Reckless Hearts Page 7

  Jake rose up slowly from his hunker over the dresser. He could feel his face going red like it did whenever he felt like he might lose his temper. “Is there something you want? Or are you just here to annoy me?” he said, conscious that if he was really going to stake his claim on his privacy, he should have found a stronger way to do it.

  Nathaniel smirked at him. “Am I annoying you?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry, bro.”

  He folded his arms across his chest and hugged his palms with his armpits, a smug, closed-lipped smile frozen on his face in a way that Jake knew was a dare.

  Two could play that game. Jake puffed up his chest and smiled back.

  They faced off like that for a minute. Every few seconds, Nathaniel relaxed his face and screwed up his smile a little tighter. He wouldn’t give.

  Jake’s cheeks were burning up. He hoped Nathaniel didn’t call him on it.

  Finally, Jake said, “So maybe you could find someone else to annoy.”

  “I don’t think so. This is too much fun,” said Nathaniel.

  “Seriously. Go.”

  Nathaniel mugged his shock at this, reeling his head back dramatically, that smile still arrogantly plastered on his face. “Are you kicking me out?”

  “Yeah.”

  Bugging his eyes, Nathaniel clapped his hands together, once, pointedly.

  “That’s priceless. You can’t kick me out, dude. This is my room.”

  “Not anymore,” Jake said.

  “Trust me. It’s my room. You’re living in it right now. I’ll give you that. But you’re only leasing it. You think you’re the first person to come into my house and fondle my stuff and cuddle up under the covers of my bed thinking it belonged to him now? It’s almost cute how naïve you are. But you do realize you’re living in fantasy land, right? You have to know this won’t last. Cameron and your mother? Please. He goes through streaky blonds like her quicker than Leonardo DiCaprio. Once her wind chimey, earth goddess, kumbayah thing gets stale he’ll be on to the next one. And you’ll be back in that tiny ant-infested bungalow on the south side.”

  Throughout all of this, the smile never left Nathaniel’s face. His voice never rose. He remained infuriatingly cool, barely moving from his perch against the doorway.

  “So, you know,” Nathaniel said, now wandering into the room and poking around Jake’s stuff, “enjoy it while it lasts.”

  With this, he picked up the framed photo of Jake’s dad and Dave Matthews and studied it for a second before raising it above his head and bringing it smashing down against the hard corner of the dresser, shattering the glass, busting the frame, ripping a deep gouge in Dave Matthews’s face. Lobbing what remained of the photo onto the bed, he patted Jake on the shoulder.

  “See ya,” he said, and he sauntered out, leaving Jake too shocked to say or do anything.

  15

  Winter was Elena’s favorite time to go to the beach. The tourists clung to the areas around the hotels and most of the locals in Dream Point weirdly thought it was too cold to hang out all day in their bathing suits. If she stuck to the south side of the public beach, where the promenade faded out and the driftwood and sea slime were less diligently combed away, she could find pockets where she felt almost alone. She’d been lying out for an hour already today, and except for the lifeguards changing shifts, not one person had come within a hundred yards of her.

  The sun washing over her closed eyes felt warm and comforting. She let the sensation carry her off into a state of near sleep in which she was aware of the way each passing cloud affected the sensations playing over her skin.

  She was aware of the squeals and shouts of distant children playing in the waves, the dense, slightly sour smell of kelp and salt water. At the same time, she felt herself floating somewhere far away where her mind retreated from the facts of her life—her sister’s petulance and self-pity, her father’s stern, inflexible attempts to hold their family together, and Jake, oh, Jake, what had happened to them? Everything felt far away and not quite real, and as long as she stayed here on this warm beach, she could almost feel like none of it mattered.

  She could focus on the good. On Harlow and the online conversation they’d had the other day. He’d told her about the trip to Japan he’d taken last year, about how he’d made a careful plan and reached out to the biggest animators there, making sure they saw his face and learned his name.

  “You can do that, too,” he’d said, when she’d mentioned that she’d be too nervous to put herself out there like that. “You’ve got the talent. You just have to believe you deserve it,” he’d told her.

  She thought about the bold way he attacked his life, leaping toward what he desired as though the world was his to take and do what he wanted with. And what did he desire? Art! And did she dare think, maybe, her! For now she was playing it cool. He still hadn’t called her, after all.

  “There you are.”

  She opened her eyes and blinked in the bleached whiteness of the day. When her eyes focused, she saw Jake standing over her, dangling the yellow Cons she’d painted with cartoon monsters for him by their heels from two fingers.

  “Hey,” she said. She sat up and waited to see if he was going to be the old Jake she loved or this new one who picked at her and criticized and burned with judgment.

  He plopped down next to her and sat cross-legged on the sand. “I stopped by your house,” he said. He picked up a strand of damp seaweed and fidgeted with it, ripping off little pieces and dropping them into a pile between his legs. “Nina said you were here.”

  “Yup,” she said, giving away nothing. “I’m here.”

  He picked at the seaweed. She could tell from his awkward quietness that he was anxious. He seemed afraid to look at her.

  Eventually, he mumbled something. She knew what he’d said. He’d said he was sorry. But she didn’t want to let him off the hook that easy. “I can’t hear you, Jake,” she said.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said, more clearly now. “I . . .” Finally, he looked at her and she could see real torment in his eyes. “The way I behaved the other night. It was wrong. You . . .” She could see the words form and dissolve in his mind as he struggled to explain himself. “It was wrong,” he said again. Then he gazed at her sadly, waiting for her to rescue him.

  She couldn’t help but smile, just briefly. This was the old Jake she knew so well. “It’s okay,” she said.

  He winced and squinted his eyes at her. “It’s not okay,” he said.

  “It is,” she said. “But—” She gave him a soft, friendly punch on the shoulder and ducked her head playfully like a boxer. “What the hell, Jake? You know?”

  Thinking deeply about the question, taking it seriously, he tore the seaweed apart some more and said, “I’m having trouble adjusting. The new house. The new people.” He gazed up at the clouds and then back down at his seaweed. “And . . .” He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “No, you know what, I’m just sorry. That’s all I wanted to say.” He looked at the seaweed again and then lobbed it away, turning himself so that he was facing her. “How are you?” he said, forcing himself into a brighter place.

  “I’m good. The ladies have been calling in sick at the Laundromats like they do every Christmas, so I’ve been filling in. Helping my dad. How’s life with Cameron?”

  “I’m getting used to it. Apparently he’s got a son. Nathaniel. Weird no one mentioned that to me before, huh?”

  She made one of her goofy faces at him to show him she understood how jarring this must have been for him. Then she said, “What’s he like?”

  “Like you’d expect. Spoiled rich kid.”

  “Invite me over. I’ll set him straight,” she said.

  “Ha,” Jake said. “I’d love to invite you over. I’m still figuring out the rules of that place. It’s so . . . sterile. You know? It doesn’t feel like a place where you’re allowed to just hang out with your friends.”

  “W
e’ll fix that, too,” she said. “It’s your house now. You can make your own rules.”

  He laughed nervously at this idea, scooping up a handful of sand. He watched it dribble out between his fingers.

  “How’s Harlow?” he asked, the tone of his voice just edgy enough to get under Elena’s skin.

  “That depends. Are you asking me as a friend? Or my protector? Which is it, Jake?”

  He was doing funny things with his face, like he was fighting off a hundred contradictory impulses at once. “I’m sorry, Elena. I’m not trying to be weird or mean or anything. And I don’t want to fight. But I just . . . I can’t let you get hurt. I feel . . .”

  Suddenly he stopped talking, like something was stuck in his throat.

  “Spit it out, Jake. You’ve gone this far, say whatever it is you’re trying to say.”

  “Okay, look. I’m ninety-nine-percent positive this is some sort of fake profile. I’ve done a lot of online searches and can’t find anybody named Harlow anywhere south of Orlando.”

  Elena felt the sudden desire to cover up her bikini with a towel. Flopping onto her back, she reminded herself to resist the temptation to let her emotions spin into the overwrought, melodramatic place that she and her family so often indulged themselves in at moments like this. But she couldn’t help it. She spun onto her side and glared at him.

  “I thought you said you were sorry,” she said. “What happened to wanting to be supportive?”

  “I am being supportive,” he said.

  “By Googling him? By cyberstalking him? Do I need your permission or something to talk to a boy? It’s like you move to the rich side of town and suddenly you don’t want good things to happen to me.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Elena, I’m trying—”

  Now he looked betrayed, which wasn’t fair at all.

  “You want to know how real he is? Okay, fine. Let’s talk about how real he is.” She flipped the backpack she’d been using as a pillow over her head and dug angrily around in its large single pocket until she found her phone. “How’s this for real?” She punched at the screen until she’d pulled up the page she’d bookmarked in the web browser. “Here. Look.”

  Pushing play, she handed the phone to Jake and waited for him to watch the animation Harlow had sent her. Jake leaned in on his long neck to peer at the screen. She could just hear the Sigur Rós song begin to play.

  “He made that. For me. Is that real enough for you?”

  Jake squinted at the screen. Elena searched his face for reactions to what he was seeing, but all she could discern was his intense concentration.

  “And also, for your information, I talked to him for like three hours last night,” she lied, spinning the fact that she’d given Harlow her number into a more dramatic event in hopes that this would shake Jake off the topic for good. “On the phone. Like, I heard his voice and he heard mine. He’s not some weird old man. He’s not a girl. He sounds just like you’d think he would. So.”

  He was still watching the video. Not responding.

  “Can you hear me, Jake? He’s really who he says he is. He’s totally real.”

  Nothing. She wasn’t sure what reaction she wanted to get from him. Something more than this.

  When the clip finally ended and he handed the phone back to her, Elena realized that he was close to tears.

  “Okay,” he said softly.

  She felt torn. The part of her that cared deeply for Jake wanted to reach out and comfort him, but the part of her that felt betrayed by his obsession with proving that Harlow was a troll needed him to promise let it go.

  “Jake?” she said.

  “Okay, he’s real.”

  He tried to smile but she could tell it was a struggle for him and she knew he was retreating inside himself in that way he sometimes did.

  “Thank you,” she said primly. “Maybe we can get past this now.”

  Reaching out, she touched his hand to let him know she was ready to forget it, but as soon as her skin made contact with his, he pulled his hand away.

  Elena’s thoughts suddenly flashed on the conversation she’d had with her sister. Maybe Jake really was in love with her. She’d never thought of him in that way—she loved him, sure, but with a tenderness that had nothing to do with sex. She didn’t get all wound up and frantic around him the way she’d watched Nina get around Matty. Their friendship was too important to let it be ruined by the crazy volatile complications that physical desire would cause.

  He felt the same way. She knew he did. For one thing, he already had a girlfriend, Sarah, and he loved her enough to write song after song about her. For another thing, they’d laughed a hundred times before about how absurd it would be for them to get together. It seemed weird. It seemed icky. “It would be like incest,” he’d said a few years ago, and she’d agreed.

  Elena decided that he must be having trouble adjusting all the changes in his life, having Cameron around and this new brother, Nathaniel. She’d let him deal with it in his own way. When he was ready, she was sure, he’d let her back into his life, into his new house, and everything would be normal again.

  Now what she needed to do was protect him. Protect them.

  “You know what I’ve been thinking?” she said, making sure she projected a sparkling, impish smile. “It’s been, like, years since we raced to the jetty. Come on.” She leaped to her feet, kicking up sand, and swung her arm over her head, beckoning him to join her. “Loser buys the winner smoothies.”

  She ran ahead, her Docs slipping with each step, and when she glanced back fifty feet on, she saw, thankfully, that he was jogging behind her, handicapping himself to ensure that she won. Grinning, relieved, she lowered her head, churned her boots in the sand, and pushed forward as fast as she could toward the Ferris wheel in the distance.

  16

  When he got home, Jake raided the fridge in search of something sweet. Food sometimes distracted him from his worries, especially if it had the added benefit of giving him a sugar rush. He rifled through the freezer first, hoping for ice cream, maybe a nice untouched pint of Phish Food or a box of Popsicles from which he might be able to hoard all the red ones. But the freezer was empty except for a tray of chicken cacciatore, some bags of Chinese dumplings, an unopened block of butter, and a nearly empty carton of fancy olive-oil-and-rosemary sorbet, just the thought of which turned his stomach. He wished Cameron’s personal shopper would just buy the trashy food that people actually liked to eat rather than all this healthy, locally sourced crap.

  In the fridge, he found some cured meats and fancy cheese, none of which he’d ever heard of before. This would have to do. He cut a hunk off the baguette on the counter and began assembling a sandwich. The house was quieter than usual, which pleased him. Maybe no one was home, and for once, Nathaniel wouldn’t be around to antagonize him. Jake looked forward to sitting out on the porch and picking at his guitar between bites of his sandwich, gazing out at the sea, letting the sadness crash over him.

  He could feel Elena drifting away from him already, leaving him lost and disoriented. This afternoon at the beach, they’d managed to eventually have a good time, pretending that nothing had changed between them. But now that he was home, he couldn’t help but dwell on the limits of their relationship. Harlow was real. He couldn’t deny it anymore. And if he was everything Elena thought he was, he’d inevitably take her away from Jake. He felt like there was a howling wind echoing through his heart, a screaming sadness that nobody but him could hear.

  As he carried his plate through the big open living area toward the porch, he realized he wasn’t as alone as he’d thought. There were people upstairs hidden behind one of the closed bedroom doors. He could hear their voices but not make out what they were saying.

  Freezing midstep, Jake tipped his head and listened. Two people. Both male. It must have been Cameron and Nathaniel. From their tone, he could tell that they were arguing.

  One of them shouted, “Because I don
’t give a fuck!”

  Definitely Nathaniel.

  A dread crept through Jake as he remembered his mom’s quiet concern when he’d told her about how Nathaniel had destroyed his Dave Matthews photo. If this was about that, he could just imagine the petty and passive-aggressive ways Nathaniel would get back at him later.

  Carefully stepping heel to toe, heel to toe, so that his Cons didn’t squeak on the polished wood floors, Jake snuck up the stairs until he reached the landing halfway to the second floor. He could hear more clearly here.

  “You’re going to have to give a fuck.” That was Cameron.

  “Why?” Even without seeing the guy, Jake could hear the petulance dripping like syrup off Nathaniel’s words.

  Cameron made a noise. A chuckle maybe. Jake wasn’t quite sure. “If you have to ask . . . ,” he said.

  This was a side of Cameron Jake had never encountered before, a controlling coarseness that brooked no dissent.

  “Why do you care anyway? It’s not like you ever care when my shit gets destroyed.”

  They were definitely talking about the Dave Matthews photo. Jake tried to block out all the ambient sounds in the house and focus.

  “When your shit gets destroyed, it’s usually you doing the destroying.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. If you’d let me stay at school over break like I usually do, I wouldn’t be able to fuck up your charity case’s shit. I’d be far away and you could go on slumming it with your new white-trash wife like you want to and everybody would be happy.”

  “That didn’t happen, though, did it?”

  “Clearly not.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  They were speaking in code about some long-hidden conflict. The darkness Jake had noticed between them at that first dinner seemed to be close to bursting out into the open. But Nathaniel said nothing, or nothing Jake could hear.