Antagonym

Chapter 6

The sun was beating down on my fair skin in a sudden burst of heat, drastically changing from the forty degree temperatures from yesterday. If there was one thing I hated as much as I loved about the Northeast, it was the bipolar weather. I loved that it was cold enough to snow and hot enough to go to the beach, but not when those conditions proceeded each other in the span of 24 hours. Though that never seemed to be a problem for my thirteen year old nephew and twelve hear old niece.

I watched Maya, Finn and Sylvia's only biological child, swimming in the pool in her maroon bikini, timing how fast she could swims two laps with her iPhone at the edge. I was just waiting for it to fall into the water; I didn't trust waterproof cases in the slightest. Seb was laying in a tan lounge chair besides the one next to me, both of us sipping Long Island ice teas; The one good thing to come out of that God forsaken place. My mother included. Seb's dark eyes were watching the Korean thirteen year old across the large green lawn taking shots on an overturned lacrosse goal, the water of the Long Island Sound sparkling a good fifty feet behind him. For a thirteen year old, Ace was jacked and I had a feeling it had to do with the rate at which his parents worked out.

Kids that age want to do things their parents and their older siblings do. Despite being Ace's aunt, he definitely thought of me as his cool older cousin. Whenever Finn, Sylvia, or I were working out, he wanted to join. I wonder how long that would last. Not long, I'm sure. Then again, he was a driven kid with Olympian parents. All I know is that at thirteen I hated running; I still do.

"I could get used to this," Seb said while crossing his hands behind his head and closing his eyes.

"What? The open bar or the sunshine?" I teased while glancing at him over my aviators. I'm surprised my best friend wasn't with some girl right now. Seb was definitely a ladies man and he knew it. He had the perfect combination of smarts, a beautiful dark complexion, a sense of humor, and from what I'm told; a talented penis. Let's just say I slept with my earbuds in most of the time. Though I'm sure he did the same so I shouldn't be talking.

"Is both an option?" Seb asked, "but I was definitely talking about the open bar.

"I knew there was a reason you came with me to babysit," I scoffed while crossing my arms, turning my attention back to the two kids on this late Sunday evening.

"If Sylvia and Finn can go play dress up at a gala, I can raid their bar once a year," Seb responded simply without looking at me. If I was Finn and Sylvia's sister then Seb was my adopted brother. He was with me all the time, so much so that he spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter with us when he couldn't fly home to Kentucky. "Now tell me about this Beck drama because I know you slept with him. You both left the party together pretty early on."

Even in front of my best friend I could feel the embarrassment building in my neck. I wasn't a blusher, but that didn't mean the heat under my skin wasn't there. "There's nothing to talk about. He fucked me and now he won't."

"Bullshit. Nothing is ever that simple. It took you twenty minutes to cover those hickeys today. That's not a 'one time' level of marking, that's an 'I'm hitting this again by next week' look," Seb called my bluff. I couldn't help but roll my eyes at his exaggerated personality. He couldn't read my hickeys just like Seb couldn't read my palms. I was living with a lunatic.

I sipped on my Long Island ice tea while trying to think of what to say. Seb was right, it wasn't that simple on the inside. There was a lot more riding on this. "I'm just stressed out. In reality there's nothing else I can do but not hook up with Beck again, but that doesn't stop my paranoid brain for wondering what happens if it gets out. To the average person it might not seem like much, but to me it's career breaking. I need to be seen as taking this seriously."