Holiday Tides (Wilks Beach Holiday Novella)

11. Summer

eleven

Summer

W ith how crappy yesterday was, I half expect to be woken by Saint Mariah again. But the subdued construction noise doesn’t begin until eight, long after I’ve woken and burrowed deeper into my cozy bed, not ready to face the day.

I didn’t complete any of my decorating goals last night. After getting home, I collapsed in the small backyard shed and allowed myself a good old-fashioned pity party when I discovered that all of Gramma’s Christmas decorations had been donated. After that, I didn’t have the energy to put up my modest interior adornments nor microwave dinner. A sleeve of Ritz crackers held me over as I streamed Home Alone in bed. Then I cried again because how did I not notice that Kevin McCallister is me? He’s equally overlooked by his large family.

A deep ache settles in my chest. Sitting up and tapping on my freshly sanitized phone screen, I bring up my upbeat Christmas playlist. One glance in the mirror of the tiny upstairs bathroom confirms that my eyes are puffier than marshmallows. At least I don’t need to see anyone but Erik when he comes to assess the water heater in an hour. Maybe I’ll resemble a reanimated human by then.

I’m icing my face with a bag of frozen peas minutes later when the ancient doorbell makes a sound akin to a dying cat. Glancing down at my Don’t Stop Believing long-sleeve shirt and Santa pajama pants, I shrug. People go to the grocery store in their pajamas nowadays, and the sooner Erik can determine what’s wrong and fix it, the sooner I can cry in my own shower rather than the one at the YMCA. My ribs tighten as my inhales become shorter. I lay my hand on my stomach and take a slow breath.

I’m fine. This is fine. Everything is fine.

I answer the door to a red-bowed present. Somewhere beneath the giant box are a pair of jeans and boots. When Nick’s earnest smile peeks from the side of the gift, my lower lip wobbles. The last thing I need is Nick seeing me this fragile. Although there’s no shame in needing help, I don’t want him having a front-row seat every single time it happens. His face falls immediately, but before I can come up with some cover-up, Nick pushes me into the house, shuts the door, and sets the gift on the staircase.

“What’s wrong?”

His thumbs brush my temples as if he’s examining my face for wounds, not just the minor swelling from excessive wallowing. I want to quip ‘ Like I’d tell you’ and pull us back into our verbal sparring, but the warmth of his rough thumbs on my skin feels like sunshine. Despite the roaring heater and snuggly pajamas, I still feel cold. Instead of sliding away, my traitorous body leans into his touch, my eyes falling closed as a tear escapes.

“Summer,” he whispers in my hair while gathering me to his chest. “You’re killing me here. Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing. I’m fine.” My words croak against his cedarwood-scented chest. It’s stupid, but I nuzzle a little deeper, taking a surreptitious sniff. Why does he always have to smell so good?

Nick’s exaggerated inhale brings my cheek along with it. He’s quiet long enough for rational thought to return in a deluge. I’m about to free myself from his soothing grip—when did he start rubbing my back?—when Nick speaks.

“Is it because your Rumford fireplace is non-functional or because the rise on the top two stairs is six-and-a-quarter when the rest are seven-even?” He seems to delight in my baffled expression, his smile widening. “It’s because your pantry door isn’t plumb, isn’t it?”

Nick takes my hand and all but drags me into the kitchen. He twists the handle on the small pantry door, stepping back to allow it to wildly swing open. But…Nick shouldn’t know to do that. All of us kids knew to either hold the frame or hop back lest our toes get jammed.

“This is a quick fix,” he tells me, tapping the wood door twice before setting it into its frame and pulling me into the living room.

“This beauty”—Nick releases my fingers to move the metal grate and fake logs that’ve been there my whole life—“with the gorgeous brickwork…” The groan coming from him sends unexpected sparks sliding down my spine. “What I wouldn’t give to see it roaring to life.”

He reverently smooths a palm over the back of the scorched fireplace before pushing to stand. “Now, the stairs—”

“Wait.” I step in front of him, forehead so pinched it’s giving me a headache. “Why do you know all of this?”

The corner of his mouth quirks as he tilts his head. A tangle of dark locks free-falls over his brows. “You didn’t think I’d resist looking around while Don was over here, did you?”

Nick examining the structural issues in my home feels too close to him noticing all the messy, unorderly parts of me.

“Jerk.” My hands plant on his chest, shoving him back, before I even register the motion. “That’s an invasion of privacy. You said you were a professional.”

“I said Don was a professional.” His large hands catch my wrists, keeping me from storming off. “Look, you helped me once upon a time, and it’s clear this home is overdue for some love.”

Nick pauses, uncertainty skirting across his strong features. It’s unexpected and altogether captivating, like an intricate frost pattern.

“It would make me really happy to complete a few projects on this property.”

“Good thing I’ve always been so concerned with your happiness,” I snap.

He chuckles, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing the inside of my wrist. “There she is.”

I yank my hands back, crossing them over my chest to quell the effect of his affectionate gaze. “It’s time you le—”

A loud knock interrupts us, and Nick’s intrigued eyebrows have me racing to the front door, just to beat him to it.

“Good morning, ma’am. I’m from Baker Plumb— Nick! Good to see you. It’s been an age.” The older gentleman sets down his well-worn toolbag to clasp Nick’s outstretched hand.

“Erik, how are the grandbabies?”

The man gives Nick a toothy grin, his lower left canine missing. “Annabell is walking, if you can believe it, and Dax will start kindergarten in the fall.”

“They grow up so fast.”

I have no context for the beaming, sociable, genuinely kind Nick in front of me. In high school, if your family didn’t belong to a specific tax bracket, Nick couldn’t be bothered to know your name, let alone anything about your family. I’d been the only exception, but I’m pretty sure that was because I’d been an implement to boost his ego.

“Too true.” Erik sets his thumbs in his belt loops before remembering himself. “Is this one of your renos?”

“Hopefully,” Nick says, taking the door from my stunned fingers and widening it so Erik can sail through. “I think the heating element needs to be replaced. It’s one of those old systems that has only one. I’d love to replace the whole thing, but one step at a time.” He leads Erik to the same closet we stood in front of last weekend. “Any chance I could get that done at cost?”

The older man grimaces at my unit before smiling at Nick. “You send a few referrals my way, and I’ll even wave labor.”

My rival waggles his finger at Erik. “You’re too good to me. Too good.”

He chortles, pulling on his belt loops before squatting in front of the heater. “Give me an hour.”

My feet numbly follow Nick to the front door as I’m lost in thought. I tuck my hands into the sleeves of my shirt, prepared to thank him. I know I’m the one that called the plumber and coordinated this repair, but Nick just saved me a hundred dollars, if not more.

But then he turns to me with that smirk. “Admit it, Summer. You need me.”

Of all the chauvinistic, self-aggrandizing—

“I have never, nor will I ever need you, Nick Watson,” I say, heat blooming in my belly.

Nick has the audacity to wink at me as he lets himself out. “You keep telling yourself that.”

That tiny flicker of muscle spurs a rage monster within me. My hands fist as I stare at the closed door before remembering the gift on the stairs. I race down my front walkway, box in my arms, fully intent on tossing it at Nick’s back, but the devil is already in his truck, pulling away. His hearty laugh through the closed passenger window makes me growl.

I stomp over to the construction site and shove the box in the hands of a skinny young-twenties man who’d just dropped an armful of splintered wood in the dumpster. “Tell Nick I don’t want this.”

He shoves it back like we’re in a life-or-death game of hot potato. “Oh, no. I need this job.”

I make three more attempts and am met with similar responses before I’m forced to trudge back to my house with the gift still in hand. Setting it in the far corner of the dining room, I vow not to open it. Then I head to the kitchen to make my crappy cup of instant coffee and think of a way to even the score.