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Secret Sleuth Gift Exchange 2022
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2022-12-24
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sacred prayer (i was there)

Summary:

The first time he saw her, Ace knew that she was sad. He remembered her from Keene High, before tragedy dared to touch her, when she was the invincible Sea Queen headed for the stars. Once upon a time, she was on her way to valedictorian and Columbia, but now she’s slumming it with him in the clogged intestines of a seafood restaurant, sitting on back stoops and eating fried crap, avoiding topics of conversation like she’s skirting around gaping wounds.

 

*

nancy and ace enter a no-strings-attached arrangement. but no-strings-attached only works for so long.

Notes:

happy secret sleuth exchange! this fic is for samantha. i hope you like it!

title is from the ten minute version of all too well by taylor swift :)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

moodboard

They learn each other in the hot kitchen, the stench of seafood mixing with steam from the sink. They learn each other by yelling, “Behind!” and “Corner!” and bickering over stolen oyster crackers. Nancy scrapes and stacks while Ace grabs plate after plate, too focused on what he considers the sacred act of dish washing to bother making conversation with the new girl.

When she met him during her first shift on the Fourth of July, she recognized him instantly.

She remembered him from the halls of Keene High, which he would haunt in his beat-up jackets, a different girl hanging on his arm every other week. She remembered him from the far corner of the parking lot, where he’d hotbox his vintage car, which she later learns he calls Florence. He’s named the sink Edith and the fryer Ruth. He has an affinity for old cars, good weed, and women, and Nancy pays attention to his hands every time they’re running under the hot water. She wonders how they don’t burn, how his veins would feel under her fingers.

Two weeks after she starts at the Claw, they have their first real conversation. Nancy ducks her head out back to grab him at the end of his break, and he offers her a hit. She hesitates, watching his strong hand holding out the joint, his delicate mouth letting out a lazy snake of smoke as he looks at her.

“Um, no,” Nancy says, hoping she isn’t blushing. “I don’t smoke.”

“Smart,” he says, taking another hit before putting it out. “Wouldn’t want to ruin that brain of yours.”

Now she’s definitely blushing. She doesn’t know what he means by that, but she doesn’t have the courage to ask. “George needs you back inside.”

They learn each other slowly and steadily. Sometimes they linger in the locker room before and after shifts, exchanging measured niceties: “How was your night?” and “Are you working tomorrow?”

She starts timing her breaks to coincide with his because she loves to watch his mouth when he smokes. She sits on the back step eating whatever she ordered for lunch while he leans against the railing, taking breaks between drags to steal some of her fries. At first, they don’t talk much, just bask in each other’s quiet company with the view of the staff parking lot and the woods beyond, the hum of the restaurant a happy background music to their private thoughts. He’s the only person in her life who doesn’t ask her any questions. He never mentions her mom, even though everybody knows. She treasures this silence that he offers; she’s relieved to not have to field sentiments of, “I’m sorry,” and, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She knows hardly anything about him—not even his last name—but his company is the thing she looks forward to the most about going to work. 

On the brink of August, he breaks their sacred silence. It’s a sweltering, sunny day. The front tendrils of Nancy’s hair are wet with sweat. When Ace adjusts his baseball cap, she notices beads of it on the back of his neck, darkening his dirty blond hair.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Eating my lunch,” she answers automatically, not looking up from her shitty fish and chips. 

“No, I mean, what are you doing here ?” He gestures with his joint at the parking lot, the restaurant behind them. “At the Claw. In Horseshoe Bay. You’re college material.”

He doesn’t say it, but she hears it in the subtext. “College material” means lawyer’s daughter, dean’s list student, Sea Queen . Even if the two of them had been in the same year, they never would have had classes together. Nancy was all honors and AP, all potential and glory. 

“I didn’t apply,” she says shortly. He reaches over and snags a fry from her tray. “Columbia would have laughed in my face.”

Realization settles over Ace’s face. The smell of weed has grown on Nancy. She associates it with him, which means she doesn’t mind it. She even likes it, finds comfort in it. 

“Your grades tanked?” he says, mercifully filling in the blanks himself.

Nancy only nods and stares out at the parking lot.

“It would have happened to anyone,” Ace says. She feels his hand settle on his shoulder. It’s strong and warm through the white cotton of her t-shirt. “You’ll get out of here someday. When you’re ready.”

After their first conversation, they have one a smoke break. Ace tells her about his coding misadventures, while Nancy tells him about her stints as a girl detective. He starts calling her the Hero of Horseshoe Bay: a loving, joking nickname.

They learn each other. Slowly, through the haze of smoke and steam, they form a bond.

 

*

 

The first time he saw her, Ace knew that she was sad. He remembered her from Keene High, before tragedy dared to touch her, when she was the invincible Sea Queen headed for the stars. Once upon a time, she was on her way to valedictorian and Columbia, but now she’s slumming it with him in the clogged intestines of a seafood restaurant, sitting on back stoops and eating fried crap, avoiding topics of conversation like she’s skirting around gaping wounds. 

Her strawberry blond hair in its neat bun at the back of her head, the sweaty long bangs that cling to her face on hot afternoons, her little blue dress of a uniform: all things that make her beautiful. To him she is a princess, made no less regal but even more untouchable by her grief. She’s still a Sea Queen; she’s just taking a break with the likes of him for a little while.

And so every day he offers her a hit from his joint, even though she always declines, and he steals her fries. It’s a strange act of intimacy, taking these breaks together. And he knows it’s stupid, but part of him feels chosen, made important by her trust in him. If you could even call it trust.

He knows she’s hooking up with the mechanic. They met in the Claw a few weeks ago, and now she occasionally comes into work wearing the same t-shirt under her uniform as the day before. He tries not to feel a sting of jealousy, but it comes anyway.

He tries to reignite his waning crush on Bess, but he’s been watching her flirt with a female regular and knows it’s a lost cause; she’s uninterested, and he’s already hung up on Nancy, no matter how much he tries to fight it.

It’s the middle of August when Nancy asks to take a hit. He can tell she’s been down lately—or, more down than usual. Their talking breaks have reverted back to their original silence; she sometimes comes into work with red, cried-out eyes. He can feel the loneliness radiating off of her like a beacon, maybe because he feels it himself. Takes one to know one.

That’s the only reason why he’s so hung up on her, anyway. Twenty years old, and Ace is starting to realize that he doesn’t have any friends. His crew from high school hardly come home anymore, choosing summer internships in the city over spending stagnant months in Horseshoe Bay. He’s always been someone who surrounds himself with friends, his home life being as complicated as it is. He doesn’t have the kind of support system that other people seem to have, like the one Nancy had before her mom died.

He sees his loneliness reflected in her. Except Nancy lost touch with all of her school friends even before they went off to college, or at least that’s what it seems like. Her mother died, and she closed herself off from the rest of the world. Now she’s drowning in the silence, the consequences of shutting down finally catching up with her. She emerged from the depths of grief and opened her eyes to find that all of her friends were gone; none of them had waited for her.

Which is what drives her to ask, he thinks. They’re sitting on the back steps of the Claw, her eating and him smoking in silence, when she looks at him with those red-rimmed eyes.

“Can I—?” she says, trailing off like she doesn’t know the proper terminology.

Ace only nods and holds out the joint to her. She takes it from him with careful, studied fingers. He knows she’s been watching him do this for over a month now; he could always feel her gaze on him, burning through his skin. He knows that she watches his hands, his fingers, his mouth.

She holds the joint to her lips, hesitating.

He takes it from her and demonstrates. “You need to breathe in twice, kind of. Try to inhale with your abdomen. Make sure it’s actually getting into your lungs.”

He hands the joint back to her and she follows his instructions, inhaling so deeply that she coughs. “That’s it,” he says, patting her back.

“It burns,” she chokes out.

He smiles. “You did a good job.”

She meets his eyes. Hers are watery. “Thanks for teaching me.”

She hands him back the joint. 

“Good call,” he says. “You shouldn’t do too much your first time, especially not at work. Just say the word, and I’ll smoke you out any time you want.” 

“Any time I want?”

“Yeah.” He licks his lips. Her gaze on him is heavy, weighted with a meaning he isn’t sure how to define. 

“I think I need your number to do that.” She hands him her phone, and he adds himself as a contact.

They sit for a while longer. Nancy is quiet, and he’s not sure how much she’s feeling it. She finishes her lunch, leaving a few fries for him without him having to ask.

“Are you seeing Nick?” He doesn’t know what compelled him to ask. Maybe it’s his number in her phone, or the promise of seeing each other outside of work, or that familiar high feeling addling his thoughts.

Nancy throws him a sidelong glance. “ Seeing is a strong word. But no. Not anymore.”

“Why not?”

She shrugs, but he can tell that she’s sad. “He wanted things I couldn’t give him.”

“Like what?”

That’s when she takes his face in her hands and kisses him. Her lips are bruising against his, hungry and demanding. He opens for her, teasing her tongue, pulling her closer by the back of her neck. 

Then she’s in his lap, straddling him, her sweaty hair falling in his face. He pulls her closer by the backs of her thighs, letting his fingers sink into the skin and muscle there.

This is not the way he thinks that Nancy Drew should be kissed. It’s messy and desperate, dirty and rough, but it’s what she wants. He realizes that he would kiss her in any way that she wants, do whatever she wants done to her, let her do whatever she wants to him. He is at her mercy.

Her teeth bite his bottom lip and drift down his neck. She grinds down on his lap. His grip on her tightens.

He grabs her jaw and pulls her lips back to his, kissing her deeply, melting into it. She’s panting into his mouth, her breath smelling of weed, her mouth burning against his. He’s been set on fire by her, made into a gasping mess of a human being.

He wonders how he went so long without kissing her. He wonders how he ever thought that they would just be friends.

Against his better judgment—because they’re at work, for god’s sake—he moves to feel her through her underwear, not able to help himself. She moans, but then pulls away, climbing off his lap, and they both snap out of it, realizing that they shouldn’t be doing this here, where any one of their coworkers could open that back door at any moment.

The spell is broken. Both of them are breathing heavily, staring blankly out at the parking lot, grasping for words. They don’t end up saying anything as Nancy fixes her hair.

She stands up and fixes her skirt. “I’ll text you.” And then she’s gone, disappearing through the back door of the restaurant.

 

*

 

That night, she lies on her bed and stares at the stars on her ceiling. Her fingers creep toward her phone, which is lying on her sheets, offering the possibility of Ace’s body against hers again. 

It’s nearing ten o’clock when she finally gives in. She goes through her contacts and finds Ace’s name.

Ace Hardy . Her eyes skim over his name a few times. It’s just a name, but his leaving it for her in her phone feels like an act of intimacy.

She texts him, smoke me out?

A bubble with three dots in it appears right away, indicating that he’s typing. i’ll pick you up .

She sends him her address, and ten minutes later, Florence is on the street outside her house, lights shining into her room.

She’s thrown by how good he looks in the driver’s seat, his wrist thrown casually over the steering wheel. She remembers what his fingers felt like digging into her thighs, how his delicate mouth was fierce against hers. She wants to feel it again.

They’re quiet as Ace drives. Nancy doesn’t even ask where they’re going. She trusts him.

They drive upward on a mountain road, into dense trees and along rocky cliffs that overlook the water. Slipping farther and farther away from civilization, she feels safe, hidden. She glances over at Ace often, liking how the planes of his face look under the moonlight.

They reach a gravel road, which leads them to a secluded clearing that opens up to cliffs. Far below them, the ocean churns. No one is here.

Ace opens the trunk of his car and they sit in the bed of Florence, looking out over the clearing and the cliffs.

The evening is all blue hues and black shadows, interrupted by strips of moonlight that reach through the pine branches. Nancy feels dizzy. Maybe the air is thinner up here.

Smoking is perfunctory, a prelude to a forgone, unspoken conclusion. Nancy likes watching Ace inhale. She only takes one hit, remembering how it made her head swim earlier in the day. But then, before Ace puts it out, he takes one last drag, and she fits her mouth against his. He exhales smoke into her mouth, which she breathes in as they kiss, open-mouthed, languid, and free. 

Her heart picks up speed, thrumming in her chest, hummingbird-like as he kisses her neck and sucks her skin between his teeth, tugging her neck scarf loose.

They don’t say a word. Ace lays her down in the back seat of his car, which offers a modicum of protection and privacy on this empty mountain, where only pine trees are around to watch as they strip each other of their clothing, taking off their armor piece by piece.

Nancy has always loved his arms, and now she learns that she loves the hardness of his chest, the heaviness of him as his body covers hers. She wants to be suffocated by skin.

She keeps her skirt on but takes off her underwear. Ace’s fingers are between her legs within seconds. He gasps into her mouth when he feels how wet she is. He works her up skillfully, watching her face as he flicks her clit with his thumb and sinks two fingers easily into her.

He doesn’t ask anything of her. Where Nick was gentle, Ace is hard and rough in the way she wants, giving her back all the fury with which she touches him.

They learn each other in the darkness of the night, guided by fingers and moonlight. They learn through labored breaths, noting what feels good to each other, how they can make each other moan. 

When Nancy finally sinks onto him, she sets a brutal pace, earning more gasps from Ace’s perfect mouth.

He doesn’t flatter her with pillow talk. He doesn’t tell her she’s beautiful, doesn’t waste his breath trying to convince her of it. He doesn’t try to placate her with lies of, “It will be okay,” or the sentimental shit that Nick tried to feed her.

Once she’s teetering on the edge, he thrusts up into her. The car rocks with the rhythm, and she swears she can feel him in her stomach, at the base of her ribcage, in her throat, throughout her whole body. Her toes begin to curl.

He kisses her neck through it. She cries out, not caring about the prying eyes and ears of the trees around them. Her cries rival the crashing of the waves below them and drown out the howling of the wind.

This is how their sacred silence was meant to be broken. All along, this is what Nancy needed from him, what he was more than willing to give. 

Afterwards, he lights the joint again. She takes another hit, and he ends up going down on her. She tumbles back into oblivion with his mouth on her clit and his fingers deep inside her, relentlessly stroking the spot she can never quite reach on her own.

She wants to stay here forever, under the waxing moon, going down on him until he sees stars. She wants to stay here, fucked out and pleasantly high, but soon their hunger catches up to them. He drives her to the only open fast food place. They go through the drive thru and feast on milkshakes and fries.

In the parking lot of the McDonald’s, they talk. About work, about fast food, about anything but what they just did on the cliffside.

Then, he drives her home, and she sneaks in past her curfew, knowing that she will be texting him again soon.

 

*

 

After that night, they become addicted to each other. Thoughts of Nancy cloud his brain most of the day, until at night when they fuck in the back of his car on some deserted forest road, or in Nancy’s bed if they get lucky and her dad is out, and the fog clears. She’s the opposite of a drug; she brings him back to himself, letting him think clearly for the first time, letting him feel his body in his own skin.

He takes everything she’ll let him have and never pushes, like he’s afraid he’ll scare her off. And so most of their encounters happen in near silence, with brief words of encouragement, consent, and rapture exchanged here and there. 

This goes on for two weeks. Then one day, they see each other without the cover of night. They both had off work and Carson’s at the office for the day, so they have sex bathed in the sunlight that seeps through Nancy’s curtains. He learns how she looks bare in the daylight, sunlight stringing through her hair, which pools in billowing patterns on her pillow.

They’re lying breathless on her bed, his fingers absently playing with the stray strands of her hair, stroking up and down her arm. She burrows against his side, resting her head on his shoulder. This is the farthest they’ve strayed into cuddling territory. 

“You make me feel less alone,” she admits, looking up at the stars on the ceiling, the particles of dust that catch the sunlight in the air.

Ace is caught off-guard by her words. He follows the constellation with his eyes as he drafts a response several times over in his head, editing out words that may spook her.

He ends up repeating it back to her, an earnest word for word declaration, echoing like an admission of love: “You make me feel less alone.”

“My mom put those there,” Nancy says, still looking at the stars. This line of conversation feels like a gift, like a milestone.

“They’re beautiful,” he says, but he’s looking at her eyes.

“When I was little, I asked her how I would find her in heaven after we died. She said that she’d be waiting in the northeast corner. Under a big green tree, on a sunny hill.” He can see the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “The stars are a map.” Her gaze hasn’t wavered from them.

He pulls her closer, kissing her forehead. He’s never done that before, but it seems like the right thing to do.

“The problem is,” she confesses into the crook of his neck, her voice breaking, “I don’t think I believe in heaven anymore.”

He doesn’t know what to say, so he turns to gather her into his arms, a proper embrace with them lying on their sides. She surges to meet him, pulling him tightly against her, her arms around his shoulders while his tighten around her waist.

He wants to take away her pain, to reassure her, but he knows he can’t. So he holds her close, lets her cry into his shoulder, and rubs her back.

“You carry her with you,” he says earnestly, trying to put it into words. “And her love for you… It radiates from you. My whole life, I’ve known that you were loved.”

She stills, pulling away from him to meet his eyes. For a second, he fears that he said the wrong thing. But then she takes his chin in her hands and kisses him. It’s a sweet kiss, chaste and slow. 

They don’t talk anymore. She lies against him and they drift off to sleep in the sunny afternoon, holding on to each other.

 

*

 

A month slips by, and the fear sets in. It’s a waiting game. She’s watching, anticipating the heartbreaking moment when Ace will realize that this is a futile effort, that he’ll never be able to stay with her when she’s an open wound. Once he realizes that he wants to love her, once he notices that she’s impossible to love, he’ll bow out, taking her mangled heart with him, ripping it out of her chest.

She doesn’t love him. She can’t. But she’s aggressively fond of him, protective over him. One day at the Claw, he burns himself when Chef Jamie hands him a hot pan without warning him, and Nancy yells at Jamie for it, so loudly that all the patrons hear it from the dining room. 

A few weeks later, Laura Tandy waltzes back into town, and Nancy clings to Ace so fiercely that she worries he’ll be scared away. But all he does is kiss her against the wall in the locker room, making her feel wanted, making her feel owned.

Some nights, they don’t hook up. He drives her around in Florence, and she leans her forehead against the cool glass of the windowpane. They pull over to look at the stars, to kiss lazily under them and talk about the world. 

She learns him. She learns about his strict father, his well-meaning mother, and all the love he wasn’t shown. She learns how his hair falls in his face, how it looks at every length, what his earring tastes like between her teeth. She learns about his fears, his ache for the outside world despite the tether keeping him here in Horseshoe Bay.

They talk about high school—their shared landscape of pain—and about all the strangers they once called friends. They discuss first loves and heartbreaks. Every conversation is frank, matter-of-fact, but hesitant. Like if they give too much of themselves over, there will be no going back.

Nancy hardly ever speaks of her mom, but when she does, it’s to Ace. He’s the only one who hears the words she says. He listens, unhindered by pity, offering a gentle peace. 

They drive the streets of Horseshoe Bay at night. They haunt 24-hour diners and midnight lookouts. They handle their pain with shared words, food, weed, and skin. They stave off loneliness by clinging to each other.

They learn each other and grow together. Nancy begins to make friends at the Claw, finally speaking to George and Bess for longer than thirty seconds at a time.

One day toward the end of September, they have the day off, and Ace takes her hiking. They find a summit that overlooks the whole island. They kiss there on the rocks, above everything, and Nancy thinks that if heaven were real, it would look and feel like this moment.

But when she applies to attend Columbia in the spring, she doesn’t tell Ace. It is now October. She could be up and out of here in less than four months, but she doesn’t tell him or anyone. At night, she dreams of the suffocating city, icy flakes spitting down from a pink sky. She pictures herself in a dorm room, with a roommate who knows nothing of her past, and longs for Ace’s skin. She remembers that day in late August, when they had napped the afternoon away. It stands out in her mind as the most peaceful sleep she’s had since her mom died.

How will she look him in the eye, knowing that she could leave him? On November 2nd, he kisses her cheek on his way out of the locker room, and her heart stutters in her chest. 

She doesn’t even tell him when she gets the acceptance in her email. It’s December 5th. He comes over after work and fucks her into the mattress, swallowing her cries with his mouth. Afterwards, as they’re lying together, Nancy feels tears fall from her eyes and onto his chest.

He notices and cups her cheek in his hand. “Are you okay?”

She shakes her head.

Dread overcomes his face, and he’s so sweet that it breaks her heart. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, voice full of concern and something like fear.

She shakes her head again and sits up, staring at the window. She can see slits of snow-covered branches through the blinds.

“Nancy, what is it?”

But she doesn’t say anything. He goes home and she stares at her phone, knowing she should call him but not knowing what to say.

Her dad is ecstatic when she tells him the news that night. He makes her pasta and they have a normal dinner. She almost forgets to be angry with him. They forget to make their conversation stilted and strained; it’s almost like she’s earned his love again.

That night, she cries herself to sleep. The following day, she goes to work and hands in her notice. Ace hears it from George, and confronts her once their shift is over. They’re in the locker room, and Nancy feels like she’s falling when he looks at her with confusion.

“You’re quitting?”

She can’t do this. She can’t come clean, can’t give him up. How does she say that she’s leaving? How does she put it into words? She can’t bear to look at him, at his eyes that have grown to trust her and then care for her, and maybe even love her. She can’t bear to take his heart in her hands and then rip it in half. 

He has given her too much power over him. And now, she must ruin everything.

“I got into Columbia,” she says in a short, clipped tone. She hides behind herself, putting up an impenetrable exterior wall. She’s back in her shell like he never coaxed her out, doing whatever she needs to protect herself from heartbreak.

He taught her how not to be lonely. Now, she must sever that bond.

She watches the realization settle over his face.

“You didn’t tell me you’d applied.” He’s searching her face for answers, but she has shut down again.

Nancy bristles under his scrutinizing gaze and shrugs. “I didn’t think I’d get in.”

“And you’re going?”

She swallows. “Of course I’m going.”

He frowns, reading her closed-off expression. “Congratulations.” His voice breaks. He leaves her in the locker room, where she shatters silently, hugging herself.

That night, she doesn’t text him, and he doesn’t text her. They don’t meet up, and Nancy falls asleep alone, staring at the stars on her ceiling and wishing she could ask her mother if she just made a mistake.

There’s no talk of staying together, because there’s never been any talk of being together in the first place. This was a temporary comfort, a contractual relationship of convenience. And now, Nancy is moving on. She shouldn’t need him anymore.

Nancy goes to work, but he doesn’t acknowledge her. They don’t take smoke breaks together anymore. And when she leaves in the beginning of January, she does so without saying goodbye.

 

*

 

This was always going to be how it ends. He let her take what she needed until she didn’t need him anymore, and now Ace is alone here in Horseshoe Bay, settling back into a familiar stillness.

The wounds Nancy left behind still sting, hot to the touch. He watches her life bloom in Instagram pictures. She looks like she belongs in New York, where she rides the subway and joins the newspaper and probably never thinks of him. It’s all he’s ever wanted for her, but he’s still bitter and confused. Why couldn’t she have let him in? Why couldn’t she have taken him with her?

It was never going to end like that. He knew it from the first time she kissed him on the steps of the Claw, from the first time they fucked in the back seat of Florence. She would keep him only as long as she needed him.

Hadn’t she warned him that he shouldn’t ask her for things she can’t give him?

Where he once spent his nights exploring Horseshoe Bay with Nancy, Ace now frequents the downtown bars. He drowns himself in drunken hookups with perfectly fine women, feeling nothing as they kiss him with alcohol on their tongues. No one tastes like Nancy.

He scrolls by a picture of her smiling in a blue formal dress without liking it. It’s May. She will be coming home for the summer soon. Part of him fills with hope, thinking maybe she’ll come by the Claw or even text him again, asking to catch up. He would kill for a chance to talk to her again, even under the guise of casual for old times’ sake , but she never comes home. She stays in the city, which he learns again through Instagram, probably doing some sort of internship like all his other friends who left him.

During all those months they were together without being together, he was kidding himself. He feels it, bone-deep, scrolling again through the smiling pictures of her, that he has always been lacking. He knew it, even all those months ago, that Nancy was too big for Horseshoe Bay. She was always going to leave him. He doesn’t know why it hurts so much when he has had plenty of time to prepare himself.

In a few years, Nancy would graduate from an Ivy League, and Ace would still be washing dishes for a living.

“You and Nancy,” Bess says one day while they’re sitting on the empty patio of the Claw, watching the fireworks. Today marks one year since Nancy walked into the Claw for the first time. “You two were together, weren’t you?” Bess asks. She has become a confidant, a close friend to lean on.

Ace shakes his head. “Nancy and I… we were just hooking up,” he says, but it feels like a lie passing between his lips, as deceptive as smoke, clouding the unbearable truth: that he had been in love with her.

 

*

 

Nancy lives like she never ripped her heart from her chest. She plasters smiles on her face, makes friends, and builds a shiny new life for herself. She learns the streets of the city like she once learned the veins on Ace’s arms, carving new paths for herself through the haze of loneliness. Because new friends will never know her well enough, will never make her feel seen enough, will never love her enough.

But she throws herself into it like she’s eight years old again, holding her breath before jumping into the deep end of the neighborhood pool, feeling the cold suffocation of the chlorine-choked water surrounding her from all sides. 

She doesn’t think she has a choice. This is what she’s always wanted. She’s a shark swimming forward without being able to stop, traveling at full speed into her new life, even when she can’t help but glance behind her. Ace doesn’t post on social media, but Bess does, so she learns his life through rare snapshots, watching his hair grow longer.

Shame rules her. She wasn’t able to tell him what he meant to her, and now it’s too late. It’s been almost a year since the last time she saw him. Just like that, she’s a sophomore, and it’s cold outside again. Snow falls as she takes the Amtrak home for winter break. It’s December 20th. The train drops her in Portland, and then she takes a local bus to the ferry, which takes her to Horseshoe Bay at last. She was here for a week in July between summer sessions. Other than that, she has stayed away.

Now, Horseshoe Bay is dusted in snow. It’s an aching reminder of the cold, awful days when she and Ace first stopped talking last year. As her dad drives her home, they pass Ace’s house, and her heart cries out for him, reacting to a tether that was never successfully severed. 

She had a dream the other night that Ace was holding her. She woke with the torturous memory of his skin on hers. It was four a.m., and she wasn’t able to get back to sleep. She tossed and turned through the sunrise, unable to shake off the memory of him.

He’s everywhere, lurking behind her every thought, following her, even a year later. She hooked up with other people at school, even tried to date one of them, but none of them made her feel like he did. None of them were enough. 

She meets up with George at Horseshoe Bagels the following day, and it takes all of her strength not to ask after him.

Luckily, George has always been perceptive.

“Ace quit the Claw a few weeks ago,” she says casually. “He works at the morgue now. He’s gotten an apartment, too. He’s really moving up.”

Nancy wants to ask her where his new apartment is, but she bites her tongue. This is good. If she doesn’t know where he is, she can’t go to him on her knees, begging him to take her back. 

“Are you going to the Ball tonight?” George asks.

“Yeah, my dad is taking me. He wants me to meet his new girlfriend.”

“We’ll all be there. I know the others will want to see you.”

The others , meaning Nick, Bess, and Ace.

Dread and hope coil in her chest, two snakes battling for dominance over her heart. “I’ll see you there,” she squeaks out.

 

*

 

When he sees her from across the dimly lit ballroom, his breath catches in his throat. The sight of her makes his face burn. He aches to run to her, to pull her into a fierce embrace, but he stands still, staying behind with Nick as the girls wave to her and walk over to say hi. She’s wearing a sleek black dress with a high neck, her hair pulled into an all-too-familiar low bun.

The candle lighting takes place. The flame passes from hand to hand, wick to wick around the room, and so by the time it reaches Ace he feels like he is being lit by her flame. His eyes burn into the back of her head. She’s standing with her dad and a woman he doesn’t recognize.

“You should talk to her,” Nick says.

“No,” Ace replies. “I really shouldn’t.”

It’s a bad idea. She already ruined him once; it would be foolish to let her do it again, no matter how much he yearns for it. He is at her mercy, even now, even with a year of pain and longing sprawled out between them.

But it doesn’t matter. When she finds him toward the end of the party, he bends to her will.

“Hi,” she says. They’re at the edge of the dance floor, watching their friends and family waltz. She sidles up to him, her shoulder nearly brushing his. 

His breath catches again.

“Hi,” he says back. 

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” she says. 

“Yeah?” He looks at her, but she’s watching the dance floor, eyes unreadable.

“Yeah,” she confirms, finally meeting his eyes. “Will you talk to me?” Her face is open and pleading.

He answers by taking her hand and leading her to the edge of the ballroom and then out the back doors, to the deserted patio. He did so nonchalantly, but taking her hand has sent a lightning strike of pain and longing through him. Letting go of her physically pains him. It’s cold, so they stand by a fire grate, which provides them with just enough warmth for Nancy to quell her shivers.

They’re always here, always outside, always out back, always hidden from the rest of the world. Ace wonders if they would have ever gotten to know each other if it had been winter when Nancy started at the Claw. It would have been too cold for her to sit on the back step while he smoked on his breaks. They never would have fallen together.

Despite the warmth from the grate, Nancy shivers. He watches her, waiting for her to break the tense cord of silence stretched between them. It’s not like their old, peaceful silences; it’s a tinny silence, faintly ringing, bringing attention to itself.

“I don’t know where to begin,” she says honestly.

He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Then start at the beginning.”

She sighs. “I never meant to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

Ace doesn’t say anything, only meets her eyes. The light from the fire dances in them, mesmerizing.

“You were really important to me,” she says. “I’m sorry if I never made that obvious.”

“You were important to me too,” he says.

She stares at the fire. Ace watches tears well in her eyes, and he remembers long ago, when she cried into his chest on that sunny afternoon, telling him about the map of heaven on her ceiling.

“I got a real job,” he says. “At the morgue. And I’m renting an apartment. I’m not lacking anymore.”

When she looks at him, her gaze softens. “You never were.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Is that what you thought? That you weren’t enough for me?”

He shrugs. “You were always going to move on to better things. It’s okay.”

She shakes her head again, looking back at the fire. She’s always doing this: shrinking away from his gaze.

“I didn’t leave because you weren’t enough for me,” Nancy says, her voice breaking. “ I wasn’t enough for you , Ace. Don’t you see that? I wasn’t in a place where I could let you care for me. I couldn’t let you in, and I’m sorry for that.”

He places a hand on her shoulder, feeling her bones through the black velvet of her dress. “I never expected you to. I knew what I was getting into.”

Nancy clears her throat, meeting his eyes again. “I think I’m ready now. I know you’ve probably moved on… but I miss you.”

He stares at her, momentarily speechless. The words that just came from her mouth are the ones he’s been yearning to hear from her for a year now.

“I never moved on,” he says. “I’ll never move on.”

 

*

 

When he kisses her, her mind goes quiet. All the regret she’s been harboring for the past year unspools and melts in her chest, pure peace taking its place. She sighs into his mouth. 

This time, he has an apartment to take her back to. He lays her down on his own bed, with no threat of parents or passers by. They’re chest to chest, inhaling each other. Nancy pulls him over her, letting him crush her, wanting to feel crushed by his warmth. She nearly cries when he pushes into her, having missed this feeling more than anything.

This is where she’s meant to be: under Ace and crying out against his shoulder, pulling him into bruising kiss after bruising kiss as he brings her to the edge. This is where she’s meant to be, face against the sheets as he pushes slowly into her from behind, whispering sweet nothings in her ear, coaxing her into another hazy ripple of an orgasm. 

This is where she’s meant to be: catching her breath against his chest as they lie together afterwards, basking in each other’s closeness.

“I love you,” he says into the dark room, breaking their sacred silence.

She sighs happily against his neck, kissing there just once before echoing, “I love you.”

 

 

Notes:

special thanks to the organizers of secret sleuth, including katelyn @troubledpancakes who read over this fic!

 

listen to the playlist for this fic!

 

happy holidays, drewds!