He looks back at me, and then turns fully around, dust settling around his riding boots.
“Sometimes, we take pleasure in whatever we can. Nobody knows how much time they have left, Marnye. Either of us could fall off one of these horses and die today. Who says Charlie has less time left than anyone else? Let the man read his ending, and don’t let yourself fall victim to pity. He doesn’t want that from you.”
“How do you know that?” I snap back at him, raking my fingers through my rose-gold hair. It’s a bit longer now, and it’s starting to curl like Windsor’s does, right on the top.
“Because he loves you. Pity does nothing for the one being pitied. It’s an empathetic agony to the one doing the pitying. Now, come and see what I’ve got for you.” Wind turns around as my cheeks flush, and I exhale, following after him and finding a beautiful … rose-gold horse in the barn.
“Is this a horse to match the Maserati, Windsor? Because if it is, then I’m declining.”
He laughs at me, and strokes the nose of the beautiful animal as it lifts its head over the edge of the stall door to look at us with big, trusting brown eyes.
“No, I’m afraid it’s not. This is my mother’s mare. Her coloring is called amber champagne, but I thought you might like her.” He pats the horse, and then leads her out of the stall and outside where his own shiny black horse from yesterday is waiting.
There’s a set of steps for me to use to get on the horse’s back, the smell of the leather saddle in the hot sun reminding me of Windsor’s own leather polish and daffodil scent. He walks me around the paddock for a while and we start our lessons. Once I’ve figured out how to actually ride the damn thing without falling off, we go for a short trot around the property, sun streaming across our backs.
We get back to the house in time for lunch, and I find that my thighs are unbelievably sore.
“Happens to all first-time riders,” Wind tells me cheerily (and maybe with a touch of perv, too), letting my dad win at checkers. I take notice of that because I know for a fact that he hates to lose. Despises it. It brings out that awful darkness inside of him.
“Thanks for telling me that now,” I grumble, but it’s hard to stay mad when I’ve got an entire winery to myself, including a pool and hot tub in the back. It’s a ‘natural’ pool meaning there’s foliage around the edges, rock formations, and even waterfalls. It almost looks like part of the landscape.
Dad, Wind, and I spend most of the afternoon in the water and then use up the rest of the evening watching movies in the garden house.
It’s not until the next morning that everyone else shows up.
Zack is the first to get there, parking his orange sportscar in the small dirt courtyard between the two houses and lifting his shades up to examine the guesthouse.
“You led me to believe this was a shack,” he says when Windsor pauses next to the car and folds his arms over his chest. Zack gets a frisking like everybody else from one of the security guards before his car is valeted away to a spot up the hill, out of sight and out of mind.
“Isn’t that the damnedest thing?” Windsor asks, shrugging his shoulders. He pauses at the sound of Alexandra’s voice and then sighs. “Excuse me a moment.” As he passes me by, Wind teases his fingers along my bare arm, and I shiver.
Zack notices, his dark eyes taking me in appreciatively. I’ve got on a short yellow sundress with a sweetheart neckline. It’s made of a soft jersey fabric, and it’s beyond comfy. My only issue with it is that it’s a bit short when the wind blows.
“Hey,” he says, and the rough grumble of his voice makes it seem ten degrees hotter out than it is. “I missed you.”
“Did you?” I quip, and his full, lush mouth curves into a smile. I’ve forgiven him for the Jalen incident. We all make mistakes, surely. But … I can’t stop thinking about what he said, about his father and grandfather. They want him with someone who has better breeding, more money. Surely I’m none of those things. And Zack and I, we have a tumultuous history. Yet when I look up at him and into his brown eyes, I feel like a woman who’s wrangled herself a bear. He has teeth, but they’re not for biting me.
“I told you, Marnye, I love you.” He says it so plainly that I can’t help but blush. It’s just sitting there between us, this big statement of emotion. He’s the only one that’s said it to me outright like that. The only one. Zayd came close, but then he followed it up with yeah, pretty much and sort of blew the moment.
We don’t get a chance to carry the conversation any further because another car is on its way up the driveway, a blue Jaguar convertible with the top rolled down and Zayd’s tattooed arm waving at us from inside. He parks, and gets what I’d really consider a triple frisking before security is satisfied.
“They just profiled me,” he grumbles, but then, he’s a straight, white male so lucky him if this is the first time that’s ever happened. Zayd flashes a grin and looks around the place, whistling under his breath. “This looks like some serious postcard shit.” He pauses and glances down at me, his hair still colored with that gorgeous sea green. I may or may not have asked him to leave it that color for the time being … “Hey, did you and Wind fuck yet?” he asks, and the blatant way he stares into my eyes with his emerald green ones makes me choke.
“Seriously, Kaiser?” Zack scowls, but Zayd ignores him, putting his hands on his hips.
“I’m just saying, it’ll be kind of hard to pick between us unless you’ve fucked us all. Chemistry is a huge part of like, love and all that romantic shit.” He lights up a cigarette as Zack scowls, and I try to remember how to form actual words with my mouth.
“You want me to fuck Windsor and Tristan?” I ask, and both boys exchange a look before glancing over at me.
“You haven’t fucked Tristan yet?” Zayd clarifies, and I give him a look.
“I’ve been honest with you guys every step of the way, whether it’s just kissing or … something more. Don’t you think I’d have told if you that’d happened yet?”
“Holy hell in a handbasket,” Zayd murmurs, taking a drag on the cigarette. It smells like cloves, and I frown. Sure, it smells good, compared to a normal cigarette, but those things are twice as bad. I want him to quit. Maybe, if I picked him, that’d be the first thing I asked … But then I remember that I picked Zayd once before, and I didn’t like the way it felt. Not that picking him felt wrong, but that not picking Creed and Tristan made me squirm. “The only three girls Tristan ever spent time with that he didn’t fuck are …” Zayd holds up a tattooed hand and ticks off fingers. “Miranda, Harper, and Lizzie. The first because, you know, there’s the whole gay thing. The second, because he’s hated her fucking guts since, like, kindergarten, and the third—”
“Wait, what?” I ask, as Zayd turns his green eyes over to me.
“Wait, what, what?” he asks, raising his dark brows.
“Lizzie and Tristan never …” Zayd snorts and shakes his head.
“Nope. Never. I think … he liked her too much, maybe?”
A cold wave of jealousy rolls over me, and I have to count my breaths to get in control of my emotions again. I’m having an irrational reaction to that news. Shouldn’t I be happy that they’ve never slept together? But yet … Zayd is right.
My heart pounds as my mind replays Tristan’s words over and over again. “Because I use sex like a weapon. I won't wield it against you.” I’m not sure if I’m relieved that he didn’t sleep with Lizzie … or terrified.
“Come on, Charity, don’t stress,” Zayd says, ashing his cigarette and flicking it expertly into an empty metal bucket near the door. He scoops me up in his arms, the smell of sage and tobacco wafting around me. “If Tristan’s too stupid to take you seriously, then dump him.” He gestures to the side with his chin. “I’ve got something for you in my pocket.”
I reach down and accidentally cup his ass while I’m looking for the pocket opening, and Zayd whistles.
“It was an accident,” I sputter, but he gives me this panty-melting look with half-lidded eyes and a sideways smirk.
“Sure it was. But hey, consent is sexy, and I consent all the fucking way for you to grab my ass.” I roll my eyes at him, and pull out the piece of paper, unfolding it and quickly scanning over the words. It’s his test results, just like Zack’s. “Zayd and Tristan heard me talking about having tests done, and they fucking copied me.” I remember hearing him say that, and I smile.
Happily, Zayd Kaiser is very much clean and healthy.
“Thank you, Zayd,” I say honestly, and then laugh as he carries me into the house and kisses me smack on the lips. Of course, Dad just happens to be standing there when he does it, right next to Windsor.
“Marnye Elizabeth,” he breathes, his face a mask of horror. Because of Jennifer, I know how he feels about cheating, so I push away from Zayd and make him set me on my feet, so I can explain.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I breathe as Zack comes to a stop behind me. I’ve got both palms up in defense. “Dad, I wouldn’t … you know how I feel about cheaters.”
“You and Windsor broke up?” he asks, glancing over at the prince. Wind raises one brow and looks back at Charlie before turning to me with a slight smile. He can’t wait to hear me fumble my way through this one.
Okay, Marnye, you’ve got this. Dad is sick, but he’s not stupid. You can trust him with this.
“Don’t be afraid,” Andrew says, appearing next to me with his chestnut hair buzzed short, a white polo shirt on over a pair of light colored jeans. He smiles at me, and I feel suddenly so much better to have a friend around who I’m not romantically involved with. He leans in close and whispers in my ear. “If I can tell my parents that I’m gay, you can so do this. It’s easy; you got this.”