21. Indy
TWENTY-ONE
INDY
I have this solid plan of getting an early start and putting off any awkwardness. I fuck that up fast. I sleep in, so getting an early start isn’t happening. Instead, I stumble into the kitchen, still half-asleep, and run straight into Nick.
He’s standing at the stove, holding a spatula.
And I’m a bit at a loss now, because my plan was to be long gone by the time he woke up.
“Morning,” he says, which makes me snap my eyes up from where I was admiring the way his wide back tapers into a narrow waist. The way the white T-shirt molds to his muscles like it’s been painted on.
I want to smell him.
“Hey,” I say belatedly and then fidget in the doorway without a plan.
“Breakfast.” He slides a plate with a fluffy omelet and avocado slices with cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices on the side toward me.
I go to the island and sit down. “How long have you been up?”
“About a half hour or so.” He takes his own plate, and sits down next to me.
I lose my train of thought for a bit, but eventually I pick up my fork. “You’ve been busy.”
“It’s just an omelet.”
“Yeah, well. I usually have a banana for breakfast.” I glance his way. “Thank you.”
We both dig in.
“Are you ready for today?” he asks.
I shrug. “It’s not exactly my first day at a new job.”
It’s my second summer working at Bayside Paddling. They rent kayaks, boats, and paddle boards for tourists. We take them out on the bay and teach them the basics if they’re beginners, and we also offer tours that are crammed full of historical facts of Annapolis, Chesapeake Bay, and Maryland.
“What’s your plan for the day?” I ask.
“Starting my new job.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. That didn’t take long.
I mean, obviously he’s been out of a job since his last place of employment was, you know, destroyed by a tornado, but—okay, so I don’t really know what his plans were.
It’s not like he’s in the habit of confiding in me.
Turns out the plan was to find a new job.
“At a diner again?” I ask.
He nods. “Restaurant. I’m moving up in the world. The Shoreline. I need the cash, and I need the experience.”
“Experience for?”
“The fall, when I get the hell out of this town.”
I finish off the last of my omelet and push my plate away. I didn’t think he was staying, but hearing him say it like that, so conclusively, still makes my stomach feel strangely hollow for a moment before I shake it off.
“Where are you headed?”
He eyes me for a bit. “Aren’t you supposed to be going?”
It sounds like he’s shutting this conversation down. But also not really. There’s a certain lack of finality in his tone. Almost like we’re putting it on pause.
I glance at my watch. “Shit. I have to run.”
I grab my stuff and glance out the window, absently scanning the driveway. The lack of cars there makes me do a double take.
“Um, where the hell is my car?” I ask.
He glances out the window too. “I’m guessing Dia hasn’t gotten home yet.”
I pull out my phone and scan my messages. Nothing from Dia, but Dad has texted me that he and Mom have decided to stay at a hotel after their date night.
“Great,” I mutter. “Just great.”
I rub my fingertips over my forehead. Late on my first day back. Fantastic. This is just so fucking—
Fingertips brush the back of my neck.
“I’ll drive you.”
My shoulders slump now that my spiraling has been effectively and decisively cut short.
“You don’t have to.”
“Do you have a lot of other options?”
I purse my lips. I’m sure there’s something.
“I want to, Blue,” he says.
Nick never just says things to be polite. Which means… he means it. I turn around and lean closer. My lips touch his. It’s soft and short and chaste, but somehow no less impactful than all the needy kisses from last night.
His Adam’s apple moves when he swallows roughly. “I’ll grab the keys.”
I smile as he walks out of the kitchen and make my way outside.
The first day is long and exhausting, but I also fall back into it so easily that by the time I’m done, it feels like my last shift was only yesterday and not almost nine months ago.
Once everything is set back into place for tomorrow and the doors are locked, I walk toward the parking lot with Isla and Ben, who’ve both been working here as long as I have.
“You guys want to grab something to eat?” Isla asks. “Celebrate Indy’s first day back?” She bumps me with her shoulder.
Ben glances at me with a smile and shrugs.
“Sure,” I say.
We get burgers and fries from a nearby diner and hang out, talking and laughing.
A few hours later I stand in front of the diner. It’s getting dark now, and it’s been a long day. I yawn as we say our goodbyes.
“You got a ride?” Ben asks. I almost say no, because fuck knows whether Dia will even pick up. But then I get an idea, and I’m not good with temptation.
“I’m good,” I say.
They walk one way, and I head in the opposite direction.
I’m not even sure if Nick is still at work. Not like he told me anything about his schedule. His car’s not out front, but when I make my way around the corner, I find it in the employee parking lot.
I go to his car and settle in to wait.
It takes him about an hour, but then the door opens, and he walks out.
He stops for a second when he sees me leaning against his car. His eyes move up and down me, taking me in. All of me. Slowly and thoroughly.
Then he stalks over to me.
Sexy.
He stops right in front of me, the toes of his sneakers against the toes of mine.
“Did you get lost on your way home, Blue?” He quirks his brow at me.
“I thought you could give me a ride.”
“You did, did you?” He leans closer and puts his palms on the roof of the car, his arms bracketing me. His mouth hovers over mine. “What’s in it for me?”
“You’re in a pretty good position. I don’t have any way to get home, so you can ask me for anything in return, and I’ll do it.”
A slow grin pulls at his lips. “You talked me into it.”
I laugh, and it’s light, easy. We get in the car, and he pulls out of the parking lot.
“How was the first day back?” he asks.
I settle in a bit more comfortably and close my eyes. “A woman refused to put on a life jacket because orange isn’t her color.”
“Is the pale complexion of a corpse her color?”
I turn my head, open one eye, and peer at him. “See now, why didn’t I think to say that?”
“Off the top of my head, probably because you’re levelheaded enough not to risk being fired for saying that to a paying customer?”
“She didn’t pay because I wouldn’t let her on the paddle board without a life jacket.”
“Christ, I hate people.”
I laugh again. I think technically that might apply to me too, but it doesn’t feel like it. I guess I don’t believe I’m people to him.
“No, you don’t,” I say.
He throws me a look.
“You just like to give that impression. The big, bad wolf. A growly asshole.”
“Did you just describe me as growly?”
“Asshole didn’t bother you but growly does?”
He ignores me. I try not to grin.
“You grunt a lot,” I say.
“You think you know me so well.” He sounds almost amused.
“I told you I see you.” I shrug.
He presses his lips together and turns his head enough to look my way. “Not clearly enough.”
“Growly asshole,” I say. “How was your day?”
“Uneventful. Zero near-death experiences, so in that sense it was a bit of a downgrade from my last place of employment.”
My family hasn’t been dealing with the whole tornado incident that well.
Especially Mom. She keeps tearing up and talking about how fragile life is.
In comparison, I’m mostly fine. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night for no reason at all, heart beating too fast, skin clammy, mouth dry, faint remnants of a nightmare clinging to my brain.
I never manage to go back to sleep after one of those.
Mostly, I’m fine, though. Which is weird to even think because it does feel like there should be something more. But so far, I’m neither afraid of fridges nor do I want to fuck one.
“And that’s disappointing?” I say belatedly. “Because… you miss it?”
“You don’t? I’m kind of thinking about going back. You know, for the atmosphere.”
I shift in my seat and turn my body a little more toward him.
“It sucked less because you were there,” I say. “I think I would actually be fucked up if I’d been alone in there.” I think about it for a second. “Well, technically, I would be dead because there’s no way I would’ve thought about hiding in the fridge in time.”
His fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “You would’ve been okay.”
“No, I’m pretty sure—”
“You would have been fine. You would have thought of something.”
“But—”
“Can you just stop arguing, Blue? I need you to be okay in that alternate scenario, so can you just stop talking about dying?”
I press my lips together and nod.
It’s strange to have somebody else be more upset about the idea of you dying than you are. And he is. His whole body is tense, fingers tight on the steering wheel.
I chew on the inside of my cheek for a bit.
“Want to think about making out in the car instead?” I ask.
He turns his head toward me and blinks. “What?”
I straighten my back and point to the right. “There’s a logging road in about half a mile. No one will be there this time of night.”
“Good news. I’m now thinking about making out in the car.”
I laugh.
After a little bit of driving, he makes a right.
And we make out in the car.