Chapter Twelve
Twelve
CHICAGO, IL
Phoebe and I were, first and foremost, Ocean State girlies. We needed the beach.
“Not a beach,” Dex said, his Ray-Bans showcasing the glare of sunshine, sand, and families parked across the coastline of Lake Michigan with umbrellas and floaties. He’d been grumbling about the pit stop since we outvoted him at the hotel breakfast buffet.
“Close enough,” Phoebe replied. She stripped down to her striped one-piece and bolted for the water. Dex watched, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
“She’s going to swim?”
I peeled off my shirt and tossed it in the sand. “Dude, it’s ninety degrees,” I said, adjusting my bikini top. He slowly turned, my body reflected in the lenses. My face went hot. “You should swim, too. It’s good for you.”
“Pass,” he said. I rolled my eyes and shoved my shorts down to my ankles. He turned away, folding his arms tightly over his chest. “It’s filthy, you know.”
“Filthy, you say.”
“The Great Lakes in general are incredibly polluted.”
“Tell me more.”
That muscle in his jaw jumped and a flicker of satisfaction sparked to life in my chest—I loved getting a rise out of him. “Don’t let me stop you,” he said stiffly. I sauntered off, grinning over my shoulder.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
It wasn’t the beach, at least not like I knew it.
Coarse sand squished between my toes, and the calm wake rolling in to greet me had nothing on breaking waves, but something about the air smelled the same, even if it lacked salt.
I followed Phoebe into the water, bracing against the chill as goose bumps ripped down my limbs.
“Fuck, that’s cold,” I said as the water lapped at my belly. Phoebe floated on her back, the sun warming her face.
“You get used to it quick.”
“I’ve never been in a lake before.”
“Me neither. It’s nice, not having to worry about sharks or jellyfish.”
“Are there no jellyfish in lakes?” We shared a quizzical look. “No, you’re right. I think.”
She straightened, pink hair slick against her temples as she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “DEX! COME HERE!”
“Jesus,” I said. “Was that necessary?”
She ignored me, watching Dex lift a hand to rub his eyes beneath his sunglasses and then slowly move toward us, taking care to keep a safe distance between himself and the water.
“What,” he said.
“Are there lake jellyfish? No, right?”
“If I say yes, can we leave?”
“Dex.”
He sighed heavily and pulled his phone out of his pocket. His brow pinched and he bit the corner of his lip as he typed, and I loved that he was googling this ridiculous thing for my sister instead of telling her to fuck off, like I might’ve thought he would a few days ago.
“Yes,” he answered, lifting his gaze from his phone. Phoebe froze.
“Wait, really? Or are you just saying that?”
“There are freshwater jellyfish in Lake Michigan.” He slipped his phone into his pocket and placed his hands on his hips, regarding the water with disdain. “You about done?”
Phoebe sank to her shoulders, eyes wide as she scanned the lake for any sign of something resembling a jellyfish. I spotted a plastic bag down the shore a ways, and hoped it didn’t make its way over.
“Freshwater jellyfish,” she repeated in horror. I nodded.
“Yeah. The world is kind of a nightmare.”
“They don’t sting,” Dex offered. She looked at him, her eyebrows flying upward.
“Really?”
“Apparently.”
She considered this, running a hand over the water. “Huh. I wonder if that means there are freshwater sharks, too.”
I immediately drew my knees to my chest. “Definitely not. Right? No?”
We both looked to Dex. He let out an aggrieved sigh and once again reached for his phone.
“This is fun,” Phoebe said, sending me a wide smile. I couldn’t help smiling back.
“No sharks,” Dex reported.
I relaxed, dissolving into the water with renewed enthusiasm.
Phoebe shot me a grin. “How many more things do you think we could get him to look up?”
I considered this. “At least three.”
“Hey, Dex!” she shouted. “What about turtles? Are there turtles in Lake Michigan?”
His shoulders rose and fell.
“I don’t know,” Phoebe said, watching as he consulted his phone a third time. “I kind of think he’d look up anything we asked.”
“Lots of turtles,” Dex told us. “Including snapping turtles.”
“Nope.” I shot toward the sand. “Sorry. No.”
Hot on my heels, Phoebe said, “No, yeah, I was done anyway.”
We kicked up sand on the way past Dex and his satisfied little smirk.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“I can’t help it. You swam in Lake Michigan.” Dex shuddered, flexing his hands against the wheel. In the back seat, Phoebe dozed, face tinged pink from the sun. “We should stop at an ER to get you guys tested.”
“Fuck off,” I said with a laugh. He glanced over and I saw my own grin in his Ray-Bans before I noticed the corner of his mouth tipping upward. “God forbid you enjoy a day at the beach.”
“Not a beach.”
“It wasn’t the ocean, but it was a beach.”
“It wasn’t the ocean and, therefore, shouldn’t count as a beach.”
“Sand, sky, water.”
“That’s the criteria to qualify as a beach in Violet-land?”
“Yes, dick, it is.” I laughed again, brushing a knuckle against my aching cheek. The smiling was out of control. “Would you swim at a Dex-land qualified beach?”
“Depends,” he answered with only a beat’s hesitation.
I shifted in my seat, facing him. Three and a half hours in a car, plus a pit stop at the beach, and his shirt remained perfectly pressed, though his stubble was a bit more pronounced than his typical five o’clock shadow.
I decided it was a good length on him, and, just for a second, I let myself imagine what it would feel like to drag my hands across it. My fingernails. My lips.
Nope. Second over.
“On?” I pressed. He brushed his index finger over his top lip and I watched, mesmerized. Damn those hands.
“Rip currents.”
“Rip currents?” I tilted my head. “That’s… logical. I guess.”
“It is logical,” he said decisively. I narrowed my eyes, watching him rub his lip once more before returning his hand to the wheel.
“You can swim, right? I mean, you swam in the hotel pool with Phoebe, so I know you can. But she did say you almost drowned when you were a kid.”
He turned sharply toward me. “She told you that?”
“It was a weird night. We watched our dad’s favorite movie,” I said. His fingers drummed against the wheel and he turned his attention to the road.
“I can swim,” he muttered. “I’ve even been known to enjoy a day at the beach.”
I pressed my lips together, my cheeks feeling like they might split open if I let myself smile again. “I can’t imagine you at the beach.”
“You literally—” He cut himself off with a cough.
I let out a sharp laugh, pointing in his face. “Ha! So you admit it’s a beach!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were totally going to say it.”
“I like the beach,” he said casually, sidestepping his wrongness. Didn’t matter. I’d be riding this high for the rest of the day. “I grew up near the beach.”
He so rarely volunteered information about himself, I took a solid ten seconds to map out a response. “You did?” I needed to know more. Everything, even. “Us too. Where did you grow up?”
“Uh.” He glanced at me quickly, perhaps having revealed this fact unwittingly. “Mattapoisett.”
“Warwick,” I said, pointing to myself. “Not too far, actually.”
“No. Not too far.” He adjusted his grip on the wheel, casting me a sidelong glance. “Why Boston, then? The Harbor is about as much a beach as Lake Michigan.”
“I met a guy.”
“Ah.”
“And then I got a job. And it made sense for a long time.”
“But it doesn’t anymore.”
I flinched and rubbed my nose. “I didn’t say that,” I mumbled, glancing at Phoebe. She was still napping, a hoodie bunched up under her head for a pillow. “It’s complicated.”
“In what way?”
“Why are we even talking about this? Let’s circle back to whether or not you know how to swim.”
“Because of Phoebe?” he guessed. I swallowed tightly.
“Obviously because of Phoebe.”
“She didn’t want to move to Boston?”
“I shouldn’t have let her move to Boston.” The words flew out before I’d fully comprehended them. I exhaled sharply and glanced over my shoulder to ensure she hadn’t woken up. She looked so peaceful, unaware of the turmoil ripping through my brain. “Shit. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
He said nothing, keeping his attention on the road. I toyed with a thread hanging from my shorts and counted to twenty before the word-vomit rose up my throat.
“She had a life,” I whispered. “I think I really fucked up, taking her to Boston. Neither of us could stand staying at our dad’s, but there were other options. I shouldn’t have… I think I fucked up.”
“You were grieving.”
“Yeah, okay, but I was in charge of a teenager, so I didn’t have the luxury of grieving, you know? I should’ve pushed it down and focused on her. It wasn’t my turn to grieve.”
His knuckles went white against the wheel. I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t staring at his hands.
“I took her away from her life and now she’s miserable, and she hates me for it. She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“Well, she should.” I squeezed my eyes shut and scrubbed my hands down my face. “I’m sorry. I’m doing that thing again, where I unload shit on you. I don’t know why I do it.”
“I asked,” he said. I dropped my hands, staring hard at the side of his face. His stubble snaking down to his neck, a lock of hair curling around the arm of his glasses.
It should’ve been criminal, how gorgeous he was.
“She said you’re friends,” I said. He shrugged. “Are we friends?”
“Is that what this is?”
His soft tone sent something molten slithering through my insides. I took a shallow breath and replied, “I don’t know.”
He reached up, tugging his fingers through his hair.
“I don’t think you fucked up, moving her to Boston,” he said.
A zip of hope soared through my chest. I’d heard virtually the same thing a hundred times over from a hundred different mouths over the last year.
Somehow it meant more, here, now, from this mouth.
“You don’t?” I asked.
“I think you need to talk about this with her.”