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“Which part? Charming you, or scouting Summersweet Island?” Asher smirks. “I can already tell she’s got you wrapped around her finger, like she does so well, so I’m assuming you mean the list. She thought she could quit Brewster Development, but I knew it would only be a matter of time before she missed the thrill of working there and decide to help us out again. Good thing she did. This place is a hidden gem.”
I don’t even realize I’m panting and having a hard time bringing air into my lungs until Dottie leans over and quietly asks me if I’m okay. I wave her words away, my eyes never leaving Asher as he pulls a folded piece of paper out the inside pocket of his suit coat, opens it up, and sets it down in front of me. It’s an email dated over a year ago. From Tinsley Brewster, sent to at least ten other email addresses that end inbrewsterdev.com, with the subject lineSmall-Town Leads– IMPORTANT.And right in the middle of the page, in between a handful of other small-town names, is Summersweet Island, the only one with an asterisk next to it.
She lied.
I even asked her, “Why Summersweet Island?” one night when she was telling me all the other places she tried to live after she left Chicago. She just shrugged, said she made her way to Virginia Beach and was starting to get restless. She told me she saw the sign for the ferry walking the boardwalk one night and thought,“Sounds cute. Why not?”She said it was a fluke, fate, destiny that brought her to this island and to me, plus her brother knowing someone here she could stay with. She never said she put my home on a list over a year ago, or that sheplannedto come here. That she really did know who I was and thought she could use my friendship with Tristan to come here andcharmme so we’d just hand over Summersweet Island to them.
I know I shouldn’t believe anything that is coming out of Asher’s mouth. There’s no way Danny would have planned all this and then come right out and told me what her family’s business is all about, if she really did want to—as Asher said—help them out. I know he’s a liar, and a cheater, and works for a company filled with liars and cheaters. But everything Danny has said to me swirls around in my head with everything Asher is saying, until I don’t know what to believe, or what to trust is real. Has she been talking to him since she got here? About Summersweet Island? Aboutme?How else would he know about me not wanting to be mayor?
No. She would never do that.
She wouldn’t… right?
She sent an email.
It’s right there in black and white, sitting on the table next to my half-eaten food that feels like it’s turning into a rock in my stomach.
I know I should be smart and not let him get in my head. I know there could very well be a rational explanation for that email. It could be Photoshopped for all I know. And Asher could be making all this up just to get to me… but it’s working. Even if this is all made up and the email is somehow fake, she still told him about me not wanting to be mayor. There’s no other way he could possibly know this information. She told this man, who she claimed to hate, something so personal to me that I thought I could trust her with.
I hear Asher chuckle next to me, and when he pats me on the back this time, I don’t even bother telling him off or swatting his hand away, while everyone else around the table laughs at something my father says, like I’m not on the verge of falling apart right across from them. The room starts to spin, and all the anger I was feeling moments ago disappears in the blink of an eye. It turns into doubt, and embarrassment, and, all of a sudden, I’m thrown back in time, to middle school, high school, and even just a few months ago, with everyone laughing at me behind my back. Not privy to the joke, because Iamthe joke.
Has she been laughing at me this entire time, just like Asher is doing right now?
“She’s probably the most exciting thing to happen to you. But hey, at least you got laid out of it. She sure is a wildcat in bed, am I right?” Asher nudges his elbow against my arm, and I have to swallow down the vomit that makes its way up my throat when he winks at me. “Although I’ve heard it hasn’talwaysbeen in bed. I think she was trying to make me jealous, telling me about you getting freaky in a tattoo shop, and not being able to keep your hands off her after breaking a few of your trophies. I know the feeling, man; I know the feeling. But we’re ancient history, so you enjoy that good time all you want.”
No, no, no, this isn’t happening right now.
This has to be a nightmare I’m going to wake up from soon. She reallyhasbeen talking to him since she got here. Why would she share those things with him? So they couldbothlaugh at what a fool I am and how out of control I get whenever I touch her? Before I can stop it, every bad memory from my past comes back to haunt me. Signs taped to my back that saidLoseron them, a girl asking me out in seventh grade just so she could go back to her friends and laugh when I eagerly said yes, stacks of books being knocked out of my hands in the school halls, being made fun of for things that made me happy, never being invited to birthday parties, never being picked for any teams, always feeling less-than and not good enough.
I want to tell Asher off, use my voice that I’ve just recently found to put him in his place. Make him stop talking about Danny like this, make him stop telling lies and messing with my head, but I can’t make the words come out. I’m hurt, and confused, and I want him the hell out of my father’s home, and I want him the hell off this island, but I can’t move, and I can’t breathe. I just want to curl up into a ball and… give up. Whatever it takes to make the pain go away.
Someone asks Asher’s a question about financial reports, and he answers the question with ease, but all I do is see his mouth moving, not hearing the words coming out, my heart pounding so loudly that it’s all I can focus on. Everyone at the table starts talking about whatever he just said, and Asher turns and looks at me again. Right when I think there’s nothing else he could possibly say that would make me hurt any worse than I already do, he leans in closer and lowers his voice.
“I see you’ve got a little paint behind your ear there. Did she do that crazy sex-painting thing with you too? I mean, we didn’t work out, but I’ve still got a few of them hanging in my penthouse. You don’t just throw away hot art like that.”
There’s suddenly a buzzing in my ears that won’t go away, black spots flashing at the edges of my vision, and I have to close my eyes and focus on my breathing before I pass out.
I thought that was special, just for us. Something she’d never done before and wanted to share with me.
I feel sick, and I feel like a fool. It never made sense, the two of us together. I never understood why someone like her, so wild and free, would want to be with someone like me, so boring and plain. But I thought what we had was different, and special, and that everything she said to me and everything we did together was real. Asher’s right about one thing. Sheisthe most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. But none of it was special. None of it was just forme. And now I don’t even know if any of it was real.
When my eyes open back up, Asher is answering a question my father asked, wrapping his hand around his glass of water. All I can see isthathand wrapping around Danny’s throat whilehehas sex with her on a tarp filled with paint, instead of me.Hismouth kissing her lips, andhisbody bringing her pleasure while she calls outhisname. Until my anger comes flying back like a bullet shooting out of a gun, slamming into me with enough force that I pound my fists against the table so hard all the silverware, plates, and glasses rattle, then jump up from my seat so fast my chair goes toppling to the floor behind me.
“Ryan!” My dad’s voice is loud and full of shock, immediately making a pang of guilt go through me at my outburst.
I feel bad. I didn’t want to do anything today to embarrass him, but I can’t be here anymore. I have to get out of this house so I can think, and breathe, and not feel like my heart is breaking into a million pieces and everyone is laughing at me behind my back.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, shaking my head at Dottie when she starts to get up and follow me as I step back from the table, quickly righting my fallen chair. “I’m just… not feeling very well. Please excuse me.”
“I hope it wasn’t anything I said.”
The smirk on Asher’s face proves that he knows damn well it waseverythinghe said, and instead of punching that smirk right off his face like I should, Danny’s body covered in paint flashes through my mind, and I turn and walk away from the table before I throw up, wondering if she at least used different colors with him.
