Love on the Ledge (9 page)

I shut my eyes. My body does lots of strange things. My heart leaps and falls. My tear ducts ache, but stay dry. My stomach flutters, and my skin shivers from his words and the cool breeze coming from the open balcony.

“I try to look at the glass half full side of things. Otherwise, what’s the point of being miserable?”

“You’re not part of some cult, are you?”

I picture him shaking his head. Those blue, blue eyes. That full, full mouth. “Believe me, I’m no boy scout. I mean, I literally was a Boy Scout, with the badges to prove I can tie knots and light fires and all. But I’m not just happy for the sake of it. I’m tired of seeing the sad parts of life. Aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I say honestly. “I really am.”

We fall into silence, but it isn’t uncomfortable. I imagine myself sitting beside him, watching each of us find comfort in a little bit of quiet.

“Why did you call me, Sky?”

Then the comfortable part goes away and a million things rush through my head again. Wedding. Cake. Photographer. Bradley. Stella. Bradley and Stella. Maria rolling her eyes. River smoking. Xandro’s skinny margarita. Centerpieces. Hayden. Hayden. Hayden.

“I honestly don’t know,” I laugh nervously.

“Hey, that’s okay, too. I don’t need a reason. I just…wondered.”

I push away all the thoughts that aren’t about Hayden and me and the present. I focus on this moment and his phone call and stop myself from trekking through the past or freaking about the future.

Don’t be an idiot
, River told me.

“I just wanted to talk to you, I suppose.”

“I suppose that’ll do,” he says, jokingly. In the moment of silence I imagine he licks his lips, and then my thoughts focus on that—his perfect full lips. The fullest, most kissable lips I’ve ever seen on a guy. “I know someone hurt you real bad, Sky.”

My heart runs laps around the room.

“No one told me, I just know. I don’t want to be the guy who chases after a girl with a broken heart.”

My disappointment tells me that’s exactly what I wanted, and I feel a little bit selfish. “Okay.”

“So, let me be your friend.”

I sink into the pillows, comforted by the softness of his voice. “My friend?”

“Yeah, like two people who are totally not attracted to each other being friends.”

“Oh.”

“Just kidding. I’m completely attracted to you.”

This is the part where I tell him that so am I. “Hayden…”

“Look, I do want to get to know you. I can’t deny that you’re the most beautiful person I’ve seen in my whole life. Including Adriana Lima and Giselle Bundchen, but they’re folded up in catalogues under my mattress so it doesn’t count.”

“So you want to be my friend, but you also want to let me know that you think I’m pretty.”

“Sky, pretty doesn’t even begin to describe what you are,” he says. I decide I love the sound of his voice. “So being friends seems simple enough. Plus, I heard the old ladies talking about you and they said you’d be going back to Boston at the end of the summer. I don’t fancy getting my heart splattered. I’m a hazard to myself as it is. Simple, right?”

“I don’t think simple is what I’d call it,” I say. I dig my toes into my comforter. I don’t know why I have a sudden urge to stretch, like my skin is too tight. I want to tell him that I’m not going back to Boston, but I’m still not sure. I have a job waiting for me if I want it. Or I can start over at a new place here in New York. I do want to go back to school, but so much is going on. I can even just say “fuck it” to everything and move to South Africa.

“You’re a strange person,” I tell him.

“Thank you. I like to think of myself as un-ordinary.”

“Wouldn’t that be extraordinary?”

“No, no. I’m not extraordinary. Not yet. I’m just not ordinary. I’d like to think there’s a difference, but perhaps my brain is just fried.”

I realize how late it is.

“Speaking of,” he says. “I have to get up to be at work by five o’clock.”

“It’s midnight. I’ll let you go.”

“If you insist,” he says. “But if I didn’t have to sleep, believe me, I’d stay on the phone as long as you’d let me.”

“Or,” I say, “we could talk in person.”

“You stole my line.” He chuckles. I love the sound of it. “I wanted to invite you to a bonfire at Tiana Beach tomorrow night. You know, now that we’re friends.”

“I’d love that.”

“Great. I’ll see you.”

“Goodnight, Hayden.”

“See you at home, Sky.”

Tonight, I don’t need champagne. I already feel drunk on his words.

But I don’t see him in the morning.

I forgot to set my alarm clock and slept through all of their hammering on the other side of the house. I locked the door so that no one (ahem, River Thomas) would jump on me in the morning. I quickly check my email and see a new message from the DJ. He’s been pestering me for a bigger deposit after getting a mostly ’80s playlist. I mark it as important and decide to answer it after I’ve had coffee.

When I get downstairs, my mom corners me by the coffee machine. My head is still fuzzy with sleep.

“Sky,” she says. “Cousin Felipe and his wife are here with their daughter, Daisy. I told them Daisy could stay in your room until the guest room roof is patched up.”

“Excuse me?”

Cornered isn’t the word I’d use anymore. Ambushed is more like it. I take the coffee cup and put it in the machine slot. It lights up and asks for water. Of course, six hundred people are in the house and no one can refill it. While my mom stares at me and the coffee machine makes all kinds of robotic sex noises, I rub the crud from my eye with the sleeve of my robe.

“Daisy can stay in your room.”

“No,” I say.

I take the steaming mug and hold it up to my nose.

“What do you mean, no?”

“Ma, Uncle Tony renovated the basement
just
so that people would have places to sleep. There are six beds downstairs.”

“You can’t ask a little girl to sleep in a basement by herself.”

“She won’t be by herself,” I say. “All the kids are down there. Maybe if you get your mind out of the gutter, you’ll see that this isn’t about Daisy. You just don’t want me to be alone for two seconds.”

She gathers herself, holding her hands to her chest. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

“The problem is, if Daisy is there, I won’t be able to entertain all the guys that come crawling through my window,
Ma
.
”

It’s the wrong thing to say at the wrong time because that’s when Maria and Yunior and Uncle Felipe and his wife and Daisy round the corner into the kitchen.

My mother is mortified. I’m still pretty okay.

“Good morning, everyone,” I say, giving them my best smile. I shouldn’t antagonize my family, but they make it so easy. “I’m going for a swim.”

• • •

Before my swim, I leave a message for the photographer to call me back. I ask the baker to email us the final design of the cake. I get the shipping confirmation for the one of a kind, handmade wedding toppers, each modeled after the grooms.

I swim until all I can think about is the burn in my arms, as opposed to the fact that two of my younger cousins are over in the backyard trying to flirt their way into Hayden’s pants with lemonade and ham and cheese sandwiches.

I push myself out of the pool and groan when I see that Xandro’s here, deep in conversation with Uncle Felipe’s wife. She’s grabbing her fat at the waist, and I can imagine he’s giving her a price quote. We have our own personal family butcher…how nice.

“If you want to be alone with the guy,” Leti says from the pool chair behind me, “you only have to say so.”

She thumbs a finger at the Sun God that is Hayden Robertson. My new friend.

I throw the pool noodle at her, and she spills her margarita on her top.

“Come on, Sky. Maria’s bringing her fiancé to the wedding. He’s going to be insufferable. Everyone else has dates. I’m getting pretty close, I just have to make sure he can handle his liquor.”

I dive back into the pool. Even though I’m tired, I need a reprieve from them all. Even Leti. This pool isn’t deep enough, though. I’m going to need to dive into the ocean.

When I surface again, brushing the chlorine water from my eyes, Hayden is sitting at the edge of the pool chatting with Leti. I swim to them, my breath more ragged than I’d like.

“Hey,” I say.

His face lights up with a smile. He’s red from the sun. His shirt is bunched up on his hands. He uses it like a towel.

“You should jump in and cool off,” Leti says suggestively.

“I’d probably need a good shower to rinse off the grime,” he laughs.

I pull myself out of the pool and sit beside him. I’m so aware of the way my body tenses up when he’s near. I want to reach out and see how the five-o-clock shadow on his face feels against my hand.

“The gazebo looks really great,” I say.

“Believe me,” he says, “I’ve got a few surprises coming up. It’s going to be my best work. Especially after ruining your dress.”

“Don’t worry about it!” Leti smacks him on the back. He nearly falls forward, but I put my hand on his chest. His pecs tense up. He stares at my hand plastered to his hard torso.

I let go and try to ignore the way he smiles at me.

“The good thing about having one of the grooms be a fancy designer is that he can sew up a new dress.”

I wouldn’t put it that lightly. Pepe was furious, but Tony calmed him down. Tony’s a good balance for Pepe’s riotous emotions.

“Am I still seeing you tonight at the bonfire?”

I can feel the heat of his stare on my face. It only flickers down to my boobs once. Friends do that right?

“We’ll be there,” Leti says.

Hayden pushes himself up, dusts off his jeans. “I can’t wait.”

• • •

While I put waterproof eyeliner on Leti’s eyelids and River flips over her hair to get crazy volume, my cousins Maria, Elena, and Juliet stand at the door.

“When are you leaving for the bonfire?” Maria asks. She’s wearing a black and red sundress.

River shifts her weight to one leg. “Why?”

“Because we’re coming, too?” Elena says, rolling her eyes. Nineteen and already getting lip injections, Elena looks more ready to go to a nightclub than a casual bonfire.

“Who says you’re going?” Leti asks.

“Um, Tripp did.” Juliet says, pulling her sequin top up so you can see the tattoo on her hip. I’m betting that her mom has no clue that’s there, mostly because she’s still alive. Our mothers threaten us with murder when it comes to piercings, tattoos, and premarital sex. It’s a miracle Leti’s still alive since she’s guilty of all three.

“Tripp?” I want to puke a little. Just the thought of my little cousins calling him that makes me itch all over.

“We’re not all fitting in my car,” River says. The subtext—you bitches aren’t getting in my car.

“We know,” Juliet says, smirking. “Xandro’s driving us.”

I hate this. I hate feeling like I’m in high school again with every single family member in my business. I hate that everything I do gets reported back to my mother, that I’m on the verge of a quarter-life crisis and it gets worse because, even in a mansion, I don’t have any privacy.

“You know what?” I say, holding the edge of my bedroom door. “I don’t care. Go with Xandro. We’ll see you there.”

I shut the door.

“Now that we’re infiltrated with a bunch of rats,” River says, “guess we’d better be on our best behavior.”

Leti and River exchange a secret smile. One that says there’s not a chance in hell that’s going to happen.

Tiana Beach is just an extension of the stretch of beaches on Dune Road. Behind us, a row of houses flanks the ocean. I’ve always wondered what it’s like to live facing the beach like this. To see the storms rolling in, the rise and fall of the tide. I can imagine it gets lonely during the winter, but considering the summer months are the most hated for locals, it wouldn’t be so bad.

The bonfire faces a house weathered by sea salt and strong winds. Silhouettes of people crowd at the porch with red plastic cups in hand. There’s music, but it doesn’t really reach the beach. Sergeant Sam Pepper is deep in conversation with Hayden and a bunch of other guys sitting around a huge fire. Over towards the water, people are playing volleyball. They wear glow-in-the-dark wristbands to tell the teams apart. The ball is a bright neon thing that bounces from fist to fist.

My cousins and Xandro sit on logs around the fire, way too over-dressed for their own good. Xandro is chatting up Maria when he sees me and cuts her off by standing up and walking towards me. His loafers kick up sand in Maria’s direction.

“Sky, you made it.”

Leti and River abandon me because they’re terrible friends. River sits on Pepper’s lap without asking, and Leti helps herself to the cooler of beer.

“Yep, I was invited.”

I start to walk towards the bonfire, but he stays close to my arm. I wave at everyone. When Hayden sees me, I turn into a puddle of Sky. I don’t want my heart to dance around like it has no control. I don’t want my cheeks to blush and burn. I don’t want my hands to be unable to lie still.

“Everyone, this is Sky,” Hayden says. “Sky, everyone. You know your family, obviously.”

“Unfortunately,” Juliet says. Her top glitters in the firelight. She’s already drunk. Great.

“Sit here, Sky,” Xandro says, pushing Maria a little bit on the log. There isn’t a lot of room. There’s lots of room on the log that Hayden sits on.

I go to the cooler and grab a beer. “I’m okay for now. I’ve been sitting on the phone all day.”

“Sky’s planning her uncle’s wedding,” Hayden tells his friends.

“Sort of,” I say.

“Yeah, she’s not working right now,” Maria tells them.

“I’m taking time off.”

“What were you doing before?” one of the girls asks. Her hair is so long, I’m sure if she stood up it would go down past her hips.

“I’m a nurse. I used to live in Boston. I’m trying to decide between getting into hospitals there, or here, or going back to school. I keep going back and forth.”

“That’s awesome,” the girl says.