Page 8 of 32 Days in May

All that sweating and for what? I press a hand to my heart to try and still its ridiculous hammering. He’s just some guy, I remind myself. It’s just one night. He’s no one. He’s nothing.

Sure, I text back. Meet on the boardwalk in thirty?

“Hey!”

Marco Antoniou lifts a hand and waves, looking like he just stumbled out of an episode of Baywatch. Tanned and easy and warm like a summer night. He fries my corneas with a five-thousand-watt smile.

No no no no no no no no.

He’s leaning against the railing, the ocean at his back, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his perfectly worn cords, wind pulling the fabric flush against his legs, so I can make out the exact shape and girth of his thighs.

Would it be rude if I just turned on my heels and booked it?

He keeps smiling and waving and I profoundly want to believe that Marco is not my type. There’s too much smile. So much smile, it makes me tired just to look at. But when I open my mouth to say hi or hey, “Sorry!” falls out instead.

Then, the babbling starts. All the while I adjust my bucket hat, which I wear everywhere now. It serves two core functions: protecting my delicate, rash-prone face from the sun and being deeply off-putting to almost everyone.

That’s really what unites humans regardless of race, gender, or creed: no one likes a woman in a weird hat.

“It’s such a crazy, windy day, isn’t it? I was going to wear a dress, but then I remembered spring is so windy and I was like, jeez—can’t do that! And then my housemates wanted to chat, and I just got caught up . . .”

Truthfully, I don’t even know if I’m late. What I’m really trying to say is: Sorry, I forgot to be hotter. I thought maybe I would be immune to your star power. That’s why I’m wearing overalls.

“You’re totally fine, seriously,” Marco says when I’ve finally run out of steam. He’s scratching at his forearms, trying to discreetly slide a cigarette butt into his back pocket. “I got some time to, uh, take in the view.”

Smoking’s been illegal on the boardwalk for about a decade now. There are signs everywhere, telling us exactly that. But I guess Marco has never met a law he doesn’t want to break.

I turn to look at what’s behind me. The old Pirate Bay Mini Golf. I arch a brow. “And, boy, what a view.”

He laughs softly and pushes the bill of his hat back with his knuckles, like a cowboy demurring to a maiden.

“Nadia, right?”

“Nadia,” I confirm.

I extend a hand at the exact moment he opens his arms—muscular with a smattering of soft black hair—and pulls me in for a hug.

It’s brief and more intimate than my last Pap smear. Underneath his white tee, Marco’s chest muscles flex. He smells like Acqua di Parma and an ashtray. His hands stay a respectful distance above my waist. I lean up on my tiptoes and tepidly pat at the center of his back when suddenly something tickles my nose and—

We break apart and I’m not even focused on the luminescent smile or the olfactory storytelling Marco’s doing, because I’ve noticed it.

Marco Antoniou has a mullet.

Not a feathered-edge ode to David Bowie or a nod to Jonathan Taylor Thomas’s soft, boyish flow.

This shit is thick, hard-bodied. It chews tobacco and pours concrete. Marco’s mullet is heavy layers of pitch-black hair, smoothed back from his face and sort of hidden under a Flyers hat, but I can still tell it’s a fucking mullet.

I take off my bucket hat and stuff it into my tote bag. We can’t both be deeply off-putting.

“My cousin said you’ve been here all winter,” Marco says. I feel his eyes follow the movement of my hand as I smooth back a flyaway curl from my face, and only once I’m absolutely positive he’s looked away, I steal a glance of my own.

Marco’s features are exactly as striking as one would expect from a star. His forehead slopes heavily toward his brow; his nose is strong with a gentle hook; his jaw square and set; and when Marco smiles, his brown eyes crinkle kindly at the corners. For all his bad behavior, he looks like a cross between an ancient warrior and an all-American sweetie pie.

“Yeah,” I say. “Since January.”

We wander toward the far end of the boardwalk, toward the Pier Point Diner and the bike rental shop with the Technicolor marquee. “I haven’t spent more than two consecutive weeks here since I moved when I was fourteen. I’m almost jealous.”

“It was a temporary thing,” I tell him. “I’m staying at my parents’ place, taking some time away. But I think I might move down here—you know, full time.”