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I can’t seem to come up with anything more to say. He stares out at the water, at the distant horizon, eyes somber. I keep chopping bait, sliding it on the hook, bending and casting out. I remember Mrs. Ellington watching that separation of sea and sky during our interview, Nic, Viv, and I doing the same last night, and for the first time I realize that none of us are seeing the same thing. That all our horizons end in different places.
“So, I need you to fill in for me at lunchtime today. This won’t be a usual thing. But I just had to fire this kid—too much of a moron and always showing up late and high. I’m shorthanded for this afternoon. We’re go
“I have a rehearsal di
“If you play it smart, like I said, you won’t have to.” He brushes zucchini bread crumbs off his faded olive green shorts, crumples the now-empty foil wrapper and sticks it back in the cooler. “But today, I need you. The first few weeks I’m figuring out who the bad apples are. And you’re my good egg.”
“Dad. About what you said. I mean, about Mrs. Ellington—”
“Just think about it, Guinevere, smart advice from your old man.” Dad takes the pole from me, securing the hook. “Embroider it on a pillow. Spray-paint it on your wall. Just never forget it: Don’t be a sucker. Screw them before they screw you.”
Chapter Nine
Back home, I push open the screen door to the familiar sound of Nic ru
“You are not a normal teenage boy,” I say as I enter the living room, which is like climbing into a gigantic wet sneaker. Em’s curled on the couch, nestled in a blanket with Hideout the hermit crab in his arms and Fabio drooling on his leg, dividing his attention between watching Nic sweat and some Elmo video.
“No.” Panting, Nic rolls to his side, lets the weights he’s been bench-pressing crash to the ground. “I’m better, stronger, faster.”
“Smellier,” I say. “Where’s Mom?”
“Robinsons’,” he grunts, picking up the weight again, his damp, sandy brown hair sticking to his forehead.
Oh, right. Making their house sparkle. On a Saturday. God, Mom. Doctors are on call, not you.
I sit down next to Emory, ruffling his hair. He smells sticky and sweet, no doubt from the bowl of Cap’n Crunch he’s got resting on his lap. He snuggles his head against my shoulder, shoving Hideout under my nose.
“Say good morning to Hideout.”
“Morning, Hideout.” I catch a whiff of spaghetti sauce—Emory sneaks him bites during meals.
For a few minutes, Em and I both watch Nic like he’s theater, while I turn over in my head various casual, subtle ways to bring up the ring. I inhale, bite my lip, blow out a breath a few times. Nic’s too focused on his weight curls to notice that I look like one of the bluefish Dad caught as it flopped around on the rocks.
How would this even work? Would it be a long engagement? Like—they’d marry when he got out of the Coast Guard Academy? Or are they pla
It’s so ridiculously implausible in the light of day. Because it’s all the same—Nic’s focused scowl on the uplift, relaxing into pained relief as he sets the weight down, his faded, torn, “lucky” camouflage green workout shirt, sleeves torn off—everything. Ma
“Do I look like I’ve gained weight to you?” Nic asks abruptly, my staring at him with a crinkled forehead finally getting through.
“Yup, those shorts make your butt look huge.”
He frowns at me. “I’m serious. I’ve been eating over at Viv’s all the time since school got out and her mom’s desserts . . . If I bulk up too much, my swim timing will suck, and those guys will take their edge and—”
“Nico, you’re fine.”
He blows out a breath, lowering the weight and panting.
“Can you hold my ankles while I do crunches?”
I drop to the floor, loop my fingers around his sweaty, hairy ankles. I’ve been doing this for him for years, and the familiarity of it makes me brave again.
“Nico, Ma
“D’you think I should shave my legs?” he interrupts, panting.
“For prom?”
“For speed.”
“I don’t think your pelt slows you down too much, cuz. Nobody else on the team does it.”
There’s a sharp, military-sounding rap on the door. I get up and open it to find Coach Reilly awkwardly holding a plastic bag. He’s so out of context that I blink. I’ve never seen him on the island. Cass, now Coach. It’s a Stony Bay invasion. He thrusts the bag at me as though it’s a bomb with a ticking time clock, then glances around the room, his brows pulling toward each other. “Your ma here?”
I glance into the bag to find it full of romance novels with titles like The Desirable Duke and The Sheik Who Shagged Me. I so don’t want to think Coach reads these.
“My neighbor was go
I shake my head, try not to squint at him. Dad calls Mom “Luce,” only “Lucia” when they’re arguing. But the way Coach says the word, it sounds . . . different. I didn’t think he thought of her as “Lucia”—as anything but my mom, Nic’s aunt. I’m begi
“Come on in.” I open the door wider.
He shoulders his way into the room. “Hey, Nic the Brick.” Nic, who’s at the top of a weight curl, grunts a hello.
Emory gives Coach Reilly a distracted wave. Coach ruffles his hair, asks, “When you going to run track for me, Big Blue?”
Em holds out his arms, says, “Whoosh, faster than a locomotive. Speeding.”
“Just what SB High needs, buddy,” Coach says, sitting down heavily on one of the kitchen stools and unzipping his SBH jacket. He looks even more flushed than usual.
“Can I get you some water?” Or a defibrillator?
“Naah. Gwen, go
Of course I knew instantly it was Cass. Not because I think of him as a bad student, but somehow the minute I heard Coach say “swim team,” I knew. Cass is getting to be like that one rock on the beach that you stub your toe on every time.
“I don’t think I’m the best person to help him,” I say. “Pam D’Ofrio tutors. And she’s on island too.”
I hear a sound like a cat choking up a hairball. It’s Nic, clearing his throat.