Changing Tides (Kill Devil Hills Book 2)

by Sarah Darlington

  I gasped and buried my face against his chest. He was right; Ihadcalled him cowboy during our love making.Jesus Christ, how lame and embarrassing was I? “I take it back!” I yelled.

  “Nope,” he told me, cupping the sides of my face and rolling on top of me. “You said it when you were delirious from the orgasm I’d given you. And I liked it. You can’t take it back. Ellie, I…”

  One of his animal noises rumbled in his throat.

  “You, what?” I asked. It seemed like he’d wanted to say something else.

  “Nothing.”

  He climbed off me and out of bed. “My clothes are in the bathroom. I’m going to go get dressed and then get going.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I tried to mask my disappointment, but even I could hear it in my voice.

  “Can I come over again tonight?” he asked, brushing his hand over the back his neck. He glanced down at the carpet and then back up at me through those dark lashes of his.

  Hello sexy. The man seemed almost…nervous as he asked this.

  “Yes.” I smiled. There really was no other answer.

  “Good. I’ll see you later then.” He bent over to press a single kiss to my lips and whispered, “I can’t wait for later.”

  “Me too,” I breathed.

  Then he was gone. And I was all alone in my bed. I had to take several calming breaths—because he’d left me feeling all achy and needy with the image of him naked in my head. I resisted the urge to take care of business myself and instead hurried to get ready for work.

  * * *

  Going into work was pointless. Owning an outdoor miniature golf course on a cold, frigid day translated into zero business. I didn’t have any other employees on payroll for the winter months. It was just me and my lonesome. So when I went to work at The Presidential Swing, all I usually did was hangout, watching Netflix on my cellphone, from sun up to sun down. Noah had urged me to close our business until spring, but what else was I supposed to do with my time?Get a job as a waitress at Chancy’s with Rhett? No, thank you.

  But after a few hours of doing nothing today, with no customers, I gave up and called it a day.

  Driving over to Mom and Dad’s house, I decided to check in with them. We only lived a few miles apart and I spent a lot of time over there, especially when the weather sucked. My mom and I had a tendency to argue. We’d always been like that. It was probably because we were a lot alike, personality wise. But these days our arguing was usually only over tiny, silly things—nothing major that would keep me away or keep me from all her home cooking. And believe me, I was a crap cook. If I didn’t go over there every few days to raid her fridge for leftovers, I would have starved long ago.

  “Hello,” I yelled as I came inside through the basement door. Mom was downstairs, on the phone. I realized this a moment too late.

  She hushed me and waved at me to go upstairs. I bet it was a work phone call. She and Dad were both realtors—a husband and wife team. They were busy on and off, depending on business, and today it seemed she was busy. My Dad was probably at their relator company’s office.

  Upstairs I found my kid sister Rose sitting on the couch with a giant bowl of popcorn, the remote in her hand, and her eyes glued to the TV. “Why aren’t you in school?” I asked, walking over to immediately feel her head. She didn’t have a fever, but it wasn’t like my mom to randomly let her stay home. “You sick?”

  “Hell, no,” she said, pushing me to the right so I wasn’t in the way of her show. “It’s a snow day.”

  “Don’t cuss,” I muttered, turning to look out the window. “Um…it’s not snowing.”

  “The weather man said there was supposed to be a dusting. You know how the school board is. If they even hear the word snow, they cancel. Awesome, huh?” she informed me, still trying to see around me. I purposely kept blocking the TV. “Ellie,” she whined. “Stop it.

  I grabbed the remote from her hand and turned off the TV. “Rosie,” I said, “you should have called me. Go get your coat on and go get the…prints.” I whispered the word prints. “We can finish up your Christmas gifts today.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Her eyes lit up and she hopped off the couch.

  A few months back, I’d splurged and bought my first camera. The urge to buy one hit me after my brother’s ‘death.’ Helping my parents prepare for the funeral, we’d gone through lots of pictures. But for as many pictures as there were, I still felt like there weren’t enough. My brother was gone, and I wanted more pictures to remember him by. Little did I know he wasn’tactually dead, but at the time the urge to buy a camera and take more pictures had struck me pretty hard. That urge grew when Georgie and Noah first started dating. Life was precious. Life was short. When I was eighty-five and losing my memories, I wanted to have tons and tons of pictures from my glory days to help remind me of these days.

  So I bought a camera. And I loved it. I loved taking pictures and documenting everything. I’d even started scrapbooking.That was a secret I would guard with my life, because girls like me weren’t supposed to scrapbook, but it had become a new hobby.

  Then there was Rosie. My new camera had been as exciting for her and it was for me.

  And the prints I was referring to, they were pictures she’d taken that we’d had printed. There was one for my parents, one for Noah and Georgie, and one she’d been hiding from me that was my Christmas present. All we had left to do was get her pictures framed.

  She had her coat on in three nano-seconds with her folder of pictures tucked safely in her arms. I’d only just opened the fridge when she started tugging on my arm. “Let’s go,” she begged.

  “Fine. Fine.” I sighed, eyeing some yummy stew, but closed the fridge instead.

  After we told Mom goodbye and got in the car to drive to the frame shop, I debated over telling Rose about Nathanial. I wanted to tell her so bad. Maybe she was only nine, almost ten, but she was smart and wise beyond her years. Not only that, she was exceptionally level-headed. She had a way of looking at things, figuring things out, that even I had yet to master.

  “So, I’m seeing this guy,” I said, cringing as the words came out. I sounded like such a girl.

  “What does ‘seeing’ mean? Like dating?” Immediately, she was squirming in her seat, asking questions. I never knew my love life could be so thrilling for her. And I hadn’t even told her he was famous yet. “Can I meet him?”

  “I don’t know how long it’s going to last. Or if it means anything at all. But yes, if it continues, then of course you can meet him.”

  Plus, I already knew she’d liked him. He was a celebrity, and she worshiped celebrities. And part of me really wanted Nathanial to meet her. The biggest part, actually. It was foolish for me to hope that there might be some resemblance of a future possible between us—but I was hoping anyway.

  “So, wait…are you still a lesbian?” Rose wondered.

  Wow. There it was. The hard question—from a nine-year-old. I was always honest with Rose, so I didn’t sugar coat or dumb down anything as I answered. “He’s the first man I’ve ever had feelings for. But I still find women attractive too. I think I’ll always find women attractive. I think that’s part of my nature. But, honestly, I don’t know what I am.”

  “It sounds like you’re bisexual.”God, she watched way too much TV. “But you seem really happy today. You were in a crappy mood at Thanksgiving. So it doesn’t matter to me if he’s a man or a woman or a purple alien, and it shouldn’t matter to you—as long as he makes you happy. That’s all that’s important in any relationship. What are you getting him for Christmas?”

  Rose quickly changed the subject, her mind moving a mile a minute. She started going on about how difficult it will be to buy him a gift since we’d only just started dating. As I listened to her chatter, I thought about what she’d said—how I was happy. I really was happy. And I’d do anything to keep this feeling going.

  So after the frame shop and after taking Rose home, I decided to send Nathanial a text.<
br />
  Me: I left work early. Want to come over sooner rather than later? It’s Friday so that means Rhett will be out all night.

  Nathanial: I’ll be there in ten.

  CHAPTER 21:

  NATHANIAL

  After last night with Ellie, I decided to expedite the buying process on my house. I had money. I could pull something like this off.Why the hell not? There was no need to worry about getting a loan, or partaking in a negotiation war with the current owners. Those sort of annoyances would only slow the process down, so with the help of the realtor lady, I submitted an offer at full asking price. I did it all by noon too. Then by one o’clock, she called me to tell me that the current owners had accepted my offer. Easy. The house was almost mine. But that didn’t mean my work was done. Far from it. My family was coming to stay for Christmas in less than a week’s time. It would have to be perfect by then.

  So when Ellie texted me halfway through the day, asking if I wanted to come over. I was torn. I’d planned on buying a car today in addition to the long list of house stuff I needed to get done. But the whole point of any of this was her, so I dropped what I was doing—which was sorting through all the kitchen junk—and jogged the mile down the street to her house.

  When I knocked on the door and she answered, she threw herself into my arms. I almost fell over backward from the force of her colliding with me. We barely even made it into the house before she started peeling off all my clothes. I wasn’t sure where all this was coming from. But, dammit, the woman wanted me and she wanted me now. Who was I to deny her? We ended up making love right there on the kitchen floor. It was raw and gritty and perfect. Now that we’d been together a few times, Ellie seemed completely at ease with me.

  “Holy shit,” I panted, lying flat on the floor next to Ellie. My back was sweaty and sticking to the tile beneath me. “That was…damn, Ellie. Damn.”

  “I know, right.”

  “What happened at work? Why did you leave early?” And then I realized something, as I was staring up at the light fixture on her ceiling and trying to catch my breath. I didn’t even know what sort of work she did. “What kind of job do you have?”

  Ellie sat up, grabbing her shirt and pulling it on. She found her underwear and shimmied into those too. “Nobody told you?” she asked, resting back against me, her head on my stomach. “Noah and I own a mini-golf place. We started working there when we were both sixteen. Back then Frank Ward owned it. Frank loved Noah and me, and one summer working for him turned into three summers. Then when it came time for college, when I was trying to decide what to do, Frank approached us and told us he was looking to retire soon. He wanted Noah and me to buy it from him. So that’s what we did. Noah couldn’t afford to go to college. And truth be told, I was terrified to leave Kill Devil Hills and the only friend I’d ever had. College was out for me too. It took us a couple years saving up money, working extra jobs, and building our credit up to qualify for the loan. Frank was patient though. And in the end, we bought it.”

  She told me all this with the biggest smile on her face. She was so enthusiastic about her business. At sixteen I never had that sort of drive. I still wasn’t even sure if I had it now. I was inspired and impressed. “That’s amazing, Ellie.”

  “Yeah, I’m proud of it. It used to be called The Pirate’s Cove. We renamed it and redesigned it, because there are already eight other pirate themed miniature-golf places in the OBX. We had to find a way to make ours stand out. That’s kind of hard with mini-golf.”

  “I want to see it. Get up.”

  “Right now?” she asked, sitting up. “What?”

  I immediately started gathering my clothes. “Sure. Why not?”

  “Well…um, okay.”

  Ellie grew quiet as we both finished getting dressed, putting on our shoes and whatnot, and left her house to drive across town. She made me drive. Which, for as independent as she was, I found odd. But she explained how she was a crappy driver—possibly the first woman I’d ever known to admit this—and how the forecast was calling for snow and it made her nervous.

  So I drove. No big deal.

  We pulled up to a place not far from where she lived. The road sign was red, white, and blue, and it read: The Presidential Swing. I liked it already. It was patriotic themed and something I’d never seen before. We raced through the freezing cold parking lot to a building that sat in the middle of the lot. A sign on the outside said office and pay inside here. The inside of this building, though not an oval shaped room, was set up like The Oval Office. There were gold ornate curtains that covered the window, two stripped sofas facing each other in the middle of the room, and the presidential sigma on the blue carpeted floor. The counter where the register was even looked like the president’s desk.

  “We spent all the extra money we made after our first summer as owners making this room,” she explained. “Noah, literally, carved the counter. He took a class. Something with that much detail was perfect for him and his OCD. The dork spent months on it and I think it turned out great. And so did the room, aside from the fact that it’s not actually oval.”

  “You and Noah could design movie sets.”

  She shrugged.

  “I mean it,” I stressed. “Hell, those pictures of George Washington and Abe Lincoln on the walls in the gold, elaborate frames…they look like they could go in a museum. Your room design isthat good.”

  Next she showed me the back office and the break room, which weren’t anything out of the ordinary compared to the main room. I wanted to go outside and see everything else. Hell, I wanted to grab a putter and play the course. But she refused to go out in the cold. Our small dispute ended with Ellie pointing out different things along the course from the office window, and a promise to play as soon as the weather warmed up.

  “That’s it. You ready to go now?” she said after she’d finished her window tour.

  In the last few minutes, she’d turned a little shy. She kept messing with some papers on her office desk, avoiding direct eye contact with me. There was no reason for her to be nervous around me. “I love it,” I told her, gently putting my hand over hers so she’d stop fidgeting. “It’s impressive as hell. Just like you.”

  A forced laugh left her throat. “There’s no need to flatter me, Nathanial, we’ve already had sex.”

  “I’m not flattering you. I’m complimenting you,” I said firmly. “This place shows off your creative side, and your uniqueness—the same way your room at your house does. You put your heart and your soul into everything that’s yours. It makes me like you even more than I already do—which is a lot. You do realize that, right? How much I like you? How addicted I am to you?”

  Suddenly telling her all this changed our casual moment into something greater. I hadn’t expected to open up to her at this particular time. It just sort of happened. And my hands started trembling slightly because of it. I tucked them into my pockets so she wouldn’t notice.

  Her eyes left the desk and came to meet mine. “Yes,” she breathed, “I realize because I’m feeling all of those same feelings too. And, to be completely honest, I’m terrified and thrilled—both at the same time. I’ve never had a real relationship and it feels like this is quickly turning into one. I told my little sister about you today. She wants to meet you. I’ve never in my life introduced anyone to her or to my family. And I really want you to meet them. Well, the ones you haven’t already met. Do you think that means we’re moving too fast? Hell, I don’t even know how long you’re going to be in town. You might break my heart tomorrow for all I know.”

  We were standing too far apart and I inched a little closer. She inched a little closer too.

  “I...well,” I started to say, fighting the overwhelming urge to kiss her. “Filming for season three ofDragon Wars doesn’t start until mid-March. I wasn’t planning on taking any other jobs between now and then. What if I stayed in town until then? That would give us time to figure out whatever it is that is happening between us.”


  Now probably would have been a good moment to mention I’d bought a house in her town. But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. If she already feared we might be moving too fast then I was afraid the house thing would completely freak her out.

  “You want to spend the next three months with me? Here?” she asked, shocked.

  Shit! I’d already freaked her out. My heart grew frantic and fearful and I wished with every ounce of my being that I’d kept my mouth shut. But then she smiled and instantly relief washed over me.

  “You want to stay with me?” she repeated, her smile only growing. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. I’m serious.”

  She squealed and it was the greatest sound. A girl like Ellie wasn’t the squealing type. But she was excited and that excitement poured from her. Reaching out, I grabbed her and drew her in close to me. We kissed. And what do you know—it had started snowing outside. I’d only seen snow a couple times in my life and if felt surreal being here, experiencing it with Ellie.

  “We should get back to your house before we get stuck here,” I murmured against her ear. “I want to spend the rest of the day in bed with you.”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  “And Ellie…I will never break your heart. Hell, I’d sooner quit acting than do anything in my power to hurt you. You’re everything to me. Please, know that.”

  CHAPTER 22:

  ELLIE

  I had a boyfriend. Holy shit. We even did cliché boyfriend/girlfriend stuff together. Like going to the movies, having meals with one another, and Christmas shopping—that sort of thing. Every night he slept over at my place and every morning we showered together. I would go to work and he would go do whatever it was he did all day long while I was gone. Essentially we were living together. Well…the two of us plus Rhett. And Noah now too since his fall semester had ended and he was back at the house. But I was enjoying every minute of it. Who knew domestic life could be so fun? Who knew someone like Nathanial and someone like me could have so much in common?