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“May—” Movement caught the corner of her eye and she returned her attention to the beach. Both Boyfriend and Fern were on their feet and plastered together in a kiss that took the summer temperature up another ten degrees. Nikki started to look away, uncomfortable with the intimate display, but then Fern broke the embrace. Boyfriend tried to yank her back, but the teen broke off again, despite his obviously displeased reaction. When she turned to run up the beach in the direction of the path Nikki had seen the teens scramble down earlier, the boy took off after her.
Still clutching the knitting experiment, Nikki ran, too, exiting the store on unchecked impulse, her instincts compelling her to intercept and…do something as completely out-of-character as get herself involved in someone else’s personal life.
“Nikki!” Cassandra called after her.
But she kept on going, even as the odd thought struck that she didn’t remember telling the woman with the rippling hair her name.
Gritty dirt dug into the soles of Fern Daley’s bare feet and her bag thumped against her hip as she hurried up the path leading to the highway. The minor discomforts didn’t slow her down. She had to get away from Jenner.
Up ahead, a car hesitated at the exit from the fish market parking lot. In the driver’s seat was Jay’s new chef…Nikki? Yeah, Nikki. She gave Fern a little wave and called over the sound of the traffic. “Need a ride? I’m heading back to your cousin’s.”
Fern didn’t hesitate to take her up on the offer. As the car turned onto the highway, over her shoulder she watched Jenner reach the head of the path. His scowl said he was pissed, but she was, too. She hoped he understood that…God, he didn’t think she was running away, did he?
But she’d told him to cut out the PDA and still he kept up with the too-public displays of affection, no matter how many times she said, “Not here,” “Not now,” “Not in front of everybody.”
She drew her bag onto her lap and hugged it against her chest as goose bumps broke out on all the skin between the top of her bikini and the low-rise waist of her denim mini-skirt. The blast of cool air from the car’s vents was downright frosty in comparison to the heat of her flesh after Jenner’s full-body contact. That was the part about sex nobody explained to you, whether it was your mom discussing “special” feelings or your fifth-grade teacher diagramming female organs. Nobody told you it could be like the sun, melting and burning you all at once.
“You’re a brave girl,” Nikki said, glancing over at Fern.
Because she was playing with fire? But this woman didn’t know anything about her. “What do you mean?”
“Living away for the summer.”
“Oh. It’s only for August. And this isn’t really ‘away.’ Over the years we’ve spent plenty of time at the house that used to be my grandparents’. I know a lot of the local kids from other visits.”
“Still, I bet you miss hanging out with your friends at home.”
“Janice is on a two-week college scouting trip. Marissa’s a counselor at a sleepover camp. My best friend, Emily, well, she’s…not really available.” Their whole group, the “Two Shoes,”—a name they’d adopted after being teasingly taunted with “Goody Two-shoes” for, like, the bazillionth time—were in different places. Fern had to wonder if they’d ever be back to the old place again.
Probably not. Not for Emily, anyway.
“So you have a cute boy to spend time with instead.”
Fern frowned. Was this woman just making idle conversation or was there more to it? Had her parents said something to Jay and had Jay then said something to his chef…? Nah. Jay had hired the chef just days before. His lesbian chef, she remembered him saying. And his girlfriend.
Fern’s eyes narrowed. Nikki didn’t look like any lesbian she knew, but then again, the only lesbian Fern knew was Cher Brooks, who’d cut her hair Marine-style and started dressing in hiking boots and oversized sweatshirts after they’d arrested her stepfather for molesting her. It seemed to Fern that Cher—and maybe Nikki, Jay’s lesbian girlfriend—might be as confused by sexuality as she was.
“What’s the boy’s name?” Nikki asked, glancing over again.
“Jenner.” He was nineteen and starting college in the fall. She didn’t really know what had happened to the year after he’d graduated from high school, but the mystery of that only made him more attractive. It was stupid of her, and stereotypical—she’d read the S.E. Hinton novels, and just think how teenage Lydia Bennet had been taken in by the disastrous Wickham in Pride and Prejudice—but when it came to Jenner…Well, the bad in that boy was something Fern found irresistible.
It was because of Emily in some part, she knew that. And because of Jenner himself. Of the way he made her feel when he kissed her and touched her. That’s where her confusion came from. She never could figure out, from minute to minute, whether she wanted him to stop or whether she wanted him to take it further.
It’s what came from being one of the Two Shoes, she thought in disgust. From being smart enough to figure out you could become popular by being the one to say no to the offers of booze and weed and wild sex. Everyone might like you, from your peers to their parents to the high school principal, but when the day came that you were truly tempted…When the day came when you were truly tempted and you discovered inside yourself a reckless streak that would freak out your family if they only knew…
Well, then you didn’t have enough practical experience to know how far you could edge your toes over the brink before falling completely into the abyss.
If Fern was as smart as her SAT scores said, she’d find a way to go back home for the rest of the summer or at least call it quits with Jenner. But when Emily had returned from her weekend visit to her brother at college, a deep, scary hole had opened inside Fern. Jenner with his dark moods and sullen looks, with his nimble fingers and insistent, sometimes stinging kisses, overwhelmed her fears and let her forget that frightening chasm by making her aware of other things—her skin, the blood running through her veins. Each and every cell.
Chef Nikki was filling the silence between them with questions again. What were some of her favorite foods? “Strawberries and vanilla yogurt.” Did Fern have any allergies? “No.” What did she plan to do with the rest of her day?
What did she plan to do with the rest of her day, now that she’d left Jenner and the other kids at the beach? More to the point, what would Jenner do?
A new Beetle convertible passed in the lane beside them and Fern caught sight of Shelby Templeton, her dark hair swirling like a vampire’s cape around her shoulders. Her gaze caught Fern’s and she rolled her middle finger up her cheek. Beeyatch. She’d had her eye on Jenner, rumor had it, but he’d switched his attention from the pampered Malibu princess to Fern.
And he could switch it back again just as easily.
Her lungs shut down and something that felt like panic twisted her stomach. It was stupid to like a guy so much. It was stupid to worry he’d forget about her just like that. But without Jenner, what would there be to do, to focus on? Without him, it would be thoughts of what happened to Emily, playing in her head 24/7 like some crazy cable news channel fixated on the latest white girl tragedy.
Her hand scrambled in her purse and then closed around her cell phone.
Speed dial #1.
He picked up immediately. “You shouldn’t have run out on me.”
“I didn’t!” That wasn’t what she’d done. This was all about not running. It was about staying and it was about the lure of sex. “But I’m sorry anyway. Can you come to the house?”
Five
The interesting thing is how one guy, through living out his own fantasies, is living out the fantasies of so many other people.
—HUGH HEFNER, FOUNDER,PLAYBOY MAGAZINE
Mid-morning, on the Friday of Nikki’s first week of employment, Jay found himself wandering into the kitchen, as was his new habit. His chef had cleared away the remains of the zucchini-walnut pancakes she’d served him and Fern along with a citrus and coconut salad. But the coffee carafe was still more than half-full.
He told himself that’s what drew him. Caffeine.
It couldn’t be the chef. Not only had he sworn off women, but sitting on a stool pulled up to the bar, headphones stuffed in her ears, this particular woman steadfastly ignored him as he filled his mug.
The coffee went down hot and smooth as he watched her fill out a shopping list. He’d been doing a hell of a lot of that lately, too—watching Nikki. It was wreaking havoc on the work he was trying to do from home¸ since more than once he’d dragged his laptop out of his home office to the living room with its closer proximity to the kitchen.
Of course, it meant that on occasion she offered him tastes of the things she was prepping or baking, but it was getting hard to deny those weren’t exclusively the kinds of tastes he was truly after.
Strange, that. She didn’t appear to like him much, her attitude decidedly take-him-or-leave-him, with emphasis on the leave-him, and he wasn’t accustomed to a woman so intent on stamping out the sexual sparks that continued flaring up between them. Yet still, he was drawn to the kitchen and to her. Yeah. Strange, that.
