Chapter Seven: Lake House

~Joey~

"Damn."

"Right?" I ask, looking in equal awe at the ginormous structure before me. This is the lake house? When they said Lake house, I expected an old-ish, woody structure with a cute porch and quaint sentiments like that one creaky floorboard and the typical crooked ceiling beam.

But this? I doubt there are crooked ceiling beams. The house is huge, mostly painted a mocha brown in the areas that aren't glass or marble. You heard me. MAR-BLE.

Magnificent.

The 'porch' is actually a wide, open space with polished wooden floors and enough room to house five pool tables. The front door is the sliding type, made out of glass, but two chiffon curtains hang on the other side, blocking the inside from view. The windows upstairs reflect light from the sun, and casting shadows on them are a few huge trees. I'm guessing the back of the house will have way more, but I'm too giddy to see the inside that I don't really care about trees right now.

"You made it!" Vincent opens the door and steps out with a grin on his face. "No one died on the way?"

"Unfortunately not," Heather chuckles. "Joey weighed the car down with all her singing."

"Ha-ha," I roll my eyes and slick my hair back with one hand. My dark sunglasses are perched on my nose, so I'm hoping the tiny blush that creeps up my cheeks stays invisible.

"Nice place, man," Kevin says, hauling our bags out of the trunk.

"You ready to have fun?" Heather asks as Vince and Kevin begin handling the bags.

I take my glasses off and perch them on top of my head, using them as a headband to keep my hair from flying into my face. "Definitely."

"Joey!" Stella squeals from the door of the house. She's the girlfriend to Logan, Kev's best friend, and my friend in the technical meaning of the word. She and I check all the boxes for what friends should be, except for the part where she's Bowen's biggest gossip, so I tend to stay out of her lane. Not that I care what people say about me, I'd just rather they don't talk about me at all.

I throw my arms around her to give her a hug, then step back for her to repeat the process with Heather. "You girls are so welcome!"

"Thanks for having us," I say and grab Heather's hand as we fall into step.

"Yo, I just hope y'all are good now. I don't want bad blood at my parties," Vin is saying to Kevin as they fall in step with Heather, Stella and me.

"You won't have to worry about any of that," I answer. "Right, Kev?"

"Yeah, fine. Whatever," Kevin says grumpily.

When we finally step inside, my first sight is the winding staircase that leads to the second floor. I immediately fall in love with the touches of bright colors around the room, from the paintings hung on strategic locations, to the large T.V that I bet Heather will be glued to, come night time tomorrow.

"You ladies want a tour?" Vincent asks, but his eyes are on mine. He grins and I can't help but smile back, liking his infectious good mood.

Heather looks between us with an amused 'okay, I'm leaving now' look and excuses herself.

He reaches for me and I humor him by clasping my hands to his. "So you came," he says, twirling me around.

"I did. What do I get for coming?"

He gestures to his entire being. "Take your pick and it's yours."

My smile freezes. Walked right into that one. "Yeah, well if only."

He lets me go, but keeps his goofy smirk. "You can't run away from me forever, you know." He laughs.

"Actually, I think can." I laugh right back.

"Yeah?" He laughs again.

"Course!"

A foreign arm loops through mine at that moment and I turn my head to find Stella, who I now love a little more for saving me. "Hey, want a tour?"

I bid a reluctant Vincent a goodluck with the bags and detach myself from him to follow Stella to wherever she's taking me. We pass by the downstairs kitchen on our way and I immediately stop walking as I find my brother's friends inside--including none other than Keenan Reid. They're seated at the counter, jointly looking at something on the iPad in Tayo's hands.

"Hey, Joey!" Wyatt waves at me, a small smile on his face. Tayo waves too, but Brett doesn't. Keenan's eyes don't even leave the screen.

A small feeling I can't place washes through my stomach, and I suddenly feel like I want to be away from them. Wyatt's arm is still stuck in the air, though, so I wave back, keeping my distance. "Hey. Did you guys get here alright?"

"Yeah, we're good."

Stella says something about seeing them later and tugs on my arm to keep us moving. I offer a tight lipped smile to the guys and go with her, but a tiny voice in my head can't shake the fact that Keenan was in the kitchen, but didn't even glance up once to acknowledge my presence. Seems he hasn't forgotten what happened that day. Maybe he blames me.

"Just ignore them, we'll barely have business with them, anyway," Stella says as we ascend a flight of stairs that lead directly from the balcony downstairs to the one upstairs. A shortcut, in case we don't want to have to go inside to get to the second floor. Not very security conscious, but then again, it's not my house. "I heard what happened," Stella says.

"Oh. Right."

She shrugs. "I tried getting Vincent to cut them off and you know what he said?"

"Boys will be boys?" I ask, because that's the kind of thing he can spew on a good drinking day.

Stella laughs. "No, he said that the house is big enough for us not to even see them...and that they're just here for the parties."

Well, he's right. The house is massive. Props to Vin's parents for building a lake house large enough for twenty people to live together. Five bedrooms, two kitchens, and from what Stella starts saying, a game room, indoor pool, and a backyard I still haven't seen, that leads directly to a lake, hence the term, 'Lake house'.

Upstairs, Stella shuts the door behind us and leads me through a corridor to the first door on the right, which she opens to reveal a large bedroom with a general baby blue theme. Baby blue curtains, rug, sheets, pillowcases, flowers and ceiling decorations. The couch is stark white and the window gives a direct view to the small, lake outback, which I marvel at. It doesn't look too deep from here, but I'll be happy to test that theory later.

"You like it?" Stella asks, plopping down on the bed. "We had to draw straws to see who got this room. Logan and me or Kevin and Tayo."

I sigh dreamily. "You got lucky."

"Wait till you see you and Heather's."

The little girl in me claps her hands and jumps up and down with giddy excitement. "Can we go there now?" I also probably need to go text my parents with my new phone and let them know we arrived safely. Kevin won't do it.

She rolls off the bed and we head out, further down the corridor to the last door. When she pushes it open, Heather squeals and rolls off the bed as she spots us.

"Damn!" I say, looking around.

"Right?!" Heather grins.

This room is beige themed and much more mature looking than Stella's, though I'll never say it to her face. It's nearly as big, with one huge bed that Heather and I will be sharing, a T.V on the wall and a similar glass window that opens to the side of the lake, which just looks crystal clear at this point.

I would be worried if we had neighbors around because there will be next to zero privacy, if this were to be a house in a neighborhood. Lucky for us, though, the closest house is about a ten minute walk from the other end of the lake—according to Kevin.

"Don't you guys love it?"

"Absolutely!"

"Can I live here?!"

"That depends," Stella waggles her eyebrows. "Wanna have Vinvin's babies?"

"Um, no."

"Not a bad idea if it gets me this, actually," she says. "I could have a closet just for shoes."

"Dammit, Joey!" Heather says as she starts digging through my bag to offload it. I'm confused about what she's saying for a minute, then she pulls out my copies of the Yuletide and Silent series, holding them all up with pursed lips. "Seriously?"

I chuckle. "Oh, come on. Didn't you bring yours?"

"Well yeah, but I didn't know you wanted to read the Silent series!"

"You guys brought books to a lake house?" Stella chuckles incredulously.

I quirk a brow. "And so? We have buddy reading to catch up on. Spicy scenes and fictional men aren't going to do themselves, you know."

Stella laughs again like she can't believe we would say what we're saying. "You're delusional if you think there's time for all that between getting wasted and all the parties we're gonna be throwing."

"Well, unlike some people, I don't like alcohol. And unlike Heather, I can read through parties when I want with no problems."

"We'll see about that." Stella winks.

Fine. Challenge accepted.

~~~~

Later that evening, the multitude of us gather outside by the dock for a quick dinner. To keep a headcount, there's me, my best friend, Heather, my brother, Kevin, Kevin's best friend, Logan, Logan's girlfriend, Stella, then there's our host and everyone's friend, Vincent, and Vincent's friends from outside Bowen, Brett, Wyatt, Tayo and Keenan.

Ten. Seven boys, three girls.

Thanks to Heather and Stella— the only two with acceptable kitchen abilities—we're having lasagna. I give myself credit for being in the kitchen the entire time with my copy of 'Yuletide in a bit', a steamy, age gap holiday romance which I read aloud for Heather's sake. Stella acts like she doesn't care at first, but it's only a matter of time before I notice her expressions change as my reading progresses.

When we're all done, she goes down to the side of the lake and yells for the others to come and eat. I put my book where no one will find it, grab a beer and a plate of food, then go out to the dock with everyone.

Due to the nature of our sitting arrangement, I end up across from Brett. The guys quickly continue their conversation about Bruins players, while Heather and Stella start discussing the book, which I just knew she was listening to.

I don't say much, even though I'm partly interested in both sides of the discussions. Hockey players turn out to be up my alley, especially since I read the 'off campus' series last summer, and the Yuletide in a bit is one of my all time favorite holiday stories.

"I kinda feel like Kayla would be better with Ashton than CEO grumpy pants but okay, you do you."

"That's the theme. Grumpy meets sunshine. Opposites attract."

"You're just saying that because you imagined yourself in Kayla's place during the airplane scene and now you're in love with Jonah."

Heat creeps up my cheeks and I dramatically jerk my head, flipping my hair over one shoulder. The girls burst into laughter. Feeling watched, I look the other way just in time to meet Keenan looking in our direction. I don't have enough time to decipher the look on his face before he sharply turns his focus back to his friends, leaving me hanging. My smile fades.

For the next hour, I'm not active in either discussion, because I'm picking at my food, trying to avoid turning my head to look at Keenan, whose eyes I've felt on me more times than I can count. I don't want to look back at him because I know he'll just look away and act like I don't exist.

I'm trying not to be the girl who holds grudges. I fall out with people all the time, but then I usually just cut them off, move on and be done with it. I was done with Keenan and his friends, and cutting them off seemed very possible until our vacation plans aligned and now I'm stuck between actively ignoring them and just forgetting about it altogether. And the fact that I'm not sure if I even want to be mad at one of them doesn't make things easier.

"When are you planning on going shopping?" Stella asks, tearing my gaze away from the fray on my sweater that I've been toying with. When I turn, she's shoveling a spoonful of lettuce and spinach on to Logan's plate. He whines about it, but lets her have her way anyway.

Vincent stretches his arms out as he answers. "Probably tomorrow. We don't usually keep food items home in case we don't come back when we plan to. Anyone wanna volunteer?"

"I could go," Brett says from Keenan's side.

"Me too," Wyatt supports.

"Actually, Joey and I should go," Heather says. "We'll be better at picking out toiletries and other stuff for the house."

We all agree and start packing up plates for those of us that are finished. I lose a game of drawing sticks, so I get dish duty. Shit.

Heather and Stella go upstairs to try and find my book where I hid it, while I stay down to manually wash the plates because as huge as this place is, it doesn't have a functioning dishwasher. Shame on you, Vincent.

"Hey, Joey," Kevin says, stopping at the door as I'm halfway through the pile. "The guys and I are going out for a stroll. Vin said the trashcans are out front if you need them. Be careful."

"Kay, thanks, you too." I say, my hands immersed in the soapy water. He leaves and I resume washing. When I'm done, I dry my hands and head for the drawers, where I kept my novel. I wonder what Stella and Heather have been doing since it isn't even upstairs.

"Hey."

My heart jumps in my chest and the book topples to meet the ground with a splat. I quickly get up and meet Keenan standing in the kitchen. "Hey, Keenan," I say. It's the first time he's spoken to me since Kevin's episode at his house. He's wearing a grey tee-shirt and sweatpants, his tattoos on full display on one arm, which he uses to grab my hand and pull me to the edge of the kitchen, beside the huge fridge.

"What are you doing?!" I whisper, looking up into his face. "Aren't you supposed to be out on a stroll?"

"I am. I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry," he says. My face falls and my defensive pose melts instantly. "I couldn't apologise earlier because I haven't been able to get you alone." I realise he's wedged us in such a way that a person walking into the kitchen wouldn't notice at first glance. He doesn't want us seen together.

"It's okay, it's all in the...past," I say, struggling to control my breathing. Being this close to him brings back memories of that morning, being this close to him on his bed while he catered for me.

He relaxes as I say I forgive him, but he doesn't move just yet. I want to, but I can't, because his eyes are staring directly into mine and my eyes can't leave his, either. For the first time, I notice just how gray they are. Like the sky, completely hypnotizing me in a way that only fiction has done in the past. Like the pages I love the feeling of uncovering one by one, I want to uncover the secrets his eyes tell. In other words, I don't know a lot about Keenan, but I don't think I'd mind knowing him, starting with the scar I notice that runs from the side of his forehead and disappears into his dark brown hair.

Clearly, he's done bad things, but something tells me there's a lot more to him than meets the eye.

He moves first, breaking the eye contact and steady chaos in my heartbeats by raising a finger to brush my hair from my face to behind my ear. "Goodnight, Jo."

"Yeah, goodnight," I croak.