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“We’re gonna get through it. Together. He’s gonna be okay, Jen.” I swallow.
“But really, what happened to your eye?”
“Sidewalk fight.”
“Sidewalk fight?” She pulls back and rolls her eyes. Just how I knew she would. “Seriously, Abel.”
three
. . .
Jen
Indecent Proposal
“You heading home?”Abel nods at the enormous pickup truck that takes up three golf cart parking spaces beside the marina. “Lemme give you a ride.”
Cars aren’t allowed on Bald Head. It’s golf carts and bikes only. But because Abel is a contractor, and because the company he and my brother work for basically owns the whole damn island, he’s allowed to have his truck here. He lives on Bald Head, but when he needs to get to the mainland, he’ll put his truck on a special barge that sails from the island to South Port.
I shake my head, even as my feet throb. These sandals are cute, but they were not made for the miles I just walked. “You’re not driving me all the way to Wilmington. Look, the ferry’s pulling in right now.”
On cue, the boat’s horn blares as it enters the marina, its North Carolina flag flapping proudly in the warm springtime breeze.
It’s a familiar sight. One I’ve seen hundreds, thousands of times going back and forth between Wilmington and BaldHead Island. I get why my entire family has moved here over the past five years. The island is paradise. A world away from, well, the real world and all its complications.
All its disappointments.
But now, suddenly, Bald Head feels different. The spell is broken. I smell the diesel fumes puffing from the ferry’s smokestack. See the cracks in the blacktop as I cross it, Abel beside me.
I see the red in his cheeks and the tears in his eyes, and it’s all so depressing and awful, I want nothing more than to leave.
Of course, I offered to stay. But Dad shooed me away, promising that his girlfriend, Lady Wade, was around to keep him company.
Abel digs a key fob out of the pocket of his jeans. The gunmetal grey truck chirps, its lights blinking once. “Barge is en route and should arrive in ten minutes. I gotta pick up some lumber on the mainland anyway.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re not going home alone, Jenny.” He opens the passenger side door and meets my eyes. “Get in.”
The nickname. The insistence that he keeps me company. The way he looks in his black T-shirt, biceps too big for the sleeves, brown curly hair too long.
A familiar spark of desire catches inside my skin. I’ve had more than ten years of practice at tamping it down. Pretending it doesn’t exist. Redirecting it.
But today, thanks to the annihilating news I just got, I’m defenseless against my desire for Abel. I let my eyes linger on his face a beat too long. I love the dark, thick beard he’s grown over the past year. Makes his eyes appear browner, a velvety shade that burns to amber in the sun.
He’s the kind of handsome that makes my stomach flip, even with his black eye. I really wish he’d stop hanging outwith the wrong women. Their husbands and boyfriends are clearly onto him.
“Jenny,” he repeats, clasping the top of the doorframe in his hand. His shirt rides up. His jeans hang low on his hips, so I’m able to see a generous slab of tanned stomach and side.
I’ve seen his dark, unapologetically lush happy trail many times. Everyone on Bald Head has. If Abel’s on a construction site on the island, he’s usually shirtless. An enterprising college student even made an Instagram account dedicated to his shirtlessness called Bald Head Construction Babe. Before it got shut down, the account’s tagline was something like “He’s available to nail, screw, pipe, hammer, and rail.”
I’m still not prepared for the way his bare skin makes my chest hurt.
He’s the only one who calls me Jenny. As a teen, I had a raging girl crush on Jennifer Lopez after watchingThe Wedding Plannerfor the seventieth time (I’m more than a little obsessed with nineties/early 2000s romcoms). One day, when I thought no one was home, I belted out the lyrics to her entire debut album while I worked on an art project. Turns out Abel was listening the whole time. He waited until I was done singing the last song to poke his head in the door, look at my work in progress, and say, “All right, Jenny from the block, I hate to tell you that you probably don’t have a career in singing, but bright side, you’re one hell of a painter.”
He’s called me Jenny ever since. I don’t like it. Iloveit. Probably because I’m only into guys who aren’t into me.
“Fine,” I say. “I think you’re being ridiculous. But thank you.” I climb into the truck and he closes the door behind me.
