Summer Fridays

Chapter 18

FRIDAY, JULY 23

It was hot and muggy when Sawyer left her office for the afternoon. The light in the city had taken on a slightly golden tint from the haze in the air.

Union Square was full of people enjoying their summer Fridays—everywhere Sawyer looked, she saw people lazing on benches, sipping iced coffees, talking to friends, reading books. Strollers and walkers and dogs. Fat pigeons strutting to peck at panini crumbs and flapping their wings in the puddles accumulating on the paving stones near the drinking fountains. Shoppers perusing the little farmers’ market tucked into one corner of the park. Twenty-somethings sitting under the red-and-white umbrellas of Luna Park’s seasonal open-air restaurant in the middle of Union Square, drinking pitchers of sangria and laughing.

As Sawyer made her way through the crowded park, she saw Nick exactly where he promised he’d be, waiting near the stairs that led down into the subway, at the south end of the park. He was clearly on the lookout, scanning people as they passed, but his back was turned to the direction of Sawyer’s approach, so she had the advantage in spotting him first.

For a fleeting moment, the sight of him stopped her in her tracks. Her stomach did a flip and her limbs went numb, as if all the blood had rushed back to her heart, abandoning her extremities.

Then, he abruptly turned around—almost as if she had called his name—and saw her in return.

He also froze. People continued walking all around them as they stared at each other, a river of nonstop movement that was New York. Slowly, a smile spread over Nick’s face, and Sawyer was relieved to realize: he was happy to see her.

Her legs and feet, which had felt weighted down and practically anchored to the sidewalk, became light again. She approached him shyly, also grinning.

“Hey,” she said, when they drew within earshot of each other.

“Hey,” he replied.

He nodded. She noticed: he did not move to greet her with a hug. She felt too timid to initiate one herself. An awkward beat passed.

“So, you ready?” Nick said. “Let’s go.”

Sawyer frowned. “Go where?”

“The N train,” Nick replied, turning on his heel, clearly expecting her to follow.

Sawyer stumbled after him. “The N train?”

Nick nodded over his shoulder. “Coney Island’s on your list. You said you wanted to go. So, here we go.”

He galloped down the subway stairs and into the station. Sawyer hurried to keep up.

“And like all trips back in time to Brooklyn, our journey begins with a really long ride on the N train,” he joked.

He offered her a coin. She accepted it, confused, and realized it was a subway token.

“I always wondered who still uses these,” she joked. “I was sure they were all dead. Or, at least, in an old folks’ home in Flushing playing pinochle.”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Tokens are old-school, classy. Hard currency. None of that flimsy yellow-school-bus-colored-plastic nonsense.”

“My MetroCard pulls its weight,” she said, pretending indignance. “It also makes an excellent bookmark.”

Nick looked at her from the sides of his eyes. “I bet you’ve lost a lot of MetroCards that way.”

She laughed and relented with a nod. “Whenever I clean out my bookshelves and the stack on my nightstand, I’m always finding one with a couple of dollars on it here, another one with a couple of dollars there.”

Five minutes later, they were on a Brooklyn-bound N train. The car itself was typical of the line, with hard plastic bucket seats in various shades of cafeteria orange. They found a pair together and sat down. When the train jerked forward, it was all Sawyer could do to stop her shoulder from brushing against his; her whole body was wired with an acute awareness that they had yet to touch since the night of the kiss.

She fidgeted, wondering if either of them was going to have the nerve to bring it up.

“By the way, I’m sorry,” she said. “About the way I…uh…left the club the other night.”

Her mind replayed a flash of Nick onstage, singing.

And how she’d abruptly left.

Nick shrugged off her apology. “It was time to go home with your fiancé,” he said, but his tone was a little strange. “I get it.”

“But…I—” Sawyer struggled to find the right words.

“We don’t need to talk about it,” Nick cut her off in a conclusive tone.

There was a long, awkward pause. Then, finally he spoke again.

“So…” Nick said. “Lay it on me.”

Sawyer looked at him, wide-eyed, faintly alarmed. Nick chuckled.

“I mean, about your work woes.”

“Oh,” she said. “That.”

“What’s been going on?”

Sawyer proceeded to tell Nick everything to do with her drama at work. Terry Stone. Johanna calling her “Eve Harrington” behind her back. Erin Michaels congratulating her about The Paris Review when they were in the elevator. Kaylee taking her out for a drink and relaying all the gossip about how much Johanna hated having aspiring writers for assistants.

Nick listened intently, nodding thoughtfully, periodically asking questions for clarity.

“So?” Sawyer nudged, once she’d finished unloading every detail she thought might be relevant.

Nick shook his head.

“You don’t want to know what I think.”

“C’mon—why would I spend the past seven stops telling you about all this if I didn’t want to know what you think?”

“Well,” Nick said, taking a deep breath and giving Sawyer a grave look. “I think when it comes to your boss, Johanna, you’re basically screwed.”

“Well, don’t sugarcoat it, by all means!”

“You said you wanted to know what I thought,” Nick reminded her.

“OK,” Sawyer agreed. “But what can I do?”

“Nothing,” Nick replied, matter-of-fact.

Sawyer gave him a look.

He shook his head, doubling down. “I can tell you’re still operating under the belief that there’s something you can do to make this woman happy. In fact—you seem addicted to the belief that there is something you can do to make this woman happy. But I can tell you right now: there’s nothing you can do, except cut bait.”

“Cut bait?”

“Yeah. It’s a fishing expression.”

“I know it’s a fishing expression,” Sawyer replied, indignant. “But what are you saying…I should quit?”

“Quit publishing, no,” Nick answered. “But quit working for Johanna, hell yes.”

Sawyer hadn’t even considered this. She started to protest, but her mouth only opened and closed soundlessly, like a fish.

“I know, I know,” Nick clucked. “You probably haven’t even considered that. But it’s the only way.” He paused, then added, “What about that editor on the elevator?”

“Erin Michaels?”

“Yeah—her. She sounds like she might be young, but she’s someone who you genuinely admire.”

“I do, but…”

“And her congratulations to you sounded sincere.”

“I mean, I think it was—”

“It sounds like she’s the kind of person who thinks being a writer is a good thing. She sees the value in it, and doesn’t see it as being in conflict with becoming an editor.”

“Maybe,” Sawyer conceded. “But it’s not like I can just pick and choose my boss. I can’t ask to work for her instead of Johanna or anything like that. That’s not how it works. And if I went around trying to finagle some kind of transfer…well, besides pissing Johanna off, I’d probably land Erin on Johanna’s shit list. And Erin might be encouraging, but she doesn’t want to go around offending other editors with bad interoffice etiquette. No one does.”

Nick shrugged.

“Well—what do I know? I’d just say don’t rule it out. Here’s my final two cents: it’s better to study under someone lower on the totem pole who actually wants to teach you something, than it is to study under the highest-up person who doesn’t want to teach you anything at all.”

Sawyer looked at him from the sides of her eyes.

“That’s some pretty deep wisdom,” she joked.

“I have my moments.”

“A few…here and there,” she agreed, teasing. Then she sighed. “And you might even be right.”

“Might be.”

They continued to talk as the train hurtled them jerkily toward the end of Brooklyn.

On two occasions, they stood up to offer their seats to other riders. Once, to a pair of elderly women, one of whom hobbled onto the train with the help of a cane. And a second time when an exhausted-looking woman wrangling three very squirmy children under the age of five got on the train and glanced around helplessly.

Sawyer liked how seamless these transitions were, that she and Nick didn’t need words in order to agree upon giving up their seats. They both just immediately stood, offering their seats to people who needed them more, with a quick tap on the stranger’s shoulder and a welcoming nod, then continuing their conversation as they grabbed the overhead rail. She liked how Nick’s thoughtfulness was automatic, with no showiness about it.

Finally, almost a full hour after they got on the train in Union Square, they reached the end of the line. By then, the tracks had gone from underground to elevated and the buildings around them had become increasingly squat, with only a few housing high-rises. The passengers all around them were clearly bound for the shore, carrying coolers and beach bags, and smelling of tropical-scented sunscreen. The conductor came on the muffled loudspeakers and announced that this was the final stop, that the train would be turning around, and that all passengers were advised to get off the train.

Bing-bong!The train doors opened.

“That’s our cue,” Nick said. “Let the adventure begin.”

They shuffled along with the crowd, down the stairs and out of the station onto what looked like a broad city avenue. Sawyer was surprised by how urban it was; beaches in Oregon were cold, wild, rugged affairs.

Nick pointed out a few things as they made their way along the avenue, presumably headed to the waterfront (Sawyer couldn’t see the water yet; she was all turned around).

“The very first Nathan’s,” he said, pointing to a large building with a giant cartoon hot dog and Nathan’s signature vintage green-and-white signage. To the side of the building was an enormous patio filled with people sitting at picnic benches, eating hot dogs and lobster rolls. “But they charge twice as much here as they do in the city.”

He continued to lead the way. They stopped to pay homage to the Coney Art Walls—a series of murals, giddy with color—then made their way through an open-air fairway, the carneys all calling to them to try their hands at various carnival games.

Nick waved off a man trying to heckle them into a ring toss.

“Maybe later.”

Under his breath, to Sawyer, he confided, “I’m sure you know already, but there’s rarely anything ‘fair’ about the games on a ‘fairway’…” He smiled. “Still. I have a few favorites I like to lose at. How ’bout you? You have a favorite carnival game you like to lose at?”

“I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’m not half-bad at the one where you throw darts at balloons,” Sawyer admitted.

Nick raised his eyebrows. “A secret sharpshooter,” he commented.

“I won my one and only childhood goldfish that way,” Sawyer added, grinning.

“What did you name him?”

Sawyer cringed and blushed. “Moby,” she answered.

Nick’s face squirmed. “?‘Moby’…as in, Moby Dick?”

“Go ahead. I know you want to laugh.”

“Would I laugh at you?” he said with a mock air of incredulity.

“Pretty sure you already have,” Sawyer said. “Anyway, you called it when we first met; my family is big on American classics. Or at least my mom is. Maybe my dad would have named him Hamlet.”

“Ah, yes—an existential goldfish, always brooding about death,” Nick joked. “?‘A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm,’?” Nick recited.

This time it was Sawyer’s turn to raise her eyebrows in amused surprise. Nick shrugged.

“It was the fishiest line I could think of in Hamlet,” he said. “The only other fish references in Shakespeare that I can remember are mainly about Caliban. Something about being half man, half fish. Which reminds me—there’s a freak show here, of course.”

Sawyer wrinkled her nose. “Those have always struck me as mean-spirited.”

Nick nodded. “I figured. Even the name, ‘freak show,’ seems too derisive for your blood.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. You’re just…nice.”

“There’s that word again. Don’t make me beat it out of you.”

Nick laughed. He continued to lead the way past Tilt-A-Whirls and bumper cars and roller coasters, until the fairway let out to a vintage wooden boardwalk, and Sawyer finally set eyes on the beach. A smile spread over her face to see it. The ocean!

The water itself was still a considerable distance away—the wooden boardwalk was broad and wide, and the sand leading down to the water stretched for a couple hundred feet before finally reaching the white-capped breakers rolling in on the steel-blue Atlantic. The summer sun had not let up, and the air above the sand shimmered in oily-looking, mirage-like waves. But, unlike in the city, the heat was tempered slightly by a pleasant sea breeze, Sawyer noted. Everything was sticky and hot—but not terrible.

“Where are we going?” she asked, as Nick continued on.

“Thought we’d walk to the end of the pier,” he answered, pointing to a long wooden pier that jutted perpendicular to the boardwalk, out over the water. “You can get the lay of the land, and decide what you’d like to do first.”

“I’m supposed to decide?”

“Of course. It’s your summer Friday list,” he reminded her. “I just have two stipulations. One: you pick whatever you want. And two: you let me treat you today.”

Sawyer shook her head.

“C’mon, Sawyer,” Nick said. “Choose what you want, and don’t say sorry, for once in your life. I promise you it’s not that hard.”

“But it’s your summer Friday, too,” she countered. “Real New Yorkers take their summer Fridays pretty seriously. Wouldn’t want you to waste yours.”

“Well, even if you pick ten things I hate, I’d still be doing exactly what I want with my Friday,” Nick replied.

Sawyer felt an extra flush of warmth in her cheeks.

“Because I get to hang out with you,” he added, matter-of-fact. It should have sounded like a line. Instead it sounded frank, like the earnest truth.

The warmth in her cheeks bloomed down her neck, to her chest. She glanced away, hoping Nick wouldn’t notice.

“I’m where I want to be,” he confirmed, and they walked on.

When they reached the end of the pier, they turned and stood at the railing, looking back at the shore. A tall red metal structure dominated the scene. It looked a little like an extremely tall radio tower, except it fanned out at the top, like a giant mushroom.

“That’s the old parachute jump,” Nick said, following Sawyer’s gaze.

“Parachute jump?”

“Yeah. Paratroopers in the army used to train by jumping off towers like that one. But when the World’s Fair came to New York in the 1930s, they decided to build one that catered to fairgoers, as a ride.”

Sawyer stared at the tower and tried to picture white parachutes falling from the top, like blossoms falling from a tree.

“That must have been pretty cool,” she said.

“Cool,” Nick agreed. “But too expensive to continue running the ride, and too expensive to tear down or move. So now that weird red tower has basically become the architectural feature that defines Coney Island. Like, if they had to print something on a souvenir keychain, that’d be it.”

“That red tower is to Coney Island what the Empire State Building is to New York?”

“Pretty much.”

“Huh,” Sawyer mused.

They continued to study the view as Nick pointed out Coney Island’s many features and attractions.

“So—what do you want to do?”

Sawyer thought for a minute and decided to be honest. “All that talk about Moby Dick makes me want to start with the aquarium,” she conceded.

“The aquarium it is,” Nick agreed.

They spent the next hour wandering around the eerie blue ambient lighting of the aquarium tanks, gravitating toward whatever caught their attention.

“You know what I loved about aquariums as a kid?” Sawyer said rhetorically. “It’s like…when you get to a part of the aquarium that’s super dark, and you have so many fish tanks all around you—especially the really giant ones with huge walls of glass—it’s like for a second you feel like you’re in the fishes’ world, and you’re the one visiting…the one in a tank.”

Nick looked at her. Sawyer laughed.

“That makes it sound like I want to live in a fish tank.”

“No,” Nick said. “I get it. Especially as a kid. It’s that same fantasy of being able to get in a spaceship and visit aliens.”

“Yes! Exactly. It’s weird. There shouldn’t be anything primal about it, but it feels primal.”

“Unless it is primal, and all of us humans were originally put here by an alien-fish species, and all we want to do is go back and visit.”

Sawyer laughed.

“You think I’m kidding,” Nick complained. “But what if ‘evolved from the primordial ooze’ is just code for ‘brought here from another planet by an alien-fish species’?”

“And I thought I was the one with all the weird ideas,” Sawyer replied.

“Nope. If one thing’s for sure, it’s that we’re total weirdos, both of us.”

They decided the aquarium made them hungry, and returned to the bright sunshine and unrelenting heat of the boardwalk in search of food.

“I would recommend we get lobster rolls, but seafood feels a little obscene after the aquarium,” Nick commented.

“Agreed.”

They wound up getting corn dogs and slushies from Ruby’s and found a table just outside the entrance with a view of it all—the boardwalk, the beach, and the water. For a beach, Coney Island was distinctly urban, with a touch of eccentric. As they sat people watching, they witnessed a drug deal, a woman wearing what looked like a hot-pink wedding dress, and an old man covered in green face paint and tinfoil. The last was the most surreal. Besides the green paint and tinfoil, music blared from some unseen speaker under the tinfoil, and he was on roller skates.

“See?” Nick teased Sawyer. “Now, there’s a guy who plainly remembers our alien-fish ancestors. He’s overdue for a visit home.”

Sawyer resisted the urge to laugh. She put a hand to her forehead and eyes and let out a soft chuckle in spite of herself.

When the sweet-and-salty corn dogs had been reduced to just wooden sticks crusted with charred batter at the base, and the cherry syrup in the slushies had stained their lips an unnatural shade of red, they went in search of a few carnival games on the fairway.

They both lost miserably, but laughed so hard Sawyer felt tears squeezing from the outer cracks of her eyes.

“Well, look at it this way,” Nick said. “Now we won’t have to carry around one of those giant stuffed animals like some sort of cliché in a movie.”

“Yeah,” Sawyer agreed, but thought, That’s a romance cliché.

Her mind drifted back to the kiss. She glanced at his lips. She started to sweat and looked away.

They decided to ride the Wonder Wheel—Coney Island’s famously enormous vintage Ferris wheel. Sawyer figured it would be a peaceful ride, a nice view at the top, possibly they’d catch a cool sea breeze from higher up. While waiting in line, she’d seen that some of the Ferris wheel cars moved—sliding back and forth on tracks within the wheel itself, in a vague Z pattern. Probably some engineer’s idea to jazz up the otherwise rather staid ride; an interesting nuance, but it didn’t strike Sawyer as anything to be intimidated by.

But the first time their car zipped forward, she wasn’t really expecting it, and the feeling of it dropping and swinging forward had her reaching for Nick out of pure instinct. He allowed her to grab him. Then, finding herself in his arms, she freaked out and just as instantly jerked away in polite reflex.

It all happened in seconds: jump, grab, clutch, flinch, release, jump back.

He’d laughed when she’d clutched at him, then abruptly stopped laughing when she recoiled.

The truth was, she hadn’t reacted to his body so much as she had reacted to the effect that his body had on her body. The magnetism she’d felt in touching him had scared her. It forced her to be honest with herself: she hadn’t just been thinking about that kiss all week; she’d been wanting more…she’d been wanting him.

After the awkward moment, the two of them sat quietly, making strained small talk, not touching for the rest of the ride.

When they got to the bottom and found themselves back on solid ground, Nick asked, “So…anything else you want to do in Coney Island, or are you getting tired and ready to call it a day?”

They’d been there for a few hours, but the summer sun was still high in the sky as though it had no plans for setting anytime soon. The idea of the day ending—her day with Nick ending—filled Sawyer with a sense of desperate protest.

“But we came to the beach,” she said. “And we haven’t walked on the beach at all yet.”

“You want to walk on the beach?”

“Of course,” she insisted. She scanned the shore. “Maybe over there,” she said, pointing. “Where it’s less crowded. We can walk in the surf, and I can say I dipped my toes in the Atlantic Ocean today.”

Nick gave a slow smile. “All right. Let’s take a walk.”

They walked along the boardwalk to the stretch of less crowded beach that Sawyer had pointed out, then kicked off their shoes and picked their way through the hot sand toward the water.

When they neared the surf, they inched closer and closer to it, tempting the waves, until one surged a tad more powerfully than the others and rushed over their feet. Sawyer gave an appreciative hoot.

“Oh, that is brisk!”

“Yeah,” Nick agreed. “It’ll get a little warmer around August, but you know…we’re still in New York, not Florida.”

“I like it,” Sawyer said. “A swim in this would be refreshing!”

“I guess I should have told you to bring a swimsuit,” Nick replied. “I didn’t think of that.”

“That’s OK,” Sawyer said. “I’m pretty happy with today, just as it is.”

They continued to walk, leaving footprints in the sand. As Sawyer stepped, a fresh wave washed over her toes.

“In fact…I personally felt a little…I don’t know—panicked? I guess?—right after we got off the Wonder Wheel,” she admitted. “When you suggested we call it a day.”

“You just seemed uncomfortable,” Nick answered.

She understood he was referring to how she’d sprung away from him in the car of the Ferris wheel.

“I wanted to give you an out, in case you wanted one,” he said.

“I don’t want one,” Sawyer insisted. “I’m having a good time.” She paused, and dug deep for some courage. “I don’t want the day to end, because I like being around you, and I don’t want that to end, most of all.”

They’d been walking leisurely along the surf. But at this, Nick drew up short, stopped, and turned to look at her.

Sawyer froze. Her heart was hammering again.

He studied her face.

“Then it’s mutual,” he said quietly, almost as if stating the conclusion to himself.

They’d stopped abruptly, with Sawyer almost bumping into him. Now they stood face-to-face, unexpectedly close.

She was self-consciously aware of a tension building between them again, growing steadily thicker, exhilarating and unbearable at the same time. They moved incrementally closer and closer, until…

SPLAT.

Sawyer stared wide-eyed at Nick’s shirt, frozen by total disbelief. The white stain was almost identical to the one that had splattered his T-shirt on the Staten Island Ferry. Nick looked down, his brow furrowed.

“What the—”

Sawyer clapped her hands to her mouth, fighting back laughter.

“NO. WAY.” Nick looked accusingly up at the sky, deeply offended. “No fucking way did this happen twice!”

Sawyer gave up; she stopped fighting to keep her composure and broke into unbridled laughter.

“If that really is a sign of good luck…you’ve got to be the luckiest person I know!” she said.

“Gee, thanks,” Nick retorted. “I think I’d be fine being a little less lucky.” He gave up looking for the rogue seagull and set about stripping off his shirt.

“What are you doing?” Sawyer asked, suddenly nervous, taken off guard by Nick’s shirtless body.

“Washing this off,” Nick said. “Just so happens, there’s an ocean conveniently right here.”

He tossed his shoes onto a dry spot of sand and moved farther into the surf, then stooped over to submerge his shirt in the break of the waves. Sawyer put her own shoes next to his shoes, along with her bag, and waded in to stand next to him.

“I think you have to scrub it,” she advised. “Do you want me to do it?”

“No,” Nick snapped. “Thanks for getting it out last time. But I don’t want to be the guy whose pooped-on shirts you’re always cleaning.”

Sawyer laughed until Nick couldn’t help but laugh a little, too.

“What the hell did you do to the seagulls in a past life?” she teased.

“Wish I knew.”

“You’re clearly a marked man in their book.”

“Literally,” Nick grunted, having little success in getting the stain completely out.

“Here—seriously, let me.”

“No. I said: hands off!”

For a minute they played tug-of-war with the shirt, then something went confusingly wrong. Sawyer stumbled; Nick tried to catch her. At the same time, a wave rolled in, and they wound up toppling into the water.

This time Nick was the one to give a loud hoot about the temperature.

They’d been completely dunked, head to toe, hair and all.

They struggled to get to their feet as another wave sloshed lazily to the shore, and started laughing again until they were both hysterical.

“Screw it,” Nick said, now laughing so hard his eyes were barely open. “There’s only one thing left to do now,” he said.

“What’s that?”

He threw his T-shirt onto the sand where they had stashed their shoes. It landed with a wet splat.

“You said you wanted to go for a swim,” he said.

Sawyer grinned.

Instead of getting out of the water, they turned and swam farther in, laughing and splashing each other playfully as they went.

Once they got a little more distance from the surf, they got away from the break of the waves, and away from the brownish silt the waves kicked up in their wake. It was even colder than it had been in the shallows, but once the shock wore off, the water was cool and refreshing. And salty. Sawyer noticed: the Atlantic seemed far saltier than the Pacific. It felt a little easier to float. She’d never gone swimming in a dress before; she could feel the loose skirt of her sundress blooming around her, but her legs were mostly unfettered.

She and Nick swam in little half-moons around each other, daring each other to go farther and farther out. Every once in a while, they surged toward each other and gave a little joking splash.

Finally, at one point, when Sawyer surged toward Nick and splashed him, he caught her arms and pulled her toward him.

She was surprised when her body instinctively relaxed into it. She felt his arms circle her waist and her own arms hook onto his shoulders and neck. They bobbed together for a couple of minutes, like a pair of buoys.

Sawyer felt her skin tighten with goose bumps, but not so much from the temperature of the water as from the strange electricity she felt. Away from the break of the surf, the waves were gentle. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her face. The smell of funnel cake from the boardwalk drifted to her nose in wafts. It smelled so good and the goose bumps felt so good and the water was so cool and Nick’s touch was so warm, it all made her feel a little dizzy. What an unexpected, slightly absurd paradise she had wandered into. She licked her lips, tasting the salt, and waited for Nick to kiss her.

But in the next moment, Nick released her and swam away.

When they got out of the water, they returned to the spot where they’d dropped their things and sat on the sand, having brought along no towel to speak of. Nick’s T-shirt was almost dry, but hardly clean, caked in a dark sand that was more like mud.

As they sat warming themselves under the sun, their bodies encrusted in salt and sand, they began to contemplate the folly of their ways.

“Riding the train back to Manhattan like this is going to be…” Sawyer started to say, pausing to think of the right word.

“Dirty, disgusting, and beyond uncomfortable,” Nick provided.

“Yeah,” Sawyer agreed. “THAT.”

She paused, and ran her fingers through her hair, where they caught in a tangle. Her dark hair had turned surprisingly wavy after the salt water.

“Not to mention, it’s a really looooong ride,” she added. “You know…you might say, we really didn’t think this through.”

She laughed, but Nick only grunted, lost in thought.

“Huh.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“Well, I think I know of a solution,” he said. “But I’m not sure what you’ll think of it.”

Sawyer looked at him. His face was so serious. She laughed.

“Try me,” she said.