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  It was without a doubt the most arousing thing anyone had ever said to her.

  “That sounds vaguely stalkerish.”

  “It’s only stalking if you don’t want to be found.”

  “Next you’ll tell me you’re calling me from the gas station across the street,” she said, feeling giddy.

  “Ah,” Nick replied. “So there’s a gas station across the street.”

  “You don’t have to guess,” she told him. “I’ll tell you how to get here. Drive fast.”

  “As fast as I can,” Nick said. “I’ll be there in three hours.”

  Three hours passed, then six, but even though she waited up all night, even though she cut all her classes the next day, even though she sat by her window, looking at every car that passed, hoping it was his, it never was.

  CHAPTER 45

  Now

  When she pulled into the carport, the thump of music and the rich, smoky scent of the grill greeted her before anything else. She climbed the stairs into chaos. Someone had set up a portable laser show on the coffee table, and it shone its shifting pattern of red circles on the walls and ceiling.

  Her living room overflowed with teenagers, most of them with plastic cups in their hands. The music rumbled her guts and hurt her ears. Her kitchen was a disaster, with open boxes of pizza and bowls of chips and pretzels all over the place. Her footsteps crunched. She saw no sign of a keg or suspicious bottles, but that didn’t mean all those cups of soda were virgin.

  This had Nick stamped all over it, but it was Connor who appeared from the deck with a broad grin on his face. “Mom!”

  “Connor, what the hell’s going on here?”

  “Party,” he said unnecessarily with a wave of his hand. “Just some friends. It’s a going away party for me.”

  Bess leaned in but though his eyes were suspiciously bright, she couldn’t smell liquor on him. “Where’s your brother?”

  “He’s around.” Connor reached past her to snag a can of cola from the ice-filled sink. “Do you want to know where Nick is?”

  “I want you to turn down the music before the neighbors call the police,” Bess said, ignoring the last question.

  Connor popped the top on the can and drank around a grin so wide she was surprised he didn’t spill all down his front. “He’s out on the deck.”

  Bess eyed her oldest son. “Is he?”

  Connor swiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “Yeah. He is.”

  Suspicious, but not certain of what, Bess pushed through the crowd of lounging, laughing kids and toward the sliding-glass doors. Robbie stopped her halfway there.

  “Mom!”

  “Nice party,” Bess said, as someone bounded by her, chasing a beach ball. “If anything gets broken, you and Connor are paying for it.”

  Robbie grinned sheepishly. “They’re mostly Conn’s friends. But we’re not drinking or anything.”

  Bess rolled her eyes. “Do you think I’m stupid, Robbie?”

  “No.” He shifted his feet, stepping in front of her when she tried to move past him.

  Bess stopped. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” He’d never been the sort of liar his brother was, hadn’t inherited Andy’s effortless guile. He shifted again when she moved.

  “Robert Andrew,” Bess said. “Is there a keg on the deck? Do you know how much trouble I can get into if you guys are drinking underage?”

  “No, there’s no keg. Some people have been drinking out on the beach, but not up here.”

  Maybe she’d been wrong about the guile. Bess recognized his trick. Offer a little bit of truth to distract from the greater dishonesty. “What’s going on, really? Drugs?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Robbie,” Connor said, clapping his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Annalise’s looking for you.”

  Bess clearly saw the war on Robbie’s face. The girl he’d been crushing on all summer, or protecting Mom? The battle was fought but briefly, and he headed off into the crowd in the direction Connor pointed.

  More kids crowded the deck, some of them sitting on the railings in a way that made her motherly heart quail. She wasn’t quite uncool enough to tell them to get down. Someone stood at her grill, flipping burgers she knew hadn’t come from her freezer. At least Connor or his friends were providing their own food.

  It took exactly three heartbeats before she saw him, his mouth open under the onslaught of tongue and lips of some blond girl wearing a skirt so short everyone around her could see all the way to her panties. Nick, legs spread so the girl’s ass dipped between them, had one hand on the back of her neck and the other on her thigh. It was the girl from the beginning of the summer, from the day he’d tried to leave the section of the beach in front of the house and couldn’t.

  Bess stood, unmoving. She meant to simply turn around and leave him to it, but he opened his eyes and broke off the kiss to smile at her.

  To smile.

  Bess turned on her heel and went inside, where she yanked the stereo cord from the wall. “Get out,” she said without having to shout, and there was no doubt everyone in the room heard her. “All of you. Go home.”

  There were mutters and looks, but nobody argued.

  “You, too,” she said to Connor. “Take your brother.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?” he asked, querulous.

  “I don’t know,” Bess said through gritted teeth, understanding now his humor from before. “Why don’t you get in that pretty car Daddy bought you and find a place to hang out for a few hours. Just…go, Connor.”

  He wasn’t laughing now. He looked out to the deck, where the news of the busted party had spread. Connor swallowed hard, his mouth turning down.

  “Mom—”

  “Go, Connor,” Bess said. “You got what you wanted. Now go.”

  He went. Within fifteen minutes the entire house had cleared. Even the blonde had gone, though whether dismissed by Nick or just following the crowd, Bess didn’t know.

  She heard the sliding-glass door open and close.

  “Not so nice when it’s you, is it?” he asked.

  “Is that why you did it? Because you think I’m fucking Eddie?”

  “Yes. That’s why I did it.”

  She turned to him. “Well, thank you for being honest. I’m not fucking Eddie.”

  “But you’d like to.”

  “Oh, Nick.” Bess sighed, and covered her eyes with her palm for one minute. “It’s so much more than just that.”

  “I know it is,” he said after a minute. She felt his breath on her face and took away her hand. “And that’s really why I did it.”

  He kissed her, or she kissed him. It didn’t matter which. They went together into her bedroom, where he hesitated until she took his hands and put them on her body.

  His tongue slid along her throat and down to the opened V of her blouse. When he found her nipples, already tight and hard, he moaned against her skin. His hands slid up her skirt and cupped her ass, grinding her against the bulge in his jeans.

  His urgency moved her, but Bess put her hand on the back of his head, lightly, until he lifted it. Nick licked his mouth as he looked into her eyes, but he didn’t move away when she cupped his face in her hands and brushed his lips with hers, so softly it was more breath than caress.

  “I love you,” she told him. “I think I loved you from the first time I saw you, and I have loved you for twenty years when I didn’t know where you were. I won’t stop loving you, no matter what else happens, Nick.”

  He shuddered, but didn’t pull away from her. His eyes closed, though, and his mouth thinned, as though her truth was too painful to hear. Bess stroked her thumbs along his cheekbones, then down to his mouth. She’d already memorized every feature, every curve and line and scar, but she did it again now, slowly with her fingertips, knowing this was the very last time.

  When she pulled his shirt off over his head, his skin bumped at once into gooseflesh. She warmed him w