Sandcastle Beach--Includes a Bonus Novella

by Jenny Holiday

  She handed him a bottle of sparkling water. “This is a fake hospitality gesture since I sort of sprang this on you. I hope you have some of my Riesling.”

  He did. “Her” Riesling was a limited edition from a Niagara winery. He’d had it on the menu at the bar briefly three years ago. When Maya had gone bananas over it, he’d pulled it from the list and served it only to her because he only had a case of it left. He’d gone on to order as much more as was out there, and the next year the vineyard had produced a remarkably similar vintage, but a smaller one. He would eventually run out, so he was rationing it.

  He waved away the “fake hospitality” water and turned for the kitchen, where he pulled the wine from the fridge. As he poured, he studied her face. She still looked…not sparkly. He kind of wanted to know what was wrong, but the thing about truces was that they didn’t involve talking. There might be some logistical discussion regarding the menus in the app. But that was it. After that, they watched in silence. It was an interesting contrast to their usual, public mode of constant bickering. All in all, they probably spoke less than a hundred words to each other during truces. Maya might talk to the TV, of course, to her beloved Crystal Palace, but to him? No.

  He carried a couple glasses of wine over to the coffee table, realizing that when he turned the TV on, Much Ado about Nothing would still be on. “Do me a favor and grab me a glass of that sparkling water while I futz with this? My Apple TV has been acting up.”

  Miraculously, she got up and went to the kitchen. He found the remote and did some speedy ninja moves to dispose of the Much Ado about Nothing evidence.

  By the time she was back—she’d gotten the water, but she set the glass down on the coffee table with a much louder thump than was necessary, as if it pained her to wait on him—he had their menu up. “We can watch old matches or highlights reels.” He scrolled back. “What’s your pleasure?”

  “Whatever,” she said in a monotone. “You pick.”

  This was the part where if they were friends—or if he were the bartender and she were a generic customer—he would ask what was wrong. But neither of those things was the case, so he selected a match. “Versus Man United last March. That was a good one.” Manchester United was one of the only Premier League clubs he’d heard of before Maya and her Crystal Palace obsession came into his life. They’d been favored in this match, but in the end Crystal Palace had eked out a win. Maybe revisiting it would help with whatever stick Maya had up her butt. “Okay?”

  “Sure,” she said with that same unnerving flatness.

  He cued it up and sat next to her on the sofa, but as always, he left a couple feet between them.

  She heaved a huge sigh as it started, which wasn’t unusual, but normally it would be a happier sigh. Like she’d had a long day, was unwinding from a show, and was settling in to watch her team. This was more resigned sounding. Defeated, even? And here he’d begun to think, by the end of last season, that she considered his apartment a haven of sorts. Clearly he was delusional.

  She was jumpy, too, which also wasn’t normal. It wasn’t that she couldn’t be excitable. God help you if Maya had an idea and you stood in the path of it. The woman had willed her theater company into being. But excitable wasn’t the same as jumpy. Normally she had good control of herself—he supposed that was the acting training—which was why it was so satisfying to watch her lose it when she got mad at him. He had seen her leading the theater camp kids she taught in the summer in meditation outside on the town green, and he swore she hadn’t so much as twitched an eyelid for ten minutes.

  But now her knee was bouncing up and down like she was on speed. His first impulse was to put his hand on it. To use the weight of his body to steady hers.

  But that wasn’t right.

  So instead he pointed to the bouncing knee and said, “A little hyper, are we?”

  “Oh, shut up.” She kept jiggling, probably just to irritate him.

  Law was an only child. He sometimes wondered if sitting watching soccer in silence with Maya while they suspended their hostilities was what having a sibling would be like. A little sister. Two people who annoyed each other but were frequently in proximity and had learned to make the best of it.

  She took out the hair thing that had been holding up her topknot. She did that when she was here. He tried not to stare, but seeing her with her hair down was so novel. He was always amazed at how such a seemingly sturdy construction was held in place by a single ring of elastic. She ran her fingers through her hair and massaged her neck, like it hurt, and let her head fall back against the sofa. Her dark hair fanned out against the pale-blue upholstery and looked like a waterfall with the colors reversed, raven water against blue rock.

  Yeah, this was not the way he would think about his sister.

  But whatever. He was overanalyzing this.

  She stopped jiggling, and he stopped comparing her hair to the wonders of nature. They settled into silence, the default mode for truces.

  He could tell when she fell asleep, about an hour later. She’d left her head lolled back on the sofa while she watched, as if it were too heavy to keep holding up, but she’d angled it sideways so she could see the TV. Nothing about her body position changed as she fell asleep, but her breathing became audible and gradually slowed.

  He took the opportunity to study her face. He’d thought of it, earlier, as “less sparkly” than usual, but he could see now, now that he had at-peace mode for contrast, that she’d been unsettled before, deeply unsettled.

  Should he let her sleep? She was obviously stressed about something.

  No. He was getting soft. The match was over, so there was no reason for her to stick around.

  He reached his hand out, intending to…What? Intending to what?

  If they rarely spoke during truces, they never touched.

  Forget truces, they never touched at all. They came close sometimes, usually when she was leaning forward at the bar and getting in his face about something. But it never actually happened. Not even the incidental contact he had with other customers. He always set Maya’s glass on the bar before pouring wine into it, and she always left cash for her bill lying on the bar.

  The only times he ever touched Maya were when they accidentally fell asleep in front of soccer. It didn’t happen often, but occasionally, if they were having a truce in the wee hours, after bar closing, the soft couch and the lulling, white-noise effect of the TV would conk them out. When that happened, sometimes he’d wake up with her head on his shoulder, or her legs on his lap. In that case, shifting out from under her was enough to wake her. Or he’d awaken to her violently shoving him into consciousness.

  So all right, maybe it was okay to touch her gently to wake her. There was precedent. It was kinder than her shoving method, anyway. Although “kind” wasn’t usually an approach he felt the need to employ when it came to Maya, people were defenseless when they were asleep. Sparring with Maya would be jerky if she weren’t so capable of dishing it back to him.

  Okay, then. He was going to do it. His first premeditated touch.

  But how? A hand on the cheek?

  No. That was weird.

  Her hair. He could sort of stroke her head. His hand floated out like it had its own agenda, but he put the brakes on. No. No stroking. Pat her head? He wouldn’t mind touching her hair, actually. It was so rarely down. Other than in her mermaid queen persona, he’d never seen it down except here in his apartment. It was probably soft. But if he patted, as opposed to stroked, would he even be able to tell it was soft?

  What was wrong with him? He wasn’t going to stroke her hair. God.

  She shifted in her sleep, and he caught a whiff of something woodsy. He leaned over her. She smelled like cedar but also like…sugar?

  No. He sniffed again. Vanilla? Whatever it was, it was a more subtle note than the wood. This was harder than the wine-tasting courses he’d taken when he’d started to get serious about the wine list at the bar.

  H
er eyes slipped open. Shit. Busted. His hand with a mind of its own was still floating a few inches from her head, and his face was right in there, too. He braced himself for the flaying that was coming, but she surprised him by smiling. He had often watched her smile at other people and thought about how he’d never gotten one of his own. But here it was. It was different from the smile she gave other people, though, the one he’d thought he wanted. Those smiles were big and blinding. This was soft. Warm and sleepy. Sexy. Like waking up next to him was something she did on the regular—like being happy to wake up next to him was something she did on the regular.

  He was frozen. He ordered himself to retract his ridiculous floating hand, at least, and just as he was about to, she tilted her head so it nestled in his palm, like a cat in search of a caress. Her hair was soft. It was—

  Oh shit. She was kissing him. She was kissing him.

  Well, sort of. It was more like she was touching her lips against his. There was barely any pressure at all, but it was such a goddamn jolt. It felt like his entire body had been plunged into the lake with no warning. It was—

  Over.

  “Oh my God!” She lurched away from him, doing a sort of roll under his still-hovering palm. “I…I thought you were someone else!”

  She’d thought he was someone else? She definitely had a Tinder-swiping habit, but damn, if she was actually hooking up with someone, she was being masterfully secretive about it. Who else was she waking up with? Who else was getting those intimate, sexy smiles?

  But maybe the more relevant question was, What was he supposed to do now? How to explain why he’d been hovering over her like a creeper? Hi, I was about to wake you up and I got distracted smelling you?

  Her phone rang, startling them both. Saved by the bell.

  She frowned at it before answering. He wondered who was calling her at eleven on a weeknight. But he wondered from afar—he took himself and his nose and his sentient hand as far away as possible, getting up and taking their empty glasses into the kitchen and trying to shake off that intimate, charged moment.

  “Hello?” Judging by Maya’s wary tone as she answered the phone, she didn’t know who was calling her at eleven on a weeknight, either. But then pure elation: “Oh my gosh, hi! I wasn’t expecting to hear from you! No, I wasn’t asleep!” Then some silence followed by, “Are you kidding me? Of course the offer still stands! I’m thrilled!”

  He had never heard her use so many exclamation points in a row. Was it the boy-band douchebag? It must be. Who else would make her so happy?

  Law made a mental note to check out this World War I movie Band Boy was supposedly so good in. He’d heard people talking about it since word had gotten out that Holden had been in town to attend a play.

  She laughed uproariously at something Holden said.

  I thought you were someone else.

  But no. Maya had only met Band Boy that one time, when he’d come to her murder mystery play.

  As far as Law knew. Which…wasn’t maybe that far. He got up and went back into the living room, hovering in the archway that divided it from the dining room.

  “But Much Ado about Nothing can definitely be serious,” she was saying. “I’m planning to make an analogy between the accusation of Hero and modern-day social media bullying with my staging.” She was silent for a while, listening. “No, not a hero. Hero is the name of one of the female leads in Much Ado.” She rolled her eyes, and Law smirked. It sounded like Band Boy didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “Definitely! Have your manager send me your numbers, and I’ll see what I can do.” After some more silence, she started murmuring sympathetically. “That I can definitely help with. Of course it’s included!” She nodded as she listened, and when she spoke again, her voice had taken on a more pragmatic tone. “Well, we are a nonprofit community theater, but let me see what I can do on that front.”

  She got up and started pacing. “Great!” She turned and threw one arm in the air in triumph. The sudden move made her hair, which she hadn’t returned to its topknot after waking, fan out like she was in a shampoo commercial. “I’m so thrilled, Holden!” She nodded enthusiastically while she listened to him. “Okay! Yes! Great! I’ll speak to you soon! Thank you so much!”

  She turned as she disconnected the call, and she either didn’t realize Law was back from the kitchen or she didn’t care. She didn’t make eye contact with him, just pressed one hand to her forehead like she was overwhelmed—with joy. Then, as if her legs could no longer hold her up, she collapsed into a smiling heap on his sofa.

  “Good news?” he inquired mildly, drawing her attention. Hopefully, whatever it was, it had eclipsed the odd moment they’d shared earlier.

  “Yes!” She shot up to a sitting position, her spine ramrod straight. With all the dramatic up-down-up, she was like a yo-yo in human form. “Except now I have to—” She stopped, became utterly still. She was staring at the coffee table.

  “What?”

  He realized with a thud in his gut what she was staring at. In his hurry to get the TV turned off, he’d forgotten his other piece of incriminating evidence—the restaurant loan paperwork. He lunged, but she got there first.

  Her mouth fell as she read silently. “Lawson’s Lunch!” she exclaimed. “Are you opening a restaurant?”

  She started paging through the business plan that had been under the loan papers, so there was no hiding it. “Yeah. It’s still in the early stages, but yeah.”

  Her lip curled as she let the papers flutter to the table like they were radioactive.

  “I don’t know why you care,” he said. As much as he hadn’t wanted her to see those papers, now that she had, he was annoyed by her disdain. “My entrepreneurial ambitions have no bearing on you or your life.”

  He expected her to say something like Except when your entrepreneurial ambitions are belching smoke all over my theater. But instead she merely said, “You’re right. They don’t.” She stood. “I have to go.”

  He followed her to the door. “You want me to walk you home?” he asked, as he always did when she was leaving his place at night.

  “No, I do not,” she said, as she always did. “I live less than a hundred feet from here.”

  It was good to be back to “normal,” going through the motions of their customary farewell, saying their lines like they were in a play.

  His body didn’t seem to be getting the back-to-normal message, though. He was jittery, and his hand, the one that had touched her face briefly, was tingling. “It’s been nice doing business with you.” That was always his final line. Delivered in a monotone that suggested that it had not, in fact, been nice. So he leaned into it.

  “Yep.” And that was her final line.

  Except actually, this time, he needed to go off script. Say one more thing. “Hey, uh, I haven’t told very many people about the restaurant. I don’t want—” Ugh. He hated having to ask her for anything, the idea of being in her debt.

  “You don’t want Pearl and Karl and Eiko all up in your face second-guessing every move you make until you’re driven to the brink of insanity before you even open?” she supplied cheerfully.

  He swallowed a laugh. She was confusing. In the space of ten seconds, she had him whooshing from panic to laughter. “Yeah. That.”

  “When are you opening?” she asked.

  “October, I hope. I want to get a winter under my belt before I get hit with tourist season.”

  “I will make you a deal, Benjamin Lawson.” She poked his chest. She actually physically poked him. It took him aback. It also caused a little shock at the spot where she’d made contact. “You.” She poked again. “Lay off your mermaid queen shenanigans this summer, and I will keep your little secret.” A final poke, a harder one, like the period at the end of a sentence.

  He considered her proposal. It seemed wrong to agree to it, because it seemed wrong to imagine anyone else as mermaid queen. But whatever. He was pretty sure she would end up elected regardless of wh
at he did or didn’t do, because anyone could see that Maya was the mermaid queen.

  He opened his mouth to agree, but she cut him off. “In fact, no, that’s probably not enough.” The finger landed on his chest again, and with it came another zap of electricity. “You make sure someone else gets elected mermaid queen, and you got yourself a deal.”

  Carefully and deliberately, he took her finger between his thumb and forefinger and moved if off his chest. He was trying for as little skin-to-skin contact as possible, because touching Maya felt like sticking his finger in an electrical socket, and he’d had about as much electrocution as he could handle for one night. “All right. Deal.” But then, if they were striking a deal, they should probably shake on it. So much for no skin-to-skin contact. He extended his hand.

  She looked at her index finger, which was still suspended in the air, for a long moment before unfurling the rest of her fingers to join it. Slowly she lowered her hand and inserted it into his. She looked like a robot trying out this thing called a hand for the first time.

  Her hand wasn’t cold like a robot’s would have been. It was warm. But it made him shiver. Which didn’t make any sense. She was that Disney ice princess, shooting a bolt of frigid lightning up through his arm and down his spine. She had a good handshake, though. It was firm and confident. Like her. He was not surprised she had lured a celebrity to town.

  He was also pretty sure he could trust her, which was another thing that didn’t make sense, given that she lived to antagonize him. But the way she looked directly into his eyes, like she was trying to suck his soul out through them, made him feel that on this topic at least, he didn’t have to worry about her betraying his confidence.

  They were still shaking hands. Well, really, they had stopped shaking, so it was more like they were holding hands. Just standing there holding hands and staring at each other while little electrical charges zinged up his arm. But it wasn’t their usual glaring-contest type of staring. And she seemed to realize it all of a sudden, because she looked away. Looked down, like she was hit with a bout of shyness, which was wildly, wildly out of character. So that couldn’t be it.