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Nancy rubbed at her hair with a towel, steam curling out of the bathroom and into the rest of Icarus Hall. She had taken an extra long shower, the water just hot enough to turn her skin bright red, in an attempt to wash away all the bits of frosting left behind from the evening's earlier cake fight. The frosting was mostly gone, but as she walked back towards the main room of Icarus Hall, she swore she could still feel it on her scalp.
As she dried her hair, her eyes landed on the mystery board. Ace and her had managed to find the black door and Nancy had scrambled to take things before fleeing whatever had screeched at her after she read what was inscribed on the mirror.
Nothing she had read about the Late Eight and the yacht club was seeming to connect so far. She scrubbed her hands over her eyes, the towel flung on her desk.
Staring once more at the photos of the deceased, she crossed her arms, determined to connect something as she glared at the paper. Shrill rings from her phone cut off her train of thought and she picked up her cell phone, eyebrows raising at the caller ID.
Ace?
She hit accept.
“Hey.”
“Uhm,” A long pause. Nancy almost thought he hung up or buttdialed her before he inhaled and spoke again. “I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to go fishing with my dad today. I’m really glad I went.”
She remembers being stuck in Ace’s body earlier, how strange, yet normal it felt. How safe she immediately felt because she knew him, knew that inside her body Ace would keep her safe. Nancy remembered his clothes and briefly remembered stealing his flannel in a world not far from here. She pushed the thought away and swallowed.
“Well, I should thank you too. You really showed up for me today.” Her grip tightens on the phone and she sits on top of her desk. “I noticed.”
“Before everything spun around today, I thought…” Ace trails off and she can picture him, eyes darting to the floor looking for the words to say, pushing his hair away from his face. “Maybe we’d started bringing out the worst in each other. But I was wrong. It’s hard to be your friend right now.”
“I’m a better person with you in my life.” Ace says it so quickly that Nancy thinks she misheard him. When he doesn't continue, she smiles, teary-eyed, as if he could see her.
“I’m not happy without you in mine.”
“So, goodnight.” On instinct, her hand reaches up for her mother’s necklace to fiddle with, to settle the thoughts swirling in her head. Her fingers graze her collarbone only to find it empty.
“Actually, uhm, my necklace-” Nancy scrambles up off her desk, hand falling to her side. “Do you still have it?”
Miles away by the ocean, inside Florence, Ace touches his neck gently, lifting up his chain, which had wrapped around another dainty golden one.
“I do. I’ll get it back to you.” Nancy lets out a huge breath on the other end of the line, followed by a nervous laugh.
“Great, yeah. Thanks. Goodnight!” The line goes silent and Ace puts his phone down, shifting Florence into drive.
An hour later, Nancy is settled for bed, most of the lights in Icarus Hall off. Only the candles in her entry hall and bedroom flickered, casting inky shadows across the walls.
Nancy lazily scrolled through her phone, trying to turn her mind off, when she heard tires screech and a door slam outside.
Was that Florence?
Throwing off the covers and turning on the lamp by her desk in the main room revealed Ace in the arch of the entryway. His hair looked wet and pushed back- like he had been swimming rather than just fishing.
“Jeez!” Nancy jumped back, grabbing the chair near her for support. “You scared me.”
“You really should lock your doors.” A ghost of a smile was on his lips as he walked closer.
“What are you doing here? It's late.”
“This.” When he was about a foot away from her, he lifted his arm, necklace dangling from his fingertips.
“You didn't have to…” Nancy was at a loss for words. “You could've returned it tomorrow.” Ace smiles knowingly at her and shakes his head.
“I know what today is.” The hand holding the necklace drops to his side. “I don't want you to not have the comfort of it. I know how much your mom's necklace means to you.”
Despite how frustrated they had been with one another recently and how upset she had been with their circumstances, Nancy admired how he rushed to her aid
(even if she wanted space, the only space she wanted to be in was his)
no matter how they both felt. They stood staring at each other for a few seconds, the air around them feeling electric and burning Nancy’s skin.
“You have a bit of…” Ace motioned towards her ear, his fingers barely ghosting around it.
“It's frosting.” Nancy grinned sheepishly. “Cake fight. Sorry you missed it.”
“I'm sure there will be more.” He said it with such certainty, a soft smile forming, and for a second
(she pictures a piece of three tiered cake being the one thrown at him)
she almost lets herself get lost again in the overwhelming heat of Ace’s presence, thoughts swirling beyond her head and into the pit of her stomach, where they decide to settle like lead.
“You should go. It’s getting late.” Nancy snapped out of her reverie, touching the hand that was holding her necklace. Ace studied her face, his eyebrows furrowing in thought.
“Turn around.” The sudden request from Ace made her blush, yet out of sheer curiosity, she did not object. Nancy turned and faced the window behind her desk, her heart skipping as she saw her necklace glint in the candlelight above her head. Ace carefully placed it upon her neck, fumbling to clasp it for a second.
As he fumbled, she thought of the romantic comedies she had rented to quell her heartbreak and how the love interests usually had an intimate scene where clothing or jewelry was involved. The male counterpart would fumble or smoothly fix the clothing and touch the female counterparts’ back slowly, with love and longing, a yearning to be with the other person. Ace finished and she breathed in shakily, closing her eyes to regain her composure.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t have to drive over here to give it back to you tonight, either.” Ace pointed out. He moved from behind her to beside her, staring through the thin curtain that hung on the window behind her desk at the moon outside. “I just did.”
A memory of asking her late grandmother to do anything she could to save the man next to her flashes in her mind and she shakes it away.
“Just because it’s hard to be your friend right now…” He continues, but trails off, trying to gather the right words.
“Doesn’t mean we won’t be there.” Nancy supplied, looking at him from the corner of her eye.
“No, more than that. Just hard to say.” He toyed with a loose string on the end of his jacket.
“Well, when you find the words…share them with me?” Ace, hearing his own words from not long ago echoed back at him, dropped the end of his jacket and turned to Nancy.
“Always.” He wasn’t smiling, but she knew it was serious, the kind of always that entailed the promise of forever when spoken between two soulmates (cursed or not).
Maybe he would keep the unspoken promise. For now, they sat a while longer in each other’s company, however strange it felt to be near one another, with the promise of always and forever lingering between them.