Giving In (The Sandy Cove Series Book 1) (18 page)

Sexy as shit glasses.

When she steps closer, more into the light, I
see her eyes. They’re red. Her cheeks are tear streaked, and I want
to grab her and ask what the fuck is wrong with her. What went down
tonight? Why did she kiss me? I’m playing a role, the role of the
uncaring person who doesn’t give a fuck. I need to keep my
questions to a minimum.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she says as she ironically
yawns.

“Oh, yea, why’s that?”

She wraps the blanket around her a bit more and
comes to lean herself next to me.

“It was too noisy to sleep.”

I’m not following her. It’s as quiet as a church
mouse out here. The streets are empty and everyone else is asleep.
Do I ask what was so noisy that it kept her awake? Another moment
of silence blankets us until I realize what may have kept her
awake.

Aw, shit.

“The noises coming from the other side of my
wall in my bedroom kept me up. A picture fell off my wall actually.
Hit me right here.”

She points to her forehead, and I see a tiny red
bump that has formed on it. My face heats red.

“I met your friend… Leilani is it? I ran into
her as she was leaving your house.”

I knew it. The girl was insatiable and fucking
loud. Harlow’s room and my room are right next to each other. Her
bed and my bed on the same walls in two different houses, and I
made that picture fall and hit her. Well, not me, but the
chick.

Now play it cool, man. Don’t give her any other
information. Not any more than she needs to know. Don’t fuck it
up.

Do not fuck this up.

“Oh, yea. She’s a fucking mad woman in the
sack.”

Too late.

She’s laughs in a cynical way. “Oh, I bet. You
should be exhausted right now after the sex Olympics you just
performed.”

Damn it, she heard us. That just solidified
that. It wasn’t even me making all that noise. I just kept my eyes
closed the whole time, thinking about Harlow.

I mean… I… I was thinking about what happened
tonight and how upset she looked. That’s all it was. I was
distracted by that. Harlow’s becoming a friend to me, like Porter
and Max. I’d be concerned about them too if I noticed something
odd.

Concern. That’s a new feeling for me.
Nonetheless, I start to feel it.

I’m not going to apologize for keeping her
awake, so I’m just going to ignore her statement.

“Well since we are both wide awake at… I don’t
know what time it is, but want to go down to the dock?”

She pushes her glasses up on her nose a bit
more, and shuffles her slippered feet towards the deck steps. She
stands there.

“What are you waiting for, come on. It’s almost
four, so the sun should be up in a little while.”

See how this girl confuses me? I can’t figure
her out.

I follow her down to the dock where we take our
usual seats. The air is cool, feeling good on my face. It’s so
quiet here. Almost eerie. She pulls her blanket closer to her and
snuggles down into the chair. No words are spoken, and I get the
feeling she wants me to say the first word… but I won’t. We just
sit and stare at the calm waters of the bay, the outside light from
another house reflecting on it.

This silence is killing me, I mean killing me.
If she doesn’t say something soon, I’m going to jump in that water
and drown myself.

This is agonizing. I should have just gone to
bed.

Another minute, another second, another
millisecond and I’m going to fucking scream.

Fuck it.

“Ok, fine. You want me to ask? I’m going to ask.
What the fuck was that tonight, Harlow? That guy, Chad, the ex. Why
in all things sacred and holy did you look like he just stole your
favorite toy or killed your dog? Get on with it.”

She turns, surprised by my sudden outburst, and
her mouth opens to speak, but her expression tells me she doesn’t
want to. Her head turns back towards the water.

Another awkward display of silence.

“Jesus, Turnip. What the hell? I can’t figure
you out to save my life.”

I don’t do this. I don’t spend time trying to
figure chicks out, what eats at them, what crawls under their skin
to make them act the way she did tonight. This is not me. That’s
why I have no girls who are friends, except for my sister in law,
Bella. Too much drama, too much to try to decipher. I just fuck
them and leave them. That’s what I know. Not this senseless
bullshit. I’m about to get my ass up, and call it a night. Whether
sleep invades or not.

“Fine, you don’t want to talk. I’ll go sit in
silence by myself. I’m not here to piece you, the puzzle,
together.”

I get up and push back my chair a little too
aggressively in the process. I decide to pause and give her one
last chance to spill her guts. This woman is a tough nut to
crack.

Her and those God damn glasses and… And lips and
fingers in my God damn hair.

God damn it.

I realize I curse way too much, even if it’s not
out loud.

“Chad and I dated from sophomore year in high
school till about two years ago, give or take a month or two. He
was my first boyfriend, my first… Well you know, before, well…”

Let me make this easy for her.

“Before me?”

She turns her head finally and flashes me a
smile.

“Yes, before you.” She buries her face in her
hands, embarrassed. I figure from the memory of us being together.
She lets out a soft laugh.

“My first heartache.”

I swallow hard because her tone is mournful. Her
voice small when she says the words.

“Ok, so I get you guys dated for a long time,
probably compared trust funds and ate caviar and shit like that,
but what I don’t get is, why did you have the reaction you did when
he walked into the room? It’s like you were there one minute and
then gone the next, without even moving out of your chair.”

She begins to rock a little in her chair,
swaying in a way that makes her look like she’s trying to get
comfortable. It’s almost as though she’s thinking of a way to
escape this, but the more she does it, the more it entices me to
know what happened between them and for fucks sake, I have no idea
why I care to know.

“It’s complicated, Cruz. You’ve never been in a
relationship. You’ve never been in love, so you don’t know what
it’s like to have a broken heart.”

She’s right. Ab-so-fucking-lutely right.

“No, you’re right. I don’t know what that’s
like, but I’d figure after two years, you’d let it go, move
on.”

She turns completely around in her chair, a full
view of her in front of my face, and she points to me with
attitude. “Ah, see there’s where you’re wrong, Officer. I’ve tried,
almost succeeding a few times. I am over him, believe me, but you
see, we grew up in the same town, and we were raised in the same
crowd. Our grandparents are old country club friends. Our dads,
golf buddies. So it’s hard to shut the memories of a relationship
completely out of your mind when they are constantly around.”

I knew there was more to it. You don’t look or
act the way she did over some high school first love, bullshit,
douche bag, rich shit head, dumb mother fucker.

See, I curse in my head way too much.

“Ok, but did he break it off with you or you
him? Did he cheat on you? Hurt you?”

She pulls off her glasses swiftly, her death
glare ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

“What’s this, the Spanish Inquisition? What’s
with all the questions? He fucking broke up with me, ok? Got it? It
was messy, deceitful, gut wrenching, and I will not go into
details, so don’t ask for any more than I’m willing to say to you,
ok?”

And she’s right back to being the good old
Harlow. I was waiting for her to show up, and here she is. All
that’s missing is a knee to my balls.

She shifts in her chair, pinching her fingers at
the bridge of her nose, and I feel bad for pushing the issue.

She looks up at me with her big eyes, so full of
sadness, and I feel responsible for it, even though I know I’m not
the cause of it.

“I’m sorry, Cruz. It’s a very touchy subject
with me. Our breakup did some major damage to me, my self-esteem,
my… My whole life. I’m getting better at forgetting. Love is
complicated.”

Just another reason why I don’t do it. I don’t
fall in love. I don’t even think I know the meaning of the word. I
never had it in my life, and it’s not like I missed out on it. You
don’t miss out on something you never had in the first place. It’s
not like when my bike got stolen in 5th grade, the one I rode to
school every day. The only present my crack-head mother ever gave
me. Granted, it was stolen by her on the way home from scoring a
bag. I knew what it was like to lose something, but then after
time, you forget about it and move on. I can’t imagine love being
like that. I need to understand it more, from Harlow’s point of
view. If I ask, will she explain it to me? Do I even dare? I go
back and forth in my head, contemplating whether or not to ask her
opinion, what her thoughts are on the subject. My mind wanders to
what their relationship was like. How he treated her, if he cheated
on her, why he broke up with her in the first place.

“Tell me, then,” I say the words and they just
literally flew out of my mouth, and I immediately want to take them
back. I mean, my God, have I no self-control? What the hell am I
getting myself into? I bet she uses her big words, says shit I
don’t understand, and I’ll be making mental notes, so I can look it
up on the Internet later.

Her face scrunches up in that adorable way she
does when we have one of our conversations, and she can’t believe
some of the things that come out of my mouth. Like right now, for
instance.

“You want to know about love? About being in
love?” I nod, yes. “Oh, come on, now Cruz. Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious. Since I’ve never been and
will continue not to be, I’ll think of it as a lesson. You have to
practice being a teacher anyway, so… Teach. I’m all ears.” I turn
my chair a little closer to hers, and she does the same. I bet from
where my face is angled to hers, I can count the little freckles on
her tiny nose. I tuck my long legs under me and settle in for my
lesson on love. Oh, and I prepare myself for the big words. Wish I
had a pad of paper and a pen with me. It would make my life so much
easier right now.

“Ok, here goes.” Her eyes go all dreamily, if
that’s even a word. She sighs. The wind blows her hair a bit,
giving me a shot at smelling her shampoo.

Damn, that smells good.

She begins her lesson.

“Love is the only thing that you can’t fake, no
matter what. It’s when you look into the eyes of the person meant
for you, you can see into their soul. I’m pretty sure you can’t lie
when you truly look into the depths of them. There’s a resemblance
there, like home, a place where you can put your trust into.
Someone you can tell your deepest, darkest fears to, and no matter
their opinion of them, it doesn’t matter, they will be beside you.
They will watch you succeed, and they will watch you fail, but the
love is so strong, they can see past it. They can see past all the
bad and take a good, hard look at the good.”

Speech doesn’t exist right now for me, because
this girl’s definition of love just blew me away. I remember that
old movie Mask, about the kid whose face is deformed. He goes to
some camp, falls in love with a blind girl, and shows her what
color is for a person with sight. He uses a hot rock to describe
the color red and a piece of ice to describe the color blue. What
Harlow just said, the way she phrased everything, kind of made me
see a little. It kind of took my blindness of the subject away. She
described to me what love for her is like, what love is like in
general. She remains still, just giving me a tight-lipped smile. I
feel the sudden urge to know more. But I have to keep up my act of
not really caring or being over interested.

I need to know, so my mind overtakes my ability
to have a filter, so I ask the question, “Was that what it was like
for you and Chad?”

Harlow turns her head to the side, avoiding my
question momentarily, and the yearning to touch her face overwhelms
my common sense.

I take my index finger, touch her chin and turn
it to me. Tears have formed in her eyes.

“Turnip? Look at me.”

That face, full of sadness, and I only met him
for a minute, but I hate that mother fucker for hurting her.

“I’m guessing by the look on your face that it
didn’t go that route. Am I right?”

She nods. No explanation needs to be given to
me. That was her perception of it, of love.

As I still touch her cheek with my finger, the
thought of her kissing me tonight comes into play. She hasn’t
explained to me why she did it, nor has she even attempted to tell
me, so I’ll go with my theory. She wanted to make him jealous. It’s
obvious. People play games. I get it. I’m not angry about it. It is
what it is.

I release her chin and settle back in my chair.
The sun is coming up, and I can hear the seagulls waking up in the
distance. There’s still a calmness on the water. No boats going by,
no people awake at this ungodly hour to disturb it. Just Harlow and
me doing what we do best on this dock. I think I learned a lot
tonight, not just in the last hour or so, but earlier at the bar,
last week, three weeks ago. Last year in that bathroom even. Harlow
gave me a lesson tonight, and for whatever reason, I think it’s one
I’m not going to forget anytime soon.

***

The August sun is brutal already, and we are
only in the first week of it. The heat should be measured by how
many sticks of deodorant I have gone through in the past week. I’m
a sweater. I’ll admit it for the good of all womankind. It’s only
seven a.m., and it has to be eighty degrees already. The water on
the bay is so still, and the smell of fish is fermenting in the
air. Not a pleasant smell, mind you.