I’d taken three tank tops, my swimsuit, a dress, a pair of jeans, and the shorts I’d worn on the plane. I’d expected to stay a weekend. Instead, I’d stayed the entire summer.
At the time, Jahn was living primarily in his waterfront house in Kenilworth, a jaw-droppingly affluent Chicago suburb. For two solid weeks, I’d done nothing but sit under the gazebo and stare out at Lake Michigan. Not my usual M.O.—during past visits, I’d taken out the Jet Ski or skateboarded in the street or taken off on a borrowed bike down Sheridan Road with Flynn, the boy I would later fuck who lived two doors down and had as much of a wild streak as I did. When I was twelve, I’d even rigged a zip line from the attic bedroom all the way to the far side of the pool, and I’d eagerly tested it out, much to the consternation of my mother who had screamed and cursed once she saw me whipping through the air to land, cannonball style, in the water.
Grace had squealed at me from her chaise lounge throne, accusing me of ruining her hardback copy of Pride and Prejudice. My mother had ordered me to spend the rest of the day in my room. And Uncle Jahn had remained completely silent, but as I passed him, I thought I saw the twinkle of amusement in his eyes, along with something that might have been respect.
I saw none of that the summer of my sixteenth year. Instead, all I saw was worry.
“We all miss her,” he said to me one afternoon. “But you can’t mourn forever. She wouldn’t want you to. Take the bike. Go into the village. Go to the park. Drag Flynn to a movie.” He cupped my chin and tilted my face up to look at him. “I lost one niece, Lina. Not two.”
“Angie,” I corrected, making up my mind right then and there to kick Lina soundly to the curb. Lina was the girl I used to be. The one who’d always felt larger than life, and who’d needed to feel the rush of the world around her all the time. Who’d been too alive to be calm or careful. Who’d been a damn stupid fool who smoked cigarettes behind the school and snuck out to dance clubs. A little idiot who made out with boys because she wanted the thrill, and who rode on the back of their motorcycles for the exact same reason. Lina was the girl who’d almost been suspended from high school just one week into her freshman year.
And Lina was the reason that my sister was dead.
I’d lived in Lina’s skin all my life, but I didn’t want to be that girl anymore.
“Angie,” I repeated, firmly cementing the first brick of the wall I was building around myself. Then I’d stood up and gone inside.
Uncle Jahn hadn’t bothered me for the rest of that day or the next, though I knew he was worried and confused. When Saturday morning came, he told me that he was having some students from the graduate-level finance seminar he taught as an adjunct over for burgers by the pool, and I was welcome to join them. My call.
I’m not sure what compelled me to emerge from the dark cave of my room that afternoon, all I know is that I came down in my ratty cutoffs with Uncle Jahn’s ancient Rolling Stones T-shirt over my bikini top. I thought I’d stay for an hour. Have a burger. Remind myself not to sneak a beer, because that was the kind of thing Lina would do, not Angie.
But when I actually got down to the pool deck, all thoughts of beer and burgers evaporated, replaced by pure, decadent, desperate lust. And not the teenage crush kind, either. No, I saw Evan Black shirtless and in swim trunks that clung in a way that made my sixteen-year-old hormones light up. His wet hair was swept back from his face, and he was brandishing a metal spatula as he stood by the grill, laughing with two other guys, who I later learned were his best friends, Cole August and Tyler Sharp.
All three seemed younger than the other four students who also populated the lush backyard. I later learned that I was right. The others were in their last year of grad school, whereas Evan was still an undergrad who’d been given special dispensation to take the class. And Tyler and Cole weren’t even enrolled at Northwestern. Tyler was a freshman at Loyola. Cole was a year older than Tyler, and had just come back from some sort of art internship in Rome. They’d come with Evan who, along with the others, made up the whole of that summer’s seminar class in finance.
Together, Cole, Tyler, and Evan were a smorgasbord of hotness that even my reasonably inexperienced eyes were more than capable of appreciating. But Evan was the only one that I wanted to take a bite out of.
I heard my uncle call my name, and the three of them turned to look in my direction. I stopped breathing as Evan’s gaze swept toward me, his expression never changing as he looked me over and then, oh-so casually, went back to flipping burgers.
I’m not sure what sort of movie I’d had running subliminally in my head. Something wild and romantic, I guess, because the moment he turned away, I felt a hot wave of disappointment wash over me. And that, of course, was immediately replaced by mortification. Could he tell what I was thinking? Was he going to think of me now as Jahn’s gawkish niece? The one with the schoolgirl crush?
Holy crap, the idea was horrifying.
“Hey, Angie,” Jahn called, his words jerking my posture straight as effectively as a string pulling a marionette. “You joining us for burgers?”
“I—” My words had stuck in my throat, and I knew I couldn’t stay there. I needed space. Hell, I needed air. “I—I think I’m coming down with something.” I blurted the words, then turned and ran back into the house, certain that my burning cheeks were a fire hazard.
I tried to concentrate on television. On a book. On screwing around on the Internet. But nothing held my attention. My mind was too full of Evan, and in the end I went to bed early. Not because I was truly sick, but because I wanted the pleasure of the dark. The thrill of sliding my hand down my belly and under the band of my underwear, then touching myself with my eyes closed as I imagined that it was Evan’s fingers upon me. His fingers, his tongue, every decadent inch of him.
It was a bedtime fantasy that became a personal favorite, and one I repeated many nights over the next few years. Fortunately, I didn’t repeat the squealing and running like a twit every time Evan came around. Fortunate because Jahn took a fatherly liking to them, and those three guys became a fixture at the house. And since I wasn’t inclined to spend my summer hiding inside, I began to venture out. By August, I thought of Tyler and Cole like big brothers. As for Evan—no way would I ever feel brotherly toward him, but at least I could carry on a conversation without imagining his lips on mine.