Full Share (Shore House Book 1) (30 page)

The house was empty except a few half shares. They were last for the showers, the back of the line because they’d only paid for every other weekend and holidays. I looked around my porch. Three months ago it had been this tiny, dark space that was stifling hot and void of any privacy. Now I realized it was a doorway to my soul that opened the minute I walked through it.

Mila and Stone, Tank and Jack . . . they wouldn’t let me hide here no matter how defiantly I tried. They were living, and they were determined to take me with them. I inhaled the salt air deeply and plugged in the shell lights Jack had strung for me. He was more than I deserved.

The half shares laughed hysterically at something in the backyard. I remembered the last time I’d laughed that way. I’d been watching Tank fly across the sky. How could they find anything funny without him here?

They were two years younger than Tank, and somehow didn’t feel they knew him intimately. I found that impossible. Everyone he’d breathed near knew him, but I didn’t begrudge them the ability to smile and laugh. In fact, I found myself listening to it as if they were speaking Italian outside my porch window.

They’d said the rest of the house was at the Bottle & Cork, and that was where I needed to be. Jack was at the bar. The bouncer handed me back my ID and waved me in. Jack was drinking his beer and talking to Mila. He didn’t appear drunk, or happy, or angry. He was just there. The way I’d been when he’d found me. The depth of the summer’s loss flowed through me until it grounded my feet into the floor.

Life is deep. Dive in.

The band had just taken a break. They were still shuffling around the stage, placing their instruments in safe places. I climbed up on top of it and waited for a bouncer to haul me down and throw me out of the bar. When he didn’t, I walked over to the lead singer and smiled the way I’d seen Mila do a thousand times over the summer. She used it to get ahead in line, a free beer, a slice of pizza, or just some space. I used it because I had some things I needed to say.

“Oh hey,” the lead singer said and admired me. “What’s up?”

“I was wondering if the mic’s still on. I wanted to make a toast to the end of summer. Would that be okay?”

He studied me for a minute, looking me up and down. I stayed steady on my feet. I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t crazy. Yet. “Fine by me, darling.” He picked up the mic and handed it to me. “Wait one second while we get it turned on.” He motioned behind me. “What’s your name?”

“Nora. Nora Hargrove.”

“Well, Nora, when you’re done, I’ll buy you a beer.” He faced the crowd below us and announced, “Hey everyone, Nora Hargrove here would like to lead us in a toast to the end of the summer. So grab your drinks and listen up.”

I considered the microphone in my hand. This was insane. “Thanks,” I said, and the entire band left me alone on the stage with the live mic. “Hi . . . Dewey.” I swallowed hard and saw Jack staring at me from the bar at the back of the room. “I just wanted to say a few words before the summer ends and we go back to our real lives.” I swallowed. “Bear with me. I’m not a big sharer.”

Mila whistled and walked to the side of the stage. She willed me to keep speaking just by the look of love in her eyes.

“It’s been a summer of firsts for me, and maybe for some of you. This was my first time in Dewey, Delaware.” The crowd erupted at the mention of our beloved town. I waited for them to quiet down. “I’ve never had a beach house before.

“Parts of this summer can be forgotten.” I inhaled and reminded myself to exhale. “I fought the traffic on Route 1. I neglected to use the proper amount of sunscreen. I dialed 911, and declined my first offer of a ball gag . . . not on the same night.” My new drunk friends liked this, too.

“There were moments though, that have changed me forever.” I stared right at Jack. He wasn’t moving, just watching me from the back of the crowd in utter shock. His T-shirt was tight on his shoulders. I closed my eyes and could see his naked chest beneath my face. “I learned the healing power of a good Bloody Mary and a dip in the Atlantic. I kayaked in the dead of night and witnessed the only shooting star I’ve ever seen.”

I took a deep breath. “I fell in love on a bed made of pallets.”

Someone in the crowd yelled, “Woo!” and I remembered where I was.

“This summer I learned to fly . . . and to live . . . and to exist among the stars. Every day I spent in Dewey was the universe forcing me not to just witness life, but to revel in it.” Mila’s hands were clasped at her chest. “And I felt tremendous, heart-wrenching, life-altering loss that will forever leave a hole in my soul no one and nothing will ever fill.”

Stone and Rob came up behind Mila. Stone put his arms around her shoulders, and she held him close behind her. I considered getting down, but it all needed to be said.

Jack pushed his way through the confused crowd and stood alone in front of the stage. I could have floated from it and landed at his feet, but I kept going.

“And in the midst of all that I found someone. Someone I could believe in. I trusted him more than I trust myself, and I gave to him something I've never shared with anyone before. Something I'd locked away because with each day I kept it, it became too inconceivable that I’d ever let it go.” I stared at Jack. “I gave him my heart.”

I watched as he exhaled. He calmed me with his presence. I was lost in Jack’s eyes. I could have stayed there forever. The microphone in my hand was heavy. The bouncer moving beside me reminded me we weren’t alone; we weren’t locked away on our porch or in my apartment in Wilmington.

“And there’s no better man to have it.”

The guy behind Stone whistled, and Stone didn’t punch him.

I reached down and took the beer from Stone’s hand and held it high in the air. “So please join me and raise your glasses to the summer, to my summer as a full share.”

Jack reached out his hand, but I couldn’t move. Stone took his beer back, and my eyes never left Jack. When he smiled at me, I placed the mic on the floor and jumped into his arms. I straddled him and kissed him right in the middle of the dance floor at the Bottle & Cork. I squeezed my arms around his neck and buried my face near his ear. I was done facing people.

Jack carried me through the cheering crowd and out the door.

I didn’t move. I didn’t say another word.

Strangers whistled and yelled as Jack walked down Route 1 with me hanging on the front of him. We stopped at a red light, and I still didn’t move.

“What’s up?” the guy waiting for traffic with us asked. I felt Jack shrug. He was maybe sixty years old and carrying a twelve pack of light beer. “Have a good one,” he said when the light changed and we crossed the road.

Jack carried me to our house. He opened the door to the porch and climbed the steps inside without ever saying a word to me. He sat on my bed with me still clinging to the front of him.

“Nora.” His voice was home, and sitting on top of him was the most wonderful place I’d ever been. “Nora.” He ran his hands through my hair. I knew I had to speak. I wouldn’t hide from him. Not anymore.

I lifted my head off his shoulder and faced him. “I love you,” I said, and the confession left me naked on top of him.

“Nora—”

“Let me finish.”

Jack half laughed, the way I loved it when he did. “Of course.”

“I love you and no one else. I’ve loved you since the first day you walked in here. I trusted you and I wanted you.” I choked up a little, but I wouldn’t cry. “And I never told you, but I’m telling you now. You have to believe me, even if you don’t want me.”

“Nora—”

“I’m not done.” He nodded in his cute way. I took a deep breath. “I know you didn’t want to be my first because of exactly this, the dramatic clingy horror show of virgins, but even if I never see you again after today, I’m the luckiest person alive because it was you.”

He kissed me. I let myself disappear inside him.

Well before I’d had enough, he pulled back. “Can I speak now?”

I nodded because I had no words left in me.

“I didn’t think that
night
should have been your first, but there wasn’t a second of doubt that I wanted it to be me.”

I let myself believe every word he said. I somehow moved even closer to him, and I kissed him. It was a desperate need for him that wouldn’t be satisfied. In my apartment, I’d believed in him. In this beach house, I believed in us. The memories of the rainy night in Wilmington overwhelmed me as I leaned him back on the bed he’d made for me.

Jack rolled us over and laid on top of me. “Only me. Forever.”

MAY PEACE FIND YOU

(Jack Randall)

T
ank was my best friend. Since I could walk, he had my back, and now he was gone. He’d left me here with Nora. I felt like he’d picked her for me, or maybe he’d picked me for her. I only knew that it was right, and the two of us together had made perfect sense to him.

I’d tried to sound nonchalant when I’d first asked Tank about her. “Hey, what’s up with you and Nora?” If he even so much as liked her, I’d have stayed away.

“She’s looking for something very specific.”

I laughed at him. Only Tank would describe her this way. Every other guy we knew would place her in a bangable/non-bangable category, but Tank never reduced anything to the basic level. “Did she tell you what specifically?”

Tank finished assembling the lasagna that I’d already told him was a bad dinner idea. It was too hot outside to turn on the oven. “She’s the second strongest person I’ve ever met,” he announced, and I was confused. She barely weighed a hundred pounds. “Nora carries a tremendous burden, and she does it completely alone. She’s going to need someone even stronger than she is.” He opened the oven and slid the pan in.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Tank stood up and faced me. “Have I told you you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met?”

Tank’s riddles only added to my growing obsession with her. After watching her moon over Rob for a few weeks, I’d sat next to him on the beach and asked him, “What the fuck is up with Nora and Rob?”

“They went to school together for four years.” He was dismissive.

“She stares at him like he’s God.”

“He’s a child and probably always will be. Strong women need stronger men.”

“That’s great. You should start a blog. Maybe something on YouTube.”

“I don’t get what the problem is.” Tank stopped building the drip castle by my feet and looked at me like I was supposed to be doing something weeks ago that I’d neglected. “You’ve gotten every single girl you’ve ever wanted.”

“I’ve never wanted one this much.”

His expression changed from annoyance to fear. “Don’t fuck her over.” He pointed his finger at me. “Don’t just want her because you haven’t had her. She’s been through a lot.”

“Like what?”

“No idea, but you can hear it every time she stays silent.”

Nora was lying on her bed, reading the Cromwells’ novel, when I walked in. It was our bedroom. We’d shared it the last fifteen weekends. Two nights ago, I’d fallen asleep with her naked in my arms, and I didn’t want to sleep a night without her ever again. I was dreading the thought of school starting. She’d have to quit her job and live with me, or we were both going to have to quit and live somewhere else, because I wasn’t going to spend every weekday without her. Too much had already been lost.

Nora wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“Are you crying?” I could handle anything but her crying. It shredded me.

She sat up and placed the book in her lap. “The girlfriend did it. He was right. Tank was right.” She stared sadly at the Cromwell Clan’s book in her lap. “Do you mind if I take this with me?” As long as she took me, too, I didn’t mind at all. “It’s just I have nothing of him. My time was so short.” I nodded, and she slipped the picture of the eight of us from the refrigerator inside the pages of the book. “I’m sorry for crying.”

“Don’t be sorry, but he’d say you were wasting time.”

I’d imagined what I was going to do to her a thousand times. I pulled her hair into my fist and imagined her beneath me and on top of me. Nora being a virgin was never a part of the fantasy, and it had thrown me. Almost as much as losing Tank.