Chapter 30
Thirty
“Hey, Mac, how are ya, man?” Nash’s muffled voice rips my eyes open and I flinch from the light pouring through the blinds of the squatter’s shed. “You get my emails?”
I jolt upright.
Nash is outside.
I’m in his shed.
Where I spent so much time thinking about his hands and mouth that I forgot to set an alarm.
Shit.
I hit the ground with a thud and crawl to the window, coming up at eye level to peer out.
Nash is pacing by the pool in sweatpants and without a shirt—he really hasn’t aged—talking on the phone. He has a coffee mug in one hand and Frank is on his heels.
“I can see that,” he says.
This is absolutely none of my business and I need to know everything. Bennie would be so proud.
He might ask “What about a different building?” but it’s too muffled so I crack the window—barely—to hear. Because a squatting, cheating, lying eavesdropper is who I am now. “I honestly don’t care where I am.”
I don’t need to know what’s being said into his ear to know that I don’t care where I am is a red-flag line if there ever was one.
“Mhm.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “What’s the market look like there?” This is a business call, and I’d bet all the money I don’t have that it’s regarding the expansion he mentioned. “It’d be more niche, that’s for sure . . . yeah . . . and more seasonal.”
He’s pacing again.
Frank jumps with a tennis ball in his mouth until Nash pinches the phone between his ear and shoulder to throw the ball across the yard.
“I’d like to move fast,” he says again. “Get it going in some capacity by the fall if possible. I don’t want to bleed money. Especially if we buy a new building . . . renting could work . . . yeah, I’d run everything. Skeleton staff. Maybe two?”
Pause.
“Mhm.”
Pause.
“Most of the year I’d want to be there. More time here in the summer, I think.”
He chuckles and sits on the edge of a lawn chair.
“That’s what I pay you for,” he says. “Alright, man. Thanks . . . yeah . . . you too.”
The call ends, and my exhale gushes out of me like floodwaters through a dam.
He tosses the phone on the chair and pets Frank, sipping his coffee while I sift through the information I was just given.
He’s moving forward with expansion, he wants it to happen fast, and he wants to live there. After he told me he didn’t want me to marry someone else and that he could be in Fontain.
There’s no stopping the wind from blowing, I guess.
It has nothing to do with me, but it lands like a personal attack. He wanted to kiss me, I wanted to kiss him. I all but screamed that I’m still in love with him. But here we are.
It’s not steady, it’s him still having the itch to wander.
And yet I can’t stop watching him.
Not as he stands.
Nor as he drops his pants and takes my jaw down right along with them.
Not a scrap of underwear in sight, I slap my hand over my mouth. Nash’s naked body makes me scream holy shit! in the best way possible.
He dives into the pool in a cool naked motion and begins swimming laps, oblivious to the Peeping Tom tracking his every movement as the snare drum of my pulse nearly knocks me out.
I crawl to my phone then back to the window, fumbling for my sister’s number.
“It’s our former sister turned treasure hunter,” Reese says. “I have you on speaker with Remy and Mom.”
They yell hi in unison, but there’s no time for pleasantries.
“I have a situation,” I whisper, closing the window slightly. “An emergency situation. It’s Nash. He’s—I don’t know. Naked in a pool.”
Three screeched whats make me wince.
“Shh! He doesn’t know I’m in his shed and I eavesdropped on a call he was having with a man named Mac. He’s expanding.”
“Good for him,” Reese says. “Business must be good. You don’t expand without a solid flagship.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Why are you in the shed?” Mom whispers. “And whispering?”
“Me in the shed isn’t the point either,” I say at a more normal volume, adjusting the blind to maintain my view.
“The point is this is all complicated. He’s still him.
Like I thought I would get here and not have any issues, but—I don’t know.
I’m freaking out. He broke into a tree with me, and then he sucked my finger and said he wanted to—”
“He sucked your finger?” Remy cuts in, stunned. “First postcards for eight years and now fingergasms? My God, Rue. Write the damn book.”
“You write the book,” I snap. “I need you to focus. I was thinking how Jonathan would never do that—any of it—including the fingergasming”—what an idiotic word—“and—I don’t know—I’m thinking I can’t marry him.
” Nash swims another lap. “Like maybe I don’t want to marry him.
” It’s the first time I’ve said those words out loud. “What do you think?”
The air is dead except for hushed words I can’t make out.
“Hello?”
Reese clears her throat. “We’re here.”
“Okay. Well, what do you think?”
More dead air and hushed words.
“What is happening there?” I demand. “Why isn’t anyone talking? Is Mom okay?”
“I’m fine,” she sings.
“So?”
“So what do you want us to say?” Reese asks.
“You’re questioning your marriage to one man for a man you’re already married to.
You staying married to Nash would save me the hassle of figuring out what to buy you as a wedding gift since you soiled the family name the day you were born.
Ohh, I should see if you qualify for a scarlet letter. B, for bastard child.”
“Can you please get some new material? And I have a father, thank you very much. He’s quite funny.”
“I knew you’d like him,” Mom pipes in.
“Remy? Mom?” I pivot. “What do you think?”
“I told you I didn’t think it was right from the beginning,” Mom says, haughty.
“Remy?”
“You’re married to Nash,” Remy says. “He sent you postcards for eight years.” I roll my eyes. “If that doesn’t tell you what you should do, nothing will.”
“Is Darren there?” I ask. “Maybe I need a man’s perspective, because you three are worthless.”
“He couldn’t make it.” Remy clears her throat. “Work.”
“Rue,” Reese says, “you already know what you want to do or you wouldn’t be calling.
I met Nash once, I liked him—a lot. You loved him so much it was disgusting to witness.
Jonathan’s different—you’re different with him.
Not that I don’t like him, but it’s difficult to trust someone who road cycles. ”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Those spandex-covered shitbags think they own the highway any weekend morning it gets above seventy degrees. They reek of rude.”
She has a point.
“He’s good for us.”
Tense whispers follow I can’t decipher.
“Lots of people can be good for you,” Reese says. “And, not that I know anything about marriage or relationships because somebody has to work around here, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the only reason you marry someone.”
“But I know what to expect from him. I know that—that he’ll just be there. He’ll be there.”
“How do you know Nash won’t? Have you even asked?”
“I’m scared he’ll say no,” I admit. “And he wasn’t before.”
There’s a collective groan.
“You never gave him a chance before,” Reese argues.
“And even if he does say no now—even if Nash wants nothing to do with Bennie, you know that doesn’t mean you still have to marry Jonathan, right?
The fact you’re even debating this so close to the wedding makes me think you know.
If Nash signed the divorce papers today, would you really want to marry Jonathan? ”
I bite my finger; she’s right. My doubts regarding Jonathan aren’t entirely about Nash.
Jonathan is so steady and levelheaded that I couldn’t even convince him to come with me.
I don’t want my life to be filled with unknowns, but I don’t want one with zero room for spontaneity either.
Just days around Nash have been the unexpected catalyst to bring all that I’m missing into focus.
“How was the finger suck?” Remy asks. “Sounds hot.”
I spread the blinds to get a clearer view of the pool. “Annoyingly so.”
Frank’s ears perk and his attention turns toward the shed, making my paranoid heart pitter-patter. Nash dips under the water then pushes himself off the wall and emerges halfway down the pool with long strokes.
“What are you doing today?” Mom asks.
“We’re supposed to go to the beach with Cap,” I explain in a quick whisper. “We have three more clues to explore.”
“Isn’t your dad a hoot?” She laughs. “One time we—”
“Mom,” I snap. “Focus.”
Reese says, “You focus. You don’t need our help. You’re acting like some voyeur with your husband.” I agree! Mom calls in the background. “Look,” Reese continues. “When I’m looking at a business to invest in—”
“This isn’t a business, Reese, this is my life. Unlike you, a heart actually pumps in my chest, generating warmth and feelings.”
She huffs. “You don’t get to be an askhole if you call us.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re asking questions and also an asshole.”
I frown; Nash swims another lap.
“Like I was saying,” she continues. “When I’m looking at a business—especially multiple businesses like you are—I want to know where I can get the biggest return on investment.”
I don’t even address the fact she’s referring to Nash and Jonathan as businesses. “You want me to base my decision on money?”
“I would,” she admits. “But, based on the books here, I can see that’s clearly not your strong suit.”
“Stay out of the books,” I snap. “And that’s terrible advice.”
“Nash sent you postcards for eight years,” Remy repeats. “I knew he was still in love with you. I knew it.”
“For the love of God,” I groan. “Please give Remy the postcards because I’m going to stab her in her sleep if she brings them up again.”
“Rue Conway,” Mom says, exasperated. “Don’t talk to your sister like that.”
“What do you really want, Rue?” Reese asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.”