Chapter 11
11
Nora
“ I need a raise,” I announced.
Nick looked up from the engine he was tinkering with and glared at me. The bay doors were open. Calico Cove was turning into that picture postcard of a Fall day. For the first time since coming home, it felt like anything was possible.
“You’ve been here a week.”
Like that was an excuse. “At Petite III, I used to get tips.”
“You mean when you weren’t breaking toes.”
I huffed. “It’s not for me. Well, technically it is, but it’s for a noble cause.”
I stood next to him peering down into the guts of the Honda he was working on. Something I’d done a countless times growing up with Nicky.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at a tube thing.
He laughed. “I’ve told you a million times. The transmission.”
“What’s that?” I pointed at a fan thing.
“I would think since all the times you’ve stood beside me just like this, you might have picked up a few things.”
“You’d think,” I said. He ducked out from under the hood and wiped his hands on the rag tucked into the pocket of his coveralls. “What do you need the money for?”
“I’ve got Terry’s wedding coming up and I’m prepared. Dress, gift. I’m good to go. But then Julie’s wedding is the following week, so I need a new dress.”
“Just wear the same dress,” he grunted and picked up a wrench from the tool cart beside him and went back under the hood. I had no choice but to go with him.
“ Quel horreur! I can’t do that. Terry and Julie are both high school friends. Which means it’s going to be the same group of people at both weddings. Of course, I’ll repeat one of the dresses for Samantha’s wedding, but I need at least two.”
Nick straightened up and so did I. For a second he blinked, as if realizing the same thing I was. That we have stood like this, leaning over car guts, together, for most of our lives.
But not for the last six years.
I should have stepped away. Put some distance between us.
Instead, I felt his body heat where he nearly brushed my shoulder. I caught the smell of his soap just beneath the grease and gasoline of the garage. I looked up at his familiar face, his beautiful, plush mouth, that obscenely full upper lip all set in stern lines.
Grumpy. Stern. Always…always in control.
I couldn’t look him in the eye. Not really, not fully. Not since I’d been back.
It was like that vampire curse thing. I didn’t want to be enthralled. I didn’t want to look into his somber eyes and sink into that old feeling. Like he was my home.
I could have sworn I was over him. But that pull he had over me was still there. This, I told myself, was why I shouldn’t have promised to go back to normal with him. This is why I should have kept my distance. Because what I felt for him was always stronger than my pride.
But, for the first time since I’d been home, he was looking at me the same way I was looking at him. Carefully. Like we’d forgotten and were scared to remember.
“I’ll buy you a dress then,” he said, stepping back and breaking the spell. I took a deep breath like a wave had spun me around and I was reaching the surface at the last possible moment.
“You can’t buy me a dress,” I told him. “That’s charity. I need to earn the money.”
He shrugged. “Fine, I’ll give you a dollar more an hour. Will that work?”
“Now I feel funny for asking.”
“Nor.”
It was his Nora, you’re not making any sense tone.
I knew it well.
A noise from just outside the garage caught my attention. High-pitched voices raised in excitement. I knew that sound. It used to delight me. It was a little pat on the back. An ego boost. But now it sent chills down my spine. It was the sound of being recognized.
I turned to see who was heading toward the open bay doors. “Oh no,” I whispered.
“What?” Nick asked turning in the same direction.
“High school reunion incoming.”
It was the Bride to Be and her family.
“Nora?” Terry cried, separating herself from the pack of blonde blow outs. “Is that you? Oh my gosh, it is you!”
I plastered on a gigantic smile and tried to pretend I was happy to see my old friend. “Terry! How are you?”
She jogged into the open space of the garage, and wrapped her arms around me. She was followed by her younger sister, who graduated with my sister Charlie, and an older woman I didn’t recognize.
“It’s so good to see you! I didn’t know if we would have a chance to catch up before the wedding.”
“Yes, well, I’m looking forward to your big day. Are you excited?”
Terry, not an inch over five feet, who still looked like she could pass for a senior in high school, bounced on her toes which made her blond hair swish. She had not changed one bit.
“So excited! Like I can’t wait to be Mrs. Terry Doonesbury.”
I was painfully aware of Nick watching me. He would know I was faking all this enthusiasm, and it made me uncomfortable. “So you’re taking Ted’s last name?”
“It’s old fashioned, I know,” Terry blinked her wide blue eyes. “But who wouldn’t want to be a Doonesbury?” she squealed.
“Who wouldn’t?” I squealed back.
“And you! How are you?” She squeezed my hand like she knew how I’d been. “We were just about to get lunch. You should join us.”
“Uh…oh…no, I can’t. I’m working.” I shot a look to Nick over my shoulder.
“Yep. I can’t let her go. Sorry.” He tossed the rag he’d been using to clean his hands back over on the bench.
“Oh.” The excited look dropped from her face like a stone, only to be replaced by confusion. “You work here. At the garage?”
Clear as day, I heard what she wasn’t saying: That’s a long way away from traveling first class around Europe.
I couldn’t blame Terry. Everyone in town was working so hard not to say it. Not to bring it up. They might as well have just yelled their questions at me like the trolls on the internet.
How much money did you lose?
How did you not know?
Why are you such an idiot?
Terry leaned forward, dropping her voice like she was telling me a secret. “I don’t want you to feel any pressure to bring a date. When I sent the invitation for a plus one, I’d just assumed you’d still be with Rene.”
“Yes, of course. How could you know?” I said politely. But, behind me, I could feel the tension rolling off Nick.
“I mean how could I know, right? What he would do to you. That asshole,” Terry said.
“Super asshole,” I agreed.
“If you ever want to talk?”
“I don’t.” I smiled to blunt the rudeness.
“Well, I don’t want you to feel a smidge bad about coming to the wedding alone. The best way to get over that stupid French jerk is to just move on.”
“Really?” I thought maybe it was doing everything I could to get him arrested. Or burning all his shit? But what did I know?
Terry nodded vigorously. “So, my cousin Milton, you remember him, from that summer he came to stay with us during our junior year, is going to be at the wedding. The mouthguard is gone and his teeth are really straight now. He’s going to be solo. And there’s Peter. The author? He’s recently broken up from his longtime girlfriend too. Oh, and-”
“I thought I was going with you,” Nick said, his boots hitting the cement floor with conversation ending thuds. He stood beside me and the half of my body closest to him woke up like I was full of static electricity.
Go with me?
“Hi Nick,” Carol, Terry’s sister said, looking at Nick in a way that made my eyebrow go up. “This is my aunt Susan who is in town for the wedding.”
“Hi, Aunt Susan,” Nick said, turning on the charm like he did it all the time. Aunt Susan’s face instantly lit up.
“Oh. Nick. You’re coming to the wedding. With Nora?” Terry asked.
It’s news to me too, Terry.
“Yeah, you said it was plus one. Right?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Terry said, barely able to hide her disappointment for Cousin Milton. Carol, however, looked thrilled. Terry turned back to me. “So, great. You won’t be alone. You’ll have a friend. Well, we really need to be going. Dress fitting after lunch. Can’t wait to see you at the wedding, Nora. It will be just like we’re all back in high school. You too, Nick.”
The threesome left the garage, but not before Carol gave another smile and brief wave to Nick.
Ha! She was two years younger than me. Didn’t she know he was too old for her? That he would never consider someone her age to date?
Or would he? Maybe it had just been me and not necessarily my age. That would be horrifically life altering. Again.
“What the hell was that?” I barked at him.
He shrugged. “I didn’t like the way she kept digging at you about the whole…thing.”
“She wasn’t trying to be mean.”
“ I thought you’d still be with Rene ,” he said. “That wasn’t mean?”
“The way you make it sound it is, but no. She was more polite than most.”
“Well, most people are assholes.”
“It doesn’t mean you invite yourself along as my date. Now you actually have to come with me to the wedding. You know that, right?”
“If you don’t want me there we can come up with an excuse or something.”
“Oh no, you heard her. If I’m not there with a date, she’s going to set me up with Mouthguard Milton.”
“Not a date though.”
“What’s your point, Nick?”
Nick rubbed the back of his neck and looked around the space, like everything was much more fascinating than me. “It’s not a date. Like a real date. It’s just me. A friend. Helping another friend out. You know, so you don’t get set up with Mouthguard Milton. More like a rescue, than a date really. Would we call it a fake date? That doesn’t sound exactly right, but it’s probably closer than saying it’s an actual date. Is it hot in here? What time is it? Lunch?”
“Do you hear yourself right now?”
“Yes,” he huffed. “I’m being super weird.”
“Not a date,” I confirmed. He was being so strange my feelings weren’t even hurt. I was more worried he was having a stroke. “I’m going back to the office. Oh, and I’m taking that raise, but I’m going to work some extra hours to earn it.”
“Do what you need to do,” he said. But he stood there gazing out of the garage for a solid minute. Not moving even a little.
“Uber weird, Nick!” I called out to him. Finally, he jerked himself out of whatever trance he was in, and turned back to work on the car in need of his help.