Keep You (4 page)

             
“Is her furniture
better
than yours?”

             
“Don’t pretend to be stupid, Jo.”

             
You either
, she thought, but shrugged and shut her car door, heading to the house carrying the burden of Ryan’s eyes with her.

             
Jordan was at the weight bench in the garage and grunted a hello as she passed. Her father was at the kitchen table, his favorite radio from out in the garage lying in pieces on top of an old beach towel. He glanced up, screwdriver in hand, and nodded to her. “Hey, sweetheart.”

             
“Hey, Dad.” She dropped a kiss on top of his sandy head. “Where’s…”

             
Beth came breezing in from the back hallway, still in her work clothes, her hair flapping behind her like a tail, her face flushed.

             
“Mom.”

             
“Hi, baby.” She was breathless. “Whatever it is, I can’t right now. Your brother’s brought all his shit over and is stuffing my garage with it!” She went to the sink, pulled a glass down out of the cabinet, filled it, and choked half of it down in one gulp. Jo was amused and a little disturbed by the unladylike behavior.

             
“Michael,” she gasped when she could, putting her back to the sink, “has lost his effing mind!”

             
Of the seven of them, Beth was handling Mike’s marriage the worst – displacing her anger on some of her son’s more benign actions.

             
“How so?” Jo asked calmly, pulling out the chair across from her dad and sinking into it. She’d been on her feet all day, reeked of wet dogs and feline eye ointment, needed a shower, a hot meal and a head-first fall into bed. But she’d settle for counseling duties instead.

             
“I do not have room,” Beth railed, silver bracelets rattling on her arms as she waved her hands for emphasis, “to store everything he owns in my garage. Did you tell him, Randy? Did you tell him we don’t have room?”

             
Randy shrugged. “He won’t listen to me anymore. What do I know? I’m just his
father
.”

             
“And we bought him those sofas,” she continued, “they’re perfectly good sofas!”

             
“Mom.” Jo kept her tone neutral. “He knows that. But he also knows Delta won’t live with black leather and chrome for a second.”

             
“Well why not?” Beth glowered. “That spoiled little princess bi - ” Mike and Ryan stepped in from the garage and she closed her mouth, teeth clicking together audibly.

             
Mike surveyed the three of them with raised brows and Jo knew he found the silence to be suspect. “What?”

             
“Can I have the sofas?” Jo asked. “For when I get my own place.”

             
He rolled his eyes. “Like you’re ever gonna get your own place.”

             
Sometimes, Jo wondered if her anti-wedding sentiments were truly about Delta, or if Mike was the source of her aversion.

             
“She will,” Randy defended her without looking up from his radio. “She’ll be married and off away from me too soon as it is. Your sister can have the sofas if they aren’t good enough for you.”

             
“Ha! Married? Ms. Never Had a Boyfriend over here?”

             
Siblings fought and gave each other shit. Jo had participated in plenty of brother-sister feuds in her twenty-three years of life, but Michael had a way of bringing her temper to a rolling boil. She felt heat blossom in her cheeks; part embarrassment, part flaring anger.
You dumbass
, she thought bitterly. Tam had been his best friend since middle school and never once had he so much as suspected what had passed between his best bro and his little sister. She was only Ms. Never Had a Boyfriend because Tam had refused to acknowledge her as his girlfriend. Because he’d been ashamed and he’d hidden what they’d had from everyone.

             
“Watch it,” Randy warned him.

             
Jo let her smoldering gaze slide away from Mike’s face and her eyes collided with Ryan’s, which were now boring interested, smiling holes through her. She glanced away in a hurry, not wanting to invite his attentions.

             
“Really, Michael.” Beth had tried to collect herself, but her voice was still unsteady. “Don’t insult your sister, not when you’re asking so much of this family right now.”

             
“Asking? What am I asking?” He had the audacity to sound confused.

             
Beth pressed her fingertips against her temples like she had a headache.

             
“The wedding?” Jo prompted. “Ireland. The castle. If you expect all of us to play along with this extravagant bullshit, you might wanna be nicer to us.”

             
Randy nodded.

             
Beth shot her a grateful look.

             
Mike scowled. “I’m not forcing anybody to come. I just thought my family might wanna see me
get married
.” He held up his hands to stave off protest. “But whatever. Do what you want.”

             
“What an asshole,” Randy muttered as Mike left, Ryan on his heels.

             
Jo followed them out into the driveway. “Are you serious?” she called to her brother’s retreating back.

             
She’d known that would get his attention, and it did; he did an about-face and came marching back toward her, fair face criss-crossed with frown lines. “You guys are the ones attacking me,” he fired back.

             
She halted, waited for him, and planted her hands on her hips. A warm, rippling breeze brought her own stink of vet clinic up to her nostrils. “And why do you think that is?”

             
“I’ve got no idea.” He snorted and, having reached her, began to turn.

             
“They can’t afford it,” Jo said, and Mike paused. “The airfare, clothes, the rehearsal dinner. And now you want them to shell out for an extra week just so Princess Delta can have her fairytale prolonged.” She scowled right back at him. “Mom and Dad are so proud of you and you know they love you. And because they can’t afford to do what you want them to, the stress of it all is eating at them. But of course you’re too selfish to see that. You’re
asking
,” she stressed the earlier word, “more than they can give and you don’t even care.”

             
His expression twisted with guilt. “It’s what Delta wants.”

             
“But not what you want.”

             
“You have to make sacrifices in relationships, Jo.”

             
She curled her hands into fists and clenched until her nails bit into her palms. “If Delta loves you, she’ll be reasonable about the situation.”

             
His mouth pulled to the side in an unhappy sneer. “And what would you know about love?”

6

Then

             
The neighborhood pool was a large, rectangular oasis sunk in a quarter acre of concrete summertime hell. The clubhouse was situated on a pie-shaped lot in the very last cul-de-sac at the end of the subdivision. A badminton net and shuffleboard court were set up in the front lawn, and in the back, a ten foot privacy fence surrounded the pool and its laughing, shouting, splashing swimmers.

             
Jo was fifteen and well aware that girls with learner’s permits didn’t play water polo with their brothers and brothers’ friends with the tenacity of the rowdy tomboy she’d always been. So she’d flopped a poolside chaise flat and stretched out on her stomach half-beneath a beach umbrella, her legs dangling in the sunlight so she could tan away the sock lines around her ankles, flipping through an issue of
Cosmo
Jess had let her borrow with the strong suggestion she read it and learn to become a “girl a boy would want to take on a date.”

             
But every so often she felt water droplets splatter against her arms and shivered in delight at their coolness against her sticky skin. She kept sneaking glances at the shimmering waves that lapped at the little seashell tiles that bordered the concrete edge of the pool and longed to take a running leap and dive in headfirst, cutting the water like a knife. But of course, it probably wasn’t smart to dive when wearing a flimsy two-piece. Self-consciously, she reached to adjust the bikini top that kept slipping down just a little too far. She’d always been a one-piece kind of girl, but here she was, slathered in cocoa butter, lashes coated in mascara, melting on the sidelines in a white leopard-print two-piece, and why?

             
Something
thumped
against the top of her head, chlorine-smelling water pattered on her face and she glanced up with a startled gasp to see an inflatable volley ball rolling away from her and back toward the edge of the pool. One of the guys swam up and propped his elbows on the hot concrete, water streaming down his shoulders and arms, glittering in the sunlight, the sparkling pool reflected in his eyes that were the same dazzling azure.

             
Why? Tam Wales – that was why.

             
In the five years she’d known him, Jo had been unable to shake the crippling infatuation that had first overtaken her in the living room the day Mike had brought Tam home from school with him. Her crush had taken root, spreading outward from a deep, aching place in her chest until it had blossomed into a kind of obsession that shamed her. Sometimes she looked at him and her mouth filled up with all these sappy, girly words that wanted so badly to come rolling off her tongue in his direction, but of course she left them unspoken. She’d committed his image to memory and built a mental shrine to it. She wanted things she couldn’t put a name to and longed for things that hadn’t happened, and hated that of all the boys in the world, the one she couldn’t stop thinking about was her brother’s very best friend. The knowledge was almost as depressing as the fact that her idolization was one-way: Tam saw her as nothing but one of the boys.

             
“What the hell are you doing up there?” he asked with one of those smiles that melted her stomach. His shaggy, almost-black hair was sopping wet and slicked back away from his face, water running down the ridge of his nose and dripping off his chin. He was eighteen – another factor that made him deliciously forbidden – and had pierced his tongue within the last six months. The silver stud caught just enough light that it drew her eyes to his mouth whenever he spoke, which she knew was a no-no. She’d just read in her
Cosmo
that looking at a guy’s mouth was a clear indication that you wanted to be kissed: yet another rule of flirtation that she always seemed to forget.

             
“Getting some sun.”

             
“That sounds awful.” Despite the dark hair, Tam was not a tan, tan guy, which Jo didn’t think detracted from his flat stomach and hard chest in the least. “Come on, I’m getting my ass handed to me and nobody serves like you do.”

             
She tried not to return his smile and failed. “You guys don’t want a girl in the middle of things.”

             
His smile tweaked to the side. “That girl.” He pointed further down the pool to a statuesque redhead in a lime green bikini who was making a show of rubbing lotion across her collar bone. She lived about eight houses down from the Walkers and Jo had listened to her brothers’ comments about her. “No,” he said with a chuckle. “But you, yes. Get in.”

             
Clearly, Jo was a better water polo pick than the redhead with the giant rack, and hence Tam’s rejection of the older, sexier girl. It had nothing to do with him actually wanting her. But still, her stomach was aflutter with butterflies.

             
“I…”

All the crystal droplets sliding over his shoulders and down his chest glittered in the sunlight. When he said “please,” the sun caught the stud in his tongue too and Jo felt her pulse leap into double time.

“I can’t,” she said lamely, and scrambled up off the chaise. Too embarrassed to check, she didn’t know his reaction as she hurried on scorched feet across the concrete all the way to the clubhouse.

There was a rear entry for swimmers and she didn’t slow her step until she’d closed the door behind her and she was in the tiled hallway, the AC enveloping her in chilled air. She took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darker interior,
then started toward the vending machines at the end of the hall, her bare feet making soft sounds against the tile. Only when she was standing in front of the Coke machine, regarding her reflection in its shiny plastic front, did she realize she’d come running in here without any change. So now she couldn’t even return poolside with a Coke to cover for her sudden need to run away like her ass was on fire.

“Loser,” she muttered.

The French doors opened down the hall with a
click
and a sudden swell of laughter and splashing sounds from outside. Jo’s heart lurched in her chest as the noise died with another click of the door shutting. There had been two dozen people in that pool, and any one of them could be coming in here to get a drink.
It’s not him,
she told herself, trying to regulate her pulse as she listened to wet feet move across the tile. A shapeless shadow moved behind her reflection in the front of the machine. Jo bit down on her lower lip and scolded herself for being ridiculous; why in the hell did she let herself get worked up like this? Why did she let Tam –

             
Tam was standing behind her. The slap of wet feet came to a halt and the surreal, red-tinted reflection that loomed over her own became clear, its edges well-defined, a familiar face and shock of dark hair sending a jolt of surprise rattling up her spine. Her hand flew to her chest, but she caught herself at the last moment, forcing it down to her side again so she didn’t appear totally helpless.

             
“Did I scare you?” he asked with a chuckle.

             
“No,” she lied. Sort of lied. She wasn’t afraid of him, but of the things he did to her pulse.

             
His hand landed on her far shoulder and she felt his arm across her back. When he leaned forward, a fistful of wet nickels ready for the machine, Jo turned her head just a fraction so she could study his profile: the convex ridge of his nose, the way the wet spikes of his hair brushed the shell of his ear, his long, dark lashes, the firm line of his jaw.

             
Mike’s friend
, she told herself.
My friend
, because over the years they’d developed a friendship that had nothing to do with Mike. They had things in common. Tam seemed to truly enjoy spending time with her, would even linger at the house if Mike was at work and they would stretch out on their stomachs in the living room and make fun of reality TV. She didn’t want to ruin that, didn’t want to change it, because being real friends with Tam was too important to her. She couldn’t risk pushing him away. But why did she want so badly to reach out and trace a finger down his cheek? To rake her hand through all that thick, dark hair of his?

             
“I think,” Tam said, staring at the vending machine while he fed change into it, “that you’re turning into a girl, Joey.”

             
Joey. No one called her Joey but Tam. And because she loved that, it took a half a second for his words to sink in. “What?” She blinked. “Um, when was I ever not a girl?”

             
Contrary to some of Jessica’s more frustrated insistences, Jo had never disliked the notion of femininity. Mike said she wanted to be a boy, but she had always embraced the girl that she was. She just liked playing backyard football and climbing trees and just happened to prefer jeans to dresses.

             
Tam punched the Mountain Dew button and turned his head toward her. She had to tilt her own back to meet his gaze and they were close enough she could feel his breath on her face when he spoke. “I like your bathing suit.”

             
Someone must have poured lava over her, because a bright spot of heat touched the top of her head and its warmth ran down her, pouring through her insides and over her skin, a full-body blush making her suddenly self-conscious and breathless. Had he really just complimented her? Complimented
her
and not a pass she’d just made or a dive she’d executed.

             
“T-thanks.” She tripped over the word.

             
He squeezed her shoulders in a friendly way and then let go of her, bending down to retrieve his drink as it rattled its way down to the chute. Jo realized the moment was over, or about to be. He’d take his Mountain Dew and be on his way, back out to the pool and all the witnesses who would prevent this moment from continuing. This moment – whatever it was – was something she wanted more of. This sense of choking and catching fire was horrible, embarrassing, and fantastic, and she needed to say something, anything, to prolong it, to keep Tam here in this dimly lit hallway with her just a second longer.

             
She wanted to kick herself for what came tumbling out of her mouth. “Why’d you pierce your tongue?”

             
Tam straightened, popped the tab on his soda and took a sip, a strange smile twisting his lips. His blue eyes were the color of ocean water, seeming to glow in the shadows, and they danced with amusement at her question. “I like it,” he said, and his eyes latched onto hers. “Do you?”

             
Jo felt herself nod like an idiot.

             
He shrugged. “And it’s good for…certain things.”

             
Don’t say anything else, you moron!
She yelled at herself. But that terrifying blend of embarrassment and heat was swirling through her and her curiosity was piqued. “What things?”

             
He studied her, she felt his gaze slide down to her toes and then come back up to her face. His eyelids had lowered a fraction. When he leaned toward her, she held her breath, her pulse an erratic thump in her veins. The soda can touched her arm, ice cold, and a shudder raced through her. Tam put his head next to hers and dropped it until she felt the brush of his hair against her cheek. His chest nearly touched hers. She took a deep, shaky breath when her lungs started to burn.

             
She felt his breath in her ear. “Maybe,” he whispered, “I’ll show you some day.”

             
And then something – his tongue, she realized, and thought she might have a heart attack – touched her earlobe. “Tam - ”

             
And then the warm, smooth, silver ball of his tongue stud traced up the shell of her ear and her mind quit working.

             
He didn’t make eye contact again afterward, but moved away, his footfalls retreating toward the door. Jo couldn’t even turn her head to watch him go. She crossed her arms over her middle and sagged back against the rough wallpaper.

             
As if her imagination weren’t crazy enough as it was, now she’d be imagining…certain things.