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I crawled out of the pool, grateful Apollo had thought to get out first and leave me a towel because my dress, now pasted to my skin, was showing every curve, and I felt self-conscious. I cocooned myself tight and crept my way back to the guest house, my shoes making squishy water noises. Squee. Squee. Squee. And leaving a slithery trail behind me.
I didn’t much notice. I was too busy going over exactly how to explain to my mother why I was wet. But on approaching the door, I’d come up with basically nothing. I sucked at lying anyhow and so opted for the truth. Or at least part of it.
She was standing in the guesthouse’s small kitchen about ten steps from me, a loaf of bread in her hand, and her face, needless to say, had what in the world written all over it. She sat the bread down and crossed her arms, a sure sign I’d better speak first.
“I, uhm, went swimming,” I said. This was true. I did swim from one side to the other. But she knew me well enough to know there was more to it.
“Apollo had a friend over,” I continued. This didn’t help my case because I’d just put myself swimming in a dress with not one, but two boys I’d met only today. “They were asking me a bunch of questions, like could I tell what they were thinking, and I could because I’m good at that. Like right now, you’re thinking of killing me.”
She smiled then, but made no comment.
“Anyhow, Apollo was thinking ... uhm ... a-about me, so I decided to see what he’d do if I got in.”
“And?”
I flinched. It was the first word she’d spoken.
“A-and what?” I asked.
“And what did he do?”
“What I thought he’d do ’cause I was right.”
She released her tight hold on herself and relaxed against the counter, her fingers curved over the edge. “What am I going to do with you? Every time I think I’ve figured out how your brain works, I haven’t. You’re so much like your father.”
I froze. The last, last, last person I wanted to be like was him. I shoved a lock of dripping hair from my cheek and tugged the towel tighter as if it could shield me from my thoughts, but they badgered me the same. And I felt it all boil up in me, my rage at being there. She’d tricked us into coming, and that wasn’t right. She couldn’t make me like him; she couldn’t make me want to do what she’d planned.
Right then, I wanted to be anywhere else than in the room with her, so I turned around with no plan in mind and stomped out the door. She followed, yelling my name, but I ignored her. The only good thing that had come of this trip was meeting Apollo. He liked me for me, without a motive, or at least I thought so, and so soaking wet and shivering, I tromped all the way to the main house and knocked twice.
The door opened and Apollo looked out at me, his eyebrows raised upwards. “Lilac?”
“I have to come in,” I said, “and you have to loan me some clothes because right now I can’t go back, or I’ll explode.”
He glanced past me at what I figured was my mom standing somewhere outside the guesthouse, then back at my face. “Okay,” he said. “Come in.” And he shut the door.
Apollo cleared his throat. “Y-your mom was mad about the dress?”
Lilac glanced up from apparent contemplation of his borrowed shirt and shorts. Even ill-fitting they added to her curvy figure.
“No,” she said. “She told me I was like my dad.”
Taken aback, Apollo didn’t reply right away. “I guess that’s bad?”
She nodded. “The creep.”
So maybe talking about her dad was not the thing to do. He’d take her mind off it. He had a question for her anyhow. “Hey, I wanted to ask you something. On my own this time.”
She brought her eyes to his face and for a moment, pain reflected there, something deep and troubling, then it was gone.
“You have to let me ask though without guessing.”
This made her smile, albeit a bit crooked and half-hearted. She looked so much better happy than upset.
“I need a date Friday like my mom told you,” he said, “and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go with. It’s for a friend’s birthday, but she only wants couples to come.”
“She?”
Apollo laughed at Lilac’s puzzled expression. “Just a friend. Why else would I ask you?” His thoughts altered. “Your mom will let you go, won’t she?”
Lilac tossed her head, causing the towel wrapped around her hair to slant. “Yes, because she owes me now.” She all but spat the words, and he stared at her. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes hard.
What had happened between her and her dad to make her this angry? “Hey, I won’t ask,” he said. “But if you ever need to talk ... I’ll listen.”
She nodded. “I don’t want to talk about if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his shorts. So what then?
Stefan solved the problem. “Where’d you learn how to read people like that?” he asked.
The anger on her face evaporated, so much steam rising in the sun. “That’s easy. Movies.”
“Movies?”
“Yeah. My mom likes to hit mute and sometimes she forgets to take it off, so I figured out how to pay attention to what the actors are doing. Most of what we think shows up in our body language. Take you, for instance.”
Apollo moved his gaze to Stefan. He was half-perched on the window sill, one hand on his right leg the other clutching the marble sill.
“Your back hurts, and I’d say it was the result of more than your awkward position. You injured it.” She held up a hand at his open mouth. “Don’t tell me. Looking at your physique, I’d say tennis or badminton, but I’m guessing badminton.
“How ... do you know that?” he asked.
“Well, it isn’t basketball because you don’t have the reach, and obviously not football, you’re not beefy enough.”
Apollo restrained a laugh at her reference to Stefan not being beefy.
“It could be baseball, but I doubt it because you’d be more likely to injure your back with all the stretching and reaching of tennis or badminton. So which is it?”
Stefan crooked a smile. “Badminton. I slipped on the court trying to return the shuttlecock and pulled a muscle. It bothers me sometimes. Gees, Pol, you’re going to have to watch her or you’ll not have any secrets left.”
Apollo grinned, though he’d had that thought himself. “Speaking of movies,” he said. “How about we go downstairs and watch one? You don’t have to go anywhere do you?” he asked Stefan.
Stefan shook his head. “No.”
“If I can make a request,” Lilac said.
Apollo brought his gaze to her face.
“No chick flicks.”
No chick flicks? Didn’t all girls like chick flicks? Not that he was going to watch one. I mean, why would he? His questions must’ve been fully displayed on his face though because Lilac felt free to answer them.
“Right now,” she began, removing the towel from her head and running a hand through her hair.
He stared a mite too long, and she offered a coy smile.
“Right now, I really need something to blow up and someone to die.”
He gave a short laugh. “I think that can be arranged.”
Somewhere between the first movie, a Liam Neesen flick where he kills everyone, and the sequel, where once again he kills everyone, I fell asleep. This was because my little brother spun around at night and hogged all the bed space, so I hadn’t gotten much rest the night before. I awakened, bleary-eyed, trying to remember where I was, with Apollo smiling down at me.
“I hate to do this to you,” he said, his expression relaxing. “But your mom is here.”
At the mention of my mom, I looked past him to where she stood uncertain in the doorway. She had on her will-she-still-be-mad-at-me look, and yeah, I was still mad. I didn’t want to talk to her, yet I hauled myself up anyway. Like I had a choice.
But I didn’t move far outside the room because I figured she’d make less of a scene with people nearby. I was prepared for war right then, my teeth clenched, my hands fisted, but she only looked across at me apologetically.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
I jerked my chin in a sort of okay.
“I know this is hard on you and your brother both, and I should’ve handled it differently. But I do believe it’s for the best.”
I couldn’t see how it was. How could anything involving my dad be for the best?
“Sweetheart, you can’t be so angry at him,” she said. “It’s not good for your health, and ...”
“What does my health have to do with it?”
She quieted.
“I don’t understand how you can look him in the eye, much less expect me to.”
She exhaled, and I could tell I was giving her pain. I didn’t want to do that, but I’d toted this around for so long.
“He’s apologized to me,” she said, “and he wants to apologize to you and Curtis.”
His apology would do him no good. As far as I was concerned, his leaving was the best thing he could have done.
“Irregardless, I want to say I’m sorry.”
She extended her arms, asking for a hug, and with all that was in me, I wanted to deny it to her. But in the end, I couldn’t, so she wrapped me to her and squeezed, then pushed me to an arm’s length.
“Now, I think you’ve imposed on the Adderlys enough for one day. Run get your things and come back to the guesthouse. I’ve made us some sandwiches.”
Sandwiches. I had to trade Apollo for sandwiches? Talk about unfair. I circled around and walked back into the room.
“I gotta go,” I said.
He looked past me towards the entrance. My mom had stayed behind. Nevertheless, he lowered his voice. “You okay?”
I stared down at him, curling and uncurling my fingers. “I ...”
I wanted to say I looked forward to our date, but I figured I’d pushed myself on him enough for today, and he was probably annoyed. Much like I got with my little brother. So I didn’t.
“I’m fine,” I said instead. “I need to go get my dress. I’ll return the clothes.”
He waved his hand, dismissive. “Don’t worry about it. Keep them and think of me.”
I smiled wide because thinking of him was all I’d be doing. My mom coughed from the hallway. I made a face. “See you tomorrow, I guess.”
“Will do,” he said.
Reluctant, I pulled myself away and into the hall. I glanced at my mom only once before running upstairs. In the bathroom across the hall from his room, I snatched my dress where I’d left it over the shower curtain and turned my steps toward the stairs. But I paused and an idea jumped into my head.
I dashed into his room and over to a small desk set beside the window. Opening various drawers, I located a pencil and a slip of paper, then wrote rather sloppy, my thoughts spilling over each other. I stood up after, thinking where I could leave it he’d be sure to see it and spied his phone on his bedside table. I weighted it beneath, recaptured my dress, and skipped from the room.
That’d give him something to think about. I half-laughed on my way down the stairs, but at the sight of my mom, it fled. Shoving past her, I stomped out the door and around the pool, walking to what felt like, at that moment, my certain death.
Or at least complete boredom again.
“Later, Dude.” Stefan saluted on his way out the front door, and Apollo shut it behind him. Scooting through the foyer, he took the stairs two and a time and came to a halt inside the door of his room.
He sighed. What exactly was he supposed to do about Lilac?
He rubbed his forehead. This morning he’d gotten up with no thought besides cleaning the pool like he’d been told and making himself scarce for the guests.
Guests who’d made their reservations rather late.
He turned that over in his mind. Most people paid well in advance, months even. Yet his mom indicated this was last minute. Why?
He stepped toward his bed.
Did it have something to do with Lilac’s dad? Whatever that story was, it wasn’t a happy one. Snatches of her conversation with her mom only substantiated what Lilac had already said—that she didn’t want to talk about him.
It wasn’t his business. She was a nice girl, more than nice actually, but troubled. He’d do best to let it be. He was looking forward to Friday now because of her, but past that, it’d really be in his best interest to keep her at an arm’s length. She didn’t live nearby anyhow if he even was willing to be serious. No, like Lilac correctly guessed, he’d been burned too much and recently.
Christine. He scowled. She’d seemed all nice on the surface, devoted and sweet, but working behind his back the whole time to secure a “better catch.” Dalton Kelvin III. More money to spend on her. More status to give her. He should’ve known.
He reached for his phone and his gaze fell on a piece of paper fluttering in the breeze of the overhead ceiling fan. He unfolded it and leaned sideways against the wall. Laughter burst from his lips, bringing tears to his eyes. His hand fell slack.
“You’re just too much,” he said.
Too much, and yet so far this summer, the best thing to knock on their door. He brought the paper back into his view.
God-boy,
Tomorrow I am returning the favor of such a fine view as you gave me of yourself. Meet me at the pool at ten.
Lilac
What in the world did she have planned? And why was tomorrow now so very far away?