I try to glare at him, but it’s impossible with the egg still lingering around my eyes. Besides, I’m kind of floored that he offered to clean up.
So I trudge upstairs to my room, where I share a washroom with my mother, and quickly jump in the shower. I hate having to wash my hair, especially when I’m so clueless on how to manage it. I’ve read so many magazines and online articles, but they’re of no help. It’s funny that I’m officially a Dumont now, but I have none of the class and fashion sense of the family (not to mention skin tone). I stick out like a sore thumb in so many ways.
When I’m done, I know I don’t have the time to blow-dry my hair as usual, so I braid it back wet, slip on a clean and simple white summer dress, and head back downstairs.
To my surprise, Blaise has completely cleaned up all the eggs and is drinking orange juice the housekeeper squeezed this morning straight out of the pitcher.
He finishes, wipes his mouth, and puts it right back in the fridge. Boys, I swear.
But wait a minute. This boy is my cousin, and his eyes are taking longer than normal to coast over my body. It’s not like the dress I’m wearing is revealing or anything; it’s just something light and flirty, and yet there’s a look in Blaise’s eyes that I haven’t seen before.
“Your hair,” he says, nodding at me. “It looks different.”
Check out the brains on this one. “It’s back in a braid, dummy.”
“I like it. And you don’t have any makeup on.”
“It came off in the shower.”
“You shouldn’t wear makeup. You don’t need it,” he says. He pauses, then adds, “You’re only fourteen.”
“I know how old I am,” I retort. “And I can wear makeup if I want to.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself. Just thought you’d want to know why you’re always single.”
“Always single!” I cry out. “Need I remind you what you just reminded me of? I’m fourteen. I don’t have time for boys.”
“But soon they’ll have time for you. You don’t want to mess that up.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever. They can do what they want. I do what I want.”
“You know,” he says slowly, “you’ve changed a lot since I first met you.”
“That was five years ago. I sure hope I’ve changed. You’ve changed too.”
And that’s true. Blaise used to be on the shorter side, but in the last year he’s shot up so he’s even taller than Pascal, who’s older. He’s got to be already over six feet. Plus, he’s got muscles and abs galore out of nowhere. I try not to look, because that’s icky, right? But when we’re swimming down at the river, it’s kind of hard not to.
“I mean, you used to be so quiet and shy. Now we can’t seem to shut you up.”
“Very funny,” I tell him. I’ve never been particularly shy, it’s just that the circumstances I was raised in made me that way, and then there is the fact that it took me forever to learn French. Now that I can speak it fluently, I guess I do have a habit of telling everyone what’s on my mind, whether they like it or not.
His gaze lingers on me, on my lips, just enough to cause a strange butterfly feeling in my stomach, then he says, “Let’s go get you your eggs for your stupid cake.”
I let his comment slide as I follow him out of the villa. It’s late afternoon, and the air is hot and sweet all at once. We’ve been coming to Uncle Gautier’s place in Tuscany, which is not too far from Florence, every first week of August ever since I was adopted. Usually we’re here for a week or two. Olivier told me that in the past, our father and uncle would both come, too, but I guess work has gotten more hectic over the years, so it’s just my mother and aunt.
I close my eyes to the sunshine and sigh, and when I open them, Blaise is standing in the pebbled driveway and staring at me expectantly. “Are you coming or what?”
“I’m coming. Just taking time to enjoy the moment.”
Now he’s rolling his eyes. “Do you want your eggs or not?”
I hurry on after him, shaking a pebble out of my sandals. “So why are you hanging around the house and not with everyone else?”
He shrugs. “Didn’t want to.”
“Lazy.”
He glares at me, the look intensified under the hot sun. “I’m not lazy. I just didn’t want to. I don’t have to hang out with anyone if I don’t want to.”
I guess I’m not floored by this. Blaise is always the black sheep and the odd one out. His brother is either tormenting him or ignoring him, and the same goes for his father. When it comes to the latter, the more his father ignores him, the better.
I sneak a glance up at him as we walk side by side down the narrow road lined with a crumbling stone wall, past sprawling vineyards and sunflowers. He looks and seems so different now. I remember going to his thirteenth birthday party at their house, hiding in the bushes at night because I didn’t feel welcome. That’s when Blaise and his friend came to the gazebo and started drinking alcohol. His father caught them, started hitting Blaise with a force that reminded me of so many of my foster homes gone wrong. It was the first time I saw Blaise even remotely vulnerable, and even though he was a lot nicer to me after that, we never spoke of it again. He kept his distance.
Until now.
I’m wondering if I should bring it up and say something when he glances at me sharply, squinting under the sun. “What are you staring at?”
Such a way with words. “Nothing really. I was just thinking.”
“About me, naturally.”
“Well, actually I was.”
He gives me another odd glance. “Oh yeah? And what were you thinking?”
“About how you’re doing. You know. In terms of your father.”
His eyes narrow just as the road starts to, causing us to walk closer together. “What about him?”
The edge to his voice tells me he knows exactly what I’m talking about, but even if I’ve been intimidated by Blaise before, I refuse to be now. “Your thirteenth birthday.”
He tenses up and wiggles his jaw, averting his eyes from me and back to the road. “That was a long time ago.”
“I know. I was just wondering.”
“If my father ever smacked me around like that after?” he asks and then shrugs. “Yeah. Sometimes. But not recently. I’m taller than him already, bigger than him. He wouldn’t dare lay a finger on me. I’d fucking kill him.”
But even as he says that, I can hear a tremor in his voice. Like he’s still afraid of him. I don’t blame him. His father terrifies me, too, and I go out of my way to avoid him.
Sometimes it makes me wonder how my own father can see the good in him. He never says a bad word against his brother, even though my mother has said plenty. We’ve all seen the way that he treats the boys, his wife—hell, anyone who crosses his path. He’s creepy and manipulative and an outright asshole, but I guess that just means my father is that loyal.
“As soon as I turn eighteen, I’m out of here,” Blaise adds.
“Where are you going?”
“School, maybe. University. Or not. Maybe I’ll go to Greece and live off the land. Or Ibiza and party for months. Who knows. But I’ll be gone.”