17. Nova
“Nova . . .”
My name. Someone is calling my name.
“Wake up . . . ” The water around me ripples in the blackness. I can’t see. I can’t feel anything, but the icy pins against my skin as the current sucks me down.
Why can’t I move?
I’m just below the surface of the water, I can make out the reflection of the moon shining off the surface, but I can’t reach it. A face looms, just out of reach. I can’t make out the eyes, but the hair . . . I recognize it. Dark, inky black strands matted to a wet forehead.
Is this the end?
Am I drowning again?
“Nova.” Warm hands reach for me, and I’m too weightless to struggle against their hold.
Am I awake?
Am I dreaming?
Did I ever even come back from that muddy river in Missouri?
Or . . . am I dead?
“Little bird, you’ve got to wake up.”
The roar of an engine that seems like it’s right above my head sends me bolting upright from my sleep.
I’m just short enough that I don’t crack my head on the ceiling of the cabin of Hope’s Grace.
Reid’s arms come around my waist, pulling me back.
“What happened?” I ask, my heart racing in my chest.
“We’ve got to go. They’re opening up the docks. People are leaving.”
The docks. We spent the night here. Reid and I . . .
Suddenly, my skin heats as my memories come rushing back.
Oh, no . . .
I reach up, smoothing my hair down, which is, of course, a rat’s nest. You don’t just sleep on curls. It’s a death sentence.
“You look beautiful,” Reid grumbles, stilling my hands and tugging me back into his chest. “Come here.”
He smooths my hair down and presses a kiss to the back of my neck, just below my ear, his lips lingering there for a torturous moment.
Heat floods my core despite my ragged heartbeat. I have half a mind to just stay here with him, hiding out for the rest of the day, morning breath or not.
“You were having a nightmare?”
Reid’s arm bands around my stomach, and his voice is husky and full of sleep and probably the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.
“No. I wouldn’t say that.”
“You were talking in your sleep.”
Oh my God, please tell me I didn’t say anything stupid.
“What did I say?”
“Uh . . . pigtails, actually. Pink ribbon, gray, and then, just black.” He lists them off like they make no sense to him. To be honest, I’m not sure I want to think of them. Why do I keep going back to that night? I try to run as far from it as I can, but it always seems to catch up to me, filling in the little details I’ve blocked out over time.
Things I’d much rather forget.
“Must be the lack of sleep.” It’s a lie. He knows and I know it. Still, for once, he doesn’t push me to tell him more.
“Am I a bad influence on you?”
He moves out from behind me and pulls me until my back hits the mattress. Looming over me in the early morning sun, my mind plays all kinds of tricks on me. Like my inner thighs growing slick with need. Or the way my heart races in my chest like a nervous schoolgirl about to have her first kiss.
“What will my father say?”
Reid opens his mouth to speak, but just as he does, another engine cuts on, this one right beside us.
“We’ve got to go,” he chuckles, slipping from the bed and offering me his hand. “Can I walk you back?”
He holds out his hand to me and I slip palm in his. It’s warm. Electric. Too intimate for Reid and me.
“You sure it’s a good idea? It’s way past my curfew,” I taunt when he leads me in front of him up the stairs to the cabin that holds the wheel.
He swats my ass and I jerk forward, my cheeks burning. “Rules were made to be broken.”
“Shhh . . .” I giggle—yes, giggle—as Reid tugs my hand up the back sidewalk leading to the inn. The sun is just high enough in the sky now that it casts everything in a pretty pink and orange hue over the water.
“You afraid of getting caught?” Reid stops, tugging me to his chest. I feel like a teenager again, experiencing life for the first time.
“Maybe,” I muse, but he silences me when he grips my chin in his fingers and tugging my bottom lip from between my teeth with his own.
It’s one of the hottest things that’s ever happened to me. His tongue slips along the line of my bottom lip and he smirks.
“You and whatever the fuck this icing is.” We stopped for sweet crabs on the way back and I must have missed some of my peach icing. Normally, I would be embarrassed. But with Reid . . .
My core heats at the darkness in his eyes. Like a promise for later.
His arms band around my back, holding me to him and it’s all I can do to not deepen the kiss when they slip down to cup my ass.
“When is your shift over?”
“Three. Do you want to have dinner?”
“Fuck me,” he grimaces, and I can’t help but laugh when he brings his lips back to mine.
“What are you going to do all day?” I ask against his lips.
“Clean the boat. Can’t have it dirty when you let me take you out on it.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him that will never happen. Not this Nova.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“No,” he agrees, eyes glowing like warm chocolate in the light from the early morning sun. “But I want to.”
“Dinner,” he murmurs darkly, his fingers biting into my hips so hard, I know I’ll have fingertip bruises in the morning. “I’ll be there.” He releases me, his hand connecting with my ass and I yelp. “Now, go. Before someone sees you.”
A shiver ghosts through me at the loss of him in the chilly morning air. It’ll be hot, later, but at the start of August, the nights always dip on the island.
“Until, tonight, Mr. Morrison.”
I watch him disappear around the front of the building to go up to his room before I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
What have I gotten myself into?
I shake my head, my mind spinning with everything that’s happened in the last forty-eight hours as I climb the back stairs towards the inn.
Reid and I are from two completely different worlds. If anyone knew we were sleeping together, I’m sure I’d never hear the end of it.
That’s the problem with illicit affairs. Everyone has an opinion. Even when they only involve two people.
I climb the stairs, my good mood slowly starting to dissipate.
How is this supposed to work? How do you sleep with someone and separate the feelings from the physical act? Maybe I’m a prude, or maybe I’m too naive, but It’s hard to picture him leaving at the end of the summer and going about my life like nothing’s happened.
Like nothing has changed.
I should go take a shower, but I need to check on Gran and Pap since I didn’t make it down, last night, so I force my tired legs to carry me toward the back door, making my way into the old garden—
—And then stop dead in my tracks.
Sitting at the top of the stairs, looking out over the water and consequently, the beach where Reid and I just made out like horny high schoolers, sits none other than my grandfather.
Well, shit.
“He’s a nice boy,” Pap says, sipping from his coffee cup.
Figures he’d be up already.
“Hey, Pappap. What are you doing out here so early?”
Slowly, he pats the seat on the bench beside him and with a sinking feeling in my stomach, I join him.
For a moment, he’s quiet, watching the water and no doubt remembering all his own trips out on his boat. It’s heartbreaking that he can no longer do the things he loves to do. Boating, working at the inn, dancing with Gran . . . he’s lived a long life and I guess my only hope is that I can live a life like he has, full of love and family and true accomplishment.
“He’s a nice man,” Pap says quietly, almost as if correcting himself.
I suck in a deep breath, willing the dangerous thoughts of how Reid is probably the most perfect man I’ve ever met out of my head. Let’s not forget how big of an asshole he can be sometimes. A couple orgasms and a few hours of niceties doesn’t mean he’s not still the same person he was when he first arrived on the island.
But. . . the little voice in the back of my head chimes. Maybe he’s more than just the grumpy fisherman that he’d have everyone believe he is.
Unfortunately, that’s what scares me.
Thinking things like that is only setting myself up for failure and at the end of August, I’ll have to say goodbye. I’ll hate myself for getting too close to him, knowing he’s made his plans clear. He wants to fuck me. I want forever and that just isn’t going to happen.
“He is.”
Pap nods, reaching into the pocket on the front of his shirt and pulling out his old pipe. The smell of pipe tobacco has always been a sickly-sweet reminder of my grandpa and though I hate the smell, it brings a sense of nostalgia I wouldn’t trade for the world.
“He’s fixing the place up. Helping you out. How long is he staying here?”
My stomach sinks. I wasn’t aware Pap knew Reid was helping out around the inn.
“Until the end of August.”
“Shame,” he murmurs, letting out a large puff of smoke that hangs in the early morning air. “You like him?”
“Pap, I’m sorry for what you saw,” I start, but he waves me off.
“I was young once. How do you think you’re alive?”
“Okay,” I grimace, clenching my eyes against that horrid mental image. “I don’t need details.”
Pap chuckles and it’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh since I moved to Port Nova six months ago.
“Nova, you’ve always been a strong girl, but I worry about you. It hasn’t been that long since—”
“I know,” I grit, cutting him off. I just . . . can’t hear his name after I just spent the night in another man’s arms.
That guilt I said I didn’t feel earlier?
Yeah, it’s closing in now.
“I want you to have fun, but . . . I don’t want to see you hurt.”
Tears burn in my eyes, but I force them back. The last thing I want is Pap worried about me. He’s got so much else going on that to burden him feels like I’ve failed him as a granddaughter.
“Just . . . keep an eye out, kid. For your Gran’s sake. You know how she gets.”
I nod, struggling to find something to say, but I don’t need to. Pap slowly rises from his chair and grabs the cane beside him, leaving me alone with my thoughts when he goes back inside without another word.
Once the door closes behind him, I let the first tear fall. Then the next.
When did life get so damned hard? When did I go from planning my prom night with my boyfriend to paying bills, watching my grandparents decline to shells of who they once were? When did I start running and when in the hell do I stop?
I’ve done good things in my life. I’ve helped whoever I could. I’ve never stolen. I don’t lie.
So, why does it feel like I’m being punished?
You’re feeling sorry for yourself, the voice in the back of my head chimes.
And now, I feel like an asshole.
Burying my head in my hands, I let myself really cry for the first time since all of this started with Reid. This is hard. Probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Move on from the past and force myself to feel things I haven’t in years. No one said it would be easy, but then again, no one said it would feel like my chest is being ripped open, either.
The bench jostles and I jump, hurriedly wiping my tears, but there’s no one there.
No one but Creamsicle, sitting beside me and watching me. His orange tail swishes back and forth, fluffy and matted with old leaves.
He stares at me.
I stare back.
He’s never gotten this close to me, before.
“Creamsicle. Are you cool? You’re not going to attack me, are you?”
He doesn’t answer, just like Toast, so I raise my palm up to him and he gives it a sniff, before finally rubbing his face along my fingers.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, chuckling in disbelief. “Are you like actually letting me pet you?”
No response.
I chance a movement and pet the top of his head, one that has him purring louder and cuddling up against me.
“Okay . . . Well, do you want to come back to my place? I probably stink. I need a shower.”
Creamsicle eyes me before jumping down.
“I take that as a no.”
He meows.
“Whatever you say,” I murmur, rising to my feet. “Well, I have to go let Toast out, but I’ll be back for breakfast, lickety-split.”
Another meow.
I leave him sitting there, watching after me as I climb the hill back to the cottage thinking about what Pap said.
I don’t want to see you get hurt.
A sinking feeling fills my gut because if Pap knew what I did, he’d never allow Reid back into the inn.
Because I, Nova Lynn Fischer, am the world’s biggest idiot.
And I’m falling in love again.