Title: Understood
Author: circle_game
Summary: So maybe she understands him, like it or not, anyway. Ryan/Summer, Ryan/Marissa, hard R.
Disclaimer: Not mine. *pout* First time writing OC-fic, and this is kind of an unusual pairing. Also, I have no idea about anything about Summer's family, so I took liberties (that may make the fic slightly AU). The song lyrics are from Joni Mitchell's "Conversation."
Understood
He comes for conversation
I comfort him sometimes
Comfort and consultation
He knows that's what he'll find
Secrets and sharing soda
That's how our time began
Love is a story told to a friend
It's second hand
The irony of her relationship with her stepmother isn't lost on Summer Roberts. She hates the woman with a passion. Samantha Mazlin Roberts is a royal bitch and an unabashed money-grubber, wrapped up in a pretty package (strawberry blond hair, creamy skin, green eyes) and tied with a matching bow. She was the second and largely ornamental wife of a rich older man who gotten tired of the older model and hooked himself up with a new one.
She was exactly where Summer saw herself in ten years.
It didn't bother Summer, really. She lived the lifestyle, after all, so she had to pay for it somehow. It wouldn't be long before she was eighteen and expected to care for herself. Working was out of the question, so after college a suitable marriage was the inevitable option. Summer liked money and she liked things. She needed a source for money and things. It was that simple.
Sometimes, sitting in bed at night and staring at her freshly manicured nails, Summer wondered about her choice— or lack there of. She thought about her mother, who had divorced her husband, changed her name to Sunshine, and sailed to Thailand to perform a hand-fasting ceremony with the woman she loved. Not that Summer wanted to do that— be a lesbian or anything— there was a serious ew factor involved. But still. There was something intoxicating about the thought of anonymity, of freedom and poverty, of traveling across the world with only your lover, your camera, and your hand-woven cloth bag.
Realistically, Summer knew she never could. The idea of living out of a backpack was even worse than the slimy, crawly, germy things you might encounter on your way— bugs, snakes, public restrooms. No pedicures, no facials, no massages. The idea of finding a shopping mall or beauty salon in the middle of the wilds of India, or Borneo, or Ecuador, was laughable, and the dirt. Ew.
So Summer locked the thought up in its own little cage and shoved it to the back of her mind, where she trapped the thoughts about moving to New York, or skipping college, or the boy from Chino.
***
Summer hadn't liked Ryan Atwood, and she still didn't— from the first time Marissa had dropped his name to the last time she'd dropped to her knees in front of him. They were eons apart in every aspect of life. She didn't understand him, and she didn't want to.
But she knew what he wanted. And he knew what she wanted.
Coop was Summer's best friend, really, she was. The two still unwound during pedicures on Sunday mornings and shopping trips with Summer's gold card. Coop still borrowed Summer's über-expensive Chanel perfume and forgot it in country club bathrooms, and Summer still snatched up Julie Cooper's old Cosmos to dog-ear articles with cheesy titles like "How to Please Your Man" and "Top Ten Bedroom Tricks." They were sisters in another life, if Summer believed in that sort of thing, which she wasn't sure she did. But the sentiment still stood.
That didn't mean anything when it came to what Chino and Summer wanted.
Yes, Summer loved Coop, but that didn't mean that she always agreed with her. Coop had declared that Chino was her soulmate, with big eyes and a breathless tone, hopelessly optimistic that her prince had finally come. Fairy tales were nice and all, but Summer had always related more to the Wicked Queen than the waif-y Snow White. Summer got what needed to be done, done, no bullshit— whether it was disposing of too-pretty nieces or fulfilling a teenage guy's obvious needs.
For all her plans of marriage and babies, Coop had skimmed amazingly over the whole sex aspect of her relationship— or was she referring to it as a "spiritual bond," now?— with Chino. For the love of Prada, Chino was a seventeen-year-old male, and Marissa was hardly a virgin anymore. Why they weren't fucking like rabbits was behind Summer, and obviously beyond Chino, too.
So it was really just a necessity, what Summer and Chino were doing. If Coop had any sense of practicality, could see beyond a white wedding and two little girls named Lily and Jordan, she would understand how pragmatic it was. So it wasn't like cheating or anything. Just an arrangement that helped everyone, because Coop obviously wasn't willing to get on her knees.
Summer didn't remember exactly when it started, sometime in the bleak January period after Seth chose Anna and Ryan came rushing to sweep Marissa up and away at midnight. She did remember exactly why it started, because she has no problem admitting that Chino is fucking sexy.
He was like— Summer could never really explain it, but she tried to, to herself, at least. Different sexy. All corded muscle and head-jerks and smoldering eyes. Summer had never used the word smoldering before, but she kind of liked it, and it fit. No one from Newport had eyes that smoldered, or snuck cigarettes that they lit with a flick of their wrist and their silver lighter. He was mysterious that way, a taste of the life her mother might have, or anyone else who threw their lives and expectations out the window and sailed off to roam the wilderness.
So he was hot, and he was horny. Obviously—that was part of the definition of a teenage boy, and Coop could only have been making that worse. And Summer had barged into the pool house one day, looking for Seth and Anna, only to find a naked Chino, furiously attempting to replace his dreams of Coop's mouth with his hand and a bottle of lotion.
His eyes were closed, and Summer could have just slipped out of the pool house, unnoticed. She was wearing her ballet flats, after all, which not only looked perfect with her new black skirt but defined "stealth." But she hadn't been able to turn away. Seth's rejection— rejection! of her— was painfully fresh in her mind and even if it hadn't been, someone would make millions if they shot a porn movie of Chino just. Doing that. Looking like that.
So she had walked in. And. Summer doesn't like thinking about this part, because it starts a slow burn in her stomach that only leaves a trail of fire as it spreads downward. She'd never liked giving head before her first encounter with Chino, but that first time, and all the times after it, was nothing short of mindfucking hot. She liked the way he swore, rough whispers mixed with moans, and pumped his hips in frustration when she came up for air. She liked feeling in control. The Cosmo tips never mentioned anything about a mind-blowing sense of power, so maybe it was just. Him. And her.
She liked being his release from Coop, and maybe he was her release, too— she wasn't exactly getting any these days. She liked walking in at midnight, or one, and watching him slowly undress. She liked wrapping her legs around his waist, and letting him shove her up against the door frame, and bury his cock deep inside her. She liked matching him, scream for moan, and she liked the tension on his face right before he came. She did not, however, like Chino.
He was different. Maybe you couldn't tell it, so much, when Summer was kneeling down to draw her tongue over the head of his cock, when Chino was finger-fucking her, when they came in odd unison. But he was. The only thing they share is sex, in a dark pool house while everyone else is sleeping. Desire, and sex.
But she can give that, while his "soulmate," Coop, can't. So maybe she understands him, like it or not, anyway.
***
But she doesn't want to think about understanding him, so Summer shoves the thought back in its cage and throws away the key. It threatens to escape every now and then, when he brushes against her accidentally when they're out to lunch with Coop. When he scores a goal during a soccer game and leans down, hands on his knees, to catch his breath, dripping sweat and oozing sex. When he throws her against a wall, bites her neck, sucks her breasts.
But, just like the thoughts of impoverished travel across Europe and Asia or flying cross-country to New York, Summer keeps it in check, most of the time. Because it's not really. Her