“Nic.”
“Nic,” she repeats with a warm smile.
She doesn’t leave, and it gives me the confidence to ask, “Can I see you tomorrow?”
“Lindsayyyy!” her sister shouts, sounding impatient.
“Yeah. Meet me here at noon?”
“Noon. I’ll be here.” There’s nothing that could keep me from this spot of beach tomorrow at noon. Kenny could kill me, and I’d drag my corpse here.
“Okay,” she says, shooting me another dazzling smile, giving me another chance to lose myself in her eyes. “Bye, Nic.”
I wave as she jogs to meet her sister. “Bye, Lindsay.” My eyes remain locked on her form even through the trees until she and her sister are completely gone from sight.
I spend the rest of the day replaying the kiss in my head. The memory keeps me up most of the night as I absently run my fingers along my lips. When I get up the following morning, my body aches and my head is groggy, but none of that matters, because I get to see Lindsay again.
At ten of, I go to our spot on the beach and wait. I’ve got a beach towel in hand and a pocket full of Airheads to share with her. Noon comes and goes, but I wait.
I wait.
And I wait.
I wait until the little hand on my watch passes the three before I grab my towel off the sand and head back to our campsite. My mind races at the possible reasons for Lindsay’s absence, but I try to keep the self-doubt at bay. It’s hard because she’sso pretty,and I’m…me, shorter and weaker, and if I’m being straight with myself, dumber than her too. My grades are below average, and I often have trouble focusing. There’s no way Lindsay’s grades are worse than mine. I can just tell. So what do I have to offer her?
On the other hand, the memory of her smile after we kissed is burned into my brain. She didn’t hate it. That much was clear, so the reason she didn’t show up likely has little to do with me.
I don’t see Lindsay again during our stay. Even as Mamaw pulls our minivan out of the campground lot four days later, my eyes search for her.
Lindsay.
I should’ve asked for her address so I could write to her, or even a last name. Something.
What I do have of her is so little, but has such a tight grip on me that I know I’ll never be the same: her name, the feel of her lips, and the way she put herself in danger just to keep me from getting my ass beat on a humid, cloudy day on a rocky beach.
Chapter 4
LINDSAY
That fucking bartender.Dominic. With his perfectly heart-shaped lips, and his thick forearms, and that…that fucking Southern drawl that under normal circumstances I would find grating, but coming from him, felt like a warm cloak curling around my shoulders. He justhadto lure me in with free drinks and then take care of me when I overindulged. Then he justhadto buy me breakfast and practically leap at the chance to watch those random children at his bar.
Maybe it was an act. He can’t really be that selfless, can he?
Anyone can maintain a mask of chivalry for a short time. I bet if I were to spend more time with him, that would fade. It always does. There are no greater actors in this world than men in a new relationship.
They all leave eventually.
My mom’s words ring in my head. I was barely eleven when she told me that. She and my dad were in the middle of a massive fight, the one that would ultimately lead to their divorce––a divorce that her own parents vehemently opposed regardless of how unhappy she was because of how stigmatized divorce is in Korean culture––and she offered the four words that would staywith me even decades later. All when I tried to get her advice about a crush I had on a boy in my English class.
To be fair, my dating record has yet to prove her wrong. My most committed relationship was with Billy, the father of my child, and we were hardly a good match. Even at our happiest, he’d constantly let me down. In the best of times, it’d be little things, like ordering black olives on our Friday night pizza when I’d told him multiple times that I hate black olives, or forgetting plans we’d made and choosing to meet up with his friends instead. At our worst, he’d get mad at me for talking to another man in front of him and leave me stranded at the bar, or that time he showed up lateand highto the birth of his child when I had been in labor for sixteen hours and had to get an emergency C-section.
Yeah, that one was the final straw. Even now, he’s a sorry excuse for a co-parent. It’s a miracle if he makes time to see Jules more than once a month.
So to witness a man joyfully offering to watch two kids while he’s at work simply to help out a friend? It blew my mind.
It’s been three days since I left Mapletown, and there’s something about Dominic that I can’t get out of my head. There’s a familiarity about him that puts me at ease. Though, I’m pretty sure I’d remember meeting a zombie, so I must be imagining it.
I blame those lips of his for this weird fluttering in my stomach.
