Cycles 1: Autumnus

by ulstergirl

A year after Nancy breaks up with Ned, he manages to find his way back into her life. Complete.

5. Chapter 5

"So how was Emerson?"

"Good," Nancy responded, negotiating a turn. "We had a great trip."

"Is Bess with you?" Carson asked.

"No," Nancy replied. "She drove up later. Did you and Iris have a nice weekend?"

"Quite nice."

"That's good," Nancy replied, with a smile in her voice.

"I don't think we've seen each other in weeks," Carson said. "I take it there's no chance you'll be up in Chicago next weekend?"

"Actually, Ned asked me to come watch the game," she said. "I'm not sure why. Are you going to be in Chicago?"

"Just a little conference," Carson responded. "I have a suite anyway, you're welcome to stay with me and put disgustingly indulgent room service on my tab."

"How can I pass that up?" Nancy giggled. "And maybe if you're not doing anything, you could come to the game with me. George and Bess are both busy."

"Sounds like a date, Nan."

--

"Go Wildcats!"

Nancy was wearing a purple and orange Emerson sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up, cheering at the top of her lungs. Her father sat beside her, watching Ned.

"He hasn't had any pro offers yet?"

Nancy shook her head. "He's not a senior yet," she reminded him.

"From what I've seen, it's not a question of whether he'll get any, but which one he'll accept," Carson said. "You and Ned might be relocating pretty soon after you get married."

Nancy gazed silently at her father for a moment, then turned back to the game. While they waited for play to resume Ned shot a glance in her direction, his eyes warm.

"Do you really think…" she managed, then fell quiet again.

Carson shrugged. "I take it he hasn't talked about that."

"Not really," Nancy answered. "I mean, he loves to play, and he's obviously beautiful at it," she said, watching him elude the other team's players, "but he's never mentioned wanting to turn pro, play for a particular team, anything like that. It's always been choices between government service or IPOs or…" she waved her hand vaguely.

"There are risks involved," he agreed. "But he could play a few years and with endorsements, you two would be set for life."

"Are you honestly worried about us, Dad?" Nancy asked.

Carson shook his head. "No. Can't say I ever have been."

--

"The indoor pool closes at midnight."

"Thanks," Nancy replied, and hung up the phone. "Plenty of time, Dad," she called.

Carson yawned. "I think I'm gonna call it a night," he said. "Thanks, but I'll see you in the morning."

"Some sort of decadent breakfast in bed," she said, smiling. "Good night, Daddy."

"Good night." He blew her a kiss.

With her beach bag and a spare towel in her arms, Nancy left their hotel room and headed downstairs, to the pool. Once she reached the lobby, a guy with brown hair fell into step beside her.

"They give you any trouble?" she muttered out of the side of her mouth.

"I learned from you," he replied, his lips seemingly immobile. "Act like you own the place and no one questions it."

Once they were in the room with the pool, Nancy took off her robe to reveal a relatively modest two piece and tossed it over a lounge chair. Ned put his towel down with hers and pulled his shirt over his head.

"This thing is warm, right?" he asked. Three children were in the shallow end, splashing each other and laughing.

"If you want warm maybe we should hit the jacuzzi," Nancy said, gesturing over to her left.

"Nah," he replied. "Ten foot," he read off the side of the pool. "Follow my lead."

She laughed as he pulled her along, having no chance to do anything other than follow him as he tugged her hand. With a startled scream she jumped with him into the deep end of the pool. Once they had surfaced she wiped her wet hair out of her face and blinked at him. "It's freezing in here."

"If those kids weren't here I'd warm you up," Ned said in a voice pitched so only she could hear it. The two of them smiled over at the adults supervising.

"It'll be their bedtime soon," she returned, shooting him a dazzling smile. "No lifeguard on duty."

They did a few laps under the wide-eyed surveillance, careful not to do anything questionable. After a few minutes she climbed out of the pool, water streaming off her skin, and gestured for Ned to follow her.

"Can't wait for you," she whispered to him, then laughed. "So, just for a little while…"

They lowered themselves into the frothing water of the jacuzzi and Nancy sighed as her skin turned pink from the heat. "Nothing like being boiled alive."

"Think they'll be out of here in twenty minutes?" Ned asked, nodding over at the other group.

"I'm sure they will." She tilted her head back until her hair was submerged, then floated over to sit next to him.

"Your dad was nice to feed a starving college student," he said, brushing a tendril of her hair back. "Great dinner. I seem to remember that place from somewhere…"

Nancy playfully smacked his arm, interrupting his mock reminiscent look. "Yeah, I think we've shared dessert there once or twice."

"He really thinks I'd go pro?" Ned asked, looking down at the water.

"He thinks you're good enough," Nancy replied. "So do your coaches. So do I, for that matter."

She had seen his eyes light up when they had been talking about it over dinner, and she saw an echo of that look appear again. "I've never really thought about it," he muttered.

"Well, you never know," she said. "I mean, you tried out acting. You've got the looks for it." She smiled. "And we both know you have the talent to play professional ball. Who knows." She shrugged. "Don't rule it out."

"I won't," he said. He let the bubbles in the tub lift his legs and leaned back against the edge for a while. Then a smile curved his lips. "You like to travel?"

"A little," she teased him. "I'm here for your away game, aren't I?"

"This is Chicago," he said dismissively.

"But you particularly asked me to be here," she said, gazing at him. "To see this game. Were there scouts here?"

He shrugged. "I play the same regardless," he admitted. "I don't know if they were at this game."

"So that's not why you asked me here."

"No, it's not." He gazed over at the side of the pool, where the adults were shepherding their children and flotational devices out. "Oooh, we're finally about to be alone."

--

After Nancy had washed the chlorine out of her hair, she joined Ned in the sauna. He was leaning against the scorching-hot wood, a look of contented bliss on his face.

"Something in there other than the usual?" she asked, pointing at the heating element, as she joined him.

"Hope not," he mumbled. "Random drug screenings."

She gathered the wet strands of her hair and tossed them over one shoulder, then leaned against him and closed her eyes. "At least if I'm locked in this sauna I won't be alone."

He chuckled, then loosely wrapped an arm around her waist. "No one better lock either one of us in a sauna."

"Talk about being boiled alive," she murmured in response.

"You okay?"

"I could fall asleep."

Ned patted her side. "No falling asleep. Once we're dried out, let's go over to the victory party."

"Where?" she asked slowly.

"Back at my hotel."

"How far is it?"

Ned shrugged. "I walked it, but we can take a cab over."

She groaned. "My hair…" she said.

He planted a kiss on the crown of her head. "Looks fine. Put on a ballcap and come with me."

"Five more minutes," she said, snuggling into his side.

--

The party was always for either consolation or victory. The coach had turned the convention-center space of their hotel into a stocked entertainment spree, complete with pool tables and large-screen televisions with game consoles. Since so many of the players were underage, the snack tables were decked out with chips and soda, and a submarine sandwich that stretched their entire length.

With Ned's arm around her shoulders, Nancy gained entrance and looked around. "I'm always amazed they can do it this quick," she commented.

"I'm sick of playing 8-ball," one of the players said, then glanced over. "You two want to play?"

Nancy and Ned exchanged glances. "Sure," she spoke up, and chalked up.

She became self-conscious of the ballcap Ned had lent her, though, when she caught sight of Denise. Perfectly manicured, her hair shining, from a distance she looked like Nancy's more glamorous twin. In all the time they played pool, not once did she have to refill her own drink or plate.

Ned followed her gaze and then let his eyes return to her face. "Don't let it get to you," he said.

Nancy smiled. "I wouldn't," she replied, lining up her next shot.

After the game the two of them snuggled up on one of the overstuffed couches to watch a movie with the less adventurous players, many of whom looked as exhausted as Nancy felt.

"You beat your biggest rivals," Nancy murmured into Ned's ear, noticing his response. "I'd expect these guys to be tearing it up at a club somewhere."

"Yeah, but we played harder this game than we have all season," Ned told her, trailing his fingertips over the collar of her shirt. She shivered, and he pulled back. "I'm almost wiped out myself."

She rested her cheek against his shoulder and gazed at the television. "Go to sleep," she said. "I'll still be here."

"That would be boring as hell for you," he said, but slumped over so his head was in her lap. She stroked his hair back from his forehead, gazing down at him.

"It's not boring," she said. "I think this is about the safest way I can watch you sleep, anymore."

As she ran her fingernails gently over his scalp, he closed his eyes. "So that's the only reason you ever wanted to come over," he said, quietly, before he tried to stifle a yawn.

"That was it," she said, laughing softly. "The lingerie was just to distract you from that fact."

--

When she woke with a start, she was still partially pinned under Ned, but they had moved sometime in the night. His head was supported by the shallow armrest, and the cushions were so wide that he was comfortably sleeping with her pinned between his side and the back of the couch. She could feel his heart beating under her ear, and she pulled back, then depressed the button on her watch to illuminate its face.

Once she deciphered what she was reading, she gasped. They had been asleep for hours. She could still hear some muffled videogame explosions from elsewhere in the room, but otherwise everything was silent.

"Ned," she breathed, then tried to slide her right leg out from under his. She was unsuccessful, and the movement made him stir.

"Ned, I have to go," she murmured as his eyes fluttered open.

"No you don't," he said, his voice slow with sleep, curling an arm around her and pulling her down to his chest. "Stay here."

For a moment she closed her eyes and thought about it, her body relaxing back against his. Then she thought of the expression that would be on her father's face when she turned up late that afternoon, and her eyes popped open again.

"I wish I could," she murmured against his shirt. Then she sat up and shifted again, and crawled over him so that she was on the carpet. "Go back to sleep," she said, when he turned his face to look up at hers.

"We didn't get to talk," he muttered, then yawned and ran his palm over his face.

"We talked plenty," she reminded him, groping around on the floor for her shoes.

"No," he responded. After she had pulled her left shoe on and laced it, he sat up and yawned again. "I need some coffee."

He was trying to locate his own shoes when she finished tying hers and brought him a cup of lukewarm soda. "I think this is the best we can do," she replied.

He took a sip and grimaced, then tied his shoes and finished the soda. "All right," he said, glancing over his shoulder where two of his teammates were still playing a game. "Let's go."

She offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. "You don't have to," she said.

"Yeah I do."

--

One large coffee each later, they sat on the floor in the hallway in front of Carson's suite door, the borrowed ballcap pushed low over Nancy's forehead. She tucked a lone strand under the brim. "I don't remember the last time I was awake this early."

Ned was leaning against the wall, his movements still a little stiff. "Marry me," he said.

She glanced at him, eyebrow raised. "Um, you already asked," she reminded him, extending her left hand and wiggling her ring finger.

"Today," he said, his eyes closed to her demonstration. "Let's go… to the courthouse or whatever and do this."

She laughed incredulously. "There's a waiting period."

He shrugged. "We'll slip the guy a twenty, I'm sure that will be long enough."

Eyes dancing, lips pursed, she finally said, "Why, pray tell?"

"So I can wake up every morning like we did today."

"On an uncomfortable couch with me cutting off circulation to the left side of your body?"

"Something like that," he mumbled. "So you'll be there when I wake up." He reached over blindly and she slipped her fingers under his.

She studied his face, and after a moment his eyes opened, and he looked over at her. "It would be nice," she agreed, lacing her fingers between his.

"And you wouldn't be jealous of Denise and then the Cowboys would offer me a starting position and you'd live down in Texas with me, barefoot and solving mysteries."

"Glad you didn't say pregnant." She reached up and traced her fingertip down his jawline. He tilted his head and kissed her finger. "It's warm down in Texas."

"Hardly ever snows," Ned agreed. His eyelids lowered until his eyes were mere glinting slits. "Miles of beach and vacations in Mexico."

"Mmm-hmm." She let her hand drop. "I know all I need to know, right? No one cares about a degree anymore."

"Exactly," he said, raising a finger for emphasis, but his head tipped to the side.

"You need to go back to sleep," she told him.

"Only with you."

She snorted, despite herself. "I don't think so."

The doorknob rattled, and Nancy only had the time to shoot Ned a shocked look before her father opened the door and looked down to see his daughter, her fiancé, and the newspaper.

"Nan?"

"Ned came over for breakfast," she said, as Ned slumped over onto the carpet.

--

"I rode on the bus, and it's leaving here after lunch."

Nancy put her suitcase down next to a potted palm, while her father checked out. "So you'll be gone soon too." She opened her arms to him, and he stepped toward her willingly, held her tightly.

"I thought you were sober last night," she said into his ear. "But after what you were saying this morning…"

"Sleep deprivation does strange things to a man," he commented, his eyes glowing as he pulled back to look into hers.

"Oh, like I was responsible," she said. "I was the one who said we should stay in the sauna for a while longer."

He shrugged. "I like having you around," he said. "It happens so rarely." He pushed a strand of hair off her forehead.

She searched his eyes. "It's gonna be a while, isn't it."

He nodded. "Unless you relish the thought of chasing the team up and down the Mississippi…"

"Maybe if you made it worth my while," she replied, eyes dancing.

He punched her in the arm gently, but she saw his expression change, and he offered a hand to her father. "See you again soon, Mr. Drew."

"Good luck the rest of the season," Carson said. "Maybe Nancy and I can catch another game in person." He nodded significantly to the two of them, then picked up her suitcase and walked out of the hotel.

She snuggled into his arms again. "I miss you," she said.

"I haven't even left yet," he laughed. He leaned down and gave her an incredibly sweet kiss. "Love you," he said, his voice rough.

"Love you too," she replied, catching him and drawing his face back down to hers for another kiss. "Call me, all right? Every time you think about me."

"We'd never be off the phone," he teased her, taking her arm in his and escorting her out of the hotel, where her father waited. "I'm a poor college student, and you'd bankrupt me."

She kissed his cheek before he released her arm. "Never," she replied.

"Bad luck to end with never," he said, walking backwards so he could continue to face her. "Tell me how long you'll love me."

"Always," she replied, waving, as her father did the same.

"I'll hold you to that," he said, and his tone was joking, but the look in his eyes was meant only for her. She swallowed hard as he finally turned around and huddled against the wind, heading back to his teammates.

--

Bess sighed loudly and let her binder drop to the floor. "He's gay," she announced.

Nancy glanced away from her notes and up at the television, which was displaying a picture of an enormous burger, not the unfortunately oriented movie star she was expecting. "The burger?"

"Gosh, I hope not." George took the interruption in their concentration as an opportunity to grab a handful of popcorn.

The three girls were sitting in the study lounge of Bess's sorority house. Nancy often joked that it was the quietest place on campus. Since they had taken it over, a few underclassmen had also taken spots at the desks, but the friends were alone that day.

"That guy in my class I was telling you about."

"Oh. That's a bummer," Nancy said, shooting Bess a sympathetic look. "Are you sure?"

"The teacher was totally flirting with him."

George raised an eyebrow. "Hey, that's not cool."

"Yeah, but when we're studying Wilde he can get away with it." Bess brightened for a moment. "Maybe he's bi! Or maybe I could…"

"He is a drama major," George reminded the two of them. "Maybe it's just dramatic to pretend he's gay. I heard it's a real chick magnet."

Nancy laughed. "Not for me."

"There are plenty of other fish in the sea," George continued to her cousin.

"Yeah, but no other fish looks like Dennis Krieffer from a distance," Bess said, tugging a strand of her blonde hair. "Gosh. First day of class I almost died."

Nancy smiled and returned to her notes. "Is your teacher cute?"

Bess snorted. "He's not a guy who could pull eyeliner off," she said. "But he keeps trying."

George tossed another kernel of popcorn into her mouth. "Nice. So he doesn't have the hollow-cheeked starving artist thing going for him."

"Not by a long shot. More like the overfed pompous artist." Bess glanced at the television, which was now showing a group of bikini-clad girls against a pristine beach. "Hey, what are we doing for spring break?"

Nancy stopped flipping through her handouts and laughed heartily. "I thought we all had tests tomorrow. I see what your mind's on."

"I need to drown my disappointment in… oh, yeah," Bess said, as the camera panned over to a group of athletic surfer boys. "A little bit of that."

George threw a kernel of popcorn at her cousin. "As long as it's not Fort Lauderdale."

"Hey, whatever," Bess replied easily. "Nan? Got anything in mind? Nancy?"

Nancy snapped out of her reverie. "Huh?"

"Your eye wandering?" George joked. "Or maybe you're like Bess and you just want to be wherever those guys are."

"Somewhere away from this cold would be nice," Nancy said, looking toward the window, which revealed a dull grey landscape.

--

"Yeah, our vacation's on the same dates," Ned said. "Mine just starts a day before yours. Did you have anything in mind?"

"Someplace warm," Nancy replied, sprawling across her bed on her stomach, cell phone cradled between her face and shoulder. "Some place with a lot of guys to distract Bess from the gay one she's mistakenly been pining over."

"Ouch," Ned commented. "Not Parker, right? Cause…"

"No, Parker's preferences aren't in question," Nancy chuckled. "Some guy in one of her classes."

"You managed to hook some mystery in Fiji yet?" Ned asked lightly.

"I have too much going on as it is," Nancy sighed. "There's Cassie, and the very specific yet untraceable break-ins at the physics labs, and this story I'm investigating—"

"I saw Cassie this past weekend," Ned said thoughtfully. "She was at the Omega Chi party. Looked like the life of it, really."

"Not a care in the world?"

"Not a one."

"Did you dance with her?" Nancy asked in a carefully controlled voice.

"I was bartender, Drew," Ned replied. "Sheathe the claws. I can even sense them."

She laughed. "All right," she said. "Were you a responsible bartender?"

"So responsible that I almost kept the Porsche keys I confiscated."

"Ooh, that would have been nice."

"Tell me about it," he said. "Denise—"

"She was there?" Nancy asked before she could stop herself.

Ned paused for a moment. "So what story are you investigating?"

She took the hint. "Mismanagement of 'academic fees' funds," she replied. "Every now and then the board in charge of the fund starts paying lip service to what it's supposed to be concerned about, like upgrading the computer labs and facilities."

"Sounds absolutely fascinating," Ned said dryly.

"It's a lot of leg work," she admitted. "Going over minutes of old meetings and proposed budgets. I'll be glad when I get it done."

"I will too," he said. "Look…"

"What?" she prompted, when he didn't continue.

"George and Bess bringing people?"

"Bess won't be," Nancy predicted. "As for George, I think so, but she's surprised me before."

"My parents have that timeshare…"

Nancy stopped rooting through her container full of assorted nail polish shades. "The one where my dad's is right next door? I haven't even been there yet."

"Yeah. That one."

"Oh…" Nancy cut herself short. "Oh. Do you mean the one that you accidentally invited the entire football team to, next time you went down there?"

"Not the entire team."

"Most of it, then," Nancy returned.

"A couple of the guys asked me about it. It'd be cheap, Nan. And if you could sweet-talk your dad…?"

Nancy grumbled, "I'll see what I can do."

"You're the best."

"I know," she replied. "I am the best. But you're going to owe me, Nickerson."

"I hope you accept unconventional forms of payment." He put an exaggerated leer in his voice.

"We'll see about that."

--

"Done," Bess announced, capping her fire engine red lipstick and tossing it into the trashcan. "I'll never use that again."

"Thanks," Ned said sarcastically, then turned to his fiancée. "There's no way I owe you this much. You're gonna end up owing me."

Nancy shook her head, fighting to keep a straight face. "You're not going to change my mind, Nickerson," she said, shaking her head. "Now go out there and feed those Spring Breakers!"

After the look he shot her, Nancy thought maybe she had gone a bit too far, but Ned opened the door of the condo and rushed down the steps. Nancy and Bess burst into peals of laughter, and were holding their stomachs before they could stifle themselves enough to walk downstairs, through the remains of denuded palm fronds.

As payback, Nancy and Bess had decked Ned out in a heavily improvised native island chief costume, complete with a headdress made of palm leaves, and war paint made of Bess's more outrageous makeup. They had allowed him to keep his swimsuit on under the outfit, mostly because Nancy was picturing a Hulk-like transformation between the ridiculous character they had made him into, and the besmeared football player she knew he would become. Despite his protests, he was taking it in rather remarkable humor.

"Ready to eat some pig?" he called to the waiting group, and Nancy nearly lost control again.

"Chief Big Nick!" one of his teammates shouted out, and soon the entire crowd had taken up the cheer, around the bonfire they'd set up on the beach. George, her face lit by the flames, shot her two friends a look.

"I would have warned him if you'd told me this was what you were planning," she said under her breath as Nancy and Bess joined her. "We're gonna need another keg."

"I'm not even sure where they found the first one," Bess admitted, retying the sarong around her waist. "Besides, after this, there are some great clubs down on the strip."

Nancy shook her head, her reddish blonde hair flying. "Only you would know that after being here barely twelve hours."

Bess grinned. "I'm well connected."

"The Chief is going to take a bride!"

The three girls turned to gaze at Ned, who was towering near the fire, its glow casting an eerie light on his costume. Nancy's heart started pounding, and her eyes narrowed when she noticed Denise's casual, fluid climb to her feet.

"Right now?" she called out.

"Right now!" Ned replied, running over the sand toward Nancy and lifting her smoothly. He tossed her over his shoulder as the crowd cheered them on, and her startled shrieks faded as they drew nearer to the surf.

"Ned, put me down!" she said, banging her fists halfheartedly against his bare back.

"If you insist!" he replied, wading out until the water reached his waist, then tossing her in. She twisted her body to prevent a smarting impact and screamed again as she hit the water.

He had ripped the palm headdress and skirt off, and was vigorously rubbing water over his face, when she surfaced. "Revenge of the humiliated fiancé?" she asked him softly, smiling.

"Something like that," he said, returning her grin.

"You look good in eyeliner," she said, then laughed as he tried to scrub at the skin under his eyes.

"Thanks," he replied, then slung an arm around her waist. "You look good in this," he said, hooking his thumb under the bottom of her string bikini. "You'd look better with it floating out to sea…"

"Well, if the Chief is taking a bride…" Nancy said seductively, then reached behind her head to where her top was tied. When Ned's eyes widened, she laughed and dropped her hands.

"I'm hungry," she said.

"So am I," he said, picking her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he kissed her. The moisture evaporating off her cooling skin wasn't the only thing making her shudder. When they broke apart, he planted a kiss against the side of her neck.

"Now they'll really be talking," she murmured.

"Somehow I think that's what you wanted all along," he replied, wading out of the surf. "And we're not even yet, Drew."

"You take my top off in front of these people and you will sing like a girl," she said with a deceptive grin, through clenched teeth.

"You joking? Them seeing your bra was bad enough," he said. "Or good enough. No, I have something else in mind."

She dropped the grin. "No public humiliation."

"Nah." Suddenly he curved an arm around her waist and drew her to him for a kiss that seemed to go on for hours. Breathless and dizzy when he pulled back, she regarded him from beneath lowered lids.

"Wow."

"Preview."

Despite Bess's insight into the local nightlife, the majority of their group stayed on the beach around the bonfire even after they had finished the meal. Ned had washed the remainder of the makeup off his face and was on his back, listening to one of the guys strum a guitar, with Nancy's head on his stomach. He watched her move slightly every time his chest expanded with another breath.

"I can't eat another bite," she protested, looking down at her dessert. She turned to look at Ned. "Want to finish it off?"

He opened his mouth obligingly, his eyes dancing. With a smirk on her face she sat up and fed him the last few bites, but her eyes widened when he ran his tongue over her fingertips.

"You taste good," he said, then met her gaze.

She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it abruptly. Then she leaned over, supporting her weight with a hand on either side of him, and kissed him hard.

"What were you about to say?" he asked. He tugged at her, to swing her on top of him, but she resisted.

She shook her head. "Not here."

"Okay." He reached up and trailed his fingertips over her hair. "Later then."

His gaze shifted, and Nancy followed it up to see Bess, who was standing near them, hands on her hips. "I need to cool off," she said. "Anyone want to join me?"

Nancy pulled herself out beyond the breakers with sure, even strokes, her body rising and falling with the motion of the waves. Bess shrieked and giggled as the water crashed over her waist, attracting the attention of some of the guys on the beach. Bess wasn't so strong a swimmer, so Nancy was safely alone. She floated on her back, staring up at the stars, the sea roaring in her ears.

Her peripheral vision registered his presence, as she knew it would. "You're pretty far out," he said in a low voice.

"Thank you," she replied, smiling.

"There's something I'd like to show you," he said. "I found it when I came here with my parents."

Nancy glanced over at Bess, but Ned shook his head. Their giggling friend was surrounded by a group of guys, clearly enamored by her. "Okay," she replied, kicking her feet to keep upright.

He held her hand as they walked down the beach, until the bonfire was a dim memory in the distance. She followed him through a gate nearly hidden by shrubbery, to benches around a shallow abandoned wading pool. Leaves floated in the green water, gleaming in the moonlight.

"No one comes back here," he said, lowering himself to one of the cement benches.

"You bring all your vacation girlfriends here?" Nancy asked, sitting down beside him. She smiled.

"You're the first," he said, reaching for her. He tilted her chin with his fingers and kissed her gently.

When he pulled back, her eyes were closed. "I wonder why this place is neglected," she murmured.

"Maybe this little place came with a timeshare and someone's paying for it, but we're here to enjoy it." He kissed her again.

"Ned…"

"I was joking with you earlier," he whispered into her neck. "I could see in your eyes what you thought I was thinking."

She slipped off the rough texture of the bench, onto the weather-smoothed tile surrounding the murky pool. Wind rippled the surface, distorting her reflection. "Oh?"

"Where will you sleep tonight?" he asked, lowering himself to the stone beside her.

She looked up. "Where do you want me to sleep?"

"You know the answer to that," he murmured in response, cupping her cheek with his hand as he kissed her again. She leaned into him, shivering in the breeze off the ocean. "Cold?"

"Warm me up," she replied, climbing into his lap, into his embrace. He leaned back against the bench and wrapped his arms around her, her skin hypersensitive as he tasted the salt the sea had left on her neck. When his mouth found hers again, their kiss was slow and deep.

"I love you," she sighed, breathless, as they separated.

"Love you too," he whispered, leaning in again. He kissed her slowly and bent his legs, and she trailed kisses down his neck until she was cradled against his chest, her cheek against his shoulder.

Her eyes were closed when he started stroking her back. When his nails started picking at the knot of her top, though, she opened her eyes to gaze silently at the resort in the distance.

"Nan?"

"I'm here."

He kissed the corner of her mouth and she pushed herself up, her skin tingling at the touch of his fingers as she returned his kiss. He finally picked the wet knot apart and she felt the pressure suddenly loose. She leaned back from him and tugged the top over her head, then met his eyes.

"We even?"

He shifted underneath her, and as he kissed her he lowered her to the smooth stone. Her heart started pounding as he kissed her ear.

"Nan?"

She tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled his face back to hers. "Hush," she mumbled into his kiss.

"I don't want to stop," he whispered, groaning as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

"Then don't…"

--

"Nan… Nan?"

Nancy made an unhappy noise and turned from the intrusive hand shaking her. "No," she mumbled, grimacing.

"Time to go to bed."

At her side she felt Ned moving, and glanced over. He was rubbing his eyes. "We must have fallen asleep," she murmured.

"Yeah," George answered, laughing. Several strands of gleaming beads circled her neck.

The television was on in front of them, and it cast a dim light over the living room of the condo. Nancy pushed her hair out of her face and sat up, looked around. Satisfied that they were awake, George walked to the downstairs bathroom and closed the door.

"You okay?"

Nancy stood unsteadily and reached down to pull Ned to his feet. Once they were facing each other she reached over and turned off the television, leaving them in darkness. She reached for his hand and led him up to her bedroom.

He was speechless as he watched her step out of the jeans she'd put on when they had returned to the condo, and she climbed into the double bed. After a few minutes she opened her eyes and stared pointedly at him, then patted the bed next to her.

"We need to talk," he managed to say quietly.

"In the morning," she said irritably, her voice thick with sleep. "Come to bed."

He stripped down to his boxers and slipped under the covers, barely daring to breathe as she settled against him.

--

The ceiling was moving.

Ned blinked a few times. Undulating water. Water, the pool, her gasping underneath him—

He rubbed his eyes vigorously and sipped in a breath, then turned his head. Nancy's side of the bed was empty. The downstairs swimming pool was casting its reflection on the textured ceiling above the bed. He could hear the pitch of female voices from downstairs.

He was in the girls' condo. Nancy's father's timeshare.

He tugged his jeans on and headed downstairs, still shirtless, vaguely wondering where his toothbrush might be. The living room was carpeted by sleeping bags, some of which had been zipped together, and Ned averted his eyes until he entered the sunlit kitchen.

Nancy and George were making breakfast for an army. George was stirring an enormous skillet full of scrambled eggs, while Nancy was buttering toast. Ned watched her carefully as he snatched a piece, and sensed no guardedness in her answering smile.

"So you're finally up, sleepyhead," she said cheerfully. "Want some orange juice?"

He nodded, warily, but accepted the glass she handed him.

Nancy had been right. Almost the entire football team had accompanied them on their trip, even the towel boys and cheerleaders. Between their two condos they could only accommodate around half, so the rest, including Denise, had opted to crash together in crowded cheap hotel rooms. Except, judging by the lack of available space on the floor, a lot of people had ended up not wanting to leave.

Once the girls, in varieties of sleepwear ranging from modest to downright indecent, started yawning their way into the kitchen, Ned headed back over to his parents' place and let himself in. About the same number of couples were still sprawled on the floor. He headed upstairs to find Howie in the master bedroom.

"Everything cool, man?"

Howie nodded. "I'll take good care of the place. Don't worry."

Ned raised his voice. "Breakfast in the other condo if you hurry," he called, and some muffled groans answered him. With a smile and a nod to Howie, Ned shut himself in the bathroom.

--

"Yeah, this is the last time we're doing this," Nancy said under her breath. She grabbed one of the guys passing through, one she knew liked her. "Go to the store and get some more bacon, please, darling," she said, and he nearly ran out the door to obey her.

Bess, her hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, found a space on the counter and made herself a cup of coffee. "Yeah, but you guys are way better than the crappy continental breakfast they have downstairs."

"Well, then you pony up for a Krispy Kreme variety pack tomorrow morning," George said, sliding some eggs onto a plate and handing them to her cousin. "Football players. Bottomless endless football players."

"Bed and breakfast," Bess said. "Charge 'em two bucks a head."

Nancy slid the last slice of bread into the toaster and depressed the handle. "I'm famished."

"Go sit down." George handed her a plate of eggs.

"Don't you…?"

"Nah. I'm almost out of eggs, anyway."

Finding no empty places available inside, Nancy took a cup of coffee and her plate down to the edge of the pool. The sun was blazing brightly, and some of the more adventurous guests were already in the water. Nancy shielded her eyes and gazed out to the beach.

"Hey."

Ned was wearing his sunglasses and swim trunks, lounging on the chair beside hers. Nancy felt a twinge.

"Got any more coffee?"

She tilted his face up for a kiss in response, and he tasted the warmth on her breath. "That's it, stranger."

"We cool?"

Nancy stabbed at her eggs with a plastic fork, then took a bite. "Of course," she said.

"Not of course." He watched her finish her breakfast, then lean over the fence to toss the remains into a trash can.

"Do you really want to talk about this?" she finally answered him.

Ned shrugged. "No," he replied. "I don't. Because we did stop."

"Because the gate creaked," she said hastily.

"And a lot of other reasons," he said. "And I'm sorry."

"Why should you be?" she asked, but quietly, her eyes not meeting his.

"You'd hate me if I weren't."

She turned her head quickly to stare at him. "Sometimes I'm not sorry."

"But not always." He reached over and touched a strand of her hair, and stared at it instead of her face. "And it's the not always I worry about."

"Would you? If we would feel no guilt?"

He dropped his hand and squinted out at the ocean. "I don't know," he answered. "After you told me you wanted to wait, that was it."

"No it wasn't," she said mildly. "It isn't. Because any time the two of us are alone in a bedroom…"

"Yeah, but," he shrugged. "I wait for you to make the first move. And damn, Nan… it's really hard to turn you down."

She sighed. "The timing is wrong."

"I wish it had been better." He reached for her hand. "But we're always okay, in the end."

She smiled faintly. "You can stay in my bed as long as you promise to not have any more of those dreams."

He squeezed her hand. "I can't promise that."

"What can you promise, then?"

"That I won't try to act them out when I wake up."

Nancy stood and pulled him to his feet. "I guess that's good enough. Come on, let's go cool off."

--

"Maybe I shouldn't let you out of my sight. Is that real?"

Nancy glanced down at where Ned's fingertip was depressing the edge of the tattoo on her upper arm. "Henna," she said, her smiling face tilted up to see his. "Do you wish it was real?"

The party at the club had spilled out onto the enclosed courtyard, and Nancy and Ned were surrounded an endless sea of other dancing couples. When she tilted her head back, she could see the stars above their heads, untainted by light pollution.

"I don't know," he said.

"Buy me another drink," she called above the noise, grinning.

Ned called one of his buddies over, slipped him a bill, and murmured something to him. Then he turned to Nancy, who was still dancing, and said "Do this." He extended his arm and then touched the tip of his nose with his outstretched finger.

She stopped dancing and obeyed him, with no hesitation or slip. "But you just ordered my drink, why'd you tell me to do that?"

"Because if you couldn't, I would have had it myself," he said, pulling her into his arms again.

She tilted her head back to look at the sky, then twisted in his arms so her back was against his front. He kept his hands at her waist as she swayed her hips with the music. He leaned down and kissed her ear, then kept one hand at her waist as he traced the henna again.

"You do like it," she said seductively.

"I like what you're doing right now," he replied. "More of that, please."

She caught the communication between Ned and the guy who brought their drinks, the subtle nod of the head before she was allowed to take hers. "I'm fine," she told him, fingers wrapped around the cold glass. Then she turned to Ned. "I'm fine."

"I know you are."

"I know exactly what I'm doing."

"I know exactly what you're doing," he replied. "We should come out here every night this week."

She was wearing a graphite silk camisole that tied in the back and darkwash flared jeans, her makeup glittering. And she knew what the sight of the ink on her skin was doing to him, she knew what he was thinking when he glanced down at her mostly exposed back and the silk keeping her top on. He himself was dressed in a light green linen shirt and khaki shorts, and somewhere in the course of the evening his shirt had been unbuttoned, so now when she danced sometimes their bare skin would brush and she would shiver.

"Hey Chief!" someone greeted Ned from the other side of the crowd. Nancy heard him growl under his breath as he returned it.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you," she said matter-of-factly.

"I would, but I'm not into necrophilia," he said. "Maybe a little light bondage would teach you your lesson."

A grin curved her lips. "We still haven't discussed my feelings on that," she said.

"Ahh, but speaking hypothetically, if I'm a sadist I don't really care what your feelings are, and I'd rather them be against it," he said, his breath against her neck, and she shivered.

"Hypothetically," she repeated. Her head rested at his shoulder as she sipped her drink. "Maybe you're a sadomasochist."

"I'd have to be, to stand here dancing with you, and not have you on the beach somewhere ripping that top off you."

She paused for just the briefest second and he took a sip of his drink. "Why do I tell you no and then wear something like this, just to see that look in your eyes?" she wondered aloud, quietly. "Why am I dancing with you this way and letting myself think about what I want to do with you, when we're going to go back to the room and lie down and not—"

"What do you want to do?"

She tossed back the rest of her drink and turned around in his arms so she was facing him. "You know exactly what I want to do," she accused him.

"Not exactly," he replied. "Generalities. The ends but not the means."

"And apparently you want to tie me up."

He raised a finger. "Hypothetically," he corrected her. "Never said I wanted to tie you up."

"You've tied me up before," she said, raising an eyebrow.

"At gunpoint, while we were fast approaching the climax of one of your countless cases," he replied. "Not exactly the same."

"Did you like having me powerless?"

"I like having you where you can't run off in the pursuit of some lead, yeah," he replied, finishing his drink. "Powerless, no. If I wanted that, I could have…" he nodded over at the throng of cheerleaders.

She searched his eyes. "Does it really bother you that much?"

He shrugged. "It's you, it's who you are," he said. "If it bothered me I wouldn't have come back."

She tensed, then launched herself up, wrapping her legs around his hips, her arms around his neck. "Let's go somewhere and talk," she murmured into his ear. "Buy me another drink on the way out."

The glass clinked against the concrete bench as Ned put their bottles down and sat down so she was in his lap. The pitch-black night, still relieved by a few stars, seemed even more so in the shaded courtyard of the abandoned pool.

"Interesting choice."

"You wanted to talk."

She took a long pull off her bottle. "Why did you come back to me?"

He smiled. She could read the contours of his face in the darkness. "I wanted you."

"But you had been with Erika."

He nodded. "Yeah."

"You broke things off with her… why?" Steeling herself, Nancy took another sip.

"I didn't want to be in the kind of relationship with her that I found myself in," he said slowly.

"What kind of relationship is that?" He shifted. "Do you need me to get down?" she asked.

"You're fine," he replied. "I wanted to sleep with her."

Her voice came as though it belonged to someone else, from underwater, disassociated from her suddenly wooden body. "Did you?"

He looked away from her. "No," he said, so softly she could barely hear it. As blood returned to her limbs, she waited. "We were alone in her room and I realized it wasn't what I wanted."

"You wanted to sleep with her but not have a relationship with her?"

He smiled again, self-mocking. "I wanted to break myself on her. I wanted to forget how I felt the day you told me maybe we should be friends for a while."

Nancy picked up her bottle and swung off his lap, to sit next to him on the bench. "To get back at me."

"It wasn't as petty as that," he said. "She's hot and smart and she was available, and you weren't. You had no plans on being available to me at any point in the near future, I seem to remember."

"Then why didn't you just stay with her?"

He shrugged. "I may have wanted to sleep with her, but I loved you."

Nancy could feel her temperature rising, despite the wind blowing in from the sea. "How… far did this wanting… go?"

Ned took a drink from his bottle, then held it against his forehead. "It won't solve anything for you to know that. It won't make anything better. And you don't want to know it. You don't."

"Yes I do."

When he had told her, in graphic detail, filtered through the alcoholic haze around her brain, she nodded.

"Not as far as me."

"No," he replied, calmly.

"She was a slut."

"In the same way that Bess is. She gives her heart too freely and too often. I'm sure once I stopped returning her calls that she latched onto some other guy, without giving me a second thought."

"After letting the most eligible bachelor at Emerson slip through her fingers?" Nancy teased weakly.

"According to you, maybe."

"According to the dean, maybe," she retorted. "She's kicking herself that she didn't pursue you. Right now, I bet."

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I've finished my Chemistry requirement and I have no intention of running into her."

She laughed. "Odd. That you would have had… chemistry under that situation."

He bumped his shoulder against hers. "Now I'm pretty sure you're smashed."

She extended her arm and touched her finger just to the side of her nose. "Not quite. I can still feel my nose."

"Damn. I was hoping bad puns only came when you were drunk."

"You've known me long enough to know better," Nancy said, bumping her shoulder against his. "I wish the timing hadn't been so bad."

"Oh?"

"If you had broken up with her before I'd called…"

"Oh, you still would have broken up with me?"

Nancy kicked her sandal off and traced her bare toe around a stone. "It seemed like the right thing to do."

"Yeah, but so does being here with you right now. So did seeing her, and then seeing her again, and then…"

"I never meant to hurt you," she said. "But things were only going to get worse. And if I were to be logical, you and I wouldn't be together right now."

She was glad she couldn't see his face; hearing his voice was bad enough. "God forbid we be logical about any of this."

"We don't have to be," she replied. "We aren't. But that's why you came back to me, and that's why you kept seeing me even after you knew about Jake, and that's why we're going to be married even though I've seen you maybe five times in the past five months. And I want to spend every single moment I possibly can with you, but… the possible moments are so short when I'm on a case. And I'm always on a case. Story."

"Same thing."

"I look at you and I'm scared that someone else will see you, and say 'You know, he's engaged, but his fiancée is hours away, and she never needs to know.' And maybe you'll roll over one night and I won't be there and you'll wonder why you were ever crazy enough to put up with this, to agree to wait for me…"

"You see me as that fickle?"

"I see you as that beautiful," she replied, tracing her fingertips down the line of his jaw. "And worth more than a sometime girlfriend. You shouldn't be lonely and there are a thousand girls at Emerson who would love to make sure you never are."

"Are you sure that's not the way you're feeling? That you're afraid you will find yourself unable to… stay committed?" He touched the ring on her finger. "That maybe you're beautiful too, and worth more than a sometime boyfriend?"

She met his eyes. "No," she breathed.

"There could be a million supermodels at Emerson," he said. "None of them would be you. Nan… believe me, I thought about it. Way before now, before I climbed into my car and drove all the way to your school to see you again. Erika may not have been the one, but that doesn't mean there's not someone else out there, someone I could be happy with… but that doesn't matter because you're the one I want. You. You and your cases or stories or mysteries. You're the one I will be happy with."

"Aren't you happy with me now?"

"I could be happier," he said. "This trip… this is perfect. And I'm happy with you right now, fantastic amazing happy, but we're going to go back home and you'll be hours away from me until the summer. And I'm going to have to find a way to kidnap you and keep you all to myself until August."

She slipped an arm around her waist and leaned into him. "Who needs a summer job, we can live off love."

He chuckled. "Exactly."

She extended one leg and raised it off the ground, so that her nail polish gleamed in the dim starlight. "You remember when we were in Chicago, sitting outside my dad's hotel room, and you asked me to marry you?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I thought I told you why then."

"Tell me again."

"Wasn't it… so I could go play for the Cowboys and you wouldn't be jealous of Denise anymore?"

Nancy nodded. "Yeah."

"Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering."

"Wondering what?" He rested his hand on her hip, and she felt the warmth radiating from beneath his skin.

"No one would ask questions about us being gone all summer if we…"

"Fabricated a kidnap attempt? Invented a summer camp at which we were counselors? Stayed with my cousin Laurel?"

"Eloped."

He stopped for a second, then started laughing heartily. "I think that would raise a lot of questions."

"You know what I mean."

He stopped laughing. "Nan, that's serious."

"I don't want to wait… it'll be more than two years from now, until I'm out of college. More than a year until you are. I don't want to feel guilty about you sleeping in bed with me, I don't want to be worried that other girls may not value this ring on my finger as much as I do."

"You feel guilty?"

She shrugged. "Dad would kill me if he knew," she said. "Hannah would kill me. Your parents..."

"I get the picture." He tilted his bottle back to drain it, then placed it on the bench next to him as she finished her own. "Let's go for a walk."

--

He didn't even have to ask her to touch her nose again when she decided that, being hot, taking off her jeans was a good idea. She splashed around in the inch-high tide, with Ned carrying her pants and sandals, and when the chilled breeze had penetrated her skin and started curling her hair, she veered off path in front of him.

"I need to go wash my feet," she said. "And I'm cold."

He lifted her into his arms and wrapped the jeans around her to keep her underwear from public view before carrying her back to the condo. The stillness in their shared rooms was deafening. He placed her on the kitchen countertop and washed her feet in lukewarm water, the sand settling into the drain, her teeth and eyes gleaming in the dim light.

"Are you not going to say anything?" she asked, tilting her head and staring at him.

"I'll say something about it when we're sober, if you still want me to," he replied, turning off the water and lifting her dripping feet out of the sink. "Put your jeans on."

"No." She pushed herself off the counter and stood in front of him, in her gleaming top and panties. She reached up and twined her arms around his neck. "Talk to me about it now."

They both heard the rattle in the lock at the same time. Ned shot her a frustrated look, then lifted her in his arms and carried her upstairs, to her bedroom.

"I don't take this lightly," he said, looking at her after he had closed the door behind them. "Maybe I should sleep in the other condo tonight."

"Why?"

"Because you're not thinking clearly."

"Oh, you weren't thinking clearly when you suggested to me the same thing?"

"I never…"

"Slip him a twenty, it counts?"

He took a deep breath. "I want you, all of you," he said. "Your putting a ring on my finger won't change the distance."

"I didn't say it would. I didn't say it would make any difference. Except that when I do this—" she reached behind her head and unfastened her top in a fluid motion, let it fall to the floor, and he half-turned his gaze away. "You wouldn't do that anymore. You would come to me," she said, walking toward him with slow, careful steps, until they were almost touching, reaching up to draw his shirt down his arms. His jaw tensed as his shirt joined hers, as he tried to ignore the way the faint light glinted off the curve of her flesh.

"Nan," he said warningly.

"I'm wrong?"

His eyes met hers, then drifted down, and he took a slow deliberate step, his chest brushing hers. "You're not," he whispered.

The flush spread on her skin as he stepped out of his shorts, then divested her of her underwear. He threw her on the bed and pinned her down, her wrists joined above her head and held there by his hand, and he nudged her knees apart, resting his weight on her open thighs.

Her heartbeat sounded in her ears as he leaned down to touch his forehead to hers. "I can feel how scared you are," he whispered. "Is this what you wanted? To tease me until I finally give in? That's what it would be, Nancy. All I have to do is move an inch," he whispered, and she gasped, her eyes wide. "There's no love in this. Just want. Is this how you thought it would be?"

Her teeth chattering, Nancy shook her head. "Please," she whispered, her voice tiny.

"Please what?"

"Don't…"

He rested his face against her neck, even as she struggled. "I can feel your skin while I sleep," he whispered. "I can feel you and I want you, God…"

She stopped struggling. "I'm sorry."

He pulled back again to look into her eyes, into the panic she was barely hiding. "I just want you to understand what you're doing to me every time you think you're being cute. Do you want me right now? Did you think things would go this far?"

She shook her head. "I don't want you like this. You're scaring me."

"What if I," he whispered, and released her.

"And what was the point of that?"

"Stop taking your clothes off and trying to make me do something you don't want me to do," he said. Perching himself on the edge of the bed, he pulled his shorts back on. She was speechless as he walked out, closing the door softly behind him.

--

"He was here. Did you two have a fight or something?" Bess lowered her voice at the last.

After ten minutes of distracted contemplation, Nancy had dressed hurriedly, jeans and an Emerson sweatshirt, and started looking for him. Only their beer bottles were at the abandoned pool; the club was still in full swing, but she hadn't spotted him.

"Here with me, or here recently?"

Bess shrugged. "I don't remember the last time I saw him," she said. "Or what you'd call recent. He looked… I don't know what he looked."

"That would have been recent," Nancy replied. "Who was he with?"

Bess looked down for a moment, then met Nancy's eyes with her kohl-rimmed gaze. "I remember seeing him with Denise," Bess said quietly.

Without another word Nancy spun on her heel and started studying the crowd. Her chest felt tight and solid, her lips pressed together in a firm line.

"I don't think it was like that," Bess began, pleading.

"With her?" Nancy repeated, her words ice, not looking at Bess.

"I thought maybe you two were arguing," Bess explained miserably. "They were just dancing."

George walked by just then, a fresh crop of beads around her neck. "Come on, we're going on the cruise up the beach!" she said, tugging Nancy's sleeve. "Want some beads?"

Nancy met George's gaze, her eyes glistening. "Now?"

George sobered slightly. "You look like you need it. Come on, Bess."

"Hey," Bess replied, then tossed the rest of her drink back. "Nan needs something to distract her."

"I don't think—"

"Hey!" Bess clapped her hands, and her entourage came to attention. "Nancy needs a distraction, so we're going on the cruise! Give her a hand, won't you?"

With that four of the strapping football players lifted Nancy onto their shoulders and headed for the door. Despite her mood, Nancy felt the corners of her mouth lift slightly.

--

The barest touch of royal blue tinted the sky as one of the football players lowered Nancy to her feet in front of the condo's door. Three or four giggling cheerleaders rushed by them, their beads clicking in the stillness. "So, do you want to come in?" he asked. He had had a few too many beers toward the end of the evening, and was swaying on his feet.

After two drinks Nancy had switched to soda, and she felt sorry for the poor guy in front of her, who had bestowed a string of beads on her with no hint or promise of any further revelation of skin. She had danced with him, in the swaying giggling chaos of the boat, but had eluded his advancements with little effort. Until now. At the door of Ned's condo.

The girls had left the door open. Nancy saw Mike sitting on the couch, bathed in the blue glow of the television, a game controller in his hand. "Just one more," he said.

To the other person in the room. Ned, who had Denise snuggled up securely to his side.

She considered wrapping her arms around the swaying, still expectant guy, planting a kiss full on his lips in view of her fiancé, but even the hot anger at seeing Denise so close to him could not give her the unflinching nerve to do it. Instead she gave the guy a warm smile.

"You're a sweetheart," she said. "I'd love some water."

"Close the door!" called one of the vaguely moving sleeping bags from the carpet.

Nancy watched Ned and Mike hunt each other on the television screen while the guy drew her a glass of water. Denise made some mumbled comment but received no response. Nancy turned to the guy, who had poured his own glass of water and was clumsily pulling himself on top of a barstool.

"I had a great time. And we could keep having a great time, there are some bedrooms upstairs," he said, smiling vaguely in her direction. Nancy could see Ned's posture suddenly become careful and straight, in the reflection of a glass cabinet.

"Yeah, there are," Nancy replied casually, taking another sip.

"Maybe…"

"Look, why don't you go ahead up." She smiled thinly and patted his shoulder, and his eyes widened. He turned, and when his glance back over his shoulder at her was met with a reassuring nod, he vanished into the darkness of the stairwell.

Nancy took a thoughtful sip of her water, then drew another glass. Cool air rushed over her legs from the opened refrigerator door, and she placed a palm against the countertop to steady herself.

"He'll be asleep by the time you get upstairs."

"Who said I was going to follow him?" Nancy replied, then arched an eyebrow and looked over her shoulder at Ned. "Either he doesn't know who I am or too drunk to care he's making an enemy of you."

Ned shrugged. "I'll straighten him out in the morning."

Nancy took another sip of water. "Don't be too hard on him. He's a good kid."

Careful to keep his touch above reproach, he hooked a finger under her strand of beads and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"I got those free. Though maybe he thought I'd pay once we got back here." She nodded at the stairs.

"I should say you've already paid for them tonight. Is Jan around?"

"She and Bess weren't too far behind me…" Nancy trailed off as the door opened to reveal them with a bunch of giggling girls, their arrival met by a chorus of groans from the sleeping bags. "They dragged me out on the cruise."

She watched Ned's gaze travel from Jan and Bess, back over the couch to where Denise was sitting. Denise arched a delicate eyebrow, and pouted at whatever response or lack thereof she received from Ned. He reached for Nancy's water glass and took a sip.

"You seem remarkably sober, for having been on the cruise," he replied. "I'm sorry about earlier."

"Did you take out your—frustration—on her?" Nancy asked, nodding in Denise's direction.

Ned chuckled. "That's an interesting word for it," he replied. "No, I think you and she were both disappointed tonight."

"Oh, don't be so modest, Nickerson," Nancy said sarcastically.

"I am sorry," he repeated. Then he raised his voice so Mike could hear. "I'm going to bed."

"Good!" a muffled voice replied from the floor.

She put her glass down on the countertop and followed him up the stairs, to his bedroom, dimly lit by the impending dawn. He tugged his shirt off as she watched.

"Who'd you kick out to sleep here tonight?" she asked softly.

He shrugged, dropping boneless to the mattress, cradling his head in his hands. "He'll be two doors down on the right," Ned replied, pointing in that direction. "Though if I'm not mistaken you'll be splitting a double sleeping bag with him. And I hope you like snoring."

She nudged the door shut with her toe. "I wasn't the only one who was afraid tonight," she said quietly.

Ned tugged the comforter back with wooden movements and scooted onto the sheet. "Go back to your room," he said.

She perched on the edge of his mattress. "I'm not going anywhere until you admit it to me."

"Admit what?" he asked through his yawn.

"Denise is downstairs. Was she expecting to join you tonight?"

Ned's eyes popped open and he stared at the ceiling. "Can't you leave anything alone?"

"Did you offer her the same thing you offered me?"

Responding to the level tone in her voice, Ned turned his head and looked in the direction of her eyes. "You know I wouldn't."

"But you'd do that to me?"

He sighed, then rolled onto his side so his back was facing her. "Go away," he said.

"But you'd do that to me?" she repeated, crawling over him so she could sit, indian-style, facing him.

"I'd do it to anyone else," he exploded suddenly. "I'd have sex with Denise or Erika or Cameron a thousand times before I'd--…"

"Are you that afraid?" she asked softly.

"I want to wait," he said. "Until you are signed sealed delivered and mine, until there is not a damn thing that can take you away from me, because any one of those other girls I could sleep with and not care but I can't, I can't do that with you. I can't just…"

Her eyes were glowing. "Because you love me and you don't love them."

He nodded miserably. "You were the first and the only and you'll be that way for me until you die. And I can't help it and I can't change it. I can't have sex with you like you're anyone because you're not anyone. Those girls downstairs, the ones I don't give a damn about…"

She looked away. "I get it."

"And if you hurt me I'll lose myself in it. I almost did it before."

She raked a hand through her hair, brushing it back. "I know you're the only one," she said slowly. "The only one who will ever know me this well. Half the time it's like you can see inside my head."

"Not right now," he replied.

"You're the one I want to spend the rest of my life with," she whispered. "You're the one I want to… to be with me, the first time. But not like tonight. You scared me tonight."

He shook his head. "I don't trust you," he said.

Her mouth dropped open. "What--?"

"I…" He dragged a hand through his hair. "I've had to distance myself from you so many times before. I hate doing it. I hate this… this feeling I have, that someone else is going to come along and you're going to hurt me for him again. But it's familiar and it's happened so many times…"

"That was before," she said gently. Then her voice hardened. "Denise?"

"Denise 'didn't want me to be alone tonight,'" Ned said, making quotes in the air with his fingers. "As though I need supervision while playing video games."

"Did you dance with her?"

Ned met her eyes for a long moment. "In a big group, but not specifically with her."

Nancy held his gaze. "Cause, you know what dancing is."

"I know I only want to dance with you."

Nancy gathered her hair to fall over one shoulder and leaned down to kiss him lightly. "Go to sleep," she whispered.

He closed his eyes, obviously relieved. "Do you understand, though?" he murmured. "That we can't… we can't do this now, not the way you want? Even if it was just true before, it's been years, Nan, and…"

She knelt by his side and placed a finger over his lips, and he kissed her fingertip. "I'm not mad at you," she murmured.

"Good," he mumbled in response, then wrapped his arms around her waist and held her.

--

"Stop! Stop it!"

A solid object thumped against the wall, followed by the sounds of female shrieking. Ned groaned and rubbed his eyes.

"I'm gonna throw you in the pool for that!"

"Shut up!" came a muffled retort.

Nancy turned over, Ned's arm still slung across her. "So you'd have slept with Denise last night?"

Ned growled something, then rolled on top of her. "You're so much cuter when you're sleeping."

Nancy giggled, shoving at his weight to no avail. "Come on," she said.

He yawned. "No, I would not have slept with Denise, or you, or anyone last night. Period. End of story." He tilted his head forward onto the pillow and she heard his breathing become even.

"Ned," she muttered, shoving at him again.

"Shut up if you want to get out of bed," he replied.

She ran her tongue along the edge of his ear, and as he leaned back, startled, she kicked out from under him in a fluid motion and pulled herself to sitting. "Thanks."

"Nan…"

She was sitting against the headboard, bare legs, knees pulled up against her chest, when the door suddenly opened. She and Ned scrabbled at the covers to tug them over her, as a guy wearing swim trunks, an enormous water gun in his hands, stepped into the room. "Oh," he said. "Anyone else in here?"

"No!" Nancy and Ned chorused, angrily.

"Sorry." He was smiling as he shut the door behind him. "You better be hiding!" they heard him bellow.

"Shut the hell up!"

Ned cast a look at his fiancée. "Did I hear something about throwing someone into a pool?"

"Nancy!" they heard from downstairs.

Nancy reached for her pants and pulled them on quickly. "Coming!" she called.

George pulled open the door. "Nickerson, you want to go for a run too?" she asked, unfazed at the sight of Ned, shirtless, still in bed beside her friend. Nancy was sitting on the edge of the mattress, pulling her sneakers on.

"Oh, don't do that," he said, taking her shoe out of her hand, then throwing her over his shoulder. She screamed and beat her fists against his unyielding back as he ran downstairs, through the sliding glass doors, and out to the pool, where he unceremoniously tossed her in.

"Now she can go running," he announced to George, who had followed them.

Nancy surfaced, sputtering. "You--!" she shouted. "Get in here right now!"

Ned grinned as he jumped and tucked his legs up, doing a cannonball into the water and drenching his fiancée again.

"Aww, you two are cute," George said sarcastically.

--

"They're playing volleyball," Bess announced, lazily.

After lunch Bess and Nancy sprawled on lounges around the pool, sunglasses on, their bodies glistening. Nancy sighed and turned onto her stomach. "Then I'm sure they can make do without us," she said, resting her forehead against her towel.

"Amen," Bess declared, taking a sip of her drink. "Let's come here every year. This is so… relaxing."

"You don't know the meaning of the word relax until you try out the hotel masseuse," Nancy said, smiling.

"Guy or girl?" Ned asked, lowering himself into a chair next to the girls.

"Where've you been?" Nancy asked, tilting her sunglasses back to look at him. "I haven't seen you for hours."

"The guys dragged me to the go-kart place." He shrugged. "Not bad."

"I wanted to go to that!" Bess pouted. "How many guys were there?"

Ned grinned. "Lots, Bess. I promise we'll tell you next time." He scooted his chair closer to Nancy's and leaned over, untying her bikini top. Her eyes popped open and she rose slightly, holding her top to her chest, and shot him a look.

"Just wanted you to get an even tan," he said, winking.

"Sure," Nancy said, reaching over to the table for a ponytail holder and tugging her hair up, off her skin. "I'll be a pure blonde by the time we leave here."

He touched her back. "Damn, that's a lot of freckles."

"Nothing wrong with being blonde." Bess grinned.

Ned hooked a finger around one side of her bikini bottoms and pulled them down slightly. "You have a tan line," he announced.

"Would you like to give me a full inspection?" Nancy asked archly.

"Please, not here," Bess said. "You two have rooms for that."

Nancy held his gaze for another few seconds, then turned back the way she had been, facing Bess. "Could you get me some more soda, Ned?" she asked in a muffled voice.

"Sure," he said, leaning over her for her glass, and kissed her ear. "Be right back."

Once he was out of earshot, Bess asked, "So, what happened last night? After you took off with Jeremy."

"Oh, that was his name?" Nancy replied. "He took me back to the condo, and Ned was there with Denise…"

"But George said she woke you two up."

"No, the idiots with the water guns did," Nancy replied.

"He apologized?"

Nancy shrugged. "Basically," she replied. Then she felt a sudden coolness as a drop of water hit her in the middle of the back, and she saw her drink lowered to the table by Ned's hand. He traced the drop of water down the indentation of her spine and she arched her back slightly, leaning into his touch.

"I'm gonna go jump some waves," he announced.

"Tie my top and I'll go with you."

She heard the grin in his voice. "How about I don't tie your top and you still come with me."

"I'll do it myself," she replied, and as she stretched her arms behind her she felt him grasp the strings, felt the warmth of his hands on hers. He tied it securely and she pushed herself up to sitting, tugged the holder out of her hair and tossed her head.

"Damn… once we're married can you do that once a day?"

Nancy grinned. "I'll race you."

--

Everyone in the room leaned back and sighed as the movie cut to commercial. A sliver of light fell across the television in the darkened room, and Bess cast an irritated glance toward the door until she saw that the intruder was Nancy, returning. She caught Bess's eye and motioned for her to follow upstairs.

"Damn, you've turned Mexican," Bess said once she had closed the door to Nancy's room behind them.

"Good thing or bad thing?" Nancy asked, opening her closet.

"Good," Bess replied. "What's up?"

"Ned wants to take me to dinner. Do you have that pink shirt I lent you?"

"Where's he taking you?"

Nancy shrugged. "He didn't say."

"Wear the mint dress with the stripes," Bess suggested. "I have some shoes that would look great with it."

Nancy sat down as Bess started digging through her luggage. "I think it might be serious." She started chewing on a thumbnail.

Bess laughed. "Well, at this point the only thing he could do is…" Bess stopped. "Break off the engagement? Did he catch you and…?"

Nancy shook her head. "No. I sent that guy up to his room and as far as I know, he passed out and doesn't even know I didn't follow him."

"Can't be that bad then." Bess returned to her search.

Nancy sighed. "I hope you're right."

An hour later, after a hasty shower and application of understated makeup, wearing Bess's borrowed shoes, Nancy took the seat Ned pulled out for her. The waiter had directed them to a table on the patio, where they could see the sun setting over the water. Nancy smoothed her napkin over her lap and peered at him from under her lashes, stilling the slight tremor in her hands.

"We'll both have water," Ned said, and the waiter nodded and hurried away.

Nancy felt anger rise up in her until she realized the significance of his having ordered for her. "Now I'm scared," she said.

"Don't be," he said. He extended an arm over the table and she took his open hand in hers, then watched his gaze falter from her eyes and drift out to the horizon. "I've been thinking a lot today," he began.

"Always a good thing," she said, a smile in her voice. "Well, I hope."

"Once the season is over, do you want to… go away with me for a few days?"

"Alone?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"We haven't even left yet and you're planning our next trip?" she teased. "Where would you want to go?"

He met her eyes, his own glowing, his thumb stroking over her hand. She melted at his expression, the warmth of his touch. "Anywhere," he admitted. "Anywhere we can be alone."

She propped her chin on her hand. "I thought that was the point," she said softly. "That we shouldn't be alone with each other, that it causes too much… temptation."

"That's true," he said. "But the reasons not to give in kind of evaporate once we get married. And…"

"But we wouldn't be married on that trip," she replied. "We're getting married when you graduate… right?"

He shrugged. "We could elope," he said. "Spend the entire summer together. I could move into the president's apartments next year and we could spend our weekends there. The weekends you could get away, that is," he said hurriedly. "I wouldn't expect you to do that every weekend."

"You mean go away with you and get married."

"Yeah," he said quietly, and a shiver ran up her spine.

His hand was motionless in hers as she turned her face toward the sea and watched the rippling reflection of the sunset in the waves. The waiter came with their water, but caught their expressions and left them alone. Then Nancy met his eyes again.

"I thought you didn't trust me," she said softly.

He smiled wryly. "I wasn't putting it very well," he said. "In all the years we've been together, we've never been what either one of us would call exclusive. Flirting was okay. It made me jealous as hell but it was okay. And then, we broke up, and you were with other guys; I was with another girl. I come back to you a year later and I'm tired of being your boyfriend, because boyfriend grants me no status, no protection against your head being turned by anyone else. The title is no longer acceptable." He took a sip of his water. "Every day that you don't call and tell me some other guy has come along, I'm amazed. Because that ring is an experiment. To see if fiancé is a safer word to be called; to see if it's not just everyone else, but we ourselves who can start acting like two people who actually want to be together. Not just because someone better hasn't come along yet. Not just because you're settling for me."

"I never settled for you," she said.

"I never settled for you either," he said. "That's like 'settling' for caviar. But, Nan…" his fingers traced hers. "We're in unexplored territory here. I want that long stretch of doubt and misunderstanding and miscommunication to be behind us, but there are things I can't forget, no matter how hard I try."

"Erika?" she mumbled, despite herself.

"No, I think his name is Sasha," Ned replied. "But he has a hundred different names. He is legion."

Nancy blushed. Then she nodded. "I can accept that. That I've screwed up a lot. But, like you said, things were different back then."

"That's the point. Things are different now. I'm ready to do this. Because the more I see you, the more time I spend with you, the more I know that this is right and you're the one I'm supposed to be with. The only one. No matter how many Denises or Erikas come along."

She blinked. "So you're not sure?"

"That's the only thing I'm sure of. That we could be ready for this. But I'm not about to talk you into anything you're not ready to do."

She looked down. "I did ask you for a date."

"I think what you did was ask me for a deadline."

"No I didn't," she replied.

"I think you were afraid then and you're afraid now that you're not ready, and it would be easier in the long run to force it to happen now, to get it over with. Because you can't tell me that."

She pulled her hand away from his and tilted her face down, her hands over her hair. After a long moment she looked up. "You're right," she said, and chuckled bitterly. "Told you, you can see clear into my head. I did feel that way. I was afraid someone else would come along, and I would be tempted, and it was better to somehow force myself into this; and now I'm afraid you're too much temptation for me to handle all by myself."

"But I don't want you forcing yourself into anything."

"I'm not, anymore. And it sounds weird, but the more time we're together, the more strongly I feel this. It's not… it's not sacrifice at all. It's not losing anything. Because in choosing to be with you I feel freer than I did while we were apart."

"That's the point," he said. "I don't see any reason to wait. I've found you, and I don't want to let you go again. And my feelings won't be any different a week from now, a month from now…"

"A year from now?"

He shook his head.

"If your feelings won't be any different then why don't we wait?" she asked gently.

"Wait for what?" he asked. "The only thing, the only reason I can think of, is if you genuinely think it would be better. That your feelings would change."

She looked down at their joined hands. "We'll only see each other on the weekends," she protested, but he could see the beginnings of a smile twitching the corners of her mouth.

"Lots of married people do that. Commuting to the city and back."

The twitching stopped. "So does that mean you'll move to Wilder to be closer to me my senior year?"

"Sure," he said easily.

"What if…" her gaze drifted off again. "Ned, do you promise me that? Regardless of anything? Regardless of whether we actually do this insane thing, whether we go and exchange rings and lock this in forever?"

"You mean if we're still engaged?"

"Still engaged?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I mean not married yet, silly."

"If we're just engaged, if… if you graduate and some place in Chicago offers you a great job, if someone…"

"Someone?"

She sighed. "It's my dad," she said. "This is his voice in my head. Telling me that this is a mistake. It's not that I don't love you; it's not that I won't be more instead of less sure of that in time. But why should you waste your time at an apartment near Wilder when you could be in Chicago? Why should you—"

"Shh," he murmured. "Marriage to you won't be a waste of time."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it," she replied. "What if tomorrow some big sports team starts trying to recruit you big time, pulls out all the stops, all the flashing lights and ESPN interviews and foreign cars, and you say 'No, no, darling, I must stay here with you,' because I saw that look in your eyes…"

"What look?"

"When Dad was talking about you going pro."

"Is that what you're afraid of?"

"It's… it would seem so pointless then," she said. "It would be you blowing kisses to me before the game starts, while I study for exams."

He looked down at the cooling basket of bread on the tablecloth. "Nan, I don't want to go pro."

"Don't lie to me," she said, her eyes damp. "Every boy dreams about it."

"I'm not a boy anymore," he said quietly.

"But if it comes down to that…" she sighed. "What if I want you to? What if I'd be willing to follow you, everywhere, anywhere, I'd watch and cheer and don't, don't tell me you haven't thought about it."

"But I haven't even gotten any offers!"

"Yet," she said darkly. "Everyone says you will."

"Are you saying this is a choice between me playing ball and marrying you?"

"No," she replied. "It's me not wanting to hold you back from something that will make you happy."

"You, Nan, you will make me happy." He sighed. "What if they came up to me tomorrow, aggressively recruited me, wanted to sign me on to a contract, and all I had to do was quit school?"

She shrugged. "It would be your choice."

"I wouldn't quit school. Because I know there's life after and beyond ball. What if I did, and I busted my knee first year, only played in one game, and…" He shrugged.

"But that could happen now."

He cocked a finger at her. "Exactly. It could happen now. It could never happen. I could have a long but undistinguished career as a professional punching bag. Where things get tricky, Nan, is when I think of doing anything, absolutely anything, without you by my side."

She looked down and smiled. "Ned…"

"That's what's important to me. With this degree I could work just about anywhere. Chicago, California, anywhere. I've followed you around for so long, I've been chasing you… I want to catch you."

The waiter approached as Nancy tried to think of a response. Ned frowned at Nancy's order of a salad.

"I don't think I can eat right now," she replied, "but I'll try. Ned, you've already caught me."

He shook his head. "Not forever," he replied. "Not permanently."

She smiled. "Why this sudden need?" she murmured.

Ned shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted, tearing apart a slice of bread. Then he smiled. "Maybe the sudden realization that I'm not attracted to anyone else has left me shocked and amazed."

"No one else?"

He buttered a piece, then popped it in his mouth. "No one else."

"Isn't it scary?"

"Only when I think of how long the wait might be."

--

The evening of their last full day, Nancy finished shaping the hamburgers and took the last batch out to Ned, who was manning the grill on the patio. As soon as he finished, they were going to take them out to the bonfire on the beach, for those who hadn't yet turned to s'mores for dessert.

Nancy brushed her hair back, her skirt whipped tight against her legs by the wind. Ned looked down appreciatively. "What if we go back," she said, "and go somewhere for a while, talk about this seriously, figure out this is what we want. And we do this."

He placed the last patty on the grill. "Okay," he said evenly.

"Because, I mean, we could get a license, but that doesn't mean we have to get married. And they last for a while. We wouldn't have to do it then or anything."

"Right."

"And you would move into the apartment and toss all that garbage in there, or else have Michael move it out, or something, and I'd come see you as often as I could."

Ned smiled. "I think it wouldn't take much encouraging to get Michael to take it."

She studied his profile. "We're children," she whispered. "Playing house."

"Right now," he agreed.

"But that's what it would be." She sat down in a folding chair near the grill. "I remember you saying something like that. Wanting to wait until we could live together, and not just on the weekends."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Which puts us back at… oh, fourteen months from now."

"You really would move to Wilder to be with me?" she asked quietly. "Ned, there's nothing around it. It's a college town, like Emersonville."

He shrugged. "It's not a bad commute from Chicago. And I told you, I could find something practically anywhere, I'm sure."

She stood and came up behind him, put her arms around his waist. "I was blind," she murmured. "I've had you standing in front of me for so long and I've been blind."

He put his arm over hers, laced his fingers between. "It's all right," he said.

"If I could, if we could be at the same place, I'd do it now," she said. "I'd marry you tomorrow."

He smiled. "Don't get me drunk and ask me," he said. "Who knows what I'd promise."

"Maybe it's enough to know you would," she said. "I'd never ask you to leave Emerson. But—I mean, if you were there with me at Wilder--senior year," she said quickly, "if I knew when I came home it would be to you, no more hours of driving, no more feeling guilty because I'm preventing you from doing homework…"

"Or for anything else we may or may not be doing," he said with a smile in his voice.

"You're assuming we'll be married by then."

He lifted the edge of a burger to check it. "You keep implying we may not be," he said calmly.

She sighed. "Who knows what will happen?" she said.

"I do," he replied. "I know that I'm going to marry you, Nancy Drew. And if it takes me waiting…" he sighed dramatically, "over two years, if you want to walk down the aisle in a graduation robe before a wedding gown, then if that will make you happy it will make me happy."

"So we'd live in sin in some tiny apartment on the edge of campus?"

He cast a glance over his shoulder at her and raised an eyebrow. "Thought you weren't cool with that."

"I'm not." She traced her fingertips over his chest. "But it seems a shame to lure a strong, handsome guy like you to some campus teeming with coeds and not give you something… to keep your attention occupied."

"I think a wife would keep me pretty occupied." He stopped suddenly.

"Yeah," she said softly. "Weird, isn't it."

"But in a good way," he said. He flipped the burgers deftly.

--

"What if it's a total drag?" Bess asked.

She was jogging, and panting rather pointedly, while Nancy and George maintained a rather relaxed pace. "I mean—damn, can't we stop for a minute?"

Nancy stopped, and George jogged in place. "Come on, gotta keep that heart rate up!"

"If I were married, and my husband was in class all day long… 'sorry, honey, gotta do some homework… sorry, honey, I have that paper to work on…'"

"Well, he seems okay with it."

"That's because he hasn't thought about it," Bess said. "And you're still going to be at the paper, right?"

"Yeah. He knows that."

George and Bess exchanged glances. "Oh, come on, guys," Nancy protested.

George shrugged. "Okay," she said. "The commute isn't the best, either."

"We could compromise," Nancy said. "We don't have to live at Wilder."

George started jogging, and Nancy and Bess, the latter with a groan, joined her again. "I think he'd be crazy not to take a pro offer," George said. "He's a great athlete, Nan."

Nancy stopped in her tracks and took a deep breath, looked out at the ocean. Bess stopped a few feet away, as did her cousin. "Go on ahead," Nancy said, waving them on.

"I'm sorry," George said.

"No, you're right," Nancy said, her voice tight with control. "He would be crazy to turn it down out of some misguided—some idea about what would be right for me. Or us."

Bess tilted her head. "What are you saying?" she asked. "He may never get a pro offer." George snorted, and Bess elbowed her in the ribs.

Nancy bent her knees and lowered herself, indian-style, to the sand. She muttered a curse and swiped at her suddenly damp eyes, then buried her face in her hands. The cousins looked at each other as her gasped breaths became audible.

"I don't want him to go," she said, nearly incoherently. "I've spent every damn night this week with him, I'm going to spend the entire summer with him, I don't…"

Bess patted her friend on the back. "I'm sorry," she said. "We didn't mean to make you upset."

"He could—he could see how stupid this is. How little sense it all makes. To be with someone who lives hours and hours away, and he'd waste a year of his life waiting for me to graduate, and—"

"He's got a good head on his shoulders," Bess said softly. "And he loves you. And him being with you wouldn't be a waste of time."

Nancy sighed, her face red with tears. "Everything's so simple when I'm with him," she said. "Everything he says sounds so… so good. And then I know, I know what my dad would say. If I married Ned next week or next summer."

"Your dad isn't you," George said.