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“He treated you like a servant. A dishonest servant. No one needs a job that much.”
Though he’s been working hard, sweat dampening his hair, grass sticking to his knees, a smudge of dirt across his forehead, where he must have brushed his hair away, he still looks so good. All the anger I couldn’t show Henry floods in with a boiling rush.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Cass. I do. I do and so does pretty much everyone who works on Seashell. Including whatever island guy lost out on the yard boy job because your daddy bought it for you to teach you some Life Lesson.”
He glares at me. “Let’s leave my dad out of this. This is you. I can’t believe you just sat there and took that crap from him.”
“You haven’t been on the island very long. Don’t quite know your place yet. Taking crap is what we do here, Jose.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Lots of entitlement. Got it. But it’s not what you do. I can’t claim to know you”—he pauses, has the grace to turn red, then forges on—“but I know you don’t put up with crap. That made me sick.”
“Maybe you should take your break now and lie down. I’m sure it’ll pass.”
“Dammit, Gwen!” Cass starts, but then Mrs. Ellington is at the screen door, making her slow way onto the porch with her cane, tap, slow tap, tap. Her eyebrows are raised.
“Is there a problem, dear boy? You look overheated.”
Cass shoves his hair back again—leaving a bigger smudge of dirt, sighs. “It’s nothing.” Pause. “Ma’am.”
Mrs. E. studies us, the faintest of smiles on her face. But in the end, all she says is, “Henry really did mean it when he said he could only stay for a few minutes. He’s already rushed off. Poor dear. I would love some iced tea, Gwen. Why don’t you get some for—” She pauses.
“Jose,” I say, just as Cass reminds her of his actual name.
“Maybe Jose should carry around his own water bottle,” I add, “like the rest of the maintenance crew. Then he wouldn’t need waiting on.”
“Jose dumped his water bottle on his head about two hours ago—it’s ninety-five today, no sea breeze, in case you hadn’t noticed, Maria.”
Mrs. E. has settled herself on the glider where Henry had been only a few minutes ago, regarding us, head cocked, the smile broader now. Her eyes are bright with interest. My nerves are still buzzing. At Henry—even though he’s just looking out for his mother. At Mrs. E., watching us like characters in a soap opera. At Cass, with his pink shirt and his attitude. At some random guy who zooms by on a Jet Ski, its buzz-saw sound cutting through the lap of the water. While I’m at it, at Nic, who ate the last of the Cap’n Crunch last night, which resulted in an early morning Emory meltdown, which could be soothed only by Dora the Explorer, definitely the most irritating cartoon character on the planet.
“All men need to be waited on,” Mrs. Ellington cuts into my thoughts. “Helpless creatures, the lot of them.”
“Nah, we have our uses,” Cass says. All the heat evaporates from his voice when he speaks with her. “Killing spiders, opening stuck jar lids—”
Caught between wanting to punch him and just laughing, I roll my eyes to heaven. I hate the way he flips the charm on—that he knows, damn well, just how effective it is.
“—starting u
She gives her deep belly laugh. “Warming our bed at night. I do miss that. The captain was like a blast furnace.”
Cass’s eyes widen a little, but he says only, “I can get the iced tea myself. If that’s okay with you, ma’am.”
“Certainly not—Gwen, please get him some tea, and some for the two of us, of course.”
I stomp into the kitchen and throw ice cubes into glasses as if tossing grenades. Which reminds me of Dad rattling pans at Castle’s when he’s pissed off. A thought that makes me even more angry because I seem to be headed steadily down that highway of rage with no exit ramps.
“She said I should come help you slice the lemons.”
Cass is standing in the doorway, one elbow braced against the jamb. Considering how ticked he was only a few minutes ago, he looks entirely too calm and sure of himself.
“Oh? That another useful man-skill? Opening jars, slaying lobsters, slicing lemons. Well, thank God for the Y chromosome then, because we helpless womenfolk would surely perish without you.”
The corner of Cass’s mouth quirks up. “Technically, yeah, you would. That’s co
The last thing I want in my thoughts or my memories or my mind in any way at this moment is any association whatsoever with Cass’s bed. Of course, that means it’s right there, like a photograph. His bed, broad, dark wood dolphins carved into the four corners—those old-fashioned dolphins that look less like Flipper and more like gargoyles, riding smiling on the waves that curve to make up the top and the sides of the bed.
The heat of anger seems to be slipping into another feeling altogether. I’m flushing and trying to will that away. I look out the window over the kitchen sink, up at the faint water stain that looks like a beagle above the refrigerator, anywhere but at him. The deep blue eyes that are locked on my face. His faint smell of warm dirt and grass and salt and his sticky T-shirt.
“Why pink?”
“Huh?” He blinks.
“Your shirt. Why is it pink? Is that some ‘I’m comfortable with my masculinity’ a
“No statement. Unless my statement is that washing a red towel with your white shirts and your boxers and bleach is a dumbass move.” Cass’s eyes drop to my lips, and then take their own tour of Anywhere Else in the Room—down at the floor, out the side window as Marco speeds by, clanking garbage cans in the back of the truck, at the laminated sheet of hurricane prep instructions stuck to the side of the refrigerator.
Then back to my lips.
Now I’m just looking back at him, and the air in the kitchen is still and close. Ninety-five and no breeze. And the humidity has to be high today, because I can feel a trickle of sweat edge down between my shoulder blades down the line of my spine and I wonder if a hurricane might actually be coming, because the air has that kind of flat charged feel and what am I, a meteorologist?
My fingers twitch to reach over and brush the dirt and a lone blade of grass off his forehead. I can practically feel the heat and the dampness of his skin. I can’t read his face or his eyes, but I’m searching them. Cass takes a deep breath, wipes his upper lip with the back of his hand, his gaze steady on me.
“I’m positively parched!” Mrs. Ellington calls. “If I don’t have my tea soon, you shall return to find nothing but my desiccated bones lying out here.”
“That would certainly piss off Henry Ellington.” I hurry over to the fridge, pulling out a lemon and practically lob it at Cass, who catches it without even looking at it, still studying me. Unreadable but intent.
Chapter Fourteen
I’m lying on my bed, staring at the slow beat of the ceiling fan, which makes loud whooshing and clattering sounds but never seems to do anything for the temperature. Mom and I call it “placebo fan.”
My thoughts flick around.
Do I really want this job? Between Henry and the bathing suit and The Sultan?
Don’t think about that. You need this job.
And Cass. That look.
I roll over, trying to find a cool spot in my narrow bed.
Spence. Alex. Swim team tradition.
Mom counting out the money and Grandpa being a little more stooped and Emory . . .
Whatever’s going on between Dad and Nic.
Viv and Nic.
I’m itchy and jangly, so tired of watching the numbers on the clock shift that, no matter how late it is, I can’t just lie there anymore.