Page 2 of Holiday Tides

“I can’t believe…”

His hand lifts as if to brush something off my sleeve, or check if I’m not an optical illusion, or who knows. I don’t find out because an early fifties man with impressive mutton chops calls from a third-story, windowless hole. It must have held a large picture window at one point.

“What happened to Saint Mariah?”

Nick points at me, his focus stalling on the top of my head. I self-consciously pat it down, my palm pushing whipped cream into my roots. Terrific. I wasn’t planning on washing my hair today.

“Turn it back on when she leaves,” the man gruffly shouts before jovial humming joins what sounds like a sledgehammer crashing through drywall.

“What does he mean, ‘Saint Mariah?’”

Nick half-smirks. Seeing that familiar yet tormenting twist of lips almost pulls a growl from me. How many times had he quirked his lips just like that after setting a backhanded compliment at my feet?

“The patron saint of Christmas.”

I scoff. “I’m pretty sure Saint Nicholas already holds that position.”

His shoulders lift in a lazy shrug. “I know that, and you know that, but I’m not one to argue with Don. I don’t want a nailgun accidentally misfiring through my boot.” His fingers quoteaccidentally.

The way our banter slides right back into routine is dizzying. It feels like eleven and a half years vanished in a snap.

Nick looks me over again, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Seriously. What are you doing here?”

two

Summer

Logically, I know I don’t owe Nick Watson an explanation. I could just turn and walk away this minute, but I know how things work on Wilks Beach. He’s going to hear the whole story by the end of the day anyway.

And Nick’s confusion is warranted. I haven’t seen him since I left for my full-ride scholarship to the University of North Carolina, and he went off to whatever Ivy League he’d gotten into. An unhelpful voice in the back of my head states,Yale. You know he got into Yale.

Whatever I can do, Nick can do better.

His cronies used to joke that if future Nick and I were to have a “doctor-off,” I would lose. Basically, whoever had a patient die first while working as a physician fails. High school boys are idiots.

Wait. My brows tug together. Why is Nick Watson—the golden boy of Wilks Beach who got into Yale and then, I’m assuming, Yale Medical, with a guaranteed spot at his father’s plasticsurgery practice—wearing a WB Renovations logoed shirt over pecs that have no right being that distracting?

My brain suddenly feels like a shaken snow globe. I press my eyes closed, deciding to make things difficult for the man who made my junior and senior year unbearable. He can get his gossip from Dotty or Carol Cook—after they’ve shared it with three dozen others. Time to focus on the issue at hand.

“I don’t know what special permit you got to start construction at daybreak, but at least do it without hosting aChristmas at Rockefeller Centerspecial at the same time. Some of us are trying to sleep on our day off.”

Nick’s head tilts slightly, his forehead creasing in a way that shouldn’t be adorable. His hair is a bit longer than it’d been when we were younger but still neat on the sides and back. He pushes up his sleeve to expose an expensive diving watch. At least the watch is in line with my memories of Nick. Because his paint-splattered pants and steel-toed work boots make no sense. Maybe Nick is cos-playing as a blue-collar worker this weekend?

Rich people have weird hobbies.

“It’s 8:45, Sleeping Beauty.” His cocky smirk deepens. “City ordinances allow for construction starting at seven. Though, we started late today since, as you said, it’s a Saturday. My guys have been working hard for almost an hour, so they deserve a snack break and some Christmasy music to lift their spirits.”

“It can’t be almost nine.” I search the sky only to find gray-out from the pervasive stratus clouds.

Sleeping in is so rare for me that my mind automatically jolts to the last time I did—when I discovered something that shattered decades of friendship. Pain ribbons through my ribs. Before I can control my erratic breathing, the ocean breeze brings Nick’s cologne straight into my nostrils. I snort in an attempt to dispel the delectable scent—cedarwood undertoned with a hint of pepper. When that doesn’t work, escape seemslike the best option. I’m too emotionally exhausted to also be subjected to olfactory warfare.

Nick’s snarky expression drops when I take a step backward, his gaze bouncing to the ground. Then his hands are firmly bracing my upper arms, stopping my movement.

“You should have shoes on.” He scans the sandy dirt around my freezing toes, their shade nearly rivaling the blue of my sweatshirt. “There are nails, and shards of metal, and—”

“I’ll be fine.”

I wrench one arm out of his grip, determined to storm away, when a thick, six-foot roll of aqua carpet is flung from the picture window hole upstairs. It hits the white paver walkway nearest the house before rolling over the grass straight toward us. My quads tense to bolt away, but Nick is faster, sliding one hand under my knees and sweeping my legs from under me.

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