Dear Diary

by Nancy Bush

  To her surprise he suddenly lifted a palm to her face, cupping her cheek and chin. It was the only time he’d ever done such a thing. She blinked in shock.

  “Tell me,” he urged, “I want to know.”

  She stared at his familiar face and her heart pumped hard and fast. She could tell Nick. He would understand. She opened her mouth to do just that, but the enormity of her father’s infidelity washed over her in a cold wave. Instead of responding, she could only look into the dark pools of Nick’s eyes and fight back a thundering wave of emotion.

  What Nick read in her face must have been something entirely different. His gaze suddenly fastened on her trembling lips in a way that made Rory’s breath catch. Then his thumb slid across her cheek and rubbed against her mouth, begging for entry.

  “Nick…” she protested softly.

  He shook his head and closed his eyes.

  Belatedly Rory realized that he was fighting his own emotional storm, and a thrill zinged through her. But she wasn’t ready for this, she thought wildly. Not from Nick. Not today. Still…

  “I—” he said, but he didn’t finish. His face was too close. She should turn away. She should.

  She was still telling herself that a heartbeat later when his mouth found hers.

  She sat frozen, too stunned to do more than sit utterly still. His breath was warm and moist, his lips firm and pressed to hers in a way that made her head spin. She could smell his clean scent, could feel increased pressure of slanting lips, could sense his tense fingers at her nape drawing her closer to him.

  “Rory,” he murmured, breaking contact for one millisecond, his eyes heavy-lidded. Passion simmered between his lashes like a flickering blue-gray flame while Rory’s eyes were wide and staring, her heart racing, noise filling her ears, a thundering beat of horse’s hooves. Every nerve screamed in warning. What are you doing? What are you doing! But another feeling stirred inside her, something deep and hot and primal. Like some long hibernating beast, her emotions finally yawned and stretched to awaken. Desire swept down her limbs, turning them liquid. She wanted to crush herself against him and block out the terrible memory of champagne and moans and her father’s treachery.

  She responded. Faintly at first. Afraid. But then she was kissing him back, wrapping her arms around him, marveling at the hard pressure of his mouth on hers and the desire that was building.

  But then Nick’s arms locked around her hard, and his mouth grew more insistent, crushingly demanding. His tongue entered her mouth and the shock of its urgent, wet warmth brought her back to her senses with a bang. Her mind’s eye saw her father’s thrusting hips and Eileen’s pleasure-filled face and she reared back in shock, planting shaking palms against Nick’s chest, her arms rigid with fear, her mind filled with terrible images of her father and his blond lover.

  A terrible moment passed where Nick just stared at her. She stared back, the blood pounding in her ears, her body trembling as if with fever.

  He straightened away from her, the muscles in his neck rigid. She understood he was fighting for control, but she couldn’t help him, couldn’t explain that it had nothing to do with his kiss. That it was a matter of timing, nothing more.

  “I’m sorry,” he said shortly.

  “I just want… a friend,” Rory choked out.

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t.” To her humiliation, she felt fresh tears gather behind her eyelids. She felt battered and tossed by her emotions, and she couldn’t deal with one more stressful scene.

  Nick saw her tears and misunderstood. “God, Rory,” he muttered in self-deprecation. “Don’t make me hate myself for kissing you.”

  “It’s not you.”

  “Oh, sure. It’s not me, it’s you. I get it.”

  “I mean it, Nick.”

  “Yeah.”

  Of course he didn’t believe her, and she had little strength left to convince him. She tried to explain a little bit, however. “I’ve got some problems at home. I really need a friend right now.” She hesitated. “Just a friend.”

  In the half light of the movie theater his face was shadowed and more alien than she remembered. But then he leaned forward, searching her gaze as if trying to fathom her secret. “Just a friend?”

  “Can you‌—‌would that be okay? Friend?”

  He nodded. “You got it, let’s get out of here, I’ll take you home.”

  Relief lightened her heart a little. “Nick?” she called anxiously when he stood up from his seat and they headed out under the watchful glare of Helga, the sole employee.

  “Leaving so soon?” the woman demanded in a thick, German accent.

  That brought Rory up short and Nick, too. They looked at each other and then both of them broke out in laughter, nearly doubling over. Rory was wiping tears of hilarity from her eyes as they headed outside and Nick asked, “What do you expect from the Movie Haus?”

  “I don’t know.” She was laughing hard, a reaction she knew, to the day’s events. But it felt good. “Nick…?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Don’t ever stop being my friend, okay?”

  He gave her a sidelong look as they headed to his BMW. Something in her anxious tone must have penetrated because he stopped at the car and lifted his little finger, holding it out to her. She hooked her own through it.

  “Pinkie swear,” he said.

  “Pinkie swear,” she answered back with relief.

  Friends for life. That’s all she wanted. Friendship. Forever and ever.

  DEAR DIARY — NANCY BUSH

  Chapter Three

  Spring Term

  Okay, it’s honesty time. I was a complete idiot. STUPID. I thought I was in love and Ryan seemed so great. I should’ve known better. I should’ve known there’d be a Diane out there somewhere. There always is. Even Nick can’t manage to stay faithful. His list of women would fill a hard drive. But at least he knows what he’s doing. I’m just such an idiot. It’s painful to be me. PAINFUL. But I won’t let it happen again. Not in this lifetime.

  Rory tightened her grip on her messenger bag as she locked the door to her beat-up, old blue Mustang, a relic she’d purchased with the money she’d earned last summer working at Nordstrom. Only lately she’d heard this grinding sound coming from somewhere near the left front wheel. She was certain the car’s death was imminent, and she had no funds left to repair it. For the time being, however, it still managed to wheeze and throb from Wazzu all the way to Seattle, so here she was, on the U-Dub campus, in search of Nick.

  It was spring term and the weather was cloudy and cool. Rory glanced around the parking lot and checked her cell phone. This was the lot where Nick had told her to meet him, wasn’t it? She scrolled anxiously through her texts, looking for an address. In the three years since they’d both started school at different colleges‌—‌Nick at the University of Washington; Rory at Washington State near Pullman‌—‌she had only been to visit Nick once, when he was a freshman living in the dorm. It was too expensive for Rory to take off for a whole weekend; she simply didn’t have the money. Besides, she spent most of her free time studying anyway. Well, except for that magical time with Ryan, that had turned out to something less than perfect, but that was over now… .

  “Come on, Nick,” she muttered, climbing onto the hood of her car and sitting with her sneakers propped on the near-rusted left fender. She swept her thick ponytail over her shoulder. She wasn’t going to think about Ryan now, or why Nick’s invitation to visit had seemed like a godsend. She was out of her mind to be here when she had so much to do. There would be hell to pay on Monday, but damn it all, she needed to get away.

  Ding-ding-ding.

  The sound of a bell caught Rory’s attention. She looked around to see Nick astride a metallic-blue ten-speed, grinning at her, his fingers snapping the hammer of a bell attached to the bike’s handlebars.

  His legs were tanned and muscular beneath a pair of khaki shorts. A thin, dark brown sweatshirt was zipped to hi
s neck, its back billowing in the breeze, the sleeves shoved back to his elbows. His dark hair rippled, and his gray eyes seemed to laugh. Rory hadn’t seen him since the summer before at Piper Point, and she was struck by how much older he looked.

  “You made it,” he greeted her happily.

  “Just barely. Seattle traffic’s a killer. I’m lucky to be alive.” Jumping off her car, she asked, “So, are you going to tell me why we met here and not at your place?”

  “Because I live with frat buddies who are all drunks, boors and perverts. You’ve stayed away for too long. I wasn’t going to give you another reason.”

  “Seriously. They’re that bad?”

  “And then some. I’m trying to kick them out while you’re here.” He turned his bike to face back the way he’d come and said, “Ready?”

  Actually Rory wasn’t even close to being ready. Nick’s casual remarks about his roommates made her realize how unprepared she was. Frat boys. That didn’t sound good. Whatever had possessed her into coming? She had nowhere to stay, and now she was reluctant to sack out at Nick’s regardless of the sleeping bag she had stowed in her trunk.

  “You didn’t have to kick them out. I’m not spending the night.”

  He turned around slowly. “What do you mean?”

  “Finals are next week, and I’m crazy to be here.”

  “You’re not driving all the way back to Pullman tonight. To hell with that. You said you were coming for the weekend.”

  “Yeah, well… I was wrong. I can’t stay. I just wanted to… see you, I guess, but I didn’t think it through.”

  “What is it, Rory?” he asked, gliding the bike her way until he was inches from where she stood. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “No.” His perception amazed her.

  “You haven’t come here in years and you’ve been busy when I’ve tried to see you. Now you’re going to be here‌—‌what?‌—‌two hours, maybe? Come on. You can have my room. I sleep on the couch half the time anyway. Just don’t leave.” Twisting the bike around, he called, “Follow me.”

  He took off before she could respond, apparently unwilling to listen to any more excuses. Muttering to herself about his incredible pigheadedness, Rory slid behind the steering wheel and turned the ignition. The engine groaned and chugged. “Come on,” Rory said through her teeth, pumping the accelerator. “Come on.”

  The engine turned unwillingly and finally caught, pinging loudly. Rory didn’t give it time to quit on her. She hit the accelerator and reversed rapidly, then cruised quickly in the direction Nick had taken.

  His bike was whisking along the sidewalk. She could see his brown sweatshirt and his khaki-clad, muscled thighs peddling in the distance. He turned right at the edge of campus and headed in the direction of Queen Anne Hill. Though she’d never been there, she knew the house he and his buddies rented was about three miles away. It was built circa 1910, and had three stories and was in a fairly respectable neighborhood, although, according to Nick, his particular house had gone to seed. That’s why it was rented to frat boys.

  Expecting to have to pace herself, Rory was surprised how quickly Nick rode. She kept an even speed behind him, chafing when she got caught at the light, frantic when he seemed to have vanished into thin air.

  But then she saw his bike starting to climb upward. She realized now why he’d chosen to ride a ten-speed than drive; it was faster. Keeping him in her sights, she tailed a dismally slow driver, finally cutting free just when Nick disappeared onto a residential street about six blocks away.

  Rory followed quickly, turning onto an avenue of small, older homes, some kept up, others having let time and the elements erode their once elegant structures. Nick was waiting on the sidewalk in front of a rambling green house.

  “Took you long enough.” He grinned as she rolled down her window. “Well, here it is‌—‌home, sweet home.”

  The driveway was two fir-needle strewn ruts, the center of which sported foot-high dandelions. As Rory cautiously turned in, the dandelions brushed the underside of her car.

  Music, heavy and throbbing, poured from an upstairs window as she pulled to a stop behind another car, this one sleek, gray and expensive. Nick’s, she knew, because she’d seen it last summer when he’d dropped by her mom’s apartment.

  Rory yanked on the emergency brake and cut the engine. Her mother and Michelle lived by themselves now; her father had moved to Chicago. The divorce had occurred right after the incident in the kitchen. Rory hadn’t told her mother. She hadn’t had the nerve. But it wasn’t necessary. Her parents’ marriage had been crumbling for years and it finally ended under the weight of its own bitterness and anger.

  “Hey, Shard!” a male voice yelled above the music. “Jenny called. Twice. She’s gonna be here in ten.”

  Rory stepped uneasily from her car, slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder. Nick was just finishing locking his bike to the rail that ran around the front porch.

  “Yo, Nick? Ya hear me?”

  “I heard you,” Nick responded.

  The voice belonged to a blond guy hanging out of an upstairs window. He was shirtless even though the temperature wasn’t even sixty degrees. The male is a strange animal, she decided with a shake of her head.

  “Who’s Jenny, or should I even ask?” Rory inquired as Nick walked back to her.

  “Jenny Sumpter.”

  “Our Jenny Sumpter?” Her jaw dropped. “From Piper Point? She goes here?”

  “Uh-huh. Have you got anything else? Like an overnight bag or something?”

  She shook her head though there was a bag in the trunk along with her sleeping bag. “You’re dating Jenny Sumpter?”

  “Mmm-hmm. You sure you didn’t bring anything else?”

  “Nope.”

  “You really drove almost all the way across the state just to say hello? That’s crazy stuff.”

  “I could say the same of you. Did U-Dub run out of women or something? Jenny Sumpter? Piper Point’s cheerleader extraordinaire? Even you didn’t much like her in high school.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “Well, I like her okay now.” He sent her a killer smile.

  Rory felt the wattage from that smile and tried not to let it affect her. Her mind went back to Ryan for a moment and she felt a ripple of pain. “You can’t help yourself, can you? Where there’s a woman, there’s a conquest.”

  “What?” He slid her a look as they headed for the front door. “I’m more discriminating than you give me credit for.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “I am,” he insisted. “You don’t know everything about me, even though you think you do.”

  Rory could have argued the point, but she didn’t. She merely nodded. Nick glared at her in mock anger as they walked inside the house. It smelled musty, as if mildew had taken over in a big way, and the front hall was dusty with footprints. The furniture was ripped and worn; garage sale rejects.

  “Well?” Nick asked.

  “Nice.”

  He laughed.

  Around the corner to the kitchen, Rory could see another male body in silhouette. He moved from the window to stand in the archway, his dark eyes assessing Rory in unabashed head to toe appraisal.

  “What have we here, Shard?” he asked, grinning hugely. “Naughty, naughty. What will Jenny say?”

  “Drop dead, J.D.,” Nick answered without heat.

  J.D. remained very much alive, and Rory, with an inward grimace, couldn’t help remembering her own appearance. She’d tossed on a pair of ripped jeans, probably in desperate need of a trip to the wash, and a gray pullover sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail she’d scarcely looked at when she’d raced out. She’d run away from the evidence of Ryan’s last indiscretion without even bothering to think about what she looked like.

  She’d simply wanted to escape.

  Footsteps clattered on the steps. Nick’s shirtless blond roommate appeared
, thrusting his arms through the sleeves of a wrinkled shirt. He gazed curiously at Rory.

  “Rory, this is Kevin,” Nick introduced. “And that’s J.D. Guys, this is Rory Camden. My friend.”

  “So you’re Rory.” Kevin’s freckled, almost homely, face broke into a grin. “Here we thought you were a figment of Nick’s imagination. We heard a lot about you, but we didn’t really believe you existed.”

  “She doesn’t,” Nick warned.

  “You didn’t tell us she was hot,” said J.D.

  Rory, who rarely ever blushed, felt heat invade her face. A by-product of Ryan’s desertion, she thought miserably, struggling to regain the cool control that had become her trademark throughout high school and the ugly nastiness of her parents’ divorce.

  Another car pulled into the drive, its horn honking loud and long. Rory could see at least three guys jammed inside the tiny Prius. “What is this place, a commune?” she asked.

  “Just some more Sig Eps.” Nick shrugged. “They don’t all live here.”

  “Coulda fooled me. Looks like you’re about to stage a revival meeting.”

  “Ha, ha. Come on, I’ll show you my room.”

  “Whoa,” J.D. said on a long whistle, his eyes alive with mischief. “Your room, Mr. Shard?”

  To Rory’s surprise, Nick turned so swiftly she nearly tripped on the bottom step and slammed into his broad chest. He didn’t say a word, just stared at J.D. in a way that made Rory’s stomach clench apprehensively.

  If J.D. got the message, he didn’t show it, but Rory’s blood turned to ice at the look of pure challenge she could see in Nick’s eyes. She’d almost forgotten the attractive blue streaks in his gray eyes, but she saw them now as his gaze bored into J.D.

  “Come on, Rory,” he said, turning back to the stairs. “Before blood is shed.”

  She quickly hurried after him, glancing back down at J.D. as they rounded the landing. “You don’t have to take care of me, Nick,” she said in an undertone. “I’m twenty-one. I can even legally drink.”