Where the Stars Still Shine(56)

“Oh, that will be cool.” She stuffs the cash and credit-card receipts in a zipper bag. “Give the boys a hug from me, and take pictures of your new room, okay? I’m dying to see it.”

Her blessing only makes me feel worse.





Someone is speaking Greek in a low, hard voice as I approach Alex’s boat that night. I stop, hanging back beside a nearby tree, watching the two dark shapes standing on deck. The taller of them is Alex, the other barrel-chested and short. His father. I can’t understand the words Nikos is saying, but the anger is clear in the way he alternates between shaking his finger in Alex’s face and smacking the side of his son’s head with the flat of his hand. Alex’s voice is absent in the conversation. He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t deflect the blows. He just stands there—his shoulders folded forward and his head lowered in defeat—absorbing the abuse. My fists curl into themselves and I stop myself from rushing to his defense, because this is Alex’s story—one he hasn’t told me—and I’ve come uninvited into the middle of it. I wonder if I should look away, give him his privacy, but I don’t. I watch, my heart aching for him.

It’s over when Nikos stalks off into the night. In his anger, he doesn’t see me, but Alex does. He steps off the boat and we sit together on the bench.

“So, how much of that did you see?” He looks at the boat, at the river beyond it, but not at me.

“Too much.”

“My mother never wanted me to work the boat.” He plays with one of my stray curls. “She wanted Phoebe and me to get college educations and not have to work so hard for so little. Then she got sick and what little college money there was—it’s gone and my pops had to take out a loan against the boat.”

He moves his hand to the back of my head, burrowing his fingers into my hair, sending shivers down the back of my neck as we sit in silence. I steal a glance at him. His eyes are closed, and there’s a ghost of a smile on his face.

“So,” Alex says finally. “I dropped out of high school to work the boat because Pops couldn’t stand the idea of putting Mom in a nursing home. No one forced me to do it. I volunteered.”

My eyebrows pull together. “But Phoebe thinks—”

“My sister believes what she’s meant to believe,” he says. “Trust me, I hate getting the shit beat out of me every week because I didn’t bring home enough sponges or because Orfanos down the dock got a better price than I did. But Pops has his pride, you know? He’s doesn’t want anyone to know there’s nothing left, or that the boat’s at stake. And if Phoebe found out, Greg would probably offer our pops money, which would embarrass him even more.”

I touch the fading bruise on his cheek from the last time his dad punched him. The one he claimed he got in a bar fight. His face carries a powdery trace of salt from sweat and the ocean. Alex reaches up and pulls my hand away, lacing his fingers through mine.

“And the most fucked-up thing is that when my mom dies, I’ll be free,” he says. “I can’t even look at her because I feel so guilty. I don’t want her to die, but I’m so damn tired.”

“It’s too much for one person to carry alone,” I say.

“Yeah, well …” Alex shrugs. “That’s just the way life works out sometimes.”

The words “your secret is safe with me” are on my tongue, but I feel as if saying them will take away their power. Instead, I lean in and brush the softest of kisses against his lips. Of course, your secret is safe with me. He wraps his arms around my waist and shifts me onto his lap, kissing me until the world is a faraway place and the only reality is the two of us here on this bench.

“I missed you,” Alex whispers, his forehead touching mine, his fingers curled around the back of my neck beneath my hair, tracing tiny circles on my skin. “All week I’ve wanted just three things: hot wings, cold beer, and you.”

“That’s so weird. I’ve been wanting the same three things.”

“Yeah?”

“No, but I missed you, too.”

“You know, secrets don’t really stay secret if you make out on benches in the middle of the docks.”

I don’t have to turn around to recognize Kat’s voice. But I do. And she’s standing just a few feet behind the bench.

“What, um—what are you doing here?”

“I left my wallet at the shop.” She starts toward the store, her intended pace faster than her wedge-heeled sandals can carry her. “But don’t let me interrupt. I mean, it’s not like I’m anyone who matters.”

I stand. “I need to go talk to her.”

Alex nods and squeezes my hand. “I’ll be here.”

“Kat,” I say, hurrying to catch up with her. “Kat, please … I’m sorry.”

“It’s not really even that it’s Alex.” She doesn’t stop and she doesn’t look at me. “I mean, I get that. You’re gorgeous and clearly he doesn’t think of you as a little sister.” Kat fights with the lock on the front door. “But you could have at least told me. First Connor, now this. It’s like you have no idea how friendship works.”

She kicks the door with a cry of frustration and her hands to her sides, the key still sticking out.