I have a feeling I just dove into the best damn summer of my life.
The Summer of Ecstasy
Reese
The following day, in the late afternoon, I rouse to an empty, yet, appropriately disheveled house. I wade my way downstairs through a sea of red Solo cups. I’m not too surprised, considering half my stepsister’s sorority showed up last night, including their matchups, Kappa Pi, which I’ve nicknamed get-the-clapa-pie—and appropriately so since Kennedy’s “sisters” have been known to frequent the school clinic in order to disinfect themselves of crabs.
I catch my reflection in the mirror with my hair wound up like a bird’s nest and make a face. My eyes are bloodshot from tossing and turning. I was lost in a violent sea of kisses all night long, and it was Ace delivering them, both in and out of my dreams.
“Well, look who’s up?” Kennedy takes a careful sip of her coffee. She has the same long, dark hair as me, same light grey eyes, and, yet, we’re only related by law. “What turned you into a walking turd?”
“Play nice,” I chide as I fall into the seat beside her.
She pushes her steaming mug over, and I take a careful sip.
“Bleh.” I slide it back. “I hate coffee. It tastes like someone put out a cigarette in my milk.”
“Nobody hates coffee, Reese. For the sake of your social standing, fake it when you’re in public.”
“Sure, why not. Rumor has it you do exactly that in bed,” I tease. Truthfully I have no knowledge of what Kennedy and her boy toy do in or out of the bedroom. Kennedy and Keith have been together forever, or at least as long as she’s been my stepsister for the last four years.
“You’re not funny.” She spins her mug, eyeing me like a snake. “You missed my eighties party.”
“I’m sorry. Did you dance in the purple rain?”
“No we walked like an Egyptian.” She assumes the position with her hands. “There were tons of boys, and you missed every one of them. It was practically raining men.”
“Maybe I like being theowner of a lonely heart.”
“Really?” She snorts into our eighties laden gab session. “Did it hurt so good?”
“No, it cut like a knife.”
“Warren was asking about you all night.” Her pale eyes widen. “I told him you were watching a movie with friends. Were you?”
“Sort of.” My favorite movie—a love story starring Ace and me. But, I suppose after that arrangement I made with him last night, it’s panning out to be more of a porn flick.
I give a little wink over at her.
“Don’t do that. People who wink give me the creeps. Now, onto the details of said movie.” She raps her knuckles over the table, and the sound echoes in my skull long after she’s through. “Spill.”
“You wish.” I give her a light kick. “I’m not one of your sorority sister wives. I don’t have to submit to your special brand of torture.” I glance out the large series of windows that stretch up to the second floor, and take in the glory of the lake as it expands in every direction, a thick, clear blue. Across the way I spot a line of colorful umbrellas spiked in the sand. The sun has already sealed the day with a kiss, and it feels stuffy in here which lets me know I should turn on the AC. It’s usually me who runs the house while our parents are away. The only upkeep Kennedy partakes in is strictly relegated to her own body. “Okay.” I give in without any real prompting. “I went skinny dipping last night with Ace Waterman.” He poured kisses into my mouth like wine straight from the throne of God, but I leave that part out.
“Ace?” Her features contort. Her mouth opens and closes. “Did he kiss you?”
“Only after I begged.” Apparently I’m all about the truth this morning, and I’m not sure I like it. I smooth my hand over the table. It’s the last decorator touch of my mother’s in this oversized house. My mother had an affinity for all things Victorian—and Beverly, my stepmother, prefers art deco.
“You did not.” Kennedy sucks in a breath as if I had just confessed to sleeping with an entire boat full of homeless men.
“No really.” My finger glides over the rim of her mug like an afterthought. “Then I convinced him to be my summer fling. The end.” I give a simple shrug as if what just flew from my lips had a thread of sanity attached. Kennedy would sooner have her fingernails plucked off than ever consider Ace Waterman as her plus one. She’s a trust fund baby who needs a good millionaire to wrap around herself like a coat for the long haul.
“You’re not serious.” Her eyes grow wild, a lewd grin buds on her lips because she knows I am. “Holy shit, Reese. This will never work.”
“It doesn’t have to. Come move in day at Yeats, it’ll all be over.” I bite down on my lip at the thought of walking away from the only boy I’ve ever dreamed about, hell, wet my panties over, for that matter.
“Just something quick and dirty, huh?” She meditates over the idea. “Reese and Ace…” She makes a face. “You don’t even sound like a couple.” She strums her fingers over the table a moment. “Your couple’s name would beRace,as in moving too fast.”
“Race.” I nod into the idea. “I like it. It’s better than nothing. Warren and I never had a couple’s name,” I’m quick to point out. “Nothing ever made sense, sort of the way we didn’t make sense. But Ace and me…” I let my words hang in the air like a love song. “We’ve known each other forever.”
