After Brooke’s unspoken, stifling, six-month love affair with the senior from Boiceville (whose name shall never be mentioned), she regarded sex as the ultimate danger. Other risks only went so far and then you died. (She was still blithe about death because it hadn’t affected her yet.)
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But sex? If it rose inside you, demanding abandon, and if you were a sixteen-year-old girl, you needed to act the opposite of how you felt. You needed to act like you never wanted anything or anyone or people would call you a slut. And that’s if they were being nice. She knew that much. What she didn’t know was how to hide every tell-tale sign. And she didn’t know which for her was worse: wanting some guy or wanting him to want her.
Of course, both were despicable if you got caught trying: Better to die than try.
So before she arrived at Matthew King’s, before that first day babysitting, she repeated what Tara had told her last summer after he had stood her up: People do whatever they want.
But when she arrived on her bicycle, Matthew ran up and smiled. She practically heard him thinking, No hug; no touching at all. He stammered and apologized about leaving last year without a word, something about an invasion of handlers and no way to contact her.
He asked about her boyfriend so slyly, she wondered if someone had told him. “How old are you now, eighteen?”
Brooke almost laughed; he was so obvious, so totally not cool. Of course, a movie star not acting cool was the coolest.“Sixteen,” she said. “Seventeen on Halloween.”
“Seventeen on Halloween—remind me to be careful, okay?”
“Why? I’m easily resisted.” Brooke’s hand lifted and even in the humid air static electricity shot from her fingertips. “A nice provincial kid. That’s why you and Sasha hired me.”
On a swing Matthew circled around, twisting the chains. His kids were playing in the sand with action figures. “Brooke, not even last year were you easily resisted or provincial. There’s a compelling energy about you, whether you’re a kid or not.”
“Tell me about your movies.”
“I’m in a real quandary, looking for the right project.” Matthew King was a rakish, good guy-type. “A leading man,” he said, “not a side-kick.” No way was he going to end up like those old actors in romantic comedies with actresses half their age. So no more romantic comedies.
An Asian man wearing a Bluetooth device emerged from the house and called Dexter and Ivy inside. Matthew nodded at him, “Half an hour, Anden.” The sun overhead, Matthew and Brooke began walking around the compound, because he hadn’t even wandered around the place yet.
“I lost out on two roles I would have been perfect for.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah.”
Much later than “half an hour,” after discussing different films, made and not yet made, they entered the meadow. Before heading toward the house, though, his arm swooped across her head and his fingers traced the rim of her ear. Last year that maneuver had made her feel safe. This summer it brought safety to mind but also a plummeting sensation in her stomach. He stroked her hair, not casually, almost roughly. And Brooke hopped away, against the impulse toward him.
From then until his kids fell asleep, Brooke flowed fast, herself and everything else rushing before her eyes.
The next morning, Matthew King retreated to his office right after Brooke arrived. Before lunch she and the children changed into bathing suits. She had earned Red Cross certification that spring. Ivy bobbed around in floaties but Dexter swam underwater the width of the pool, and wanted his father to see him do it. Dangling his feet in the water, Matthew told Dexter, “That a boy. Way to go, Dex.” Brooke sank back in the water and stood up several feet away from him. Her hand shaded her eyes when she asked what he thought about hiring her sister Tara to babysit too. “Can’t have too many eyes on the kids. In the pool or out.”
“Sure. Bring her tomorrow.”
Brooke said, “I’ll bet she’s free now.” Out of the pool, a towel wrapped at her waist like a sarong, she scrolled Tara’s number.
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