Chapter Text
Prologue:
Five Summers Ago
Nicks’s POV:
On Vacation, You can be anyone you want. Like a good book or an incredible outfit, being on vacation transports you into another version of yourself.
In your day-to-day life, maybe you can't even bob your head to the radio without being embraced, but on the right twinkly-lights-strung patio, with the right steel drum band, you’ll find yourself whirling and twirling with the best of them. On Vacation, your hair changes. The water is different, maybe the shampoo. Maybe you don’t bother to wash your hair at all, or brush it, because the salty ocean water curls it up in a way you love. You think, Maybe I could do this at home too. Maybe I could be this who doesn’t brush his hair, who doesn’t mind being sweaty or having sand in all his crevices. On vacation, you strike up conversations with strangers and forget that there are any stakes. If it turns out impossibly awkward, who cares? You’ll never see them again! You’re whoever you want to be. You can do what ever you want.
Sometimes the weather forces you into a particular situation, such as the one I’m in now and you have to find second-rate ways to entertain yourself as you wait out the rain. On my way out of the bathroom, I pause. Partly, this is because I’m still working on my game plan. Mostly, though, it’s because the floor is sticky that I lose my sandal and have to hobble back for it. I love everything about this place in theory, but in practice, I think letting my bare foot touch the anonymous filth on the laminate might be a good way to contract one of those rare diseases kept on the refrigerated vials if a secret CDC facility.
I dance-hop back to my shoe, slip my toes through the thin orange straps, whorl of thatched fans overhead; the door propped open so that., occasionally a burst of rain rips in off the black night to cool the sweating crowd. In the corner, a jukebox haloed in neon lights plays the Flamingos, “I Only Have Eyes for You.”
It’s a resort town but a local’s bar, free of printed sundresses and Tommy Bahama shirts, though also sadly lacking in cocktails garnished with spears of tropical fruit. If not for the storm, I would have chosen somewhere else for my last night in town. All week long the rain has been so bad, the thunder so constant, that my dreams of sandy white beached and glossy speedboats were dashed, and I along with the rest of the disappointed vacationers have spent my days pounding pina coladas in any crammed tourist trap I could find. Tonight, though, I couldn’t take any more dense crowds, long wait times, or gray-haired women in wedding rings drunkenly winking at me over their husband’s shoulders.
Thus, I found myself here. In a sticky-floored bar called BAR, scouring the meager crowd for my target. He’s sitting at the corner BAR’s bar itself. A man about my age, twenty-five, black curly hair and tall with broad shoulders, through so hunched you might not notice either of these last two facts on first glance. His head is bent over his phone, a look of quiet concretion visible on his profile. His teeth worry at his full bottom lip as his finger slowly swipes across the screen. Though not Disney World- level packed, this place is loud. Halfway between the jukebox crooning creepy late fifties tunes and the mounted TV opposite it, form which a weatherman shouts about record-braking rain, there’s a gaggle of men with identical hacking laughs that keep bursting out all at once. At the far end of the bar, the bartender keeps smacking the counter for emphasis as she chats up yellow-haired woman. The storm’s got the whole island feeling restless, and the cheap beer has everyone feeling rowdy. But the black curly haired man sitting on the corner stool has a stillness that makes him stick out. Actually, everything about him screams that he does not belong here. Despite the eighty-something-degree weather and one million percent-humidity, he’s dressed in a rumpled long sleeve button up and navy-blue trousers. He’s also suspiciously devoid of a tan, as well as any laughter, mirth, levity, etc.
Bingo. I push a fistful of strawberry blonde bangs from my eyes and set off towards him. As I approached, his eyes stayed fixed on his phone, his finger slowly dragging whatever he was reading up on the screen. I catch the bolded words CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. He’s fully reading a book at a bar. I swing my hip into the bar and slide my elbow over it as I face him. “Hey, tiger.” His dark blue eyes slowly lift to my face and blink. “Hi?” “Do You come here often?” I ask him. He studies me for a minute, visibly weighing potential replies. “No,” he says, finally. “I don’t live here.” “OH, "I say, but before I can get out anymore, he goes on. “And even if I did, I have a cat with a lot of medical needs that require specialized care. Makes it hard to get out.” I frown at just about every part of that sentence. “I’m so sorry,” I recover. “It must be awful to be dealing with all that while all that while also coping with a death.” His brow crinkles. “A death?” I wave a hand in a tight circle, gesturing at his getup. “Aren’t you in town for a funeral?” His mouth presses tight. “I am not.” “Then what brings you to town?” “A friend.” His eyes drop to his phone. “Live here?” I guess. "Dragged me, he corrects, “For vacation.” He says this last word with some disdain. I roll my eyes. “No way!” Away from your cat? With no good excuse except for enjoyment and merrymaking? Are you sure this person can really be called a friend?” “Less sure every second.” He says without looking up. He’s not giving me much to work with. but I'm not giving up. “So, I forge ahead. “What’s this friend like? Hot? Smart? Loaded?” “Tall, he says, still reading. “Loud. Never shuts up. Spills on every single article of clothing either of us wears, had horrible romantic taste, sobs thorough those commercials for community college- the ones where the single mom is staying up late at her computer and then, when she falls asleep, her kid drapes a blanket over her shoulders and smiles because he’s so proud of her? What else? Oh, He’s obsessed with shitty dive bars that smells like salmonella. I’m afraid to even drink the bottled beer here- have you seen the Yelp reviews for this place? “Are you kidding me right now? I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “Well, he says, “salmonella doesn’t have a smell, but yes, Nick, you are Tall. a bit taller than me actually.” “Charlie!” I swat his bicep, breaking character. “I’m trying to help you!” He rubs his arm. “Help me how?” “I know Ben broke your heart, but you need to back out there. And when a hot man approaches you at a bar, the number one thing you should not bring up is your codependent relationship with your asshole cat.” “First of all, Flannery O’ Connor is not an asshole, he says she’s shy.” “She’s evil.” “She just doesn’t like you.” he insists “You have strong dog energy.” “All I’ve ever done is try to pet her, I say. “Why have a pet who doesn’t want to be petted? “She wants to be petted, Charlie says. “You just approach her with this, like the wolfish gleam in your eye.”
“I do not.” I say
Nick Nelson.” He says. “You approach everything with a wolfish gleam in your eye.” Just then the bartender approaches with the drink I ordered before I ducked into the bathroom. Mister? She says, “Your Margarita.” She spins the frosted glass down the bar toward me, and a ping of excited thirst hits the back if my throat as I catch it. I swipe it so quickly that a fair amount of tequila sloshes over the lip, and with a preternatural and highly practiced speed, Charlie jerks my other arm off the bar before it can get liquor splattered on it. “See? Wolfish gleam,” Charlie says quietly, seriously, the way he delivers pretty much every word he ever says to me except on those rare and scared nights when Weirdo Charlie comes out and I get to watch him, like, lie on the floor fake sobbing into a microphone at karaoke, his dark curly hair sticking up in every direction and wrinkly dress shirt coming untucked. Just one hypothetical example. Of something that has exactly happened before.
Charlie Spring is a study of control. In that tall, broad, permanently slouched and/or pretzel-folded body of his, there’s a surplus of stoicism (the result of the oldest child of a widower with the most vocal anxiety of anyone I’ve ever met) and a stockpile of repression (the result of a strict religious upbringing in direct opposition to most of his passions namely, academia), alongside the most truly strange, secretly silly, and intensely softhearted goofball I’ve had the pleasure to know.
I take a sip of the margarita, and a hum of pleasure works its way out of me. “Dog in a human Body,” Charlie says to himself, then goes back to scrolling o his phone. I snort my disapproval of his comment and took another sip. “By the way, this margarita is like, ninety percent tequila. I hope you’re telling those unappeasable Yelp reviewers to shove it. And that this place smells nothing like salmonella.” I chug my drink a little more as I slid up onto the stool beside him, turning so our knees touch. I like how he always sits like this when we’re out together; his upper body facing the bar, his long legs facing me, like he is keeping some secret door to himself open just for me. And not a door only reserved never-quite-fully-smiling Charlie Spring that the rest of the world gets, but a path straight to the weirdo.
The Charlie who takes these trips with me, year after year, even though he despises flying and change and using any pillow other than the one he sleeps with at home. I like how, when we go out, he always beelines to the bar, because he knows I like to sit there, even though he once admitted that every time we do, he stresses out over whether he making too much or enough eye contact with the bartenders.
Truthfully, I like and/or love nearly everything about my best friend, Charlie Spring, and I want him to be happy, so even if I’ve never been particularly liked any of his past love interests- and especially didn’t care for his ex, Ben Fuckiing Hope. I know it’s up to me to make sure he doesn’t let this most recent heartbreak force hm into full hermit status. He'd do-and has done-the same for me after all.
“So, I say. “Should we take it from the top again?” I’ll be the sexy stranger at the bar, and you be your charming self, minus all the cat stuff. We’ll get you back in the man dating pool in no time.” He looks up from his phone, nearly smirking, I’ll just call it smirking, because for Charlie, this is as close as it gets.” “You mean the stranger who kicks things off with a well-timed “Hey, tiger?” I think we might have different ideas of what “Sexy” is. I spin on my stool, our knees bump-bumping as I turn away from him and then back, resetting my face into a flirtatious smile. “Did it hurt.... I say.... when you fell from heaven?” He shakes his head. Nick, it’s important to me that you know.” he says slowly, “That if I ever do manage to go on another date, it will have absolutely nothing to do with your so-called help.” I stand, throw back the rest of my drink dramatically, and slap the glass onto the bar. “So, what do you say we get out here?”
“How are you more successful at dating than me.” he says awed by the mystery of it all. “Easy,” I say. “I have lower standards. And no Flannery O’Connor to get in the way. And when I go out to bars, I don’t spend the whole time scowling at Yelp reviews and forcefully projecting DON’T TALK TO ME. Also, I am arguably, gorgeous from certain angels.”
He stands, setting a twenty on the bar before tucking his wallet back in his pocket, Charlie always carries cash, I don’t know why. I’ve asked him three times. He answered. I still don’t know why, because his answer was either too boring or too intellectually complex for my brain to even brother retaining the memory. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re an absolute freak. "He says. “You love me,” I point out, the tiniest bit defensive. He loops an arm around my shoulders and looks up at me. Another small, contained smile on his full lips. His face is a sieve, only letting out the smallest amount of expression at a time. “I know that” he says. I grinned down at him. “I love you back.” He fights the widening of his smile, keeps it small and faint. “I know that too.” The tequila has me feeling sleepy, lazy, and I let myself lean into him as we start toward the open door. “This was a good trip, I say. “Best yet.,” He agrees, the cool rain gusting around us like confetti form a cannon. His arms curl a little closer, warm and heavy around me. His clean cedarwood smell folding over my shoulders like a cape. “I haven't even minded the rain much,” I say as we step into the thick wet night, all buzzing mosquitos and palm trees shivering from the distant thunder. “I’ve preferred it.” Charlie lifts his arm from my shoulders and reaches up to curl his arm over my head, somehow transforming himself into a makeshift human umbrella as we sprint across the flooding road toward our little red rental car.
When we reach it, he breaks way and opens my door first-we scored a discount by taking a car without automatic locks or windows- then runs around the hood and hurls himself into the driver's seat. Charlie flicks the car into gear, the full-tilt AC hissing its arctic blast against our wet clothes as he pulls out of our parking space and turns toward our rental house.
“I just realized,” he says, we didn’t take any pictures at the bar for your blog.” I start to laugh, then realize that he’s not kidding.” Charlie, none of my readers want to see pictures of BAR. They don't want to read about BAR.” He shrugs. “I didn’t think BAR was that bad.” “You said it smelled like salmonella.” “Other than that.” He ticks the turn signal on and guides the car down our narrow, palm-tree-lined street. “Actually, I haven’t really gotten any useable pictures this week.” Charlie frowns and rubs his eyebrow as he slows toward the gravel driveway ahead.
“Other than the one you took.” I added quickly. The pictures Charlie volunteered to take for my social media are truly terrible. But I love him so much for being willing to take them that I already picked out the least atrocious one and posted it. I’m making one of those midword faces, shriek-laughing something at him as he tries-badly-to give me direction, and the storm clouds are visibly forming over me, as if I'm summoning the apocalypse to Sanibel Islnd myself. But at least you can tell I’m happy about it. When I look at that photo, I don’t remember what Charlie said to me to elicit that face, or what I yelled back at him. But I feel that same rush of warmth I get when I think about any of our past summer trips. That crush of happiness, that feeling that this is what life’s about: being somewhere beautiful, with someone you love. I tried to write about that in the caption, but it was hard to explain. Usually, my posts are all about travel on a budget, make the most of the least, but when you’ve got a hundred thousand people following your beach vacation, it’s ideal to show them...a beach vacation.
In the past week, we’ve had approximately forty minutes total on the shore of Spaniel Island. The rest has been spent holed up in bars and restaurants, bookstores and vintage shops plus a whole lot of time in the shabby bungalow we’re renting, eating popcorn and counting lighting streaks. We’ve gotten no tans, seen no tropical fish, done no snorkeling or sunbathing on catamarans, or much of anything aside from falling in and out of sleep on the squishy sofa with a Twilight Zone marathon humming its way into our dreams. These are the places you can see in their full glory, with or without sunshine, but this isn’t one of them.
“Hey, Charlie says as he puts the car in park. “Hey, what?” “Let’s take a picture, he says. “Together.” “You hate having your picture taken, I point out. Which has always been weird to me, because on a technical level. Charlie is extremely handsome. “I know,” Charlie says, “But it’s dark and I want to remember this.””Okay, I say. “Yeah. Let's take one.” I reached for my phone, but he already has his out.
Only instead of holding it up with the screen facing us so we can see ourselves he has it flipped around, the regular camera fixed on us rather than the front-facing one. “What are you doing?” I say, reaching for his phone. “That’s what selfie mode’s for, you are such an old man. Grandpa.” “No, he laughs, jerking it out of reach. “It’s not for your blog-we don't even have to look good. We just have to look like ourselves. If we it on selfie mode I won’t even want to take one.”
“You need help with your face dysphoria, I tell him. “How many thousands of pictures have I taken of you, Nick? He says. “Let’s do this one how I want to.”
“Okay, fine.” I lean across the console, settling in against his damp chest, “One....two-” The flash pops off before he ever gets to three. “You monster!” I scold. He flips the phone around to look at the picture and moans. “Noooooo, he says. I am a monster.” I choke over a laugh as I study the horrible ghostly blur of our faces: his wet hair sticking out in curlier curls, my bangs plastered frizzly on my forehead. Everything around us shiny and red form the heat, my eyes fully closed, his squinted and puffy. “How is it possible we’re both hard to see and so bad-looking simultaneously?”
Laughing, he throws his head back against the headrest. “Okay, I’m deleting it.”
“No!” I fight the phone out of his hand. He grabs onto it too, but I don’t let go, so we end up holding it between us over the center console. “I want you to send it to me from your phone so I can save it as my wallpaper,” I say.
Charlie raises an eyebrow. “What, to replace the pictures of your dogs, Henry and Nellie?”
“I’m fine with them being replaced by you and me, Char.” I glance down at the picture again. “I want to remember this vacation the way it really was. And I want us to look like ourselves.”
His smile is small and faint, like he isn't quite sure what to do with that. “Nick, you don’t look anything like that picture.”
I shake my head. “And you don’t either.”
For a long moment, we’re silent, like there’s nothing left to say now that we’ve settled it.
“Next year, let’s go somewhere cold,” Charlie says. “And dry.”
“Okay,” I say, grinning. “We’ll go somewhere cold.” "And dry."