Page 25 of Walk on the Wilde Side
"Definitely getting too crowded in here," Dane says to himself.
He's always big on showing ownership with his gestures like putting his hand on my lower back or his arm around my shoulder. It's not a trait I like, but it's one of those smaller battles that I don't bother to fight. But this time he takes almost too tight a hold of my arm to lead me through the bar.
I pull my arm free. I scowl at him. "I know where the exit is." We make our way through the crowd. I'm shocked at how refreshing and relieving it feels to be out of the stuffy, noisy bar and in the fresh, quiet air. On a clear night, the sky over Rockhurst is a mass of glittering stars, and tonight's sky does not disappoint.
Dane's jaw is tight, and the muscle in his cheek twitches as we walk back to his car in silence. It seems the evening is over and I'm glad. He opens the door for me, but he doesn't look at me as I slip past and lower myself into the seat.
He climbs inside. Before he starts the ridiculously loud motor, I get some words out. "Maybe you are better off not gathering up any Rockhurst vibes. I have a long history in this town, and I've known a lot of people here my whole life. That's the central theme of these vibes you mention. It's a town that keeps mostly to itself, and we all know far too much about each other because it's also a town that sticks together, like a family, when there's a tragedy. Like when our friend Indiana Nash's dad died. When my grandmother died, there was standing room only in the church, and every shop window held a flowery wreath with my grandmother's picture. And the Wilde brothers—" I start but stop when Dane's face snaps my direction.
"Just tell me—am I wasting my time? Is there something between you and Zander?"
"There's a lot between us. Years of memories, both good and bad, but it's not what you think. Zander and I have never dated."
My words seem to placate him.
"Zander and Jameson are good at their job. You won't find anyone else as good or trustworthy." I chuckle, hoping I've broken the ice of the evening for good. "And believe me, never in a million years did I think I'd be using the word trustworthy in the same sentence as Zander Wilde. They had it rough, but they grew up."
"A lot of us had it rough," he says abruptly. "And not all of us had the privilege of getting to stay in the same place for their whole childhood, their whole life." He looks at me pointedly. "I went to four different schools in ten years."
"That sucks. But you know what? I think that built you into the successful man you are. It made you tough, tenacious." My flattery softens the edges, and I meant every word.
Dane reaches over and presses his hand against my face. "You really are something, you know that, Nev? Maybe we should buy a good bottle of wine and go back to my place." I'd only been to his place twice. He was renting a nice house in Bassett, the neighboring town, but he told me he had a house up the coast in a town call Martin's Cove, which was a high-end area. I hadn't been there yet. We weren't that far into the relationship. We hadn't slept together, but we'd come close. I was never big on jumping into bed with someone unless I was sure it was going to be worth the emotional and physical expenditure. Kinsley always gives me a hard time when I use those words. "Only you could make sex sound like a fucking business enterprise," she says.
I've been on a teeter-totter with my feelings for Dane. Sometimes they're up and sometimes they're down. But he's persistent. I've given him plenty of opportunities and reasons to give up on me, and he hasn't. Usually, just making a guy wait for sex is enough to send them packing, but Dane hasn't been pushy about it.
Dane's phone rings before I can say yes to the invite back to his place. He pulls his phone out and looks at the screen. "Shit, uh I need to take this. I'll be right back."
It's another one of his tense, ill-timed phone calls. He gets a lot of them. I think back to what Zander said, his warning that he thought Dane was up to something sketchy. He gave no details or evidence so I just dismissed it as Zander being overprotective. It's always been a problem between us. My disastrous prom night was proof of that.
Dane walks farther toward the road and glances back at the car once before turning around and continuing the conversation. I rest back against the leather seat and breathe a sigh of relief. This evening was rough, and my intuition was trying to warn me that things wouldn't go smoothly. It seems there's a new rough patch. Dane looks tense as he talks on the phone. And if Zander is right about all this, I'm going to eat my favorite straw hat. And there Zander is again, sneaking his big, burly self back into my thoughts. Tonight, there was a second, when it felt like a kiss was needed to break the—to break whatever the hell that was. And that thought takes me back to the time when we did kiss. It was our first and only. Many girls can think back on their first kisses with simple pleasure like thinking about a chocolate cupcake they had at a party. My true first kiss had been with Oliver Dartmouth, after the sixth-grade dance. That one was definitely cupcake level, sweet and sticky and it left both of us in an awkward, clumsy silence. We stayed that way until Nana's car came into the school lot to pick me up. I dashed away from Oliver and never looked back, and we never spoke of it again. There'd been plenty of other kisses between Oliver's cupcake kiss and Zander's kiss when we were both eighteen and newly graduated from school. But in my mind, Zander's kiss was the first one, it was the first one that felt real. It was the first one that left me entirely breathless and not craving a cupcake. And sometimes it felt as if it would be both my first and last real kiss because none of the kisses since had ever knocked me senseless like that one.
The car door opens. I hadn't noticed that Dane returned. "Sorry, Nev, I've got some work problems to deal with." He drops into the driver's seat, leans over and gives me a quick kiss. Yes, cupcake level and not even chocolate. Vanilla at best. "Rain check on this evening?"
"Sure, no problem. I'm tired anyhow."
Twenty minutes later, Dane drops me off at home. He seems in enough of a hurry that I assure him I don't need to be walked to the door. We have a quick kiss goodnight, and I'm readily climbing the front steps. I realize I'm more than happy to be getting home.
I grab a glass of water and walk down the hallway to my bedroom. I'm considering a hot shower, but first, I grab the wooden box of mementos. It's right under the edge of the bed, where I'd hastily placed it after trying on the shell bracelet. I left the bracelet out and hung it on the corner of my vanity mirror. It seemed a shame to have it hidden in a box, and at the same time, it was far too big and impractical to wear.
I open the box and pull out a sparkly bookmark. One corner is bent, and it no longer has the red cord and tassel it once sported. It's covered in green glittery frogs. I rub my fingers over it. Most of the glitter has rubbed off. In fact, the memento box is covered with the glitter. Holding it takes me right back to that day—the day of my one and only real kiss.
Then
"Who brings a book to a start of summer party? Especially one at the Wilde ranch." Kinsley fires off the water pistol she's holding. It hits Colin Wilde right in the nose. My sister screams loud and at a high enough pitch to scare off the two crows who've been hanging out in the trees, scoping out the dropped chips and cookie crumbs. Kinsley takes off running and heads straight to the pond.
A rainy winter left the Wilde Pond, as we called it, bursting at the seams. Its tail end had even run off and made a small gulley and stream leading through the trees. I have no idea how big Finn Wilde's ranch is, but I've never seen the end of it. Finn's father, Lachlann, a man whose reputation was as infamous and notorious as his son's, purchased the land with what my grandmother liked to call less that above board means. Lachlann built a small cabin on the property, and Finn built the second one, a beautiful big cabin that was far too pretty and fancy for the man and boys who lived in it.
A crystal blue sky is draped over the chaparral landscape. A good ten acres of the ranch is covered in buildings, including an eight-horse barn, storage sheds, and riding arenas. Every one of Finn's boys is an expert rider, but Zander is the one who really loves the horses. He plans to spend his summer breaking a few colts from neighboring ranches, a job that pays little but causes plenty of bruises. He's never happy unless he's doing something that has the potential for an emergency room visit.
I glance down at my book. Admittedly, I'm having a hard time concentrating on it because of the loud music, howling laughter and intermittent cannon balls into the pond. Like all good ponds, there's a rope dangling from a long branch that, if you take off at a good run, will carry you right out to the middle of the pond. It seems like half the school is here getting high and celebrating the end of the school year. For Zander and me and some of the other kids, it's the end of our formal schooling period. There were a hundred fifty kids in our graduating class. Zander wasn't sure he'd get to walk with the rest of us until a week before the ceremony, and even then, I think Finn's last-minute visit to the school was the only reason he graduated. It was entirely possible that the teachers had a hand in it, too. They were probably begging the principal to let the first Wilde move on. That meant one down and four to go.
"Hey, Nevvie, get ready for some splash," Zander calls as he hangs onto the rope. He's shirtless, and there's nothing about him that says boy anymore. He has a shoulder span that sends any girl's heart, even my cold one (Kinsley's words, not mine) racing. His thick brown hair is wet and pushed back off his handsome face, and his blue eyes mirror the color of the pond beneath the blue sky. I suck in a quick breath, a reaction I save solely for Zander. I don't know why, but it's been that way since we were ten.
Zander's holler echoes through the valley, and the girls around the pond squeal with delight as he pulls back and then runs toward the pond. He flies out to the center. It seems time stops for him as he releases the rope, curls his giant physique into a ball and displaces gallons of pond water with his landing. The water reaches me but only enough to spray my outstretched legs and my glittery bookmark.
Everyone waits for Zander to pop back through the surface and end his cannon ball with the same loud holler that started it. There's just a rippling concentration of concentric circles over where he landed. Then the circles stop. People who'd still been carrying on at the other side of the pond stop their laughter and talking. Jameson and Colin push up higher out of the water, and in unison they push their wet hair back out of their faces.
"Hey, Zander!" Jameson calls. There's nothing. Just stillness. I hop to my feet, and people are now looking my way. I spent all three years of high school as a lifeguard at the public pool. I plunge into the water, my heart racing. In those three years, I had to rescue four people, and it was always an adrenaline rush, but this time, it's more than that. I'm seriously freaked out but trying to keep my lifeguard training front and center in my mind.
