Becoming Mila by Estelle Maskame
15
On Friday afternoon, I trek the mile or so to the Willowbank ranch with a box of apple stack cake positioned carefully in my arms. Sheri exhausted herself over this so-called Tennessee favorite – Mila, how can you not know what Tennessee Mountain Cake is? – for hours in the kitchen yesterday morning while the scent of spiced apple lingered all through the house. And now the dessert has set overnight and is ready to be delivered to those it was baked especially for – the Bennetts. In Sheri’s words, this masterpiece is an apology for frightening Patsy last weekend over the whole “Didn’t you give Mila a ride home from church?” episode. I have been given the pleasure of acting as messenger, because it gives me a suitable excuse to leave the ranch.
Over the past few days, Sheri and I have kept to our agreement perfectly with no slip-ups this time. She lets me go beyond the Harding Estate gates whenever I so desire, as long as she knows where I’m off to and I’m back by the curfew she specifies, which is never all that strict. But I’ve been reasonable, and haven’t taken advantage. I’m well aware now of the risk she’s taking. Savannah and Myles picked me up one evening and we drove by McDonald’s for sundaes, and I walked three miles to the nearest store and back to buy two big bags of Cheetos. However, I’ve quickly realized that, when residing at a ranch in the middle of nowhere and with only a learner’s permit to my name, there aren’t that many options available to me. That’s why Fredo and I are becoming such great friends – I saddle him up every morning and take him out into the fields for a gentle trot. Nothing more, because I’m still too afraid to pick up any speed in case I end up breaking my spine.
But today, I have the purpose of delivering a cake, and I walk with a spring in my step and a Dodgers cap shading my face from another day of blazing heat. My face is so weather-beaten from being outdoors that if I sprout any more freckles across my nose and cheeks I may just become unrecognizable to my friends by the time I return home.
The Bennetts’ three-story farmhouse looms before me as I near Willowbank ranch and a dismal feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. When Savannah looks out of her bedroom window, she can see for miles across the rolling countryside, off into the cluster of trees beyond. When Sheri and Popeye look out of their windows, their view is partially blocked by the walls in the distance. It’s another reminder of the impact Dad’s demands have on people around him.
Dad, who I keep trying to push to the back of my mind. His disregard for what will keep me happy still hurts and I’m not ready to process it. I haven’t even raised it with Mom yet because it’s obvious she too believes this is all Ruben’s doing, so I’ve stayed clear of the topic and instead emphasized how boooooring the Harding Estate is in hopes that she’ll pass this information on to Dad. If I want to continue enjoying some freedom, he and Ruben need to believe I don’t have any at all.
“Mila!”
The sound of Savannah’s voice snaps me back to reality. It’s a welcome distraction from the confused, negative thoughts that swell and churn inside my head.
“Hey! Is your mom around?”
Savannah jogs over to greet me, her expression seeming pleasantly surprised by my unexpected visit. She’s wearing jean shorts and a bikini top, with a huge straw cowboy hat atop her head. Dangling from her ears today are two plastic, neon ice-cream cones. Cute. “Yeah, she’s somewhere out in the field checking a water mains with Dad. What’s that you’ve got there?”
“Aunt Sheri’s famous Tennessee Mountain Cake,” I announce with gusto, holding the cardboard box up and tantalizingly flipping open the lid. “Made fresh yesterday morning and delivered, obviously, by yours truly.”
“Ohhh, I love stack cake!” Savannah says as she peers hungrily into the box. “Let’s go put it in the kitchen.”
I shut the lid and follow Savannah toward the house. The strong odor of sunscreen tickles my nose as we start up the porch steps. “Have you been sunbathing?”
“Well, of course,” she says. “I don’t like water – you know I nearly drowned in a lake during a family trip to Kentucky once when I was eight? Oh, it was awful. My life flashed before my eyes that day and ever since I don’t go near water. Honestly, in my eyes our pool is nothing but a death trap, so I prefer to stick to the daybed.”
Precariously balancing the cake box in one arm, I reach out and grasp Savannah’s wrist, mostly to silence her irrelevant babbling. “Savannah, my weight has dropped by five pounds from sweat alone because of the sheer humidity here, and you didn’t think to mention that you have a pool?” I deadpan.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” she says, flushed. She hits her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Yes, we have a pool! It’s behind the house. But I think it’s rather stupid for the entire pool to be one depth – no one thought my idea of having a shallow end was worth any consideration – so even if I didtrust the water, I wouldn’t even be able to touch the floor anyway.”
“I’ll trade you the Harding horses for the Willowbank pool,” I blurt, cutting her off. This is a matter of desperation. “You can come over to our place and ride Sheri’s horses whenever you like, if you please, please, please let me use your pool sometimes. You have no idea how much I’ve been dying to dive into one on days like these.”
Savannah lifts the brim of her hat and the shadow over her eyes disappears, the sunshine glowing against her skin. “Um – ab-so-freaking-lutely!”
My grin mirrors hers, but before we can continue up into the house, a bark tears through the peaceful ranch.
At the foot of the porch steps, I twirl around to search for the source of the noise – is Savannah Bennett lucky enough to have a pool and a dog? – but am surprised to find a familiar Golden Retriever puppy pounding across the grass. He’s hurtling toward us at a great speed, tongue lolling, tail wagging. My grin widens, but as he grows nearer, I realize Bailey shows no signs of slowing down, and my joy quickly transforms into alarm.
I clasp my arms tightly around the box of Sheri’s cake and hug it to my chest, but I haven’t secured it quickly enough. With another bark, Bailey lunges toward me. An involuntary gasp leaves me as I fall back against the porch’s wooden handrail under the impact of the determined dog and the box is knocked out of my hands. Bailey presses his paws against my chest and licks my face.
“Oh, Bailey, no!” Savannah groans, reaching for his collar and tugging hard. “Down! Down!”
With a mighty shove, I push Bailey off me, but as he drops back down to the ground, his front paws promptly land heavily on top of the cake box. The crushing of cardboard and the squash of Sheri’s apple stack cake makes me cry out in horror.
“Uh-oh,” Savannah says. “Oops.”
Bailey shoves his nose inside the damaged box and immediately chomps down on the cake. I exchange a panicked look with Savannah, who sheepishly bites her lip, before attempting to haul the dog away from the box.
“No, Bailey, STOP!” a voice yells. “What is he eating?”
Both Savannah and I look over. Blake runs toward us from the same direction that Bailey emerged from thirty seconds ago. If I wasn’t so shocked, I would remember that this is the first I’ve seen him since the latest of our awkward encounters on Sunday.
“Blake! Will you control your dog!” I holler, marching a few steps forward and pointing at Bailey, whose nose is covered in sponge cake and spiced apples. “He just . . . HE JUST RUINED SHERI’S CAKE!”
Blake arrives at the scene of destruction and drops to his haunches, hooking his arms around Bailey and dragging him back from the mangled box. Bailey happily licks the remaining cake from around his snout, and Blake holds him firmly between his legs. He pushes his sunglasses up into his ruffled hair and tilts his head up to meet my furious glare.
“She spent hours making that cake! I was supposed to deliver it!” I fume. “INTACT!”
“Mila, I’m s–sorry,” Blake tries, but he can’t get the words out. There is no attempt to suppress it – his full, hearty laughter fills the air.
“What’s going on?” Myles asks, joining the three of us. He’s dripping wet, barefoot and only wearing soaked swim trunks. He peers over Blake’s crouched figure as if he’s wondering what the chewed cardboard and mushed food used to represent two minutes ago.
“Bailey destroyed my aunt’s cake,” I say sullenly.
Blake howls with another bout of laughter. Myles joins in and then the two of them are snickering together, their guffaws growing louder and louder. The hilarity gets to Savannah as well, though she is at least trying to stifle her giggles. It’s infectious and I break out into laughter too.
“What am I supposed to tell Sheri?” I ask through our symphony of chuckles. I glimpse at the destroyed cake again and clutch my sides as I laugh even harder.
“Tell her we loved the cake,” Savannah says, stepping down from the porch steps. “It was so delicious we demolished it in seconds.” She can hardly stop giggling at her own joke, but then splutters, “I’ll get rid of this before Mom sees.”
Blake drags a happy-looking Bailey back around the house with Myles, still guffawing, and I stay with Savannah to clean up. We scoop up whatever is left of the splattered cake and box with a dustpan and dump it straight into the outdoor trash so that Savannah’s parents don’t find out about the delicious baked goods they’ve missed out on. With a pinky promise, Savannah and I declare that Sheri will never know quite how enthusiastically her friendly culinary offering was received.
“Would you like to stay for a while?” Savannah asks. “We’re hanging by the pool. It’s just me and those two idiots. And let me just remind you that those two idiots are my brother and Blake.” She smirks as she emphasizes his name.
“There’s nothing going on with Blake!”
“Oh, c’mon!” she says with a sigh and an eye roll. She takes my elbow and brings me with her.
We head deeper into the field and around the back of the farmhouse, where my chest expands with a wave of happiness at the sight of water. The Bennetts’ pool is larger than I dared hope it might be, circular and full of plastic soccer balls that bob along the water’s surface, and along its edge there’s a few scattered loungers.
“Are you joining us?” Myles calls from the opposite end of the pool. When I nod, he gives a playful wolf howl and dives headfirst into the water. A tidal wave splashes over the loungers, much to Savannah’s annoyance.
She tuts and groans as she stalks over and angrily drags them further back from the pool. Myles screws up his face and sneers at her as he emerges from the water, and she hurls one of the plastic balls at him. He ducks back into the water before it can bounce off his head.
“Please sit next to me,” Savannah says, beckoning me over. “I like to think he wouldn’t be rude enough to try and soak a guest.”
I join her, perching myself on the lounger next to hers. Heat radiates from the material and I gaze longingly at the vibrant blue, rippled water, craving more than ever to dive straight in. Savannah, who has already announced her fear of the water, has flattened herself against the lounger and returned to reading a worse-for-wear copy of a book about a certain famous bespectacled wizard.
“I love those movies!” I say avidly. “We actually went to the New York premiere of the final movie like ten years ago. It was the first premiere we ever went to.” A wistful smile spreads across my face. I was too young at the time to take much in, but somehow I possess the deeply ingrained memory of Dad exchanging hellos with Daniel Radcliffe.
Slowly, Savannah lowers the book and gapes at me. “Seriously?”
The fascination and pure disbelief in her blue eyes bring me instantly back down to earth and I regret saying anything. I wipe the smile from my face and ruefully draw my shoulders inward.
“Sorry – that – that sounded like I was bragging, didn’t it?” I mumble. Coming across to others, especially others whose everyday world is so different from mine, as a spoiled Hollywood kid is the last thing I ever intend to do.
“No! No! Tell me more!” Savannah urges, jolting upright and throwing the book off to the side. “I don’t think you’re bragging. You’re just talking about your life, and you just happen to live a super cool one. Did you meet the cast?”
“I can’t really – well, I was seven. It’s kind of a blur,” I say quickly. No matter what Savannah says, I would still rather change the subject to something other than how out-of-the-ordinary I am.
My gaze drifts over her shoulder, searching for an out, and I find Blake. He’s by a water hose, firing the water erratically into Bailey’s mouth. For the first time, I spot his truck parked on a sloped patch of grass. I wonder what I would have done if it’d been at the front of the house when I arrived with the cake – would I have made a quick getaway if I’d known he was here?
“Do you mind if I sit by the pool?” I ask Savannah hopefully. I note how childlike I sound, like a kid asking their mom with plead in their eyes if they can dash on ahead to the candy store.
Savannah retrieves her book and lays down. “Fiiiiine,” she jokingly huffs, then dismisses me with a flick of her hand.
I make my move toward the pool and kick off my Nikes, stuff my socks inside them, then sit down by the water’s edge and dip my legs in. The water is warm, but yet so blissfully refreshing and I throw my head back to the sky, closing my eyes and resisting the urge to slide my entire body into the pool. I send Sheri a quick text to let her know I’m staying at the Willowbank ranch for a while, and then, for a few minutes, I listen in peace to the sound of birds overheard and Myles splashing around in the other half of the pool.
“You aren’t coming in?”
I start at the sound. I glance up beneath the shadow of my cap and squint.
Blake towers over me, beaming me an encouraging smile. He’s wearing a pair of bright red shorts – correction, swim trunks – and a black T-shirt that clings to his chest. Now that I’m not blowing steam over Sheri’s ruined cake, my head swirls with thoughts that aren’t exactly appropriate.
“I’m not what you’d call pool-ready,” I say, gesturing down at my jean shorts and tank top.
“Just strip off,” Blake says nonchalantly, then, at my disapproving look, adds, “Kidding, Mila.”
He kicks his slide sandals off to the side and then, with a gulp, I watch as he tears his T-shirt over his head. I knew before now that Blake is impressively muscular and toned, but the view without clothes is one I can’t wrench my eyes away from. His stomach is just as defined as his chest and arms, but in a more modest way. The vague outline of a set of abs is definitely prominent, but only when he tenses, which he does now as he sits down next to me and slides into the water.
I lick my lips, aware of how dry my mouth is. Even his quads are sculpted . . .
Blake travels smoothly beneath the water’s surface, all the way to the opposite edge of the pool, where he emerges right next to his cousin, much to Myles’s surprise, and shoves a wave of water into his face. Myles grabs Blake’s head and dunks him back into the water for what slowly becomes an uncomfortably long time, until Blake erupts for air, and they both chortle with mischievous banter.
Savannah, over the top of her tattered book, scathingly shakes her head.
I paddle my legs back and forth through the warm water and inhale the scent of chlorine, watching Blake and Myles continue their war in amusement, enjoying how nice it feels to sit in the summer sun by the pool with a clear mind . . . Until Blake glides across the pool toward me. My stomach somersaults more than once and those inappropriate thoughts return.
Blake reaches me and rests his arms on the pool’s edge, his breathing shallow. He flicks his wet hair and droplets of water splatter over me. Luckily, the water level rises to his chest, otherwise the sight of his bare body again would have me stammering my words. Blushing over the mere sight of hot guys is one thing . . . But hot guys that are wet and shirtless is another.
I try to look anywhere else. Bailey is collapsed in a heap under the shade of an old oak tree. “Is he okay?”
Blake follows my gaze to Bailey. “Yeah, just bloated probably, but that’s what he deserves for being a scrounging cake thief.”
As Blake rubs at his chlorine-irritated eyes, it dawns on me that this is the first time he has ever seen me without so much as a single stroke of mascara, and my hand flies up to pull my cap further over my face.
Blake’s playful expression falters. “What – you’re not looking at me now? Are we still being awkward about what happened on Sunday?”
“No – it’s just . . .” I say shyly, my voice low. “I’m not wearing any makeup.”
It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, but I’ve always been rather self-conscious of my bare face. It’s one of the effects of Hollywood, that relentless pressure to be picture-perfect. Whenever Dad has an event that Mom and I are to attend, she plonks me in her artist’s chair and spends forever contouring my cheeks and nose, darkening my brows, applying a fresh set of lashes, before repeating the whole process all over again on herself. Then she’ll breathe a definite sigh of relief when Ruben gives an approving nod to confirm that we have met his high standards.
These days, I don’t even go to school without products clogging up my pores, and the only reason I have ditched the makeup most of the time while here in Fairview is because there is no one here who will clock my lack of cheekbone definition. Plus, the humidity makes it pretty uncomfortable. However, until now, I have always worn makeup around Blake.
With a snort of disbelief – boys will never understand such an issue – Blake plucks my Dodgers cap straight off my head to reveal my face in the sunlight. “Miss Mila, why have you been covering up those freckles?”
Protectively, I draw my chin in toward my chest as though it’s second nature to shield myself from prying eyes. Blake sets my cap backward onto his damp ruffled hair.
“It’s only me. I don’t care,” he says seriously, noticing the color on my cheeks. “I’ve got this huge pimple right here. Look.”
I lift my head and a smile creeps onto my face as Blake points out the blemish on his forehead. I place my hands behind me and lean back, relaxing my posture so that I’m not so closed off to him. The terrifying concept of being bare faced around him suddenly no longer seems to matter. Did he mean that my sun-kissed freckled cheeks are cute?
I purse my lips at him. “Did I give you the right to steal my hat?”
“What are you going to do about it?” he challenges, a glint in his dark eyes.
There go the somersaults again . . . I swiftly plough on, because I can’t muster up a witty, cool reply fast enough, and leave my cap still on his head. “How are things with your mom?” I ask, back to treading carefully.
After Sheri seized me from his truck on Sunday, he sent a text to check up on me that evening. I reassured him that everything was okay on my end, though he was marginally less convincing about things being fine back at the Avery house.
Blake stops smirking. He shrugs and folds his arms over the pool’s edge. “Why do you think I’m hanging out here? To get away from her.”
I frown, watching Myles perform a series of underwater handstands. Over on the lounger, Savannah has ditched reading for snoozing – her straw hat is placed directly over her face, shielding her from the sun and, unbeknown to her, blocking out her chances of spying on Blake and me. If she saw the two of us chatting by the side of the pool like this, Blake already wearing an item of my clothing, but not much else, she would be shooting me teasing winks and suggestive grins.
“My aunt said my parents wouldn’t want me to hang around with you. I don’t know why. I haven’t asked them yet,” I say in a flat tone, dropping my gaze back to Blake. “But youknow.”
He looks up at me beneath thick, damp eyelashes. “It’s ancient history. I told you, my mom is just a resentful person who clings to the past. I’ve been trying to talk sense into her this week, but it’s not going great. I stayed here last night,” he says in a sullen tone. “She doesn’t want me to hang around with you either.”
My stomach dips. What exactly happened between my parents and LeAnne Avery?
“And yet . . .” I trail off.
“And yet here we are,” he finishes. The corner of his mouth twitches, concealing a smile. “My mom can be controlling, but I always do what I want in the end. And when will I ever come across another girl who knows how that feels?”
“I never said my dad was controlling.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s part of the deal, isn’t it?”
I think again of Dad being the one who conspired to have Aunt Sheri hold me captive at the Harding Estate for the summer, and my chest knots with a sickening feeling. My frown deepens.
Blake drifts a few inches closer to me, his damp shoulder touching my knee. Then, he takes me entirely by surprise and rests his temple against the side of my thigh. He gazes innocently up at me, surely unaware that my heart is now hammering in my chest. His deep brown eyes, framed by those wet lashes, are intoxicating. They draw me in, our gazes transfixed, until all the air seeps out of my lungs.
“I’m going to give myself sunburn,” I splutter, plucking my hat from his damp hair and nestling it back onto my head. I don’t even mind the sogginess – I’m just relieved to focus on anything other than the intensity of Blake’s smoldering eyes and the feeling of his resting head against my thigh. But yet I don’t shake him off.
My eyes roam the Willowbank ranch, flitting across the extensive fields much like those of the Harding Estate, until they land back on Savannah. She has lifted her hat an inch from her face and now peers out from beneath the brim with great interest. When she realizes I’ve noticed her attention, she drops it back over her face and pretends again to be asleep.
Blake’s gaze continues to bore into me, unnervingly relentless.
Ignoring the throbbing of my heartbeat, I swallow and look back down at him with forced indifference, as though cute boys resting their head practically in my lap isn’t a rarity. My fingers twitch with the overwhelming urge to touch his wet hair.
Blake’s easy smile deepens into a grin.
“What?”
He lifts his head from my thigh and says, “You’re nervous.”
“Nervous? Why would I – why would I be nervous?” I say breezily with a strained laugh, but the hitch in my voice shreds any hope of being convincing. My hand finds my cap again, anxiously pulling the bill down over my eyes. A dead giveaway that I instantly regret.
“Because . . . you hold your breath when I do this,” Blake says in a hushed, flirtatious undertone.
He rests his cheek against the side of my thigh once more, his eyes locked on mine. My breath catches in my throat again when, beneath the cool water, he skims his fingertips over my skin. Seductively and so slowly it’s torturous, he runs his hand all the way up my bare leg.
“Do I make you nervous, Mila?” he whispers.
Electricity fizzes through my veins. It’s a current of sizzling, rapid heat that radiates all through my body, working its way outward from the point of Blake’s touch. He clasps his hand around my leg, just beneath my knee, and I momentarily freeze. My heartbeat is erratic and out of sync. I part my lips to speak, but words rise in my throat only to fade into nothing.
“Do I make you hold your breath?” Blake murmurs with a teasing glint in his eye. He lifts his head from my thigh again, but his hand remains on my leg. He edges in closer and presses his hard, broad chest against me. “I love that I do.”
I can’t tear my eyes away from him – he’s so close now –
“Hello sweet, sweet Mila!”
Both Blake and I start at the sound of another voice, an abrupt reminder that we aren’t alone. Blake quickly drifts away, his touch disappearing from my body, and innocently shakes the water out of his hair. I finally tear my attention from him and twist around to find Patsy working her way toward us.
“I didn’t know you were here!” she says cheerfully, stopping at the pool’s edge.
“I was – um – I was dropping off a cake,” I blurt. “But Bailey ate it.” I grimace over at the greedy pup who’s still lying in the shade beneath the tree, overfed and snoozing, then look apologetically up at Patsy. “Sheri made it for you guys, so can you maybe . . . Can you maybe tell her that you loved it? It was an apple stack cake.”
Patsy places her hands on her hips in sync with the rolling of her eyes. “Well, first, how about you tell Sheri to drag her butt out of that ranch and join me for coffee sometime? It’s been too long!”
“Mom,” Savannah nearly growls from the loungers. Miraculously, she’s now awake again, sitting bolt upright and waving her hat in the air like an SOS sign. “Can you bring us some popsicles?”
“Treated like a butler around here, I am!” Patsy huffs, but nonetheless turns on her heels to fulfill Savannah’s request.
I fire Savannah a suspicious look. She winks, lays down, and flips her cowboy hat back over her face and resumes “sleeping” while no doubt eavesdropping on every word that is exchanged between Blake and me.
“Where’s your phone?” Blake asks, drawing my attention back to only him.
I can’t decide if I’m relieved or disappointed that the heated moment between us is gone.
“Here.” I touch my phone on the ground next to me. “Why?
“Myles! Come over here for a second!” he yells with a wild wave of his arm.
Myles, who I, quite honestly, have forgotten is in the pool, bursts from the water and runs his hands through his glistening strawberry blond hair. Curiosity draws his eyebrows together and he swims over to join us.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you think it’s a little lonely in this pool?” Blake asks.
Myles’s face flashes with understanding, and the two of them turn to look at me. There is no time to register their rogue, wicked smirks.
Blake dives beneath the water and hooks his arms around my legs the same time as Myles seizes my waist.
“NO!” I gasp, but it’s too late.
The two of them pull me with all their strength, wrestling against my feeble attempts to fight them off. I kick my legs hard and try to shake off Blake’s grip, and I push at Myles’s shoulders, but my efforts are wasted. My screams blend with their laughter and, eventually, my own. They haul me into the water with a great splash.
My jean shorts suddenly weigh a hundred pounds and I rise quickly to the surface, gulping for air. Luckily, I am slightly taller than Savannah, so I can touch the pool’s floor with my tiptoes. I run my hands back through my hair, pushing it out of my face. My baseball cap floats in the water.
A second later, Blake and Myles pop up next to me, choking because they can’t contain their fit of laughter. They’re howling even louder than they did when Bailey destroyed Sheri’s cake.
“You – kicked me – in – the face!” Blake stammers breathlessly. He presses a hand to the edge of his jaw.
I place my hands on his chest and shove him hard. “You deserve it!”
Myles, as though fearing I may seek punishment on him too, dives under the water and glides back to his side of the pool, leaving Blake and me alone, wiping water from our eyes and breaking out into more laughter whenever we look at one another.
“Boys!” Savannah snaps, sounding like a scolding mother as she storms to the pool’s edge and glares sternly at her brother and Blake. “Why would you do that to her? Those clothes probably cost hundreds! They’re probably Gucci or something!”
“Because it’s hilarious!” Myles says.
“It’s okay, Savannah,” I say, feeling at my clothes as I tread water. This is going to be a wet, squidgy walk back to the ranch. “These shorts are from the clearance rack at Forever 21.”
“Oh,” Savannah says, lowering her head in embarrassment. “Still. Blake? Why would you drag her in like that?”
Blake looks at me out of the corner of his eye and his gaze sends another shock of fizzling energy down my spine. As he opens his mouth to reply, he doesn’t look at Savannah – he keeps his smolder trained only on me. “I thought,” he says slowly, “that Mila looked hot.”
The innuendo does not go unnoticed by me or Savannah. She looks at me for a long moment and I tilt my head down in embarrassment because I know exactly what she must be thinking – Blake has just given her positive affirmation that maybe there is something going on between him and me.
“In that case,” Savannah says, “enjoy cooling off, Mila!”