Reckless Girls(7)

Nico once told me that he walked away from his family because of all the expectations: that he’d go to law school, and that he’d eventually be a partner in his dad’s firm. He hated the idea that he was just, as he put it, “a cog in the machine.” I guess I can appreciate that—there’s even a part of me that thinks it’s noble, to resist falling into a life that your parents have just created for you—but there are also times when it’s frustrating as fuck.

The past few months have been full of those times.

And then something else occurs to me. What if Nico comes back with all that cash and decides, hey, if he could get a few more jobs like that, what’s the point of ever leaving Hawaii? Where would that leave me?

“Make them pay for the Susannah first,” I finally say, and he looks over at me, surprised.

“What?”

“Add it to the cost. Tell them you’ll give them a much better, more authentic experience on your own boat, but it needs some repairs. I mean, how long will it take?”

Nico tilts his head back, looking up at the ceiling. “Jesus, a couple of days at most? The issue has always been money, not time. Dom has a new engine he’ll sell me, I can do the fiberglass work myself…”

He trails off, then drops the joint in a little jelly glass of water by the side of the mattress. “If we take the Susannah, will you come?”

When I don’t answer immediately, he pulls me closer, my breasts pressed against his chest, his breath warm on my face. “I want you there, babe. They want you there. What’s holding you back?”

“Do you think it’s gonna end in some weird sex thing?” I ask, and he grins.

“I definitely hope so.”

When I punch his shoulder, he just laughs, rolling me beneath him.

“You just want me to see you in action,” I joke. “All pirate-y and hot. Making them call you ‘Captain Nic’ or something.”

“Oooh, say it again,” he teases, his knee nudging my thigh open as I kiss him, smiling against his mouth.

The Susannah fixed, with enough money left over to stock her well. One job, and then finally—finally—the adventure I’d signed on for could start.

About fucking time.





BEFORE





“Golden Boy is back.”

Cam, another waitress at the Cove, smiles suggestively at Lux as they pass in the narrow hallway by the kitchen, both their trays heavy with empty glasses, ketchup-smeared plates, balled-up napkins.

And even though Lux is exhausted, her feet throbbing and her hair smelling depressingly like french fries, she feels a little sparkle shoot through her.

She’s felt it every time she’s seen him these past two weeks, and sometimes she thinks she looks forward to that sensation—the jolt of awareness that reminds her she can still feel something, besides sad and tired—more than she does actually seeing the guy.

But now, as she sneaks a peek around the wall at the bar, she remembers that no, actually seeing him is pretty fucking great, too.

It’s not just that he’s hot. Hot guys are a dime a dozen, and his specific brand of hot—that sun-kissed California boy, all tan biceps and white teeth and streaked blond hair—isn’t particularly notable, either. Lux went to college with guys like that, sees them here in the Cove nearly every night.

But Golden Boy is different.

Lux doesn’t know why exactly. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s usually alone when he comes to the bar, that he’s not part of some loud, jostling group of guys ordering pitchers of beer and tipping in loose change.

He almost always has a notebook with him, too, and as Lux watches him now, he pulls it out from the canvas bag slung over the back of his seat, tucking his hair behind his ear as he opens it up, a stubby pencil in one hand, a dark beer at his left.

“He asked about you tonight,” Cam says from behind her, and Lux turns, frowning.

“Bullshit.”

Cam laughs, shaking her head. “No, for real. Okay, he didn’t say, ‘Hey, where’s Lux McAllister, my future wife,’ but he did ask if ‘the redheaded waitress’ was working tonight.”

It’s silly, probably, to feel such a flush of pleasure at such an innocuous comment, but Lux blushes the whole way back to the kitchen, her pulse leaping around crazily as she sets her tray on the counter near the sinks.

Cam is right behind her, and nudges Lux’s foot with the toe of her sneaker. “Go talk to hiiiiim,” she sings, and Lux is already waving her off.

“And say what?”

“Say you heard he was looking for you.”

“Yeah, guys love it when you talk like you’re in a Western from 1956.”

Cam laughs again. “Fine,” she says. “Tell you what. He’s in my section. I’ll pick up table eight in yours, and you can have him. Deal?”

Lux almost tells her no, and later, much later, she’ll think about this moment in the kitchen at the Cove, the smell of fried fish around her, steam rolling over the industrial sinks, the clatter of silverware, the cooks bantering back and forth in Spanish. It doesn’t feel important then, doesn’t feel heavy or loaded. It’s just the chance to talk to a boy.

How can a thing as small as that change your entire life?

“Deal,” she says to Cam, smiling and reaching out her hand to shake on it.