Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye
Chapter 52
I rearrangemy sundress in the passenger seat. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I ask for the hundredth time.
“Yes, absolutely,” Gunnar says, glancing away from the road to take me in. “You look great.” Adjusting the rearview mirror, he gives his most charming smile to Hero and Ulla in the backseat. Neither of them are totally convinced by him yet, and even though I’m pretty set on my decision, I still kind of get a kick out of seeing him treated like he’s not him.
“Hanging out as if nothing happened with JJ and Barkley for a whole weekend?” I lean back in the seat, tugging on the seatbelt. “And Larissa and Logan?” The thought makes me feel vaguely nauseated. But I think Gunnar wants me away from town. I think knowing I was in my room alone every night was getting too much — even though I tried to tell him I was certain it was JJ.
JJ has been sober and clean for a couple of weeks after his dad talked him out of Dutch’s hands. He’s been, by all accounts, doing kind of OK. I am looking forward to showing everybody that he and I can be in the same room and be just fine.
“They want to beg you for forgiveness,” Gunnar says. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He reaches over and squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to be friends anymore, but don’t you want to see how good the groveling is?”
“Maybe they aren’t the only ones who should grovel,” Ulla says pointedly from the back.
“It’s weird that Aurelia isn’t going to be there,” I continue. “That’s weird, right?”
“No. She hurt you too bad.”
I resist the urge to point out she wasn’t the only one. I’m past that. Plus, even if Ulla isn’t convinced, Gunnar has been pretty contrite. Almost too apologetic at points. If he thinks I look annoyed at him, or I say I have to get home, sometimes it seems like he panics. That will probably fade in time, but hopefully the general energy will stick around.
“And Ransom,” I say slowly. I know Gunnar doesn’t want to talk about this too much.
“Yeah, he’s coming up with JJ.”
After his party, he tried to convince his dad to let him go to jail, if somebody had to, but Preston was firm. Gunnar is 18, and a couple of months in juvie can be wiped from Ransom’s record, while also showing the town that the Raynes are not above the law.
He gets his official ruling on Monday, but I know that all of the decision-making here was made out of court. For now, we have Thanksgiving weekend together. There’s nothing we can do to change it, fix it. We’ve tried.
Dimitri has to go to real big-boy jail for a few months for selling drugs to minors, which sucks too. I was just about ready to make peace with him, and it also means our parents have put off their wedding until after he’s out.
JJ got hauled in to the station and kept for at least a couple of days, but after a lot of heavy talks with the Torrent Bay elite, he was shipped off to rehab instead of something more serious for a few weeks. He just got out a couple of days ago, and both he and Gunnar are barely reining in their desire to go apeshit on people on Ransom’s behalf. I think a little time together as a group will be beneficial.
“One day you’ll face a consequence, don’t worry,” I say, squeezing his fingers back.
“I almost lost you, and that was hard enough,” he says roughly, keeping it quiet for the benefit of the girls in the back, but I’m sure they hear him. He shoots me a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I know he’s been struggling a lot with guilt. Not only for Ransom, but also what happened with me. For believing Aurelia. For believing everybody. And for not being the kind of friend Cole wanted to trust with a secret. They were friends, but maybe there was some part of Cole that believed Gunnar could turn on him and use the truth against him.
I get the feeling he doesn’t want to be seen as that person anymore. And there is so much more to him than this vengeful, dominating force of nature. I am happy to keep showing those parts to him, every day, until he can see them too.
On that theme, I pull his phone from his pocket and change the song — a crime punishable by death for anybody but me.
‘Karma Police’ starts to play, and we sway in our seats and sing along to it. I see Hero and Ulla exchange a look in the back, and then the three of us burst into laughter. Gunnar pretends he doesn’t notice and just sings louder.
“For a minute there, I lost myself.”
Last night, I showed him the audition dance I’ve been working on in secret in my bedroom. I plan on applying for real to the Dance program at West Torrent next year. I finished, awkward, twisting my hands and blushing crimson, but he hadn’t said anything. He took me in his arms and kissed me until I needed to come back up for air. “They’ll love it,” he said. “They’ll love you. It’s perfect.” Every now and then today I think about it and move around in my seat, butterflies in my stomach. If it’s something I’m this nervous about, it must be the right thing for me to pursue. Right?
It’s just hard to think about how I get to do this for me, and Gunnar gets to go to Borneo, then maybe Harvard, and Cole doesn’t get anything. All he ever got were the hardest years of his life. Every time I think about that, tears fill my eyes. I crack my window and let the country air flow over my face.
It’s not going to be the same at the lakehouse without him there, but I have to keep living my life. Even if every day, every new experience, hits me with a fresh pang of guilt that he doesn’t get to see any of it with us.
He’d be really happy that Gunnar likes me back.
Now tears are running down my cheeks. I wipe them away with my sleeve, and I feel my lips start to twitch into a smile. He really would be. Maybe somewhere, in some way, he still is.
* * *
It’scrazy how quickly things start to feel normal again.
JJ and I were alone for a little while when I was packing snacks into the kitchen cupboards and he came in to grab a beer. He didn’t go the apology route, but he made some gruff comment about Aurelia that made me laugh in surprise.
I spotted an interaction between him and Barkley in the hallway. They are both huge, and struggled to step around each other with any coordination. I wonder if JJ took him aside and apologized for those death threats. And I wonder if Barkley especially cares either way — ever since his confession he’s been walking on air.
“I feel untouchable,” he tells me now. “There’s no part of me anyone can hold over my head. It’s just like I’ve already done it first. Like, this is all me — your move. You know?”
I actually feel like I totally know what he’s talking about. Since I got back to Torrent Bay I feel like I took back control of my body, my story, my fate. My social circles. I smile as I look around the firepit. Of course, someone is missing. That will never really stop hurting, but I like to be positive and appreciate what I have.
“Everybody, shush, listen to this part.” Gunnar’s voice cuts through every individual conversation around the fire, and then everyone groans in unison.
“Let us live!” Logan cries, throwing a cushion at him. Everybody laughs. The atmosphere is light, sweet.
Gunnar, still sporting a confident grin, lounges on a chair beside me and then slaps his thigh. “C’mere, girl.” He reaches out and grabs onto my wrist.
“You’re being summoned,” Barkley says, leaning back in his own chair and crossing one leg over the other.
“I’m really glad you’re doing OK,” I tell him, resting my hand on his knee for a moment, and then I stand.
Before, with anyone, even with Cole, I was terrified of anything remotely close to flirting or PDA. Anything, in my mind, could lead to being locked in a closet with a group of men who wanted me to know they’d fantasized about hearing me scream in fear.
I told my mom the truth about that day, when Dom’s friends trapped me in that room, and we cried together. She put me in therapy, and I’m nervous to start, but it’ll be OK. I want to finish senior year and start college on the right foot, mentally.
Now I perch myself on Gunnar’s lap, and he wraps his arms around my waist and nuzzles his face into my neck. “I love you,” he murmurs, low enough that nobody can hear. My skin prickles all over, my stomach flips. It’s not going to be a throwaway comment for me. Not yet. If he can’t be patient about that, we shouldn’t be doing any of this.
“We could play a game,” Larissa says, lifting her beer into the air with one hand, the other tapping something on her pastel pink phone. She and I still haven’t really spoken. She gave me an awkward hug and an even more awkward apology, and I caught her looking a little sad when I was laughing with Hero once, but it’s just not the same as it was. She’s still friends with Aurelia, and she never checked up on me, never even tried to believe me. There’s no best friendship in our future, and that’s OK.
“We always play games,” Logan says, lifting up his phone in landscape mode and making the peace sign with his tongue out. “Let’s do something different. That viral video gave me a fuckton of new followers and they wanna see crazy shit.”
“Crazy shit like what?” Barkley asks.
“We could try to waterski on the back of the speedboat, or just see if we can catch a huge-ass fish,” Ransom pipes up.
JJ points at him. “Yeah, that,” he says.
“The fish thing?”
“The first thing, the waterski thing,” JJ says. “Let’s do something really stupid, but fun.” He gives us all a smile that looks a lot more like a grimace, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Remind ourselves we’re all still alive. And Logan can show his dumbass followers.”
“Thanks,” Logan says very slowly. Looks like people aren’t ready to piss off JJ yet. “Sounds good.”
“You two dating?” Larissa cuts in, pointing a finger at me and Gunnar. “Or what’s going on here?” Logan shoots her a look. “What? Why can’t we just ask people shit?”
“We haven’t talked ab—” I say, at the same time as Gunnar says, firmly, “Yes.” The group chuckles in unison, and he curls his hand around my waist protectively, squeezing me.
We stay around the firepit, laughing, playing drinking games as the sun sinks below the lake. I reach forward to grab a snack when Barkley offers it, but Gunnar pulls me crashing back down on his lap. “You need to stay here,” he says in my ear. “I can’t stand up.”
I squirm left and right, pretending I need to get comfortable and brushing my ass over the swell of his cock. A groan catches in his throat and he squeezes me harder.
“We need to go finish our Chemistry assignment,” he announces suddenly, standing us both up in a fluid movement that keeps me in front of him. I snort with laughter.
“Dude,” Logan says. “You didn’t finish that? It was due weeks ago.”
“Yeah, we totally forgot,” Gunnar says, ushering me inside the house as I giggle. He guides me up the stairs with a hand on my back.
“What happened to never lying?” I ask him, turning around on the landing.
“It’s not a lie, it’s a cover,” he says, sweeping his arms around my waist and kissing me softly. “Should I tell everybody we needed to come inside before I pushed your panties to one side and fucked you out there?”
I pretend to think about it. “I guess you’re right.”
Laughing, he kisses up my neck. Then he stops, turns and looks down at the staircase as if processing something. In the dim light, his face is scrunched and his eyes flick around the hallway. “What’s up?” I ask.
“Just a memory,” he says softly, one hand still running up and down my back. “It’s nothing.” He turns to press his lips against mine again, brushing hair out of my face. “You ever thought about fucking at the lakehouse?”
“Of course,” I say. “Looking out at the lake at sunset while I ride your face.” I bite my lip, knowing he loves it when I say stuff like that.
“OK,” he says with a grunt. “Get in the bedroom. Now. Fuck.”
* * *
Hours later,we’re snuggled up, almost nose to nose. Laughing, whispering to each other, limbs tangled. Warm and cozy with nothing but the sound of crickets outside to keep us company. “... and that time the wind blew up your skirt a little and I saw your cute little smiley face thong,” he says.
“Wow, I still have that somewhere.”
“And you remember when we all went to the beach last year? I said I didn’t want to go swimming.”
“Yeah.”
“I couldn’t stop staring at your ass. My dick was up in my waistband. I couldn’t stand up.” We laugh. “God, that bikini you were wearing. Polka dots.” It comes out in a croak. “I jerked off so much that night I swear I couldn’t walk properly the next day.”
“OK, OK, my turn,” I whisper. “When we were watching The Hills Have Eyes, it was just you and me in the basement.”
“Uh huh.”
“You were wearing sweats and the back of my hand accidentally brushed over you, you know. And you weren’t totally soft.” I blush just thinking about it. “I wanted to feel it, for real, so bad.” He tilts his head back, letting out a low hum.
“Feel me whenever,” he mumbles, burying his face in my neck and moving my hand between his legs. “I remember that.” His cock twitches, swelling against my palm. “I can’t believe you thought about it.”
There’s a knock at the door. Gunnar sounds annoyed when he calls them in, and a head pokes through the gap.
“Sorry, guys.” Logan’s eyebrows waggle as I pull the covers up to my shoulders. “We’re gonna head out and, get this: extreme fishing. On waterskis. Also … Ulla said something about how guys who can catch fish are hot, so, uh, now I have no choice.”
I laugh. “I can’t believe you’re trying to hook up with someone who made you streak through a party.”
“For fifteen thousand new followers? It just made her hotter.”
“Sure, but it’s getting dark,” Gunnar says. “Just be careful. Don’t get too drunk.”
“Wow,” Logan laughs. “You get a girlfriend and now you’re Mr. Responsible?” Gunnar throws a pillow at him. “I’m, uh …” He rubs his eye, briefly embarrassed. “I’m happy for you two.”
“Whatever. Tell Ransom he’s stepping out of juvie and right into jail if anything happens to the boat,” Gunnar says, snuggling deeper under the covers. “Shut the door.”
With a smirk, Logan closes the door and we hear his feet pounding down the stairs. “He said it’s all good,” we hear him yell to the rest of the house.
“Logan, beer, and boating at night. How could it possibly go wrong?” he says, and then pulls me into his arms again. “We have the house to ourselves. There’s no one around ...” He raises one eyebrow dramatically. “... to hear you scream.”
“Oh my god, is it finally happening? You’re murdering me at your lakehouse?” He pulls me against the warmth of his chest and rolls over, and laughs when I fake squeal in fear.