One Week of Summer (3 page)

And my knees threatened to give way once more.

2)

“Whoa, whoa!” He grabbed my arm and held me up as he made the exclamation.

His hand seared an invisible imprint into my skin and I started to shake.

“I have to go,” I gasped.

“Go where?”

“Home.”

“You live close?”

I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again as I realized there was no recognition on Teekay’s face.  None whatsoever.

Of course he doesn’t know you,
I chastised myself.
The guy whom everyone knows doesn’t need to know everyone in return.

And really, why would he?  We’d had no overlap at the school.  I’d transferred to Collingwood High the year after he’d left.  I’d still been wrapped up in my father’s death and by the time I caught up to who Teekay was, he was more like a legend than a real person.  Because that’s the way high school is.  Bright or dark, it burns out quickly. 

And,
I reminded myself,
as bright as Teekay was – as dark as I was – that part of our lives was over.

He seemed very real now, though.

I let out a little breath. “Yes. No. For now, yes.”

A little smile touched one corner of his mouth. “Are you being deliberately evasive? Or are you going for sexy and mysterious?”

My cheeks warmed up. “Neither.”

“You sure about that, darlin’?”

There was that endearment again, spoken in the slightest bit of a deliberate drawl.  It made the heat spread from my cheeks to the rest of my face and I stumbled over my reply. 

“No. Yes, I mean. I should go. Really.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…going anywhere alone seems like a bad choice. And while I’m all for bad choices in my own life, when it comes to pretty girls like you…” He raised an eyebrow.

My eyes widened. And this time, my silence was pure speechlessness.

He was flirting with me.

I was almost sure of it.

And for the life of me, I had no idea why.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“M-m-maggie,” I stammered.

“Hi, Maggie. I’m Teekay.”

I bit down on my lip to keep from saying that I already knew.  He wasn’t done speaking anyway.

“Let me ask you something, Maggie. Did you do something to upset Kirby and the rest of the fuck-wad foursome?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“No,” Teekay repeated. “Now let me
tell
you something, Maggie. It’s not going to take long for Delia and Ennia to figure out that I lied to them and that their dad has no interest in where they are or what they’re up to. They’re going to be mad and they’re not going to be able to take it out on me. Who do you think they’re going to look for?”

He was right.  They’d seek me out.  It wouldn’t be the first time I was ambushed by a group of girls looking for someone to hurt.  But a small, defiant part of me – a part I wasn’t even sure existed until that moment – wanted to argue with him.

Teekay seemed to sense my intentions.  His eyes glittered dangerously.

“Are you going to say no to me, Maggie?” He’d dropped his voice low and he took a step closer.

Was I?  I didn’t know for sure.

Teekay took one more step.  He was close enough to touch.  To touch
me
.  All he had to do was lift a hand.

My blood rushed through me and settled in inconvenient places. 

I swayed light-headedly.

He didn’t react.  Or he didn’t notice.

“Do it, Maggie. Please. Because quite honestly, I could go for a bit of fight. Those girls pissed me right the fuck off. If they were men, I would’ve beaten each of them to a bloody pulp.” He paused, then repeated, “Do it, Maggie. Say no to me. I fucking dare you. It’ll give me an excuse to throw your ass over my shoulder and drag you forcibly back to the only place I know for sure is safe – my house.”

“You wouldn’t,” I gasped in shock.

Teekay raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t I? I saved you and you haven’t thanked me. You promised me an explanation and you haven’t given me one. I’m a man accustomed to getting what he wants. By any means necessary.”

His words were violent.  Furious and cruel and probably bordering on sociopathic.  They immobilized me and they should have horrified me.  But my skin was on fire, burning white hot from head to toe.  An odd, burgeoning promise of something unfamiliar filled me instead.

Because it was for me.

He was that angry, that protective, because someone – some people – had tried to hurt
me
.

I should’ve been ashamed by my reaction. 

But one word echoed through my mind for the second time in just a few minutes.

Sexy.

And this time my definition was less concrete.  It snuck up on me the way the subjects of my drawings did.

“Well?” Teekay prodded. “Are you going to join me willingly?”

I was back to not trusting my voice.  So I just nodded my assent.

“Too bad,” he replied with a not-quite-dark smile. “I think I would’ve enjoyed having you at my mercy. Who knows? Maybe we would
both
have liked it.”

I watched him as he bent down to retrieve each of my belongings from the beach.  He grabbed them all – even my big straw hat – and tucked them into my oversized beach bag.  His back muscles flexed with the small, pointed movements.  When he finally placed my sandals right in front of my feet, stood up, and winked at me, I still hadn’t moved.

“Let’s go, darlin’,” he said

He started up the beach, his wide strides moving him quickly and forcing me to scramble to keep up.  I walked behind him, fascinated by how comfortable he seemed with a feminine, floral tote bouncing against his shoulder.  I supposed that he didn’t have any doubts about his manliness.  And why would he, when he looked like that and sounded like that and acted like that?

With some men, it might’ve been an act.  False bravado and exaggerated masculinity to compensate for insecurity.  But not him.  It was all real; I was sure of it.

A hundred feet into our sandy walk, Teekay stopped moving and I nearly crashed into him.

He sighed loudly and impatiently. “Does this shadow-walk have something to do with that gang of bimbos back there?”

I frowned. “What?”

“You’re walking behind me, Maggie, by a couple of steps.”

“Oh.”

“That’s it?
Oh
?”

He took my chin in his hand again and this time I didn’t stop him when he tipped it up.  The simple, assertive touch made my brain fog up.

“Why the hell are you walking behind me?” he demanded.

“I just don’t usually have anyone to walk beside,” I burst out.

I waited for him to ask if I really, truly meant no one.  Not a friend.  Not a family member.  But he didn’t.  He just smiled crookedly.

“So. You
can
string together more than a few syllables at a time.”

It took me a second to clue in that he was teasing me good naturedly.  The smallest of smiles touched my lips and Teekay leaned close so he could brush each corner of my mouth with his thumb.

“That,” he said, “I could sure stand to see more of. And Maggie? Now you’ve got me to walk beside, all right?”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me so I was standing next to him, then started walking again without letting me go.

I didn’t tell him that the last hand I held was my grandmother’s as she closed her eyes for the last time.  Or that never – not once – had anyone other than him, at that very moment, threaded his fingers through mine in that perfect interlocking of appendages.  It shot tingles up my arm and made some unfathomable emotion sweep through my heart.

Teekay walked me up the rest of the beach, careful to keep his pace matched to mine.  He was silent until we reached the upward slant of dirt that led to the gravel parking lot above.  At the bottom of that, he stopped and faced me, still holding my hand.

“You didn’t fight back. I watched from right up there.” He pointed to the parking lot. “It was the damnedest fucking thing. You were like…a rag doll. They dragged you down and your whole body was just fucking
limp
. I couldn’t even react at first because I almost thought you were dead. I thought fucking Kirby and her little bitches had finally gone off the deep end and were disposing of a body.”

“I’m sorry,” I said automatically, sensing I’d somehow offended him with my defenselessness.

He pulled his hand away, making me feel helpless again.

“Sorry?” he replied in a voice that walked the edge of both incredulous and enraged. “Why the fuck are you sorry?”

“I don’t know.”

He lifted his arms and put both hands on the back of his neck. “Are you sorry for not fighting back? Or are you sorry that I
caught
you not fighting back?”

“Both?”

“Maggie. Don’t answer my question with a question of your own.”

“Sorry.”

“And don’t fucking apologize for shit you’re not – or shouldn’t be – sorry for.”

“S—” I clamped my mouth shut, unsure of what to say or not say.

“Why the hell would you just sit and take that back there?” Teekay wondered out loud. “Didn’t you think for one second that maybe if you told them to go fuck themselves, they might’ve thought twice about what they were doing?”

“My grandmother taught me not to swear.”

I don’t know where the joke came from, or what possessed me to make it.  Teekay narrowed his eyes and I thought he might explode at me again.  But his scowl relaxed and a little chuckle escaped from his mouth.

“Well then I bet she’d just fucking
love
me, wouldn’t she?”

A lump formed in my throat.  My grandmother might very well have liked Teekay and his brashness.  She might’ve said he had spunk and that I could use a little of that myself.  Or she might’ve enjoyed putting him in his place.  But I would never find out.

Three months.

How had it only been that long?  It felt like a lifetime.

I forced my mind back to the here and now.

“Swearing aside, you could still have told them to stop,” Teekay was saying. “I know each of those girls is a piece of work individually, and together they’re a wall of garbage. I know there were four of them and only one of you, but Maggie…”

“No,” I said firmly.

“No? No, what?”

I met his frustrated stare and said in a soft but firm voice, “Girls like that…They don’t stop just because you ask them to. They
want
you to fight back.”

“Why the hell would they want that?”

“Because it gives them an excuse to hurt you even more.”

Teekay’s eyes flashed.  Again, I braced for a lash-out.  Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me into a rough embrace.  I was too startled to react properly.  Instead of wiggling away, my arms came up and found his waist, my hands settling on the small of his back in what felt like an oddly natural pose.

“You
are
going to tell me how you know that,” Teekay stated, then pulled away again quickly. “Right this second, though, we have to get to my ride. The rain’s about to hit.”

I glanced up.  In the distance, grey clouds moved quickly across the sky.  Soon, they’d cover what was left of the sun and then make their way to the beach.

Teekay snagged my hand once again, this time in the more platonic, palm-to-palm way.  He tugged me up the hill at an urgent pace.

We made it to the parking lot quickly, and just as we reached a slick-looking motorcycle, a lone water droplet struck my forehead.

I looked from the bike to Teekay, worry hitting me as I grasped the fact that the bike was his.

Teekay’s ride was this two-wheeled death machine.

But he seemed utterly unaware of my concern.

He pulled a key from the inside pocket of his board shorts and unlocked a storage unit on the back of the motorcycle.  Then he took out a helmet and a stiff leather jacket and waved them in my direction.

I made no move to take either.

“Put on the gear,” Teekay instructed.

“I’m not getting on that thing.”

He took in my expression, irritation clear on his own face. “You’re scared.”

There was no point in lying.  He’d already seen me at my weakest.

“Yes.”

Teekay scrutinized the sky.  The clouds were even more ominous now than they had been just two minutes earlier.  Another raindrop hit my nose, and when Teekay brought his gaze back down, he had a few drops on his face too.

“All right, Maggie. The motorcycle is scary as shit if you’re not used to it. There’s wind and it’s loud and sometimes rocks fly up off the road and smack into that one piece of skin you forgot to cover up.”