“Full disclosure?” Nash asked.
“Yes.” I wanted to laugh, because he genuinely meant it each time he said it. “Jeez.”
“I don’t know.” He drove me insane.
“That’s it?”
“I never realized I did it.”
“If you had to guess?”
He stared at both sides of his palms as if noticing them for the first time. “If I had to guess, it’s because I need something to do with my hands. Whenever you're around, they always want to touch you.”
Me: That was cute. I’m still allowed to hear him and fall for his charm, right?
Ceiling: BRB. Googling how to hide a body.
I toyed with a strand of lint on my jeans. “I’m not ready to have this conversation.” Yet. “There are so many unanswered questions… and I haven't seen my dad.”
I’d missed the bus to Dad’s yesterday, and ‘Hey, Dad, I figured out I’m not a product of your sperm’ didn’t seem like an appropriate text or email exchange. Especially since I had to frame it in my mind as a joke just to think about it.
“I know.”
My brows pulled together. “How do you know?”
“Full disclosure?” Again, he looked so serious, like he wanted to make sure I understood he meant everything that passed his lips.
“Oh, my God.” I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”
“You don't have a car, and I paid some kid a thousand bucks to keep an eye out at the nearest bus stop.”
Ceiling: I’ve changed my mind. You psychos are both made for each other.
My jaw slackened a bit before I recovered. “You realize that’s borderline psychotic, right?”
His neck corded, muscles so tight, they seemed fake. “You realize Billings and Dickens are on the bus route to Blithe Beach. Murder capital of North Carolina ring any bells?”
“I can take care of myself.”
The slow shake of his head bothered me. “I didn’t stop here to fight with you. I know you’re mad at me. I’m not asking for forgiveness, but you’re sleeping in a closet when you can sleep on a bed. I can kick Delilah out of the presidential suite.”
I blinked a few times, wondering if I’d heard that right. “You’re not kicking Delilah onto the streets.”
“She and her husband are worth more than the GDP of some industrialized countries. She’ll hardly be on the streets.”
“Nash, no.”
“My room.”
My hands dropped to my sides. “I’m not sharing the penthouse with you.”
“Stay in the guest room inside.” He adjusted his cuff. “I’m pulling the boss card. This is my hotel. I cannot, in good conscience, have someone sleeping on the floor in a closet without a bathroom or bed or running water.”
“You have a conscience?” I bit back the smile, missing the banter I thrived on.
He lied to you, I reminded myself. Everyone lies to you. Even now, by not telling you, he is lying to you.
“You’re a pain in the ass.” He let loose his smile, and I forced myself to breathe.
I hacked out a cough. When it settled, I relented. Kind of. “I’ll stay in a finished room inside the hotel, not attached to yours. To be clear, it’s because I want to. Because I’ve never made myself my priority, and that’s changing now.”
Nash trailed the bus to Blithe Beach.
It should have pissed me off, but when I left the bus for a water fountain break in Dickens and returned to an abandoned parking spot, I might have been thankful. Even in the daylight, I'd panicked.
Murder capital and all.
“I just need a ride to Blithe,” I told him, tossing my Jana Sport under the seat. “I’ll take another bus back. You don’t have to stay.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
I faced the road, ignoring my hair whipping around in the wind. Pain kept me company, an unwelcome companion. I didn’t like how easy his response had come, but I also saw the hypocrisy in wanting him gone yet needing him to care.
“Shit.” He clenched the steering wheel and turned to me. “Lie of omission. Reed is with Basil near Blithe. At Synd Beach. I planned on heading there, then rounding back to Blithe to pick you up.”
“You can stop this all by telling me everything.”
“It’s not my secret to tell. I shouldn't have said anything. Virginia sure as hell shouldn’t have said anything.” He ran a hand through his hair. Three times. “I promised Gideon I wouldn’t.”
“What about me? Am I selfish for wondering where I fit into this? Why does everyone get a say in when I learn things that affect me—except me?” When I looked at him and saw an answer I didn't like, I added, “Don’t answer that. Tell me this. Do you regret anything? Not with your dad and stuff, but anything to do with us?”
“I don't regret a second, because they led me to you.”
“When you lied to me, Nash, you became like every other person in my life. Virginia, Balthazar, and Gideon, who apparently isn't even my dad. I hope I’m looking into things. I hope it’s bad timing—”
“Timing? There is no such thing as time. Time is something people made up to give value to each breath we take, to remind us that they're limited, that we should leap first and ask questions never.”
How can you believe that when you lost your dad? All Betty wants is more time with Hank.
When he said things like that, things that made me stare up at the sky and consider my place in the universe, I wanted to close the distance and remind myself it was with him.
He pulled up at Gideon’s tiny cottage, not unlike the Prescotts’, and turned to me. “Will you stop fighting it? Us. Come back to me?”
“No.” I retrieved my Jana Sport and snatched it against my chest. “I am literally here because you know some big secrets about me and refuse to share them.”
“Can I ask again tomorrow?” Nash Prescott—of the underground fights, the constellation of scars, and the billion-dollar hotelier business—looked like a damn puppy in this moment. And he'd asked for permission instead of telling me.
I caved. “Yeah.”
I was so fucked.
The only way to Synd Beach was by boat, which made it the perfect place for shady shit to go down. Small island. No actual police force. The highest property rates in the state.
Rich college students took their summer breaks there, throwing parties, dealing drugs, and fuck if I knew what else. Reed hanging there unsettled me. Ma would flip the second she found out. If she ever did.
I told myself I had to be here, waiting for a fucking boat to Synd, rather than in Blithe Beach with Emery. Reed had avoided this talk since Dad died, and it never exactly made the top of my to-do list.
Now that I learned Dad's side of the story via Gideon, I at least had something true to tell him. Truth. Ha. I was trustworthy in the same way Richard Nixon was—not at all. I fucked over my parents. I fucked over my brother. And I literally fucked Emery.
The parking lot attendant gave me a retrieval ticket. I shoved it into my pocket and walked down the dock. I’d left my suit jacket and vest in the car, leaving me in a button-down and slacks.