that some of the veterans backed down from. We may have been kids, but we’ve always been determined. We’ve always been fighters. But sometimes you’re up against something too damn big and you have no choice but to bail out.

Adam, who has up until now remained silent on the other side of the kitchen, asks, “What’s a bail dive?”

“It’s sort of your last resort… when you’re going to get pummeled by a wave.” Gen’s voice quivers over the words as the realization sets in. She knows. She knows if my heart could stand it there’s no way I’d be here right now telling her goodbye. I’ve got to leave. It’s
self-preservation at this point. “You do everything you can to keep from being separated from your board, but sometimes…sometimes the safest move is to just bail.”

I watch her face as the final pieces click together and her eyes well up with tears. Damn, I love my sister. “She really hurt you, huh?”

“She didn’t mean to, but yeah, I’m pretty beaten up,” I say. I motion to my face. “I mean, obviously I’m beaten up, but things inside are pretty raw right now, too. I really just need a little time. A fresh start.”

She nods and wipes the back of her wrists against her eyes in quick, almost violent, swipes. “I think I get it, E. But you have to remember the most important thing about a bail dive: you have to be careful, because when you let go, you can sometimes hurt people around you.”

“I don’t want to, Gen. That’s not what this is about,” I say, desperate for her to really know that.

Her eyes are glassy, but she smiles a tiny smile. It looks like it takes a lot of effort, but it’s something. “I know, Enzo.” Genevieve nods. “I understand. I do.”

I pull my kid sister in for a crushing hug and hope to god I walk out of her apartment before she starts really crying.

“Promise you’re going to keep in touch,” she says in a choked, thick voice. “And let me know where you are once you’re settled.”

“Of course, G. I’m not entering the witness protection program,” I joke, but, instead of laughing, she lets out a strangled sob.

“And don’t worry, I’ll tell everyone what’s going on. They’ll take it better from me anyway,” she says, wiping under her eyes as she takes a deep breath. “And Enzo?” she says, pulling away and looking me square in the eye. “Do yourself a favor.”

“What’s that?” I ask, putting my hands on her shoulders.

“Give girls a rest for a while will
you? This one ended so badly you’re leaving town…I’m scared for what might happen if you got hurt again so soon.” My sisters eyes are earnest and full of pity. I need to get out of here.

“I’ll be fine, Gen. Promise,” I say. I try to pull away from her, but her sharp little nails are digging into my biceps. “But you have to let me go. Go claw up your man over there, he basically assaulted me to get me over here in the first place.”

“Asshole,” Adam says with a grin.

“Thanks for everything
, brother,” I say, extending my hand to shake my brother-in-law’s.

“You’re going to be great, Enzo. I have faith in you,” Adam says, looking me right in the eyes. “It’s about time you put a little energy into yourself, though.”

After I’ve stopped by my apartment and packed up a few things, I point my car north, away from Silver Strand.

It’s still dark out even though it’s early morning. The sky is turning a dull purple, and the stars and moon are fading. It’s that eerie, quiet time before the sun screams up, bright and orange and the day comes alive. This is the perfect time to drive a little too fast— all the windows rolled down, the salty air rushing into my lungs, my music blaring, and let everything that’s happened in the last few weeks course through me.

I love that there’s almost no one else on PCH. I love that I’m going to be waking up in a new place tomorrow morning, not exactly sure what I’m going to do or who I’m going to meet. Almost everything in my life is an unknown quantity right now. All I really know for sure is that I agree with Adam.

The calm of the night screws with your perception. It makes things seem a little dream-like, like the consequences in the morning won’t be nearly as harsh. Either way, I’m headed out. I’m leaving Jess and my life here behind for now because I need to put more energy into myself. A new self, unattached from who I’ve been all this time before.

I’m not going to fight the current of the riptide. I’m not going to let it drag me under. I’m just going to relax, tread a little water and let it float me somewhere new. Somewhere that’s mine, and not full of the frustration of Cohen being more together, Lydia and Cece being smarter, or Genevieve having life fall into place so perfectly.

Somewhere that my happiness isn’t based on a lie. 

Nope. The tides are shifting, and I’m coming out a better man on the other side.

Want a sneak peek at what’s in store for Enzo outside of Silver Strand?

ALMOST LOVER
, the first book in a Lengths spin-off series, is coming soon!

CHAPTER ONE

JORDAN

(unedited excerpt)

This entire wedding would make my mother snort with disdain. It’s like I can hear her murmuring in my ear all those things that make me cringe whenever she voices them in public, too loudly and without giving a crap who overhears——because my mom thinks being unfailingly honest is way more important than being socially polite.

Roses? Red roses? I’d make a joke about how generic they are, but the joke would be a
cliché. Sort of like your father’s child bride. By the way, did she peruse her collection of Bob Mackie Barbie dolls for wedding dress ideas? She looks like a background dancer for some Vegas wedding magic show.

“Jordan?” Dad puts his arm around me, and I nestle into the solid weight of it, elbowing Mom’s snark out of my brain for the moment. “You have no idea how much this means to Jennifer. She’s over the moon about this.”

“Of course.” I smile, this particular, practiced smile that’s all teeth and squinty eyes. I always hope it’ll be bright enough to trick anyone who isn’t looking closely enough into thinking I’m
actually
happy. And it usually works. “Jennifer wanted…family…standing with her. So. Here I am.”

I choke around the word that’s so silly I’m embarrassed to have said it. Because——as cordial as my father’s
fiancée and I manage to be to each other——there’s no way I consider her family. Not by any stretch. Though I go out of my way to be nice. Maybe to combat how intensely mean my mother is about her. Plus, she’s kind of undeniably pathetic.

Poor Jennifer, the near-orphan with a heart of gold and a thousand and one sob stories that never quite add up. My gut feeling is that my dad’s pretty young wife is only
slightly
shady behind those wide anime eyes and all that damn wavy blonde hair. She looks like a mermaid. Or a cartoon. Or a mermaid cartoon who’s trying to pull the wool over your eyes all the time. But I think all her weird lies about nefarious or tragically dead relatives are just a cover for the fact that her people are most likely Bud-drinking, Nascar-watching West Virginians she doesn’t want  my dad or any of his rich, cultured friends to meet. Hence, she planned a slightly tacky, completely flamboyant wedding all on her own, and here I am, standing as a bridesmaid because I’m “the only real family she has to stand with her.”

In a strapless scarlet dress that droops off my non-curves and a pair of elbow-high white gloves that are over-the-top humiliating. I refused to let my mother even lay eyes on the dress, because I was going to have a hard enough time wearing it for the few hours I had to,
never mind having my mother cackle about how ridiculous I would look in it for weeks before.

“How’s your mother?” Dad’s entire frame goes stiff and his mouth twitches to one side.

I ignore the look and skirt the question. “She’s great. Don’t you have to be somewhere? Jennifer was freaking out about getting this started on time.”

But Dad is persistent when he wants information, and——even though he’s marrying Jennifer today——there’s still a piece of him that needs to know what Mom’s doing at all times.

“And Golden Leaf?” Now his look goes from rigid to wrinkled. The spaces between and around his eyes fill with deep worry lines, and they bracket his mouth, too. The vineyard has and always will be my mother’s heart and soul. Most days it feels like it’s more her child than I am. But that place has an undeniable magic my father never could deny.

Sometimes I think the vineyard kept them together for a good five years beyond the time when their marriage had coughed its last, horrible death rattle.

“S’okay,” I mumble, because I cannot betray my mother by telling my father the way she pores over the ledgers until it’s nearly dawn and spends hours wedged between the oak barrels, sipping and sighing with worry.

“She looked thin when I last saw her. Frail, even.” Ironic that he cares so much now, notices more now. If he’d given her this much attention during those last few rocky years of their marriage, they probably could have avoided the entire messy divorce.

“She was making selections for a local contest the last time you saw her,” I rationalize. “You know that always gets her edgy.”

“Used to be only the big contests set her on edge. The local ones? She was so calm and collected when it came to those.” My dad raises his black eyebrows and shakes his head. “She makes wine. You’d think all that sampling would mellow her.”

I shrug.

Wine is more than a drink to my mother. It’s lifeblood. It’s an obsession. I’ve never seen my mother so much as tipsy. She has way too much respect for the wine and for her job as caretaker of it. When I think of Pollock and his splatters or Plath and her poetic angst or Child and her beef bourguignon, I add my mother into the mix. She’s a completely focused, passionate artist, and wine is her medium.

“I wanted to use Golden Leaf for the wedding,” Dad says, his voice ragged with frustration.

It was a long, growly fight, with both of them presenting their cases to me and insisting I petition the other to ‘just be reasonable for once.’ Dad pointed out how many wealthy, wine-loving people would attend, how good it would be for publicity.
Mom serenely insisted she’d rather scoop her eyes from her skull with a dull spoon than live with the image of Jennifer gulping down our crisp, sharply-sweet Riesling before she went to do the YMCA with her gauche friends.

In the end, as usual, Mom’s pride won out and Golden Leaf limped on in proud silence.

“Dad, please,” I beg. “It wasn’t my choice, and it’s a moot point now. Look, I better go make sure Jennifer is okay. Alright?” I wait, and his when dark eyes meet mine. I can see shades of regret and longing in them. There’s a lot I know he wants to say. Very little is probably appropriate to speak aloud on the day he’s supposed to marry the woman he supposedly loves: a woman who is not my mother.

“Alright, kiddo. What would I do without you?” He kisses my hair just over the curve of my ear.

I squeeze his hand, my thumb bumping over the smooth, worn indent where his wedding ring sat for twenty five years: long enough that, even though he took it off for good three years ago, the ghost of it still marks him.

I
should
go find Jennifer, but she has an entire entourage of perfectly doting, giggly trophy wives and spoiled debutantes who are saying those happy things someone should say to you on your wedding day. I would say those things if I had to, but I’d prefer if I didn’t have to. Not when Mom and Dad are still mourning the end of a marriage neither one ever quite believed would end.

Not when I’m not at all sure how I feel about any of this.

What I need is a distraction. What I see is a wine tent going up.

Slowly. Awkwardly.

It’s not as nice as the ones my mother orders for events, which cost a small fortune, but are gorgeously detailed and insanely easy to put together——the only requirements that mattered when my mother was choosing, regardless of how little extra we had to spend on them.

This one has no elegant details and seems the opposite of easy to put together. There is a guy crouched over the canopy piece, trying to fit together two long, hollow bars that aren’t cooperating. Not the way he’s trying to snap them together anyway.

“Reverse the one in your left hand,” I suggest.

His broad back stiffens and his shoulders go still. When he looks over his shoulder at me, I expect him to be annoyed, but he’s smiling. He turns his attention to the bar in his left hand, flips it, and gives a low whistle when it slides in smoothly.

He hops to his feet, agile and so energized, I feel the excitement snapping off of him and crackling in the air. “Enzo Rodriguez. You looking for work? Because I’ll put a good word in with my boss if you are.” His eyes slide over me in way that makes me feel full and ready…for what I’m not sure. “Meaning I’ll beg him on my knees to take you on. I was starting to sweat, wondering if I’d ever get that damn thing up.”

I shake the hand he extended. His skin is warm, even through my glove, and the callouses on his fingers snag on some of the loose threads. I have a strange urge to grab the glove in my teeth and rip it off so I can feel his hand on mine, skin to skin.

“Jordan Calletti. And thank you for the offer, Enzo, but I happen to have a job I can’t leave.”

“You love it that much?” There’s a hint of admiration in his eyes, and I half hate to stomp it out.

“No. I actually
can’t
leave, like I have no choice. It’s a family gig, so it’s pretty much life-long indentured service.”

His eyes flash up for a second, and he gives me a rueful smile that lets me know he’s been there.

“My parents have a couple furniture stores in LA. When I told my father I was moving to San Francisco, I swear to you, he didn’t even ask what my plans were. He just said, ‘I can finally open a branch in Northern California.’ He was about ready to disown me when he found out I wasn’t interested in hocking loveseats, you know?”

I watch the way his lips curl when he says ‘loveseats.’ I wish I could find a way to work that word into our conversation again, and I wonder why my skin prickles when such a domestic word comes out of his mouth.

“I do know,” I say and strangle the sigh that’s always on my lips when I think about Golden Leaf. “I mean, not about loveseats exactly, but overbearing parents? I’m pretty much an expert. Well, I’m glad you put your foot down. It gives those of us who are still suffering in bondage some hope.”

When he laughs, his shoulders bump up and down. “I’ll tell you what.” He gives me that look again, like he would use his eyes to pull down the zipper on this dress if he could. “I was a little bummed I agreed to the overtime while I was wrestling this stupid thing up. But now I’m feeling like it was all a damn good idea.”

I hold my breath and let that honeyed voice run over my ears. His eyes looked brown when he first glanced my way, but now I see the spokes of soft green and gold in them. They’re hazel. Hazel eyes are notorious for changing color according to a person’s mood, and I want to know what color they would turn if I kissed him.

My entire body simmers at that thought, and I know I should get going. Fast. “I, uh…I better get over there.” I point one gloved finger toward the garden area covered with draping, heavy red roses and already packed full of guests.

“Find me later.” The words drop out of his mouth with an easy, lazy command that makes my arms bristle with goose bumps.

“I’ll do that. I’ll just look for the falling down tent.” My heart flutters when he laughs again. “By the way, the piece in your right hand goes into the curved piece by your feet.”

He looks down and I get a better view of his neck, a dark caramel I want to lick. I can see the peak of a tattoo’s design on his chest when he stretches down to pick up the curved metal.

“Stay and help me.” He puts his big hands together, prayer-style and that smile…it’s so damn sweet, it burns.

“Sorry.” I hold my arms out at my sides to show off my silly outfit. “I’ve got a minor role in this production.”

“Break a leg.” He jerks his chin my way, those highly kissable lips pursed like he knows he’s about to say something he probably shouldn’t. “And try not to steal the show, gorgeous. Not fair to the bride, you know?”

My brain is already snapping to the ready with an answer to those words——which just curled around my heart and sank low down in my body——but I have to cut it short, because I hear the violins tuning.

“Shit. I’m late!” I turn around and rush to the ceremony site as fast as my column dress will let me, refusing to turn back and check if those hazel eyes are watching me as I go.

Nope. I will not peek.

No matter how badly I want to see exactly what shade of golden-green they become when they watch something they want walk away. Because I already care too much, even though I know from experience that this was just a little fun flirting that will fizzle before it gets started.

I manage not to trip as I maneuver over peoples’ satin heels and shiny shoes, wiggling to the front so I can join a line of identically clad women. The main difference between me and the other six bridesmaids is I’m silicone free, so my dress sags where there's cling and vavavoom.

I hold my bouquet of fat red roses, swallowing the swear that bubbles up when a missed thorn digs into my palm. I turn with the other girls and paste on a wide smile as Jennifer starts down the aisle. There’s no denying she’s a pretty person, but her wedding outfit would have made Cher jealous in the eighties. She’s like the polar opposite of my elegant, classically gorgeous mother. I eye my father to see his reaction, but his face is the unreadable blank it’s been so often the last few months. The other bridesmaids wiggle and let out muffled squeals of girlish delight over their friend’s insane get-up.

I can’t help but think that one of these overly made-up sexpots will probably wind up dragging Enzo Rodriguez into some dark corner by that hastily knotted tie of his.