Man, she was pretty, with her red lips open in surprise and a sprinkle of angel kisses across her nose. He’d always been partial to the clean-scrubbed-girl-next-door look, and this chick had it going on in spades. Except she didn’t live next door. He doubted she even lived in Buxton. Guessing by her accent, she probably came from one of the islands down south, where they still fished for a living. Maybe even a fisherman’s daughter. A little mermaid, he thought with a chuckle, from a totally different world than mine.
Turning away from the balcony, he stepped back into his bedroom, throwing his useless phone on the bed and picking up a green polo shirt from the floor. As he slipped it over his head, he remembered the appalled look on her pretty face when she’d yelled, “I don’t have crabs!” and started laughing again.
“I read that laughin’ at nothin’ is the first sign of insanity.”
Erik turned around to see his little sister, Hillary, standing in his doorway. At almost seventeen years old, she was four years younger than Erik, but one of his closest friends.
“I guess you’d know, psycho.” He reached for his phone, holding it up. “You getting’ any reception out here?”
“Why, yes, I am,” she said, pulling her own phone, the latest iPhone model, from her hip pocket.
“Send a message to Pete, would you? Ask him what time he and Van are gettin’ here?”
Hillary dropped his eyes quickly. Her voice was soft when she answered. “No. Just . . . walk around the house. You’ll get service somewhere.”
Erik’s shoulders slumped. “Come on, Hills. Just send him a message.”
She glanced up at him, her blue eyes wary. “It’s awkward.”
“Only because you make it awkward, which is ree-dick-you-lus!”
Erik’s little sister had had a crush on his best friend, Pete. Didn’t matter that Pete was four years older and uninterested. Hillary had always liked him, regardless of the fact that her affection was unrequited and likely to remain that way.
In fairness, it probably didn’t help her unrealistic expectations that she and Pete had shared a quick New Year’s Eve kiss six months ago. It seemed to encourage her false hopes. But then again, Pete hadn’t promised her anything, and it was only a peck on the lips, after all. He had also given Vanessa a peck. So had Erik, in fact, and it hadn’t changed their friendship at all. It was just New Year’s fun. Nothing more. And Hillary was foolish to try to make more out of it.
Hillary raised her chin and gave him a sour look, then started typing out a message on her phone. “‘Erik wants to know when you and Van are gettin’ here.’” The phone whooshed as she sent the message, and she looked up at her brother. “Happy now, birthday boy?”
“Ecstatic,” he said, leaving his room.
Hillary followed behind him. “Who’s comin’ to this thing tonight?”
“You know Fancy,” said Erik, calling their mother by her first name, as he always did when he and Hillary talked about her. “Won’t be anybody there under the age of forty ’cept you, me, Pete, and Van.”
“A twenty-first birthday for the crown prince of North Carolina isn’t an occasion for the young’uns,” added Hillary, with a thick dose of sarcasm.
“Or the riffraff.”
“Or anyone remotely . . . fun.”
Erik stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned to his sister, slapping a palm over his chest. “Fun? Did you say fun? Perish the thought, Hillary Anne Rexford! There will be no fun at this party, daughter! There will be ample opportunity for networkin’, but under no circumstances are you to have any fun!”
“Right.” Hillary nodded, unable to hold back a small grin, which she quickly straightened. “Everythin’ will be perfect . . .”
“. . . and delicious . . .,” he said.
“The most expensive wines . . .”
“. . . the most succulent crabs,” he said, grinning to himself.
“Simply,” she said, “the best of everything.”
“No room for second best,” said Erik. “Losers need not apply.”
Suddenly they were out of banter, and they regarded each other for a long moment: their father’s blue eyes staring into their mother’s dark brown.
“We joke, but it’s true,” said Hillary with a sigh. “Thank God for Pete and Van.”
“Donaldsons and Osborns are always acceptable guests at Rexford events,” said Erik, referring to Pete and Vanessa’s old-money, highly influential families. Their parents would also be in attendance, of course.
Hillary glanced at her watch. “I have a hair appointment in town with Mama. I best get goin’.” She turned to go back upstairs, then stopped. “Hey, Erik.”
He was headed for the kitchen, but he looked at her over his shoulder. “Huh?”
“You ever wish things were different?”
“What? That we weren’t the children of Governor Brady Rexford and former debutante Ursula “Fancy” Rexford, the de facto king and queen of North Carolina?” He shrugged. “What’s the point of wishin’? Things are what they are.”
Hillary ran a hand through her almost-black hair. “I don’t know. But wouldn’t you just like to go to a bar in jeans and a T-shirt and get drunk on your twenty-first birthday? Like every other normal person in the world?”
He turned to face her, his voice gentle. “We’re not normal, Hills. Never have been. We’re Rexfords.”
“Yeah,” she said, forcing a smile, though her eyes remained troubled. “I know.”