Chapter Text
The brown sign flashed by on the side of the road: Acadia National Park, 85 miles.
With all of Florence’s windows rolled down and almost all of the Claw’s waiting staff stuffed inside of her middle sections, Nancy felt her body relax into the seat. The bruises from the last possession were healing nicely along her legs, outstretched in front of her. With the sun beating in through the front window and the wind pushing in from the side, Nancy knew that 85 miles would be over in no time.
She sat in the passenger seat, tidy hair uncharacteristically pulled into a messy bun but still falling in her face relentlessly. Bess sat directly behind her, master of the aux cord and looking similarly wind-swept. The self-appointed social media savant was as out of her element as Nancy in the face of a long week camping. She spent the first hour of the ride anxiously filing through a variety of music - jumping from upbeat oldies to manic Korean pop music, classic show tunes, and hardcore punk-pop (Nancy had a sneaking suspicion that George recommended that station) - before settling on a milder, Lumineers-esque vibe.
Next to her George lay snuggled, sleeping into Nick’s chest. The past week, George has run around the Claw endlessly, showing the new assistant manager, Charlie, precisely how the Claw is run. Mainly, haphazardly. But Charlie, as well as a host of college students that have lived through the Claw (and the other wait staff’s truancy) throughout the summer, were well equipped to handle this early September week off. The worst of Memorial Day tourist traffic has come and gone through Horseshoe Bay. The remaining stragglers - liberal art school students with later starting dates and obsessions with Stephen King, retired couples in RV’s with their empty-nest replacement pugs - would be well sought after while the co-owners of the Claw, the head dishwasher, and two servers leave for a week on the beach.
Nick looked out the window with a smile that could only be described as utter contentment. Nancy snuck glances every now and then - to ask for snacks or to maintain conversation, as per the passenger seat’s main responsibility on a long road trip - and couldn’t help but feel love for the two snuggling in the backseat. Nick checked fastidiously that George’s head was at a comfortable angle, that her flyaways from her normally tight braids were tucked softly behind her ears. He maintained quiet conversation with the whole group, projecting his voice in a way that was inexplicably heard over the roar of wind and the radio but wasn’t loud enough to wake up George. This time, 84 miles away from Acadia, when Nancy looked in the backseat, they made eye contact and both of them smiled shyly.
For a while, Nancy was sure she would never be able to look at Nick without feeling abandoned, resented, and mistrusted. She thought that their failed romantic relationship would always be the most salient part of their lives. Seeing George - this tough, badass, take-no-shit woman, this small creature that has saved both of their lives and protected them as fiercely as if they were her family - coddled under Nick’s arm, utterly vulnerable and completely relaxed, made Nancy smile almost as wide as Nick. She was so happy that her friendship with Nick allowed him and George to be the world to each other. Nancy realized that this gap year was about so much more than saving money or sorting out her life after her mom died. It was about finding the people in this car, with her, through thick and thin and demons, ghosts, and death.
Nancy’s eyes moved from the back seat to the driver’s seat. Ace, looking utterly at ease, driving into the afternoon sun and softly singing along to The Lumineers. Nancy’s heart skipped a beat. He would love the Lumineers.
“Does anyone fully believe,” Bess moved forward to have a word with the front row without being too loud to wake up George, “that we are going to camp for a week without there being some supernatural nonsense happening?”
“Bess, don’t jinx it,” Nick responded. "We are going to get to our campsite, put up tents, make a fire, and cook dinner. And then every day after that is going to be the same, except we’ll hike and go to the beach. My poor hairline can't take anymore cursed dresses or five-hundred year old women bathing in blood for eternal youth. I just need some peace and quiet, and time with my friends.”
“I second that,” Ace nodded. “I can’t wait to show everyone how to tie knots and use a compass.” He turned to look at Nancy, whose eyebrows shot up and was grinning in a ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ kind of way. He furrowed his brow.
“Nancy.” He said seriously, putting his hand on his chest. “Eagle Scout.”
“Well that’s all well and good,” Bess hurriedly responded. “I’m just so excited for a week without ghosts, right, Nancy?” Bess leaned in closer to the front. The whole car, save for a sleeping George, turned to look at Nancy. Her hesitation was a beat too long.
“I mean there are some stories about a variety of places in the park,” Nancy began, to a collection of groans from the group. “Would I be interested in going and visiting a few of them? Obviously! But it’s not like a requirement, I guess, if everyone hates the idea. Plus you know how these things are,” she rationalized to the group (some would say it’s one of her best qualities, her capacity to rationalize), “half the time, they are blown way out of proportion and aren’t real in the slightest.”
“Yeah,” Nick said sarcastically from the backseat, “that rings true to most of our murder mystery solving experience.”
Although the car groaned, Nancy sensed that they weren’t actually against the idea of visiting some haunted places in the park. The autumn sun was shining in through the front windows and there was just the slightest edge of chill riding in on the air. Every color leaf they passed on the road was a different shade of orange and yellow, some red, some brown. Some trees, in direct sunlight, were still passably green. The whole ride was too peaceful to find anything wrong with the world.
Nancy knew that soon, too soon, she would look back on this day from the windowless halls of a dormitory. Her head would be throbbing with first-year mathematical requirements - a study she was always laughably poor in - and she would probably be surrounded by genius teenagers that laugh at the idea of her starting college even one year late. She was beyond excited to start at Columbia, but taking a gap year to stay at home and create these memories with the people in this car made leaving Horseshoe Bay impossible. She wonders for the millionth time in the past thirteen months how different her life would be had she sailed away with her class and never started working at the Claw.
An off-pitch note pulled her from mental meanderings as she looked one more time to the drivers’ seat. Ace, hat backward, singing along to The Lumineers. His impossibly soft hair so long now that George required that he pull it in a bun when he’s working. His strong jaw and smooth skin and the way his eyebrows pinch together when he’s concentrating. Ever since her dreamscape, her wrestle through traumas exploited by the wraith, Nancy couldn’t stop thinking about Ace’s lips. About sharing his breath and running her fingers through his hair again - this time, without being possessed by the lust of a burned, haunted wedding dress. About how naturally they share a space, how comfortably they work together. How, so often in her life, she feels that she’s trying to control something - herself, or the people around her, or the situation at hand - and how, when she’s with Ace, she doesn’t feel that same need to control. How she trusts him. How he never competes with her.
When Ace came back from his ‘romantic’ road trip with Amanda in the spring, he came back without Amanda. She had stayed down in Massachusetts, apparently falling in love with a small coastal town that desperately needed a hotel manager. That town was what she wanted - a life with some space from her brother, a fresh start where people didn’t look down on her because of her family - and by all accounts, Amanda was happy down there. Ace visited a couple of times afterward, and Amanda came to visit on slow spring weekends, but throughout the summer they seemed less and less involved. The last time Nancy had heard anything about Amanda was during the fourth of July festival.
Nancy had wanted to talk about it more openly with Ace, but the conversation always seemed to avoid their relationship in the group and the Claw, and the mysterious hijinks the crew kept finding themselves in, kept everyone busy enough that Nancy just didn’t put herself out there. She wanted to be respectful, and she wanted to make sure her next relationship wasn’t negatively impacted by the emotional devastation of Owen and Nick. She had done the harmless sex with Gil that turned into a harmful, emotionally abusive relationship; she had flirted with the overtly sexual older Tamura. She wanted her next relationship to be better than those had been. If Nancy was being honest with herself, she wanted her next relationship to be with Ace.
She wanted her last relationship, maybe, to be with Ace.
But Columbia was a few weeks away. And Nancy didn’t even know if Ace felt that way about her. Thinking through all of this, Nancy tried to swallow her sadness and embrace the peace of the moment. It would be one of her last, she knew, and she didn’t want to spend it moping.
“You’re singing off-tune.” Nancy quipped.
Ace smiled. “I’m only doing it to annoy you.”