“It’s your favorite movie. You watched it half a dozen times that summer.”
I’d said more of the wrong things, because the smile that had been starting to form on her lips went away at the mention of that summer together. Truck and I had just moved out of the Victorian and into the cottage downtown when the termite damage at the B&B had sent everyone scurrying. Mandy and Leena had taken off to Eli’s place, but Jersey and Violet had moved in with Truck and me. The little two-bedroom, one-bath house had been so small we could barely stand with two people in the kitchen.
It was the place where Truck and Jersey had fallen in love. It was the place I’d avoided like the plague so a sixteen-year-old energy ball didn’t cause me to do more things I’d regret in my life.
Now, that sixteen-year-old was a twenty-one-year-old dynamo.
This wasn’t just a distraction.
This was a catastrophe.
Violet
BRAND NEW ME
“It took a long long time to get here,
It took a brave, brave girl to try.”
Performed by Alicia Keys
Written by Conway / Waters / Keys / Sande
Staring up at Dawson, my body burst into a mass of bubbles. Like I’d been sitting on a Bunsen burner that had been slowly brought to a boil. My brain swirled with the possible formulas to explain the response I’d always had to him. I couldn’t deny either of them. The formulas or the reaction.
For a while now, I’d told myself my response had just been teenage hormones and inexperience. But the simmering inside me as the early morning sunshine seemed to bend around him proved how wrong I’d been.
The light turned his dark-brown hair into a multitude of bronzes and deep embers, haloing him in a golden aura. His muscles rippled as he moved. Graceful and sure. Dawson was a thing of beauty. Molded by some unknown force who liked to play jokes on mere mortals.
An undefinable formula.
I wanted to scream at Truck and Jersey for not telling me he was coming. To send a stomping, temper-tantrum-throwing GIF to Leena and Mandy for not warning me. Because it was always better to be prepared to see Dawson. Then, I could tuck away every last strand of yearning I’d once had and lock it behind the door that was labeled Past so that it would never become my Present.
And now I hadn’t had that chance.
We contemplated each other for a few painful seconds, his face an unreadable mask where I’d once known all his thoughts before he even spoke.
He’d brought up The Saint. I’d wanted to be Elizabeth Shue for about a year after that, until I’d first met Raisa, and I’d realized she was the real-life version I would never become. Not because I couldn’t, but because I’d changed. I no longer wanted to be the woman hiding her genius and running from the Russian KGB. I didn’t have any desire to create free energy as Raisa did.
“Vi.” Dawson’s voice dropped, the warmth of it settling over my skin. He took a step closer to me and would have hugged me if the back door hadn’t banged open, jerking us apart.
Silas’s voice rang out over the distance. “What’s he doing here?”
As if he knew Dawson.
Even without touching, I was close enough to Dawson that the growl he let out vibrated over me. “I live here. What’s your excuse?”
I stiffened. He didn’t live here.
“You do not,” I objected, and it was breathier and more unsure than I’d wanted it to be. I stepped farther away from him.
“Yeah, I do, actually,” he said with a quirk of his lips I wanted to smack away as he waved a garage door clicker as if it were proof.
I glanced to the driveway where a sleek gray sports car sat. He must have tried to park in the garage. I’d disconnected the overhead door opener at the same time I’d loaded the plastic and tables inside.
Silas closed the distance as Dawson and I continued to stare at each other. When he got to us, Silas pulled me into him with a casual arm over my shoulders. I had to fight every urge in my body that told me to toss it off. Dawson took in the casual embrace with a slight furrow to his brow.
“Violet, want to tell me who this is?” Silas asked.
He was jealous, and it made me want to laugh for many reasons. Because we were broken up. Because Dawson was the one person I could never have.
“Silas, this is Truck’s brother, Dawson. Dawson, Silas.”
The two men eyed each other but did not shake hands. The negative energy drifting between them was tangible. Calculable. I wasn’t sure how they’d even met, but I did my best to lighten the mood by turning the conversation.
“Where have you been?” I asked Dawson.
“Tarifa,” he said.
My heart clenched even though it shouldn’t have. Just like Silas’s jealousy was so unnecessary, I had no right to mine either. I smiled. “Jada was just there too. At her family’s villa.”
“We were in Spain for different reasons, but it was convenient for both of us. We just flew back this morning,” he said casually. But beneath the nonchalant tone, I heard something else, something he was trying to tell me that I couldn’t unravel. Another formula with an unknown variant. All I knew was that he’d been with Jada.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d been traveling with her for several years now. My friend had become his. They moved in similar circles. Circles I couldn’t imagine because they came with yachts staffed with a year-round crew and helicopters on the bow.
Dawson watched as Silas rubbed his hand along my shoulder. Then, he cleared his throat and said, “Well, I’m off to bed.”
He headed toward the house.
“It’s not even noon,” Silas said scornfully.
“Yep,” Dawson retorted without a backward glance. His tone said he didn’t give a flying fuck what Silas thought.
“Now, I know why there were never any bookings for the Mark Twain room,” I called after him.
“If you’d accidentally put someone in there, they would have complained about the full closet and desk littered with papers,” he said and then disappeared inside.
Silence settled down between Silas and me. I pushed away, heading toward the garage. I needed to double check the numbers I’d seen before Dawson had arrived and filter through the boxes of my belongings that had arrived after Silas had left earlier.
Silas followed me.
“Is he a drug dealer or something?” he asked.
“What on earth would make you think that?” I stared at him, shocked.
“The little things you and your family have said about him. Then, he shows up at all hours of the morning from out of the country with no sleep. It’s like he works for a cartel or something.”
I scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”
Silas stared at me. “Sometimes, you can be really naïve, Vi.”
Had he always been this condescending? Had I just never noticed it? Or was it a new thing because I was refusing to give in to what he wanted and return to Stanford with him? “Dawson is not a drug dealer.”