Love on the Ledge Read online

  Leti was right, it’s been a while since anyone’s touched me this way. But it’s been even longer since a guy has gone down on me like Hayden. Like he wants to be there. Like he’s savoring my wetness. Like he wants to feel my insides tighten for him.

  I answer all of Hayden’s licks with a moan. When he alternates between licking and sucking, I lift my pelvis up right against his face. He grabs my ass and pulls me closer still. My thighs pulse to the rapid beat of my heart. I arch my back. I pull at his hair. I want to get lost in the moment of Hayden and the sea and sky that surrounds us.

  When I come, it’s like a wave crashing over me. It’s raw and intense and keeps rushing through me until there’s nothing left of me to give and I collapse on the bed.

  Hayden kisses the tingling skin on my hips. He sits up on his knees. He licks his lips. Stares at me as if he’ll devour me again. And I want him to.

  I push my dress back down. I beckon him with my index finger. He lies back and pulls me into the nook. I press my hand on his chest. His heart beats faster than mine.

  I throw a leg over him, and push myself up to kiss him. I can taste myself on him.

  “You’re incredible,” he tells me.

  Whatever I’m about to say is lost as I scream. I jump out of the bed so quickly that I fall off. Hayden reaches out and grabs me just before I go over the side.

  Leti bangs on the window of the bungalow.

  Hayden laughs.

  “Oh, God. What if they saw?” I hiss.

  “Not a chance. We can see them, they can’t see us. I would never put you in that position, Sky. Not when there are so many other positions I’d rather have you in.”

  He kisses me, hard and deep. I know he’s still aroused.

  “I know you guys are in there!” Leti shouts.

  Hayden collapses on top of me. He chuckles. “You should go out first. I need a minute.”

  I kiss him. “Okay. But just a minute.”

  Chapter 22

  Hayden adjusts himself on the ride back to the house. Gary and Leti ended up collecting more seashells than we did. He promises to see Leti that night and goes off in his own car. I know that if I return home without her, we’ll both never hear the end of it.

  “So,” Leti says in the car, “did Sky ask you to the wedding yet?”

  I turn in my seat and smack her.

  Hayden laughs. “Be careful now, ladies. I’m having a hard enough time focusing on the road.”

  Leti bursts into a giddy laugh. “Gary already said yes. I think River will eventually get around to asking Sgt. Pepper. That just leaves the maid of honor.”

  Hayden makes the turn to our house. When we’re on the right side of the lane he turns his gaze back to me.

  “I’m sure if and when Sky wants to take me to the wedding, she will ask me. No pressure though. My tux from Jake and Suzy’s wedding still fits.”

  But when we get to the house and Xandro’s car is still in the driveway, Hayden’s beautiful smile falls.

  Leti gets out of the car first and takes the seashells with her. I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn to him, readying myself for a goodbye kiss.

  “Thanks for today.”

  He nods. “No need to thank me.”

  I should tell him that today was amazing, that I haven’t felt that way in so long. But all he does is glare at Xandro’s car.

  “Where did you go, Hayden?” I try to use his words back on him. I trace my finger along his jaw. Turn his face so he sees only me.

  Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to say.

  “Do you want to go to the beach tomorrow?” I ask.

  “I’ll be here actually,” he says. “Gazebo time.”

  “Then I’ll wait. We can get dinner or something.”

  It’s like something switched in his brain between our blissful moments on the beach and now.

  “Maybe, Sky. I just—” He looks down at his lap, at Xandro’s car, at me. “That guy’s still in your house.”

  “Hayden, it’s not my house. I have no control of who my family invites over.”

  “Look, I’ve been in this situation before, and in the end, I’m the one who loses.”

  “What are you losing, Hayden? There’s nothing to lose. Xandro is just—” I hesitate.

  “He’s the guy your mother would rather see you with. I’m the guy who put a hole in your uncle’s roof.”

  It hurts to hear those words coming from him. Hayden is beautiful from the inside out and I want everyone to see that.

  Xandro’s the guy my family is pushing on me because they don’t trust my judgment. Because they don’t think I’m capable of finding someone who will fit their laundry list. But I am. I think I have.

  “He’s nobody.”

  “I’m sorry.” He grips the wheel and shakes his head. “You don’t owe me an explanation. I’ve gotta go.”

  The abruptness of it leaves me speechless. There are no kisses or longing stares. There’s just a goodbye, the rev of his engine, and his taillights turning on my street.

  • • •

  In the house, Leti jumps in front of me and starts to push me back out the door.

  “Abort, abort, abort. Turn around.”

  I grab my keys and start to head back out but my mother rushes from the living room.

  “Sky, get in here.”

  My emotional roller coaster is killing me. I just want to crawl into my bed and try to figure out what just happened with Hayden. How did we go from the best oral sex of my life to awkward jealousy?

  “What?” I stand at the doorway to the living room where my younger cousins are piled up on top of each other watching a movie.

  “Sky,” my mom says, pulling me into a corner. “What took you so long?”

  I turn away from her and she follows me into the kitchen. I’m red with anger. Red with the thrill that comes with the memory of Hayden’s mouth between my legs.

  “I already told you.”

  “Xandro’s been waiting here to take you out.”

  “Ma, I don’t want to go out with him. I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice person, but it’s not going to happen. Please, please respect my wishes.”

  My mom crosses her arms. Her frown deepens. When I told Hayden that my mom hasn’t smiled in a long time, I wasn’t exaggerating. Maybe that’s why she manages to look so young and wrinkle-free.

  I can see bodies shift in the doorway of the kitchen where half of my family is eavesdropping.

  “You’re not thinking straight, nena. You’re not thinking about your future. You’ve spent the last three months lazing around the house. Now you’re doing God knows what with that boy.”

  “That boy? Do you mean Hayden?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Sky.”

  Don’t be an idiot, Sky. Don’t be stupid, Sky. Don’t let your past shit on your present, Sky. My head throbs with a serious headache.

  “I can’t deal with this right now.” I turn to walk past her, but she doesn’t budge.

  “When are you going to decide to get your life together? You quit your job. You haven’t even tried to look for a new one.”

  “Is this about me not wanting to date Xandro, or me not trying to find a new job?”

  “It’s all of it. I didn’t come to this country to have you end up with nothing.”

  There is it. The first generation pressure. My mother had to work on assembly lines, in dirty kitchens, and cleaning filthy homes to put food on the table. I got to go to school so that I would never have to have that life. I have to have a job that pays well. That is until I find a husband that makes even more money than I do.

  I get to have my whole life planned out for me because she didn’t come to this country so I could squander my opportunities. It’s too much pressure.

  “Stop!” I shout. I’ve never shouted at my mother. Not even when I thought I’d burst at the seams from being so angry. “Stop trying to fix me, Ma. I’m not broken. There is nothing wrong with my choices. This is my life, my life, not
yours.”

  She stands so still, I want to shake her to make sure she’s okay. She looks small and sad and on any other day I would wrap my arms around her and tell her to stop worrying about me. But this goes beyond worry.

  Finally, my family stops pretending not to eavesdrop and they all stand at the doorway. Some of them stare at me with looks that say, “Damn, girl, you in trouble.” Then there’s Maria’s face that tells me how much she disapproves of my tone.

  Let them disapprove.

  “What are you guys looking at?” I snap.

  Yunior and Elena do the smart thing and walk away.

  “Isn’t it enough that you’re ruining your own life?” Maria asks. “Now you have to drag the wedding through it?”

  “What do you mean?” my mom asks.

  My heart seizes. Maria’s eyes are trained on me as she says, “Tell them, Sky. Tell everyone how there’s no caterer or DJ. God knows what else is wrong. She’s been keeping it all to herself. Don’t you dare lie. I heard you and Leti.”

  “I bet that made you real happy didn’t it?” I ask. I knew I heard someone outside my door.

  “What am I going to do with you?” my mom asks, like I’m a lost cause.

  “Maybe for once, you’re all going to leave me alone.”

  Xandro stands at the front of them all. “Sky, I think you should apologize to your mother.”

  I laugh. Leti comes forward as if to hold me back. Do I look that far gone? When did my summer of reflection become my summer of judgment?

  “It’s a good thing I give zero fucks about what you think.”

  Las Viejas gasp so hard, I think they’ve collectively absorbed all of the oxygen in the room. Even Aunt Salomé crosses herself, and Grandma Gloria shakes her head at me. I think this is the very first time they’ve looked at me this way.

  I grab a set of car keys from the door and turn around. For the first time in my life, I’m going to turn my back on my family, and on some level it’s liberating. On another level, I feel like I’ve started to cross a line from which I might not come back.

  Chapter 23

  “Was I wrong?” I ask Leti.

  We huddle in the dimly lit crowded bar off Montauk Highway. On the outside it looks like a shack that’s about to fall down. On the inside, well, it still looks about the same. But it’s the only true dive bar around that isn’t infiltrated with summer tourists.

  Harleys line the front like a barricade. It’s not the most welcoming bar, but the bartender doesn’t ask questions or fake a smile. She slams beers in front of you and throws a bag of salt and vinegar chips in your direction.

  “I’ve never seen you so mad,” Leti says. “You’re usually the good one.”

  “It’s just too much. They’re shoving Xandro in my face. And then Maria. Why is she so—and why is he so—”

  “I know,” Leti says. “I should throttle one and you throttle the other.”

  “Now Pepe and Tony are going to know that I fucked up.”

  Leti tilts her head back and drinks deeply. “Yeah, and they’re still going to love you. There is nothing you can do that’ll make that change. Even if you set the place on fire.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t go back. Not until I fix it.”

  “We’ve been trying to fix it. Me, you, and River. What do you call that?”

  I laugh. “The Lost Girls. We’re like a girl grunge band.”

  “We’re more than that.”

  “I know we are. But I’ve been so wrapped up in my own mess lately, that I’ve put the wedding stuff on the backburner.”

  Leti smiles, and the hanging bulb over her head makes the gold star on her tooth shine. “It’s okay that you have a life.”

  “Leti, tell me the truth. Do you think I’m making a mistake taking so much time from work?”

  She drinks her beer and gets a layer of foam on her upper lip.

  “I think that you need to do whatever you need to do to get your head sorted out.”

  “That’s not what Maria thinks.”

  “She’s a hypocrite. Virgin my ass.”

  We cheers to that.

  “Look,” she says. “Everything is going to blow over. Xandro is going to go back to Miami or join a boy band or whatever he wants to do with himself. You’re going to apply somewhere. We’re going to get Pepe and Tony married with the best wedding they’ll ever have, because we might fuck up along the way, but we always come through. And you’re going to tell me what you and Hayden were doing in that cozy little beach box.”

  She wiggles her eyebrows and shakes her double Ds.

  I tell her exactly what Hayden and I did. She fans herself when I get to the part of the earth-shattering orgasm.

  “Bradley never made me come when he went down on me. He’d close his eyes and lick everything except for my clit for ten minutes, then he’d go to town.”

  “If I ever see that guy again…” she says.

  I shush her. “You’re going to Bloody Mary him into existence.”

  I don’t tell her that he’s called me a dozen times in the past few weeks.

  “With Hayden it was amazing. I always thought I had to be, you know, in love with someone to have that kind of feeling. But I was in love with, you know who, and on the occasions I came, I thought that’s as good as it got.”

  “My sweet, sexually-deprived girl.”

  “I’ve only had sex with three guys. There was Sir-Humps-A-Lot Smith, Jack-Rabbit-Jeff, and Bradley…”

  “Well, if and when you make sweet, sweet love with Hayden, I hope he’s better than expected.”

  “That fucking sucks, you know. Sex should be better for women. It’s like guys get in there as quickly as they can and get out. They don’t care if you climax or even feel good.”

  The barmaid, who’s been cleaning her glass during our entire conversation, smirks at me. She refills my beer without even asking and I take it gratefully.

  “Honey,” she says, tossing her 1980s blonde mane over her shoulder. “If you wait for a man to please you, you’d best be ready to wait for a long time.”

  An old biker beside us thumbs in the bartender’s direction. “Mad’s got a point. My old lady uses me like a walking talking dildo, and I lie there and take it.”

  Then he goes back to his whiskey and television.

  I giggle into my beer. “I’m going to do it. With Hayden, I mean.”

  Leti slaps me on my back so hard that I choke on my beer a little. “Atta girl.”

  “Thing is, I think Hayden’s mad at me.”

  Leti looks confused. “How can he be mad when he got to touch your mostly pristine kitty cat?”

  “Leti!” She knows I hate when she calls it a kitty. It’s so weird.

  “When he saw Xandro’s car, he just shut down. It was the weirdest thing.”

  Leti rolls her eyes. “I hate when guys get jealous. It’s not his fault that we’re fucking hot and everyone wants a piece of this.”

  “Bradley was never jealous,” I say. Mad places another beer in front of me. Each frothy sip melts away my tension and dissolves the angry knots in my chest.

  Leti smacks me on the head. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “What?”

  “You’re comparing the most promising guy you’ve met this summer to the creep who cheated on you.”

  I stare at the amber liquid in my tall glass. “That’s what you do, right?”

  “That’s what you do when you’re not over someone.”

  “I am.”

  Leti shrugs. “Tell yourself that until you believe it, because that’s a kind of heartache you don’t want again, baby girl.”

  All of this revolves around my heart. Is it still broken? The day I found out Bradley was cheating on me was at a nightclub. He’d been gone for so long that I went to go get him. Then I saw him coming out of a stairwell with his arm around her waist, and everything inside of me shattered all at once. I ran, and he didn’t chase after me. Not until the next day when he
was sober.

  “You know when you know that your relationship is over but part of you is still holding on?”

  Leti shakes her head. She’s never had a long-term relationship. She’s never wanted to. It’s hard to run across the globe when you’ve got your heart anchored to a person who doesn’t want to join you.

  “Well, that’s what it was like. I was trying to hold on because I didn’t know what it would mean if I let go. I don’t want Bradley back. Not even a little bit. But I want what he took from me. He took my love.”

  I burp, loud and long. A cute guy at the other end of the bar looks at me like he can’t believe that just came from me. I shrug. What do I care?

  “Don’t say that,” Leti says. “No one can take your love away. That’s yours, wholly and truly yours. Fuck Bradley. Fuck Xandro. Fuck anyone who thinks they can have a piece of you without earning it first.”

  “You’re right. You have to earn love.”

  “Why can’t we have relationships like Pepe and Tony? They’re perfect. What do they do differently than we do?”

  I snort beer. “They’re gay?”

  “They’re honest.”

  “They accept their crazy.”

  “They love each other.”

  “They don’t try to upstage one another.”

  “Yeah,” Leti says. “I hate when guys are like, ‘Look at all my gold and rubies. Be blinded and impressed.’”

  I laugh. “I should call Hayden.”

  “Listen, I like him for you. He’s a cool dude. But if he starts pulling that jealous crap you need to get out of there.”

  “I love you,” I tell her.

  “I love you.”

  Leti has earned my love. From the moment she beat up the girls who tormented me in school, to the time she explained to me that I was not dying, I was just getting my period, Leti has been more than family. She’s my soul sister.

  She’s family, and even if she wasn’t blood, I would still choose her. Like River.

  River, who stumbles out of an unmarked door in the back corner of the bar.

  I blink hard to make sure that it’s her. That I’m not just drunk hallucinating the people that I love.