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Chapter Fourteen - North Carolina


Lauren was still less than happy about the whole Cumberland Heights experience by the time came to head to bed. She was rubbing lotion on her arms as she sat, her legs under the covers on her side already, and I brushed my teeth. Ethan had sensed the tension between us, I think, and we’d all been pretty quiet the rest of the night after getting home. Nobody argued about an early bedtime under the guise of us leaving for the trip to the North Carolina coastline in the morning and needing our rest. I knew I needed to talk to Lauren before bed, though, because if I didn’t the ride to the ocean was going to be a bitch because Lauren clearly would have rathered to undergo some sort of horrible torture procedure than be in too close a proximity to me prior to a discussion on the topic of me and Otis and the way I’d acted.

I plugged my phone in and climbed into bed next to her, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay. Let me hear it so we can go to sleep.”

She frowned.

“C’mon, Lo,” I said.

She sighed. “I just really feel like you acted pretty immaturely today, that’s all. Like I get it that the whole going to Cumberland Heights thing stirred a lot of bad memories but that didn’t mean you had to be rude to Otis. Ethan wanted you to get along with him so badly, he looked so disappointed when you didn’t come back to the room.”

I looked down at my hands, “I know and I tried, I really did. There’s just something about that guy that rubs me wrong.”

“He’s not your father, Nick,” she said.

“It’s not ‘cos of that,” I argued, “I just got a bad feeling is all.”

“I know you do,” she replied, “But I still don’t think how you acted was fair. The guy deserves a chance before you judge him. He hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s just a guy trying to make the ends meet and the addiction end, that’s all.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t so sure, though.

She ran her hand over mine, “I’m sorry I was harsh about it.”

I nodded.

She was still running her hand over mine, staring at me, waiting.

“Sorry I was rude,” I said finally. “Are we okay now?” I asked.

She nodded and leaned into me, our usual sleeping position and we dropped into the pillows and I closed my eyes, feeling a million things at once about Otis and Ethan and my father and my mother and parents in general and this weird combination of fear that I’d be a bad one and fear that I’d never get the chance to find out.




The next morning, bright and early, we were shoving all our crap into the back of the Jeep to head to the North Carolina coast. Lauren had found a house to rent for the weekend right on the water. “They said the house is even already decorated for Christmas,” Lauren was telling us as I drove north to the main highway out of Nashville, “And there’s a marina that does rentals right down the road.”

“A boat?” Ethan looked equally excited and terrified, “I’ve never been on a boat.”

“I fuckin’ love boats,” I announced.

Lauren looked back at Ethan, “He does. I couldn’t picture Nick at the ocean for more than a couple hours without boat access.”

We started the eleven hour drive across the states of Tennessee and North Carolina by seven in the morning, coffee and egg sandwiches in hand after a quick pit stop at Starbucks. I was honestly still pretty tired from the night before, I hadn’t slept a whole lot with all the stuff on my mind and what sleep I had gotten had been pretty rocky, punctuated by strange dreams that flirted with the definition of nightmare, none of which I could remember by morning, other than the feeling they gave me. I only drove a couple hours before Lauren and I switched when we stopped to refill the gas tank on the east side of Knoxville.

We stopped for lunch in the mountains. I nudged Ethan, “Blue Ridge Mountains,” I said.

“John Denver would be proud,” he replied.

“Wonder if his country road is around here some place,” I laughed.

It definitely felt like it was. The highway climbed said Blue Ridge Mountains for what felt like for-fucking-ever, curling around these crazy bends and going up these precipices that seemed to come to immediate apexes. I was glad Lauren was driving, I wasn’t sure I would’ve wanted to try to navigate these twisting roads. I tend to drive too fast for shit like that and I pictured us driving over the edge into one of the valleys between the mountains if I’d been behind the wheel.

On the other side, though, the ride seemed to go really quick. I’d barely started to complain about my legs and ass falling asleep when we were there and Lauren was pulling into the lot of a grocery store so we could get food for the house. In the parking lot, you could smell the salt in the air from the ocean. “Is that the ocean I’m smelling? Seriously? Like for real?” Ethan asked.

“Sure is,” I answered. It smelled even stronger and saltier here than it did in Florida or California. It was like one of those Febreeze sprays or something.

All manner of snacks, drinks, and food items came home with us. Lauren surprised me as she stopped at a display of chips and grabbed a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

You want Doritos?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah don’t they sound amazing?” she asked, putting them into the cart. I eyed the display. “Pick a flavor out,” she suggested.

“Seriously?” It was rare that we ate anything but healthy stuff. I’d tried many a time to sneak a bag of Doritos by her.

“Sure,” she said with a shrug, “Why not, it’s the holiday and we’re on vacation. Buy whatever you want.”

So I took advantage of the opportunity to get a package of Oreos and a bag of Doritos - spicy nacho flavor. My fingers tingled for the feeling of the cheesy powder.

When we were finished grocery shopping, we only had a short drive left, through a little town that looked like it’d fallen out of a photograph that would’ve been in black and white and named something like Old Fashioned Town at Christmas. The lamp posts were strung with those tree-looking garland and lights, glowing warm white and reflecting off storefronts with elaborate Christmas displays with light up santas and trains and those elf on the shelf figures and Christmas trees. The center was a roundabout with a big lit up Christmas tree like the one in downtown Franklin, but even bigger.

We stopped at a real estate office to pick up a key to the house and get final directions to get there. The realtor wished us a wonderful vacation and gave us each a candy cane from a bowl on her table.

Once we were through the town, the buildings started getting squatter and soon the pavement and grass started giving way to beach sand and reeds and the street lamps had become further apart, their glow more orange than white the further we went and houses replaced businesses. Finally, Lauren turned into a short little driveway and parked in front of a house that looked like it might’ve been a bright blue-teal color. Inside the front window was a glowing tree. We climbed out and I grabbed mine and Lauren’s travel bags and the two dog crates while Ethan and Lauren split up what was left to carry in, and we walked up to the door and Lauren opened up the house.

It smelled like Christmas in there, a warm combination of spruce and cookies. I breathed deeply. The door opened into a combination kitchen/living area and Lauren put her bags down on a table. Sure enough there were chocolate chip cookies on a big plate there with a note welcoming us to North Carolina for the holiday with a list of Christmas activities going on downtown over the weekend.

While Lauren inspected the list and started nosing around the kitchen, I walked through the living area and into a second living room with a big picture window that looked out over the deck and the dark beyond that told me we had an ocean view.

“Is it out there?” Ethan asked excitedly.

I nodded and unlocked a sliding glass door and we stepped out onto the deck, which was that gray weathered wood. It was windy, and the smell of the salty water was even stronger. The deck’s rails were decorated with Christmas lights, those big-bulb ones like my grandmother used to put on her Christmas tree every year. We went down the steps of the deck and followed a long stair-punctuated boardwalk through a marshy area, where all these reeds waved and whistled in the wind, across the sand to the beach, where the wooden walkway suddenly ended in a pile of sand. I kicked my shoes off and rolled up the cuffs of my jeans to my knees and Ethan copied me. Across the sand we walked, the water roaring in our ears as it slammed into the shore. The moon reflected off the water, and the stars hung over it, too. Far off we could see the curve of the land, ending with a lighthouse, whose light spun it’s welcome messages to the water beyond.

Ethan stared out, eyes wide, “It’s huge.”

“It’ll look even huger in the morning,” I replied, “When the sun’s on it and you can see the whole of it.”

“Can you see Europe from here?”

“Nawh,” I laughed.

He stared out at it.

“C’mon.” I waved for him to follow me and we went even closer until the water was licking at our toes. It was fuckin’ freezing. Ethan jumped back when it first touched his skin.

“It’s cold,” he said.

“Yeah, well, I mean, it is winter,” I laughed.

We stood there, the water giving our toes frostbite probably, staring out at the ocean. I felt better already. Just the smell and the sound of it. I closed my eye and buried my hands in the pockets of my jacket.

“You knuckleheads are gonna catch a cold,” Lauren’s voice carried across the beach. I turned back to see her standing by our shoes at the end of the walkway. I looked at Ethan and nodded toward her and we started back up the beach.

He glanced back at the water as we gathered up our shoes.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get back to it in the morning,” I said.

Inside, I started a fire in the fireplace in the living room and Lauren made grilled cheese and tomato soup with popcorn and we sat and played some board games Ethan had found in one of the closets. It was warm and we could just hear the ocean’s groan and a beautifully lit live Christmas tree glistened in the corner, the room decorated with garland and nutcrackers. I’d completely forgotten all my worries by the time we’d played through a couple rounds of Clue. It was nice just being with them and being there. I was really happy.




That night, I was so tired, every limb of my body felt heavy. I was really looking forward to sleeping, but after the long drive in the car, I needed a shower because I knew I had the smell of car funk all over me and I headed for the bathroom. The problem was there wasn’t really a shower so much as there was a spray nozzle hanging over a bathtub. I filled the tub up with water instead, figuring a bath would be an okay alternative. It was one of those really deep, luxurious type bath tubs, too, with the steps to get into it and the whole nine yards. There was some bath stuff on a little shelf with the towels against one wall and I poured some soap bubbles into the water.

Bubble baths are for boys, too, don’t judge me.

I stripped my clothes off and tossed them in the corner, turned the lights lower, then climbed into the bathtub, sinking so the bubbles were around my face, letting the hot water sting my skin, and I closed my eyes.

I was really glad we’d decided to take this trip. I really needed the break from all the thinking and worrying and stressing I’d been doing back home, especially after meeting Otis, and it was like removing me from a familiar place had given me the freedom to let it go.

There was a knock on the door. “Nick?” It was Lauren.

“I’m just washing up,” I called out.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

I shrugged, “Yeah.”

She pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing it behind her. She had on a little sleep dress with flowers on it and her hair was down around her shoulders. She turned to see the bubble bath and smiled, amused. “Well look at you,” she said.

I sat up and the bubbles clung to my chest and chin. “The shower was kinda pathetic.”

She laughed and came over and sat on the edge of the tub. She reached in and felt the water, “It’s warm,” she commented. I was kind of wishing she’d go away so I could go back to relaxing in the bubbles and stuff. At least until she said, in a deep voice, “Maybe we could make it hot.”

Without waiting for a reply, she slid the sleep dress over her head, tossing it to the same pile as my clothes, and she climbed in with me. Now the tub was huge, but we’re both tall, so when she got in our legs were on either side of each other’s bodies, and she ran her feet around my waist to my back, stroking my skin with her toes. I licked my lips. The bubbles only just barely covered her breasts, which seemed especially inviting to me. I started to move but she shook her head, “Uh uh. You stay put.” She rose up on her knees and the water fell across her skin, making it glisten in the low lighting. She leaned over me, her hands in the water, pressed to the bottom of the basin of the tub at my thighs, and she kissed me softly on the mouth, then the neck and chest just above the bubbles. I ran my hands over her, feeling her skin, soft as a dolphin’s, like silk under the bubbles and water.

She scraped my chest with her teeth and I closed my eyes.

She then proceeded to completely blow my mind.

The water was cold before we got out, the bubbles evaporated, my heart still racing. It’d been one of the hottest things I’d ever experienced and my brain was going a billion miles an hour. We fell into bed and she spooned the back of me as we snuggled under this heavy down comforter in the dark ‘til we fell asleep, staring out at the Christmas lights glowing outside the window, speckling the coastline all the way to the view of the lighthouse way off in the distance.




The next morning, Lauren was still really touchy feely, running her fingers across my shoulders as she got the cereal we’d bought at the grocery store, and rubbing the back of my neck as she read a news article on the iPad and I crunched my cheerios, waiting for Ethan to get up.

“Last night was incredible,” I said.

Lauren smirked without looking up. “Maybe we’ll try a repeat tonight,” she mumbled.

My penis stirred at the very suggestion.

I pulled my cellphone out and texted Jordan.

You’re a fucking genius.

I liked North Carolina so far.