Page 62 of The Summer Show
“You know, I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’m not sure any other words fits. We’re not dating. We’re not lovers. We’re not strangers. We’re not blood enemies. And we’ve already been through too much together to be mere acquaintances, so … what else is there?”
“I don’t know.” His nose wrinkled. “Can you smell onions?”
I retrieved the onion slice from my pocket. “Your grandmother made me put onions on my face for the bruises, then they all decided I had the evil eye and made me lick water with olive oil. They rubbed it on my forehead, too, so you know I’m going to end up with a burned patch right there. So.” I looked at him. “Coffee?”
He nodded once. I had worn him down. “Coffee.”
We found a cafe by the water with tables and chairs inches away from the pebbled beach. The sun was climbing higher, and it was obvious that apart from the servers, everyone around us was a tourist. The locals had rushed back to their homes to sleep away the afternoon and avoid the sun and all its fists.
Nick ordered. I paid. He made unhappy noises when I counted out the euros, but I gave him the look and he let it go. We didn’t speak as we sipped our frappes and people-watched. I say people-watched, but really I was trying to avoid eye contact with Nick. He was too much, and I felt like not nearly enough.
I mean, who was I? My mother, the person who was supposed to love me unconditionally, and for life, had betrayed me and abandoned me for scam after scam after scam. My own mother. The only thing she had ever taught me was that I wasn’t enough to make her cut the crap and put me first. Yes, she had betrayed Dad and Brit, too, but I was the one who bore the brunt of her kooky schemes. She burned my books. She made it so I couldn’t look our neighbors in the eye, a surrogate for the shame she was psychologically incapable of experiencing. I had people who loved me, but knowing I was not loved by the one person who should have loved me had fractured my self-worth years ago. Dad, my grandparents, and Brit had tried to fill in the crack, but the blemish was still there and I was more fragile for it.
“Where did you go just now?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “Nowhere.”
“Bullshit. You zoned right out. You’re not even all the way here with me now.”
Sharp perception skills. What would he make of Susan Hart? Would he clock her addictive personality and narcissism?
With luck we would never find out. The last place I wanted Nick Merrick was anywhere near my mother. Of all the phases she had gone through over the years, as far as I knew, men who looked like dessert wasn’t one of them.
Nick could change that. He could command me to dog-ear the pages of my favorite books. If he told me to break the spine of a trade paperback, I would get on my knees and snap that spine.
A ditch appeared between his brows. “You okay?”
I flapped my hand at my face. “Hot.”
We had an audience. A growing audience. Eyes were on me the way they used to be after Dad left Mom. People stared at me then, too. In post-divorce worlds, fathers didn’t typically get full custody. If they were lucky they got shared custody, or every other weekend and two weeks during summer. Mom didn’t get anything. Dad drew a line and she had accepted it without a fight. I guess it’s easy to devote yourself to the latest and greatest crazy cause when you don’t have school lunches to pack and playdates to organize.
I shifted uneasily in my seat and tried to hide behind my coffee. It was no use—we’d been spotted, and by people who didn’t know about things like etiquette and good manner. Individually they were probably civilized, but this was congealing into a crowd, and there’s nothing polite or predictable about a crowd.
“We’re not even interesting,” I whispered. “We’re not. We’re just people.”
Phones were out and up. Not only were we being watched, we were being recorded and photographed again. Coffee for Nick and me was social media fodder.
Coffee, I tell you.
Nick shoved his chair back and stood. He moved around to my side of the table, picked up my coffee, handed me my things.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
My tongue was as thick knot in my mouth. All I could do was nod. It was too much. This level of attention … how did real famous people do it? How? Who actually wanted this?
He waited as I tucked my phone into my bag and located my sunglasses. I hadn’t needed them under the umbrella.
The crowd changed shape. Less of a circle, more of a tear drop with the persistent few fighting for as many pictures as possible. With my hand enclosed in his, Nick steered us down narrow streets until we were alone.
It wasn’t until we had safely escaped the promenade that I realized Nick was still carrying my coffee in a highball made of glass.
“You took the whole glass.”
“Couldn’t carry your coffee without it.”
I flicked a glance at his hands. They were big, strong hands, the kind that could crush nuts without a hammer. If anyone could carry coffee in their bare hands it was Nick
Nick who had, once again, rescued me. Without a moment of hesitation he had removed us both from a potentially problematic situation.