‘What the fuck, Melody?’ Clark said, standing and letting the startled girl in his lap fall on to the sand. She crawled away like a crab.
‘You. Cheating. Bastard! ’ Melody pulled a gold bracelet from the box and hurled it at his feet. It hit him in the ankle and lurched towards the water, rolling.
‘Those are diamonds, you psycho bitch!’ he yelled, leaping to grab it.
‘You can’t buy me!’ she returned.
‘Who’d want to?’ he snarled, and she burst into tears, stumbling away. Pearl threw the empty box at his head – he ducked and it sailed over his shoulder – and followed her friend.
I tugged the cord to the fort’s door, listening hard. I thought I heard a barely audible sniffle, but it could have been a gust of wind. ‘Melody?’ I whispered.
Her face appeared from above, her hair luminous in the moonlight, like a halo round her entire head. She squinted and then said, ‘Oh – Landon. What are you doing here?’ She hiccupped. It had been over two hours since the scene on the beach, but she was still crying.
‘Just came to check on you. Can I come up?’
She nodded. ‘Sure.’
We sat in silence until she scooted closer and leaned her head on my shoulder. ‘Half my friends are saying I overreacted and half want to help me hide his body. I don’t know what to believe.’
I shook my head. ‘Overreacted? Because he cheated on you?’
She pulled her knees to her chest, curling into me, and I put my arm round her. ‘He came over and apologized,’ she said. ‘He said he’d only gone there for his boys – the other guys are all single. He said stuff like that isn’t for girls like me to ever know about. He said he was drunk, and it was a mistake.’
‘And you believe him?’
‘Obviously not, or I wouldn’t have torn the stuffing out of Beauregard.’
I snorted. ‘Beauregard?’
She giggled, hiccupping again when we both began laughing. At some point, though, her laughs turned to sobs, and she collapsed into my chest. ‘Why would he have sex with some skank when he has me? Why?’
I figured she didn’t want me to attempt an answer to that. I also suspected nothing and no one would ever be enough for a guy like Clark Richards. Like his father, he was never going to be content with what he had. He only saw what he didn’t have. And felt entitled to it.
She quietened after a few minutes, inhaling a couple of deep breaths and shuddering. ‘How’d you know I’d be out here?’
‘When I texted and you didn’t answer, I guessed.’
She angled her head back and looked up at me. ‘You’re a good guy, Landon.’
I’m not, came the automatic thought.
She leaned closer, eyes open, and pressed her lips to mine. Just a brush – tentative and testing. She pulled away only inches, and our breath mingled. I leaned forward, an inch at a time, and she didn’t back away. I kissed her as she’d kissed me, cautiously, slowly, lips only, neither of us closing our eyes.
‘Melody?’ We jerked apart – her mother’s voice was close, right outside the fort’s walls.
I lay flat on my back while she rose to her knees, her hand pressed to the middle of my chest, the better to feel my heart pounding. ‘Yeah, Mama?’
Her mother sighed, exasperated. ‘Come inside, now. You can’t be out here by yourself. It isn’t safe.’ Melody glanced down at me as her mother continued, ‘Also, Clark is now calling the landline, since you aren’t answering your cell.’
Her chin came up. ‘Did you tell him to eat shit?’
‘Melody Ann Do–’
‘Do you know what he did, Mama? How humiliated I am?’
Another sigh. ‘Come inside, Melody.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ She turned to back down the ladder, whispering to me, ‘Wait five minutes before you leave. And thank you.’
I was working with Dad the next day – he’d booked a family of four for an all-day excursion of fishing and sightseeing. They were standing at the mouth of the dock when Dad and I pulled up. One girl, about my age, was scowling, arms crossed over her chest. Another one, around Carlie’s age, was bouncing foot to foot, her face flush with excitement.
‘Holy shit,’ I said under my breath, already feeling grouchy.
‘Can it,’ Dad said, directing a courteous look towards the four of them. He wasn’t ever outgoing, so it wasn’t like a night-and-day transformation, but his boatside manner was polite and patient, even when explaining and demonstrating the same things a million times.
I hadn’t heard from Melody – but that was no surprise. It had only been eight hours since I jumped down from her fort platform and walked home, so high from her kiss that I could hardly sleep.
But I’d have no cell service until we docked tonight, plus a bitchy teenaged girl and a hyper younger one to deal with. I predicted a long, miserable day.
I was right, but not necessarily for the reasons I’d assumed. The kid actually listened to my instructions and made the biggest catch we’d had all year – though hooking a big one is mostly luck and boat placement, not the skill of the guy with the pole. No one mentioned that shit to her. Dad’s motto: ‘It’s our job to make sure the client thinks it’s all him.’ He helped her reel it in while her parents cheered.
The older girl had straightened up off her parents’ car when I got out of the SUV, pulling on her earrings, fiddling with the strings on her cut-off shorts, fidgeting with her hair – putting it up and taking it down. That shit continued all day. She was glued to me, too, asking idiotic questions about my tats – which I’m not in the habit of explaining to anyone, especially not random strangers – and using those enquiries as an excuse to touch them. She wondered what kids who lived here did for fun, eyeballing me like she expected me to invite her along to do whatever that was – and I mean whatever that was. Most awkwardly: she took pics of me with her phone. I suspected she was texting or posting them and felt weirdly violated.
That boat felt more confining than it ever had, and I thought about people in emergency lifeboats, stuck at sea for days. I would jump ship after seriously contemplating shoving her overboard.
As soon as we docked and my feet hit land, I turned on my phone. I had a message from Melody, asking if I was busy today. She’d sent it hours ago.
Bumping knuckles with the kid and cold-shouldering sexual-harassment girl, I called, ‘Great fishing, guys!’ to the parents, and then I climbed into the front seat of the SUV.
Me: Hey. Out on the boat all day. Working. No service till now. Just docked.
Melody: I was afraid you were mad because of what I did.
Me: What??
Melody: The kiss.
Me: I’m the opposite of mad, whatever that is. Fort tonight?
Melody: Can’t. Staying over with Pearl. Working tomorrow?
Me: No. Dad will be gone all day. Come over.
Melody: K