by Megan Hart
She turned her back on him.
“You won’t ever tell them about us because you’re afraid,” he accused, as if she’d slapped him.
“Just…give me a little time,” she said.
He laughed. “Right. Time for what?”
“Time to figure out how to tell them. Time to figure out if you’re going to stay or go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Nick stated. “I know, because I’ve tried.”
“I know, the boundary—”
“No. I mean I’ve tried getting back to the gray, back where I was before, and I can’t do it.”
This stopped her cold. “You did? Why?”
“Because you’re never going to tell your sons or anyone else that I’m your boyfriend, Bess. You’re never going to admit it to anyone. And Jesus,” Nick said with a harsh bark of a laugh, “what if you do? Holy fuck, what’s going to happen ten years from now when I still look twenty-one? They’ll start coming after me with stakes and torches.”
“No,” she said, and touched his cheek. “No, I’m sure that won’t happen.”
She wasn’t certain, but it seemed the thing to say.
Nick sat on the edge of the bed. “I thought when I came back that anything was better than being in the gray. I thought being with you… God, it was all I thought about, all I could think about. Being with you again.”
He looked at her, but she didn’t sit next to him.
“I thought it would all be better once we were together again, but this is worse. This is a worse prison. I can’t go anywhere, I can’t do anything. I can fuck you all night and all day, but I can’t really be with you.”
“That’s not true!” Her voice broke. She reached to touch his hair, and he reached to pull her closer. He buried his face against her stomach, his arms wrapped around her legs. “You are with me. I love you.”
Nick said nothing.
“I’ll tell them,” Bess said, resolved.
“What will you tell them?” He didn’t look up at her. His voice was muffled against her. “Hey, kids, here’s your new daddy, and by the way, he’s been dead for twenty years.”
“We’ll start with letting them know we’re together. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
He shuddered, then looked up at her. “You’ll really tell them about us?”
“Like you said, Connor already knows. We don’t have to tell them anything,” she added, sitting next to him. “They’ll figure it out. They don’t need an announcement.”
He smiled briefly. “And you’re ready to do that?”
“No.” She shook her head. “But it kills me to think you’re unhappy.”
He looked at his hands, folded in his lap. “This is all such a colossal mess.”
“It will work out,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt. “We’ll find a way.”
He snorted lightly. “Sure we will.”
“Hey.” She took his hand and waited until he looked up at her. “We will find a way for this to work. I’m not going to let this slip away from me again.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”
“Nick,” Bess said. “Trust me.”
He leaned to kiss her, lingering at her mouth before putting his head on her shoulder and gathering her into his arms. “I do.”
She hugged him back, hoping she wouldn’t let him down.
CHAPTER 34
Then
If it had been their first fight, it had at least cleared the air. It didn’t seem to matter too much what they called or didn’t call their relationship. It seemed bigger than labels to Bess, anyway, something that could not be defined by a term.
This was love.
Oh, she’d thought she knew what that word meant a few times before in her life. Each time it had been different, and every time she fell in love with someone new she’d been convinced this time, this feeling, this version was “the one.”
It took understanding that there was no “one” to realize what love really was.
She didn’t tell Nick she loved him. She didn’t know how. The three simple words that in the past had so easily fallen from her mouth, like marbles spilled from a jar, didn’t seem adequate to describe the width and depth and breadth of her emotions when she was with him. Or without him.
He remembered her favorite brand of gum. Her favorite color, woven into the new beach towel he brought her. He knew how she hated the cages of hermit crabs in most of the souvenir shops and liked light sticks on the beach at night. He held her hand no matter who was watching, and kissed her, too, over and over and over.
Her love for him was not one whole thing but rather a myriad. Individual pieces, each with its important place, none of them useless. Everything from the sound of his laugh to the feeling of his hand on her back when they drifted into sleep with the sound of the ocean around them and soft sand beneath their bodies had a purpose and place within her love for him. She could do without none of it.
Yet she didn’t say it.
The first time she went to sleep and woke up next to him, she thought maybe that would change things. That somehow that next step, of her not leaving after sex, would give their relationship a weight it might be able to bear. Not from Nick but from her. Sleeping in his bed and waking with him in the morning had seemed somehow more significant an admission than saying the word love ever could.
Eddie was right. Nick made her doubt herself.
Bess opened her eyes and stared at the dresser next to the bed. Behind her the slow, steady noise of Nick’s breathing didn’t change. It was early, especially considering they’d only gone to sleep a few hours before. They both had to work this morning, but she didn’t feel like getting up yet. Getting up meant she’d have to shower, brush her teeth. Wash away the smell and taste of him.
Nick’s hand slipped over her stomach and he aligned himself with her. A few hours ago their skin had been sticky with sweat from the effort of their lovemaking, but the night air had cooled them both. His cock stirred against her and Bess smiled but said nothing, not even when his hand slipped lower, between her thighs, to stroke her.
She let out a sigh when he shifted a little to nudge against her, then to push inside. Condoms seemed ridiculous after the night on the beach, when she was on the pill and neither of them was sleeping with anyone else. They’d taken a trip to the local women’s health clinic for a few tests, at Nick’s insistence and not hers.
He bit the back of her neck and thrust inside her harder. She was a little sore from the night before and hissed out a breath. He stopped, went slower. He stroked her clit until her hips moved again, and they tumbled into orgasm within seconds of each other.
“Good morning,” he breathed into her ear.
“Morning.” Bess gave him a smile over her shoulder. “I need to get ready for work.”
“Me, too.” He withdrew and rolled onto his back while she got up. He rose up on one elbow to watch her dig in her backpack for clean clothes.
Self-conscious, Bess pretended this was no big deal. In the shower she gave in to a series of giddy giggles she smothered under the water. She washed herself with his soap, his washcloth. She used his toothpaste and his towel. She stepped onto Nick’s bath mat and used his toilet.
She’d never even stayed over with Andy like this. They’d always both had roommates and dorm rooms, not apartments. This…cohabitation…such as it was, made her think of houses with picket fences, a thought she tried to toss but couldn’t.
Until the pancakes undid her.
“Can you grab the syrup?” Nick used his spatula to point at the fridge. “It’s in there.”
“You made breakfast?”
“Yeah. Sit down.”
She did, after grabbing the syrup. He’d set the table with mismatched plates and cups, but he’d folded the napkins and place forks and knives on top of them. He’d even poured grape juice because he knew Bess didn’t like orange.
“You cook,” she said.
“Jesu
s, don’t sound so surprised.” Nick frowned and brought the platter of pancakes over and put it on the table. “I’ve had to cook for myself since I was, like, eight.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She circled his wrist with her fingers to pull him closer for a kiss. “I meant you cooked for me. That’s so nice.”
“I’m not a complete asshole.” Nick smiled. “See?”
He slid into his seat and stabbed the stack of pancakes, loading his plate and dribbling syrup overtop. Bess followed suit, her stomach growling. She cut the first bite and groaned with pleasure at the taste.
“Did you use a mix?”
“No. It’s just as easy to make them from scratch if you have the ingredients.” Nick shrugged as if it was no big deal. “Pancakes are eggs, milk and flour. Sometimes that’s all we had.”
They’d talked very little about his childhood, just a few anecdotes thrown in here or there, but it had been enough for her to know he’d had a very different upbringing than she had.
“They’re good,” she told him sincerely.
“They’re better with bacon.”
“They’re good,” she repeated, and when he glanced at her, she smiled.
He smiled, too. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” She blinked innocently.
He demonstrated, going dewy-eyed and fluttering his lashes. “Like that.”
Bess laughed, ducking her head, embarrassed. “I can’t help it.”
“You’re going to feed my ego.”
“Oh, as if you need someone to do that,” she teased, and held up her hands to fend him off when he got up to tickle her.
“Eat this pancake,” he told her, forking a piece and holding it to her lips. “You can’t be a smart-ass with your mouth full.”
She took the pancake from the fork and chewed, grabbing his wrist again when he speared another bite and raised it to her lips. She licked the dripping syrup and thrilled at the way his gaze flared at the flicker of her tongue.
“You are one bad girl,” Nick said.
Bess raised an eyebrow and licked the sweet stickiness from her mouth. “Oh, am I? I thought you liked that.”
He snorted. “Keep doing that and both of us will be late to work.”
As appealing as the idea was, Bess couldn’t help a small wince. “All right, all right.”
Nick sat again and stabbed his pancakes, but didn’t eat. “I hurt you, didn’t I?”
“It’s all right.” She drank some juice and wiped her mouth.
Nick’s smile flickered and faded so fast she almost missed it. “I don’t want to hurt you, though.”
“I said…” Bess looked up, responding to what he said, but understanding, all at once, what he meant. “You won’t, Nick.”
He studied his food and ate a few bites while she watched. “My aunt and uncle weren’t really related to me. My aunt was married to my mom’s first husband. Who wasn’t my father.”
Bess ate a piece of pancake and washed it down with juice.
“They took me when social services took me away from my mom. They didn’t want to, really. I mean, they had four other kids and a foster kid. They didn’t really have room for me.”
“I’m sorry.” She hated the trite response but had nothing else to say.
“They weren’t mean to me or anything, but I always knew they didn’t really want me there. When I turned eighteen they told me I’d have to start paying rent to stay there.”
He laughed. “Four hundred bucks a month to share a shit-hole room and a bathroom with four other people? I moved out, got a job. I graduated from high school, though, and they didn’t think I would. I’d go to college, too, if I thought I could afford it.”
“What would you go to school for?”
He shrugged. “I think I’d like to be a social worker.”
Bess blinked. “Really? That’s my major. With a minor in psychology.”
Nick smiled and finished his food. “No shit?”
“Really. You should check out the program at Millersville.”
“No money.”
“There are loans and grants, Nick.” The idea of him going to school, her school, excited her so much she almost spilled her juice. “The campus is great and there are tons of work-study programs, too. You should really think about it.”
“Huh,” he said after a moment. “You think so?”
“Yes, I really think so.”
He cocked his head to study her. “You’re just trying to get me to go to your school, aren’t you?”
It took her a second to see he was teasing her. “Maybe.”
“Pffft.” Nick rolled his eyes. “You’re so transparent.”
He had no idea, she thought. None at all.
“If you really want to do it,” she said seriously, “you should.”
Nick wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know if I went there…”
“Yes.”
He shrugged, making the moment casual even though she knew it wasn’t. “We’d be able to keep seeing each other.”
Her smile spread across her face as quickly as the syrup had spread over the pancakes. “Yes, we would.”
“Huh,” Nick said. “That would suck, wouldn’t it?”
Bess threw a pancake at him. Nick was fast, but she was faster, up and away from the table before he could reach her. He caught her in the living room, when she had no place to go. He tackled her, pinning her arms from behind and goose-stepping her to the couch, where he forced her down and tried again to tickle her.
She shouted even as she wriggled, though not too hard. His hands on her were doing more than tickling. When he kissed her, her mouth was already open. Her hands were already reaching for him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, doing her best to pin him against her the way he’d pinned her before.
Their struggle didn’t last long. The kissing lasted longer, until they were both breathless. Nick pulled away from her mouth to gaze into her eyes.
“It would be a lot of work,” he said.
“School?”
He gave her a look.
“Hey, anything worth doing is a lot of work,” Bess said. She pushed away to straighten her clothes and hair. “If you really want to go to school, Nick, you absolutely should.”
She got up to look down at him, still half on, half off the couch. He shifted all the way to the floor, his back to the couch. She knelt in front of him.
“But make sure you’re doing it for yourself,” she whispered. “As much as I’d like to hear you say you’d be doing it to be with me, you have to do something like that for yourself.”
She thought for sure he’d make some smart-ass comment, but all he did was kiss her again.
“Do you think I can do it?”
She looked into his eyes. “Absolutely.”
Nick smiled. “I have you so wrapped.” He held up his pinky.
Bess grabbed his hand and kissed it. “Shut up. I have to go to work.”
The knocking on the door turned both their heads. Nick frowned, getting to his feet. He hadn’t yet showered, but had pulled on a pair of sweatpants, so he answered the door with bare feet and chest, his hair mussed as if he’d just tumbled out of bed.
Bess, curious about who would possibly be knocking at Nick’s door so early in the morning, peered out from behind him.
“Is Bess here?”
Nick stepped back to open the door a little wider as he looked over his shoulder at her.
She stared, mouth gaping, unable to speak as the young man on the porch saw her. She watched his face go from polite curiosity to resignation to anger.
It was Andy.
CHAPTER 35
Now
Nick was right. Of course he was. Connor already knew Nick wasn’t just a boarder. Robbie, on the other hand, did not.
They didn’t make it an announcement. All in all, Nick was more circumspect than she’d have given him credit for. Once she’d told him she wasn’t going to hi
de their relationship from anyone any longer, he seemed to respect her desire not to push her love life in the faces of her sons. Even so, Robbie figured it out, and if his discovery had happened more slowly than his brother’s, he was also far less discreet in his reaction.
“Mom?” He sat at the other end of the picnic table on the deck, his face pulled into stunned surprise.
Bess looked at him, at his expression, and knew at once he’d figured out what his brother had already known. What had triggered it? Nick’s hand on the small of her back as he moved behind her to help clear the table. A small and subtle gesture that couldn’t be construed as anything other than what it was.
Bess looked at Nick, his hands piled high now with a stack of paper plates and napkins. She looked back at her son, whose betrayed stare caused her heart to sink. “Robbie—”
Without waiting for her to say more, he got up and strode off the deck, down the stairs and onto the beach. Bess watched him go, but before she could head after him, Nick handed her the stack of paper plates.
“I’ll go.”
“I don’t think—”
“I’ll go,” he repeated firmly.
Bess nodded. Her stomach seemed to have dropped to her feet and tangled around her ankles, so she couldn’t walk away. She watched her lover go to confront her son. She wondered if there’d be blood.
Robbie faced away from the house, his hands on his hips as he paced back and forth along the water. Nick took his time getting there. He wasn’t quite as tall as Robbie, nor as broad.
“What’s going on?” Connor asked as he came through the sliding-glass doors, his polo shirt already half over his head. He pulled the shirt off, tossed it onto a lounge chair and stretched.
“Don’t leave that there,” Bess said sharply. “Put it in the laundry.”
Connor gave her a look. “Sure, Mom. I will.”
“Now, Connor.” Bess took the trash Nick had handed her into the house, where she shoved it into the can beneath the sink.
Connor found her struggling to tie the bag and pull it from the container, but she’d shoved so much trash in it the plastic was sticking to the sides. He pushed her aside gently, and finished it for her. Bess washed her hands at the sink.