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Cade
I DON’T WANT TO LIKELaney, but she’s growing on me. I try to imagine how things would be here without her and can’t.
Is it because the money factor has been removed now? Yes, I thought the only reason she’d latched onto our family was to drain us of our dough, but, out here, we’re all broke. Money doesn’t matter. I also thought that she was a cold-hearted bitch. Her mother had literally died that afternoon, and she’d gotten all dressed up and gone to a concert with my father. Who the fuck does that? It brought back memories of my own mother’s death, of how traumatic it was to watch her get weaker and weaker, and then completely waste away. She was like a skeleton in the end, and I’m so fucking ashamed to admit it, but I was frightened of her. Her fingers were like bones and her eyes had been hollows in her skull. She’d needed the comfort of her eldest son and, instead, I’d kept my distance. I’ll never forgive myself for that.
There is so much I’ll never forgive myself for.
So it was hard watching Laney swan around on my father’s arm in a five hundred dollar dress only a matter of hours after her mother had died. Didn’t she care? I thought I could be cold, but then I thought she must have been a fucking ice queen. It’s only since we’ve been here that I’ve seen the other side of her. She’s not cold—she’s just protective of her heart. She doesn’t want to show her emotions to anyone. To be vulnerable with us.
I get that.
We’re more comfortable and confident around the cabin now. We spend a lot of time down by the river, trying tocatch fish, or just bathing or swimming. Laney doesn’t have a swimsuit, of course, but she’s comfortable around us now in a plain bra and a pair of panties. She tells us to think of it like she’s wearing a bikini, but it’s not that easy for me to do. Darius can’t see her, of course, but I catch Reed staring at her when he thinks no one is looking. Her body is long and lean and elegant, with just the right curve to her hips and breasts. She doesn’t seem to be aware of it, but she’s like a fucking supermodel.
I pick up a flat pebble, and in an area of the river where the boulders have created a shallow pool, sheltered from the rush of the water, I toss the stone. It skips on the surface—once, twice—before sinking to the riverbed.
Laney has been lying sprawled out on the bank, catching some sun, but now she sits up and looks in the direction I threw the pebble.
“How did you do that?” she asks.
I turn toward her. “Do what?”
“Make the pebble jump across the water like that.”
“Make it skim, you mean? Haven’t you ever skimmed stones before?”
“Nope.”
I laugh. “You’ve led a sheltered life.”
She gives me a look that tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about but doesn’t argue with me.
“So, teach me what I need to do.”
Darius climbs down from the rock where he’s been sitting and joins us. He drops to a crouch and feels around until his fingers close over a flat, dark gray stone. He picks it up and rises back to standing, and then flicks his wrist skillfully and lets the stone fly. It jumps across the water, once, twice, three times, before sinking.
“All right, bro,” I say. “You trying to show me up?”
He grins. “You’re showing yourself up.”
Reed joins us. “What are you guys up to?”
“Stone skimming competition,” I tell him. “Think you can compete, old man?”
He chuckles. “Compete? I can wash the floor with all of you.”
“I’d like to see that.”
“Oh, you will.”
Reed hits four skips, and he turns and holds one hand up for a high-five. We all leave him hanging.
“My turn,” Laney says.
She throws the first stone. It hits the water and sinks straight under.
I’m about to clap and jeer, but she turns around with such disappointment in those light blue eyes that the laughter dies on my lips.
“What did I do wrong?” she asks.
