“Elle,” sings the irritating voice, the one that does not belong to James. “Wake up. You’re burning.”
I squint upward and find Nick The Lifeguard sprawled in the sand next to me. I force myself to sit, my limbs still heavy with sleep, and slide my phone toward me to check the time. “Crap. I’ve been asleep almost two hours.”
“Long night?” he asks.
“I slept on a friend’s floor, with no blanket,” I admit. “It maybe wasn’t the best night’s sleep.”
“A friend, huh?” he asks. “Not your boyfriend?”
I rub my eyes and roll over. My whole body feels stiff. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
He shakes his head. “James kind of implied you did,” he says. “The day I met you.”
I groan. “He’s such a freaking liar,” I say mostly to myself. I guess that explains why Nick never showed up at the bar that night. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“So that means you’re free?” he asks.
I can honestly say that there is no one in the entire world that I want to date right now aside from James. In fact, it seems unfair to even agree. “I’m getting ready to go back to DC,” I tell him. I realize it’s true only as I say it. I’ll need to check with my mother first, but sometime between the moment I drifted off and now I decided to go. If Tommy’s friends are there I’ll stay in New York. That’s how badly I need to get away.
“But not for a few days at least, right?”
“Well, no … ” I say.
“Then go out with me. Maybe I’ll change your mind.”
He won’t. I know he won’t. But for some reason I agree.
Chapter 33
I call my mother on the way to work to ask if the house in DC is free. I get her voicemail, naturally, and the message I leave is tinged with anger. I’m 19, I think to myself. I shouldn’t have to beg my parents for a place to stay. I doubt she’ll notice the tone of the message anyway. It’s not like she’s known for attentive parenting.
At work, James is so surly to me that even Ginny notices.
“What’s his problem?” she asks as we watch his retreating back.
I shrug. This is something I absolutely can’t tell her. She’s so sure Allison is the answer to every question.
“I really need to get Allison back down here,” she says, as if she’s read my mind. “He probably just needs to get laid.”
She couldn’t possibly realize the damage she does with her words, but I resent her for it anyway. The Campbells, this summer, have been like a room littered with slivers of glass. I keep assuring myself that the danger has past, and yet each time I enter they find some small way to hurt me.
I avoid them both as much as possible, but when I’m finally forced to his side of the bar he’s waiting with a smirk on his face and a solid core of anger beneath it.
“I talked to Kristy,” he says. “You slept on her floor, apparently?”
I roll my eyes. “I had a conversation too,” I smile spitefully. “With Nick? It seems you implied I was seeing someone. I made sure to clear that up.”
His smirk fades completely.
I use my anger to evade the sadness that chases me. Every time I look at him, think about what he said last night, about wishing I’d never come here, it makes me feel like I can’t breathe. Instead I throw myself into my job with such false ebullience that I’m shocked no one seems to see through it. Apparently false ebullience is a crowd pleaser – it’s my most lucrative night all summer.
“Hey Grayson!” Kristy says later, when I’m near the bar. “Heard you have a hot date tomorrow.” Of course, she heard this from me, but James doesn’t need to know that.
I smile at her, feigning enthusiasm I don’t feel in the slightest.
“Wear good underwear and make sure you shave!” she teases.
James accidentally cracks the rim of the pilsner glass he’s holding against the counter and curses. Kristy winks and walks away.
**
For the rest of our shift and into the following day, James and I literally exchange not a single word. If I’d had any hope, any doubt, it’s gone now. He really does want me to leave. And my mother doesn’t call back. So I guess she really doesn’t want me at home.
I’m hanging out downstairs in the afternoon as Ginny and James leave for work. She is bizarrely, genuinely happy about my date with Nick. “You’ve got to wear the little sundress,” she says.
I frown. “I don’t know,” I say. The truth is that I don’t necessarily want to encourage Nick in any way.
“Come on!” she chides. “It’s your first date all summer! Wear it with those strappy heels you have. Your legs will look like they’re a mile long.”
James doesn’t look over but I see the tightness in his shoulders and neck that tells me he’s listening. And unhappy.
“Fine,” I smile. “I promise.”
“And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she warns. “Although Nick is super hot, so that’s a pretty short list.”
Max barks a laugh. “Just for the record, Elle, what that really means is you should feel free to talk about quadratric equations, economic theory, and instability in the Middle East. You’re fine as long as you’re having no fun whatsoever.”
After they leave, I drag myself off to get ready, made sluggish and heavy by ambivalence. In truth, all I want to do is curl up and sleep. I plow through solely out of guilt: it’s bad enough that I don’t want to go out with this guy. I can’t double down by looking like shit when I do it.
I suggested meeting him out somewhere, but Nick insists on picking me up. It could mean he’s a gentleman, or it could mean he figures he’s got a better chance of getting laid if we’re returning to the same place. My guess is that it’s the latter.
“Wow,” he says, when I open the door. “You’re … wow. All cleaned up.”
“Come in,” I tell him. “I just need to grab my purse.”
He glances around nervously. “Is James here?”
I laugh. “Are you scared of James?”
“He’s kind of a scary guy,” says Nick. “He’s big and he’s also … I don’t know. Just scary.”
“He’s not here,” I assure him. “And you don’t need to be worried about him in any case. He’s all bark.”
I don’t actually know if that’s true. I’ve never heard of James beating anyone up. Then again, he’s sure looked like he’s wanted to a few times this summer.
We grab a quick dinner before the movie. He’s sweet and engaging, someone I might even like, under other circumstances. In the negative column, however, is the fact that he keeps trying to look down my dress. That his hand moves to my leg during the movie, his fingers beginning the climb up my inner thigh. That when I remove his hand he tries again.
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t find this as irritating as I do, but I feel like I’ve been groped or hit on enough this summer to last a lifetime. I even suspect I’m being unfair to him, until he suggests returning to his apartment when the movie ends. “You know,” I say. “I’m not feeling great.”