Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

throat.
     
    “Well.” She swallowed. “I guess you should go now.”
     
    Stay, her heart whispered.
     
    “I could stay,” he echoed quietly behind her.
     
    She wanted him to.
     
    “No, you can’t. I told Nicky he could have a sleepover tonight.”
     
    “Then you can have one, too,” Dylan said so promptly she laughed.
     
    “Wrong.”
     
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    Even if Nick would buy that argument, even if Regina were willing to ignore her own long-standing rule, there was no way she would expose them all to the comments of freckle-faced ten-year-old Danny Trujillo, whose instincts were honed by his mother’s love of gossip and whose conversation, like the video games he played, carried a M-rating for blood and gore, sexual content, and strong language.
     
    Still, Regina half expected— hoped— Dylan would argue with her.
    Instead he walked her through the kitchen and up the stairs, waiting on the landing outside her apartment as she unlocked her door like a nice boy seeing a girl home after a pleasant evening out.
     
    At least, Regina imagined it was like that. She’d never dated nice boys.
     
    “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said politely and kissed her good night.
     
    He didn’t kiss the way she imagined a nice boy would kiss. He backed her up against the door, plunged right in, and took her along for the dive. He used his tongue, his teeth, and the friction of his body, pulsing his hips against her, making her shake and ache and want. When they surfaced, her blood was pounding, her head was spinning, and he had a wicked glint in his eye.
     
    “Sleep well,” he said.
     
    *
     
    “Dude,” Danny complained. “We’re dying here.”
     
    The two boys lay on their stomachs in front of the TV, a bowl of fried pizza dough covered in cinnamon sugar between them. Their faces were sticky. So were their game controllers.
     
    Nick hit Pause, and the legions of terror surrounding their embattled warriors froze. “Sorry. I thought I heard my mom.”
     
    “Yeah. So?”
     
    Nick chewed his lip. “So, why doesn’t she come in?”
     
    200
    Danny cocked his head, listening to the noises from the landing outside. “ ’Cause somebody’s with her. That Dylan guy.”
     
    “Oh.” Nick relaxed. That was okay. Dylan was cool.
     
    “He’s probably kissing her good night.” Danny made a giant sucking sound and then gagged.
     
    Nick laughed, but his heart wasn’t in it, because the idea of Dylan kissing his mom made his stomach feel tight. Or maybe that was the fried dough, but he didn’t think so.
     
    “He’s just here to take care of her,” Nick said, because that was what Dylan had told him last night. It had sounded good then, but now, in front of Danny, Nick wondered if maybe it sounded stupid.
     
    Danny rolled his eyes, confirming Nick’s suspicions. “Right. That’s why he gave you that coin.”
     
    Nick squinted. “What are you talking about?”
     
    “The coin, numb nuts. He gave you something, and now he’s hanging around your mom. Dude, if a grown-up does that, he wants to have sex with her.”
     
    The tight feeling in Nick’s stomach got worse. He clenched his fists.
    “He does not. Take it back.”
     
    “Okay. Whatever.” Danny regarded him a moment, his hazel eyes concerned. He smiled. “Hey, if he really wanted to do it with her, he’d give her presents. Not you. Right?”
     
    Nick smiled gratefully back. “Yeah.”
     
    Then his mom came in, and she looked the same as always if you didn’t look too hard at the bruises around her neck. Nick was getting good at not looking.
     
    But the next morning when he stumbled down to the restaurant kitchen hoping maybe his mom would make more of the fried pizza dough for breakfast, he snuck another peek at her neck and felt a weight like a gorilla sitting on his chest.
     
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    “What’s that?”
     
    His mom rubbed two fingers over her necklace— not like always, there was something hanging there besides the cross, a pearl or something— and her face got kind of red. “Oh, it’s a present. From Dylan. Because my chain broke.”
     
    Danny’s words came back to Nick. “Hey, if he really wanted to do it with her, he’d give her presents. Right?”
     
    Nick wasn’t hungry anymore.
     
    But even that wasn’t as bad as after lunch, when Dylan came by to invite Nick’s mother out on the boat. Not Nick, just his mom.
     
    “I can’t leave now,” his mother said, looking flushed and excited and not like his