Forever summer (Summer # 4) (12 page)

No kidding, just not the kind he thought.

I scoffed. “Whatever.”

“You know you can’t possibly win this; I mean, you know that, right?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’ve already won. Ringer, do you want to grab Adam a towel? I would hate for him to catch a cold.” I pouted.

Adam’s eyes blazed in a not-so-thinly disguised look of challenge. I could almost hear the cogs turning in his mind as he mentally blueprinted the best tactic to make me pay. I’m not going to lie, it was kind of hot.

“Hey, Ringer.” He directed his conversation over his shoulder, but never once tore his eyes from me. “What do you think the reach of one of those post mix guns would be, you reckon?”

Ringer grinned like a cat that got the cream; so much for him not getting involved.

“Well, from personal experience, quite an impressive distance, I’d say.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

My brows lowered as Adam edged toward the bar.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“You can’t! The pool table.” I pointed, thinking surely he wouldn’t dare damage the cloth; he would have Chris to answer to.

“Oh, there have been far worse things spilled on that table top.”

I flinched away from holding the edge of the table. “Ew.”

“I think you have better things to worry about,” added Ringer, who now sat casually on top of a barstool, arms crossed, watching on with great amusement.

Bastard.

Adam was trying to be cool as he blindly reached for the post mix gun, attempting to find it while never taking his eyes from me. I knew if I bolted Ringer would probably just block my way.

Life can be cruel sometimes.

But to my surprise, Ringer slid off his barstool, seemingly bored by the situation playing out before him.

“Come and get me when you’ve finished your game of kiss-chasey.”

“Give me a few minutes, this won’t take long,” replied Adam with a devilish smirk.

“Oh, cocky much?”

“I like my chances.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Ugh, for Christ’s sake, get a room, you two.” Ringer flipped on his sunnies and made his way out of the poolroom.

Adam’s eyes narrowed after him, seemingly annoyed by what he had said. I could have used this moment of distraction to leg it, to run and never look back, but I didn’t. I didn’t because I knew Adam would never stop chasing me, that I would literally have to watch my back, sleep with one eye open. I would be living in a perpetual state of fear when all I really wanted was to enjoy my weekend. It was bad enough that I was as good as under house arrest until tonight. So I decided to take charge, but in a different way, an unexpected way, according to Adam’s reaction. His brows raised in surprise as he watched me walk around the pool table, not away from him, but toward him. He straightened, seemingly tensing as I approached, as if I weren’t to be trusted; to be honest, I couldn’t exactly blame him. When my hand wrapped over his hand that held the post mix gun he flinched, a reaction that only made me laugh as I brought the nozzle up to my face. I closed my eyes and pushed, drenching myself in, of all things, dirty soda water.

Thoroughly saturated, I let go of Adam’s hand, wiping my face and scratching my nose from the tickle of the bubbles. I opened my eyes to see Adam looking at me like I was a crazed woman.

“There,” I said. “Now we’re even.”

I felt so smug. Like victory was mine in some bizarre kind of way. I had turned the tables and took the power back; I was now untouchable, like I could walk away free, knowing I wouldn’t have to be constantly looking over my shoulder. Even though a portion of my hair was plastered to the side of my face, I lifted my chin to look defiantly at Adam. I thought maybe he would find it somewhat amusing, that he might have a little smirk and shake his head, call me a lunatic. Remembering how I could usually predict all of Adam’s responses before they actually happened. But this time his look was nothing like I would have predicted: his mouth agape, his expression troubled, almost stunned like he couldn’t quite form the words.

I kind of liked this unknown reaction, it made me feel even more powerful and I cockily placed my hand on my hips. “Well, well, Adam Henderson, speechless; well, this is an added bonus,” I quipped, revelling in his almost-awkward stance.

Adam swallowed, turning his head to the side, blinking, as if trying to shake his thoughts together. Was he going red?

“E-Ellie, your umm … it’s … umm …”

My brows knitted together in confusion, my eyes following where his finger blindly pointed to … Oh, my God!

My nightie, my white nightie, drenched in soda water had rendered it completely see-through.

I gasped, clutching at my chest and spinning away from him, mortified.

Oh, this could not be happening, this could not be happening.

“Do you, ah, want me to grab a towel or something?” Adam asked, facing the wall.

“Yes, anything!” I snapped, my arms crossed over my chest, cringing at the visible panty line.

Adam went to move, but stilled hearing the sound of footsteps making their way through the main bar.

Perfect!

Instead of leaving, Adam instinctively stepped in front of me, shielding me from whoever was making their way into the poolroom. Could this possibly get any worse?

Chris appeared through the alcove, coming to a standstill directly in front of us, his confused eyes locking on to Adam in his boxers, me drenched, peeking over his shoulder, standing in a pool of soda water.

No, no, it couldn’t get much worse than this.

Chris placed his hands on his hips, fury building as he took in the disaster before him.

“What the actual fuck?”

Chapter Fourteen

“It’s not what it looks like,” said Adam and none too convincingly at that.

“What do you think I think it looks like?” added Chris.

Adam had no words, and neither did I. It was a common occurrence whenever we were caught doing something we weren’t supposed to, which pretty much seemed like our entire upbringing, only this time Tess wasn’t here to do the talking, or rather defending, on our behalf. At best we could only hope that the reaction would dissolve into an eye roll and shrug of the head, with the old: ‘Oh Adam and Ellie, crazy kids.’ But something told me that judging by Chris’s face, this was not going to be one of those times.

“Seriously, how old are you two?”

“Oh, here we go.” Adam laughed, causing an instantaneous switch of fury that flipped in Chris.

“Yeah, here we go, all right.”

“Don’t start giving me the bullshit lectures on age and fucking responsibility,” Adam snapped. It made me flinch; it was so unexpected, so fraught with anger I didn’t recognise him.

“Oh, yeah, you’re a real hero aren’t you, Adam? One bloody trip to …”

“Shut up,” he warned. I would have shrunk away and begged for forgiveness if he spoke to me like that.

Chris’s eyes flicked from Adam to me and back, breathing out a laugh. “You haven’t told her.”

“Chris, I swear to God,” Adam gritted.

“That’s all right, stick your head in the sand, have water fights in your undies and write yourself off tonight, go for it. Just don’t come to me with your crocodile tears when it all turns to shit.”

“It’s not going to turn to shit!” Adam yelled.

There were a few times when you felt as if the Henderson boys might come to blows: this was one of those times. Suddenly my see-through nightie seemed like the least of my problems right now.

“Hey, come on, Adam,” I said, tugging at his arm. “Damsel in distress here.” I was trying to lighten the mood, break the tension a little. It took a long moment for Adam to break away from the death stare he locked with his brother, but he slowly turned to me, almost like he had forgotten I had even been there. I had no idea what they were talking about, obviously something Adam had been keeping from me, something he didn’t want me to know. I wasn’t exactly in the position to challenge him right now; I had to push down any potential hurt feelings I might have had and just really get these two away from each other.

I smiled, pulling at his arm while still managing to cover myself with some semblance of modesty. “Come on, let’s go,” I urged.

Adam’s head turned to Chris, ready to give him the last word, but thankfully he was gone.

***

Adam slammed his bedroom door behind him, making his way down the hall, stopping only to open the linen cardboard. He had gotten dressed in record speed shoving a towel blindly at me as he passed me back down the hall. The remnants of anger were still palpable; this was definitely not something that was predictable in him, not something I recognised. Adam was never one to hold a grudge, but more than that, he wasn’t one to take it out on me. I quickly juggled the towel into position, wrapping it around me.

“Hey, where you going?” I called after him.

“I’m heading out with Ringer to help Sean set up out at the lake house.”

I had a moment of envisioning the Onslow Boys in aprons carrying out trays of devilled eggs and bite-sized sausage rolls to a trestle table and quickly had to wipe the vision from my mind out of fear of cracking up.

“Do you need any help?”

Adam paused at the staircase; he was thinking of how to respond, like he was warring with what to say. Now he really was worrying me.

I made my way up to him, standing to his side, taking in the grim lines of his troubled face.

“I promise not to indecently expose myself in public this time.”

And there it was: a ghost of a smile formed in the corner of his mouth, one that went as quickly as it appeared. Something was definitely up, something he was keeping from me. I started to feel my insides twist at the thought of what it might be. Was it about Megsy? Someone else? The thoughts in my head were racing as fast as my heart.

Come on, look at me, Adam; look at me with those eyes that I know, the kind, sparkling eyes I could recognise.

But all I got was a glance and a sad smile. “We’ll be right. See you tonight?” He playfully tapped me on the chin with his knuckles as he headed down the stairs.

“Um, yeah, sure, okay,” I said, mainly to myself, watching on as Adam made his way down the stairs and disappeared from view. We had gone from laughing, joking to cold and distant.

I didn’t know what was going on, but I sure as hell was going to find out.

***

I sat in the beer garden under a canopy of shadowy evergreen trees sheltering me from the afternoon sun. Rubbing my hands anxiously along my thighs, my attention shifted between the main glass sliding door into the garden and the side entrance, trying to anticipate which one Tammy would appear through. What had begun as a simple luncheon to vent out my high school-esque crush became wanting to get Tammy aside for a whole other reason, to delve into what the hell was happening with Adam and Chris.

What was he keeping from me?

My mind was a million miles away, thinking about the heated death stares between the brothers. What had made them so angry with one another? Lost in my troubled thoughts, something caught my attention, my focus lifting to a hand waving in front of my face.

OH FUCK!

My eyes were wide with horror. I sat, stunned into speechlessness, as there, right before me, stood Toby Morrison, one of two people I was meant to be hiding from this weekend.

Sprung!

“What are you doing here?” He breathed out a laugh, genuinely surprised to see me. My cover was well and truly blown; I wanted the ground to open up and for me to sink deep into the earth. I could just hear the Onslow Boys now:

You had one job to do, Ellie. One. Job. Hide!

As I sat there like a stunned mullet, in that very moment Adam, Ringer, and Sean were probably slaving away at the lake house to get tonight’s ultimate surprise of the century ready, all for me to cock it up in one fell swoop.

Toby must have read it all over my face, the sheer terror of seeing him, of all people. All humour slipped away as his dark brows knitted together in concern.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, intently studying my face, waiting for my reaction.

I swallowed, summoned all my courage, praying to the universe to give me an answer of some kind that would simply explain everything in a way that would prevent him spilling the news to Tess that I was back in town before tonight.

Think, Ellie, think!

And just as I summoned enough functioning to have my mouth gape a little, stammering through a reply, I was saved by the opening of the side glass door of the hotel, where Tammy appeared like a shining beacon of light that would prevent me from plunging into the rock face of certain doom.

“Hey, Toby!” She beamed, making her way over to him with a playful hip and shoulder, her perky ponytail swinging, like it always did. If Tammy was worried about my blown cover she certainly wasn’t showing it.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, all light-hearted; it seemed like an innocent enough question.

“Just grabbing some lunch. Where is everyone?”

My panicked eyes flicked to Tammy, who still remained calm and unwavering. Toby must have thought I was an utter freak, going by my inability to even construct a coherent sentence.

“At Sean’s,” Tammy responded without even blinking.

Was she insane? If I had blown everything by Toby seeing me then she had as good as laid breadcrumbs for a starving bird.

“Okay, I might head out there.”

“No!” I all but shouted, causing Tammy and Toby’s heads to swing around comically fast.

“I mean, you can’t, you, um, have to have lunch, it’s a really important part of the day.”

Oh God, lame much, Ellie?

Now Tammy was looking at me like I was some crazed bag lady.

“I’m not skipping lunch, I’ll head out after. What’s on the menu?” Toby asked Tammy who was still way too casual.

How was I supposed to put a stop to this? Faint? Drug him? Throw myself across the bonnet of his car? I would do whatever it took to keep this a secret, unlike Tammy, who was damn well useless in a crisis.