Chapter 19
Seventeen years ago
Aubrey’s final summer in Henderson was, by an order of magnitude, also her happiest. The June days melted together, a sticky
whirl of fireflies, laughter, and stolen kisses sweetened with watermelon juice.
True to his word, Nick got a job at the mill, slinging the scrap iron that fed the blast furnaces day and night. Aubrey racked
up hours at the bowling alley, blocking off gutters for kids’ birthday parties and handing out rental shoes.
Neither had any love for their work, but their savings accounts grew by the week, and they had each other, and that was all
she cared about.
One humid night in July, she and Nick drove out to the old quarry in her battered Subaru. He spread a blanket on the pebbled
ground and pulled her down. She loved the way he molded himself against her now, unhesitating, guided by half a year of learning
how they fit together best.
She settled her head on his chest—her favorite pillow. Overhead, the sky hung warm and close, the stars a heated prickle. Tufts of tall grass nodded in the breeze while another couple murmured nearby.
It was always like that out here—private, but not. The scattered knolls shielded half a dozen trysts, mostly high schoolers
who’d escaped their parents’ watchful eyes. Protocol demanded that everyone keep to themselves, so Aubrey watched the stars,
how their light pulsed in time with Nick’s heartbeat.
His arm tightened around her. “Aubs?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
The brittleness of his tone made her hoist up onto an elbow. She sought his eyes in the dimness. “About?”
“New York. I won’t have enough. Not by August, at least. I’ve been looking at apartment listings, and even if we lease a studio,
it’ll cost us at least eighteen hundred a month. First and last month’s rent, plus a deposit, will be five grand, at least.”
Her breath caught. “Okay. What’re you saying?”
His fingers caressed her arm, long strokes probably meant to reassure her. “That this whole thing might work better if you
do a semester in the dorms, first. Your student loans’ll actually cover that. I could come out once I’ve saved some more.
After your winter break, maybe. In January.”
She tensed. Not because he was wrong, but because he was right. She’d done the math herself and reached the same conclusion,
but hadn’t wanted to believe it. Or maybe she’d stacked all her faith in the power of her own wanting. If she willed for something
hard enough, she could make it happen. When life puts something in your way, go around it. When life knocks you down, get right back up.
“No,” she said. “I’m not living in the dorms.”
“But we don’t have enough, Aubs. I mean, maybe we could scrape together enough to move in, but afterward? You’ll be in school, and it’ll take time
for me to find another job, and—”
“So I’ll wait,” she blurted. Her hand fisted his thin cotton shirtfront. “I’ll defer my enrollment for a year.”
“No,” he said, with force.
“Yes.”
“No. Fuck no. You want to get out of here as badly as I do. I’m not gonna let you screw that up on my account. Just go to
New York. Live your dream. I’ll come as soon as I can.” He paused. “Unless . . . you decide you don’t want me, by then.”
“What?” Her mind tripped over the thought. “How can you even say that? That would never happen.”
Nick stared up. The fierce black stars of his eyes outshone the sky above.
Aubrey gulped down the stone forming in her throat. She couldn’t lose this. She wouldn’t. The way he held her, the way he looked at her—every moment only deepened her conviction that whatever her path in life,
she wanted him walking it with her.
Then a thought wormed its way in. One that soured her stomach and shrank it to a marble. “Wait. This isn’t your way of breaking
up with me, is it?”
“Breaking up with you?” His grip on her arm tightened. “Me? Breaking up with you?”
“Yeah.” Her voice wobbled. “Like, you send me off to New York and promise to come, but then January turns into August, and
August turns into January again, and eventually I give up waiting and realize you’ve moved on?”
He let out a hiss—harsh, almost angry. He levered upward and spun her beneath him. Her knees fell wide, her skirt pooling
around her hips.
Nick settled himself between her thighs without seeming to notice the compromising position. He speared her with a look so
intent she swore he could read her innermost secrets. “If you had any idea what you mean to me, you’d never say that.”
Her hands clamped around his sides. “I wouldn’t?”
“No.” He sucked in a breath, his rib cage swelling beneath her fingers. “Aubrey MacLean. You’re the best thing that’s ever
happened to me. The only person who’s ever really seen me. That’s not something I can move on from, and I couldn’t stop loving you if I tried. I’ll be yours for as long as you’ll have me. I’ll write you love letters
until I’m too old to see the words anymore, if that’s what you want. Even if you don’t, I’ll still love you until I’m dust
in the ground, and probably after that, too, because I’ve never met anyone as fearless or determined or true to themselves
as you are, and it makes me a better person just to be near you. Just to breathe your air.”
Her pulse roared, escaping her control. She would never have his way with words, but that didn’t mean she didn’t mirror every
inch of his intensity. “I love you, too. So, so much.”
He shook his head as if brushing off the sentiment. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? Why I don’t want you to stay
here for my sake?”
“Yes.” She brought her hands up to frame his face. “But you’re forgetting something important.”
His jaw flexed beneath her fingers. “What?”
“That it’s just as much my decision as yours. I know how giving you are, how self-sacrificing. It’s what I love about you.
But you don’t get to decide what I do next. I do. And I’m not leaving Henderson without you. Which doesn’t mean I won’t go to NYU, or get my degree. I will. But I want
it all at once. New York and you. Math and my other half.”
His eyes glinted, reflecting the starlight. “What if that’s not what life has planned for us?”
“It is. I know it is. And if not, we’ll make it the plan.”
He lowered his head, tucking his face against her neck, and hugged her with his whole body. “Jesus. Sometimes I don’t know if you’re overconfident, or just the most formidable person I know.”
“Overconfidence only counts as overconfidence if you surrender before you succeed.”
He laughed soundlessly against her skin. “So that’s it? You’re staying another year, and I can fuck right off if I try to
convince you otherwise?”
“I wouldn’t’ve put it that way.” She smiled into his mop of curls. “But yeah, that sounds about right.”
He hugged her tighter. The sky gleamed, bathing them in pearly light.
All of a sudden, Nick seemed to realize how tangled they’d gotten. He sucked in a breath and tugged at her skirt, trying to
cover her exposed thighs.
She pushed his hand away. “Leave it.”
He stilled. His breath hitched, his weight pinioning her to the earth. So little separated their bodies. Just her silk panties,
then his jeans and boxers. Beneath his clothes lay nothing but smooth, hot skin. At least, Aubrey imagined it as smooth, hot
skin. She hadn’t touched him there yet, had never dared.
Now, though, the fervency of his words boiled inside her, cementing a decision she had, until this moment, kept to herself.
“There’s one more thing, though. Something I want way before New York.”
He shifted. “What?”
“I want to . . . be with you. I want you to be my first.”
He made a strangled sound. “What, right now?”
“No. But soon.”
A fine tremble took hold in his limbs. A quarter century slipped by while she awaited his answer. Finally, he said, “You’re
sure?”
“Completely.”
He buried his face in the side of her neck again. “If you’re counting on me being chivalrous enough to turn you down, you’re going to be disappointed.”
She laughed. “Chivalry is overrated.”
“No, it’s not.” His breath tickled her skin, igniting heat in places she’d dreamed of asking him to touch.
“It is if it’d make you say no,” she said. “Because I want you. And I want our first time to be special.”
“You mean not when other people are fucking thirty feet away?”
She paused. Sure enough, the neighbors’ conversation had given way to rhythmic rustling and bitten-back moans. “Yeah. Somewhere
where it’s just us. Not with my parents upstairs, either. Which means we might have to wait for the right opportunity. If
you’re okay with that.”
“I’d wait a century, if you needed me to.” Naked reverence filled his voice as he brought his face to hers. “And doing this
with you . . . it’d be my honor.”
“And mine.”
They stayed like that for long minutes, foreheads touching, bodies locked together. The stars wheeled overhead as the weight
of their pact infiltrated her marrow. Mars hung over the towering wall of the quarry, peering down like a knowing red eye.
When the immensity of the moment finally ebbed, Aubrey untangled herself. Their neighbors kept getting louder, so they bundled
into the car with the wadded-up blanket, this time with Nick driving. He swung the car around and flipped on the headlights.
Aubrey lunged for the knob. “No, everyone keeps their lights off here. That’s the rule.”
Too late. The beam swept over their neighbors, illuminating bronze hair and taut male buttocks. The boy threw a hand up while
his companion recoiled, a flash of alabaster and blond.
Aubrey twisted the knob, dousing the quarry with darkness again.
“Oops,” Nick said, clearly not sorry at all. But he waited until the tires bit into the graveled service road before flipping
on the lights again.
A quarter mile later, Aubrey let go of a snicker. “Was that Gallant Nobel?”
“Looked like it.”
“Who was he with? I could’ve sworn he was dating Gina Abramo when school got out. But her hair’s black.”
Nick shrugged. “Who cares?”
Aubrey turned to the window, exhaling a silver canvas onto the glass and inking a heart with her forefinger. “I’m just curious.”
“You know what I’m curious about?”
She added an “A+N” inside the heart. “What?”
“What your parents are going to think of you deferring for a year. Especially when they find out it’s because of me.”
The warmth gallivanting around inside her faltered. Her father wouldn’t like it. He’d hate it, in fact. He’d pushed her harder
than anyone, and he knew what New York meant to her. But hopefully, once she explained . . . “They’ll come around. But it’s
definitely time for you to meet them.”
Nick looked over. “Soon,” he said solemnly. “Soon.”