Bittersweet Wreckage Read online

  Anticipation fueled my steps. Not an ounce of guilt tailgated me.

  I locked the pool house door. We left the lights off in the living room, another parental deterrent, and I turned on a dim light in the bedroom, enough to read by.

  Nervously, I lay with my back against the padded headboard. Jesse lounged in the overstuffed armchair, guitar on his lap. He thrummed a few riffs, getting into the groove, his fingers stiff and unsure as if he hadn’t already spent hours that week at band practice.

  “Aren’t you tired of music after band practice all week?” I did a seductive hair flip, which might’ve bought me a ticket to Clown Town. Seduction and I had never met.

  “Not when it’s music with you.” Those piercing eyes captured mine in their allure again.

  “You’re too far away. Do I make you nervous?” I flipped the pages of my notebook, finding the lyrics we were working on.

  He smiled wide. “On the contrary.” He tipped his chin at my notebook. “Sing it, baby.” He sat beside me on the bed, our thighs touching, my quivering body usurping my mind’s dominion.

  He arranged his fingers on the frets, and we harmonized the chorus of my poem. Our mingled voices formed a cloud above us, and the final guitar riffs split the cloud in half. Our melodies floated off and the music climbed higher and higher, and then dwindled to a final few soft chords. Neither one of us had voices to write home about, but we balanced each other and brought seductive life to our song.

  He leaned against me, his amazing eyes drilling down to the upper swell of my breasts. “I want more than music with you.”

  Gently, I took his guitar and set it in the armchair, then doused the light. He needed no further incentive. He lay on the bed and I joined him, lying on my side, not touching him, unsure what to do. We’d lain in each other’s arms other times, my head nestled on his chest, our arms twined around each other. This moment called for more and I shivered with a tingly awareness. I wanted his fingers touching and exploring me. Yet I knew if he laid one finger on me, I’d explode into a million electric shards and rain down over the ocean.

  Something inside me fought against taking the next step. I fingered his leather wrist cuff. “I read the inscription.”

  “He gave it to me after we’d scored our first paying gig.”

  “Nice. I like it on you.” I’d never received a thoughtful personalized gift from Dad, the man of perpetual mystery. I scratched my arm until I opened up a scab. Mom’s words came back to haunt me, rolling over and over in my head: “You sound like your father.”

  Every muscle froze and the electric shards winked out. Had I just become my father? Hiding my life from my mother? Having a forbidden relationship with Jesse? Lying and keeping secrets? A sheen of sweat chilled me.

  “Ivy? You okay?” Jesse nuzzled my neck, his hand landing on my cold, hard stomach. It trapped me in a vast pit of guilt and confusion, recriminations overshadowing the mass of emotions.

  My heart ached and my head pounded as Mom’s words refused to stop injecting venom into my brain.

  “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t do this.” Stiff, I moved off the bed, leaving Jesse to flop onto his back alone. “My mom might come home early. We can’t risk it. She’ll kill us.” Or end us forever. I held back my fears, unsure how Jesse would take them. I needed to sort it all out in my own head first.

  He exhaled a heavy breath. “She said not to expect her before eleven.”

  “What if she’s testing us?” I gathered up my notebook, holding it to me like a lifeline.

  He sat up and took my left hand in his. “I get it. We’ll wait until it’s right. I’ll wait forever for you.”

  I loved his patience and his optimism, and I about dropped everything to be with him in all ways. He planted a warm, melting kiss of consolation on the palm of my hand. I wanted to cry at the injustices of my world, and the freaky realization that Mom may be right. Hello, Pot, I’m Kettle. I’m such a hypocrite. I hate myself sometimes.

  Chapter 25

  Jesse was hosing off the lawnmower on the driveway when I dumped my two suitcases by my SUV. As I scrutinized the half-full cargo hold for the best place to stuff the suitcases, Mom wheeled out her trunk-sized case and parked it next to mine.

  “I’ll load everything. Give me ten to finish the yard,” he said.

  “I got it.” I pulled out two boxes of kitchen stuff to make room for the larger suitcases. It had become my job three years ago to pack the smaller stuff in the SUV, and then suffer the Master’s verbal tirade because I didn’t pack it right and crap fell and flew around during the trip. I mean, come on, I never took Leo Loading 101.

  “Thank you, Jesse.” Mom beamed him a smile. “I appreciate you taking care of the yard.”

  He picked up a bouquet of yellow, orange, and pink roses in a plastic pitcher by the faucet. “I cut these for you. Figured you’d like them at the cabin.”

  “Oh, Jesse. You’re wonderful.” Mom gave him a quick hug and set the vase in a secure spot in the cargo next to the padded bag holding the urn. Dad’s ashes.

  As soon as she left I said, “Scoring big points.”

  He reached around the corner. “Does this score me bigger points?” He handed me three long-stemmed red roses, cut from my favorite bush beneath my bedroom window.

  The ground under me liquefied into a lake. “Epic points.” Sniffing the fragrant spicy scent, I took the flowers and stuck them one by one in the vase he’d given Mom. “Don’t want her suspicious,” I said. “But I’ll know.”

  One last time, I inhaled the sweet rose scent and turned. He stood so close his body heat encased me. I battled to keep my hands at my sides and not slide my fingers over his damp T-shirt. Instead, I grabbed hold of Mom’s ginormous suitcase and fought Jesse for it, dropping it into the cargo hold, smashing my index finger in the process. “Oww, son of a female dog in heat,” I ground out under my breath, sucking on my throbbing finger.

  Jesse gently took my hand to inspect the damage and planted a tiny kiss on it. “Go ice it. I’ll finish packing.”

  “No. This is my job. I know the packing routine.”

  “Ivy, you don’t need to do everything. Can you please let me do this for you? No need to hurt yourself to prove a point.”

  Indignation knocked against my chest. “Prove a point? Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “I’m not him. I just want to help you and contribute to the family. Please, let me in.”

  And there he said it. I’m not him. The words hit me like a pile of wet sand. He wasn’t Dad, but he was in one respect. He was lying to my mother too.

  We stood a foot apart now, careful not to alert Warden Alice, until he broke eye contact and returned to cleaning cut grass off the lawnmower wheels.

  Silver shimmered in the driveway, pulling my attention from my snarled thoughts. Puzzled, I stared at Will’s car as he parked on the far side of the driveway. He pulled a sports bag out of the back seat.

  “What’s up?” Rubbing the ache out of my finger, I walked over to his vehicle.

  Jesse gave him a head tip in greeting as though he’d expected him, and returned to playing with the hose.

  “Your mom asked if I’d stay in the pool house to watch the house while you’re gone.” He upended his mint container in his mouth and slurped down a half dozen. Like it’d help him land Jade. Knock yourself out, Mr. Minty Fresh.

  My mother amazed and frightened me under the shredding shroud of Leo Lynwood’s domination. I prayed to the fairies of Strange Love that battling my mother for Jesse’s affections or Will’s friendship didn’t come to pass.

  Wind ruffled up lawn clippings, and I picked grass out of his hair. “Is she paying you?”

  “She offered. But I need alone time for a while. I’m gonna flip my shit if my parents keep hurling insults at each other.”

  “I thought your father moved out?”

  “He did. All they do is talk smack about each other to me.”

  “Oh, Will.” I wrapped him i
n a hug.

  I guided him to the backyard and gave him a key to the pool house. Mom had stocked the kitchen and removed the rest of the beer. The Stepford Wife syndrome was quickly dissipating, way too fast for my tastes.

  Less than an hour later, we hit the road to Tahoe, Jesse driving at Mom’s insistence. She rode shotgun while Jade and I existed in the back seat in a cloud of palpable resentment. Jade reeked of cigarette smoke, and I’d doused myself in Jesse’s favorite perfume, which she hated. We both plugged into our devices and slapped a soft-sided suitcase between us. Once her tranquilizer kicked in, Shadow conked out in her cage.

  Four hours and one stop for a late lunch later, we arrived at the lakeside cabin in South Lake Tahoe, with our own private dock and boathouse. Puffy white clouds drifted aimlessly to other worlds in the azure sky. Sun-dappled light seeped through the canopy of trees and wrapped the yard’s perimeter in a lukewarm welcome. Jesse parked in the empty garage. Doors sprang open and our four stiff bodies tumbled out onto wobbly car legs.

  “That trip is always hard on me. Thank you for driving, Jesse. We were in great hands.” The mom monster spewed out her praise.

  She needed an Ivy Spitini with a trifecta-drug-chaser to cool her jets. The more she heaped it on, the more she’d be hawk-eyeing us.

  We unloaded the SUV and dumped our bags and luggage in the living room. I opened all the windows and doors, and the evergreen forest permeated the musty staleness. It felt weird being in Tahoe with Jesse and Jade. Actually, weird was an understatement. Resentment cut right across my chest and returned for a second slice.

  I followed Jade upstairs to the bedrooms. She tromped right into my bedroom, the second door off the landing.

  “Hey, that’s my room,” I said.

  “No. It’s mine.” She dumped her bag on the queen bed, marking her territory.

  It’ll be your deathbed, if you ask nicely. “Crap. Mom!” I yelled from the stair rail overlooking the great room below. “Problem, Houston.”

  “Now what?” Exasperated, she slammed bags of chips on the kitchen counter.

  “Bedroom situation.”

  Jesse carried his suitcase upstairs. “Take my room. It has two doubles.”

  “No way I’m sharing a room with Vine.” Jade rocked on her heels, preparing to launch herself at me.

  “Then go sleep in the boat.” I tossed my bag on the far bed closest to the window in Kristen-Jesse’s room. Maybe you’ll drift off to the middle of the lake and disappear for the next two weeks. Better yet, go play with the bears in the forest.

  “I’d rather sleep on a bed of vipers.” Jade’s black-lipped scowl gave her Goth-painted face a skeleton mask. Clown Town better watch out.

  “Oh, I can arrange the vipers.” The enormity of our situation crashed into me. Damn my stupid female hormones. The idea of sharing a room with Jade and her attitude that needed its own bed snipped my last happy nerve. I needed alone time like I needed air to breathe.

  I pushed past her in the bedroom doorway and ran until the backyard welcomed me. I stumbled up the slope past the deck to the trees surrounding my fort of boulders. Slipping between the rocks, I sank down, losing myself in the blue wedge of placid lake winking through a slit between the rocks. I cried a lake of tears, bone-creaking sobs. The sobs I should’ve killed weeks ago. My life’s bittersweet wreckage seemed to explode inside me. I expelled the ruins through my waterworks until I couldn’t breathe any longer. The hem of my T-shirt became an expensive tissue as I sat against the smoothest boulder to get myself under control.

  Jade’s presence spoiled the few precious memories I had of Dad. Tahoe was the only place Dad had been normal, loving, and didn’t treat me like his minion. The only time our family enjoyed games, boating, and swimming. Why was Tahoe so magical that all his jerkitude vanished? Why had he treated the Jeromes so differently? Why the hell was I turning into him? My life became vacuum cleaner suckage again. “Misery, your company’s here” became my new motto.

  A half hour later, Jesse called my name. No mirror was necessary to know my face had exploded into a puffy, blotchy mess. I may as well join Criers Anonymous. For better or for worse, he was a family member I had to live with until we turned eighteen and he moved out. Longer, if he stayed. He’d see me in all phases of fugly. May as well start now.

  “Here.” Earthworms barely heard me.

  “You in Boulder City?”

  “Boulder City? That what you guys called it?” His name for my sanctuary made it right. I’d share the earth with him alone.

  “Just me. Jade hates the woods.” He crept into the tight space. One look at my face and his crumpled. He folded me into his arms, and I rested my cheek on his chest. Holding me tight, he rested his chin on my head.

  “Jade and I will never be sisters sharing traveling pants. How did Dad go from President Tyrant at our house, to father of the year at Tahoe, then this completely loving person you guys knew? If I don’t figure him out, I’ll splinter into a million pieces.” If I didn’t figure me out, I’d have nothing left to splinter.

  “Some things aren’t meant to be understood. They just are.”

  My fist curled and I knocked his thigh. “I’m not buying it.”

  “Tell me what you want me to do.” He kissed the top of my head, his lips lingering in a balmy wash. “I don’t know how to make this better for you, or Jade, or any of us.”

  “Maybe you’re right and there’s nothing to do. Do we move on as though he never existed?” Everything happened for a reason. Had we ended up where we were supposed to end up?

  “We may have to just move on. We’ll scatter his ashes and be done with him.”

  “I read a saying I’ve batted around for a while. ‘Truth doesn’t always set you free. Sometimes it kills a bit of you.’”

  “Then we don’t risk learning the truth.”

  Would the lack of truth and release close the door on Leo Lynwood? Could I accept him the way I had known him and let him go? Would Jade and I ever experience an equal relationship built upon mutual respect? She’d had the one thing I’d always wanted, and I’d lived a life of luxury in abject misery with the father she wanted full time. Where do we reach the middle? The point where we bury Leo Lynwood for good? The point where I understand me?

  Birds trilled in the tallest trees. A blue jay squawked out a scolding for our intrusion upon its tree-shrouded domain. Sketching circles on Jesse’s loose gray Oakland Raiders T-shirt, his musk scent filling my lungs, I contemplated ending Dad here and now. I considered opening up and telling Jesse all my fears and suspicions about my mother. He deserved to know. I deserved the freedom.

  But his gorgeous smile vaporized the thoughts in my head. His patience and attention when he should run far away swelled my heart even more. I lifted my head, devil eyes and Rudolph nose notwithstanding, and kissed him. He cupped my cheeks, holding me to him, kissing me with all the force of his soul. I wanted to sink inside him as much as I wanted him to sink inside me. My mental weakness shattered and a tempest swirled in the pit of my stomach. Tangoing tongues not breaking contact, he pulled me onto his lap, and we kissed until my whimpers startled me and my mouth blazed from the fire we’d ignited. Our kiss ended, and I drank in the residual sweetness of his lips as his mouth clamped onto my neck.

  “Jesse?” I stretched my neck, inviting his lips to doctor me up. “We better go before the warden sends out a scouting party.”

  “I can’t stop.” He pressed kisses down to my shoulder, licking and nipping my skin. “I want you so bad. Just like this and more. I just want to be touching you. I want to feel better. I want to make you feel better.”

  I cupped his cheeks and reluctantly forced his sweet mouth off me, pressing my forehead against his. We both trembled against each other. Or was it just my trembling?

  His arms were a balm soothing away all my troubles. Stone-still, we sat until Jesse could stand without exposing how badly he desired me to the world.

  When we returned to the cabin, M
om was making dinner. Jade was curled up on the half-octagon window seat in the living room overlooking the lake, earbuds stuck in her ears, smirking when she spied my disastrous face. Shadow had found her second home on the lattice-screened porch, where she watched the birds and squirrels in the forest.

  “Found her,” Jesse announced.

  “You all right?” Apprehension paled Mom’s cheeks and locks of hair stuck up on the sides of her head, displaying her concern.

  “Yeah. Can we scatter the ashes tomorrow?”

  “After Kristen arrives.”

  “She’s coming?” I angled my head.

  “Mid-week.”

  “Did you ever think about the sleeping arrangements?” My hands instinctively rested on my hips, acting the parent once again.

  “Is it really so difficult for you and Jade to sleep in the same room?”

  “Yes,” we said in tandem.

  Mom tossed up her hands. “You’ll have to make do. Kristen can sleep with me or on the couch. For God’s sake, it’s not forever.”

  Our life was forever, though. Jade and I shared a father and the same blood, as did Kristen, no matter if we siphoned out all our blood and replaced it. Any vampires in the area?

  So I won the lottery and had to share a reeking, smoke-filled room with my half-sister. Life was wonderful, if you liked a black lung to go with the Black Voodoo Queen main course. At least she’d left her voodoo shrine at home.

  The next few days dragged. Jesse and I swam in the lake or sunned on the dock while Jade sat under an umbrella at the end of the dock, watchful as a pit bull vampire. If the sun touched her snow-white skin, she’d shrivel into a prune. Speculatively, I eyed the umbrella and Jesse’s pocketknife sitting on the accent table.