***
Usually, after making out with Erik for an hour after work, the wind on her face felt like a blessing, cooling the heat of her body and bringing her back down to earth before she arrived home.
But not tonight.
Tonight her cheeks burned with longing and guilt, want and shame—and more than anything else, the sharpest frustration she’d ever felt.
Erik’s house would be empty tomorrow night.
And he’d invited her to stay the night.
After her initial wave of sharp desire to spend a whole night in his arms, she’d gotten angry—at him and at herself.
Why would he invite her to do something she wasn’t able to do? The only reason her double life had lasted this long was because they’d followed a strict set of rules. On weekdays and Saturdays, she left her father’s dock at three o’clock in the afternoon and returned by eleven o’clock at night. On Sundays she left at nine in the morning and returned by eleven in the evening. As long as she didn’t deviate from that plan, he didn’t ask questions, aside from an occasional “How’s work, li’l Laire?” which she always answered with a chipper “Just fine, Daddy.” And somehow—she chose to believe it was grace—she hadn’t been given away by either Mr. Mathers over on Ocracoke or Kyrstin, who covered for her regularly with little comments about how well she was doing at work.
But with such a carefully constructed web of deception, how in the world was she supposed to leave at three in the afternoon per usual and not return until the next day? It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible. Her father would notice if she wasn’t at home the next morning, and her sisters, who knew nothing about Erik, wouldn’t cover that big a lie for her. No. She couldn’t do it.
But it wasn’t fair how desperately she wanted to.
She wanted a night in Erik’s arms.
She wanted the memory of falling asleep beside him.
She wanted to know what it felt like to see him when her eyes opened first thing in the morning.
As their time wound down, he talked constantly about seeing her over Thanksgiving break, but he didn’t seem to understand that she still couldn’t conceive of telling her father about their relationship. With Buxton and the Pamlico House, Sundays with Erik, and being intimate with a dingbatter, there were too many lies.
For her to ever introduce Erik to her father, she’d need about a year to lay the groundwork.
First of all, after Erik went back to school, she would tell her father she’d found a year-round job on Buxton. He’d hem and haw, but she thought he might be okay with it after letting her work all summer, and plus, he’d regard it differently since it was off-season work. Jobs off-season were hard to come by—she didn’t think he’d stand in the way of her making money over the long, hard, cold months of fall and winter.
She could, perhaps, meet Erik for the first time over Thanksgiving break, and again over Christmas break, casually mentioning in front of her uncle that the governor’s son had recognized her waitressing at the Pamlico House and asked her out on a date.
Once or twice over the spring, she could mention Erik’s name again, and maybe, maybe by next summer, she could tell her father that she’d gone out with him a couple of times. By then, he’d be accustomed to her working away from Corey, and he’d have had time to let Erik’s name, however unwanted, become a part of her life. He still wouldn’t like it. He’d still raise the roof, but it would be better—so much better—than telling him at Thanksgiving, when he’d know she got involved with Erik while lying all summer.
She wanted Erik to understand, but every time she tried to tell him her plan, he circled back around to Thanksgiving again, insisting it was the best way. But she didn’t agree. Erik didn’t seem to understand that “pulling off the Band-Aid” wasn’t the way to communicate with Hook Cornish. And if she did, her father would stonewall her for sure.
With a heavy heart, she cut the engine close to home, floating softly up to the dock by her house and jumping soundlessly onto the dock. She tied up the boat, surprised to see the orange glow of her father’s pipe in the screened porch. Hmm. He was rarely up at this hour.
“Daddy?” she called through the screen as she walked up the flagstones.
“’Evenin’, Laire,” he said, his words garbled from the pipe he held between his teeth. “Waited up for you.”
“Everything okay?” she asked, trying to control the sudden bolt of panic that made her heart race and her hands go clammy.
“Aye-up. Issy came by with the baby for a spell. He’s a nice little thing, but he’s got his days and nights reversed.” He grinned at her. “Like you.”
“Me?” she asked, breathing easy as she sat down in her mother’s rocker.