Deeper

“Yes.” Her voice sounded hoarse. Her thoughts seemed fuzzy. Contact high? she wondered as a wave of dizziness swept her. Or Nick’s smile? “You’re Nick. Ryan’s friend.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“I’m heading home,” Bess said. Gay. Why did he have to be gay? How could he be gay? Why was every cute boy around here gay? “I rode my bike.”

“That’s hot,” said Nick with another grin. “What do you ride? A Harley?”

Her thoughts weren’t normally so slow, but somehow lust and disappointment had made syrup of her brain. “What? Oh…no. Ten-speed.”

He laughed. Bess watched his throat work. She wanted to lick him, and had actually moved forward a tiny bit before she stopped herself, embarrassed. Nick didn’t seem to notice.

“Where do you live?”

She hesitated before telling him, not wanting to admit she lived in one of the beachfront homes.

“Don’t worry, I’m not a serial killer,” Nick said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

She felt really stupid then. “Oh. No, it’s not that. I’m staying in my grandparents’ house on Maplewood Street.”

There was only the barest pause before he nodded. “Uh-huh.”

His gaze traveled over her, up and down, and Bess suddenly wished she’d borrowed some of Missy’s clothes. Put on some makeup. Except what did it matter, when he didn’t like girls, anyway?

“Nice meeting you,” she said. It sounded lame, even to her. The sort of thing you said at a cocktail party, not an impromptu kegger in a trailer park.

“You work at Sugarland, right? I’ve seen you there.” Nick thrust his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans.

“Yes.” Bess looked for her bike, still chained to the hitch of Missy’s trailer.

“With Brian, right?”

Bess gave an inward sigh. Of course he would know Brian. “Yeah.”

“I work at the Surf Pro.” Nick walked with her to the bike and watched as she unlinked the chain and wound it along the straddle bar.

One of the few stores Bess had never been in. The bathing suits were too expensive there, and she didn’t surf. Or sail. She nudged up the kickstand with her foot, grasping the bike’s handles, and swung her leg over the seat.

“You sure you’re okay?” Nick asked. “Your ankle’s okay and everything? You’re okay to…ride?”

“I already told you, I’m not drunk.” Her answer came out a little more clipped than she’d intended, but it was late. She was tired. And she was trying very hard not to notice how nice his mouth looked when he smiled.

“Okay, well, maybe I’ll see you around.” Nick gave her a nod and waved as she pushed off and rode away.

“See you,” Bess called over her shoulder, with no intention of ever seeing him again.

Chapter

03

Now

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

At the sound of the voice in the doorway, Bess’s soap-slick hands twitched on the coffee mug she’d been rinsing. It slipped from her fingers and crashed to the kitchen’s tile floor. Hot water splashed her legs as she turned, gripping the counter to keep from sliding in the spill.

He stood, backlit, for just a moment before moving forward. The same dark hair, same dark eyes. Same quirked smile.

Everything the same.

Bess couldn’t move. Last night she had dreamed…Oh, but it hadn’t been a dream. Had it? If not, surely she was dreaming now. She curved her fingers against the sink’s porcelain, finding no purchase. Nothing to grip.

“Nick?”

Now he looked uncertain. His hair dripped, and the hems of his jeans. His bare toes, coated with sand, gritted on the tile as he took a step toward her, hand outstretched but quickly pulling back when she shrank against the counter. “Bess…it’s me.”

Her guts tumbled inside her, and she couldn’t breathe. She sipped at the air in uneven, hitching gasps. “I thought…I thought…”

“Hey.” He soothed her, coming closer.

She could smell him. Salt and water and sand and sun. The way he’d always smelled, back then. Bess found more air. Took a deeper breath. Nick didn’t touch her as she stared. His hand hovered an inch from her shoulder.

“It’s really me,” he said.

A low sob forced its way from her throat and she launched herself forward. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face to the damp fabric of his shirt. She breathed him in, deep and deeper.

It took him a second to put his arms around her, but when he did, his embrace was firm. Warm. He rubbed her back, then slid up a hand to cup the base of her skull.

Bess, eyes closed, shuddered against him. “I thought I was dreaming last night.”

She remembered stumbling up the beach, peeling off her clothes, tumbling into bed without even bothering to dry her hair or brush the sand from her skin. She’d woken to find the pile of salty, sodden clothes staining the rug, and her bed a shambles. The passion of the night before had been replaced by a pounding head and slightly sick stomach.

Nick’s hand rubbed a small, tight circle on her back, between the shoulder blades. “If you were dreaming, I was dreaming, too.”

Bess held him tighter. “Maybe we’re both dreaming, because this can’t be real, Nick. It can’t be real.”

He put his hands on her upper arms and pushed her back far enough to look into her face. She’d forgotten how small he could make her feel. How deceptively bigger he’d always been.

“I’m real.”

His fingers on her arms felt real. Solid. Strong. Her cheek was wet from where she’d pressed it to his shirt. Heat radiated from him as though she stood in front of a furnace, and the smell of him, that lost, welcome smell, filled her head until there was nothing else inside her. Tears blurred her vision and she blinked them away. Then she pushed herself out of his arms.

Bess looked at him. Salt water had spiked his hair, but had ceased sliding down his cheeks. His clothes had started to dry, too. He took up as much space as he ever had. His touch was as warm. Time hadn’t changed him, hadn’t painted lines in the corners of his eyes and mouth or silver in his hair.

Bess touched Nick’s cheek. “How can this be? Look at you. Look at me.”

He put his hand over hers, then turned his face to press a kiss to the center of her palm. He closed her fingers over it, but said nothing.