Full Share (Shore House Book 1) (23 page)

“Any chance you can stay down on Sunday? There’s a concert at the Bottle & Cork.”

“I’m already staying down. It’s the Perseids Meteor Shower.”

“The what?”

“I know. I’d never heard of it either, but Tank says it’s amazing, and I believe him.”

“Did you guys make up from last weekend?”

I sighed. “I don’t even know what happened last weekend.”

“He probably doesn’t either.”

I sunk way into that. Tank scared me, and based on the way he’d spoken to me in the shed the next day, I thought it scared him, too. That combined with his ability to feel sounds had me worried there was something seriously wrong with him. Something amiss in his beautiful mind.

I searched for the words to ask Jack about Tank without being critical. Jack had never mouthed a criticism about him. I wasn’t going to either.

“Let’s go to the beach before everyone else gets here,” Jack said and saved us from the conversation.

“Okay.”

We passed four dogs with their owners on the short walk to the beach.

“Do you like dogs?” I asked.

“I love them.”

I was relieved. I couldn’t love a man who didn’t love dogs.

“Just like cats, and birds, and lizards. I love them in someone else’s house.”

“They’re nothing like those other animals.”

“I know. I just love them all the same.”

“Have you ever had a dog?” I asked, and he shook his head. “That’s why. Once you’ve felt the love of a dog, you’ll have to have one the rest of your life. They’re a gift.”

Jack stopped walking and stared at me as if my romantic words had flown out of a second head attached to my body.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, and we kept walking.

The beach was the most crowded I’d ever seen it. Even worse than the Saturday of Fourth of July weekend. No power had forced everyone from their houses to the sand. It was too hot to be inside, and the weather was absolute perfection. Bright blue sky, light breeze off the ocean—even the biting flies stayed away. The ocean was rough, though. Jack and I swam until I’d been beaten and crushed by the waves to the point of fatigue. Swimming was a constant battle of diving under the waves and fighting against the current to not be pulled away from our block.

“I need to get out.”

“I know,” he said before warning me of the approaching wave I had to dive into to avoid it breaking on my head.

“I hope the ocean calms,” I said as I walked out of the sea. Jack held my hand, and me up a few times, as we dragged ourselves back to our towels. “Tank and I are supposed to go kayaking Sunday night.” I turned back to the surf crashing on the beach. The lifeguards were blowing their whistles and trying to corral all the swimmers directly in front of them. “It’s not going to work in this.”

“Why do you guys have to go out in the middle of the night?” Jack dried his stomach, and I watched. “It’s not safe.”

“Tonight’s a new moon, and a cloudless sky is forecast. There’s no better place to watch the meteor shower than from the water.”

“What about from the beach?” Jack and I were never going to agree about this.

“Did you have a swimming accident once? You seem overly cautious about it.”

“It’s called respecting it. Don’t underestimate the sea, Nora.”

His words were a demand. He was a teacher. “Yes, sir.”

Jack laughed a little. “I’m serious.”

I laughed, too. “I know.”

I spread my towel out parallel to the ocean and laid on my stomach. Jack placed his at the end of mine so we were facing each other. I was leaning up on my elbows, and he took both my hands in his.

“I’m looking forward to the summer being over,” he said, but his statement confused me. I was disoriented by his placement and my hands in his, and wondering why he’d ever want this summer to end. Jack had it better than the rest of us.

“Why?” finally came out of my mouth when I was able to draw my gaze away from our hands and look him in the eye.

“Because I’m going to take you out on a proper date.”

I didn’t say a word, but my heart raced near the surface of my chest.

“I want to take you out to dinner and then take you to bed.”

My breath caught. I lingered on the possibility of both those things. “What if I’m not tired?”

Jack’s smile was devious. “And it’ll be so good, you’ll beg me to be with you for the rest of our lives.”

I loved him even more for not giving up on me weeks ago when anyone else would have. “Why do you keep trying?”

“Because you’re worth it. I can feel it. We’re going to be great together. You just have to let me in.”

I started to pull my hands away, but Jack tightened his grip.

“Why does that scare you?”

“It doesn’t.” I was honest. His words didn’t scare me. “It’s just what I do.”

He released my hands. “Pull away?”

“Pretty much.” I kept my sight steady on him. The breeze blew around us, swirling our towels against our sides. “It’s rarely necessary, though. No one usually gets as close as you have.” I swallowed down the realization of how close he was.

“I’m special.”

“You are.” The words croaked out as if saying them was choking me. I was done lying to him.

I crossed my arms and lowered my head onto them. I didn’t say another word until we had to meet everyone back at the house. I knew it was time, because Jack’s phone blew up with notifications coming in every few minutes. Sometimes multiple messages dinged all at once.

“Our tribe has returned,” he said.

“I can hear that.”

“You ready?” He stood up and held out his hand for me.

“For what?”

“Whatever comes our way.”

“In that case, I’ll follow you.” I took his hand and held it the entire walk back to our house.

The driveway was now full, and cars were parked on every inch of the roadside.

Stone was perched on top of the kitchen counter like a phoenix watching over his domain. “Nice picture of you on the fridge.”

I turned to the refrigerator. “What picture?” The front of the freezer door was now practically filled with old photos. A new one of Tank and Jack looking like state champions in their football uniforms was in the top left corner, right above the picture of the eight of us out back. Stone in a wrestling singlet with some poor guy in an obviously painful headlock was taped almost on top of Heather and Mila at the senior prom

Heather got out of rehab this week.

“Did anyone hear from—” The picture of me and Heather in troll Halloween costumes complete with nude-colored skimpy dresses and crazy colorful, sticking-up hair stole my words. Heather’s hair was royal blue. Mine was hot pink. Not pictured were the six other girls from our sophomore dorm who’d been trolls with us.

We were nineteen when the picture was taken. It felt like a lifetime ago, and it was hard to believe there was even a time Heather and I had coordinated a costume, or any other element of our lives.

Can I rub you for good luck?
was the question I’d endured over and over that night. The six of us had been an incredible display on the dance floor.

Stone climbed down from the counter and studied the pictures with me.

“Is Heather here?” I asked.

“God no. Why?”

“Who put this picture up?”

“I did.” I spun around, and Rob was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He smugly stared at me, waiting for me to react to the picture. Why would he put it up? He’d walked me home the night it’d been taken. In my mind, it was the only time he’d ever chosen me over Blaire, but that was only ever in my mind.
She
was his girlfriend. I was her annoyance.

Jack walked into the kitchen. He looked from me to Rob and back at me again. The smile on his face was replaced by an annoyed glare as he brushed past me without a word and stepped out onto our porch. Rob’s attention was becoming as much of a burden to me as it was to Blaire.

Stone held Mila’s hand the whole way to Northbeach. He kissed her neck while we waited for beers. I swore at one point I saw him dancing. Stone being sweet was as unnerving as him being angry. Rob and Blaire were getting along. It was as if the universe was listing, waiting to be righted before it capsized. I attributed it all to Tank’s absence. Without him, nothing was the same.

I knew when we got home he’d be assembling a house obstacle course or cooking Thanksgiving dinner for us. Because, “Why not?” he’d say. His absence would be for some fantastical production I couldn’t even imagine but that had just popped into his mind.

We stumbled home to an empty house, and Jack texted Tank again. They all did. I stayed quiet as they typed in their words, their questions of his whereabouts, and their jokes about what he was missing at the beach, and then I went to bed.

When I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, Jack was asleep on the couch. I wondered if he’d been waiting up for Tank’s arrival. His standing guard set a series of thoughts into motion about all the terrible things that could have happened to delay Tank’s arrival. I couldn’t sleep.

“Jack,” I said as I shook his arm. He didn’t move. “Jack.”

“What?” He rolled over. “What is it?”

“I can’t sleep. Come to bed with me.”

He smiled and rested his hand on my face. “Are you begging me?”

“No. I just want to sleep with you. I’d carry you, but you’re too heavy.”

He stood up and without shoes on, I felt like I was half the size of him. He picked me up into his arms and carried me out to our porch. Jack laid me in bed and climbed in next to me.

“You’re worried about him?” he asked and pulled me close to him.

“Are you?”

“A little. He’s disappeared before, though. Go to sleep.”

I closed my eyes. Nothing bad could happen to me in Jack’s arms.

I hoped it was going to be like the first time Heather didn’t come home. The time she separated from us on Friday night and reappeared at dinner on Saturday. No one was concerned. I’d wondered a few times throughout the day where she was, but the odds of her lying in a gutter off Route 1 in Dewey were slim. She was fine. We all knew it, and then she returned seeming tired and hungry, but no worse than she did on any other Saturday.

This was different, though. It was Tank, and no one had heard from him since Wednesday when he said he’d be down on Friday night. There were plenty of jokes about how whoever he’d met must have tied him up so well that he couldn’t text back. Stone called him, which was unheard of. To actually dial a number and let it ring with the hope of speaking to someone on the other end was a reaction to something catastrophic.

I followed Jack’s lead. He knew Tank the best and he always knew what to do. What to say. If he wasn’t worried, then neither was I, but by Saturday afternoon I watched as he walked over the dune with his phone to his ear. I’d hoped it was Tank, but when Jack returned he didn’t put me out of my misery. He didn’t say a word.

We all showered. We drank beers while we ate pizza for dinner, and we skirted the subject of where Tank was, because we’d exhausted all the funny possibilities earlier in the day. Finally, Jack’s phone rang with relief. It was Tank’s number. The anticipation of his story bloomed the smile on my face. I couldn’t wait until he came down. We’d spend the wee hours of tomorrow morning talking and watching the falling stars of the Perseids Meteor Shower, and I’d admit to him how worried I was when he was late.

“Where are you, man?” Jack spoke into the phone, and every person around him sat in silence.

Jack’s expression twisted from relief to a deep hurt none of us had ever seen anywhere near him. Emptiness crawled up the back of my throat. It wouldn’t be swallowed down.

“Yes,” he said, and we hung on every breath from his body. Jack’s gaze dropped to the ground. His shoulders caved. He was breaking in front of me. “How?”

No one breathed.

Jack looked each one of us in the eye as he listened to the person on the other end of the line, and then said, “We’re on our way.”

There’s been an accident. Tank’s hurt and needs help. We need to go.
The room swirled around Jack as every pair of eyes fixed on him and the words he’d utter that would forever change the make-up of our souls.

“Tank’s dead. That was his brother.” Jack stared at his phone in his hand, disgust covering his face. “I called his parents earlier, and they found his body in his apartment.”

Mila was the only one who moved. She walked to Jack and pulled him into her arms. He leaned down and rested his head on her shoulder.

“No way,” Rob said. “No fucking way!”

“Babe,” Blaire said and approached him.

“Shut the fuck up!” he screamed, and Blaire retreated. She stared at him and burst into tears before running out of the room. “Fucking Tank,” he said, but there was no one left to hear him. No one in the room who would ever hear anything again.

Stone’s fist broke through the kitchen cabinet door that hid our unmatched dishes from the world on the rare occasion it was closed. He didn’t shake out his fingers, he didn’t look at his scraped knuckles, because he couldn’t feel anything. Tank had taken the parts of us that felt things wherever he’d gone.

There was no longer a reason to be there. The alcohol and the drugs had been forced out of our bloodstreams by a ringing phone in the center of our kitchen. It dulled our senses and delayed our reflexes while injecting a realization that we were small and temporary. None of us could endure the sight of one another.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked when he finished packing his duffel.

I was sitting on the edge of my bed. I couldn’t move. If I stayed right here, this would end. Tank would come back. “What happened?”

Jack didn’t answer. He stared through me. Tank had left Earth, and Jack had gone somewhere, too.

“Jack.”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head and snapped out of his trance. “They don’t know. He’d been dead a few days before they found him.”

Claims, driving, Ricky, the red pepper soup I’d had for dinner Thursday, flew through my mind. The beach with Jack. Northbeach. The Starboard. Pizza . . . it had all occurred in this life while Tank was gone to another. I didn’t even know he’d left, and he was alone.