Page 4 of Taboo
“Looks like it.” I shoved my hands into my pockets so I wouldn’t do something stupid, like reach for her. Up close, she smelled like sunscreen and lake water and summer.
“You disappeared this morning,” she said.
There wasn’t any anger in her voice. Just truth.
“I wanted to get to the marina before it got packed.” I swallowed hard. She was standing too close. Close enough that I could see the freckles across her nose and the way her damp tank top clung to her skin.
My gaze dropped before I could stop it. I took in her shapely bare legs still glistening from the water. Heat slammed into me so fast I felt ashamed immediately afterward. This was Juliet. My step-niece. The same girl I used to wrap my jacket around during thunderstorms.
It was so fucking wrong.
I took a step back like she’d burned me, and she noticed. Of course she noticed.
“I should go help Mom,” she said, her voice a little quieter now.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “You should.”
She held my eyes for one more second, like she could see straight through me, then turned and walked away.
I watched her the whole time. Fuck, I couldn’t stop myself.
By the time the sun dropped behind the trees, I was back at my place, halfway through a bottle of whiskey and trying like hell not to think about the way she’d looked at me.
Like she already knew this summer was going to ruin us both.
3
JULIET
Afew days had passed since Bastian got back, and Dad was already using it as an excuse to throw another cookout.
“It’s not every day your brother sticks around,” he’d said that morning, way too excited about the whole thing.
Now, the backyard was packed with the usual chaos of screaming kids, music blasting through the old porch speakers, coolers overflowing with beer, and Aunt Clara arguing with Uncle Stanley over grilled corn like it was a life-or-death situation.
I sat on top of the picnic table in cutoff shorts and an old tank top, my knees pulled to my chest while I picked at the label on a beer I didn’t even want. Everyone around me laughed and talked over each other like always, but I still felt disconnected somehow. Like I was watching my own family from the outside instead of actually being part of them.
The only exception was him.
My gaze kept drifting toward Bastian no matter how many times I told myself not to look.
He stood near the grill with his arms crossed, listening to Dad and Uncle Stanley talk about fishing boats and weatherdamage at the marina. Over the last few days, he’d barely said more than a handful of words to me. Every time I got too close to a conversation he was part of, he found some excuse to leave. He wasn’t rude about it, just careful, like being around me was dangerous for him somehow.
I caught him staring more than once. At my legs. My mouth. The way my tank top clung to my skin in the heat. Then he’d pull himself back fast, his expression tightening like he hated himself for even noticing.
It was starting to get under my skin in a way I couldn’t ignore.
“Juliet, you want another beer?” Dad called without even glancing up from the grill.
“I’m good,” I answered with a small smile.
He nodded absently and went right back to his conversation, probably already forgetting he’d asked in the first place.
I looked down at my bare feet against the weathered wood beneath the picnic table and smiled faintly to myself. Everything here was loud and messy and chaotic, but somehow, I still loved it anyway.
A second later, a cold bottle of water appeared beside me on the table.
No words.
