He didn’t care at all, of course, more interested in telling us all about his recent trip to Thessaloniki than anything like cleaning a car. Nick’s gaze roved between us as if he was watching a tennis match, and before bed, he caught up with me in the greenhouse, where I had gone to catch my breath from the events of the day.
“You lied to him,” he said, and for a moment, I had no idea who he was talking about.
“Who, Max? What does it matter?”
“You should have told him the truth,” Nick said doggedly, and I snorted.
“Why? I offered to have it cleaned up. What more should I have done?”
Nick frowned, brows drawing together in disapproval.
“It was dishonest.”
“Show me someone who cares, and I’ll come clean,” I offered. We both knew that Max and Carol had disappeared with the Timberly twins and Prescott Lind to smoke hashish on the upper veranda. They wouldn’t be caring about anything for hours.
Nick shook his head.
“It’s still not right.”
“Probably not. Are you going to let it bother you all weekend?”
He watched me pluck a velvety white flower from its stalk and tuck it behind my ear. He was keeping some distance between us as if slightly wary of me.
“Let me guess, your girl in Jersey City wouldn’t do such a thing.”
He jumped, and my estimation of him lowered a bit. I didn’t mind the girl much, but I did mind his assumption that I didn’t know.
“What do you know about—”
“Not her name, and I don’t care to,” I lied. Of course I did. Mrs. Crenshaw’s imp was a fifteenth century antique and incredibly reliable.
“All I know, Nick, is that if you want honest and impeccable, you ought to go back to your girl in Jersey City, though maybe you should tell her about me and Miss Minnesota and let her make her own judgment.”
“Jordan…”
He sounded like he wanted to keep talking about this, but I shook my head. I took the flower from my ear and tucked it behind his. With his complexion, it looked better on him anyway.
“I don’t care,” I said impatiently. “And if you do, fine. But if you want someone to talk to about morality it isn’t going to be me. I was rather hoping to go walking down by the willows.”
We had a room, but the Dancys had had some summer mage whisk up will-o-wisps to light the bowers created by the drooping willow branches, and there was really only one reason to go down there. Nick wavered, and I decided I was pleased when he offered me his arm and we slipped out of the greenhouse.
He was a perfect gentleman, stopping and going like the most well-mannered Tennessee walking horse. I laid him out under the willow and we had gotten each other half-undressed before I stopped, mostly to see what he would do.
“I’m not easy,” I warned him. “I may be exactly this stubborn forever, or I might change my mind at any moment. What do you think of that?”
“I hope you change your mind, but I like it when you’re stubborn,” he replied, and I laughed at him, kissing him because while I wasn’t easy, I realized he was.
“Jordan,” he said, half-desperate, and I laughed again, got back to it.
By the time we drove home, questions of dishonesty were forgotten, and we never bothered to speak of it again, not when there were so many other exciting things to speak of.
I lured him to my favorite dance clubs and speakeasies, introduced him to actors and radicals and gin babies. It was a pleasure to see everything through his wide eyes, and unlike so many other men, he never turned around and gave that instruction back to me as if I should be grateful. He was the grateful one, and he followed where I led; it was one of my favorite things about him. But I couldn’t take Nick everywhere.