Page 89 of Backslide
“Was he smart?”
“Yes.”
“Was he funny?”
“I thought so at first. And then I realized it was ninety percent accent and ten percent bitterness.”
I nod in recognition. “Was he at least a nice guy? Or I guess,ishe a nice guy, since he’s still alive?”
“Eh. He’s dead to me.”
I snort. “It kinda sounds like you dodged a bullet.”
“Yeah,” she says, turning toward me, so I can feel her eyes on the side of my face. “Apparently that’s my move.”
“Ouch,” I say, because we both know what she means. I’m not gonna lie. Being equated with some pompous asshole with no sense of humor. Being someone with whom she narrowly avoided being saddled. It stings.
We go silent again, but maybe more companionably so. Outside, it has started to mist. She puts up her window and suddenly it feels like we’re cocooned in our own little cozy warm bubble.
And I realize that, even in this state, with all the tension and the bad blood, I’m happy to be marooned with her.
Which is probably a terrible sign.
It starts to drizzle.
We pass a small cemetery, a ravine that bottoms out in a creek. And then we’re coming up on the coast at our first destination—an oyster farm.
When I pull to a stop, she pulls her hood up over her head, gets out, and jogs toward an outdoor area with an overhang for cover. I am close behind.
20NELLIETODAY
I can’t help it. I can’t help making the barbs and I can’t help feeling bad for Noah as I watch them land.
I can’t help studying his jawline, his scruff, the crinkle of his eyes. His biceps in his T-shirt, his tan forearms, the cords of muscle in his neck.
Noah is officially under my skin.
And I can only partially delude myself that he hasn’t always been.
I jog from the car to avoid getting wet, an automatic response after years of experiencing the frizz effects on my hair. But he just saunters and, dammit, even the way he walks—all casual and confident—is sexy.
I am so fucked.
But I’m going to have to suck it up (a terrible choice of words). Because, now that my ego has had about twenty-four hours to recover, I realize that even if Noah stopped what was happening between us because he changed his mind, he was at least trying to spare my feelings. And, as undignified as that feels, I have to admit that puts his heart in the right place.
His other organs less so.
This man is maybe not the same boy who left me stranded so many years ago.
When he reaches me now, there’s rain beginning to patter harder on the tin roof above us. I look up at him, his T-shirt damp and clinging to his defined chest, his short hair tufting up just slightly as he ruffles it with his hand. And I shiver, but not from cold.
He notices, frowns. “I’d offer you my jacket, but, like an idiot, I didn’t bring one.”
But I’m glad he didn’t. And not just because outerwear would only have blocked the view. But also because this is romantic, in an almost absurd way. It’s hard enough to bear without him gallantly offering me a coat. We are literally by the sea, alone together, caught in a storm.
And it’s because I can’t handleThe Notebookof it all—and feel guilty about being a jerk in the car—that I turn to him and blurt out, “Truce!” And then stick out my pinky finger. Like I’m in fourth grade.
“What?”
