Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
At the edge of the pool with Frank between us, Nash pulls the old harmonica out of his pocket, smiling eyes on me as he makes it wail.
I fight like hell to look unimpressed. “You’re an idiot with that thing.”
Before his next tune, he says, “I recall you being obsessed with it, once upon a time.”
I shove him in the arm mid-blow, and he teeters to the side with a laugh that makes a sound too high-pitched and unfinished to be good.
That broken, happy note sends a dart to my chest. In a different life, Nash might have been the one who sits next to me and plays that same tune to make me laugh on the day my business closes its doors or my mom gets wheeled in for brain surgery.
“Tell me about your fiancé.”
“Wow,” I say with a puff of an exhale. “Zero to sixty on the subject change, huh?”
He says nothing, looking at me with a kind of half smile that tilts down a little, as if indicating where this topic lands on the sliding scale of humor.
“He’s nice,” I tell him. “And normal.”
He blows into his harmonica; I can’t not smile.
“Nice and normal, eh?” He thinks this is funny. “Good qualities in a spouse.”
I splash him with a kick of water. “I’ve raised the bar since you, clearly.”
He brings a palm to his chest in mock pain, but the smile doesn’t leave either of our faces.
“And Emma?” I ask. “What’s she like?”
“You make a lot of assumptions, Rue Conway.” He blows a long tune.
As he opens and closes his palms, the muscles of his tattooed forearm flex.
The playful lift of his lips, angle of his head, and squint of his eyes give away nothing.
Doesn’t tell me that he goes to her place every night but sleeps in his own bed.
Why he watches TV and hangs out with her kid while inviting me to breakfast. Doesn’t explain what you’re wrong or I know how I want to be around you means.
“You sucked the evidence off my finger.”
He brings the harmonica to his lips then pulls it away without playing it. “I did, didn’t I?”
At his grin, I shove him again.
“Either way, nice, normal people are good people,” I defend.
Frank snorts a sigh and his eyelids open halfway before slamming back closed.
“They are,” Nash agrees. “But you ever notice they feel like placeholders?”
“For?”
“The ones we really want.” A slow-to-grow smile curves his lips. “Who drive us crazy and make us wait too damn long for them.”
“Crazy’s complicated,” I retort, drawing circles in the water with my feet.
“Is it?”
“It is.” I look at him sideways, dancing between the meanings of what we’re saying. “And unpredictable. Makes it hard to know where you stand with people like that.” Our eyes bounce in synchronicity. “If they can be happy with you.”
Nash sets his harmonica down and leans over Frank until his face is close enough to mine it makes me think about all the things I’m trying not to think about.
He plants one palm on the concrete behind me as the other grips the curved ledge of the pool between my legs.
I do not move.
I do not breathe.
I do not scoot my hips forward and grind against his forearm.
When he says in a low, smooth voice, “And I think you’re still someone who does the opposite of what she wants,” it’s already too late.
He already has me.
Literally.
In a blink, he’s slipping into the pool, grabbing my waist, and dragging me right along with him underwater.
Fully clothed, fully submerged.
I’m disoriented and it’s frigid and I want to kill this man I just fantasized about dry humping. When I pop above the water, I surprise myself with the laugh bubbling out of me.
His T-shirt clings to his chest; I slick my hair back with water. Smiles stick to both of our faces.
“You’re a dick,” I say without heat.
He laughs, using both palms to splash me. “Maybe. But you laughed.”
There’s no denying it: I did. The way I always do with him.
I undo the snaps of my overalls and peel the heavy denim off, followed by my shirt.
Nash’s eyes widen. It’s comical he thinks I’m brazen enough to do what he’s imagining—that girl’s been gone for eight years.
But at the look on his face, I swear he’s going down that same stretch of memory lane that I am.
The one that led us on a hike down a desolate trail, both of us sweat drenched to the bone, staring at a waterfall-fed pool.
It looked too good not to be part of. Looked too good not to get tangled up in each other in.
Without a word and with a wolfish grin, he peeled off his shirt; I did the same.
We shed item by item until we were naked, barely under the water when we collided.
I’m pretty sure that was the day I got pregnant.
Today, however, I’m wearing a swimsuit under my clothes. One that will very much stay on my body.
I grab my sunglasses from the front pocket of my wet clothes, then toss them out. Nash peels off his shirt, my eyes snagging on the turkey tattoo on his tricep. He got it because Ben Franklin thought the turkey should have been the national bird over the eagle.
Eight years ago, he didn’t look like a history teacher; he doesn’t look like a tour guide now either.
In tubes donning animal heads, our arms dangle while our torsos hang through the centers. I shake my head at the mesh basket filled with balls and squirt guns. “Your backyard looks like you run a summer camp.”
He grins. “Kids love the pool.”
Kids.
I’m thankful for the sunglasses on my face so he can’t see how that admission makes me panic.
I want to ask him what kids.
If he wants kids.
The day I found out I was pregnant, kids were the last thing he wanted.
If I ask and he says no, the day is ruined.
Or maybe it’s saved. Maybe if he doesn’t want kids, it makes all this easier.
I could tell him he has one who thinks he’s dead, and we can keep it that way forever.
The sparks between us will die out, and I can focus on what matters.
Or maybe he’s like Cap—a man who never wanted a kid but forces the one he has to call him dad forty-two years later.
It’s a great idea so I keep my mouth shut.
We swim until we shrivel, play pool, and eat lunch on the couch, watching Antiques Roadshow on his oversized TV.
There’s no more talk about relationships or anything heavy.
For the first time since getting here, I wear one of the sundresses Reese sent me with, Nash’s expression faltering when I walk out in it.
He, of course, is wearing a button-up shirt covered in bright red poppies, his light hair tousled, his face shaved smooth. I’m so taken aback by him, so completely unsteady, that when he says, “I’ll drive,” I forget to argue.
As my dad climbs into the truck, it’s with a double take and grunt of approval at my dress.
I slide to the middle of the bench seat—next to Nash where our legs touch—and remember to ask where we are going.
Nash presses his knee into mine and looks at me sideways. “Dancing.”
And . . . damn him.