‘Agreed.’
We were installed in the same chairs we’d occupied two years ago, after the infamous hallway brawl no one ever admitted witnessing. Ingram narrowed unblinking eyes. ‘I find it interesting that you two were seen with Edward Standish just before he left this school with his front tooth in his hand, a bloody mouth, and years of expensive orthodontia destroyed.’
Boyce staged an impromptu coughing fit to hide laughter. If there was one thing Boyce Wynn couldn’t do well – aside from reading for comprehension – it was pretending he wasn’t laughing when he was laughing. I concentrated on maintaining a blank expression. She couldn’t expel us for beating the shit out of a guy who swore we had nothing to do with it, and strangely, her eyewitness also retracted his story. I was sure Boyce was behind that, but I didn’t ask.
We’d been out on the water for two hours before the girl in the red-and-white-striped bikini deigned to speak to me. She made me think of a hot little peppermint stick. Snobby, but hot. I wasn’t particular about attitude, though, because a cute girl on the boat was rare. It made for a better view for the day than miles of water, coastline and fish, if nothing else.
‘Guys who are, like, emo or goth or whatever at my school are a lot … paler than you. And less muscled up. I thought that anaemic look was part of the lifestyle. Or whatever.’
I squinted one eye to peer at her. She’d sidled up next to me as I prepared to bait the rod on the starboard side. We were trolling deep today.
‘Lifestyle?’ I chuckled. ‘I don’t really have time to establish a philosophy,’ sweetheart, I would have added, if she wasn’t a client’s daughter. ‘I just am what I am.’
‘And what’s that?’ She had a wicked gleam in her eye I hadn’t noticed in the first two hours of this trip. Then again, she’d spent that time working on a tan behind the dark sunglasses now perched on her head while trying to ignore her parents, who were trading veiled and not-so-veiled insults at the back of the boat.
A smile hitched my mouth on one side. ‘What do you want me to be?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘That line work on the girls around here?’
I ran the tip of my tongue over my lip ring and squatted down to snap open a bait bucket, a movement that exhibited those muscles she’d noted. ‘Yep.’
She arched a brow. ‘What else works on them?’
I looked over my shoulder, where my dad was at the wheel and wasn’t, at the moment, giving me the evil eye. ‘Why don’t I teach you how to bait this hook and hold this rod while we talk about that further?’ I looked over the top of my sunglasses at her. ‘If you really want the answer to that question, it might take a little while to itemize the data.’
As I stood, she moved in front of me, bracing her feet apart to ride the gulf’s undulations on deck. It was choppy out today and would have been better to go into the bay, but her dad wanted to fish in open water.
‘I know all about bad boys and lures and baitin’ hooks …’ She put both hands together on the railing, staring out at the water. But from my position over her shoulder, she’d just pressed a perfect swell of cleavage together, almost up and out of her tiny bikini top. Lures indeed. ‘… and holdin’ rods – what was your name again?’
‘Landon.’
‘Nice to meet you, Landon. I’m Chastity.’
I knew her name, having paid attention to her parents introducing themselves and her before we all set out on this excursion. Before it became obvious that her parents were going to spend the day at each other’s throats, hissing comments or ignoring each other. Hell, her mom had even flirted with my dad. Not that he paid her any mind.
‘Chastity.’
We heard the words know about and whore and jackass over the waves and gulls. My dad was making himself as scarce as possible, considering we were all stuck on thirty-two feet of boat. Chastity and I were trapped in the middle.
‘Parents having issues?’ I asked.
‘Dad and step-monster. And yeah. She’s accused him of gettin’ some on the side. Knowing my dad … it’s possible. Let’s not talk about them. They’re boring as hell and I want to have some fun on this stupid vacation. And, Landon, you look like fun to me.’ She manoeuvred round the rod, gripping it, and pressed her hip into me.
‘So, Chastity – is that an accurate designation or a misnomer?’
She laughed softly and leaned a shoulder into my chest, both hands sliding over the rod. ‘That’s for me to know, and –’
‘Oh, no worries. I fully intend to find out.’
‘Cocky son of a bitch, aren’t you?’
I smiled down at her. ‘I prefer confident son of a bitch … but yeah. So what’d you say you’re doing tonight?’
‘Mmm, how ’bout you?’
Despite what I told Chastity about lines and local girls, I rarely screwed around with them. They wanted dates and school dances and relationships – and I couldn’t have been less interested. The vast majority of the girls I messed around with were here temporarily. I met them on the beach, or at the Bait & Tackle, or somewhere in town. We hooked up in their rental condos or hotel rooms or on the beach, if it was dark and they were willing.
Chastity was game to play – but not out in public, dark or not, and not anywhere near her parents. When I picked her up, she said she’d convinced them she’d run into some friends from her school in Fayetteville. ‘I told them they’d drop me off by midnight, after a fish fry and s’mores on the beach.’
I couldn’t believe they’d fallen for that.
‘Take me to your place,’ she urged, after we’d kissed and strolled around on the beach with a few dozen other people. ‘I can be real quiet. Promise.’
So I did something I never did – I snuck a girl into my house. It was only ten or so, but Dad was an early riser and went lights-out early, too. His room was down the hallway from my pantry. We meandered through the dark living room and into the kitchen, avoiding every squeaky board.
Once we made it into my room, I shut the door and she whispered, ‘Holy shit, this is tiny. Is this a … a pantry?’
I switched on a nightlight I’d stuck in the wall and turned off the overhead light. Kicked off my battered deck shoes next to hers.
‘You want to discuss my room, or …?’
‘I just thought everything was bigger in –’
I stripped off my T-shirt and her mouth fell open. I leaned to kiss her, drew her tank over her head and pulled the tie at her nape, unwrapping that peppermint bikini top and spilling her tits into my hands. She scooted back on to the bed and I followed.
‘You were saying?’ I said, and she shook her head, pulling me down on top of her.