Chapter 3

Nate

I parked my car in front of my parents\' cabin and turned off the engine. I had absolutely no desire to participate in that family lunch, but Jess would get married soon and our mother wanted to see us all before we set up the last things for the wedding.

The night before, I had gone to a party with the boys after leaving the studio, and we had stayed up late at night. I was pretty sure the night signs were still there, including the ones on my back.

I rubbed my red eyes and put on my sunglasses before I got out of the car and headed for the front door. Andrew’s car was already parked there.

I didn’t envy that man at all, dealing with a woman was already complicated. The complication tripled if it was that beast of Jess, and she became even more when she found out that I had banged one of her bridesmaids before the wedding and that her after I showed no interest in anything other than her p*ssy, she had left the bride just before the sweet event.

My sister stopped talking to me after she heard about me and Erika. Not that I made her promises of eternal love before she spread her legs. I made it clear to her that it was a no-strings-attached thing, but she was delusional. The more time we had spent in bed, or in the shower, or on the hob, or against the wall, the more she was deluded, ending up destroyed and in tears when I passed over.

Women.

I put my hands in my pockets after ringing the bell and waited at the door until my sister opened the door. She had her phone in her ear, and she was busy squeezing out a series of orders to whoever was on the other side of the line.

I gave her a big smile, and she looked at me, shook me, and walked back into the house while she kept screaming on the phone.

We’re off to a good start.

I told myself as I was heading to the kitchen where I knew I would find the only woman who had a fixed place in my heart. My mother was pulling a pot out of the oven when I approached her, and I deposited a kiss on her cheek.

"You don’t have to be a pimp, I won’t beat your a*s again, Nate." my stern mother told me before she messed up my black hair.

"It wasn’t my intention." I said, playing dumb.

"She’s still furious." my mother said, shaking her head and putting the bowl on the hob, "Do you know how hard it is to lose two bridesmaids in a few months because you’re not able to hold back what’s in your pants?"

"Mother, I did not promise her eternal love. I had been clear with her from the beginning." I said sternly.

"Couldn’t you avoid it anyway?" she replied.

"I’ll make it up to you." I said, rolling my eyes.

"It’s better for you, I can’t handle Jess's hysterical screams anymore." she said, "It's ready!" She then suddenly cried as she walked towards the dining room.

My father was already sitting at the head of the table, a few places away was Andrew and together they sipped a glass of red wine and chatted quietly.

Sometimes I thought my dad preferred Andrew over me.

I sat next to my father and poured a glass of wine while my mother began to serve the flan and my sister arrived by tapping the phone.

"Sam can’t come, she has a measles principle, do you realize? Measles at twenty-four! How do you get measles at this age?" she asked almost in tears.

"It’s also very dangerous at that age." her boyfriend thoughtfully said and deserved a nasty look from Jess.

"We can’t get married right now! It’s all falling apart! I don’t have any bridesmaids. Two of them tripped over my brother’s penis, the other one has measles, and the last one, well the last one is your cousin Andrew! Let’s call off the wedding, that’s it. That’s it!"

"Oh stop." said our exasperated mother, "Don’t be a child, you are now a grown woman, you are no longer the little girl who ran here and there with her friends and hid everywhere. Be a woman!"

If I hadn’t kept my balls so tight, I would have applauded my mother at the time.

But I knew that if I did, I would risk the lives of my nether world.

"Tell me how we can solve this then?" my sister said as seriously as possible, crossing her fingers and placing them on the table.

The harpy look at our mother, who in the meantime ignored her blissfully while she continued to eat her meatloaf.

"You can always get Lucas as a bridesmaid, you know how much he cares." said my mother quietly.

"Lucas is our witness." said my serious sister.

"But he doesn’t want to be the best man, he wanted to be the bridesmaid, what’s the harm?" My mother raised her eyes and looked at Jess straight into the green eyes, "call him and you’ll see that you’ve solved the problem."

"Talking about old friends..." Andrew intervened, getting a nasty look from his bride-to-be. "You’ll never guess who I met at the supermarket yesterday morning." he said while sipping some wine "Actually, I don’t even know how I forgot it, it’s because my beautiful girlfriend distracted me." he kept moving Jess\' blond hair behind her back.

"Who, Andrew?" said Jess gently, almost purring like a cat in heat. I’m going to vomit.

\"Maya Sheppar.\" Andrew quietly said.

Jess opened her mouth and, for the first time in twenty-three years, I saw her speechless. I was also amazed.

Little Maya?

\"May May?\" said Jess as Andrew nodded.

\"My May May?\" Andrew nodded again.

\"Little Maya?\" my surprised mother said, \"How many years has she not been coming back? Three? Four?\"

\"Five years.\" said Jess with a little voice.

Five years.

I remembered little Maya, I did remember her. I was just hoping that her leaving wasn’t because of me or else Jess would never speak to me again.

Maya and Jess grew up together, Maya lived a few blocks away from us, and she and Jess had been inseparable since kindergarten.

I remembered how they were two rascals in high school and how I had to threaten every single guy who got close to my sister and Maya. I’ve always had a deep affection for Sheppar, ever since we were kids, then seeing her grow up and turn into a beautiful girl put my health in serious trouble.

I never wanted to touch her, for Jess\' sake, even though my whole body wanted her. Every time I found her lying on the sun loungers in our pool, with a tiny shot, every time she asked me to rub the cream on her back, every time she slept at our place and came out of the bathroom with her hair ruffled and half-naked.

I couldn’t resist her, I was drooling over her like a puppy, but I knew I couldn’t have her, I knew that if I even got close to her, Jess would really castrate me. So I’ve always kept my distance.

At least until I found her at the graduation party here at the house.

She was so drunk, so beautiful, so lost that when she rubbed herself on me, in that bloody wrinkled bikini, I couldn’t stop myself.

When I first kissed her, I was sure I touched the sky with a finger, and she wanted me just as much as I did. I went to my room to get a condom at her request and then I stopped to drink something. I needed to dissolve the tension that I had accumulated. Maybe I had exaggerated because then I lost my mind. I remember meeting her on the stairs who had caught me and slammed me to the wall. Then I remember my bedroom and after total darkness.

The next morning, when I woke up, I was alone in bed, naked and there was no trace of Maya.

From that day on, her incursions into our home had diminished, and then she was gone. When we got back from the beach house, Jess knew she’d moved to Boston for college and disappeared from our lives.

For years, Jess had been recriminating on herself for the fact that Maya had left, that she had gotten away from us because of her, but I was almost certain that it was my fault. Maybe I did something wrong that night, enough to make it disappear forever.

I shook my head and drove away from my thoughts.