Page 75 of Skalterra By Nightmare
I bit back the impulse to tell him to get off of me. As much as I wanted to snap at him, I didn’tactuallywant him to move. I relaxed, one timid muscle at a time, and leaned into the embrace.
“It could’ve been worse.” I reached up to place a hand on his where it rested on my shoulder. “They could’ve given me a really embarrassing haircut instead.”
Liam’s hair tickled my face as he laughed.
“Your hair is fine,” he promised. “I’m just an idiot with a knack for putting my foot in my mouth.”
We sat still for a moment, feeling the board roll with the tide beneath us. A gull cried, waves lapped at the rocky shore, and for the first time since graduation, some hidden knot inside me loosened.
Liam was annoying and perfect, but it was nice to have a friend.
“Also,” he whispered, “there was a starfish back there—”
I leaned hard to one side, and the ocean rushed up to swallow us.
My attack did not go without reward, and by the time we finally paddled into the cove, we’d pushed each other into the water a fair number of times. We’d stripped to our swimsuits, and our wet clothes sat in sopping wads at the bow of the board as I paddled us towards the beach.
Riley’s friends had already started the bonfire, and my face warmed in embarrassment at the sight of Sabrina watching us get closer. I focused on my grip on the paddle, watching where I dipped it into the water to pull us forward rather than meet her narrowed gaze.
Liam jumped into the water to pull us ashore the rest of the way, and I dropped to my knees to keep from losing my balance.
“I thought you were taking her to Ethel’s.” Sabrina made no effort to mask her irritation.
“We worked it out,” Liam said. Sabrina must’ve trusted him a great deal, because she fixed a strained smile on her face and waded into the water to offer me a hand off the board.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “For earlier.”
“Liam seems to have forgotten already,” she said, “so I guess I will too. Don’t worry about it.”
Her shoulders still seemed tense, however, and her smile refused to relax, but she was at least trying.
If she’d mentioned my parking lot blow-up to Riley’s friends, they didn’t act like it. One of them pulled Liam into a bear hug and they stood in the water, both in their swim trunks.
“He’s going to come back,” Liam promised. The other young man finally pulled away and pushed curly brown hair back from watering eyes.
“Yeah.” He nodded, but the tight press of his lips told me he’d likely already given up on his missing friend. He caught me staring and quickly composed himself. “Sorry, I’m Xander.”
Riley’s other friends introduced themselves as well, but I forgot their names as quickly as they said them. They knew me, however, as they’d all grown up in Keel Watch Harbor and all knew Gams.
The sun sank, but not before drying mine and Liam’s clothes. I huddled in my salt-crusted t-shirt by the bonfire as the others recounted their favorite Riley memories.
He sounded like a good guy, despite a mischievous streak. Sabrina laughed through a story about Riley trying to steal a vat of lemonade from the storeroom of her mother’s tavern to take to a child’s birthday party down the street. Another friend talked about a time he’d dared Riley to sneak into Gams’s workshop after she’d made it clear no one was to ever disturb her there. Riley had been caught, of course, and sentenced to cleaning Jonquil’s litter-box for a week. However, after the week of kitty litter finished, he continued to come back to the shop each day for the rest of the summer to clean Jonquil’s messes.
I laughed along with the stories, feeling like I’d known Riley. And maybe I had. I had a few fuzzy memories of visiting Gams as a little girl and playing with the Keel Watch Harbor kids, but their faces were blurred, and I couldn’t remember their names. I liked the idea that maybe one of them had been Riley. I couldn’t bear the thought that maybe it was too late to meet the guy starring in the stories around the bonfire.
Everyone had something to say about Riley except for Liam.
He sat on the same driftwood log as me, staring into the flames of the fire with the smallest crease to his brow. The hard lines of his neat frown would crack the tiniest of smiles when the stories warranted it, but the smiles never quite reached his eyes. The serious set of his jaw reminded me of Tiernan in a way, and Orla’s chiding voice echoed in the back of my mind.
He’s mourning Caitria.
But where Tiernan’s grief had made him rude, Liam’s had only made him kind, even when I’d given him no reason to be. Even when I’d been what I would’ve described to Orla as a “garbage friend”.
I thought about him kneeling down on the paddleboard to comfort me.
Not everyone was as unpleasant as Tiernan. Not everyone was as cruel as Linsey.
I slid down the driftwood log. Liam kept his eyes on the fire, but he shifted his leg so that our knees touched. I stared at the fire too, and lifted a careful arm. I hovered it over Liam’s shoulders for an awkward moment, and then lowered it to hold him at my side.
