“Why’d you do that?” He touches above his ear, where she ran her fingers to the nape of his neck.
Nelle sucks in a breath, winded by her own epiphany, and lets out the easiest words she has ever said. “I love you.”
James opens his mouth like he’s going to respond, then shuts it. He bridges the space between their towels and kisses her. Sunbaked salt. The flick of his tongue and the seam of her opening lips. Wetness and his hands finding her waist, holding her in place.
He hums against her mouth. “I love you, too.”
The bus from the beach rattles as its six wheels hit potholes like they are picking guitar strings. James sways in his seat and traces circles over the back of Nelle’s hand. His clothes scratch his reddened skin, and he smells of sand and sunscreen, but he doesn’t care. He is in France. In France with Nelle.
And, since the night he dropped out of school in Paris, he has been keeping a surprise up his sleeve. Well, actually up his pants.
James unravels his fingers from Nelle’s, digs into his pocket, and pulls out an envelope. When he made the decision to buy the tickets, he knew exactly wherehewanted to travel to, a place where, coincidentally, Nelle likely has living relatives. Still, he doubted his choice, banking solely on Nelle loving anywhere she has yet to go. He unfolds the crackling envelope, passes it over, and waits a minute for her to open it, pull out the slips of paper, process what they are. Silence stretches between them like a heavy rope.
Nelle squeals.
Train tickets to Edinburgh, leaving tomorrow. They dented James’s dwindling savings account, but he still has enough for a coupleof weeks of frugal travel and plane tickets home. Enough to give Nelle a fortnight of freedom, and then what? Whatishis home? Without college tying him down to his old life in Georgia, he can go anywhere. Be anyone.
New York whispers in the back of his mind like a drug.Come back.
Nelle kisses his cheek, his temple, his neck. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Chapter 19
Windmills stand sentinel across green pastures sliding by out the window. The fields resemble the squares of a quilt, stitched together by seams of low stone walls. Sheep cluster under a gray sky. All of it puts James under the illusion that he is living a past life. A life without social media and technology. A fantasy world where he can fall in love with the girl sleeping on his shoulder.
He resumes reading. The train rattles, and Nelle’s head slips off his shoulder.
She snorts awake, squinting at him in confusion.
“Where are we?” Two blond hairs are pasted to her cheek by a line of drool.
James wipes it away with his sleeve. “We should be getting close to Edinburgh now. You were sleeping pretty hard.”
“I was dreaming about a story Quill told me.” She yawns and stretches, oddly catlike. “You know he grew up here?”
“Yeah. His accent gave him away.”
She laughs. “I’m not sure where in Scotland he’s from, though.”
“Do you feel comfortable sharing it?” James asks. “The story?”
Nelle taps the window as if putting in a code to unlock her memory. “He grew up in a cottage. I think farther north.”
James sinks down into the train seat. Across the aisle, a middle-aged woman with a sleeping baby shoots them a dirty look.
Nelle whispers, “He had a brother, Sam. Their family didn’t have much money, so during winter when they couldn’t afford gas, their mother would make Quill and Sam a pallet in front of the stove.”
“So he wasn’traisedby a monster,” James says. “He just became one.”
“It’s no excuse for how he treated me.” Nelle traces circles on the thigh of her tan pants. “But he dealt with a lot of loss in his life.”
“Oh.” A pit opens in James’s stomach. “This story has a sad ending, doesn’t it?”
“Listenand you’ll find out,” she says. “Quill’s mother, Lily, adored words. In her free time, when she wasn’t taking care of the house or putting together scraps to feed them, she’d analyze literature and write poetry. She had a few collections published. Quill kept copies in his study, but he never let me read them. Anyway, when Quill was lucky, his mother would sit him on her lap and read to him. Old myths and folklore. He claimed his passion for stories bloomed in those misty highlands where every moor was a blood-soaked battlefield, every forest a fairy kingdom.
“His father, Thomas, was a carpenter from the States. He had a close relationship with Sam, his younger son. Would ask him to come to work with him, chop wood behind the house, or feed the livestock. But he never asked Quill. As the years went on, it became an unspoken rule: Quill belonged to Lily, Sam to Thomas. When he asked his motherwhyhis father hated him, she assured him that Thomas merely showed his love in strange ways. Quill knew it was bullshit, though. He saw the way Sam was treated. He saw through Lily’s delusions. His father didn’t love her, and somewhere along the way, he’d stopped loving Quill, too.”
“Damn.” James purses his lips. “So that’s why he’s an asshole.”
