A Midsummer's Nightmare (21 page)

Liquor cabinet.

Somehow, I couldn’t believe she kept alcohol in the house.

Sylvia pulled down a bottle of wine. “You sure you can fend for yourself tonight?” she asked, relocking the cabinet.

“Yeah. No problem.”

“Good,” she said, and she turned to me with a sigh. “Sometimes I need a night off.” She laughed and ran her fingers through her wet hair. “Okay. I’ll see you in the morning, Whitley.”

“See you.”

She smiled, and I noticed the bounce in her step as she headed toward the screen door. When she walked outside, I could hear the music playing. Familiar and sweet.

… Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame, but I know…

The door slid shut again, silencing the sounds of Jimmy Buffett and “Margaritaville.” But I’d heard it. I could have recognized that song by two notes alone. I’d listened to it so many times during summers at the condo.

I ran to the door, still holding my Pop-Tart, and peeked out through the screen. Dad was sitting in one of the lawn chairs, wearing his swim trunks, as Sylvia twirled and danced her way over to the table. She sat down across from him and opened the bottle of wine she’d just taken from the liquor cabinet, sipping straight from the top before passing it to Dad.

He lifted the bottle to his mouth, but his lips were already moving, forming the lyrics of the song.

He was singing.

And Sylvia was laughing.

And they were drinking.

It was like a scene from a movie I’d watched over and over and over again. That was Summer Dad sitting out there. The Dad I’d missed. The Dad I’d assumed was gone. But he was here. With Sylvia.

I stepped away from the door, fists clenched.

All summer I’d looked for him. My laid-back, laughing, best friend of a dad. But he’d been here all along. Two months, and I hadn’t seen him. Now, he sat just outside with his new fiancée, living his new life.

I swung my fist into the side of the fridge. Then again. I left my Pop-Tart on the table and ran back upstairs, slamming every door between there and the guest room.

I’d missed him. I’d missed him so much, and he’d been there all along. Just not with me.

“Please.”

“No.”

“Come on, Whit. Please?”

“Leave me alone, Nathan.”

It was the beginning of August, about a week after the bad shopping day with Dad, and Nathan had decided to spend that Friday afternoon harassing me.

The fact was that I hadn’t been in a good mood since Saturday. Seeing Dad being his old self again—without me—had hurt almost as much as Dad’s admission about not wanting me to live with him four years ago. Since that night, I hadn’t left the guest room much, going downstairs only for meals, and I hadn’t spoken a word to Dad.

Nathan wasn’t making things much better. He’d been banging on the guest-room door for the past ten minutes,
bugging the shit out of me. I knew what he wanted. He’d been trying to convince me to go to the Nest with him for days. He claimed it would cheer me up. Get me out of this funk I had fallen into.

At first, I’d politely—well, kind of politely—told him I wasn’t interested. I just didn’t feel like it. Not tonight. Maybe another time. Try again later.

He asked every single goddamn night, always showing up with a new argument. I knew he was doing it because he cared. Because we were friends… or
something
. But it still got annoying fast.

And he was back again, knock, knock, knocking away at the door.

Finally sick of yelling through the door at him, I yanked it open, positioning myself carefully in front of it so he couldn’t get in. “No,” I said. “I’m not going, so leave me alone.”

“Come on, Whit,” he whined, wedging himself against the doorframe to prevent me from locking him out of the guest room, putting us in close proximity. Close enough that I could see just how long his eyelashes were, see that his brown eyes had tiny flecks of gold in them. “It’ll be good for you.”

“I’ve told you a million times to stop calling me Whit.”

“It’s just the Nest,” he teased. “Clean, wholesome fun. Even a prude like you couldn’t object.”

“Ha ha. You’re so funny.”

“Seriously. Why won’t you come?”

“I don’t feel like being on everyone’s Facebook News Feed tomorrow, thanks,” I said, trying to push the door shut.

He blocked it, squeezing himself all the way into the room and brushing past me without an invitation.

“Christ, do you realize how rude that is?”

“So you’re telling me,” he said, plopping down on the bed, “that you’re going to stay home and be a hermit for the rest of the summer because you’re scared that some bored moron might write a comment about you on Facebook?” He rolled his eyes. “Come on.”

“It’s more than just that group,” I said, ignoring him. “It’s the people who’ve read those stories. Everyone in this goddamn town knows my name, and they all think I’m some filthy slut.”

“Then prove them wrong.”

“I’m not going, Nathan. Drop it.”

“Please, Whit. Don’t make me bring Bailey in here.”

“What does she have to do with this?” I asked.

“She’s the one who wants to go,” he said. “She’s been dying to go all week, but she didn’t want to pressure you, since you’d been so down. I told her I’d talk you into it. This is all her idea.”

I was surprised. Bailey had spent the last couple of months avoiding the social scene, backing out whenever I invited her to go to the Nest with Harrison and me. It made sense—for her to be scared, I mean. I figured it would be a long time before she got back on the horse.

I underestimated her.

“I’ll bring Bailey in here,” Nathan threatened. “We both know you can’t say no to her.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No, you really can’t.”

I rolled my eyes and slumped against the wall. “Why do I have to go? Why can’t you take her and leave me here?”

“Because she wants you there,” he said. “And so do I.”

Those last four words shouldn’t have made my heart rate speed up a notch, but they did.

“No,” I mumbled, feeling myself start to waver.

“Whitley, is this about Harrison’s party?” His voice was quiet.

I wrapped my arms around myself. Phantom breath and ghost fingers lingering on my skin. “I can’t, Nathan,” I whispered. “It was my fault with Theo that night. If I hadn’t gotten so drunk and gone with him, if I hadn’t let everyone think—”

“No, Whit. That was
not
your fault.”

“If I hadn’t—”

“I’m going to keep telling you this until you believe me,” he said. “I don’t care what you think you did. No one deserves that.
No one.
That guy was a sick bastard—a complete asshole. You did
not
ask for it. So stop blaming yourself.”

I looked down. “I just don’t want to go out tonight, all right?”

“Listen to me.” He stood up and walked across the room to stand in front of me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I know you’ve been having a rough time lately. With your dad and all that. I know that what happened at Harrison’s party scared you. I’m sorry about everything.”

“Don’t go all Hallmark on me,” I warned, focusing on a
small tear in the collar of his plain navy T-shirt instead of looking him in the face.

“Look, I’m glad that you’ve chilled out a little lately—easing up on the Girls Gone Wild act—but you’re just going to make yourself miserable staying in here.”

“Girls Gone Wild? Please. You only wish I’d taken my shirt off.”

Oh, wait. I
had
taken my top off in front of him. On graduation night
and
that one time in his car outside of the movie rental store. Whoops.

He pretended not to hear me.

“You need to get out. Have a little fun. You
can
have fun without tequila, you know. I swear.”

“Christ, Nathan, can’t you just drop it?” I asked, trying to swerve out of his reach.

He caught my other shoulder and pushed me lightly against the wall again. Finally, I looked up at him. He stared down into my face as he held me between his hands. We were standing too close. For a minute, all the feelings I’d been trying to stifle came bubbling to the surface. I was looking right into his eyes; I could smell his fresh, cinnamon breath. All I wanted was to kiss him. Or for him to kiss me. It didn’t matter.

But that wasn’t what this was about.

“I want you to be happy,” he said. “And we both know you’re not happy like this. Locking yourself in here isn’t going to make you happy. It’s not going to make any of us happy.”

“Nathan…”

“Either you promise me right now that you’ll come with us,” he insisted, “or I’ll go get Bailey and have her lay those puppy eyes on you. We both know you’re wrapped around her little finger. You’d do anything if she asked.”

I knew he was right.

But in that moment, as I opened my mouth to answer, a scary realization hit me: Everything he’d just said about Bailey applied to him, too. I’d do almost anything for this boy.

“Fine,” I relented. Then, with a forced smile, I added, “I mean, it looks like you actually combed your hair. We wouldn’t want that rare effort going to waste.”

He laughed as I thumped him on the side of the head with my index finger. His soft brown hair—which really did look neater than usual—tickled my knuckle. God, I wanted to run my fingers through it. Luckily, he was stepping away, removing the temptation. At least a little bit.

Silently, I reminded myself that I couldn’t feel anything beyond friendship for Nathan Caulfield. He was going to be my stepbrother. It would be weird. People would think… lots of things.

I wasn’t allowed to like him.

It might have been my imagination, but the minute we walked into the Nest, I could have sworn that every pair of eyes turned to look at me. The girls were giving me cold, disapproving glares. The boys smirked menacingly, spotting their prey. I folded in on myself, scooting closer to Nathan. I wanted to leave already.

People had thought of me as a slut back home. I was a party girl, a wild child, a bad influence. But things are different in cities, I guess. Because in the city, there are plenty of other sluts. Plenty of other people to gossip about. And there was a chance that the new people you met had never heard of you. I mean, I graduated with people—Nathan, for instance—that I’d never met.

Hamilton wasn’t the city. Here, I was a hot topic.

“I don’t think…” I began, already stumbling backward in an attempt to get to the exit.

“Smile,” Nathan muttered near my ear. “We’re here to have a good time, remember?”

I looked at Bailey and realized how pathetic I was. Four years younger than me, and she was standing there with her head high, like she belonged there.

“I’m going to go dance,” she said.

“You are?” I asked, shocked.

“Of course she is,” Nathan said. “Dancing is fun. We should dance, too, Whit.”

I shook my head. There were so many reasons not to dance with Nathan. The biggest being my already-damaged reputation. Bumping and grinding with my soon-to-be stepbrother wouldn’t earn me any brownie points.

Bailey ran off to dance while I pushed my way toward the very, very back of the club. I slid into a booth, checking over my shoulder for camera phones aimed my way.

“Smile,” Nathan said again, sliding into the seat across from me.

“I don’t want to,” I snapped. “Why did you force me to come here?”

He ignored that question. “Smile, Whit. Make them think there is no place you’d rather be.”

“But—”

“Smile.”

I forced an obnoxious grin onto my lips.

“Happy now?” I asked through gritted teeth. “I’m smiling, goddamn it.”

“Good,” he said. “Keep at it.”

“Oh my God, there you are!”

I looked up just as Harrison plopped down in the booth. He winked at Nathan before turning to face me. “So, the intervention worked,” he said, sneaking his arm around my shoulder and squeezing. “I knew you couldn’t say no to Nathan.”

“Intervention? What are you…?” I turned to glare at Nathan.

“Harrison and I both agreed that you needed to get out of the house,” Nathan said.

“You said it was Bailey’s idea,” I snapped.

“She was in on it, too.”

I looked back and forth between them, letting the air hiss between my teeth. “So, you two were plotting against me… together?”

“Something like that,” Nathan said, shrugging. He looked to Harrison. “Take her out on the dance floor. She won’t dance with me.”

“No.”

“Yes!” Harrison exclaimed, grabbing my wrist and dragging me out of the booth. He was pretty freaking strong. No wonder he’d beaten the shit out of Theo so easily. “I want to see that cute little ass shaking right now. You can’t fight the music, baby!”

“You are
so
gay,” I said, just as he spun me around to face him. We were in the middle of the dance floor now, surrounded by a million bodies, all bouncing and swaying… and looking at me. I tried not to think about that as Harrison pulled me closer to him, his hands on my hips, forcing me to move. The truth was, I could dance. I really could. But this was too much. For the first time ever, I was feeling claustrophobic.

“Harrison, I’m not in the mood for this.”

“I can’t hear you!” he shouted over the loud techno music, but I knew he could. “Dance, sweetie. Just dance.”

Without warning, he twirled me around, catching me again easily.

He was a good dancer, too.

Just then, Bailey danced past us. Her long golden hair whipped around her shoulders, and her arms waved over her head. She was alone, but smiling. Laughing, even. She was the most beautiful I’d ever seen her.

I smiled. Seeing her enjoying herself so much, so unafraid—it made me happier than I’d been in a long time.

I took a breath and rolled my shoulders, telling myself to relax. I let Harrison twirl and dip me, let him dance me
around the floor, let myself enjoy it. After a while, Nathan cut in and Harrison went to dance with Bailey. I cared about the three of them, and they cared about me. Cared about me enough to put up with my shit, enough to drag me out of the house when I’d been a wallowing hermit for the past few weeks.