Since Nicco and I were only going to Baker, I walked. There were no good places to be alone. Nicco’s roommate was having a party at his place, and so all we had was his car and the beach.
I hurried to the end of the street, took the stairwell to the shore. I could barely see the steps. The sun had set, and the fog was already drifting in. It sounds like one of Lila’s films, the fog some moody metaphor or bad omen, but I can’t help the way it was. When I reached the bottom, the beach looked like it was filled with floating apparitions.
“Boo,” he said. And then arms went around my waist. Hands pulled me close.
I let out a cry. “Goddamn it. Don’t scare me like that.”
“I didn’t want you to have to walk down here alone. It’s so hard to see.”
“It’s creepy. But beautiful.”
“You are.” He pulled me to him. His mouth was already on mine.
“Hey, thanks a lot,” I teased when we pulled away. I socked his arm. “Creepy but beautiful.”
“Only beautiful.”
It got crazy hot, fast. Mouths and mouths. Need. And here was another reason he was right about how sex changed everything, because who even wanted to joke around right then? Who cared about talking? I mean, telling each other about your first-grade teacher and your dreams for the future wasn’t this. It was nice and great and important, but not now.
It was just Nicco, and Nicco’s dark curls and dark eyes against the white of the night. He’d brought a blanket this time, the one I remembered from his bed, the woven blue one. We walked away from the parking lots, toward the darker end of Baker, toward China Beach, but we didn’t get very far. We were holding hands, and hands moved up arms, and then he turned and then I did, and his body was against mine, and we were drowning in it again.
“I wish we could go to my van, but the patrol car was right there in the parking lot,” he said.
“Is there nowhere in this city you can park a—”
“Come here.”
We were down on the sand. Somehow, the blanket had gotten under us. I didn’t even notice him spreading it out. We were kissing for a long time, trying to slow it down, because slow was maybe better. My sundress was shoved up, and his shirt was off. The stupid sand was getting everywhere in spite of the blanket, and, God, Baker was always colder than you remembered. A wind picked up, and the fog swirled, and it was so eerie, and the mist from the sea blew up and dampened my skin.
“God, we’re getting soaked,” Nicco said. His hand was on my hair. He moved it down and cradled my face. “Mist on eyelashes.” Something for his notebook.
“Did you feel that?” I asked. Because, oh, no. That wasn’t mist. It was a drop, a big fat drop, landing on my bare shoulder.
“Noooo,” he groaned. Because, yes, there was another. And another. He stood up and so did I. He shook out the blanket and put it around me. “I didn’t even know it was supposed to rain! We’ll take our chances in the van.”
“Wait,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”
“I like ideas. I love ideas.”
Oh, God. Why did I say it? Why?
“No one’s home.”
“Wait. Are you sure?”
“Yeah. They were getting ready when I left.”
“No, I mean are you sure you want to go there?”
“Very.” Very, because there was no ghost voice then, was there? No terrible warning, knocking. I couldn’t hear anything over how I was feeling. Want was louder than anything else. “Look, the tide is out, and I can practically see our stairs.”
“Shortest distance between two points is a line,” he said as the rain started to fall harder.
We ran. My hair was soaked and so was his, and I could see that his clothes were getting soaked too. I wanted to take all that stuff off. Cold bodies in warm sheets—oh, it sounded amazing. I wondered what it would be like, him in my bed, where I’d so often thought about him. I was nervous about going there, but I did quick mental calculations. We wouldn’t be there long. Lila and Jake always stayed out really late.
We reached China Beach as the tide crept in. It did come in fast, so fast. We stood at the bottom of the 104 steps. We paused, and I saw Nicco’s profile, the way he looked toward the house above us. You could see it up there, even in the fog.
Nicco was reluctant. God, maybe he heard the voice, warning.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s fine, I promise.”
“Yeah?”
“Kiss,” I commanded, and then he did, and that settled it.
“Jesus,” he said. “What is it about you?”
We ran up the stairs. I still had that blanket around my shoulders. Halfway up, he caught me on the landing. And it was raining hard now, windy, enough that the wind whipped around those old mansions, but it didn’t matter, because it would be warm soon. We could just let the rain soak us and feel what it felt like to be in that storm together.
I laughed. He pressed me against the wall. The blanket fell off my shoulders, and his hands pulled the top of my sundress down, and as I shoved my hand down his shorts, my laugh wound its way up, up, up to 716 Sea Cliff Drive. Up the rest of those stairs, to the dark patio, where Jake sat brooding.
Nicco ground his hips against my hand, and then I didn’t want anything between us, so I took my hand out. I could feel the rain on my bare skin. I could feel Nicco’s mouth on my neck, and the rain and the wind and the fog and I was lost. Too lost to hear those footsteps, but not lost enough to feel the instant terror when I heard that roar.
“What the FUCK is going on here?” Jake shouted.
Oh my God—the panic! Shit. Shit!
Nicco broke away from me and struggled to pull on his shorts and I was trying to get my dress back up, and Nicco was shoving that blanket at me so Jake wouldn’t see me there, half naked.
“I… I…” Nicco was bending and shoving and buttoning. He could barely speak.
“Get the fuck out of here. GET. THE. FUCK. OUT. OF. HERE.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” Nicco’s voice shook.
“I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!” Jake was tearing down the stairs. He was almost to the landing. His shirt was open, and now he was getting drenched too. His face was twisted in rage.
“Sir, I’m sorry.…”
“Go,” I said. “Go.”
“I can’t leave you with—”
“Go! I mean it!”
Nicco hesitated. I gave his shoulder a little shove. And so he turned. He turned and ran down those steps and then he was gone.
“Look at the little pussy, running away!” Jake said, with the singsong of a playground bully. But then, when he reached the landing where I stood, his voice turned vicious. “You little slut. Look at you.” He grabbed a handful of the blanket and shoved me backward.
I clutched the blanket to my body. I felt so ashamed.
“I can’t even deal with this. This is crazy. This is OUT OF CONTROL.”
Well, he was right about that.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry,” he spit. “You disgust me. Get inside.” He put his hand around the back of my neck. I felt his fingers on my skin, pressing, and they felt bad there, where Nicco’s fingers had just been. Jake was leading me upstairs by the neck, and he was being rough, but it was his skin on mine that felt the worst.
“Jake,” I said. My voice was soft. He stopped and he looked at me then. He looked right into my eyes. The rain beat down, and he held my eyes as he always did. I wasn’t sure what I saw there, I wasn’t sure what he was going to do next, but I could feel his breath on my face, breath that smelled like some kind of alcohol. “Let me go.”
He dropped his hand. And then he whirled away from me and stomped back up those stairs. I felt so humiliated, but I hated him too. I hated his big, blocky head and his horrible, meaty hands and his money and this house and everything about him. I hated him. He repulsed me.
I put my hand to my neck where Jake’s fingers had been. I realized that my heart necklace was gone, lost somewhere in the night, the chain broken. I began to shiver. I was shivering so bad that every part of me was trembling. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run back down those stairs. To follow Nicco and never return. What would have happened then?
Something else. Something different.