Holiday Tides (Wilks Beach Holiday Novella)

2. Summer

two

Summer

L ogically, I know I don’t owe Nick Watson an explanation. I could just turn and walk away this minute, but I know how things work on Wilks Beach. He’s going to hear the whole story by the end of the day anyway.

And Nick’s confusion is warranted. I haven’t seen him since I left for my full-ride scholarship to the University of North Carolina, and he went off to whatever Ivy League he’d gotten into. An unhelpful voice in the back of my head states, Yale. You know he got into Yale.

Whatever I can do, Nick can do better.

His cronies used to joke that if future Nick and I were to have a “doctor-off,” I would lose. Basically, whoever had a patient die first while working as a physician fails. High school boys are idiots.

Wait. My brows tug together. Why is Nick Watson—the golden boy of Wilks Beach who got into Yale and then, I’m assuming, Yale Medical, with a guaranteed spot at his father’s plastic surgery practice—wearing a WB Renovations logoed shirt over pecs that have no right being that distracting?

My brain suddenly feels like a shaken snow globe. I press my eyes closed, deciding to make things difficult for the man who made my junior and senior year unbearable. He can get his gossip from Dotty or Carol Cook—after they’ve shared it with three dozen others. Time to focus on the issue at hand.

“I don’t know what special permit you got to start construction at daybreak, but at least do it without hosting a Christmas at Rockefeller Center special at the same time. Some of us are trying to sleep on our day off.”

Nick’s head tilts slightly, his forehead creasing in a way that shouldn’t be adorable. His hair is a bit longer than it’d been when we were younger but still neat on the sides and back. He pushes up his sleeve to expose an expensive diving watch. At least the watch is in line with my memories of Nick. Because his paint-splattered pants and steel-toed work boots make no sense. Maybe Nick is cos-playing as a blue-collar worker this weekend?

Rich people have weird hobbies.

“It’s 8:45, Sleeping Beauty.” His cocky smirk deepens. “City ordinances allow for construction starting at seven. Though, we started late today since, as you said, it’s a Saturday. My guys have been working hard for almost an hour, so they deserve a snack break and some Christmasy music to lift their spirits.”

“It can’t be almost nine.” I search the sky only to find gray-out from the pervasive stratus clouds.

Sleeping in is so rare for me that my mind automatically jolts to the last time I did—when I discovered something that shattered decades of friendship. Pain ribbons through my ribs. Before I can control my erratic breathing, the ocean breeze brings Nick’s cologne straight into my nostrils. I snort in an attempt to dispel the delectable scent—cedarwood undertoned with a hint of pepper. When that doesn’t work, escape seems like the best option. I’m too emotionally exhausted to also be subjected to olfactory warfare.

Nick’s snarky expression drops when I take a step backward, his gaze bouncing to the ground. Then his hands are firmly bracing my upper arms, stopping my movement.

“You should have shoes on.” He scans the sandy dirt around my freezing toes, their shade nearly rivaling the blue of my sweatshirt. “There are nails, and shards of metal, and—”

“I’ll be fine.”

I wrench one arm out of his grip, determined to storm away, when a thick, six-foot roll of aqua carpet is flung from the picture window hole upstairs. It hits the white paver walkway nearest the house before rolling over the grass straight toward us. My quads tense to bolt away, but Nick is faster, sliding one hand under my knees and sweeping my legs from under me.

A surprised breath fills my lungs while Nick simultaneously barks at the two barely sixteen-year-olds who’d carelessly tossed the carpet and uses the heel of his boot to stop the roll from hitting the truck. The two boys mutter an apology, ducking back into the house.

Bewilderment is easier to focus on than how Nick literally swept me off my feet. Or how he makes this low sound in his throat as he hoists me higher on his chest. Or how the heat of him seeping into my frigid body is as comforting as it is disorienting. When his chin dips slightly toward me, red flashing alarm bells flood my vision.

“Let go of me.” I push at his—okay, wow—very firm shoulders.

“Not until you’re out of here.” He moves toward the middle of the street before halting. “Where did you come from?”

“The yellow cottage,” I reply, trying to tuck my legs out of his strong grip.

When we’d been kids, my five siblings and I would pile into our parents’ minivan on weekends and traverse the hour- long drive along farm-lined roads to visit our only grandparent. I spent my childhood wishing I was an “islander,” like my grandmother, but had to settle for living on the “mainland” and visiting.

The locals refer to this two-mile, narrow stretch of beach as an island, though it’s technically a peninsula. The Atlantic Ocean stretches to the east; Back Bay to the west; a wide inlet separates the town from North Carolina’s Outer Banks to the south; and a large, inaccessible, 4,983-acre wildlife preserve borders the northern edge. All the island kids had a heck of a commute to the high school on the outskirts of Virginia Beach, the large metropolis where I was raised.

Including the grown-up version of one currently manhandling me.

“That’s right. It was your grandmother’s place. I should have put two and two together earlier.”

Nick says the warm words directly over my ear, but I know better than to look into his face. If I glance up, I know what will be there: mesmerizing green eyes, a jaw that has only become more chiseled with age, and that teasing smile—mocking me…always mocking me. Instead, I focus my attention on the hole in the knee of my leggings.

“Are you visiting your brother?” he asks.

My youngest middle brother had been living in Gramma’s house for the last two years. One of my siblings has been living there since her death my freshman year of college. But last week, my brother moved to Miami with his girlfriend. Since I owe a cool quarter-of-a-million dollars in med school debt, I jumped at the chance not only to live rent free but to satiate my childhood dream of living on Wilks Beach.

After graduating my residency program five months ago, I’ve been living in a tiny apartment in Virginia Beach and setting aside every extra cent to pay back said bone-crushing loans. And I’ve been volunteering to take everyone’s weekend call. This is the first weekend I haven’t been on-call in a long time.

Working extra has unintentionally endeared me to the rest of the physicians at my new practice. Not the worst side effect of trying to pay for years of modern indentured servitude, especially since being on-call no longer means rushing to the hospital. It now consists of talking to parents and instructing them to head to an urgent care or calling in prescriptions from the comfort of my couch. Either way, I still answer dozens of daily pages from worried parents looking for help.

Winter is tough on the littles.

“The silent treatment is below you, Bummer. How long are you going to be in town?”

“Put me down.” I shift my shoulders defiantly at the sound of my old nickname. “I can walk from here.”

The jerk simply chuckles— chuckles— all low and breathy. “I forgot how stubborn you are.” Then Nick flips me over one shoulder like I’m an unruly toddler, not a fully grown thirty-year-old woman. “Hold still. We’re almost there.”

I’m blinking rapidly, disbelief coursing through my veins as Nick trudges up my walkway, rights me, and gingerly sets me on my doorstep. Sanity stops being a guiding principle when his large hands remain on my ribs, standing entirely too close. I can’t bring myself to look at him, so I focus on the notch between his heaving collarbones. He’s breathing hard, like I was heavier than he expected.

I should say thank you. Nick technically prevented me from having to get a tetanus booster. But this brief moment is too reminiscent of one that’s burned into my mind as my most embarrassing memory of high school. It’s in a file in my brain labeled Do Not Revisit buried beneath antiquated pharmacology, my aunt’s flan recipe, and the lyrics to “Frère Jacques.”

And I shouldn’t be standing this close to Nick when I’m currently dating another man. When Cooper’s face snaps into my mind like a whip crack, I step back and shut myself behind the door. I tell myself the soft, “Summer,” I heard was just the wind. Then I race upstairs to take the world’s hottest shower to wash this whole impossible interaction away.