“You are so hot,” he said and moved closer to her. “Literally.” — Sydney met Luke in the elevator of her sister’s apartment building. She had been stuck in the elevator once with Clair, Clair had laughed while she had freaked out. …

She looked into his eyes fiercely tenderly and ran her hands over his body as if every touch said I love you to him. — Sydney laughed when her mother splashed her from the other side of the pool. It was rare that her mom was playful like that with her. But she was usually different when her father was around. …

But Elyse very well knew what a bad boyfriend looked like because she had had her own carousel when she was younger. — “She is all you have left,” Mickey knew Elyse all too well. Her indifference to her middle daughter had always been clear to him. She did everything for Sydney and took care of her but emotionally she was hollow at times. It was such a hot day, that they all…

Sydney looked at her with wide eyes like she had as a little girl when she did not know what to do. Elyse could not help her… — Elyse had dreamt of Penny and Clair the night before. Penny was a distortion of Sydney as an adult with Penny’s face. Clair looked like herself as an adult. Sydney was not there, and she never wondered where she was. She was so happy with her other two daughters. When…

She was pretty sure she could get him and could not bear to lose him to her younger sister. — Clair drove along the winding path to the summer house. She wore her prescription shades, which helped keep the blinding sun out of her eyes. It was a gorgeous drive, but a dangerous one. …

It was not that she did not love Sydney, but she wanted Clair there as a buffer between them. — Elyse sipped her iced tea slowly, of course she would drink iced tea at noon. She was not sure that Sydney was doing the same. When she was a teenager, she would drink whatever she wanted in a glass like it was soda. Elyse said nothing to her at the…

She was the prodigal daughter even though she had never gone anywhere. — Sydney settled by the pool, with the Americano she had made for herself. She put her drink down and her phone, as she sat in just her bikini bottom. …

Luke’s eyes shone like dark stars behind the lowered curtains of her lids. — It was dark. The pool glowed in the dark, unoccupied, not as it had been for most of the day. The ghostly colors haunted Elyse as she stared out over it from her room. Elyse gasped when she saw Luke dive completely naked into the pool. She wanted to look…

He almost pulled away from her lips, but sucked on the bottom one like a hard candy. — Nichy pressed her nails into her palm so deeply, that there was an imprint that she rubbed now sitting at her perch as the faux librarian. Her boss had been gentle about it, but since out the day before she was scheduled to work in the library this evening. Sitting…