Indy
TWENTY-EIGHT
“You actually convinced him to come with us?” Dia asks as she watches Nick throw his backpack into the trunk of the car before he heads back inside. “What do you have on him? Something good? Because I could use some blackmail fodder for future favors I might need.”
“Be nice,” I say sternly.
“Since when did you two become friends?” Dia shakes her head. “This is so weird. Is he being decent to us because he’s planning to poison the whole family with one of those dinners he’s been cooking for us and wants to look innocent?”
I send her an exasperated look.
“What?” she says. “It’s a reasonable question. The guy’s been an asshole for years and now I’m gone for a bit, and he’s suddenly transformed into a decent person? I listened to a podcast about a woman who poisoned a bunch of family members because she wanted to get her hands on the inheritance.”
“Jesus Christ, Dia.”
“All I’m saying is that if a mushroom dish hits the table, I’m out.”
I grit my teeth and turn around to face her. “He’s making an effort, so just… stop being a dick.”
She raises her brows at me. “Someone’s touchy.”
“I’m not. I’m just telling you to have some fucking grace! Okay?”
Wow, she mouths when she thinks I’m not looking. Now I feel bad for snapping at her. But I also don’t regret it because it needed to be said.
“Okay, okay. If it’s so important to you, I’ll be the most graceful person ever,” Dia says.
My shoulders relax, and I make a face before I send her a small smile as a white flag. “Thanks.”
I sit down next to her while we wait for Bridget to arrive. Dia scratches her thigh absently and blows out a breath, dropping her head back. My gaze zeroes in on the large purple splotch on the side of her thigh, a few inches above her knee.
“What happened to you?” I point to the bruise.
She glances at it and frowns before she looks at me again. “No idea. Guess I ran into something when I wasn’t paying attention. Oh! Bridge is here.”
Bridge’s mom’s car pulls into the driveway, and Bridge jumps out.
“Sorry, we’re late,” she calls out. “We stopped for gas on our way here, and this dude was totally flirting with Mom.”
“He was not flirting,” Mrs. Delaney says.
“He asked her what her favorite type of quiche was.” Bridge grins as her mother halfheartedly swats at her.
“You’re a monster.”
“Good thing you’re getting rid of me for a few days.”
Mrs. Delaney laughs and hugs Bridget. “I put some emergency cash in the side pocket of your backpack, and there are extra socks and a sun hat in there as well. Be good and try not to get into too much trouble, okay? Or cause too much trouble. I have to run. You know how your father gets if we don’t leave for the airport three hours early. ”
We all stand and wave as she drives away.
Once the car is out of sight, Bridge turns to look at us with a wide grin on her face, her eyes shining with excitement. “Who’s ready to have some fun?”
The car window is down, and my arm rests on the sill. A warm breeze blows in, thick with salt and a faint, swampy sweetness you only get this close to the Chesapeake Bay. The wind keeps whipping strands of hair into my eyes, but I don’t care.
Bridge is scrolling on her phone, and Dia has, as is usual ever since she got back home, nodded off.
Nick drives with one hand on the wheel, the other tapping out the beat of the song coming from the speakers on the center console. My eyes keep getting stuck on the way his biceps flex, and the golden-brown hair on his arms. It’s impossibly soft to the touch. I know from experience. Plenty of it.
In my head we’re alone. I push up the hem of his T-shirt. Press my lips to his pecs.
Yeah, wearing shorts and having horny thoughts in a crowded car is not a smart combination. Then again, when aren’t my thoughts dirty these days?
Nick turns his head and quirks his brow knowingly when he finds me looking at him. I shrug, not the least bit apologetic about it.
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Bridge says, still scrolling on her phone. “August Sun. Blue Reverie. Parking Lot Saints.” She looks up and meets my gaze. “Have you heard any of those?”
Nick glances at her through the rearview mirror. “What are those? Bands?”
“There’s a concert later,” I say.
“Some of those sound promising,” Bridge says thoughtfully.
“Odds aren’t in our favor if we’re being honest, though,” I say.
“Maybe some of them are hidden gems,” Bridget says.
“If you say so,” Nick mutters.
My lips twitch at the sardonic note in his voice.
Bridget reaches out and ruffles Nick’s hair.
“Hey!” he snaps, pulling his head away.
Bridge leans back in her seat with a smug smile. “You’re just so adorably grumpy.”
Nick scowls and sends me a look that, I have to agree with Bridge, is adorably grumpy. “Can I leave her by the side of the road?”
“You could, but it’d be pretty pointless. She’ll find a way to catch up with you and she’ll take her revenge. Experience tells me it won’t be pretty.”
Bridge sends him a toothy grin in the rearview mirror. “I get creative when somebody is mean to me.”
“She scares me,” Nick whispers from the corner of his mouth.
“A little bit of fear is healthy. Like a survival mechanism,” Bridge says, and I laugh.
“I feel like I should’ve stayed home,” Nick says dryly.
“No, you shouldn’t have. If you had stayed at home you’d have just taken extra shifts at work.
You need to kick back for a bit and relax,” I say.
“This will be fun. Ocean City. Live music. Street food and roller coasters. Funnel cake. Arcade games. And I mean, okay, you don’t care about roller coasters, but the rest will still be great.
Just try and tell me you don’t like funnel cake.
Funnel cake, Nicholas. You know who doesn’t like funnel cake? ”
“Can you say funnel cake one more time to really ram it home?” he asks. The terse question is undercut by the small, affectionate smile.
“People who are born without taste buds and the ability to feel joy,” I say. “That’s who.”
He tries to fight it, but then he starts to laugh and rolls his eyes at me. And I smile back. And everything—everything—feels the sort of perfect that shouldn’t exist but apparently does.
Nick parks the car after circling the block a few times. There are a lot of people out and about today, an overwhelming number of them tourists. The boardwalk is packed so tightly with bodies that I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll even fit on it.
“Tourists,” Dia says with a hint of disapproval.
“Technically, you’re a tourist, too,” I say.
“It’s like you’ve never heard of double standards.”
Nick grabs his backpack out of the trunk and swings it over his shoulder before he comes and stands next to me, so close that whenever either of us moves, our bodies brush against each other.
And whenever he looks at me, my heart does this sudden jump like it’s desperately trying to get my attention.
He’s dressed like everyone else, in shorts and a T-shirt with sunglasses covering his eyes, but it doesn’t help.
He doesn’t blend in. Not even a little. It’s like there’s a spotlight on him that no one else can see.
I know, logically, that it’s probably just me. That I’m the one making him stand out.
Still.
I don’t get how other people can just exist around him like nothing’s happening.
He grabs a baseball cap hanging off his backpack and drops it onto my head, tugging the brim lower and muttering something about sunburn and heatstroke.
His fingers linger for a moment too long, brushing my temple before he pulls his hand back.
His eyes are impossibly dark, and I desperately wish we were alone instead of on this overcrowded pier.
“Are you two coming or not?” Dia calls from up ahead, already walking down the boardwalk.
I force myself to look away from Nick. “Coming.”
I inhale appreciatively as we walk. We used to come here all the time when Dia and I were younger. The smell of the Atlantic mixed with sunscreen and deep-fried food will always remind me of summer.
“Rides first,” Bridget says. “We’ll start with the cool ones and then see if we have time for the boring stuff.”
I see the subtle glance Nick throws at the Looping Star.
“Deal,” I say. “Bumper cars?”
Bridge stares at me before she points to the rollercoaster behind us. “Or, you know, that?”
I follow her gesture, squinting up at the track amid the loud rattle of the cars and screams. I make a face. “Really? That thing? I vote bumper cars.”
Bridge crosses her arms over her chest. “Did we go back in time? Are we eight again?”
“Seriously, Go,” Dia says, already half-turned to head for the line that snakes into the entrance.
“It’ll be fun,” I say.
“Yeah.” Bridge stares at me some more. “You go and do your bumper car thing, then, while Dia and I make gravity our bitch.”
I shrug one shoulder. “Have fun.”
Bridge hooks her arm through Dia’s and drags her off, both of them laughing as they head toward the ride. I watch them go for a second.
Then I turn my head—
And don’t get any further.
Suddenly there are hands cupping my face.
And Nick is kissing me.
My brain blanks and the world around me disappears. It’s just him and me. Nick’s mouth, Nick’s hands, the faint taste of something sweet on his tongue.
It only lasts a second. Maybe two. Too brief, anyway. And then he pulls back just enough for the rest of the world to push itself back in.
The boardwalk.
The people.
We’re definitely not alone.
His hands are still on my face. His thumb swipes over my cheekbone.
I lick my lips, heart dancing in my chest. “What was that for?”
He shrugs. “For protecting me from the big bad rollercoaster.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’ll have you know I’m a huge bumper car enthusiast.”
His eyes stay locked with mine. There’s a softness in them that he usually reserves for those moments when it’s just the two of us, and suddenly I don’t know what to do with that.
Suddenly it’s a lot. I become distinctly aware of the weight of my own feelings and how difficult it is to keep them to myself.
I’m desperately trying to hide how far I’ve fallen in no time at all, because I’m too much of a coward to come clean. Because it might ruin everything.
Instead I’m reduced to faking normalcy, and I don’t know how well I’m managing. Especially when he’s looking at me like this. Like he can see straight into my soul.
“It’s been a long time since anybody’s taken care of me,” he says. There’s a specific kind of puzzled vulnerability in the way he says it. Like it’s difficult for him to believe anybody would put in the effort for him.
“Nicholas…” I say softly.
There are so many promises I want to make to him.
I will. If you let me. If you only let me. Please, just let me.
“So?” he says. “Bumper cars?”
I nod slowly. Not the place. Not the time.
“Yeah,” I say. “Bumper cars.”
My pulse races and my skin buzzes. It feels like my brain is trying to reboot and get back on track.
The bumper car area smells faintly of rubber, and there’s a line, but it’s a lot shorter than the one to the roller coaster, where the estimated wait time is at a cool ninety minutes right now.
“Suckers,” I say, and Nick laughs.
We have to wait for ten minutes, but then we each grab a car. Mine’s got a cracked pleather seat, and the steering wheel looks like somebody’s been holding it with their teeth instead of hands.
Nick settles into the car next to me that looks equally as banged up.
“Try not to cry when I leave you to eat my dust,” I tell him.
His smile is too sexy for this arena mostly filled with kids.
The music kicks in, and the cars come to life.
I don’t wait. I slam my foot on the pedal and go straight for him. He jerks the wheel at the last second, so my car only clips his instead of hitting it dead on.
“Terrible aim,” he calls. “Is that a preview of how you’ll be driving when you’re ninety?”
I flip him off, laughing, and he gasps in a very un-Nick-like, over-the-top, dramatic way. “In front of the children!”
I feel mildly bad. But then he rams into me again.
We spin apart, and I end up in a seven-car pileup with a bunch of ten-year-olds. Nick waves at me as he whizzes past, head thrown back, laughing so hard he almost drives into the border of the track.
The rest of the ride is pure chaos. We chase each other in tight circles, crash into each other and occasionally into strangers, get trapped in pileups, and break free.
I’m laughing so hard there are tears in my eyes.
The music blares overhead, the lights flash, and the floor vibrates beneath us.
And Nick is laughing. Really laughing. Out loud, carefree, full-on belly laughing.
I’m not falling anymore. It’s not possible. I’m already there.
Stupidly, perfectly, impossibly in love with him.