The Exception, page 13
“Mansion Beach. It’s only about a ten-minute walk from where we’ll dock. But I’d like to stop on Water Street and do a little shopping first.”
Patrice lifted her sunglasses and smiled. “Did someone say shopping?”
Edmund chuckled. “I can give you kids directions if you don’t want to shop. We can meet you at the beach when the ladies are done. There aren’t that many stores, so we shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
“That sounds good to me,” Colette said.
“Me too.” Chloe shrugged. They both turned to me, waiting for an answer.
I had to spend time with Brendan and Colette because it was my mother’s birthday. But if Mom wasn’t going to be with them for an hour, neither was I. I pulled my cover-up out of my beach bag and shook my head. “I’m going to go check out these cliffs I read about while I was on the train this morning. Mohegan Bluffs?”
“Oh, they’re beautiful,” Mom said. “But we’re on the north side of the island, and the bluffs are on the south side. It’s probably at least a five-mile walk, right, honey?”
Edmund nodded. “Well over an hour, I’d say. Each way.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Oh.”
“There’s a scooter rental shop right on Water Street, though,” Edmund said. “Have you ever driven a scooter?”
I shook my head. “No, but it can’t be that hard to learn.”
Brendan scoffed. “You crashed the electric bike when we were up in Maine a few years ago and refused to get back on. And that thing doesn’t go half as fast as a scooter.”
Colette frowned. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who wanted to pretend I’d never dated her husband.
Jagger’s jaw flexed. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. I can give you a lesson before you go.”
“But, honey…” Mom shook her head. “You really shouldn’t rent one of those things by yourself. You have no experience riding a motor bike, and you also get lost pretty easily.”
I nibbled my lip, looking at Jagger. “I actually don’t have much of a sense of direction. Any chance I can talk you into going with me?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
Internally, I did a mental fist pump, while outside I did my best to look blasé.
Once the boat pulled into a slip, everyone grabbed their beach bags and piled off. The beach was in the opposite direction of the shops, and I was happy to be rid of Brendan and Colette for a while. Mom and Edmund and their friends went into a nautical-themed store, and then it was finally just Jagger and me.
He pointed to the right. “The scooter rental place is this way.”
“Thank you for coming with us today.”
“Your mom is great. Edmund is a lot more relaxed when she’s around.”
“Is that why you came? For my mom?”
Jagger looked over at me. “Did you really crash an eBike?”
“Just twice.”
“Then how about we rent one scooter, and I’ll drive.”
Hmmm… Let me see—picking rocks out of my knees after I crash, or wrapping my arms around this gorgeous man and getting to feel the abs I’ve been salivating over all day?
I nodded.
We arrived at the rental place, and I zoned in on a powder pink scooter. “Oooh. Can we get the pink one?”
His lip twitched. “Whatever you want.”
Fifteen minutes later, we both strapped on our helmets. Jagger straddled the pink scooter and released the kickstand before starting it. He pointed to the back. “Hop on.”
I climbed onto the back, excited but also a little nervous. “How fast does this thing go?”
“About ninety.”
My eyes bulged. “You’re joking, right?”
Jagger looked back with a grin. “Yes. I don’t know how fast it can go, but the speed limit on the island is twenty-five. I used to drive a motorcycle, so you can relax. You’re safe with me.”
My mind immediately conjured up a picture of Jagger on a Harley, rather than this petal pink scooter, and let me tell you, he looked really freaking hot. “Did you wear leather pants, by chance?”
“No, why?”
“No reason.”
He shook his head. “You ready to go?”
I nodded. “Any instructions for me back here?”
He pointed down. “Keep your feet on those pegs. There’s an exhaust pipe in the back that can get really hot, and you don’t want to burn your calf. Other than that, just wrap your arms around my waist and hold on.”
Jagger’s sculpted abs were hard against my hands. I was dying to run my fingers up and down, feeling the peaks and valleys, but I managed to control myself. It had been way too long since I’d touched a man. But even if it hadn’t been, I knew I still would’ve had the urge to touch this one all over.
We drove down a few side roads, and when we came to the corner that intersected with the main road, Jagger slowed to a stop. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m great.”
“All right. The ride is mostly on that road, so we’re going to go a little faster now.”
“Okay!”
I clenched my jaw and hung on for dear life for the first minute or two. But as I got used to the ride, I relaxed and started to enjoy the wind blowing in my face and my hair whipping around. It felt amazing—so exhilarating and freeing. I had the impulse to lift my hands into the air like I was on a roller coaster, but there was no way in hell I was giving up a minute of holding on to Jagger’s abs.
Sadly, less than ten minutes after we started, we pulled into a parking lot and parked.
Jagger took off his helmet and shook his hair out. “What did you think?”
“I loved it! Do you still have that motorcycle?”
He chuckled and held a hand out to help me off the scooter. Between the intimacy of having my arms wrapped around him and now taking his hand, I felt closer to him. I could almost pretend we were on a date.
“Do you want to just see the beach from up here or go down?” he asked. “It’s a lot of stairs and a bit of a climb to get to the bottom. The stairs only take you to an overlook. You have to navigate rocks to get to the beach itself. But there’s a rope to hold on to.”
“Can we do both?”
He smiled. “I got the feeling you weren’t exactly in a rush to get back anyway.”
“You can say that again.”
Jagger and I walked to the railing and took in the scenery from the top. “It’s beautiful.”
We were both quiet while we took in the panoramic view of the coastline. The cliffs rose sharply from the blue Atlantic, and the sound of waves crashing against the shore lulled me to relax. At least I thought we were both looking at the view. But when I turned, I found Jagger watching me and not the breathtaking ocean.
“What?” I smoothed my hair. “Am I a mess from the wind?”
He shook his head.
“Then what were you thinking just now?”
Jagger looked away. “Nothing.”
There was definitely something going through his mind, but I wasn’t going to push. Not when he’d salvaged what could’ve been a disaster of a day for me.
“Are you always this protective of people?” I asked.
Two lines formed between his brows. “What do you mean?”
“You only agreed to come today once you heard Brendan and Colette were coming. And then when Brendan chastised me about wanting to rent a scooter, you made sure I could rent one, safely.”
Jagger’s eyes dropped to my lips and lingered before meeting my eyes again. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I think you’re giving me too much credit. My intentions weren’t as pure as you make them out to be.” He put a hand on my back and guided me to start walking. “Come on. It’s going to take a while to climb back up after we see the beach.”
The descent to the bottom was a hundred-and-forty-one steps—I counted. But it was well worth the effort. After a pause, Jagger and I climbed the rest of the way down and walked along the beach to a quiet pile of rocks, where we sat. I looked around at the clay cliffs in awe.
“It’s gorgeous. It reminds me of La Jolla Beach in California.”
“I’ve never been,” Jagger said. “I actually haven’t been here in years, either.” He was quiet for a moment. “I think that scooter might be the first thing I’ve driven in a couple of years, too.”
“Really? You mean the first time you’ve driven something with two wheels?”
He shook his head. “I can’t remember the last time I drove a car.”
I hadn’t given it much thought, probably because his house had multiple garages, but there hadn’t been a car in his driveway when we pulled up. “How did you get out to Montauk? Did you take the train?”
He shook his head. “Sam drove. I didn’t want to waste the hours in the car not working.”
“I’m glad you came today then. It’s too beautiful not to visit more frequently.”
Jagger nodded, still looking at me. “You’re right. It is.”
Sutton
“You hogging this view all to yourself?”
Jagger came over to where I was sitting on the bow of the boat, taking in the sunset on the ride back home. I smiled. “I’m pretty sure no one else is up here because most of the others aren’t sober enough to navigate the narrow walk along the side to make it.”
“True.” He smiled and pointed to the spot next to me. “Mind if I sit?”
I shook my head. “I’d like that.”
Jagger sat down, and we watched his incredible boat cut through the water, moving toward the glowing horizon in silence. The sky was lit in a gradient of orange and pink rays that deepened to a rich rust and burgundy as they melted into the ocean. The last bit of golden sun cast a shimmery trail across the top of the water. It made the ocean ahead sparkle.
“Haven’t done this in a while either,” Jagger murmured.
“Watch the sunset?”
He nodded.
“You know, all work and no play makes Jagger a dull boy.”
He smiled, and we let the silence sit comfortably for a while. “Your mother seems like she had a good time today.”
I nodded. “Edmund too. It’s the most relaxed I’ve seen him in ages.”
“Guess we both needed to take a break.”
“And my day turned out to be nothing like I’d expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Pure torture.” I laughed. “A day with my ex who married my stepsister.”
“How did that go down, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Brendan and Colette getting together?”
He nodded.
I let out an audible sigh. “Brendan and I split about a year and a half ago. He’s from New York, too, but we met out in California. We both went to Stanford. When he graduated, he moved back home, but I still had another semester left and wanted to do my master’s out there after I was done. We tried the long-distance thing for a while, but it didn’t work out.”
“Whose idea was it to split?”
“In a way, I guess it was both of ours. He wanted me to move back to New York and do my master’s at Columbia or NYU. I’d gotten into their programs, too. But I wanted to stay at Stanford and do my graduate work under a professor I’d TA’d for and really admired. Brendan gave me an ultimatum. If I stayed in California, we were going to break up. He wanted us to move in together in New York and get engaged. I didn’t think he’d actually end things when I decided to stay at Stanford because if he loved me enough to want to propose, how could he just turn around and dump me because I was going to be gone another year? So I called his bluff by accepting the position at Stanford, and it turned out, he wasn’t bluffing.”
“How soon after that did he get together with your stepsister?”
“We broke up in August, and they were together by Thanksgiving.”
“Were they seeing each other before you split?”
I shook my head. “I thought about that a lot in the beginning, but I really don’t think so. They claim they saw each other at a bar one night about six weeks after we broke up. They’d met a few times at family events, so they already knew one another. When I found out, I got the ‘we didn’t mean for it to happen, I swear’ speech.”
“Are you still in love with him?”
“God, no. I’m not sure if I ever was, if I’m being honest. Brendan was a safe choice for me.”
“How so?”
“He was a nice guy from a good family and…he didn’t want to have sex.”
“You didn’t want to be pressured?”
I shrugged.
Jagger studied my face. “I’m not going to judge you. Lord knows I have my own issues with sex. But if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
“No, I…” I looked away, trying to decide what to tell him.
What I wanted was to tell him everything, which was truly crazy because I’d been through three therapists and never wanted to tell any of them anything. I’d opened up to the last one more than the first two, but I’d never wanted to share my story with anyone. To this day, not even Brendan knew what had happened to me. I’d only ever told Miles and my mother, and my mother had shared my story with Edmund. Yet right now I took a deep breath, ignored the churning in my stomach, and turned to face Jagger—and my own fears.
“I told you I was a virgin, but that’s not technically true because I’ve had sex before. I just have never had it willingly, so I consider myself one.”
Jagger stiffened. At least the top half of him did. His hands clenched into balls so tight, his knuckles turned white. “When?”
I looked down. “I was sixteen. I graduated high school two years early and enrolled at NYU. It happened during my second semester. Apparently, I was just as good a drinker then as I am now.” I forced a smile as I started wringing my hands. “I was struggling, trying to fit into college life, so I didn’t tell people my age. One night, I went to a party and started talking to a cute guy I’d never seen before. The party was in a fraternity house, and he’d said he was a member. I had no reason to doubt him. He looked like the rest of the guys there—preppy dress shirts, tapered shorts, and expensive loafers. After an hour or two, he asked me if I wanted to go up to his room. I said okay because I wanted to fool around. I didn’t have much experience with boys because I’d skipped grades, and the people around me were always older and saw me as the brainy little kid. But when we got up to the second floor and went into his quiet room, I got cold feet and told him I wanted to slow things down. He said okay and offered to go get us some new drinks. He said we’d just hang out, get to know each other. An hour later, he was on top of me, and I couldn’t move my arms and legs or speak. He’d given me some drug they use on animals that acts as a paralytic.”
Jagger closed his eyes. When they opened, there was barely any blue left; his pupils had taken over. “What happened to him? Please tell me this story ends with him locked up or dead?”
I shook my head. “I wish. Afterward, I felt ashamed. Like it was my fault that it had happened. It was a bad decision to go up to his room while I was drinking at all, so I blamed myself. Plus, he took my license from my purse before he left and told me if I told anyone, he’d show up at my house while I was sleeping and do it again.”
“Jesus Christ. His nuts should’ve been chopped off while he was under the same paralytic he gave you, so he had to lie there and feel as helpless as you did.”
I swallowed, but the big lump in my throat didn’t go anywhere. “Eventually, I confided in Miles about what happened, and he talked me into going to the police. There was no physical evidence anymore, but they opened an investigation. Turned out it wasn’t the first time someone had told a story like mine. A few months earlier, there had been a similar case in a neighboring precinct where a kid pretended to be part of a fraternity and sexually assaulted a student at a different college. He also took her driver’s license. Every year, he sent both of us cards on our birthdays.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The vein in Jagger’s neck bulged.
I shook my head. “A month later, I dropped out of school, and the sicko continued to send birthday cards for the next three years. They stopped when I moved to California to go to Stanford. So either he knew I left, or got bored with scaring the crap out of me once a year.”
“Fuck…” Jagger got to his feet and started to pace. He pulled at his hair by the roots. “What did the police do? Ask a few questions and call it a damn day?”
I’d always been afraid to tell people what happened because I didn’t want them to look at me differently. Jagger’s reaction was nothing like I’d expected. He wasn’t soft or tempered, afraid I’d break like glass; he was angry. And that hit my heart hard. A confusing rush of emotions washed over me, and tears spilled down my face.
Jagger was mid pace when he noticed. “Oh fuck.” He dropped to his knees, lifted me into his arms, and held me close. Every other time this man touched me, even a simple hand at my back, I’d felt a rush of hormone-filled adrenaline pumping through my veins. But this touch was different. He held me so tightly it bordered on painful, yet every muscle in my body gave way. I buried my head against his chest and let it out.
My mind has always worked like a storm that never stops, spinning from one topic to the next, never taking a break to relax. But in this moment, the world slowed, and I thought about nothing except how good it felt to be held by Jagger Langston, how safe I felt.
Jagger and I stayed that way for a long time. The distant sound of my mother’s party continued seventy feet away, the sky’s pinks and purples faded to darkness, and yet it somehow felt like it was just the two of us.
Eventually, my sniffles slowed to a stop. I pulled back and looked up at Jagger with a hesitant smile. “Well, that…took a turn.”
He smiled. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Actually, yeah. I haven’t spoken about it in years. But it wasn’t nearly as hard to tell you as it was Miles and my mother.”
“Time helps heal most wounds.”
My eyes rose to meet his. “Most?”
