Twisted Summer (18 page)

“Well. I wanted to ask you.” She scrunched back her long dark hair, and secured it in a bun. “You get on well with your Uncle Gabe, don’t you?”

“
Um…yeah.” So he was
Uncle
Gabe now, was he? Wow. Mum really had cut him some slack after he “punished” me.

“It’s just that he’s been spending a lot of time alone on this holiday. It’s not easy for him—he gets left out when me and Lizzie are around. I think he’s feeling a bit lost.”

She had no idea. “I’m sure he’s fine, Mum.”

“I just wondered if maybe you could make a point of keeping him company. I know you’re here to be with Esmé before you go off to university, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

“I could ask her.” I tried so hard to sound vague, unbothered. I just sounded knackered instead.

“Have a drink with him at the barbecue,” she suggested. “I know Taylor tries with him, but they don’t have a lot in common.”

“Okay. I’ll try.” I glanced up at the clock. “Do I have time to get changed before we head down to the beach?”

“I think so. See you in twenty.”

So Mum wanted me to spend more time with Gabe.

Would she still be saying that if she knew the truth…?

***

There is no better smell than grilling meat, charcoal, and the fresh salt of the sea. The barbecue had been going for an hour now, and Granddad tossed on the first burgers. They hit the grate with a satisfying hiss and sizzle. When I was little, I’d watch with huge, hungry eyes and pounce on the first cooked burger only to slather it in ketchup. Now that I preferred real tomato, the whole thing felt mature and sophisticated (or as sophisticated as burgers get).

Beside me, Taylor made caveman grunts. “Meat. Ooh, sir.”

“Hungry?”

“I could tear the flesh off a cow. Literally, I’d like, chase after it and just lunge with my mouth open.” He put his beer down on a rock to mime catching a cow like a Frisbee, and I dissolved into giggles while Esmé rolled her eyes.

“You’ll change your mind when you try the Warren burger,” I told her.

Taylor, evidently still a bit stoned from last night, gave a dirty laugh. “Pretty sure she gets regular
Warren burger
.”

Esmé glared, and I swatted him around the head so hard that his glasses fell down his nose.

“Taylor. Are these two bullies giving you a hard time?” Gabe appeared next to him, a look of amusement pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Because I can sort them out if you need me to.”

“I’m okay.” He adjusted his glasses. “Just…phrased something badly.”

“He made a terrible lesbian sex joke,” I announced, trying not to eat Gabe with my eyes. I couldn’t wait to corner him, and I was terrified everyone would take one look at me and understand why.

“Never a good idea, mate,” Gabe said. “How’s that foot taste?”

“Is it a cow’s foot? Nom.” Taylor gave us all a drunk grin and then sloped off toward his Mum.

“You girls want a drink?” Gabe lifted a cool box that rang with the clink of glass.

“All you do is ply us with alcohol,” Esmé said. There was her sweet-but-sarcastic tone again. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect she actually knew something.

“I don’t ply. I offer,” he said, looking wounded. Then he pulled a bottle of chilled pear cider from the box, and tossed it in a little somersault. “Danni? You want?”

“
Yes please.” Just for a second, I allowed myself to catch his big, gray eyes.
Danni, you want?
For the love of God, please let us be alone for more than ten minutes!

Let him not run off to Canada and leave me like…this. I was such a mess. It wasn’t what
boyfriends
did, surely?

Gabe popped the lid off the cider and pressed the cold glass into my hand. “I’m going to find a thinking spot. Catch you two later.” With that, he strode over to the cluster of rocks he’d made the tent in last night and sat back on his elbows to soak up the sun.

“You okay?” Esmé put her hand on my bare thigh.

I took a big gulp of cider and squeezed my eyes shut. Being alone with Gabe in his little cabin that weekend, so isolated—we’d been spoiled. Now the people around us made a cage of barbed wire. “Just a bit hot. It’s baking out here.”

“That’s what you come to a beach for, Danni.” She smiled, teasing her finger along the sensitive skin of my inner thigh.

“I don’t tan like you,” I grumbled. “It’s not the same for pale girls.”

“I like your pale skin, pixie.”

“That’s because it’s awesome.”

“I’m gonna go find some more juice, okay? Back in a sec.”

“I’ll be here.” More cider. I closed my eyes again. The sun ebbed away, the sand melted beneath my bare feet, and the world was just fizz, sugar, pear juice and the drunken twist of the alcohol that tickled my throat. When I blinked, Mum stood in front of me, clutching two fat burgers in napkins.

“Why don’t you take one of these over to Gabe?” she said.

“Um…okay.” I tucked the cider under my arm and took the burgers from her, trying very hard not to look elated. I forced the smile from my lips and crushed that spring right out of my step. As he saw me, Gabe raised his sunglasses, grinned, and eased up the rock to make space. Like he knew I’d be staying.

“Mum thinks I should be keeping you company,” I said.

He took the burger in both hands, checking beneath the bun for fillings. “If you’re going to bring me meat, I’m not complaining.”

“She reckons you’re all lonely and need sympathy food.” I tried not to giggle but it rippled out of me anyway.

“
Well. I
have
been missing somebody this week.” He patted the space beside him and I climbed up onto the rock, a measured few inches from the heat of his body. “How very sweet of her.”

“It’s not really like Mum, is it?”

“No.” He snorted. “But maybe losing this Malcolm guy reminded her she’s got a few nice bones in her body.”

“Maybe.” I shielded my eyes; Esmé had walked back to look for me, and when she caught me next to Gabe, her pretty brow furrowed. She wouldn’t come over here, I knew that.

I should have hurried back over. But I didn’t.

“Esmé commented on me not being in bed last night. I told her some crap about being in the bathroom, but…”

He looked up from the burger he was about to devour. “Really? Shit. We need to be more careful.”

“We’ve only got four nights left.” I stared hard at my cider bottle, watched the bubbles rise to the surface and die as they hit the air. “It’s not long enough, Gabe.”

“I know, baby.” He dropped his voice to say these things, and we both knew it was risky to talk about them out in the open. But we were forbidden. This was something we could never have. If words were our only rebellion, bitter words it would have to be. “You like Canada?”

I shrugged. “Never been.”

“Shame.” He smiled faintly. “Nice place for a gap year. Canada.”

A prickly heat shot down my spine and unfurled at the base, making me sit bolt upright. “Are you…are you being serious?”

“I don’t know,” he said sadly.

“Because it was only a few days ago that you were all resigned to running away from…us.”

“I changed my mind.” He exhaled. “I broke.”

“What if we don’t get chance to be together, Gabe? What if you leave in a few days and we haven’t…I mean…”

“This,” he gestured to our cosy little chat position, “isn’t enough.”

“No.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean it like that.”

“It’s okay, Danni. That’s what makes everything so complicated, eh? That we need the physical stuff.”

He said
need
. Not
want
. Not
it would be nice.

Need.

“I could take a gap year,” I said slowly.

He nodded, looking ahead as if we chatted about the weather or something. “The visas over there can be a bit complicated, but the people who’ve hired me might be able to help out. I mean, there are ways.”

“I don’t know what the hell I’d tell Mum. Or Esmé.”

“If…if you were to come out there with me, like that, we’d manage it.”

“
Like that.” I pressed my lips together to stop the huge smile. “Like, a
couple
?” I whispered.

“Nobody would know, would they? We could be normal.” He glanced down. “If we were in Canada now, I could hold your hand. Kiss you. We’d just be a gorgeous girl and some lucky old dude.”

“Oh, shut up. You’re not even thirty.”

“Still older than you.”

“You love it,” I shot back.

“Yeah.” He went to touch me, but pulled his hand away. “I…I do.”

“We should eat these burgers before we start looking suspicious.” I checked mine for tomato; a big wedge sat squashed beneath the bun. When I looked back up, Taylor had accosted Esmé. “Esmé’s giving me evils.”

“She knows she’s going to lose you.” He took a bite.

“What? What do you mean?” I drew patterns in the sand with my toes while I waited for him to finish. “She doesn’t know about us. How could she?”

“Not that, baby. Just generally. She’s clingy, possessive. You said before; she’s always been like that. She probably knew the moment you started acting off with her or maybe even from the time you got together, but now you’re both going off to different universities…Danni. She’s a clever girl. Of course she knows she can’t keep you.”

I’d never thought about things like that before, but now it was so painfully obvious that I couldn’t look at either of them. Tears lanced the corners of my eyes. I might have fallen for Gabe, but there was a time not too long ago when I was crazy about Esmé and even more than that, relieved to have someone to be crazy about. She did that for me, and I appreciated it—even if from her point of view, it was all a big heap of crap and lies.

“I did love her,” I said defensively. My voice cracked with the restrained tears.

“No, you didn’t. But you wanted to.” He brushed his palm to my knee very quickly. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Christ, you’re eighteen. Still figuring everything out.”

“Not everything.” I smiled again, despite the weeping that threatened. “Not you. I’m sure about that.” Chemically, my body hadn’t let me deny it.

“Tonight. We’ll try again tonight. Maybe a little earlier…depends when everyone’s in bed.”

“
Okay.”
Please.

“But you need to be careful leaving. Don’t be gone too long this time.”

“Not my fault I fell asleep,” I grumbled. “Frickin’ Taylor.”

Gabe winced. “Never had him pegged as a stoner.”

“We need to make sure he doesn’t end up back down here, doing that again,” I said. “And maybe we should avoid the beach. We could go into the woods instead, meet outside or something.”

“Maybe.” He took another bite of burger and chewed slowly. “Let’s see how tonight pans out, and I’ll send you a text later, yeah? Just be sure to delete it straight after.”

“I will.”

“Now you better get back to Esmé before she burns straight through me with her evil eyes.”

I laughed. “I don’t know what’s up with her, sometimes. I mean, you’re privileged—you’re a bloke, but she actually likes you. Yet she won’t come over here and join in.”

He shook his head.

“It’s not like that,” I went on. “I think she just feels a bit threatened sometimes, like guys who watch us and get off on it are kind of intruding.”

“Because they weren’t invited to the party,” he mused.

“Precisely.” I slipped back off the rock and lingered in front of him, his feet almost brushing my calves. “Guess I’ll be heading back, then.”

“I’ll see you later.” He pressed his lips together in a very brief kissing pose. “And Danni?”

“Yeah?” I breathed.

“Maybe…think about Canada, yeah?”

“I will,” I promised.

I will, I will, I will.

Like a couple. Nobody would know, would they
?

It was like my heart grew a fifth ventricle full of liquor and crack.

I couldn’t stop thinking about his letters. Our first kiss, the bead of sweat he tasted. The balmy Devon evening when he took my virginity. In heartache years, we’d been apart for at least ten; maybe that’s why after just two months, he was talking about running away together. Because that’s what it would be.

When he stopped writing and texting and calling, I thought it was because he stopped
feeling.
I blamed myself, though I knew it was irrational; I was the one who gave in, in the end. If I hadn’t decided to sleep with my not-uncle and cheat on my girlfriend, none of this awfulness would have happened and we’d be spared the void of never knowing what we could be. If we weren’t family, if I wasn’t with Esmé, if he wasn’t going away.