Nick’s eyes are lighting up. He’s him. The funny one who sent me a hilarious cat meme yesterday. The sexy man whose eyes almost disappear when he’s laughing hard.
“Okay,” I say, and open the back door, gently putting the sweatshirt on the seat as I calm myself down.
“Good answer!” Nick says, and gets in the passenger seat.
"What do you think is the best way to get there?" I ask, starting the car.
“Head down the one thirty-three; the place I’m thinking of is in Newport Coast off PCH—best views ever.”
We head toward the beach, and Nick rolls his window down, resting his arm on the top of the door. Then he turns to me. “You want to stop for ice cream first?”
I think about last night. How we toasted our love with our cones. Mint chip for me. A double scoop of vanilla for him. I remember thinking it was the first time I’d really felt peaceful in as long as I could remember. And I’d love to have that feeling again. Because I know once I ask him about the purse and the ID, there’s no turning back.
“That sounds nice.”
We eat our cones at a table outside the parlor and watch the waves slowly roll in. It’s peaceful, hypnotic—almost enough to let me pretend I wasn’t in Nick’s walk-in closet just an hour ago. He talks mostly about his last shift—and I try my best to listen. But I can only go a few minutes without thinking about the ID and the purse. And how he will explain them. If he can explain them. Beth would tell me I’m crazy to be sitting here eating ice cream when I should be confronting him. But—and there are so many buts. Because either way, someone is going to get hurt by what is said. And I’m tired of being hurt. I think back to when I’d glanced through my peephole that day the police came to tell me James was dead. How I would have loved to have just a few more moments of not knowing! Just one more day of having my biggest problem be a leaky faucet. I ponder those last moments more than I should—wishing I could go back and be the naive girl behind that door.
“You were on my mind today,” Nick says when we get back inside my car.
“Oh?” I ask as I turn the ignition and back out of the parking space.
“I think about you a lot.”
“And?”
“Well, I don’t want to scare you away by saying this—in fact the guys at the station told me I’d be nuts to admit this to you right now. But I’m going to take a risk and do it anyway . . .” He runs his fingers through his hair. “I realized that you’re my soul mate.”
I let the words sit there for a moment, turning them over in my mind. I’ve never believed there’s just one person for everyone.
“Too much?” He laughs lightly, searching my face.
“No,” I say, and pause before adding, “I’m just taking it all in.”
Taking him in. Wondering if I know him at all.
“I realize it’s probably too soon when we’ve just said the l word, but it’s different with you.”
“Wow . . . I’m . . . flattered.”
“Flattered?” he asks, and I cringe.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean flattered. I don’t know. I’m a little caught off guard is all.”
Nick stares at me, almost as if he’s looking through me. And I feel pressure to say something to take the weight of his gaze off me. “I love you,” I say, but my stomach knots at the words. They feel wrong. Like they’re the last thing I should be saying right now.
“But that’s not the same thing, is it?” he asks, sounding hurt. “Do you believe you’re my soul mate?”
His phrasing of the question throws me off. Am I understanding him right? That he isn’t asking if he’s mine? Just if I think I’m his?
Dylan’s purse and ID are practically screaming at me from the backseat, and I know I can’t ignore them for much longer—hiding the truth no longer seems like a viable option. Could Nick have lied to me about how he came to have her purse—but be telling the truth about thinking I’m his soul mate? Were things with me really different than they had been with Dylan? I’m going to ask him about the purse as soon as we get to the hotel. Until then, my instincts tell me to be agreeable. “I do. I do think we’re soul mates,” I say.
“Do you think you’re mine?”
“Yes, that’s what I just said.”
“Not exactly,” he says.
Why is this so important to him?
Before I can respond, he continues. “Because the thing is, Jacks, for this to really work between us, we need to be on the same page.”
“We are on the same page—I love you.” I feel squeamish after I say those words. There’s something off-putting about his tone, his demeanor, his needing me to say this a certain way.
“But do you love me more than you’ve loved anyone else?”
His question feels like a punch in the stomach, because I know he’s asking about James. You’re two different people. I can’t compare you,” I manage, judging the distance to Newport Coast Drive in my mind. I ask, judging the distance to it in my mind. My heart thuds in my chest as I calculate; it’s still several minutes away. I know I need to ask him, but I’m so scared. Maybe I should turn the car around. Drive to Beth’s. Have her there when I question him.
“Yes,” he says. “And you’re probably going to need your sweatshirt. It will be chilly once we get outside.”
Nick reaches into the backseat to grab the shirt. “Wait,” I say, but he’s already unbuckling his seat belt.
“What the—”
He doesn’t finish. But he doesn’t have to. His face freezes as he sees the purse. “What are you doing with this? This doesn’t belong to you.”
“I—”
“You went through my things?” He raises his voice. “Is that why you were in my place?”
“Nick, I—”
“You don’t trust me?” he asks, like it’s the most inconceivable thing in the world.
As I look into his eyes, my first instinct is to say that I do. Because he’s been there for me through the worst time of my life. I’ve confided in him. He’s listened. But the purse. The purse doesn’t make sense.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You know, I love you more than I loved Dylan. But you obviously don’t love me more than you loved James,” he says, and I feel myself getting defensive. My love for James isn’t in the past tense. I’m not sure it ever will be. Or if I ever want it to be. That love is deep. With roots. It is complicated and quirky and now he’s gone, but it’s still ours. And that can’t be measured. But before I can respond, Nick dives in again.
“He cheated on you. I would never do that to you. But yet it’s my home you snoop through?” Nick says, and when he puts it this way, it does seem wrong.
“Nick, I was going to tell you. Because obviously we need to talk about what I found and why you have it—”
Nick turns away, and his shoulders start shaking.
“Nick?” I say his name a few times, but he doesn’t respond. Finally he turns, and there are tears streaming down his face. There’s something about his overwhelming emotion right now that warns me not to reach out to him. Like he’s deliberately creating a wall between us with his tears.
“I thought you understood me, because you’d been through the same thing. It’s like you don’t care about me the way you should. And neither did Dylan. And I hate it when I give, give, give and get nothing in return. When I lose.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, a slow chill traveling up my spine. The red flags are becoming impossible to ignore. My gut tells me I already know the answers to my questions about the purse, the driver’s license, the stalking. The realization runs its way through me, quick and sharp.
“She gave herself to him, but she belonged to me.” Nick turns toward the window again.
There’s something about that word that pushes me to confront him. “Nick, were you engaged to Dylan when she died?”
He jerks his head around and stares at me. I grip the steering wheel tighter, bracing myself for his answer.
“Yes, I was,” he says slowly, and I let out a long breath.
So maybe there is an explanation for the rest of it.
After a beat, he says quietly, “In my heart I was.”