Reckless Girls(18)

She’s crying.

Nico is standing across from her, one hand braced on the mast, his face set in an expression Lux hasn’t seen yet.

He looks … bored? But there’s also something about the stiff way he’s holding himself, the rigidity of his posture, that sets little alarm bells ringing in her head.

Lux is hit with a memory, of sitting in the front seat of her mom’s Honda Civic, the day they left for California. She was twelve, slumped in the passenger seat, watching through the window as her parents stood in the front yard of their house.

Except it’s his house now, she remembers thinking. Her mom had been saying something, shaking her head, but her dad had just stood there, his posture casual, hands shoved in pockets. Everything about him had felt like a locked door, and Lux knew her mom no longer had the key.

That’s how Nico looks right now. Whatever this girl is saying to him, he’s nodding and listening, but she’s not getting in.

Lux has nearly made it to their slip, her sneakers quiet on the faded wood of the dock, and Nico sees her, lifting his chin slightly in her direction even as the corners of his mouth briefly turn down.

The girl turns around, and even behind the sunglasses, Lux can feel her eyes taking in everything about her: her red hair, the groceries in her arms, Nico’s blue plaid button-down thrown over her bathing suit top.

The girl’s lips purse, and then she faces Nico again.

“So, I guess we’re done, then,” she says, and he tilts his head back, looking up at the sky. “We’ve been done, Suz.”

“Right.”

The girl rests a hand on the mast before going to step off the boat, her wedge sandals squeaking on the deck.

As she passes her on the dock, Lux is hit with her scent, something fresh and clean, which seems to hover around her in a mist.

“So, you’re the newest project,” she says, and Lux is momentarily speechless. “He’s a big fan of projects,” the girl continues, and now there’s something ugly in the curl of her mouth, something disdainful. “Good luck.”

With that, she’s gone in a swirl of her skirt, that cloud of expensive perfume, leaving Lux holding a bag of wilting lettuce and rapidly melting pistachio ice cream.

Looking to Nico, she raises her eyebrows. “Wanna fill me in?”

He sighs, coming across the deck to take the groceries out of her hands. “It’s nothing.”

“Didn’t seem like nothing.”

“We dated for a little bit, she was pissed at how it ended, guess she thought she needed to tell me so in person. Again.”

Lux follows Nico onto the Susannah, the deck swaying gently. “After a month?”

When Nico just looks at her over his shoulder, Lux tries to ignore the sudden coldness in the pit of her belly.

“I mean,” she starts, shoving her hands in the back pockets of her shorts, “we’ve been together for a month now. So, obviously, you two broke up before that.”

“Right, like I said,” Nico continues, reaching out with one hand to slide open the door to the cabin, “it’s nothing.”

Lux follows him down the steps into the cabin, the light dim, squinting as Nico begins putting the groceries away.

He leaves for Maui in a week, maybe two, and they haven’t talked about what that means for them. It’s new, after all, this thing. Yeah, it got really serious really fast—Lux is more or less living on board the boat these days, which is definitely an improvement over her shitty shoebox of an apartment—but maybe Nico has always just seen this as a temporary arrangement.

Lux knows she loves him, even though she hasn’t said it out loud yet. There’s never been anyone like Nico before, not for her. Sure, she’s dated other guys, but it was never serious, never this all in feeling she has with him, like they’re real partners.

A team.

She thinks he might love her, too, but she keeps waiting for those magic words—come to Maui with me. So far, nothing.

She thinks of the person she used to be, the brave girl who thought she was tough, who didn’t think the world could touch her—the person she was before her mom died. That girl would have just come right out and asked: Hey, can I come with you? Sometimes she can feel the question pressing against the back of her teeth, and a part of her brain says to just go for it, for fuck’s sake, so what if he says no?

But this other Lux—this newer, still fragile Lux—is too scared of popping the bubble she’s been able to live in the past month, and so here she is, just … waiting.

Suz.

Nico had called her Suz.

Leaning against the wall, Lux crosses her arms over her chest. “Was that Susannah?” she asks. “As in, the namesake of this boat, Susannah?”

Nico still has his back to her as he puts bananas in the little mesh bag hanging over the sink, and she sees his shoulders rise and fall.

“Yeah, that was her,” he says, “but it was—”

“Nothing, yeah, I know,” Lux replies curtly.

Turning around, Nico braces both hands on the sink. “We dated in college,” he says, looking her in the eye. “For a couple of years. We were young and stupid, but we were together when I got the boat, and I named it after her because I’m a romantic dude. As you well know.”

He gives her a little grin at that, the one that makes his dimples deepen, and even though she hates herself for it, Lux feels a little of her anger drain away.