by Megan Hart
“I’ll think about it.”
“Great!” He grinned and took one hand from his pocket to give her a salute. “See you!”
He didn’t go any farther, just stood there with one hand on a parking meter, watching her pull out. He waved as she started to drive away. Bess waved back.
She liked Eddie. Always had. She liked talking with him even more now that, as adults, they weren’t caught up in the awkward melodrama of teenage crushes and working together. Becoming Eddie’s partner might bring all that back. On the other hand, as much as they’d remained the same, they’d both also changed. A lot. She’d said she’d think about it, that was all, and that’s what she did all the way back to the house.
She’d had a good time with Eddie, but by the time she pulled into the carport, her entire world had once again become Nick. Every breath, each pulse, every step took her closer to him. By the time she got to the door she could already taste and feel him, and she wondered how she’d ever managed to spend even one minute without him next to her.
CHAPTER 16
Then
“I know he got home from work hours ago.” Bess didn’t wait for Matty to try to cover for his brother. “Matt. Please. I need to talk to him.”
Andy wouldn’t be expecting Bess to call him tonight. They usually phoned each other Mondays at ten, unless she was working late. Andy didn’t like her to call after ten, saying he had to go to bed in order to be up on time for work.
He’d snagged a final internship in a comfy law office ten minutes from his house. He worked nine to five and had an hour lunch, when one of the partners usually treated him at a nice restaurant, and they’d already started talking about finding him a permanent position when he officially graduated at the end of the summer. It was as different from her job at the Sugarland, and would be as different from her future career in social work, as mushrooms from Mozart.
“Bess…” Matty sighed. He had been in her grade at school, though they’d never really hung out much until she started dating Andy. “He’s in the shower.”
Bess paused. At nine o’clock on a Friday night, chances were good Andy wasn’t in the shower getting ready for bed. “Did he tell you not to let me talk to him?”
Matty made an uncomfortable noise.
“Matty? Did Andy tell you he didn’t want to talk to me if I called?” The need to know burned inside her.
Something shuffled on Matty’s end of the phone. “He’s my brother, Bess.”
“So that gives you an excuse to be as shitty to me as he is?”
She should’ve felt like a bitch for saying it, but Matty sounded guilty, not offended.
“I’m sorry.” His voice dipped low. “He really is in the shower.”
“Getting ready to go out?”
“Yeah, I guess so. It’s not like he runs his agenda past me for approval,” Matty said. “He goes out a lot. I don’t always know who he’s with.”
“Sometimes you do,” Bess muttered. She looked into the living room, where her aunt Jamie and uncle Dennis were busy laying out a new game of Monopoly. They’d just arrived for their week’s vacation and always played a marathon game. Bess turned her back and twirled the phone cord around her finger. “Is he out of the shower yet?”
Matty sighed again. “Yeah. Let me get him.”
“Thanks.”
Matty said nothing, but Bess heard the clatter of the phone, more shuffling, and a muffled, “Here. I’m fucking sick of being your messenger boy, Andy.”
“Fuck you, Matty.”
“You, too, bro. You, too.”
Usually Bess would have smiled at the banter between brothers, something so foreign to her as an only child. Tonight she only stared hard at the linoleum, counting the flowers in the pattern while she waited for Andy to get on the phone.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Hi. It’s me.”
“Yeah. I know it’s you. What’s up?” Andy sounded distant and distracted.
“I miss you.” Bess, mindful of the house always full of people, pulled the phone with her into the small broom closet. She sank onto the floor with her back to the door, which didn’t close all the way because of the cord, and pulled her knees to her chest. “I miss you, Andy, that’s all.”
“You just talked to me a few days ago.”
Bess tried to keep her voice light. “Yeah, I know, but I still miss you. Isn’t that okay?”
“Sure.” She could picture his shrug and his frown. He was probably looking in the mirror, brushing his hair. Flexing his biceps. Typical Andy.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
Don’t ask with who. Don’t ask him. Don’t be the jealous girlfriend he accuses you of being.
“With who?”
“Some of the guys. Dan. Joe.”
She’d never met either of them. “From work?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going out, too.” Bess gnawed her cheek but stopped when it stung. She put her fingertips to the spot and they came away bloody. “To a party.”
Andy’s voice sounded faraway, then got closer, and she imagined him putting aside the phone to pull a shirt over his head. “Have fun.”
“Yeah, this guy…Nick. He invited me.”
“Have a good time.” More muffled shuffling. She heard the clatter of something metal. His watch, maybe. “Bess, I gotta go. The guys are waiting for me.”
“But I’ll see you next week, for the concert, right? I got the weekend off.” Andy had scored tickets to see Fast Fashion at the Hershey Stadium. It was supposed to be one of the biggest shows of the summer.
“Yeah, about that…”
Bess’s stomach sunk. Laughter reached her as her aunt and uncle and the couple who’d joined them for the week started mixing drinks and serving food. They were having a party of their own.
“What about it?” It couldn’t be good.
“I don’t have a ticket for you.”
“What?”
“I don’t have a ticket for you,” Andy repeated. It had been bad enough the first time. Hearing it a second twisted her stomach into knots.
“What do you mean you don’t have a ticket for me? We talked about it. I got the weekend off—”
“I could only get five tickets, Bess.” Andy sounded annoyed, but not defensive. “You said you weren’t sure about getting the time off. I asked some people from work to go.”
Bess chewed on her answer instead of her cheek before she spoke. “Who?”
“Dan. Joe. Lisa. With Matt and me, that’s five.”
The name, the same as in the letters, stabbed her in the stomach. “Who’s Lisa?”
“We all work together. She likes Fast Fashion. I told her she could come along.”
Bess chewed her words harder this time, tattering them. “So…what you’re saying to me is that you’re going to take some girl from work instead of me? To a concert we’ve been talking about all summer long? You’re going to take some girl you just met, instead of me. Your girlfriend.”
“I knew you’d be like that.”
“Like what? Upset?” She spat the words like gristle.
“Why do you have to be like that?” Andy sounded disgusted. “Shit, Bess. It’s just a fucking concert.”
“Forget it.” She got to her feet. The air in the closet was stifling, but she felt cold. “Never mind, Andy. I’ve got to get to my party.”
He sounded relieved she was dropping it, not concerned. “We’ll see Fast Fashion another time—”
“Don’t.” It was all she could manage to say through the ribbon drawing tighter and tighter around her throat.
“Be careful at that party. You know you’re not a big drinker.”
Bess said nothing.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Tomorrow isn’t Monday, Andy.”
He gave a long-suffering sigh. “Goodbye.”
He hung up.
“I miss you, Andy,” Bess said again, and c
losed her eyes against a spate of tears. Maybe if she kept saying it, it would be true.
CHAPTER 17
Now
Bess leaned into the spray of hot water and let it pound her back and shoulders. Eyes closed, she put a hand on the shower wall and sighed. Most every part of her ached, not just her shoulders, but though it was the sort of tenderness a massage might have alleviated, the thought of someone touching her wasn’t appealing at the moment.
As infants born only eleven months apart, her boys had clung to her like limpets. Connor had still been nursing right up until a few weeks before Robbie was born. Bess had had nightmares about tandem nursing or forcing Connor to start taking a bottle, but he had given up the breast on his own and started drinking from a cup. He’d been a little jealous when Robbie came and took his place on Mama’s lap, though, and Bess had lost track of the hours she’d spent on the couch watching hour after hour of daytime television while one baby nursed and the other demanded her attention.
Andy hadn’t understood what she meant when she’d told him she was “touched out.” He’d come home from work expecting the house to be clean, the children fed and put to sleep, and a warm and willing wife lounging naked in their bed. He didn’t understand how Bess could be so tired from doing “nothing” all day long, or why the thought of sex had lost its appeal for a woman who’d once had a libido to rival his own. The days had long passed since caring for babies had sapped Bess of her desire to be touched, but the past week had seen a small revival of it.
It was more than the sex. Fucking Nick was even better than it had been before. She was more confident now, knew her body better, had no trouble telling him what she liked and how to do it. They’d always had fun together, but it had been tempered by a certain aloofness from both of them. Neither had been willing to admit what they were doing was any more than a casual, summer thing.
It was different now.
She couldn’t begin to imagine how he must feel, being brought back from the gray, as he called it. It was hard enough for her to accept without hurting her brain, and it hadn’t happened to her. For the most part they spoke of his time away as if he’d been on a trip. Or in a coma. Neither of which would explain how he could look exactly the way he always had, or why his heart didn’t beat or why he didn’t breathe. Why he didn’t sleep.
Bess couldn’t imagine what it must be like for him, so when he needed her body, she gave it to him. When he wanted her to sleep next to him tangled limb to limb, she allowed it even though she hated to be touched while she slept. When he asked her to tell him how much she’d missed him, she told him. When he turned off the television or put aside the newspapers so she could focus on him and he could ignore the changes the world had made, she did that, too.
She gave him what he wanted because she couldn’t imagine how it would feel to have died and returned, and because giving in to him was easier than having him tell her how it felt.
The water hadn’t yet run cold when she decided to get out, but she knew if she stayed in much longer Nick would come looking for her. Bess turned off the spray and stepped out, dried off and pulled on her lightweight silk robe. Andy had brought it back from Japan, teasing her about being his geisha. Now the silk clung to her damp body as she tied the belt at her waist. At the sink she brushed her teeth and flossed, then spread a thin layer of expensive face cream over her skin. She looked at the fine lines around her eyes. Andy called them crow’s-feet, but Bess preferred to think of them as laugh lines. At least she’d had a life filled with enough laughter to line her face.
“Hey, baby.” Nick reached for her when she came into the living room, where he was dealing out a game of solitaire. He settled her onto his lap and slid a hand between her thighs, frowning when she tensed. “What’s up?”
The pet name still sounded odd coming from him, even as his casual affection thrilled her. Bess kissed him, then ducked her head against his shoulder. “Nothing. Just a little sore.”
Nick’s fingers gentled against her thigh. “From me?”
Bess rubbed a fingertip over the letters on the front of his T-shirt. “Don’t worry about it.”
He cupped his hand between her legs. “You’re so hot down here.” He didn’t move his fingers, though, just held her. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
Bess laughed. “We’ve just been having a lot of sex, that’s all. I’ll be okay.” She sat up to look at him, and when he kissed her that fact, like the pet name, sent a chill of pleasure through her. “I do have to run out to the store, though. Get some things.”
Cranberry tablets, for one, to fend off any potential problems from all the action. Food and some real clothes for Nick, for another. Essentials. She’d been here for two weeks and aside from a few quick trips into town, hadn’t been shopping.
Nick frowned. “Yeah. I guess you do.”
She cupped his cheek and turned his face to look at her. “I’ll bring back whatever you want. What do you need?”
Nick nudged her to get off his lap, leaving her in the chair while he got up to look out the sliding-glass door to the deck. “You could get me some cigarettes.”
He didn’t eat or drink or breathe, but he could smoke? “Anything else?”
His too-casual shrug told her more than he probably wanted to. “Couple of long-sleeved T-shirts. Boxers. Pair of sweats.”
“Okay.” Bess went to him and put her arms around his waist to rest her cheek on his back. They stayed that way for a few minutes until he turned to hug her.
“Don’t be long,” he said gruffly, and Bess smiled despite herself, her face hidden against his chest.
It used to be that all she wanted was to know Nick wanted her. They were still feeling their way, and neither had spoken about what would happen next week when her boys came to stay, but there was no doubt in Bess’s mind that Nick wanted her. He hadn’t said he loved her. She hadn’t said it, either.
She tipped her face for a kiss, which he gave, then went to the bedroom to dress. She pulled on panties and a bra, then a flowing summer dress and matching cardigan, and slipped her feet into sandals. Grabbing her sunglasses and keys along with her purse, she kissed Nick goodbye and went downstairs to the carport.
She hadn’t asked him to come with her, and he didn’t ask to go. Bess thought, like his avoidance of TV and newspapers, it might be that Nick didn’t want to see the changes in the town. Or maybe he didn’t want to run into anyone who might recognize him, anyone to whom he’d have to explain his miraculous return.
Taking Maplewood Street to Route 1, Bess thought about Nick’s family. She didn’t know much, just that he’d been raised mostly by an aunt and uncle who lived in Dewey Beach. She’d never met them. Nick had barely talked about them, but chances were good they still lived there. But what purpose would it serve them to see him?
Could they even see him?
Bess pulled into the vast parking lot of the huge grocery mart but didn’t get out of the car. A sudden, racking set of chills swept over her and she shuddered. Though it was the first week of June, she turned the heat on high and clenched her jaw to stop the clattering of her teeth. Her stomach churned, and she swallowed hard, over and over, to force back a gag.
Her separation from Andy, even though it had been her choice…coming back to the beach house…had it all triggered some sort of breakdown? She’d spent so many years remembering Nick Hamilton, she’d manufactured him, along with an explanation about why he hadn’t come to her the way he’d promised. Her life had been turned upside down. Was she now grasping at anything to make it somehow better?
Her teeth stopped chattering under the force of dry, heated air, but gooseflesh still pimpled her arms and thighs. Bess slid up the hem of her dress. A paling bruise on one knee could have come from an encounter with a coffee table, not from giving Nick head on the kitchen floor. The twin dark circles on the inside of her thigh could have been mosquito bites, scratched open, and not the prints of his fingers. She pressed herself through her panties.
There was no pretending away the ache there, from being so thoroughly, deliriously, incredulously, marvelously and constantly fucked.
Bess moaned and dropped her skirt back to her knees. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands. Sweat dripped down her cheeks, though she still felt chilled, and she turned off the heat. Around her in the parking lot, people in T-shirts and shorts went to and fro with their packages. The sun shone. Summer.
It was summer, and Bess had lost her mind.
She fumbled in her purse for a package of mints to take away the sour taste on her tongue. She sucked one slowly. The air in the car was too hot now, and she cracked open her window. From outside, the normal, common sounds of cart wheels squeaking, traffic and conversation settled her stomach better than the mint. Bess took another, crunching it. She breathed deeply.
Just because she didn’t know if anyone else could see Nick didn’t mean he existed only in her mind. She’d touched him, felt him, smelled and tasted him. He was real. How he was real was a question for which she had no answer, but the explanation could not be that she was insane.
She’d never forgotten him, but neither had she spent the past twenty years pining for him. Her life with Andy hadn’t been all trials and tribulations. She’d married him with the intent of loving him forever. They’d had two sons who would bind them together forever even if their marriage ended. Bess took another slow, deep breath. Her marriage was ending, but that didn’t make her crazy, either.
She forced herself out of the car. The cooler air outside helped settle her, too. She had to catch the hem of her dress to keep it from flipping up in a sudden breeze, and that simple touch of air on her bare legs further convinced her of her sanity.
Inside the superstore Bess stacked up purchases. New beach towels, soap, shampoo, laundry detergent. A folding beach chair with backpack straps. A kite. Cigarettes for Nick, along with clothes. A new pair of flip-f lops for herself. Groceries.
The bill was higher than she’d expected, but even in the superstore, prices were higher at the beach. She paid with her credit card, thinking about the irony of buying her lover clothes with her husband’s money, but then not caring. After all, Andy paid for his lover’s trip to Japan, and other things, too. And in a few months, Bess would be paying all her own bills. She had money from her grandparents and parents, but she’d have to get a job, too.