Never Have I Ever(86)

He paused, and I didn’t think he would say more unless I answered. I wanted him to say more.

“I thought so, too,” I said, an invitation to go on. He took it.

“I’d been with girls before. More than a couple, to be honest. I was with a lot more after. But it’s never been easy like that. Like we were. Never in my life. I haven’t been pining, but maybe, in the back of my head, I compared, you know? Then you showed up, and I can’t stop wondering, what if we’d never gotten on the road? What if we’d gone back to that mattress together? Slept it off. Where would we be now?”

I’d wondered that myself, but I couldn’t talk. My throat was clogged with tears.

He had no idea what he was saying to me, how much it meant. Back then I’d hated myself. I’d loathed my body so damn much, I’d thought no one could ever love me. But he had. Not in spite of. Not even though. He’d grown feelings for me simply because of who I was. Who we were together.

“I’m married,” I said again. But lots of people were married, and they wrecked it. I could see now how easy it was. It was little baby steps down a road. A text here, a phone call there. The person I was married to was busy, and I was under pressure, and we had this baby, which meant less sleep and less sex than we were used to. Plus, I was lying to him every minute. If my lies came out, I might not have the choice to keep my marriage. “I love him,” I said, and that was also true.

“Then don’t let me get between that,” Tig said. “Because we’re heading that way. I mean, you know that, right?”

“I know that,” I said.

We sat quiet, listening to each other breathe.

“I better go,” I said. And I had to. I had to hang up. Talking to Tig felt too good. It was a safety net. A haven, if I refused to pay and Roux destroyed me. I remembered that night, the night he kissed me, before it all went wrong. I could run toward him now if I chose. It would feel like it had on that dark road, when I stamped the pedal down. I knew then, for certain, that I’d been driving, not that it mattered now. But I remembered exactly how it felt to power us up and over the railroad tracks, dangerous and free, unsure of a safe landing. I could do it again. Tell Roux to fuck herself and let whatever happened happen. Be airborne. Let gravity decide how I came down. It was so tempting.

“You still play the guitar?” he asked, breaking the silence.

I was shaking my head, as if he could see me. As if he were close enough to touch.

“Not for years,” I answered.

“You could pick it right back up,” he said. “I bet it’d be so easy.”

I let that sit, too. It was difficult to talk at all, but in the end I said, “I gotta go.”

“I know,” Tig said. “I’m here, though.”

“I know,” I said, and I closed the connection.





16




I woke up with a headache hovering at the base of my brain, a low-slung throbbing of anxiety. It was as if I’d slept all night on the edge of a cliff, feeling myself teeter in my sleep. I popped a couple of Excedrin and ignored it as best I could. Maddy and I had to head out for the docks early, leaving Davis to sleep in as long as Oliver would allow.

Roux and Luca were going to meet us there. Roux’d figured, rightly, that I couldn’t work against her while prepping for a dive. I didn’t have a spare minute, helping Captain Jay and his middle son, Winslow, get the Miss Behavin’ loaded up and ready.

Miss Behavin’ was Jay’s smaller boat, a thirty-foot Munson that could comfortably accommodate ten divers. It was late in the season; we were running with seven today. The other group arrived first, a couple who introduced themselves as Tim and Leslie Babbage, plus Tim’s older brother, Mark. They were all experienced divers in their late thirties, down from Atlanta on a weekend trip to keep their certifications fresh.

Maddy was talking to Winslow and me on the dock, agitating for the English Freighter, a favorite dive spot of hers, but she stopped in midsentence, staring past me, her breath catching in her throat. I turned and saw Luca hurrying toward us. He was carrying two gear bags, the lean muscles in his arms flexing, and the wind off the ocean made his hair stream back like a baby Fabio’s. Winslow, who was forty-something and had two girls of his own, shot me an amused glance. I smiled back, but it was hollow. Luca’s eyes were on the boat. He was looking past Maddy to the day ahead, and all she saw was him.

Roux sauntered toward us in his wake, and the very sight of her jacked my heart rate, made me work to keep my smile in place. Not that anyone was looking at me. Both brothers, the married one and the spare, paused to watch Roux. Her pale pink bikini and her skin shone the same through a gauzy white cover-up, the colors and the sheerness conspiring to make her look more naked than naked. Even Captain Jay, who was pushing seventy, stopped to look.

Leslie Babbage smacked her husband’s shoulder, and that broke his hypnosis. He laughed and threw an easy arm around her, turning away with her to stow their gear.

The single brother, Mark, kept right on looking.

Roux was aware of his gaze. I could see it in the extra swing she added to her hips, the sly glance she sent me as I walked out to meet her with the liability paperwork.

“Men are too easy. All I have to do is show up and have tits,” she said, skipping the greeting to go straight to gross generalizations.