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While I could tell by the curious glances he kept sneaking at me out of the corner of his eye he was surprised by my acquiescence, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of fighting back. I was done with Cruz’s bullshit and ready to be done with him. I was the one that was surprised, however, when after falling asleep on the couch, I found myself being woken up by him whispering my name.
When I opened my eyes and found his face inches from mine, I thought I was dreaming. But when I realized that I wasn’t, I did something I never thought I’d do. I grabbed his face and kissed him, just like Michael did to Fredo in theGodfather. Only, Cruz didn’t pull away. Instead, he scooped me up with one hand andpulled me onto his lap, kissing me back.
It was the most intense kiss that I’d ever shared with a boy and it seemed to last for hours. The way his tongue massaged mine as he held my neck with one hand, and gripped my hip with the other, made my body come alive and my insides feel like putty.
By the time we pulled apart, we were both out of breath, and our lips swollen, and the spark that had always existed between us was no longer one of anger, but something else entirely. We kissed and talked all night, and by the time the sun came up, just like a category five hurricane, he’d torn down every shutter around my heart.
After that, everything between us changed. When we were around other people we pretended to tolerate one another, but when we were alone, we couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves. I couldn’t get enough of him, or he, me, and every night after our parents went to bed, I’d sneak into his room, just to be closer to him.
I wanted to do everything and anything with Cruz, and while I wasn’t his first, I asked him to be mine. All my classmates were having sex and I hated feeling like I was the only sixteen year old virgin in my grade, so after some discussion and a lot of begging, Cruz gave in.
Lucky for him, I was a fast learner. In no time I learned how to blow his mind with the touch of my hand or a flick of my tongue, and my need for him was insatiable. I craved him like a drug and could never get enough.
What we shared that summer was beyond my wildest dreams. But as dreams often do, it came to an end. The night before Cruz left for Highland, he decided our parents being married made us an impossibility. We weren’t related. Not really. And it seemed utterly ridiculous that a legal binding between our parents made it impossible for Cruz and me to betogether. Yet, he was ending us for exactly that reason.
I begged him to change his mind, and shed more tears than was dignified, but he was insistent. He said the press would have a field day if they found out Saffron Butler’s daughter was sleeping with her stepbrother and it was better if we ended things before we became tabloid fodder.
I didn’t agree. We felt too good together, to be wrong. I didn’t like or want it, but it didn’t matter. He’d made up his mind and said I should move on with my life, and he would do the same. He planned to focus on baseball, and I should focus on finishing up at Elmhurst so I could go to Yale, follow in my father’s footsteps, and carry on the Butler name, and that was it.
The next morning he left for Highland and he didn’t come back. He didn’t come home for holidays or breaks. I hadn’t heard from him—not a call, nor a letter, not even a visit—in close to two years. Then this afternoon, as I passed by the Cherry Cove rental office on my way back from grabbing a coffee, I overheard Old Man Danbury say jovially into the phone, ‘Well, hi there, All American,’ and it stopped me in my tracks.
I’d gotten used to hearing Cruz’s nickname at home, and learned to ignore it, but hearing someone here use it had sent me for a loop. Why would he be talking to anyone in Cherry Cove?
After eavesdropping on the rest of the call, I learned he would be coming here with a couple of friends for the summer, and had rented the Deveraux place, which was just down the beach from Momma’s, and had called to see if it was ready.
The idea that he was coming here made my heart race. This was not the summer for Cruz to come crashing back into my life. I had shit to do and didn’t need him distracting me.
As it turned out, the tabloids never learned about my stepbrother and I, but they did seem determined to persecute my family one way or the other. Last month, five years after my Daddy’s death, they began dragging his name through the mudagain. Thanks to new evidence that had suddenly come to light, the investigation into his death was being reopened, thrusting both Momma and I back into the spotlight.
When Momma asked Daddy’s best friend, Langston Richardson, Elmhurst’s DA, what this new evidence was, he said it was classified and couldn’t divulge it or the source. But apparently it wasn’t classified enough for the source to blab to every newspaper that would listen, that my father had dealings with the Petrov Syndicate, a notorious organized crime family.
When I asked Momma about it and asked why this was happening again after he’d been dead for years, she told me to ignore the stories and stay out of it. She may have been a Butler by marriage, but she was a Duchance by blood, and they always took the high road.
I, however, was a Butler by blood, and wasn’t about to roll over and let this play out the southern way—through charm and niceties and looking the other way. I was going to do thismyway. Through piss and vinegar and taking the bull by the horns and going after the bastards head on.
Daddy once told me our name helped build this country and I never really understood just how important that was until someone tried to ruin it. That’s why I’m determined to find out who was behind this new evidence, and I didn’t need Cruz to come here and get in the way. I needed to be focused so I could get the bastards behind the smear campaign against my father.
That’s why I told Danbury I would give Cruz the rental agreement and keys to the Deveraux place. To prove to myself Icouldfocus on what mattered and that Cruz’s being here would not impact me whatsoever. But no matter how hard I try to deny it, watching him drive away for a second time hurts and is taking up way more mental energy than it should.
I never would have imagined the boy I once loathed would be the guy I could never shake, but well that’s why they were calledcrushes.
Except, Bennett Darcy de la Cruz was more than that. He was my first love and I would never get over him because first loves you never forget.
“Ellery?” Momma’s voice breaks through the fog in my head and the weight on my chest.
I whip around, finding my mother smiling back at me. “Momma!” I reply, my voice two octaves higher than normal. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to come into town and pick up a few things for dinner. What are you doing here, sugar? I thought you were headed to the boardwalk.”
I flash her a sheepish smile not wanting to admit why I am standing here, staring off into space. “Guess I lost track of time. Too much coffee.”
“Maybe, cut back,” she says, brows furrowed. “It’s not good for your growth.”
“Um…” I look down with a laugh, “I think I’m good there, don’t you?”
Momma’s always telling me she doesn’t understand where I get my curves. Everything about her is in perfect proportion. Small waist, B-cup chest, and legs for days. I may have her tiny waist, but my boobs have far surpassed hers, and I have none of her height.
“Are you okay, darlin’?” She looks at me, her disapproval of my coffee addiction, shifting to concern. “You look a little flushed.”
