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  “That little bitch.” Nick scowled. Bess had fallen hard for the grin, but the scowl made her heart pound like the surf. “What the fuck’s her problem with me? If she’s not telling everyone I screwed over Heather, she’s making shit up about me being queer.”

  It didn’t take Bess long to figure out what he was saying. Nick looked up at her rueful laugh. “I don’t think it was about you, really,” she said.

  “No?” He put his hands on his hips and scowled harder. The light overhead cast his eyes in shadow, but Bess caught the flash of anger, real anger, in his gaze. “What, then?”

  “Um…” Bess had been dating Andy for as long as she’d known Missy, but there had still been plenty of rivalry, never actively acknowledged. “Missy likes to prove guys like her better, or something. I don’t know. If I say I like a guy, she’s suddenly going after him.”

  That little revelation hung between them and Bess wished she could take it back. Nick grinned slowly, looking even more like a pirate than ever. Bess smiled, too, a bare second after he did. She couldn’t have stopped herself even if she wanted. They shared a look and something unspoken passed between them. An understanding. At least, that was how it felt to her, and when Nick spoke he proved her right.

  His scowl softened to a frown. “I thought she was your friend.”

  “Yeah. Well.” Bess shrugged. “She is. Sort of.”

  “Girls,” said Nick with a shake of his head. “Jesus.” He gave her a sideways glance and an equally sideways smile. “So…she didn’t tell you I wanted to ask you out?”

  Bess’s heart lodged so firmly in her throat she was certain she couldn’t speak…until the words came. “No. Did she tell you I have a boyfriend?”

  “No.” Nick eyed her. “You do?”

  Bess nodded after a moment’s hesitation, not trusting herself to speak. “Sort of” seemed a dangerous answer to that question. Nick scuffed the gravel.

  He stopped, head cocked. “What a fucking bitch.”

  Bess shrugged again, though he was only voicing what she’d thought earlier. She shouldn’t have cared about sounding disloyal. Missy obviously didn’t care about the unspoken rules about poaching.

  “We really should mess with her a little,” he said. “Give her a taste of her own medicine.”

  Bess had often thought of doing just that, but had never quite figured out how. “Oh, yeah?”

  Nick nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And how do you think we should do that?”

  It was as if he’d opened a hinge on top of her head and poured her full of heated honey, thick and sweet, easing its way into every crevice from her toes to her scalp. It made her feel languid, that look. And naughty.

  “Don’t tell her anything. Just let her think something’s up with us.” Nick grinned again. “Drive her a little crazy, wondering. Right?”

  Bess shivered at the idea, the crazy rightness of it. The dangerousness. Yet there was no question of what her answer would be. None at all. “Right.”

  Nick held out his hand. “It’ll be fun.”

  Bess slid her palm against his and curved her fingers around his. Nick had big, strong hands, a little rough. His fingertips brushed gently at the back of her hand, the sensation magnified by sudden anticipation.

  He would pull her closer, just then. Maybe kiss her to seal the deal. Bess’s mouth parted and her body tensed, but Nick let go of her hand and left her yearning.

  “Fun,” she agreed hoarsely, and cleared her throat. She stepped back, the bike once again a barrier. “I’ve got to get going. Thanks for walking me.”

  “I’ll see you, right?” Nick didn’t move.

  Bess didn’t dare turn to look at him fully, but settled for a forced-casual glance over her shoulder. “Sure. Come by the shop tomorrow.”

  “Bess!”

  She stopped. Turned. Smiled. “Yeah?”

  “Good night.” Nick saluted her, then spun on his heel and shoved his hands in his pockets.

  He walked away, whistling, and Bess watched him until he left the circle of light they’d shared, and disappeared into darkness.

  CHAPTER 07

  Now

  “Mom! Are you listening?” Connor’s voice snapped Bess back to attention.

  “Yes. Of course I am. Graduation is June 13. The invitations for the party already went out, honey. I got it covered.” Bess cradled the phone against her shoulder as she bent to search inside the fridge. She’d been forgetting to eat for the past two days. She was ravenous. “And you guys are leaving right after that with Dad for the Grand Canyon.”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t sound as excited about the trip as he had a few months ago when they’d been planning it.

  “You’ll have a good time, honey.” Bess ducked to look for something in the back of the fridge. “What time is everyone coming over today?”

  “They’re not.”

  “Why not?”

  Connor, her oldest, grunted into the phone. “Dad didn’t open the pool.”

  Bess paused in her rummaging. “He didn’t?”

  Andy had always been so adamant about opening the pool for Memorial Day. Having a party for their friends and neighbors. The boys had always invited tons of kids over for burgers and dogs and swimming.

  “No.”

  Bess really didn’t want to ask, but Connor’s sullen answer prompted the question. “So you’re not having a picnic today?”

  “No, Mom, God. Weren’t you listening? No party today! Dad didn’t open the pool!”

  “So,” Bess said calmly, to fend off any further histrionics from her easily annoyed oldest son, “what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going over to Jake’s house.”

  “What about Robbie?”

  “What about him?”

  “Is he going with you?” The question came by rote. Bess found a jar of jelly and one of olives and pulled them out. She really needed to get to the grocery store. It had been on her list of things to do, but her priorities had…changed.

  “How should I know?”

  “Well,” she said patiently. “You could ask him.”

  “Robbie’s got his own friends,” Connor said coolly, as though putting on a sophisticated tone could change the fact that at eighteen he was still complaining like an eight-year-old about having to take his younger brother with him.

  “I know he does. But Jake is his friend, too. I just wondered if he was going with you, that’s all.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bess sighed as she pulled out bread and a knife and found a plate in the cupboard. “Where’s your dad?”

  Silence. Connor breathed into the phone. Bess stopped making her sandwich. “Connor? Something wrong?”

  “No.”

  Bess put the knife down and sat to give this conversation her full concentration. “Is something going on with your dad?”

  “I said nothing’s wrong! I gotta go.”

  “How’s studying for finals coming?”

  “Fine. Mom, I gotta go. Jake’s waiting.”

  “Are you driving or is Dad dropping you off?” Connor had had a few fender benders since getting his driver’s license, and though he insisted he was a more careful driver now, Bess wasn’t as comfortable with him behind the wheel as Andy was.

  “I’m driving.”

  She bit her tongue against an admonition. “The Chevy?”

  “As if Dad would let me take the BMW.”

  “I thought the Chevy needed new brakes.”

  “Dad says he’s taking it in next week.”

  A vision of crumpled metal and blood spattered on the highway turned her stomach to ice. “Wear your seat belt. Make sure Robbie does, too.”

  “I gotta go.”

  Without waiting for her to say goodbye, Connor hung up. Bess stared at the phone for a second before replacing it in the cradle. She remembered a sweet, affectionate child who’d never hesitated to hug and kiss her. Who’d been unrelenting with his affection as a matter of fact, to the p