Rose’s name had been painted on pieces of paper one letter at a time and pegged to a piece of fishing line that ran from one end of her cramped living room to the other. Good thing she had such a short name. Happy Bday was tacked up underneath it, the second word butchered for the sake of convenience. Rose ran around the house, flitting from kitchen, to dining room, to living room, thundering up the stairs to the den she’d set up in her spare room, where a number of children including Connor and Amie were watching Star Wars. In most circumstances, probably not the best choice for a little girl Amie’s age, but then again Amie wasn’t like most little girls. Her love of dinosaurs also stretched to a love of space ships and aliens, so Star Wars was apparently going down a treat.
Rose’s invites, sent to everyone on the island between the ages of twenty and sixty-five, had clearly stated the party started at seven thirty, however people started rolling through the door at five, which seemed completely normal to everyone apart from me. I was dashing about almost as crazily as Rose, pulling finger food out of the oven, chilling as much white wine and beer in the fridge as I could possibly fit in while trying to pin my hair back at the same time and hop into my dress.
Speaking of the dress: tight and black, with a thin cross strap that ran over my shoulder blades. No chance of a bra here. It was so cold even inside the house that Rose’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw me wearing it.
“Jesus, O. You do realize Mr. Sweetwater’s coming tonight, don’t you? The poor bastard had a pacemaker installed a couple of months ago. If he sees your nipples cutting at your dress like that, he’ll keel over and die.”
“I haven’t got anything else to wear.” Ronan hadn’t exactly made my trip to the island sound like a vacation. I wasn’t even going to bring the dress I was wearing, but something had told me I might need it. Admittedly I’d have been better served by something more conservative, but now I just had to work with what I had.
“Here, then,” Rose said, grabbing me by the wrist and dragging me into her bedroom. From the top drawer of the chest next to her bed, she pulled out a box of Tit Tape as if by magic. “Tape those puppies up, before you have people talking.”
Holly, a fifteen-year-old girl wearing a Slipknot t-shirt, showed up at seven to babysit the children. She smiled, displaying two overly large front teeth when Rose introduced us.
“So nice to meet you,” she gushed. “You’re from California, aren’t you? I’ve watched every single episode of The O.C. I can’t wait to visit there one day. Is it always sunny there?”
“Actually, I guess it kind of is,” I told her. I’d taken the balmy West Coast weather for granted up until I stepped foot on The Causeway. Now, the brief snatches of sunshine that infrequently broke their way through the cloud cover were something that people went and stood outside for, craning their necks up at the sky overhead, squinting into the light like it was a goddamn miracle.
Holly beamed. “Do you think you could tell me all about it? Only when you’re free, of course. I don’t mind watching the children for you in return.”
“Of course. You can come over anytime.”
By nine, Rose’s place was packed and the windows were running with condensation. A huge three-tier cake was broken out, and everyone sang Happy Birthday in a cacophony of drunk, out of tune voices. That’s when I noticed Sully, propped up against the wall by the television, holding a beer in one hand and an untouched hot dog in the other. He wasn’t paying attention to the food or the drink, or the people singing around him. He was staring straight at me with a dark, brooding look in his eyes that made my heart stop dead in my chest.
God.
Where did he get off, looking at me like that? His expression was confusing; he was either thinking about running his hands over my skin, pressing his teeth into the swell of my cleavage, digging his fingertips into the curvature of my ass, or he was thinking about murdering me where I stood. I couldn’t quite decide which was more likely. He blinked when he saw that I’d seen him, but he didn’t look away.
Slowly, he raised his beer bottle to his lips and he drank, the muscles in his throat working as he swallowed, his eyes locked onto me, as if he were incapable of looking anywhere else.
Such a strange, uncomfortable sensation, being observed that intensely. Out of the corner of my eye, Rose was blushing furiously, thanking everyone for coming out to celebrate her birthday. She blew out the candles on her cake, and the room was suddenly all long cast shadows and darkness in the corners. Sully’s face was transformed, severe, half eaten up by the dark, half highlighted by the light thrown off by a small lamp on top of the TV. He wanted to kill me after all. The savage, hard steel in his eyes told me so. I ducked my head, glancing away. He’d won. The bastard had won. He might have been able to stare me down until the sun came up, but I didn’t have it in me.
I turned my back on him, and did my best to put him out of my head. I drank more. I danced with old Mr. Sweetwater, who was unable to tear his eyes from my cleavage despite the Tit Tape that was covering my nipples so well. I ate and I laughed, and I made friends.
Everyone wanted to talk to me, to find out who the strange new Californian woman was living up at The Big House with Ronan Fletcher’s orphaned children.