Chapter 4
4
Nora
“ H ello!” I called as soon as I opened the front door.
“In the kitchen, honey!”
I hung my denim coat on the coat rack next to the door and made my way through the house, following the sound of my mother’s voice.
“Hey, Nora, help me with my homework.” I looked over at Will and Bethany who were sitting together at the kitchen table and not killing each other, which was breaking news in the Barnes household.
“I said I would help you,” Bethany said. Her hair was in four ponytails. Quite a look.
“I’m not taking help from someone younger,” Will protested.
“I know math better.”
“You think you know everything better.” He made a face at her.
“Mom, Will’s making a face at me,” Bethany exclaimed.
“Will, stop making faces at your sister,” Vanessa said from where she was stirring something in a pot over the stove. Which was very unlike her.
“She’s such a know-it-all! Know-it-all .”
“It’s only because I know it all,” Bethany insisted.
“Hey, stop fighting,” I told them. “It hurts my heart. Will, give me a second and I’ll help you with your math. Beth, you don’t know it all . You can’t yet, which is why you have to keep studying.”
They settled down almost immediately.
My mother called it older sister mojo, that only I had. Which, considering I was an older sister of five siblings, probably made sense.
I stepped up beside Mom at the stove and kissed her cheek. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt but still looked like a beauty queen. Mom said it was skin care and posture, but I think it was her particular magic.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“I’m making homemade peach jam,” she said, eying the pot in front of her warily.
My mom was not a make homemade peach jam kind of mom. She was more of a - buy jars of jam from the farmer’s market to support local businesses – mom.
“I saw it on TikTok and thought it looked so homey.” She gasped when she realized what she said. “Oh honey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
I held up my hand to cut her off. “Mom, it’s okay. You can say TikTok. I’m not going to break down into hysterics.”
Mom glanced at me over her shoulder, her expression difficult to read, before she returned to the jam I could already smell was burning. But I wasn’t here to talk about jam. Or TikTok.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me that Nick had brothers? Famous hockey-playing brothers?”
“Nick said he told you.”
I thought back to some of those texts of his earlier this year.
I have news. Come on Nora, since when are you one to turn down gossip?
“Well, he didn’t.”
“Maybe because you don’t answer his texts.”
“He told you that?”
This time Mom’s expression was easier to read: Gimme a break.
Mom huffed and turned off the burner. “It’s burned. I burned it. How did I burn it when I was watching the whole time?”
“Because you don’t know how to make jam?” I suggested.
“Good point. Now what’s got you so upset about Nick?”
I lifted a shoulder. “No reason. I just…so much happened to him and I didn’t know about it.”
“I thought that’s how things were now between you. And if you ask me, by your doing. I’ll never understand what happened with you two.”
The night of my birthday, I’d told my mom that nothing had happened, that Nick had just been a jerk and I’d gone to my room with my bag of cold fast food. The next day, the topic of Nick Renard was officially closed.
There was no way Nick had talked to my dad about what I’d done. So, my parents were most likely left baffled by the distance I kept between me and Nick.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s ancient history.”
“You’re such a bad liar,” she said, wrapping me in a hug that smelled like burnt peach jam. “So did you see The Locke brothers?” Mom asked.
“I did,” I said. “They were at the Fall Festival.”
Will came sliding towards the stove on his stockinged feet. “It’s so awesome.” He exclaimed. “Liam Locke lives in Calico Cove now. And he’s so cool. He calls me little man when he sees me.”
Bethany, never one to be left out, came skidding in behind him. “He calls all the boys in town little man. And he calls all the girls, little girly. I don’t understand why but it makes me smile.”
“Don’t tell your father,” Vanessa confessed in a sparkly eyed smile. “Sometimes when Liam sees me in town he calls me little girly and it makes me smile too.”
“Mom!” I shouted. “Focus. I don’t care about Liam Locke. I’m talking about Nick.”
“Yes, I see that. Honey, if you want to know how Nick is handling all this, then I suggest you talk to Nick.”
I couldn’t talk to Nick. Talking to Nick was hard. Talking to Nick made me feel things I’d spent years burying.
He wanted me to get over it .
Only that’s not what he meant. What he meant was he wanted me to pretend that I’d been stupid. That what I’d felt had been nothing more than a silly teenage crush and I’d let my eighteen-year-old self give into her sense of drama and destiny.
Pretend all that and we could go back to normal.
But it wasn’t true. I wasn’t stupid. Or dramatic. It also wasn’t a crush.
I’d loved Nick Renard. With my whole soul. And I’d believed with everything that made up who I was, that Nick and I were special, because we were a one-of-a-kind love.
It was the rejection of that I couldn’t get over. That he didn’t think we were special still hurt.
No one.
It made me cringe. Even after all these years.
I took a deep breath and pulled in all the hurt that was still there. It should be gone. Intellectually, I knew that. There had been a second, one moment, when I’d tried to convince myself what I had felt for Rene was real. That I was grateful to Nick for rejecting me so I could move onto this exciting new life in France with Rene that was the opposite of everything I would have had with Nick.
And that went great.
It was like I couldn’t trust my feelings at all.
“Nor, are you going to help me with my homework or what?” Will asked.
“She better, because I’m not,” Bethany muttered.
“Know-it-all,” Will fired.
“Am not!”
“Hey,” I stepped in and took a seat at the table. “I’ll help.”
Will shoved his homework assignment in my direction. “You do know math, right?”
“I know French,” I offered.
He shrugged. “That’s close enough, I guess.”
The dinghy rocked on waves that were getting higher. Water splashed over the stern and it was freezing out on the water. I didn’t have my foul weather gear. Or shoes, and around my feet were dozens of lobsters. How did I get here?
Why did I fall for Rene’s lies?
Why did I give him all that money?
What was missing from my life that I-
The lobsters all cried, “Nick.”
That wasn’t possible. Lobsters couldn’t talk. I picked one up to throw into the water but he clamped his claws onto my hand. “Ouch,” I cried.
“Listen,” the lobster cried. “This town isn’t big enough for you to ignore him like you did in France.”
“I’m lying low,” I said and tried to shake the lobster off my hand. “I’ll be fine.”
The lobster shook it’s little lobster head and the water splashed up over the side of the boat. Now there was too much water and the boat was going to sink, taking me and the talking lobsters with it.
“How did I mess this up so badly?” I asked my lobster friend and he patted my hand with his claw.
“You can’t run forever.”
With a gasp I sat up in my dark bedroom. I’d kicked the blanket off in the middle of the night and I was freezing. And my hand was asleep.
Stupid dream, I thought, and shook out my hand, trying to get my heart rate back under control. The clock on my bedside table said it was just before five am.
I reached over and turned off the alarm that would go off in a few minutes. There wasn’t going to be any more sleep for me this morning. I was supposed to go out on the boat with my dad. Which explained my dream. It’s not that I didn’t like going out on the boat with Dad, it was that the boat did not like me.
For years I’d been trying to control the seasickness. Dramamine just made me groggy. ginger ale helped, but there was only so much of it I could drink. I’d convinced Dad that I’d outgrown the seasickness, which was a lie, but I needed to work.
Hard work. Physical labor. I needed to earn money. An antithesis to the videos I was making which had been so fun. So serendipitous.
I needed to re-shape my life and my future into something real. Solid. Something that couldn’t be taken away by one mistake and the capricious nature of fandom.
I pushed myself out of bed and carefully made my way down the hallway to the bathroom I once again shared with my siblings. At least we’d dropped from six to three. Charlie, RJ and Lilly were in college. It was just Will, Beth and me at home.
As early as it was, the coast was clear. I brushed my teeth and scrubbed my face. Pulled my hair into a bun. When I left the bathroom, I heard Dad downstairs puttering with the coffee pot.
Perfect. Quickly running back to my room, I changed into jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. The weather gear I needed would be stored on the boat. Some dry toast and a bunch of ginger sodas, I should be able to make this work.
Except when I made my way downstairs, I heard two voices. Two male voices.
Fucking Nick.
“What did she do?” Dad asked.
“What everyone does when they see them,” Nick said. “Acted like they’d fallen to Earth from heaven.”
Dad grunted.
“It’s fucking Liam. He’s too charming.”
Dad grunted again.
“What the hell does she have to get mad about?” Wow. Nick had gotten pretty good at speaking Dad’s language.
Another grunt.
“I tried,” Nick quietly insisted. “You forget, I’m the victim...”
“Victim my ass,” my dad said. “After what she’s been through?”
Thank you, Dad! I waited for Nick to answer that question. Craning myself forward on the stairs, hands on the railing.
“Nor, I know you’re on the stairs eavesdropping,” Nick said instead.
Caught, I skipped down the steps and turned into the kitchen. I gave Nick a look that I hoped said I had no regrets and he gave me a look that said I was trouble.
“You’re up early,” Dad said to me and handed me a traveler’s mug filled with coffee. He was real chatty this morning.
I searched for the sugar and started dropping multiple spoons in, my dad wincing after each one, only to pretend to have a heart attack when I pulled out the Vanilla Almond Cream from the fridge. Filling the mug to the tippy top, I slurped until I had sugar and cream ratio perfection.
“Nora,” Dad said. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t like coffee unless it tastes like ice cream.”
“No. I meant go on the boat,” Dad said.
“You hate it,” Nick pointed out.
“I do not,” I lied. “I love it. The salt water, the ocean smell, the…lobsters. All the lobsters. Dad, I need to work.”
Dad looked like he wanted to fight about it, but he gave me his head nod.
“I give her less than an hour before she gets sick,” Nick said, folding his arms over his chest. That chest had really gotten bigger in the last six years. Not that I cared.
“Well, I give me more than an hour, so let’s bet,” I snapped back at him. I was upset and frustrated and there was no better target for all of that than Nick.
“Bet?” he asked, his right eyebrow shooting up.
“Yeah, I need the money. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks I don’t get sick in the first hour.”
“Honey, the water’s a little rough today,” Dad muttered.
Nick pushed off the counter and got in my face. I didn’t like him so close to me. Or maybe I did. Maybe I loved it. The smell of coffee and cold morning air. I wanted to shove him. I wanted to bite him. Fight him.
You want to kiss him .
The truth telling lobster from my dream had stuck around. The asshole.
“You have a hundred dollars?” Nick asked.
I didn’t. But I felt confident about my chances. Mind over matter and all that. I nodded.
“You hear that, Roy? She wants to work and she wants to prove me wrong. Sounds like a winning combination. Don’t mind if I tag along.”
Tag along? No way. He was not needed. Or wanted.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Why are you here?”
“He’s got to look at the boat engine. It’s making a sound,” Roy said.
“You could have just met us at the boat,” I told Nick.
“Well, what you don’t know, because you’ve been gone for so many years, is sometimes I like to come out here and have coffee with your dad in the morning. We talk about shit.”
I looked at my dad. “You talk?”
“Mostly I talk and he grunts but his grunts can be very helpful,” Nick said.
“I’m standing right here,” Dad grunted. He grabbed his keys and the lunch bag Mom packed for him every night before she went to bed. “Nora, we’ll try you out for one day and see how you do.”
And that was that. I felt good about my chances of lasting an hour, winning a hundred bucks and putting in a full day’s work. I’d done harder things.
Outside it was still dark and the fall air felt like winter. Crisp and cold. All of our breath came out in steam. I walked to the passenger side of Dad’s truck, while Nick walked down to his old Bronco parked on the street.
“Nora, ride with Nick,” Dad said over the hood of his truck. “I’ve got too much of Will’s hockey shit in the passenger seat. Don’t feel like moving it.”
“Uh…” I did not want to do this. Sit in Nick’s old car? The car I sat in every time we went surfing? Every time we went to Pappas? Every time we went down to Portland to watch a movie? The passenger seat where we fought over the radio station and the volume and the air conditioning. The passenger seat where I sank deeper and deeper in love with him.
“You’re better off with me,” Nick said, watching me like he knew what I was thinking. Like he could feel my hesitation and he wanted it to go away. “Your dad’s truck is a piece of shit.”
“Blasphemy,” Dad muttered before getting in his truck. He started it and took off toward the docks without a backwards look. Leaving me without a choice. It was Nick’s truck or walk.
We stared at each other across the frost tipped lawn. He opened the passenger side door and stood there. Waiting. I felt like if I got in that truck I was agreeing to “get over it.”
“Nora,” he said, his eyes soft. That crooked, non-committal half smile on his mouth. “It’s just a ride.”
It wasn’t, but he wouldn’t understand.
It was…pretending. I could pretend that night never happened. I could do that. I could pretend he never broke my heart and that I’d never been humiliated and we’d never, ever discuss it.
I could pretend that being near him didn’t hurt.
At least I thought I could.
I got into the truck and he shut the door behind me, then ran around the front of the truck to get in the driver’s side. Once he was in, the bench seat was immediately too small. He’d gotten bigger in the last six years. Broader. More substantial, it felt like.
He smelled differently too. Like he’d switched soaps. This one was cedar based and reminded me vaguely of Dior Savage. I’d done a video about it when I first got to Paris, standing in the cologne section at Halles trying to figure out why the French men smelled so good.
Did he see the video? No, that would be ridiculous.
Nick didn’t have social media accounts.
He started the truck and I immediately cranked the heat and turned the vents on me.
“You’re going to turn it into a sauna.”
“Yep,” I said, and the heartbeat of silence between us was so heavy and so awkward I would have started singing to end it. Luckily, there was a gigantic juicy topic of conversation for us that had nothing to do with that night or my fuck ups.
“So,” I turned in the seat to look at him. I couldn’t even stop myself from smiling. He glanced at me and smiled back. “Let’s talk about your brothers.”
The smile dropped from his face.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said and I laughed. I laughed so hard I had to cough.
“Stop,” he said.
Yesterday, Nick had left the park before his brothers (I still couldn’t get over that word) had even reached us. He’d muttered an Igottago and vanished back to his garage. The two hockey players had passed right by me on their way to hunt down Nick at his garage. They’d been like giants. The earth practically trembled with every footstep.
“Nick.”
“Nora,” he said in that way that said the conversation was over.
“Yesterday you’re giving me shit for not returning your texts and today you’re shutting me out. Which is it Nick?”
He looked over at me, then looked back to the road. Then looked over at me, and then back at the road.
“Both,” he barked.
I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me,” he snapped. “You’ve been MIA for six years and now you want me to, what? Start… sharing? ”
“Okay, first, you understand that sharing is not a negative thing. It makes you stronger, not weaker. Second, I’m back in Calico Cove for the foreseeable future, so we have two ways to behave. We either ignore each other, which I’d like to remind you was my choice. Or do what you said you wanted and go back to normal.”
Another glance, this time his expression was fierce. “Is that a thing I get to have? Us being normal again?”
I felt complicated things about the way he said that, like having me back in his life was a gift he didn’t know how to trust. Which was the Nick Renard story in a nutshell. A story that still had the power to break my heart. A guy so good should have good things in his life. Things he could trust.
I had no idea if I could do it or not, but I also knew this:
Nick dealing with two unknown biological half-brothers was not something he had the emotional skills to handle alone.
I just needed to protect myself so I didn’t fall into my old trap of believing he felt the same way about me that I did about him. Because he didn’t. Wouldn’t.
Maybe even couldn’t.
His childhood had not equipped him for love.
Maybe…maybe friendship, really good friendship, was his maximum emotional attachment.
Making it about him and not about something unlovable in me, loosened the knot in my chest and I took a deep breath.
“On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“We never talk about that night.”
“Nora…” he sighed.
“Don’t pretend like you want to, either.”
“I don’t, but it’s a hard thing to pretend didn’t happen.”
“Try harder.”
“You afraid your crush will come back if you actually spend time with me?” he asked, like he was teasing me. Like I was a child.
“Oh, Nick,” I said with a wisdom beyond my years. “It was never a crush.”
That shut him up.
“So, it’s settled,” I said with some relief. It was hard being mad. Being hurt. I was alone in the world these days and being normal with Nick was a balm on my exhausted and anxious soul. “I am officially waving the magic normal wand. Now tell me about your brothers. How did this all happen?”
“I got a letter from a private investigator that Wyatt had hired after their mom died. Our….mom died.”
Oh my God, so many things to process.
“Your mom died?”
He nodded.
“Your mom left you and had another family?” I whispered.
Instinctively, I reached for his arm to offer comfort, but jerked it back at the last second.
He looked at me holding my hand clasped in my lap and raised a single eyebrow. “We said normal. Normal Nora was pretty touchy feely.”
I thought of the way I kissed his hand that night and wanted to die.
“Well, Normal Nora didn’t understand personal boundaries.”
“Or New Nora got duped, hard, and she’s embarrassed?”
Classic Nick trick. Deflect from his own shit by bringing it around to me and my problems.
“New Nora isn’t up for discussion until you finish the story.”
He sighed and turned left for the harbor. “There’s not much to tell. I met Liam and Wyatt for a drink in Boston. I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t even tell Antony or Birdie I was doing it.”
“Why not?”
“What was there to say? I didn’t think it would amount to anything, so what was the point of bringing that drama into their lives?”
More classic Nick. I wanted to tell him that he was the point.
“I figured we’d meet,” Nick continued. “They would say whatever they had to say and that would be that.”
“Except that’s not what happened,” I prompted. Because they were in town, together, looking for Nick.
“I don’t know. They pissed me off.”
I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” He asked.
“Explain please and use your words.”
Nick opened his mouth. Closed it. “I don’t know. Wyatt was acting like he’d come to save me or some shit. Like if he’d known about me all along he would have found me sooner. Now he’s all we’re family and it’s horseshit. They’re not my family.”
“No,” I said. “We both know biology doesn’t make family, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get to know them.”
“For what purpose?”
I half laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe to have two new friends, who happen to be famous hockey players.”
“Famous? How many games have you seen them play?”
“Uh, zero. You know I’m not a sports girlie. But Wyatt Locke is married to Sydney Malloy, and I have always liked her.”
“He’s not actually,” Nick said with a wry laugh.
“What do you mean? It was all over Celebrity Truth.”
“They got divorced.”
“Oh no. That’s so sad.”
Nick shook his head. “Why would you be sad about that? You don’t even know them.”
“I don’t know, I’m sad any time love doesn’t work out.”
“Well, then you can be happy again, because they’re engaged.”
It was my turn to scowl at him. “Are you messing with me?”
“Hand to God, that’s what he told me. They got married in Vegas, ended up falling for each other, didn’t want to start their marriage with a mistake, so they got divorced. Then he asked her to marry him.”
“Ah, that’s so sweet.”
Nick shook his head. “You’re such a sucker.”
I glared at him. “Sore spot, Nick. Tread lightly.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “So now it’s your turn.”
“What? I have a million more questions. Why are they in town? Why did you run from them the other day? What are they like? How tall are they really?”
“Tough. That’s my story. Now I want to know what happened with that guy.”
“Hard pass.” I focused on where we were. “Oh look, we’re here. Time to catch lobsters and fix engines. Also note, Dad gets like uber growly and mean faced if you even mention what happened in Paris.”
“Uh, yeah. I was here when it was all going down. I took him out to the junkyard with Jackson so he could smash shit with a bat.”
It was just one of the many things that was upsetting about the whole incident . How it made my dad feel. Like he couldn’t protect me, when that had been his life’s work up until I left.
“Being a parent must suck,” I said as we pulled into the parking spot at the docks. I could see Dad already on the boat checking the trap lines.
“Your dad doesn’t believe that. He and Vanessa had five more kids after you.”
“Yeah, it’s fun when they’re Will and Bethany’s age, but then they grow up. And they have to make all these choices, and as a parent you have to let them because that’s what growing up means. But then they fall flat on their face in front of the world and it must be so embarrassing for them. Because everyone’s probably looking at them too, wondering how you let your kid make such a big mistake.”
“Nor, knock it off.”
“Knock what off?”
“The pity party. Your parents love you unconditionally. You got conned by a guy who was a professional at conning people. It’s over now. Move on.”
“Move on?” I snapped. “That’s your advice for everything! Just ignore every feeling you don’t want to have?”
He nodded. “It works for me. You should try it.”
“No thanks,” I said with as much snark as I could muster. “I prefer living as a human in this world and not a soulless robot.”
“Does. Not. Compute.” Nick countered in a robotic voice.
I rolled my eyes and he laughed in my face. Then he reached over and ruffled my hair.
“Stooohaap,” I protested and slapped his hands away.
“Missed you Normal Nora. Missed you a lot.”
He hopped out of the truck and slammed the door shut behind him. For a second I sat there and let his words seep in.
Missed you. Missed you a lot.
Pretty normal stuff. Basic. We’d been best friends and I’d been gone for six years. You’d expect your best friend to miss you.
Except, I knew him too well. For him to say it meant he had to feel it.
For him to feel it, meant he had to acknowledge an actual emotion.
Which made it real for him.
Which made it even more real for me.
Ugh. I really had missed him. And it was so nice to be back in this stupid truck with him.
I followed him down the pier to where my dad’s boats were docked.
Gingerly, I stepped onto the deck and then into the open cockpit. Not too much wave action. So far so good. Nick jumped on the boat with both feet and sent the boat jostling.
My stomach turned over.
One hour. I only needed to make it one hour.