Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(9)

FIVE


I feel like a prisoner in my own home, no longer just on the island. I am afraid to run into him again. I cannot afford to have him popping up everywhere. It’s bad enough he asked me out in front of Veronica. That is probably already all over the island. It is for this reason that I force myself to get dressed, get back on my bike and ride to Club Soda to meet Steve.

He kisses me on the cheek as I slide onto a stool across the table from him.

‘How was your day?’ he asks, handing me a menu.

I don’t even look at it. I get the same thing every time, but every time Steve offers me that choice. ‘Uneventful,’ I say, although I am lying. The cell phone number crackled and called to me from my backpack, and when I finally took it out and tried to rip it up, I couldn’t. I put it on the refrigerator, stuck with a magnet in the shape of the island.

Steve peers into my face. ‘You look different.’

I shrug, running a hand through my hair, hopefully nonchalantly. ‘How?’ I ask.

He shakes his head. ‘I’m not sure. You’re just a little different tonight.’ And then he grins. ‘Maybe it’s that guy who asked you out today.’

I sigh. As I suspected, Veronica has successfully spread the news. ‘Did she tell you I turned him down?’

‘Why? Just because of me? I would’ve understood.’ He is so sincere, wanting me to be happy.

‘Men are a dime a dozen,’ I say. ‘But you’re my friend, and I wanted to see you tonight.’

Abby, the waitress, approaches with two beers in hand. We are about to say that we haven’t ordered them when she cocks her head toward the bar. ‘Compliments of the guy over there.’

I know without seeing him that he is here.

‘Is that him?’ Steve whispers conspiratorially.

I don’t even turn around. ‘I’m not interested. Isn’t that enough?’ I hear the annoyance in my tone. I have never snapped at Steve before, and he leans back in his chair, his arms folded in front of him.

‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think the lady doth protest too much,’ he says.

I cannot laugh at his joke, because he’s right. Instead, I take a swig of my beer. Abby returns, and we order our hamburgers and onion rings.

‘So you’re not even going to go over and thank him?’ Steve asks.

‘No, and you aren’t, either,’ I say, suspecting that’s what he’s about to do.

‘It would be the polite thing to do. He’s a nice-looking young man.’ He is staring pointedly over at the bar. I still have my back to it.

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ I say, although it does. It is what attracted me to him in the first place.

‘You’re blushing. I’ve never seen you blush before.’ Steve is not teasing me now. He is genuinely perplexed. I try to think of something to say, but my mind is a blank. ‘I think you do like this guy. Why are you resisting? You shouldn’t lock yourself up the way you do. You’re still a young woman. You should fall in love.’

I snort. ‘That’s easy for you to say. You had Dotty. You had twenty years of romance with the woman of your dreams. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen that way.’ This is not a new conversation. But it is the first time we are discussing it when there is someone who wants to date me sitting within a few yards. Someone who is viable, in Steve’s opinion. And then he surprises me.

‘Why don’t you just take him home with you for the night?’

I am not sure what to say. We have talked about love and lifelong commitments, but we have never talked about sex. I just assumed that he’s very old fashioned about it.

‘I mean, Nicole, unless you’re leading some sort of secret life up in that house of yours, you might need a night with a man.’ His expression is so sincere, his words slice through me and I want to cry. He sees me brush at my eye, and he clears his throat. ‘Of course, I’ve never asked you this, but maybe you’re, well, maybe you—’ He is so uncomfortable he has to stop, and it dawns on me what he’s implying.

It makes me laugh. ‘Oh, no, it’s not like that,’ I say quickly. ‘I definitely don’t play for the other team, Steve. I just haven’t met anyone I want to take home.’

He looks so relieved that I can’t stop laughing. It’s contagious, and he joins in until we are both heaving with laughter, tears trickling down our cheeks.

‘What’s so funny?’ Abby puts our plates in front of us and we look up, try to speak but can’t, falling into even more hysterics. ‘Don’t choke on it,’ Abby says flatly as she leaves us.

The quiet hum of the chatter around us serenades us as we eat. I can almost ignore him as I chew thoughtfully, picking up one onion ring after the other, this time eating the whole thing, leaving nothing but a couple of crumbs on the plate. Steve glances up every once in a while, his eyes skipping past my face and toward what’s behind me. I shake off the gaze that has settled in the middle of my back.

A nagging feeling tugs at my stomach. Now that there is some distance between seeing him for the first time and now, my thoughts begin to line up in an orderly manner. He didn’t show up here by accident. And there is only one way he could have known where to find me. I have no credit cards, no driver’s license, no bank account. I pay with cash for everything. I have no Social Security number. My utilities are in my landlord’s name. I do not pay taxes. I simply do not exist.