by Jenn Bennett
O-o-o-h, what is happening to me?
Must calm down.
Maybe he doesn’t notice, because his gaze swings from me to the windows above the Nook. “So … is that your mom watching us from your apartment?”
“Yes, indeed-y,” I say, moving around him to get a better angle of the boatyard’s sign.
“Wow. Okay. I didn’t think she meant it that literally. About watching us.”
“She did.”
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
Tiny bat wings. So nervous.
“Nothing. Can you move? You’re blocking …”
“Oh, sorry. Is that better?”
“Yep. Thanks.”
“Josie?”
“Are these real photos that your parents want, or is this just a ruse?”
“No,” he says as early evening traffic speeds past us, bumping along the setts. “I mean, yes. I told my mom about this. She said it would be nice to have better photos on the website. They need to print new catalogs, so she’ll use them there, too. It’s legit.”
“I just didn’t want to waste my time if this is fake.”
“You mean, fake like when you hired me to pilot you around the harbor?”
“That was a completely real scam to pay you back for the department store window. And just when I’d scrimped and saved up enough dough to hire Captain Lucky again—”
“Puke buckets will cost you extra, by the way.”
“—you went and pulled this stunt, and now I’m back where I was before. So thanks?”
“You’re most welcome.”
“Thanking you most unkindly.”
He chuckles and leans against an iron hitching post with a molded horse head—one of a hundred that dot the old streets around town. “So, hey … How have you been?”
I adjust a setting on my camera. “Fine, fine. Working at the Nook, makin’ that cash,” I say in a ridiculous voice, immediately regretting it. I sound nervous. But Lucky looks completely calm and cool, as usual, so now I’m wondering if this is a one-sided nervousness, and that only makes the bats in my chest flutter faster.
“And you … You’ve been busy, I take it,” I say. It comes out sounding more agitated than I intend, but I’m just so. Unbelievably. Palm-sweatingly. Anxious.
It’s jUsT LuCky.
It wAs jUsT a kIsS.
He frowns and scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah. It’s been weird around here lately.”
“The boatyard window, you mean?”
“That’s definitely been a big point of stress. You heard about what happened at the neighborhood meeting right? Nobody believes Adrian did it.”
“I heard.”
“Wow,” he mumbles, turning his head. “She’s really watching us like a hawk.”
I glance across the street at our apartment window.
“Does she know?”
“What?” My eyes flick to his. “Know what?”
He lightly kicks the iron hitching post with the heel of his boot. “Never mind.”
Wait, wait, wait—we almost made it to The Topic. Then he backed down.
“Of course she doesn’t know,” I say, adjusting my lens. “I haven’t even told her I went to Sunday dinner at your house. You think I’m going to tell her about … ?”
“The darkroom,” he finishes, voice deep and husky.
“The darkroom,” I repeat, feeling a little lightheaded. “She’d only say I’ve activated the curse. Nope. She can never know. Ever. I’ll bury her first. It’s the Saint-Martin way. She keeps her love life secret, so that’s exactly what I’ll be …” I trail off. I realize as soon as it’s out of my mouth that I said “love life.”
It’s only supposed to be Lucky. My friend. Friend life, not love life! Can I get a do-over?
I snap five photos in row. All unnecessary. All poorly framed.
Lucky. Kiss. Uncertainty. Good jeans not helping. Bats! Bat escaping!
I can’t hold it in any longer, so here comes the honesty. I’m lifting the invisible wall.
Hope he’s happy.
“Look,” I say in a low voice, as if my mother can somehow hear us all the way through a closed window and across a street filled with traffic. “I don’t know if you regret what we did, or maybe it was no big deal to you, but it meant something to me, and I’ve been really confused that you’ve just sort of ghosted me over the last few days. I don’t know what we’re doing, but I really hate not talking to you.”
“Wow, okay.”
“Or we can make small talk.”
“No, stop,” he says, holding up a hand. “Don’t do that. Don’t put the wall back up—please. Just … give me a second. I’m trying to sort it all out. Why would you think it didn’t mean something to me?”
I lower my camera and look at him. “Did it?”
“You first.”
“I already went first.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and glances across the street at the half-timbered historical houses that face the harbor. “Okay. Maybe it did. Yes. It did … unless we’re talking about different kinds of ‘something’ that it meant, in which case I’d like to change my answer.”
A swell of emotion catches me off guard, and I’m surprised to feel my eyes welling up. Oh no—Temper Tears. Those stupid, out-of-control, I-want-to-punch-something tears.
“Josie! Hey, I was just joking.”
“These are tears of frustration,” I say, swiping at my eyes and getting myself under control. Ugh. I turn my head away and pray my mother doesn’t see this.
“Are you mad at me?” he asks in a softer voice.
“I’m not—” My voice breaks. I clear my throat and blow out a hard breath. There. Better. “I’m not mad. I’m confused,” I explain. “You kissed me, and then you left me hanging in the breeze, and I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know if you’d changed your mind, or if you’d hated it, or felt guilty or if it was terrible—how am I supposed to know? I’ve never kissed anyone before … not really. Not like that.”
“What? Come on.” His face is contorting into strange expressions. He makes a sound that’s almost a laugh, but not quite. Then he blinks at me. “You’re serious.”
I hesitate and glance across the street at our apartment windows. Mom’s silhouette is gone, but then reappears. She’s still checking on us. Lucky sees it too and swears colorfully under his breath.
“This is ridiculous. Listen to me,” he says in a calm voice. “You’re taking photos—that’s all. Now we’re going around back to finish the job. Okay? Come on.”
I follow him through the alley, his heavy boots crunching the occasional piece of loose gravel, until the harbor comes into sight, and we turn the corner into the back of the boatyard.
“Do you want a picture of the bays open or closed?” I ask, trying in vain to put the invisible wall back up now that we’re alone, because I’m suddenly very scared of what we’re going to say to each other.
“That was just to get away from Winona. Forget the damn pictures,” he says in exasperation, standing in front of me on the stained concrete as gulls squawk in the distance. “Just talk to me, okay? Were you serious?”
“About what?”
“What you just said.”
Oh. That. I lean back against a short brick wall that sticks out between the mechanic bays and the alley, tapping my camera against the leg of my jeans. “Why do you want to know? Because it’s weird that I’m seventeen and you’re the first person I’ve made out with?”
He pushes hair out of his eyes and says, “It’s not weird.”
“Then why? Because it was bad.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I was bad.”
“No.” Dark eyes meet mine. “Definitely no. All the noes in the world baked into a giant cake and covered in no frosting.”
I smile and scrunch up my face. “Okay.”
“It was amazing,” he says.
I exhale. “O
kay, good, because I thought so too. I mean, I have nothing to compare it to, but I’ve had some really tempting offers—like, Big Dave on a daily basis.”
“Don’t make me serve time for murder, because I would chop him up into pieces.”
“That sounds super protective.”
“Too protective?”
“No.” I shake my head. Then I whisper, “What are we doing, Lucky? If it was so good, then why didn’t you text me? Is it because we’ve made a terrible mistake?”
“Because—” He scrubs the back of his neck furiously. Turns around, paces a couple of steps, and then returns. “Because of Los Angeles. You aren’t staying here in Beauty, Josie. I’ve known that since I saw you looking at flight schedules in the Nook when you first came back into town. I can’t go through it again. I can’t … I can’t lose you all over again.”
“I don’t want to lose you, either.”
“And what we’re doing now? Josie … this is adding a whole other level to things. It’s going to hurt.”
“I know that,” I say, my voice getting smaller.
“But … ?”
I frown. “Why did you say it that way?”
“Because I know there’s a ‘but’ coming. You’re about to tell me about that ticking time bomb, and your grandmother coming back, and how your mom can’t live in the same house with her.”
I wilt against the wall. Well? Those things are true. “I can’t make my mom and my grandmother magically get along. I’m seventeen, broke, and the only resource I have is Henry Zabka. That’s it. That’s my only card to play.”
“That can’t be the only solution.”
“Name a better one,” I challenge. “Go on. Name one. Stick around with my mom? Because I love her to pieces, but you have no idea what it’s like to be dragged around from town to town—no idea, Lucky. I can’t keep living like that. There’s no future in that for me. I feel lost all the time, and scared. And completely unstable. I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t find my way to the bathroom because I can’t remember which apartment I’m in—I can’t remember which town I’m in!”
“Let me help you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
I huff out a hard breath.
“I really don’t,” he admits, gesturing openly with both hands. “I’m sorry. I haven’t figured that part out. But there’s got to be another viable solution.”
If there was, he’d be offering it up. Mister genius. Perfect SAT score.
“I came up with this plan before I knew you were here,” I say. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was a way out. Now it’s all completely messed up, and that’s before I even consider any of … whatever this is,” I say, gesturing between us. “So you don’t have to tell me that it’s flawed, because I already know that, okay? If it wasn’t flawed, I’d be knocking down the door of Coast Life magazine, begging them to reconsider me for the internship.”
“Hey. If you still want to go for that magazine internship, fine. Go for it—I mean, yes, you’d be working for a magazine that’s owned by a man who spawned Adrian Summers, but that’s your business.”
“Not fair,” I say, pouting.
“But seriously,” he says, holding up a hand, “if you want it, go for it. And if you want to be with your dad, if that is your one true dream, I would never stand in your way. But if it’s not? If it’s just a means to an end? If it’s just a place to run to? Then let me help you figure out an alternate route.”
“Why would my dad be a place to run to? He’s rich and famous, and he’s one of the most talented photographers working right now.”
Lucky sighs heavily. “Come on, Josie. It’s me.”
“I need to think about all this.”
He nods several times. “That’s fair.”
A terrible sadness falls upon me, draining all my energy. He’s right about a lot of things. I know better than anyone: Making attachments with people that you’re going to have to leave hurts. It’s why I never do. Ever. But here I am, breaking my own rules. Rushing back into old habits with him—and worse. Trying to make new habits with him.
“Maybe we should stay away from each other until this gets sorted out,” I say, a little dazed. “I guess that’s what you were trying to do over the last few days.” Detachment.
“No.”
“No?”
He shakes his head, pries my fingers away from my camera, and sets it atop the brick wall. Then he wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him.
“Dammit,” I whisper into his shirt.
“I know,” he says against my head. “I know.”
“If this is a pity hug …”
“Shut up. It’s not a pity hug. Let me hold you, okay? You could try holding me back. If it won’t kill me, then it won’t kill you.”
My arms are folded up between us. My last line of defense. “You don’t know that. It might. I’m cursed, remember?”
“Told you already, I don’t believe in curses.”
“Doubt they care if you believe or not,” I tell him, allowing myself to loll against his shoulder and chest—just a little. But I keep my arms folded up like a bird’s wings. I can hear his heart thumping, steady and strong, faster than I’d expect. I try to concentrate on it until my muscles relax a little more. He smells really good. I’d forgotten already.
“We’re going to figure this out, okay?” His deep voice reverberates through his chest and into my bones. “Your grandmother doesn’t come back for a year. A year is a long time.”
“A year is a long time,” I repeat.
His hand strokes a path up my back. He shifts my hair out of the way and holds me tighter, tucking his chin better into my neck, where he speaks in a soft voice against my skin. “I knew when you walked into the bookshop that day that my life was about to change.”
“You did?”
“I did. Maybe it was the curse,” he says, lightness in his voice, “Or … I don’t know.”
“What?”
“Because I saw you, and it just felt like everything that had gone wrong in my life just magically healed … like I’d been walking around all broken, and all my broken pieces suddenly reconnected.”
“Oh,” I whisper on a soft exhale.
He groans. “That sounds stupid.”
“Not at all. I’m magic,” I tease. “That’s what you’re saying.”
“Maybe we’re magic together.”
“It does feel that way, doesn’t it?”
“It really does.”
“Oh, Lucky,” I whisper against him. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, but we have to try.”
I unfold my wings to be able to get my hands around his back. He sighs against me when I do, and we melt into each other for a long moment. Then he kisses me softly on the neck.
“Sorry,” he whispers, smiling against my skin. “I couldn’t help it.”
“You couldn’t?”
“Nope.” He kisses my neck again, tickling me. “Oops. Sorry again.”
I laugh, shoulder reflexively jerking upward to push his face away from the crook of neck. Or trap him there. I’m not sure which. “Lucky Karras. I don’t believe you’re sorry at all.”
“Well … not about that.”
“Me neither.”
I pull back and smile up at him. Was he always this beautiful, when we were kids? The way he looks now, with the light gilding his skin, and his dark hair all mussed up and windblown. And the way he’s looking at me now, like I’m the only thing standing for miles that matters … I don’t know.
Maybe it’s just the magic of golden hour.
“Hey, Josie?”
“What?”
“Can we agree to not talk about the ticking time bomb that is your grandmother returning from Nepal for the moment, until we figure some things out?”
“Most definitely,” I agree. “Let’s not.”
“And in the meantime, there’s one thing I want to do to
gether.”
My pulse races. “What’s that?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. You’re just going to have to trust me. And meet me Saturday night. Same time, same place—after we both get off work. Deal?”
“I guess you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Oh, almost forgot.” I dig in my pants pocket until my fingers find the folded-up hundred and fifty dollars he left on the counter in the Nook. My hundred and fifty dollars … along with another hundred and fifty that I added for our payment plan arrangement. I quickly stuff it all inside the front pocket of his jeans before he can stop me.
“Hey now—”
“This photography session is free.”
“Josie, Josie, Josie,” he says, sucking in a quick breath. “You can’t just go around sticking your hand down guys’ pockets like that without a warning.”
“Consider this a warning then. I might even do it again one day when my mom’s not watching us.”
“Saturday night.”
“Saturday night,” I repeat, grabbing my camera off the brick wall as I smile back at him. I feel warm and hopeful for the first time since he left me that afternoon in the darkroom. And I want to keep feeling that way. I want to believe that if we try hard enough, we can figure out a way to diffuse the ticking time bomb … or keep what we have if I go to California.
A year is a long time.
Is it long enough?
OLD FISHERMEN NEVER DIE, THEY JUST SMELL THAT WAY: Yellow-and-black sign attached to the cabin of a geriatric fishing boat docked behind Nick’s Boatyard. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
Chapter 15
I find out what Lucky has in store for me when I meet him behind the boatyard again. It’s early evening, but summer heat is still warming the dock boards when Lucky coaxes me down a couple of steps into the belly of a beast.
And by “beast,” I mean the Nimble Narwhal.
And by Narwhal, I mean a cabin cruiser fishing boat, circa before I was born.
Maybe even before my mom was born, if the carrot-orange color scheme of the boat’s interior is any indication. Below the main part of the boat, it has an underdeck living space big enough for a hermit serial killer, with a teeny, tiny kitchenette, built-in sofa, and a matchbox bathroom that’s pretty much the same as an airline toilet.