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A hush falls, just the sound of the engine and the boat cutting through the water.
“You said you didn’t want to talk about that this weekend,” Bill says.
“I changed my mind.” She juts her chin out defiantly. “If I don’t say things now, when in the hell am I going to say them?”
Patrick and Danica gaze pointedly out across the water rushing by the motor boat’s wake. Dylan eyes me, his board shorts wet, his legs already turning pink because they haven’t seen sunshine in God knows how long.
“It’s the elephant in the room,” Rosemary says. “I’m having surgery in a few days. If we can’t talk about our feelings now, when are we going to talk about them? Why don’t we just get it all out the next couple of days? Let the shit fly. Let the love fly.”
“Hear, hear,” Danica says, grabbing another beer.
“Not a great idea, Mom.” Patrick runs a hand through his hair.
“I love you, Mom,” Dylan says. “I’m sorry I stayed away for so long.”
“I love you too, Dylan,” she says. “I forgive you.”
“Jesus Christ,” Patrick says. “Can we just go home?”
“That’s the point, Patrick,” Rosemary says. “That’s what we’re finally doing.”
Danica walks with me from the dock to the main house. “I confess I’ve only met Dylan a few times,” she says. “But this is the happiest I’ve ever seen him. I think you’re good for him.”
“Thank you.”
“Welcome. Look, I know what happened between him and Patrick. A world of hurt feelings. But Patrick wasn’t the only shithead responsible for that mess.”
“Dylan?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “He handled it the best he could. Dixie was a shithead. She was mad at Dylan for not wanting to be a bigger part of Lighthouse, not taking a more substantial role. She walked out on him and slept with Patrick, who was drunk. Afterwards, he felt like an asshole but Dixie had already bragged to Dylan and the damage was done.”
“Yikes,” I say. “That explains some things.”
“Patrick apologized to Dylan but that fell on deaf ears. What a mess. Possibly the biggest shithead in this whole mess was Lighthouse Cathedral. So many expectations. The bar is set so high that failure becomes more the norm than success.” She pauses before walking in the main house. “You coming inside?”
I look at my watch. I have to meet the Ma Maison client at Sycamore Springs Country Club in a few hours and there’s something I need to finish with Dylan before I go. Just dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s. “Nope. I’m wiped from the day.”
“Time out on the boat and the sunshine can do that to you.”
“I think it was the Lighthouse picnic.”
She frowns. “That too. Don’t let these Lighthouse holier-than-thou assholes get to you, Evelyn. Trust me, someone’s going to try. They did with me.”
Dylan lies naked in bed. His skin is flushed either from too much sun out on the boat or because I’m straddling him, caressing his face, his shoulders, his chest, his stomach – basically everything on his glorious body except for his dick. His cock’s rock hard from me brushing my wet pussy across his stomach. Yes, I’m turned on, but more importantly I’m determined to get to the bottom of his messed up core wound, and find the bitter belief that’s shutting him down.
“Baby,” he says, his breathing coming faster. “You’re killing me.”
“Me too. Remember a few days ago when you found the scar on my head when we were fooling around?”
“Yes.”
“I think we were onto something. We were close to finding the thing that’s zapping your mojo. You’ve got a game tonight. Want to try again? You know — before the game?”
“What do you want to do,” he asks, eyes wide.
I know he wants me to let this go because right now he just wants to fuck me. That would be the easy thing. I’ve never really done this before, this sex and empathy and healing thing blended together. I might just make a big fat mess of this and then hopefully we’ll both have a good laugh at my expense and I can live with that. What I can’t live with is knowing I got this close and I gave up. That’s not who I am.
“Mold your hand onto my skin. Mold your hand into the scar.” I take his hand and place it on the scar on my head, an inch into my hairline. “Every scar has a story.”
