Chapter Twelve
RUSS
“W
nobody has been bothering me.
I feel good after my talk with Aurora earlier and I’m less worried about how I’m going to get through the summer with her.
“Birds are gross.” Turning toward the voice, I lower the hose I’m using to wash down a picnic table some birds have made their personal toilet. Aurora looks more alive than she did earlier, carrying a thermos in each hand, with a shy smile on her lips. “I brought you coffee. If you want it, obviously.”
I’ve watched her do sweet gestures for people since we got here. Filling up everyone’s water bottles, being the first to help people struggling during training, distracting Maya from her homesickness. Now I’ve earned the same treatment.
“Coffee is good, thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, handing it over. “I thought you might need it. I saw you running super early this morning; I forgot to mention it earlier. You don’t sleep much, huh?”
Running is something I hate but it’s one of the only things I can do to clear my head. Like Xander said when we arrived, occasionally your phone comes to life and messages come through. This morning, my mind was already working overtime after dealing with drunk Aurora, so when it started buzzing in the early hours I checked it.
The first thing I saw was a picture of my parents out for dinner, smiling into the camera like nothing’s wrong. That triggered my curiosity and I started to scroll up, eventually piecing together that Dad had won big somewhere and they were celebrating.
Dad’s addiction issue has never been with alcohol; it’s gambling. The alcohol consoles him after losing and like most gambling addicts, he loses a lot. It’s the alcohol that turns him nasty and that’s when the texts he sends me start to change into something harsher. When he’s on a winning streak, he’s a different man, but streaks are what gamblers say is happening to make it seem like some kind of skill and not purely a series of lucky occurrences.
Aurora is still waiting for me to answer.
Talking about my parents feels like opening pandora’s box. I sometimes wonder if the load would feel as heavy if I had someone to confide in, but I can’t bring myself to tell anyone. Even though Henry knows my history, I still find it difficult to tell him as stuff happens. It’s embarrassing to admit that my own dad doesn’t care about me as much as he cares about betting slips.
I settle for my default vague answer. “Not much, no. I’m used to it though, don’t worry. I can’t believe you were up early enough to see me.”
She takes the flask back, her hand brushing mine ever so slightly, just enough to send sparks up my arms and places them on the now clean table. I watch her as she methodically unscrews and presses buttons until she’s poured me a cup. “Would you believe me if I told you I was meditating?”
“No.” I accept the coffee cup back, watching her over the rim as I take a sip.
“I was sick. That’s why I was awake so early.” she says, laughing awkwardly. “I like to think it was food poisoning and not the excessive amount of tequila I drank last night. You may remember it; I was the one making a fool of myself in front of you.”
“I do vaguely remember having to decline your skinny-dipping offer.”
Her cheeks flush pink, eyes widen. God, it feels good to not be the one blushing for once. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to find a hungry raccoon and feed myself to it.
Bye.”
I grab her hand as she tries to turn to leave. “It was funny, in a very stressful I- don’t-want-to-be-alone-with-this-drunk-girl-wanting-to-get-naked way.”
When I realize she’s not leaving, I let go of her hand. She clears her throat and sips from her cup, watching me carefully over the cup as it lowers. “Do you need any help today? Emilia banished me from the dance area.”
“Why?”
She kicks out her leg, the darkening purple indicator of bruising spreading across her shin. “I was bored because she’s a control freak and I tried to hurdle the freestanding ballet barres.”
The laugh that rips out of me is so loud I don’t realize it’s me until she starts laughing too. Dragging a hand down my face, I shake it off. “If I let you help me, can
you be good?”
“Usually, with the right motivation.”
I sense I shouldn’t ask further, but I can’t help myself. At this point, as much as I don’t want to be, I’m the moth and Aurora is the brightest flame. “What’s enough motivation for you?”
Her teeth sink into her lip again and my brain flashes back to a very different scenario where I watched her do that. “You thinking I’m good.”
I’m going to get burned. “Alright then, grab a paintbrush.”
A
There’s a smudge of brown paint decorating her jawline; I instinctively reach out, thumb rubbing against it, but it doesn’t budge. “You’re so messy.”
“You have no idea,” she says quietly.
Now we’re alone, I want to ask about what she said this morning. I’m curious about why she thinks she needs to work on herself. From the snippets of information she’s shared during the icebreakers we’ve done and our first interaction at the party, it’s hard to believe she’s anything but the confident woman she comes across as. Yeah, she can be a little awkward occasionally, but so can I. The problem I have is that asking questions tends to invite questions back—and that’s something I’d selfishly rather avoid.
Aurora takes my silence for what it is, a closed door, and we both stand on the outside of this thing hanging between us. She drops the paintbrush into the tray and reaches for the hose I was using earlier, pressing the lever down as she points it directly at my chest.
My jaw drops as the cold water drenches me and a surprised laugh bubbles out.
The look in her eyes is the exact same as the one she gave me when I found her in our kitchen: mischief.
“Au—” The spray hits me again. “Okay, you asked for it . . .”
It’s more of a squeal than a scream as I close the gap between us with a couple of strides. She tries to cling to the hose, turning her back to me to protect it. Her body is flush against my wet t-shirt, vibrating as she laughs, attempting to fight me off. It’s not hard to grab it from her and point it downward over the top of her head.
“It’s freezing!” she cries, fighting to redirect it at me. “Okay, truce! Truce!”
I let it fall to the floor and step back. The wet material is clinging to my body and she’s right; it is freezing. Grabbing the back of my t-shirt, I pull it over my head, wringing out the worst of it. “We didn’t think this through.”
She squeezes out the water from her hair, watching me. Her clothes are relatively dry. “I dunno, doesn’t feel like a bad choice to me.”
I don’t have the chance to ask what she means before I hear the signature jingle of dog collars—Xander must have run out of bacon. Fish, Salmon and Trout find me no matter where I am, but this time, they’ve brought a friend.
“Do I want to know why you have no t-shirt on?” Emilia asks as she approaches us. She turns to Aurora. “You look like a drowned rat.”
“Rude,” she mumbles. “His name is Remy.”
“I—wait, what?” Emilia says. I’m still trying to make my t-shirt dry enough to put back on and Aurora seems to still be trying to concentrate on Emilia, not me. “I’ve come to free you from your exile. Jenna asked me to take the truck and pick up the egg order from the farm near the mini golf? It wasn’t delivered or something and everyone else is too busy.”
“Why can’t Jenna go?” Aurora asks, squeezing out water from the ends of her hair.
I sit on the ground cross legged and both puppies immediately settle in the gap between my thighs while I stroke Fish.
“She said the farmer is a dick and she hates him with the fire of a thousand suns. I think they had a fight when she called him about the delivery. The truck’s a stick, so I need you.”
“You know how to drive stick?” I ask, quietly impressed.
She nods, double taking when she spots me with my furry fan club. “My dad owns a car company, well kinda, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Europe. Are you going to be
okay on your own?”
I don’t ask any follow up questions about the “car company” because then I would have to admit I’ve talked about her with my friends and I know her dad owns a Formula One team. I want to offer to go with her instead of Emilia, but I think that’d be weird. “I’ll be fine. Go get the eggs.”
“See you at the lake later,” she says, walking toward Emilia.
Emilia waves as she turns, wrapping an arm around Aurora’s shoulders before heading back the way she came. “That looked cozy,” I hear her say.
J
Why do I love to make myself miserable?
Her hand rises out of the water and I preemptively brace, waiting for her to drench me again with water, until the horrified squeal she lets out has me grabbing her hand and pulling her toward me.
“Something touched my foot!” Her legs wrap around my waist and her chest presses flush to mine as she clings to me. “I’m going to cry.”
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the survival training anyone had in mind.
I’m pretty sure I’m not going to survive having her wrapped around me.
“It’ll be a plant or something, don’t worry.”
Aurora leans back, putting some distance between our bodies so she can look at my face, but keeping her feet crossed at the bottom of my back. “It could be a shark.”
I can’t help but snort. “It’s not a shark. We’re in freshwater. We’re also in California.”
“Bull sharks are diadromous, they can survive in freshwater.” My eyebrow quirks.
“What? I watch shark week.”
“If it’s a bull shark, sorry to be the one to tell you, but you’re screwed.”
She grins as her hands link at the nape of my neck. “If it’s a bull shark, we’re both screwed because I’m dragging you with me. You’re bigger, you’ll taste better.”
“Trust me, you taste incredible.”
I stun us both. I didn’t mean to say it out loud. Her eyes flick to my lips, then back to my eyes and her breathing slows. “Oh,” is the only thing she says and that response is enough to pray it is a shark and it’s about to save me from myself.
