30. Indy
THIRTY
INDY
We don’t go straight to the hotel. Instead, we walk around for a bit. Hours. We’re wandering aimlessly because getting somewhere isn’t the point. Nick links his fingers with mine. Holds my hand.
He smiles at me, and I feel the force of that smile wrap itself around my heart. There’s a light in his eyes when he’s with me. I see it. I see him.
We take photos on the pier. Selfies of him and me with the lights from the hotels reflecting on the ocean behind us. We make faces and strike ridiculous poses, and he kisses me on the beach and takes a photo of it.
He smiles at me. A beaming grin before another kiss.
It’s like a dream world, only better because it’s real.
And instead of taking snapshots and trying to remember everything, I sink into this moment fully.
Because I don’t have to desperately record seconds with him.
I don’t have to hoard those moments. There will be more.
I can see it so clearly. The years of him and me that stretch out in front of us.
An endless summer of Nick.
We talk about everything and nothing. I tell him about my life before him. He tells me about his life before me. He tells me about growing up in Bois Run. About school. About people he used to know.
He doesn’t have to force himself to tell me.
The stories come easily. He laughs when he tells me about the time he got caught driving his mom’s car to the store when he was fourteen.
About the bloody nose he gave a ref at a soccer game.
His first job. His first kiss with a girl.
His first kiss with a boy. He laughs and tells me I look like I have a stomachache.
I don’t. It’s jealousy. I hate those people who got his firsts.
He talks about his mom. Haltingly at first, but then the stories start to come more easily. A memory here and a story there.
He smiles when he tells me about her, and I smile because he’s smiling.
We stop at a store that’s open twenty-four seven to buy ice cream and then sit on the beach and watch the sunrise.
“What happens in the fall?” I don’t mean to ask.
I’ve been too much of a coward to ask. But there’s something about sitting here at the beginning of a new day.
I’m brave enough to ask, but I’m not brave enough to look at him while he answers.
What if he says it’s all temporary? That those few weeks of August that will go by in the blink of an eye are all we get? What if—
“What do you want to happen in the fall?” he asks.
I do look at him then. “You can’t answer a question with a question.”
He presses his lips against my shoulder and stays like that for a bit.
“I’ll get a job,” he finally says. “At a restaurant. A good one. Work my way up.”
It feels almost final when he lays it out like this. And there’s no mention of… Well. Me. My shoulders slump involuntarily.
You should have prepared yourself for this. You should have seen it coming.
“But,” he says in a measured tone, “that’s about the only plan I have. And a lot of the details still need hammering out.”
I swallow hard, my heart picking up a wild rhythm of hope.
The first rays of the sun paint the sky and the world around us a silvery blue that slowly starts to transform into pale pink with the slightest hints of fiery orange.
I blow out a breath.
“Where’s the ideal place for that?” I ask.
He shrugs. “A big city. Somewhere with great food. New York. Chicago. New Orleans. Houston. There’s plenty of those to go around.”
I nod slowly, then turn my head and find him already looking at me.
“Ask me to go with you,” I say.
I’m supposed to start my job in Boston in September.
I halfheartedly applied to colleges when everybody else did, and I got my acceptance letters, but then when it came time to make a decision, I just didn’t.
The bottom line is, I have no idea what I want to do with my life, so I’m taking a year off to try and figure things out.
My aunt offered me a bartending gig at the country club she manages, and with nothing else on my plate, I figured why not.
I can be a bartender anywhere. I can do anything anywhere. Just as long as it’s with him.
I wait.
He’s silent.
Still silent.
More silence.
My heart sinks, and I turn my eyes away.
He squeezes my fingers.
I close my eyes and prepare myself for what’s to come.
“Blue,” he says softly.
I nod, eyes still closed, gathering myself.
“Come with me,” he says.
I snap my head toward him and stare. I’m not sure I heard him correctly.
“Really?” It comes out sounding so pathetic, but I don’t care right now.
“Come with me,” he says again. He drags his hand over his face and laughs almost as if in disbelief. “Come with me,” he says for the third time.
I laugh and nod and kiss him, and he laughs too. He cradles my face, caressing my cheeks with his thumbs.
“This feels like a good time to tell you that I love you,” he says, because apparently you can already have everything you want and then have even more piled on top, and is it possible to be too happy?
“Do you?” I ask, voice trembling, heart shaking, pulse pounding.
He kisses me again, still holding my face. I squeeze his wrists to make sure I’m still awake and this isn’t just a dream.
“Against my better judgment,” he says. For a moment, I swear he looks terrified. But then he’s kissing me again.
“I love you,” he says when he pulls away. “I fucking love you.”
I draw in a shaky breath followed by a long gulp of air to try and fight the overwhelming emotions that are rising up inside me like a tidal wave.
“I love you too,” I say. “So much.”
We sit in silence after and watch the sunrise, the waves lapping at the shore, the breeze ruffling our hair.
I never want to leave.
He finally breaks the moment by getting up and holding his hand out to me. I grab it, and he pulls me to my feet.
He throws his arm over my shoulders, pulls me against him, and plants a kiss on my temple before we start to walk to the hotel.