“Good morning boys. And best friend.” Emily said, walking into the Masons’ kitchen, where all of us were sitting around the island in the middle of the room. She grabbed and apple from the bowl of fruit and took the stool next to me.
“Are your parents ever home?” I asked Haven, who was sitting across from me.
“No not really. They work a lot.”
“Too bad it’s not just the two of us, we could have used that to our advantage.” I winked at her and she groaned.
“Really Ryan? It’s way too early for this.” She said, but I just smirked. It was hard letting go of my feelings for Haven. I had really liked her. But the incident with that ex boyfriend of hers just proved how deep Aaron’s feelings for her really were, and I would never risk my relationship with my brother over a girl, even if that girl was Haven. But hey, didn’t mean I couldn’t tease her anymore. I don’t think I could ever give that up.
“You know what I just realized?” Haven asked, staring at the beach through the open French doors in the back of the kitchen.
“What?” Danny asked.
“We have been here six days already and we haven’t gone to the beach once.” Haven had a point, and I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to see Haven and Emily in swimsuits.
“You’re right. We should definitely go.” Aaron shot me a look but it just made my smirk grow.
The two girls ran upstairs to Haven’s room to change. It was no surprise to me that Emily kept clothes over here; she practically lived at Haven’s house from what I could tell. We changed a lot faster than the girls, and even after we got back to the kitchen, we still had to wait five minutes for them to come back downstairs. To my dismay, Haven was wearing a jacket over her swimsuit. Emily however, was not. I took a moment to admire her bikini before we all went outside. It was a bright blue color, and over all it fit her quite nicely.
“Ryan, stop staring at me.” Emily spun me around by my shoulders and pushed me towards the back door. She was a lot stronger than she seemed. I heard Danny laugh at me being controlled by a girl, so I made a point to hit him as I walked by. We were such a violent family.
Oh god, how I had missed beaches. Yeah New York had them, but they were nothing compared to California beaches. You can’t really have a beach without palm trees, and there are definitely not any palm trees in New York. Really, being the southern gentleman I am, I preferred Florida beaches over anything, but this would do.
“I’ll race you into the water.” I challenged my big brother. Aaron just laughed. He thought he would win. Hell he usually would, if we didn’t have to pretend to be slow for Emily’s sake.
“Oh I’m in!” Haven exclaimed, coming over to stand next to the two of us. Emily followed close behind her. Great, not only did we need to pretend to be as slow as humans, but now we needed to pretend to be slow enough for girl humans. Just like that all of the fun got sucked out of my racing plan. Although, I couldn’t deny I was looking forward to watching Haven and Emily run in their bikinis…I stopped myself right there. I think Haven did have a point. I was much too perverted. At least for this early in the morning. I made a mental note to try to tone it down a little bit.
“Alright, on your marks.” We all got in line, and Haven through down her hoodie onto the sandy beach.
“Get set.” We all took our stances, ready to run into the cool ocean water.
“G- Wait!” There was that awkward moment where everyone started to run, but then stopped, realizing that something had gone wrong. We all looked at Emily, who had been the one who stopped the race. What could possibly be so important that it couldn’t wait two minutes? I sighed in frusteration, the water looked better and better by the moment.
I turned to Emily in annoyance, but it all disappeared as soon as I got a look at her face. I couldn’t recognize the emotion on it. Her expression looked like a mixture of fear, anger, sadness and shock all rolled up into one depressing little emotion. But no one could figure out the cause of it.
“What is it, Em?” Haven asked, looking at her best friend curiously.
“How can you even ask that?” Emily asked, her voice coming across as hurt. Haven just looked more confounded.
“What do you mean…?
“What the hell happened to you, Haven?” Emily demanded. Yep, the poor girl had definitely gone off her rocker.
“Nothing?” Haven asked.
“Don’t give me that. You’re back is definitely not nothing.” Realization his all of us at the same time. We had forgotten about the scars on Haven’s back. They were not the kind of scars that were possible to hide, and they were definitely not the type of scars you could pass off as a cat scratch or a slipped knife. Haven hadn’t had to hide them since she got the awful things, so of course she had had no reason to think about hiding them now. We were so stupid. This slip up could ruin everything. I hoped Haven was good at lying, I don’t think Emily would go for the ‘bigfoot attacked me’ excuse.
“My mom didn’t tell you?” Haven asked incredulously. “I had thought she would after it happened.”
“Tell me what?” Emily asked, her eyes narrow.
“Well apparently the forest surrounding the school is inhabited by a population of black bears. Aaron and I had the unfortune of finding that out on a hike. We had found the cubs first, and before we could get away the mom came back. She was not happy. I was lucky that I just got away with these. It was a miracle that Aaron was there. Actually, the whole thing was kinda like the incident with Matt…” Haven’s voice was totally cool as she portrayed the made-up story, and nothing about her gave away the lie. Damn, she was a good liar. I had never felt so proud of her in my life. But would it be enough for Emily to believe?
She seemed to accept the story, but I didn’t think she fully believed it. She was too smart to just accept it and move on. I just hoped it wouldn’t become a problem for us later.
“You know, I’m thinking about just keeping you here, Haven. I’m pretty sure I can protect you better than these three idiots.” Emily said, finally breaking the tension. Thank God.
I watched as Danny picked up Emily over his shoulder and carried her to the water. Wow, I thought, I hadn’t thought the little fella had it in him. Emily laughed, and dunked his head underwater. How cute, I thought, looking for somewhere to go throw up in. I decided to go enjoy the water instead, it had been too long since I had gone swimming.
The water felt amazing; I could see hundreds of fish when I opened my eyes under the water. I just had to remind myself to go up for un-needed air every so often, so Emily wouldn’t get more suspicious than she already was.
After five hours on the beach, Haven and Emily were looking very similar to how they looked in that picture I saw hanging up in Haven’s room. I laughed, glad that vampires didn’t have to worry about sunburns. Haven would definitely not be feeling very good tomorrow. Sitting on a plane for six hours with that bad of a burn was going to suck. We all walked back to the house, and then went our separate ways to shower.
