Page 65 of Never Forever

He was breaking our rule. Here at the bandshell he was talking about the past. He was asking me to remember, and I was flooded with memories.

“I barely had to touch you and you were off like a rocket.” He murmured. “You came so easily-”

“I’m an excellent actress.”

“You’re a fucking liar, is what you are.”

He was mad and I was hot between my legs. The memories of yes, how easy I’d been for him. How he’d put his hand down my shorts and say nice lies in my ears and I’d be shuddering through multiple orgasms. His fucking dedication to going down on me? What teenage boy has that much patience? That much interest?

And the way hetalkedabout sex. During sex. After sex.

I had to stop thinking about this, immediately. But all my jokes, all my insults, were dried up in the heat coming from between my legs.

He looked down at my shirt, where my nipples made it clear my body remembered everything.

“Actress, my ass. Your body doesn’t lie, Carrie. It never did.”

I had no comeback for that.

After a long seething look, Matt Sullivan performed his patented move. A scowl, a grunt and then he ran away.

14

Matt

The Mary Kay carried fifty people max. No cars. The occasional bike. The ferry had a five foot draft, a large diesel engine and could top out at twenty-three knots.

She had a long, elegant bow with bench seats.

There was an enclosed main cabin with a few snack machines and tables. It was an area that Dad and I affectionally called the puke bucket. That’s where all the seasick people sat when they should be standing out on the bow, looking at the horizon and getting some fresh air blasted in their faces.

People rarely did what they should.

The cockpit sat on top of the main cabin, with eagle eye views in every direction.

The ferry was made in Donegal, Ireland. Which made Dad proud for no real reason, since that wasn’t even the part of the country he was from. When I was a kid, he treated this ferry like he treated me. He sang to it. Called it pet names. Swore at it when it did something he didn’t like. Worried about it during storms.

Every three years Dad pulled the ferry out of the water and painted the hull blue and repainted the name – The Mary Kay, in white and gold.

Now all of that was my job.

I sat on the public pier and watched her stern head over to the island for the last pick up. I wasn’t as work-obsessed as my dad. I took two days off a week and I let my interns take some of the runs.

It was strange looking at it from this point of view. Like sitting in the back seat of your own car. But after the bandshell,after Carrie, I ran again, and my feet led me here.

I sat on the bench and watched the sky turn indigo.

What I didn’t do was think of Carrie. I did not think about how it had been months of her in town. Months of finding her in places she shouldn’t be. I’d steeled myself against seeing her on the boat, in line with her sister for the Wednesday ferry. The sight of her hair catching fire in the sunlight as she stood at the bow. The sound of her voice brought to me on snatches of wind.

All that shit? I’d hardened my heart.

It was finding her at the coffee shop, getting that caramel macchiato drink she swore she was no longer addicted to. At the food trucks when Birdie and Antony had that showdown.

And now the damn bandshell? It was too much. Too damn much. There had to be a limit on how much I was expected to take.

I’d broken tonight. The rule I’d kept for years. I’d smashed it with my stupid mouth, and now, those memories of her,of us,were uncorked and flying around my head. So I was sitting here, like a love-sick idiot remembering the way her mouth tasted and the way her skin felt and how…

“Matt?”