Kaleidoscope Hearts (10 page)

Past

GROWING UP, THE friend I could relate to most was Jenson—we both came from broken homes. Our families weren’t wealthy like Victor’s or Junior’s, and we had jobs by the time we were fifteen. Even though we had similar backgrounds, Jenson and I still had our differences. He always needed a girlfriend, whereas the last thing I wanted was to be tied down. My parents’ divorce probably had a lot to do with it. That, and the fact that when my older sister and I stayed at my dad’s house every other weekend, he would openly talk about the issues he had with my mother. His main issue, my sister would say, was that our parents married too young and didn’t get to experience life without the other. She was sixteen when she said that to me. I was nine. For some reason, her words stuck with me. Probably because I was always looking for the “real reason” they couldn’t work things out.

As much as I loved and respected my father, I always said I wouldn’t end up like him. I wouldn’t leave my family just because I had an adventurous itch I needed to scratch. When I was a teenager I had girlfriends, but none of them held my attention long enough to be long term. It wasn’t that I wanted to screw around or sleep with someone else. It was as simple as having different interests or the fact that I couldn’t stay on the phone long enough to have a conversation without falling asleep. Beyond that, I really liked women. I liked the smell of them . . . the taste of them . . . and I liked trying to figure them out. My sister, Sophie, would hassle me and tell me I was becoming our father—which I didn’t appreciate—and then I’d remind her that I wasn’t involved with anyone.

“That’s the problem, Bean, you’re not George Clooney. You can’t be a lifelong bachelor.”

“Clooney gets some serious ass. I wouldn’t mind being him.”

“Yeah, but I want my kids to play with your kids at some point,” she would remind me.

“Well, I haven’t found the right girl yet.”

And that was the thing. I hadn’t. Not that I was looking, but I’d like to think if I was fucking her, I would know she was the right one for me. It’s not like I got women in my bed without having a conversation with them first. All of them made my blood go straight to my cock, but that was about it. The last time I’d been in love was when I was twelve, and according to Sophie, that didn’t really count. I just needed to keep having fun while I was in college—everything else would fall into place.

That’s exactly where my head was when Vic called to invite me to a party he and his fraternity brothers were throwing. He was attending UCLA, while I was in Cal Tech—which are really close—so we were able to hang out every weekend. I was already planning on going to the party, but when he mentioned Elle was visiting him for the weekend and would be there, I was completely sold. I showered and avoided the calls from Pam, the girl of the moment. I was determined to go to this party and relax with my friends, and taking Pam meant I’d have to babysit, because she was one of those girls who got drunk off of one drink, and then still had ten.

I pulled up to the party and greeted a couple of guys I knew before heading to the back where Vic always hung out playing darts. He came into my line of vision and I had to laugh, because he was guarding the keg like it was a shrine.

“What’s up, douchebag?” I said, patting him on the back when I reached him. He backed away and turned to me with a lazy smile on his face that made me chuckle. “Bean! Grab a cup. Actually, grab two. I’ve been standing in front of this shit for an hour waiting for you to get here.”

“You could’ve told me to bring more beer,” I said, laughing, as I reached for a red cup.

“Nah, I got you, I got you.” He poured me a beer and finally stepped away from the keg.

“Anyone else coming? Jenson? Junior?”

“Jenson’s . . . I don’t know what he’s doing, but he’s back home, and Junior went to visit Rose’s family.”

I let out a low whistle. “It’s getting really serious now.”

Vic nodded, his face looking as terrified as I felt at the time about getting serious with somebody.

“Whatever. As long as it’s not me, I’m good,” Vic said, shrugging.

I chuckled. “You and me both.”

“I never thanked you the other day . . . for coming with me,” he said, his voice taking a serious note. I clinked my cup to his and shrugged. I’d gone with him to get checked because some girl he’d been fucking called to tell him she had an STD. It wasn’t like I went in the room with him or anything, but I could tell he was pretty messed up over the news, so I went for moral support. He didn’t want to tell anybody else about it. I’m not sure he would have even told me if he hadn’t taken her call while we were out surfing together.

“That’s what brothers are for. Have you . . .” gotten the results, was my question, but it seemed too serious to speak aloud at a frat party, and I wasn’t sure he was ready to answer.

“Negative,” he said, throwing back the rest of his beer. “Everything came back negative.”

I let out a long relieved breath. I wasn’t sure what I would have felt if he’d had another answer. We weren’t kidding when we called each other brothers. I couldn’t remember a time when Vic wasn’t in my life, which is a big deal nowadays when friends were as fickle as the weather. He was there when my parents divorced, when my dad got sick—and everything in between. His parents took me in for weeks on end in the summer, when my mom was away on work trips and Sophie was off in school. Not that an STD meant death, but it was serious enough to make me realize how lucky we were to have dodged that shit thus far.

“You need to use a condom every-fucking-time, dude,” I said in a breath, taking a gulp of my beer.

“I know. I know.”

I stood beside him, nodding and facing the yard, which was full of guys in purple shirts and girls drinking and laughing. There was an area to the far left where there was a makeshift dance floor set up with a DJ. Only a couple of people were actually dancing there, and one couple in particular caught my eye. The guy was mainly just standing there, moving in a two-step, while the girl had her hands up, running her fingers through her long, brown hair. She wore a short, tight, black dress that captured every curve on her body, and on her feet, black converse. I was completely mesmerized by her and the way she moved her body. It was like she was doing a striptease without the stripping. Somehow, her dress, as short as it was, covered her nicely shaped ass. I opened my mouth to say something about her to Victor, but then she turned around, smiling, her back facing the guy she was dancing with, and I realized I knew her.

“What the fuck?” I nearly growled.

“What?” Vic said, snapping his eyes to meet mine.

“You let Elle wear that to this party?” I knew I sounded like a jealous boyfriend and I had no right, but here was the girl we were all constantly warned to stay away from and grew up taking care of like she was our own sister, and then . . . whatever . . . and here she was . . . and here was Vic. “What the fuck?” I repeated, glaring at him.

He looked at me like I was crazy and laughed at what was probably a furious look on my face. “She’s eighteen. I can’t really tell her what to wear, and hello . . . have you ever known her to wear anything more? Besides . . . I’ve been standing here watching her like a freaking hawk all night just in case that asshole tries anything stupid.”

I gathered the hair that had fallen out of the bun I’d put it in and thought about what he said. I hadn’t really noticed. We spent that summer together, talking almost every night on her roof and she always looked clothed enough. Well, not really, now that I thought about it. She was always wearing loose shirts and tiny shorts, or pajama pants and tiny shirts. I’d never really seen her at a party, other than her own or Victor’s. Those times, she didn’t wear make-up or tight ass dresses that would make any breathing male want to bend her over by the bushes and fuck her.

“I haven’t really noticed, no,” I said, finally.

He laughed. “That’s because she’s like your sister.”

I froze. She was like a sister at one point when we were young, before she grew up. Before that summer happened. I didn’t think my heart could take watching another one of those dances, knowing it was her, and that I wasn’t that guy.

“Who’s the guy?”

“Uh, that’s Adam. I think she said his name is Adam.”

“She brought him?” Why did that bother me?

“Yeah. Something about Mia not being able to come, and she didn’t want to come by herself to hang out with a bunch of horny guys and annoying girls she didn’t know.”

I laughed. Annoying girls. That sounded like something she would say, but what did I know? I didn’t know this Elle.

“So they’re dating?” I pointed at them. They finally pulled apart and walked away from the floor. As they headed in our direction, Elle pulled her hair up into a ponytail and then let it flow through her fingers to drift back down. She was laughing at something Adam said behind her, and I wondered if he was making a joke about her ass, because that’s where his eyes were.

“Nah, I don’t think so. She’s not into the serious relationship thing.”

I gaped at Victor, and he gave me a shrug. “You’re okay with that?”

He shrugged again, drinking his beer. “What am I supposed to tell her? Go get married, Elle, you need to go get married right now? She’s eighteen!”

The thought of Elle getting married right now didn’t bode well for me, so I stayed quiet and glanced in her direction again. I could see her eyebrows pull together as she got closer and the smile on her face drop when she saw me. My chest squeezed a little. What had I ever done to her? Shouldn’t she be smiling?

“Hey, Bean,” she said as she neared me. In that moment, for the first time ever—as I watched her plump lips moving as she spoke—I hated that she used my nickname. The nickname my mother had given me, no less. Bean sprout, she used to call me. It kind of stuck, to the point that all my friends used it when they addressed me. It never bothered me when little girl Elle said it, but grown-up Elle? I wanted her to call me Oliver. I wanted her to
scream
Oliver. And on that note, I cleared my throat.

“Hey, Chicken,” I said, my smile growing when she glared as I used her nickname.

Adam chimed in with a laugh. “Chicken?”

Elle groaned. “Long story.”

“It’s not really that long,” Vic said. “She was scared of everything as a kid, hence the name Chicken.”

She rolled her eyes and took the cup of beer Vic had just poured for himself, chugging it down quickly. And I stood there, gaping, completely-fucking-entranced by the way she wiped under her mouth using two fingers, and at the wide smile in response to whatever it was Adam was saying. I couldn’t concentrate on his words—I could only hear her throaty laugh and see her face . . . her body . . . and I really needed to stop. I knew I needed to stop. Adam said something about the bathroom, Vic pointed, and I seethed as Elle watched him walk away.

“How’s the basil?” she asked Vic, who shrugged.

“Your plant, not mine.”

“You’re kidding me. Victor, how do you expect it to stay alive if you don’t care for it?” she asked. “I’m going to go look.”

“What basil?” I asked, watching her ass sway as she walked away.

“She planted some basil on the side of my house because her apartment has no proper lighting or something, and she expects me to take care of it. I don’t know.” He shrugged.

“Huh. I’m going to go see it.”

“Good, that way you can keep an eye on her,” he said.

I cocked an eyebrow. “What happened to ‘she’s eighteen’?”

“Well, yeah, she can be eighteen with Adam and shit—not with my fraternity brothers. That’s different.”

I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate. He let out an impatient breath and shook his head. “That’s sacred. That’s like if I make a move on Sophie or something. You just don’t do that shit.”

I didn’t bother to point out to him that Sophie was older than we were, and married, because I understood where he was coming from. She was Elle, the baby sister, and we were Vic’s dickhead friends, the ones who liked to sleep around and had STD scares. Not the kind of guys you want around your sisters. It hurt though. The realization of how he felt and how he expected it to be that way, warred with the fact that looking at Elle made me yearn for something I knew I couldn’t have.

The loud sounds of the party died down with each step I took toward the side of the house—the direction she’d gone. I stopped when I found her. She was bent over, looking at the plant on the ground, and I took a couple of seconds to admire how good she looked in that position.

“When did you get into gardening?” I asked, walking closer.

Her head snapped up, and she straightened with a shrug and a smile. “It’s new. I’m trying to eat healthy. I want to plant my own crops, but it’s kind of impossible in my dorm.”

I stood beside her and faced the plant. “It looks good.”

“Yeah, it smells good, too,” she said. I could hear the smile in her voice, and it made me smile.

“So, how has your first semester been?”

“It’s been . . . good, actually. Fun.”

I turned my body to face her, tucking my thumbs in the front pockets of my jeans. “It sounds like you’re having too much fun.”