Deeper

Then

Bess kept her bike between her and Nick, as though that small barrier there made any sort of difference. He was still so close she could smell him. Close enough for their arms to brush every so often. She tried ignoring the tingle that shot up and down her arm every time his bare skin connected with hers, but it wasn’t easy.

“You don’t have to walk me the whole way,” she protested when they got closer to her house. “Really. It’s late.”

“Which is why I should walk you.” Nick grinned.

They stopped under a streetlamp. His pirate bandanna held his dark hair off his face, but Bess remembered the way it had fallen across his eyes the night of Missy’s party.

“You really don’t have to,” she said.

It would be hard to explain to her aunt and uncle or cousins or any of the half-dozen other people staying in her grandparents’ beach house exactly why she was being escorted home by a young man. A townie, no less, and definitely not Andy. They all knew Andy. They all loved Andy.

She loved Andy.

“Fine. Okay.” Nick shrugged and pulled a pack of Swisher Sweets cigars from his pocket. He lit one with the lighter he pulled from his jeans pocket. The fragrant smoke swirled between them, and Bess, who normally would have coughed, sucked it in.

The circle of light was a wall around them, keeping out the night. Bess heard the low mutter of voices and the jangle of a dog’s leash, but she didn’t turn to see who was walking by. The soft and never-ending roar of the ocean was muted here, just three blocks back from the beach. She’d taken him the long route home.

“It’s a crazy house,” she explained, though Nick hadn’t asked her to clarify. “It’s my grandparents’ house and they let everyone in the family take turns with it. They could get more money if they rented it, but they said they’d rather know who’s sleeping in their beds.”

And who was shitting in their toilets, according to Bess’s grandpa, but she didn’t say that.

“Makes sense.” Nick nodded and sucked in smoke, his eyes squinted.

“They let me stay there,” Bess continued, half hating the eagerness in her voice and what she knew had to be a transparent attempt at keeping the conversation from fading away. “I get the crap room, but it’s a place to stay. So I can save money for school.”

Again, Nick nodded, though this time he didn’t add anything. Bess waited, watching the smoke so she didn’t have to look at his face and see if he was looking at her. Or if he wasn’t.

“I go to Millersville University,” she said. “Do you go to school?”

“Nope.” Nick tossed the butt down and ground it with the toe of his sneaker. “Not that smart.”

She laughed at that. Nick’s smile said he hadn’t been kidding, and she stopped laughing. “Oh, c’mon. I’m sure that’s not true.”

Nick shrugged. “Being a smart-ass isn’t the same thing, Bess.”

The way his voice wrapped around the single syllable of her name gave her a thrill. “Being smart isn’t everything.”

“Says the girl who’s smart.”

“Like I said,” Bess repeated, looking away, “smart isn’t everything.”

Nick shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his feet. “How long have you known Missy?”

“For about three years. Since I started working down here.” Bess toed the gravel and leaned on the handlebars of her bike. “You?”

“Just met her. She’s Ryan’s girl.” Nick gave a low, amused snort. “Sometimes.”

“Yeah. Other times she’s everyone’s girl.” Bess surprised herself with that bit of mockery, but Nick didn’t seem shocked.

“Yeah,” he agreed, with another of the slow grins giving Bess a fever. “Not mine, though.”

“It’s not any of my business.”

Nick said nothing. Finally, unable to bear the silence, she looked at him. He wasn’t smiling.

“She tell you I’m queer?”

Bess’s mouth parted but she didn’t quite find the words right away. The longer she didn’t answer, the worse it seemed, until finally she said, “Yes.”

“That little bitch.” Nick scowled. Bess had fallen hard for the grin, but the scowl made her heart pound like the surf. “What the fuck’s her problem with me? If she’s not telling everyone I screwed over Heather, she’s making shit up about me being queer.”

It didn’t take Bess long to figure out what he was saying. Nick looked up at her rueful laugh. “I don’t think it was about you, really,” she said.

“No?” He put his hands on his hips and scowled harder. The light overhead cast his eyes in shadow, but Bess caught the flash of anger, real anger, in his gaze. “What, then?”

“Um…” Bess had been dating Andy for as long as she’d known Missy, but there had still been plenty of rivalry, never actively acknowledged. “Missy likes to prove guys like her better, or something. I don’t know. If I say I like a guy, she’s suddenly going after him.”

That little revelation hung between them and Bess wished she could take it back. Nick grinned slowly, looking even more like a pirate than ever. Bess smiled, too, a bare second after he did. She couldn’t have stopped herself even if she wanted. They shared a look and something unspoken passed between them. An understanding. At least, that was how it felt to her, and when Nick spoke he proved her right.

His scowl softened to a frown. “I thought she was your friend.”

“Yeah. Well.” Bess shrugged. “She is. Sort of.”

“Girls,” said Nick with a shake of his head. “Jesus.” He gave her a sideways glance and an equally sideways smile. “So…she didn’t tell you I wanted to ask you out?”

Bess’s heart lodged so firmly in her throat she was certain she couldn’t speak…until the words came. “No. Did she tell you I have a boyfriend?”

“No.” Nick eyed her. “You do?”

Bess nodded after a moment’s hesitation, not trusting herself to speak. “Sort of” seemed a dangerous answer to that question. Nick scuffed the gravel.

He stopped, head cocked. “What a fucking bitch.”

Bess shrugged again, though he was only voicing what she’d thought earlier. She shouldn’t have cared about sounding disloyal. Missy obviously didn’t care about the unspoken rules about poaching.

“We really should mess with her a little,” he said. “Give her a taste of her own medicine.”

Bess had often thought of doing just that, but had never quite figured out how. “Oh, yeah?”

Nick nodded. “Yeah.”

“And how do you think we should do that?”

It was as if he’d opened a hinge on top of her head and poured her full of heated honey, thick and sweet, easing its way into every crevice from her toes to her scalp. It made her feel languid, that look. And naughty.

“Don’t tell her anything. Just let her think something’s up with us.” Nick grinned again. “Drive her a little crazy, wondering. Right?”