I don’t deserve your loyalty, Dean. I never did.

Taking a big gulp of air, I read the last paragraph, feeling my hands clutching the paper tighter.

You’re the most alive person I know. Walking away from you is hard, but staying in Todos Santos would be even harder. I hope you understand, and in time, I even greedily ask you to forgive me.

I’ve met someone else.

Love,

Millie

Eleven Years Ago

What was I doing knocking on their door, and which sister was I hoping to see, Millie or Rosie? I knew the answer to the last question. I just felt like a fucking tool about admitting it.

Millie and I were done. It was for the best. I saw what love looked like. I saw it on Jaime and our Lit teacher, Mel. Love felt like dipping each other in gasoline and burning together. Love felt like dancing with madness in the dark, watching all of its bright lights. Love felt like gasping for air when your lungs were already full.

Love. Wasn’t. This.

Now she was gone, and my thoughts immediately drifted to her sister. The worst part was that I wasn’t mad at Emilia. I was a tad frustrated. And…

Don’t say relieved. Don’t even think it, douche.

Fuck it. But I was.

Charlene LeBlanc answered the door. She didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was waiting on my sorry ass to show up on her porch at seven in the morning on a Sunday. Or that she had been crying for hours, by the look of it.

“Can I see your daughter?” I asked. Subconsciously, I didn’t refer to her by name because I wanted to leave it to fate. Aside from seeing Rosie here and there at school, swaying her ass in a short denim skirt and lecturing people about the British history of punk rock, I hadn’t seen her properly in months. Millie, I’d seen all the time. Not that she saw me. Apparently, she never really saw me at all.

“She’s gone.” Her mom dabbed her nose in a piece of tissue that should’ve been replaced two blows ago. “Been screening my calls all night. What happened? Did you two have a fight?”

I shook my head. Last time I spoke to Millie, we were making plans to go watch a movie. We hadn’t had sex since that first time when we celebrated her eighteenth birthday. I think we both weren’t feeling it, but admitting it out loud was unnecessary. I was headed to Harvard in a few weeks.

“No, ma’am. I’m as surprised as you are.”

She invited me in, and I recited every single encounter I’d had with Millie over the last month, leaving out the part where I deflowered her for the safety of my neck. Charlene looked distraught, right on the verge of a heart attack, then her husband joined us from their bedroom and asked more questions, trying to milk from me a confession I didn’t owe anyone.

Finally, after thirty minutes, Rosie emerged from her bedroom. She was the one I wanted to speak to. If someone had answers, or even clues, it’d be her.

“Can I borrow you for a second?” I asked, getting up from my chair. She still had sleep in her eyes and was wearing nothing but a huge New York Dolls tank top that left her long, tan legs bare and beautiful. I tried to ignore them, looking away to make sure the eighteen-year-old dick that was attached to my body wouldn’t accidentally salute her in front of her parents. “Meet me by the pool?”

She nodded, too startled and sleepy to protest. A few minutes later, she came out to the pool, still wearing nothing but her top and flip-flops. I loved her devotion to flip-flops, even though every time they smacked the floor, I wanted to burn them down. I got up from a sun lounger and paced, lacing my fingers behind my neck.

“Where is she?” I asked. Rosie looked down, but didn’t answer.

“Okay, fine. You don’t have to tell me. But do you know?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “She texted me earlier.”

“Is she safe?” My voice was strangled. I was worried about Millie, but I was also worried about Rosie. She was extremely attached to her older sister. Me, I knew I’d get over my ex-girlfriend in no time. It was my ego that needed a stroke.

“She’s safe,” Rosie confirmed, smoothing her bed hair with her fingers.

“Do you know why she did it?”

“I have an idea.”

“Are you waiting for a special invitation before you share it?”

She shook her head, ignoring the general assholeness that was me. “I’m sorry, Dean. I know it puts you in a horrible spot, but I can’t. You know where my loyalty lies.”

There was a brief moment of silence before our arms found each other and we clasped one another in a deadly hug. I say deadly not because I squeezed her and she squeezed me like we were trying to bleed the truth and the lies and everything in-between away from our bodies, but also because it felt fatal.

I don’t want you to die.

I don’t want to stop seeing you now that I’ve graduated.

I’ve been in love with your snarky ass ever since you opened the door for me, and now I’m hurting like you ran over me, and I have no idea how to fix this shit for us.

Minutes have passed before we disconnected. When I looked down at her, tears were running freely on her cheeks, and I knew it was a rare sight. In school, she was that fierce bitch no one dared to mess with.

“Thank you,” I said, for the hug. Maybe even for the tears.

She smoothed a hand over my chest. “You deserve someone who is yours. Just yours. No one else’s.”

“Rosie,” I called out for her when she started making her way back to the servants’ house. It felt like goodbye, and I didn’t want it to be. I had to put a spin on that encounter. She turned her head to look at me.

“Don’t be a stranger.”

She smiled. “Being strangers is exactly who we should be, Cole.”

What makes you feel alive?

Singing like no one’s listening. Dancing like no one’s watching. Eating like calories don’t exist.

“I CALL IT A MAYCHUP, because it’s a mix between ketchup and mayo,” I told Dean as we sat on the hood of his Volvo, eating In-N-Out in front of the ocean, on a golden hill somewhere no one could yell at me about how much of a disappointment I was. I swirled the mayo and the ketchup together into an orange dip using one fry, and nibbled on the tip of it when I was done. Dean took a bite of his burger—no fries—and watched me. I avoided looking at his face all throughout the drive. I couldn’t look at his eyes without remembering how they taunted me when he fucked the living life out of me. I couldn’t look at his lips without remembering how they sucked on my clit hungrily. I couldn’t look at his arms without remembering how they boxed and claimed me in that dirty truck. And, of course, I still felt the strings of his hot cum on my ribs, even though he wiped it off with my ex-boyfriend’s shirt, and I had taken a shower after Millie had left my room this morning.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t let me buy beer.” He swallowed his bite, staring at the ocean.

“As long as you’re around me, you’re not allowed to consume booze or smoke weed,” I said, unaffected by his deep frown. I dangled my feet from his hood and enjoyed the summer breeze on my flesh.

“You fucking suck,” he muttered.

“You wish,” I snorted, but it died in my throat when I realized this couldn’t be a joke anymore. He looked up from his burger, his face brooding and serious.

“I don’t wish for things, sweetheart. I think by now you know, when I want something, I make it happen.”

Goddammit, I was leaking again.

There was something in the air. A sizzling wire of nerves that kept bouncing between us. So many things had to be addressed, but I didn’t want to talk about any of them. I just wanted to survive this trip.

After we ate, I stuck a USB in his MacBook and shared some of my favorite bands with him. Whitney, Animal Collective, Big Ups, and The Chromatics. He seemed into it, but you could never really tell with Dean Cole, because he seemed to be into everything.

“Remember what we used to listen to when we were in high school?” Dean grinned all of a sudden. I wrinkled my nose, trying to look unimpressed when really, I was elated.

“You mean the music you used to listen to. I only tolerated it when I absolutely had to.”

“Cut the bullshit, babe. You liked pop and R&B just like everyone else.”

“I had a versatile taste,” I protested, knowing he was referring to me shaking my ass to Jennifer Lopez tunes in skimpy clothes at Vicious’s parties, even though I was hopelessly passionate about indie bands from the nineties.

He jumped down to the ground, collecting our wrappers and empty cups. “Don’t go anywhere. A blast from the past is coming your way.”

I stayed put, watching as he walked to the nearest trashcan, throwing away our leftovers. His muscles were prominent, even through his white shirt and tailored khaki pants. My eyes lingered on his biceps, scrolling down to his tight ass, before he turned around and looked at me.

Then smiled.

Then winked.

Then mouthed, “Busted.”

I looked away, feeling my face reddening. He was right, of course. I wanted to sleep with him again, and couldn’t think of anything else other than his body against mine. When he sat back next to me, he picked up his MacBook and played “Naughty Girl” by Beyoncé.

“Remember this one?” He turned to me and laughed. “First night Baby LeBlanc ever got shitfaced.”

Covering my face with both palms, the memory of dancing on Vicious’s coffee table assaulted my mind. I was so goddamn drunk I thought it would be a terrific idea to join my cheerleading friends who danced on the table. They knew what they were doing. I looked like I was swatting away a thousand imaginary flies. This resulted in me trying to mimic their movements—and failing—smacking them here and there in the process, until Vicious asked, “What the fuck is the little LeBlanc sister doing? Having a seizure on my table? Someone get her down before she hurts the other girls.” Not even a second later, I felt Dean digging his muscular shoulder into my thighs, throwing me over it and spinning me in place until I screamed for him to put me down.