Summer Fling Read online

  The soft blue light of the TV danced across our faces in our darkened living room. Val and Camilla shared a bucket of popcorn and a Diet Coke. She was perched on his lap, alternating between devouring the salty snack and my brother’s face. Adam and Maya were tucked under a quilt on the couch opposite to where I sat.

  The movie was good, but watching Adam’s face uninterrupted trumped any work of art. He had that old Hollywood look that made women’s knees turn to Jell-O. Chiseled jaw, pouty lips, a strong nose, and a jaw so square you could play a board game on it. He had chocolate hair, hazel eyes, and smooth tan skin. A mixture of Scottish, Italian, and Vietnamese, Adam’s bedroom eyes were hooded, and his bone structure was so sharp, he looked like a statue of himself. His physique could give Michelangelo’s David a run for his money.

  And win.

  Easily.

  I realized it was love and not just hormonal adolescent infatuation at the least romantic time, when Maya couldn’t stop whining about the movie.

  “We should’ve chosen a rom-com.”

  “This movie is, like, a thousand years old.”

  “What the hell, Jim Carrey is not even funny in it!”

  After a few groans from me and some shushing from Val and Camilla, my brother finally snapped at Adam.

  “Yo, would you shut your girl up? I’m ready to hurl her ass back to Duncan Hill.”

  Duncan Hill was a preppy neighborhood in the sleepy New England town we lived in. Everybody thought it was rad that Maya was an American princess whose daddy made a fortune as the owner of a department store, while the rest of us swam in the middle-class mediocracy of hand-me-down Camrys and soul-crushing summer jobs.

  “She’s not my girl,” Adam pointed out, his gaze cutting to mine. I averted my eyes, feeling my cheeks flaring with heat.

  “She’s here because of you, and—no offense, Maya—but her mouth is relentless,” Val growled.

  “Tell me about it.” Adam grinned. In my periphery, I could still feel his eyes on the side of my face.

  Camilla groaned. “Yuck.”

  “Hey, I’m right here, you know,” Maya pouted.

  Weirdly, this exchanged helped, and Maya stopped her blabbing. I was actually starting to breathe again, recalculating what it meant, exactly, to love Adam Mackay and experience such acute, raw possessiveness and jealousy toward him. Then the redheaded beauty began shifting her butt on our couch, giggling breathlessly into a can of LaCroix.

  The giggling and fussing became soft moaning, and I slid my gaze down from Adam’s face, seeing that his hand was moving between them under the quilt, the imprint of his corded, muscular arm between her legs.

  He was fingering her. Jesus.

  He stared at me the entire time he was doing it, and when our eyes met, a slow, taunting smirk marred his gorgeous face.

  Maya threw her head back, scoring no points in keeping their hookup on the down low, her scarlet locks fanning across our yellow flowery couch, her mouth O-shaped. Something very dark and very violent unfurled inside my stomach, clawing up my chest. I felt like I’d been punched in the nose and couldn’t hold back the tears. He was fingering her, and she was enjoying it, and I was there with a front-row seat.

  I felt love in its purest, most heightened form—heartbreak.

  The worst part was that I genuinely believed Adam liked me. At least, I thought he did a few minutes ago. It was the small things that made me feel like he was seeing me as more than just his best friend’s baby sister.

  The way his eyes held mine for a second too long across the dinner table when he stayed over for supper, and everything around us blurred at the edges, spinning out of focus.

  The way he tuned out the rest of the room and listened to what I had to say, no matter the place, no matter what we were discussing, no matter the people we were with. He was attuned to me, endlessly fascinated with my words, my thoughts, my small, weird quirks.

  The way he stopped by my room every time he was on his way to visit Val across the hall, stealing moments, minutes, small memories that were uniquely ours. He recommended new movies to me, and I shared cinema trivia with him. We were both movie buffs. We could talk for hours, until our mouths went dry.

  But I knew Val would have a heart attack if Adam ever asked me out. Adam had a less than pristine reputation with the fairer sex, as exhibited right freaking now. And by that, he was known in our zip code as a total male slut. Anyway, that would be breaking every bro code in the history of friendships, and Adam seemed like the loyal type when it came to friends. Not to mention, there was also me. I loved Val to death and would never want him to feel some sort of way. He always had my back, and pursuing his best friend when he obviously felt weird about it seemed like a crappy sister move.

  For the most part, I understood why Adam and I couldn’t be together. I truly did. I smiled through the pain at school, when Adam passed by me, jerking his chin in my direction in hello, a different girl under his arm every week.

  I ignored the stabs of jealousy in my chest when he made out with other girls underneath the bleachers.

  And scolded myself at my inability to be happy for him when he played Romeo in a school play and kissed every single Juliet who auditioned.

  But that thing with Maya? It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The very old, wary, thoroughly annoyed camel, who’d finally had enough.

  “I think I’ll catch the rest of the movie in my room.”

  “Nika, you okay?” Val cocked his head.

  “Yeah. Totally. Just tired,” I mumbled, shooting up to my feet and darting up the stairs. It was too abrupt to look casual, but in that moment, I didn’t care. What was the point, anyway? Adam and Val had graduated weeks ago. Adam was going to Juilliard. I wasn’t going to see him very often for the next four years—if at all—and even if I did, it was time I Band-Aided whatever was going on between us. The wound underneath it had festered and become too raw and painful to ignore.

  I realized Adam had had me without really having me for the past year, since our attraction had become too magnetic to ignore. He threw clandestine, half-moon smiles my way like breadcrumbs to a bird, keeping me securely under his spell. Telling me I deserved better than the guys who asked me out, but never asking me out himself.

  And the worst part was that I’d listened.

  I was the idiot who turned guys down because they didn’t meet the astronomical standards of Adam. I’d played right into his hands, while he toyed with my heart.

  I raced up the stairs, stormed into my room, and slammed the door behind me. I collapsed on my bed, bashing my head against the pillow with a groan.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  A knock on the door startled me.

  “Nik?” Adam was the only one who called me Nik. He had a great voice. Low, gravelly, confident. I remember joking with my friends that I wanted him to narrate my life. He was going to become an actor, and I was certain he would detonate La La Land with his charm and looks the minute he landed at LAX. It depressed me, because his brilliance should’ve been my own worst-kept secret. Something that is uniquely mine to bask in, I couldn’t even deal with the high school girls who swarmed around him. I wasn’t ready for the entire world to fall for him, too.

  “Leave me alone.” My voice was muffled by the pillow.

  “When have I ever done that?” He laughed from the other side of the door.

  “Never.” And that was my whole problem.

  He opened the door, clicking it shut behind him. I saw him in my periphery, hooking his thumbs to the loops of his jeans, cocking his head sideways. Everything about him reeked of nonchalance. If the world ended tomorrow, Adam’s heart wouldn’t miss one beat.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you got jealous out there.”

  His voice was careful. Measured. Bizarrely unflappable. He was gauging me.

  “But you do know me, so rest assured, it’s just a stomach bug,” I murmured into my pillow. I felt nauseous with heartbrea
k. Like if I puked, the only thing to come out of my mouth would be a hairball of tangled emotions.

  He ambled deeper into my room, perching himself on the edge of my bed. He tilted my face up so I’d look at him. I slapped his hand away, scowling.

  “Hands off, Mr. McPervert. You just touched Maya’s hoo-ha.”

  “Not exactly,” he growled, unfazed. He looked luminous. Like seeing me jealous made his day, month, year. I grabbed the pillow under my head and flung it in his face. He chuckled, dodging my pillow and tugging at my foot, perching it on his lap.

  “I know what I saw.”

  “No, you don’t. Admit it, Nika. You want me. You don’t want to want me, but you do. You just needed a little push to realize it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I maintained, but the fact that ninety-nine percent of my blood was concentrated in my face told a different story. Had he messed around with Maya just to get a kick out of provoking me? What a jackass. I kicked him off of my bed, but he was taller, stronger, and much heavier. Every time I pushed, I was met with his supersonic strength.

  Besides, that was our thing—we wrestled. A lot.

  “Nik,” he hissed. My nickname on his lips sounded like a dirty word. We were becoming a ball of knotted limbs and panting chests as he pressed against me. He was pinning me down to my bed playfully, restraining my wrists with his long fingers. I tried to kick him off, but to him, it was just another wrestling session, like the dozens we engaged in every month. Only, I didn’t want to do the whole roll-on-the-carpet thing tonight. Where we were half-fighting, half-grinding against each other, arguing over mundane things nobody understood or cared about.

  We would roll on the carpet until I felt his hard-on pressing against my back.

  Until we were both panting and groaning.

  Until Val or one of my parents would find us and tell us to knock it off.

  But that was before he’d carelessly stomped on my heart on my living room couch just to make a point. Before I realized I was in love. Before figuring out if I let him continue stomping on my heart, there’d be nothing left.

  “Get off of me,” I bit out. Maya’s strawberry body mist stuck to his shirt, to his fingers, to his neck. I wanted to throw up.

  “Nik, listen.” He pressed his lips to my neck, and my whole body came alive with need and anger. “It was a dumb move, but it was a necessary one. I’m here now, and I want to talk. If I let you go, do you promise to hear me out?”

  Was he bargaining with me? His releasing me shouldn’t be conditional. I’d told him to let go of me, and he hadn’t. I squirmed beneath him, but I didn’t really put up a fight or raise my voice. Secretly, shamefully, I still enjoyed his body on mine.

  “You didn’t even let her finish. What a gentleman.” I smiled coldly in his face.

  “Nik,” he warned. “Easy there. I know you’re mad, but from my point of view, I didn’t know if you cared a minute ago.”

  So you decided to hook up with someone else in front of me? Fine logic you got yourself there.

  “My bad. You wouldn’t know how to help a girl finish even if you tried.”

  He grabbed my wrists and kissed my knuckles, one at a time, his grin unwavering. “You’re pretty when you’re mad.”

  “You’re gross when you breathe.”

  I knew I wasn’t exhibiting an abundant amount of maturity, but I was fed up.

  Fed up with love.

  Fed up with Adam.

  Fed up with life.

  He chuckled, pressing his lips to the shell of my ear. I was melting away, drowning in him once again. Suddenly, I had a glimpse of the future. Of all the girls he was going to hook up with at Juilliard. The future Adam, bragging about how he used to grind against his best friend’s baby sister. Even on the day when he fingered another chick on her living room couch.

  Adam whispered, “What if I told you that when my hand was inside Maya’s panties, it wasn’t her I was thinking about?”

  I’d had enough. I did what any self-respecting girl would do.

  I kicked him in the nuts.

  Not playfully, like we used to do when we wrestled. For real. Kneed his balls with everything I had in me, letting out a feral growl. He groaned, folding in two. I didn’t check if he was okay. I flung myself out of my room, slid into my sneakers, and bolted across the street to my best friend Greta’s house.

  It would be the last time I’d see Adam Mackay before he became The Adam Mackay, world-famous superstar.

  The next week, he packed up and drove to New York. He tried calling me, but I didn’t pick up. His texts were promptly deleted before I had the chance to peek at them. And whenever Val told us Adam was coming for a visit, I made sure I had other plans and wasn’t around.

  Adam was a disease I decided to shake at all costs. For the most part, I succeeded.

  And so, the day I fell in love with him was also the day I fell in hate with him.

  In war with him.

  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

  I thought about the movie I never got to finish as I pounded on Greta’s door, panting, tears running down my cheeks.

  If only I could erase the memory of loving Adam Mackay, I’d prevail.

  I’d move on.

  Let my guard down and live a good, fulfilling life.

  Feel the eternal sunshine on my skin, without the burn of the heartache.

  Ten Years Later. Los Angeles.

  FINE, I DIDN’T forget about Adam Mackay, but I did move on.

  Slowly. Cautiously. Like trying to walk underwater in a swimming pool.

  I got accepted to UCLA, and was over the moon to pack a bag and move across the country. It was a great school. Adam was still in New York, and from what I’d heard from Val and my parents, he’d been approached by some off-Broadway productions and was likely going to stay in the Big Apple for a while. A continent between us seemed like a sufficient number of miles.

  I never watched the end of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was something I came to terms with. Almost everything from that night reminded me of Adam. The movie. That flowery couch. I even stopped drinking LaCroix.

  UCLA shaped me like I was moving clay, each spin making me a more defined, clearer version of myself. I majored in filmmaking, found out the magic of boys who weren’t Adam Mackay, and more importantly—boys found out the magic of me.

  My parents and Val watched from the sidelines as my wings finally burst from my back, too big to be contained. I soared. I was involved in great indie projects and found friends and a community in L.A. I even looked like a proper L.A. girl. Put highlights in my already-blonde hair, worked on my tan weekly, and started taking Pilates. No one was surprised when I decided to stay in sunny California after graduation.

  Weeks after I got my undergraduate degree, I started dating Chris.

  Chris was the lead guitarist for a legendary, albeit aging, rock star. He was handsome in a non-threatening way. I never had to knee his balls because I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to kiss or kill him. He didn’t confuse or frustrate me. We always understood when the other person had a lot of work and needed space.

  A year after graduation, I found a job writing dialogue for a soap opera after months of freelancing. The money was solid, my bosses were far from the Hollywood asshole cliché, and I got my foot in the door. The years slipped away like sand in an hourglass, without my even noticing, and I got promoted from dialogue writer to scriptwriter.

  Twenty-six was looking great.

  A nice, stable boyfriend.

  A good job.

  And a horizon sparkling with opportunity.

  So, when I got back home early one day from work to find Chris in bed with someone who definitely wasn’t me, I wasn’t majorly surprised. It just seemed like the universe had snapped its fingers together and remembered, “Eh, Nika Popov of New England couldn’t—and shouldn’t—have it all.”

  I found Chris with the rock star. I guess it made sense.
The rock star—let’s call him Johnny—had been married for a couple decades, and Chris had been his much younger guitarist, whom he’d hired for his world tour weeks after escaping a gay sex tape scandal that had threatened to tear his marriage apart.

  The worst part was it was an intimate moment. Not a torrid, erotic romp, like affairs usually were. Chris was on top of Johnny, missionary style, holding the back of his thighs while drowning in his eyes. It looked intense and real, even a little beautiful, in a twisted, screwed-up way, which was why I spared all of us the dramatic face-off, slid out of the bedroom before they noticed me, grabbed my keys, and darted downstairs. I texted Chris from the stairway.

  Nika: When you’re done pleasuring your boss, could you please text me a good time to pick up my things? By the way, you’re in charge of dealing with the landlord if you want to break the lease. –N.

  I got into my car, which had gotten unbearably hot in the ten seconds I was away, baking under the unforgiving Los Angeles sun, and banged my head against the steering wheel, producing small, frustrated honks that rang through our sleepy Sherman Oak neighborhood.

  What do I do now?

  Surprisingly, I wasn’t hysterical. I was annoyed at the inconvenience, offended by the betrayal, with a dash of exasperated with myself for not figuring it out sooner. All the times Chris couldn’t talk while he was on tour. The times I’d heard Johnny in the background, popping bottles of wine in his hotel room, late at night.

  I could call my parents, but they’d just throw the customary I told you so in my face. They always viewed Los Angeles as plastic, soulless, and thoroughly corrupt. Chris was just a byproduct of the stigma they were so fond of.

  I could call Greta, but she was back home in Boston, trying on wedding gowns, getting ready for her looming nuptials to Nathan. I didn’t want to shit on her parade. That left me with Val. Sweet, reliable Val. I dialed my brother’s number before I had the chance to chicken out, putting him on speaker.

  “Sis?” he answered after the first ring. “How are you?”