Page 58 of Under the Waves
What if.
What if.
What if…
21
Jasper Ridge
“You have to stop staring at them, Cap. It’s getting borderline creepy,” Jakson chuckled, taking a swing of his beer.
I drew my eyes away from the direction of the kitchen and back towards that asshole. Picking up the pillow from behind my back, I whacked it at him, almost spilling the drink down his chest.
“You—”
I glared at him, raising my eyebrows.
Go on Asshole, finish that sentence with Lia’s siblings present.
Wisely, he shut his lips, frowning at me. “—are so mean. After all I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me? Shame on you, Jasper Ridge.”
I chuckled, shaking my head slightly. My eyes naturally gravitated back towards where Lia and Poppy were in the kitchen. The commentator’s voice echoedthroughout the room, but it was just background noise echoing in the back of my mind. All I could seem to focus on was the fact that Poppy Wells was in that kitchen baking something delicious with my little sister.
I was waiting for the rage to build up inside me—for it to spew out and attach to Poppy like a leech. All the other times she had been around people I cared about, I’d lost my shit. My family was the most important thing to me, and I wouldn’t do anything to endanger them.
However, this time…I didn’tfeelit. There was something coursing through my body that was everythingbutrage. I had no idea what it was. The thought terrified me. Being angry was easy to feel, a defensive shield for whenever I felt too far out of my depth. With everyone else, if they threatened the people I cared about, that was it—all I would see was a deep, burning red.
But withPoppy? I saw an explosion of colors; the sunset that settled above the water each night and the sunrise that broke free from the darkness each morning. I saw life and love and loss—everything and nothing,all at once.
It was always different with her, andthatscared me.
“Ohshi—” Jakson gasped at the TV, where the two teammates ofHeath Fischerand the sports first female driver,Eleanore Hart,collided at the parabolica at theAutodromo Nazionale Monzacircuit. Their silver arrow Mercury Racing cars in pieces as the camera spun around to show the broken fragments of one of the driver’s front wings and a lone tire that was rolling across the track as the marshals raced to the scene.
“The livery on that Corsonito looks absolutely badass,” Jakson stated, sipping his beer.
I nodded in agreement.
Monza, Italy, was the teams home race, and they brought out a limited-edition Italian livery for the weekend. The usual red and black livery had an Italian flag painted across the side, with a tribute to everyone on the team in small messages painted across the flag.
Both drivers,Samuel ‘Sam’BridgerandRafael‘Rafa’Collettò,had special edition helmets for the occasion—Sam losing his neon purple and black streaks for a red, white, and green helmet with ‘Grazie a tutti’ painted across the back. Rafa also swapped his signature red and gold for a white helmet with red and green stripes across it; the same message was also plastered across theback of his helmet too.
“Are they…dead?” Logan asked quietly, watching the screen intently, where an air ambulance landed. I didn’t get a chance to see which driver was being flown off as the screen cut to black.
“Oops,” Belle gasped, remote clutched in hand.
Jakson groaned, throwing his head back, as I held back a laugh. Though, I didn’t miss the way Logan watched him. How each of Jakson’s harsh movements made him flinch, lips trembling ever so slightly.
“How do you make this thing work?” Belle grumbled, frantically pushing and fiddling with all the buttons.
I chuckled, motioning for her to come over. She padded over and handed me the remote. As I turned the TV back on, I made sure to show her what to do step by step so that next time she wouldn’t have to ask. Moments later, the opening credits ofPrincess and the Frogrolled on screen just as Lia and Poppy appeared with a lemon drizzle cake in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other.
“No way,” Poppy stilled, a small smile playing on her lips as her eyes lit up with golden rays of nostalgia. “I loved this movie when I was a kid. I remember…” Her voice quietened as she looked directly at me.
I held her gaze with everything in me.
“Tiana was my favorite princess,” She concluded, setting the cake down on the coffee table in front of us. Choosing not to relive that memory. That one night when we became something other than rivals.A mistake.That was what she called it the next day.We were a mistake.Neither of us made an attempt to be anything more after that night. There was no point. We knew where each other stood. The uncrossable line drawn in the sand between us. The riptide that pulled us further and further apart.
If I could’ve changed fate, if i could’ve gone back in time to that night and changed the outcome…I shook my mind free of that thought trail.