by Megan Hart
Bess ignored him as she ducked under the water and let it hit the sore spot between her shoulders. Her entire body ached here and there, and bruises had blossomed in strange places. She and Nick hadn’t been rough, just frequent and abandoned. She touched one spot, an already yellowing rose on one hip, and remembered Nick’s teeth had put it there. She filled her palm with shower gel and scrubbed her skin, reminding herself to pick up a net sponge at the store. Her knees and calves prickled with hair she’d been too busy to shave, and she reached for her razor. The shower had a built-in seat and she used that to prop up her foot as she scraped the blade along her soap-softened skin.
The shower door slid open and she jumped, cutting the back of her ankle. The water stung and she looked up, annoyed. “Ouch!”
“You okay?” Nick leaned in the opening.
Bess touched the wound. It left her fingers briefly crimson, but the water quickly washed away the blood. “I’ll be okay.”
“Can I watch you?”
Refusal rose to her lips, but she shrugged. “Sure.”
Self-conscious from his attention, Bess fumbled through the rest of her routine. She’d been looking forward to a long, hot shower, but finished quickly instead and turned off the water. Nick handed her a towel matching his. Bess wrapped it around her chest and stepped out onto the bath mat.
“I never watched a girl shave her legs before.”
She thought about telling him she wasn’t a girl, but didn’t. “Was it everything you ever dreamed of?”
Nick chuckled and moved out of her way as Bess went to the sink. “Sure.”
She brushed her teeth and rubbed her skin with lotion, then hung up the towel. He was still wearing his towel. “Are you planning on getting dressed at all?”
“Sure.” Nick glanced into the bedroom, then back at her. “My clothes…”
“Oh. Right. You can toss them in the washer while I’m gone. We probably should do the sheets and towels, too.” Bess pushed past him and into the bedroom, where his clothes lay in the same pile they’d stayed in since she’d first stripped them off. Behind her, Nick came into the room.
“Yeah,” he said. “Well, it’s not just that.”
He toed the pile. Bess looked up from the drawer where she was pulling out a pair of panties for the first time in two days. She stepped into them, then reached for a bra.
“Oh,” she said, feeling really stupid. “They’re all you have.”
Nick nodded. The breath suddenly wheezed out of her, and Bess had to sit on the edge of the bed. Her stomach tumbled and she pressed her hands to it. She tried to take slow, even breaths, but heard the whistle of her own gasps anyway.
One set of clothes. This seemed more important, somehow, than the fact that he didn’t sleep or eat or breathe. One set of clothes only, nothing more, because Nick had nothing more. Was it what he’d been wearing when he…? Bess shuddered and clapped her hands over her eyes.
The bed dipped beside her. Nick put his arm around her shoulder, and though she meant to resist his touch, Bess turned and buried her face against him. She didn’t weep. This wasn’t grief rearing up inside her, stealing her breath and turning her guts. It was something else. Fear, maybe, that she was insane. Fear of the unknown. Fear he’d go away again without letting her know, and this time she’d have no secret hope harbored within her of ever seeing him again. If he went away this time, she’d never be able to convince herself he would come back.
“I’m sorry,” Nick said.
She released her grip on him and looked up. “Don’t be sorry.”
He touched her softly under the chin. “Believe me, Bess, it freaks me out a little, too.”
“I’ll buy you some more clothes when I go out.” She got up, needing action to force away emotion. “You’re about Connor’s size.”
She turned, to see him looking stunned. She paused with one arm through the sleeve of her blouse. “Nick?”
“How old’s your kid?”
“Connor’s eighteen,” she said. “Robbie’s seventeen. They’re what my grandma called Irish twins. Eleven months apart.” Her old habit of babbling caught up with her, and the wider Nick’s eyes got the faster she spoke. “Nobody would ever mistake them for twins, though. They barely look like brothers. Connor’s dark and Robbie’s light, like me….”
She trailed off. Nick had stood and gone to the window to stare out. His shoulders hunched as he gripped the window-sill. Tension vibrated in every line of his body.
“Nick?”
“I didn’t think,” he said. “I know you said it, but I really didn’t think about it.”
Instinct told her to go to him, but old habits couldn’t completely change. She imagined, instead, the silk of his skin beneath her comforting touch. Nick bent his head, his voice a low rasp.
“Tell me how long it’s been,” he said.
How could he not know? She had counted every day since the last time she’d seen him, one by one like bricks in a wall. How could he not remember, unless the passage of time had meant nothing?
“Twenty years,” she told him without pause. There was no point in trying to soften it.
Nick’s body jerked before he got himself under control. He half turned toward her, a tight smile pulling at his reluctant mouth. “So he’s not mine, at least.”
“Not yours?” Bess’s breath skipped in her lungs. “Oh, Nick. No. He’s not. Did you think he might be?”
Nick shook his head. “No. I don’t know. When you said you had kids, I thought… I mean, I knew you might. I thought you must have gotten married and stuff. I just didn’t think… Twenty years…” He trailed off and his mouth twisted again. He blinked rapidly.
The sight of this breakdown, however valiantly he fought it, destroyed the old reserve. She went to him and took him into her embrace. He buried his face against her neck and clutched her so tightly she thought her ribs might crack. She held him while he fought the sobs.
“Shh,” she soothed, her hands rubbing his back comfortingly. “It’s all right.”
Nick shook his head against her. Heat pressed her skin, but though his shoulders heaved, apparently he could no more shed tears than he could sweat or ejaculate.
“I don’t know where I was,” Nick moaned, so low she could barely hear him. “Where the fuck was I, Bess? For twenty fucking years?”
“I don’t know, baby,” she whispered. “But you’re here now.”
He pushed away from her and stalked the room, stopping to grab up his boxers from the pile and shove his legs into them. He turned as she watched, and his face had gone dark. Storm dark.
“Didn’t anyone look for me?” he demanded, throwing out his hands. “Didn’t you care where the fuck I went?”
She blinked, trying not to be offended by his sudden wish to blame her. “I cared. But I didn’t know you were…gone. Not like that.”
“Why not?” He advanced on her to grab her by the shoulders and shake. His fingers dug into her skin. He’d leave more bruises.
She couldn’t explain to him how hard it had been to find out where’d he’d gone or how easy it had been for her to believe he didn’t really want her. “I asked about you, but nobody knew anything. I waited for you, but when you never came I thought you didn’t want to. I didn’t know you couldn’t. Nobody knew.”
He let go of her and paced as she watched. He turned to look at her, answering his own question before she had the chance. “You mean, nobody cared.”
She’d cared, but Bess said nothing.
“I was that much of an asshole, huh?”
“I never forgot you.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” He shook his head.
“No. It’s just the truth.”
“Did you want to forget me?” he asked her after a moment.
Bess sighed, but answered. “After a while. Yes. After a while I just put that summer behind me.”
Nick shook his head, turning. He sank onto the bed, his arms crossed low over his
stomach as if it hurt. He rocked a little and groaned, then looked up, face bleak. His cheeks and the bridge of his nose bore the same faint sun-kissed blush of pink, and the rest of his skin was as tawny as it had always been, but dark circles had lodged beneath his eyes. Lines that had nothing to do with age bracketed his mouth.
“I wanted to come to you,” he whispered in a soul-sick voice. “I remember, now. I said I’d find you. I wanted to. But instead—”
She shook her head and went to him. Their knees touched when she sat next to him. She took his hands from their grip on his stomach and put them around her, and she pulled him close. His face nestled with perfect precision into the hollow of her neck and shoulder, and hers found the same place on him. She closed her eyes. She breathed him in. She touched him. Once upon a time the sun hadn’t risen without her thinking about Nick’s smile, and the wind hadn’t blown without it whispering his name.
“You’re here now,” she said. “And that’s all that matters.”
CHAPTER 08
Then
“What’s going on with you and Nick?” Missy wasn’t subtle enough to pretend she didn’t care.
Bess, on the other hand, was clever enough to pretend she didn’t know what Missy was talking about. “Nick?”
“You know who I mean.” Missy jerked a thumb toward the living room, which bounced with the usual party.
Bess let her gaze follow. Nick leaned against the wall near the hall, tipping a beer to his mouth and talking to Ryan. It was a near mirror of the pose in which Bess had first seen him. It affected her even more this time, but she kept her expression bland when she looked back at Missy.
“What about him?”
Missy scowled. “What’s going on with you two, that’s what.”
Bess shrugged and tipped the glass blender container—God knew where it had come from, or even if it was clean—toward her cup. Brian had made frozen margaritas. She sipped and her eyes watered instantly at the burn of tequila. “Holy shit.”
“Holy shit is right,” Missy said, her own eyes narrowed.
Bess sipped a bit more to hide her smile. “This is strong, that’s all.”
“Especially for a Miss Goody Two-shoes who doesn’t drink.” Missy crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter. The position shoved her cleavage out of her tank top. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Nick?” Bess looked again. This time, he was looking back. And smiling. It was the smile that got Missy, Bess was sure of it, and she smiled, too. “Nothing’s going on with him.”
“I saw you,” Missy hissed. She was on her way to being drunk, but not quite there.
Bess flinched as a fine spray of margarita-scented spittle flew from Missy’s lips. “Saw me what?”
“When you went to the bathroom,” she said. “You walked past him!”
Bess laughed and inched away to get out of the soak zone. “Oh, c’mon. So does everyone who has to go to the bathroom, Missy. He’s standing right there.”
Missy shook her head. “No. No, you—” she stabbed her finger toward Bess “—you…sidled.”
Bess burst into laughter that turned a few heads, even over the sound of the Violent Femmes pounding from the speakers. “Look who got herself a Word of the Day calendar.”
Missy didn’t appear insulted, but she did look crafty. She gulped the final dregs of her margarita without even a grimace. “I saw you touch him when you went past.”
She hadn’t, actually. Over the past week, as he’d managed to stop in almost every day to see her, Bess had thought about touching Nick. She always thought about it, but never did it. “You’re drunk. You didn’t see anything.”
“I saw you,” Missy insisted. “I saw you thinking about it, Bessie.”
“How the hell do you see anyone thinking about anything?”
Missy made a face. “Just because you’re pissed I told you he’s gay…”
“I think he’s the one who’s pissed about that. Not me.” Bess couldn’t help looking for him again. Touching him with her eyes. Now he was deep in conversation with Brian, whose hands were waving, but while Bess missed the sizzle that came from Nick’s gaze meeting hers, she also liked watching him when he wasn’t looking. She could drink him in that way.
“I’m talking to you!” Missy snapped her fingers in front of Bess’s face.
She heaved a sigh and gave Missy her attention. “Nick and I are just friends.”
Missy spluttered into laughter. “Oh, right. Nick? You and Nick the Prick? He’s not friends with any girl unless he’s fucking her.”
“Whatever, Missy.” Bess tried to pretend hearing that didn’t bother her, but her friend wasn’t too drunk to know when she’d struck a direct hit.
“Yeah, yeah. You say whatever.” She pointed across the room. “Ask Heather about him. She’ll tell you.”
Bess wouldn’t ask Heather for a glass of water if she were on fire. She looked up, though, to see Heather standing with her hip cocked, talking to Nick. Heather flung her fall of long blond hair over her shoulder and twirled a piece of it around one finger. If she pushed her boobs any closer to him she’d be holding his beer in her cleavage, Bess thought, and turned away.
Missy looked triumphant, then put on a mask of sincerity that might have fooled someone as drunk as she was, but didn’t convince Bess. “I was only looking out for you, Bessie. Nick’s bad news. And you have a boyfriend, remember?”
As if Bess could forget. She hadn’t told Missy about the sort of. “We’re just friends.” She tried to make the words taste better by swallowing them with a swig of margarita. It didn’t work, and made her cough. Missy pounded her on the back.
“I’m just saying,” Missy said, but nothing else, as if those three words were explanation enough.
Across the room, Bess watched Heather lean in close to Nick, who didn’t pull away. And why should he? The blonde had big tits and a small ass and a flat stomach. Heather could suck the chrome off a truck hitch. She didn’t “sort of” have a boyfriend.
“Slow down with that drink,” Missy advised as she poured herself another. “That bitch Brian’s a fiend for the alcohol.”
For maybe the first time in her life, Bess wanted to get drunk. Instead she put down the cup and left the party. At home she declined an offer by her older, married cousins to join in on a game of gin rummy. She stretched the phone cord as long as it could reach, out onto the deck, and though it wasn’t their appointed time she called Andy, anyway. The phone rang for a long time before his brother answered.
“Andy’s not home.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back? It’s Bess.”
Did she imagine Matt’s hesitation? The sympathy in his voice? Would Andy’s brother tell her the truth if she asked him to, about the other girl whose letters Bess had found in Andy’s desk drawer?
“I don’t, Bess. Sorry.”
He sounded sorry, but that didn’t do her any good. Bess thanked him and hung up. She looked out at the black ocean but could see no waves.
She hadn’t meant to look in Andy’s drawer, hadn’t been looking for something she wasn’t meant to see. He’d asked her to grab a package of snapshots he wanted to show his parents, and Bess, who liked Mr. and Mrs. Walsh but wasn’t sure if they really liked her, had been all too happy to escape the dinner table to get them.
She’d been in Andy’s room quite a few times and knew what drawer in his desk he meant. The pictures weren’t there, but there was a rubber band-bound package of envelopes addressed to Andy in a looping, unfamiliar hand. A girl’s handwriting. Men didn’t dot their i’s with little flowers.
She hadn’t meant to find them, but once she had there was no question of her not reading them. She’d eased the first from the envelope and glanced at the salutation, skimmed the body of the letter and went straight to the signature.
Love, Lisa
Love? What the hell was some girl doing sending Andy, Bess’s Andy, letters signed with such a word? At the sound of footste
ps in the hall, Bess had crammed the letters back into the rubber band. If it had been Andy in the doorway she’d have confronted him then, not left it a secret dissolving them like acid.
But it had been Matty, Andy’s younger brother, who’d come to see what was taking her so long. Bess saw on his face he knew what she’d seen, or guessed, but Andy was Matt’s brother and Bess was just some girl who might or might not someday be part of their family. Matt had said nothing, so neither had she. Not to Matt, and not to Andy himself.
She’d left the next day for the shore with Andy’s promises ringing in her ears. He’d write. He’d call. This year, he’d visit. So far he hadn’t kept any part of his promise.
So far, Bess had stopped expecting him to.
CHAPTER 09
Now
The Surf Pro still sold overpriced bathing suits, but like so much else time had changed, money was no longer quite the issue it had been when she was younger. Bess perused the racks of clothes, knowing she wouldn’t find much of anything Nick really needed—jeans, T-shirts, boxers, socks. Her fingers drifted through racks of baggy surf shorts and wetsuits. It didn’t escape her that she knew just what a twenty-one-year-old guy needed, or what one would like.
She’d only stopped into the shop on a whim because Nick had once worked there. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find. A plaque? A shrine to his memory? She doubted there’d even be anyone working there who remembered him. That, more than anything, and hearing him ask why she hadn’t known he was gone, pushed her out of the shop and back onto Garfield Street. She’d driven into town to hit the small grocery store, Shore Foods, because it was what she knew. A lot had changed since the last time Bess had been to Bethany Beach. More shops, for one. She’d have to look for something like a discount store to find everything she really needed, but for now Nick would have to deal with wearing shorts and T-shirts she picked up from the Five and Ten.
Across the street from where she’d parked was Sugarland. Or rather, where Sugarland had once stood. The storefront had changed, nearly swallowed up by a bunch of newly constructed specialty shops and an arcade, but the store inside looked mostly the same. Cleaner and with updated decor, but not much different than it had been when she’d been a slave behind the counter.