Deeper. Megan Hart

her opposite arms. “Goddamn it.”

      Missy’s brows flew up to her hairline. “Dude!”

      “I’m not a dude,” Bess snapped, so disappointed she couldn’t think straight.

      Missy patted her arm. “Have a drink. It won’t seem so bad then.”

      “It’s not bad.” Bess shook her head and gulped ice water. “Forget I said anything.”

      Missy ho-ho-hoed. “Have a drink anyways.”

      Bess lifted her glass of ice water and gulped down the rest before tossing the empty cup into the sink. “I have to get home.”

      Her head hurt, suddenly, and her stomach, too. All from a stupid boy she’d never even talked to. She was the stupid one. Bess shoved off her disappointment, angry at herself. Angry at Missy.

      “Aww, don’t leave.” Missy grabbed Bess’s hand. “Party’s just getting started.”

      “Missy, I really have to go. It’s late.”

      It wasn’t, really, and she worked the late shift tomorrow. But suddenly Bess didn’t want to watch everyone else drinking and smoking and making out. She didn’t want to watch everyone else hooking up and having fun. Worst of all, while she’d been talking with Missy, Nick had vanished.

      “Call me tomorrow!” Missy yelled after her, but Bess didn’t answer.

      She burst from the trailer into the welcome freshness of the cool early June air. Not much of the party had moved outside. A shadowy couple kissed leaning against the wall, their hands groping and the sound of their heavy breathing loud enough to carry. A moaning girl bent over in the bushes while her girlfriends held back her hair and urged her to “get it up.” Bess reached for the pitted metal railing but tripped anyway on the last concrete step and twisted her ankle hard enough to make her curse.

      “You okay?”

      She looked up to the wink of a cigarette tip. “Yeah. I just tripped. I’m not drunk,” she added, angry that she felt she had to explain.

      “You’re one of the only ones.”

      It was too much of a coincidence, too much like fate, but even before he stepped out of the shadows and into the streamer of light from the streetlamp, Bess knew it was Nick. He took another drag on his cigarette and tossed the butt to the dirt, where he ground it out with the toe of his boot. They both turned at the sound of vomit splattering and moans, and Nick grimaced. He took Bess by the elbow and steered her around the corner of the trailer, toward the street, so easily she didn’t have time to protest.

      He let go of her before she had time to protest that, too. “Some people shouldn’t drink.”

      Bess shivered a little. The light was brighter here, and it painted his face in silver with purple highlights. He looked like Robert Downey, Jr. in Less Than Zero, she thought a little disjointedly. The un-strung-out version.

      Nick smiled. “Hi. You’re Bess.”

      “Yes.” Her voice sounded hoarse. Her thoughts seemed fuzzy. Contact high? she wondered as a wave of dizziness swept her. Or Nick’s smile? “You’re Nick. Ryan’s friend.”

      “Yeah.”

      Silence.

      “I’m heading home,” Bess said. Gay. Why did he have to be gay? How could he be gay? Why was every cute boy around here gay? “I rode my bike.”

      “That’s hot,” said Nick with another grin. “What do you ride? A Harley?”

      Her thoughts weren’t normally so slow, but somehow lust and disappointment had made syrup of her brain. “What? Oh…no. Ten-speed.”

      He laughed. Bess watched his throat work. She wanted to lick him, and had actually moved forward a tiny bit before she stopped herself, embarrassed. Nick didn’t seem to notice.

      “Where do you live?”

      She hesitated before telling him, not wanting to admit she lived in one of the beachfront homes.

      “Don’t worry, I’m not a serial killer,” Nick said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

      She felt really stupid then. “Oh. No, it’s not that. I’m staying in my grandparents’ house on Maplewood Street.”

      There was only the barest pause before he nodded. “Uh-huh.”

      His gaze traveled over her, up and down, and Bess suddenly wished she’d borrowed some of Missy’s clothes. Put on some makeup. Except what did it matter, when he didn’t like girls, anyway?

      “Nice meeting you,” she said. It sounded lame, even to her. The sort of thing you said at a cocktail party, not an impromptu kegger in a trailer park.

      “You work at Sugarland, right? I’ve seen you there.” Nick thrust his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans.

      “Yes.” Bess looked for her bike, still chained to the hitch of Missy’s trailer.

      “With Brian, right?”

      Bess gave an inward sigh. Of course he would know Brian. “Yeah.”

      “I work at the Surf Pro.” Nick walked with her to the bike and watched as she unlinked the chain and wound it along the straddle bar.

      One of the few stores Bess had never been in. The bathing suits were too expensive there, and she didn’t surf. Or sail. She nudged up the kickstand with her foot, grasping the bike’s handles, and swung her leg over the seat.

      “You sure you’re okay?” Nick asked. “Your ankle’s okay and everything? You’re okay to…ride?”

      “I already told you, I’m not drunk.” Her answer came out a little more clipped than she’d intended, but it was late. She was tired. And she was trying very hard not to notice how nice his mouth looked when he smiled.

      “Okay, well, maybe I’ll see you around.” Nick gave her a nod and waved as she pushed off and rode away.

      “See you,” Bess called over her shoulder, with no intention of ever seeing him again.

      Chapter

      03

       Now

      “I thought I’d never see you again.”

      At the sound of the voice in the doorway, Bess’s soap-slick hands twitched on the coffee mug she’d been rinsing. It slipped from her fingers and crashed to the kitchen’s tile floor. Hot water splashed her legs as she turned, gripping the counter to keep from sliding in the spill.

      He stood, backlit, for just a moment before moving forward. The same dark hair, same dark eyes. Same quirked smile.

      Everything the same.

      Bess couldn’t move. Last night she had dreamed…Oh, but it hadn’t been a dream. Had it? If not, surely she was dreaming now. She curved her fingers against the sink’s porcelain, finding no purchase. Nothing to grip.

      “Nick?”

      Now he looked uncertain. His hair dripped, and the hems of his jeans. His bare toes, coated with sand, gritted on the tile as he took a step toward her, hand outstretched but quickly pulling back when she shrank against the counter. “Bess…it’s me.”

      Her guts tumbled inside her, and she couldn’t breathe. She sipped at the air in uneven, hitching gasps. “I thought…I thought…”

      “Hey.” He soothed her, coming closer.

      She could smell him. Salt and water and sand and sun. The way he’d always smelled, back then. Bess found more air. Took a deeper breath. Nick didn’t touch her as she stared. His hand hovered an inch from her shoulder.

      “It’s really me,” he said.