Full Share (Shore House Book 1) (17 page)

I put it back near my mouth. “I will.”

I went for a drive and hid from my life in a parking lot in Ocean City, Maryland. I didn’t go back to the house until I was sure everyone was out. Jack texted to make sure I was okay. I told him I’d run into an old friend and I’d be back later. For the first time it wasn’t a lie. I’d run into my father.

I felt him near me before he said anything, and yet he still startled me.

“Nora,” he whispered. His presence again registered. How long had he been here? Tank was sitting on the edge of my bed. “Nora, wake up.” He rubbed my arm, and I opened my eyes.

“Tank, what are you doing?”

“I want you to go in the ocean with me.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s four fifteen.” Tank didn’t check his phone. He didn’t lean back to see the clock in the kitchen. He’d been waiting for four fifteen to wake me. As if that was our departure time.

“Are you okay?” I asked, because something didn’t seem right about him. His words were urgent. I sat up and rested on my forearms. He stood up and gave me some room.

Jack half opened his eyes and rolled over to avoid waking up.

“I’m good. Please come with me,” he whispered. I couldn’t think of a way to say no to him.

“Okay. Let me change. I’ll meet you outside.”

Tank’s smile lit up his eyes. “Meet me at the kayaks.”

I stood on wobbly legs and searched around the porch for my bathing suit. The green one hung from the door knob to the backyard. My red one was at the bottom of my backpack.

With Jack’s back to me, I slipped off the T-shirt I’d worn to bed a few hours before and stepped into the bottoms. The top was twisted and knotted together.

“It’s dangerous to swim without a guard.” Jack rolled over and faced me, and I didn’t move to cover my chest. Him seeing me excited me more than it embarrassed me. I took a second to wallow in that realization.

“I know,” I said and finally untangled the top. I pulled it over my head and hooked it behind my back. “Call the Coast Guard if I’m not back when you wake up.”

“Your boobs are beautiful.”

I stopped and looked down at my breasts and then back at him. There was no urge to roll my eyes the way I would have at Ricky. Jack’s admiration was different. I welcomed it instead of the shunning any similar comments would receive.

Since Jack was already awake enough to appraise my breasts, I went out the door between our beds. Tank was pulling the kayak off the shelf in the shed. I rushed to get behind him and take the weight off one end, but he didn’t need my help. To Tank, the kayak was like tossing a banana in the air. He picked it up and rested it on his shoulder.

“You know, I could help. Those little handles on both ends are for two people to carry it.”

“You are helping.” Tank passed by me without any other explanation, and I let him.

We walked in tandem over the dune in the darkness. I could hear the water and feel the wind, and suddenly it seemed very dangerous.

Tank turned to me when our feet touched the surf. “Here.” He handed me his bowl and a lighter.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s really dark out.” I could see the whites of the waves as they crashed against the sand.

“Since you’ve already decided not to fully participate in life, you should at least enjoy the parts that you do.”

I stood still in his analysis. “What does that mean?”

Tank put the bowl to his lips and took a hit. I waited for him to inhale a few times. The red glow from the bowl was the only light on the moonless night. When Tank finally exhaled, he said, “Life is deep, Nora. Dive in.”

I let his words in. They sank all the way to my heart. I swallowed and held out my hand for the bowl. When Tank handed it to me, I took a hit, too.

I returned it, and Tank smoked again. He was relaxing in front of me, leaving his urgent demeanor with the red glow of the bowl.

“More?” he asked and held it up. I shook my head. Tank stashed the bowl under the towels he pulled from the body of the kayak. “Let’s hope the tide’s going out.”

“And that we don’t drown.”

With a sly smile, Tank pulled the kayak into the water, and I pushed it from behind. We took it out past the breakers, and Tank climbed in. When he was steady, I climbed in the front and we paddled away from the shore.

I tried to memorize the pattern of lights. I searched for something out of the ordinary to lead us back, but I stopped after they all started to appear the same. What was the worst that could happen? We’d go ashore a few miles from the house and have a long walk back?

The worst thing that could happen was that we’d never make it back.

I stopped paddling. Jack would find us. He’d send the Coast Guard or take the other kayak out if he had to. Jack took care of things. He took care of people. He probably got that from his mother.

“Tank?” I laid my paddle across the kayak and rested my legs over it. I leaned back toward him. “What’s Jack’s family like?” I turned a little so I could just see him out of the corner of my eye. “What’s your family like?”

“Poor.”

I turned fully toward him. “Really?”

“Yeah. We’re the lower middle class of this group.” Tank paddled farther away from the shore. “They hang out with us because we’re cooler than them.” I hung my hand over the side of the kayak and let the water flow through my open fingers. “And because Jack and I took our high school football team to the state championship.”

“Did you win?”

“The game? Yes.”

“I had no idea you guys weren’t from affluent families, too.”

“The first clue should have been we’re the only two of this group working our asses off. Did you notice the rest of them seem to be taking time to figure things out? That’s the type of behavior money indulges. Rich people should be the most self-aware in the world.”

I sat up and slid my legs back under my paddle. “Why don’t you rest for a while and I’ll paddle us around?”

“Let’s both rest and see where we drift.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

Tank turned his head. I couldn’t see him in the dim moonlight. I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed. I turned my gaze to the moonless sky as a star shot across it.

“Tank! Did you see that?”

“Shh. I’m making a wish.” He sat silent for a moment. “You should, too.”

“I don’t know what to wish for.”

“That’s tragic.”

I knew I was tragic, and in the kayak with Tank, it bothered me.

I wished for Rufus to open up, and for him to be adopted by a nice family with a child who would adore him, and for a new apartment in case that didn’t happen.

“You’re different, Nora.”

“Does that mean fucked up?”

“We’re all fucked up. That wouldn’t make you different.” Tank laughed a little as he spoke.

“You seem to be better off than the rest of us,” I said.

Tank’s laugh bellowed through the empty sea air. It had an edge of horror to it as though I’d uncovered the secret to his sad existence. He stopped abruptly and said, “You’re okay. You’re like a string of Christmas lights.” I stayed still. “If just one bulb was replaced, you’d shine bright.” I blushed at his words. “We just have to figure out which bulb it is.”

“So, I’m salvageable?”

Tank paddled instead of answering. “Tell me something. Anything you want,” he said. I stared down at the black ocean beneath us. “Share this moment with me. Like old times.”

“We have no old times.”

“I think we do. Maybe in another life, but we’ve been together for a while.”

I inhaled deeply. I believed him. I believed in him.

When I couldn’t fit any more of the atmosphere inside me, I closed my eyes and said, “I’m still a virgin.” I shut them tight. The only sound was the water lapping against the side of the kayak. When the isolation wore on me, I forced myself to look back at him. No one else in the world knew, and I wanted to see his reaction as well as hear it.

“Wow. Now, that’s something.”

“I know.”

“Such a heavy weight,” he said, and it felt like he’d always resided right inside my mind. I relaxed in his understanding. “Most people drop it early because it’s too difficult to carry.”

“Yes. It’s a horrible burden.”

“Are you waiting to fall in love? Because that would seem like a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Because when the love goes away, you’ll have that tied to it, too.”

“Who says the love will go away?”

“It comes more than it stays.” With his words, my mother and my French teacher flashed through my mind, followed by my father. “The first person you have sex with touches your soul.”

“Tank—”

“I’m serious. You’re the virgin here. Remember? You need to listen to me.” I rolled my eyes, but he couldn’t see me. “You’ll never forget your first.
He
should be amazing even if the sex is not.”

“Who did you lose your virginity to?”

“The first girl who said yes.”

“Was she amazing?”

“Not really, but neither was I, I’m sure. I don’t want you to make a mistake.”

I nodded. “Why do you think it’s taken me this long? I don’t want to make a mistake, either.” I began to paddle again, and Tank joined me. Together we raced through the water until I stopped and let the current take us.

Tank paused and said, “Okay. I’ll do it.” I turned back to him, already knowing what he was offering. I didn’t have to say a word. Not one rejection. He was watching me and smiling like I was his favorite toy. Tank was innocence and love. “I’ll have sex with you.”

“You’re very kind.”

“I know it’s not supposed to be me.” There was no sadness to his words, only understanding. “There are so many decisions. Logistics, you know? Should it be daytime or nighttime? Raining or sunny? Are you into the verbal thing or quiet?”

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Of course it is. It’s the deepest part of your being. The last physical home of your soul. You’ve carried it this long. It’s a big deal.” Tank beheld the sky. “Each of us has our mind and our body to share. Most people are willing to give away their body before their mind, but you’ve held on to both.”

For too long,
I thought.

Tank and I stored the kayak in the garage, and he left me alone in our yard. I rinsed off in the outside shower, letting the water pour over my bathing suit before I slung it over the wall of the shower. It slapped against the rotting wood louder than I’d expected. It was just before dawn, and I hoped everyone would continue sleeping. I rung out my hair and wrapped myself in the first towel I’d found on the clothes line.

Rather than opening the back screen door that I knew would screech and wake Jack, I walked around to the front of the house and went in that way. Rob was passed out on the floor half sitting up with his lower back leaning against the front of the couch. There was an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts next to him and a beer between his knees. I fought the urge to help him to bed. We were no longer at the University of Delaware, and he was not my responsibility.

“I think I’m pregnant.” Blaire’s voice startled me.

My head shot up in her direction. Her eyes were fixed on Rob. “What?”

She left the corner of the hall she’d been leaning against and walked into the living room lit only by the television on in the corner with the sound turned down. It flashed light across the paneled walls and her ethereal skin. “I told him tonight that I think I’m pregnant, and this is where he slept.”

We both turned our attention to Rob. Even in his sleep, he had the delighted boyish grin that always made me feel there was still joy in the world waiting for me. All I had to do was join him and I’d have that grin, too. He was too young to have a baby. I was pretty sure men with babies slept in beds. Fathers of children quit smoking and got jobs. She must have the wrong guy. But Rob was the only guy Blaire had.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

Without a word, she turned and disappeared into the hallway. The light from the television echoed its silence across the walls of the room, and I heard Blaire’s door shut.

I abandoned Rob to find my bed. My feet stuck to the beer-stained floor of the kitchen. The newest photo on the fridge was of Blaire and Rob at a University of Delaware formal. She was gazing at him as if he’d just risen, and he was smiling at the camera or whoever was holding it. I slid past the box fan that attempted to draw the cool air from the kitchen and deposit it into my porch. Jack’s bed was empty.

He was in my bed. I tiptoed around him and silently rummaged through my bag at the end of my bed. I found shorts and a Blue Hens T-shirt and exchanged my towel for both. The towel I hung over the door to the kitchen to dry. When I turned, Jack was staring at me, completely awake.

“What are you doing up?” I asked.

“Waiting for you,” he said, and need poured over my exhausted body.

“What are you doing in my bed?”

“I missed you.” He held up the covers, beckoning me in beside him.

I climbed in, and he turned on his side and pulled me close to him. My arms were folded at my chest. In the silence of the morning, it was the safest I’d ever felt.

“Don’t worry. I’m still not going to have sex with you until you beg me.”

“I wasn’t worried,” I said, and Jack kissed the top of my head.

I closed my eyes.