I realized that there were about a thousand different scenarios I would care to see it played out in, most of them better than mine, but my attention span is short and that rum was STRONG, so this is the only one I managed to write.
Hope y'all are having happy holidays!
"Did you know that there are eight different types of crazy?"
Pacey looked over at her. He squinted in the afternoon sunlight.
"Only eight?"
And there it was again; a smile. A small crook of her lips above the straw of the Coke she held. It felt a little more familiar this time, like a new word she was wearing in with her tongue.
"Only eight," she said.
She gave a slight nod, asserting her authority on the subject, and captured the straw in her mouth for another sip.
Pacey watched her for a second, the haze of his own smile lurking at the edges of his eyes. Then, glancing ahead again, he murmured a thoughtful "Huh" and took a bite of his hot dog.
Their legs hung over the edge of the old pier, their feet dangling high above the water. The waves below rolled in languidly, seeking siesta upon the sand, and a breeze tickled damp at their toes.
"Also," she swung her legs lightly, brushing warm air, "there are apparently sixteen different kinds of love."
Pacey brushed sauce from his mouth with the back of his hand as he turned to her. The smile shone in his expression now.
"Where are you getting this information, woman?"
She dipped her head, taking a drink. Then she met his gaze and shrugged a shoulder.
"Something I read somewhere."
Pacey grinned. "Oh, well, that's definitive, Potter."
And without any say in the matter, Joey grinned back.
"Isn't it?"
There were people on the beach, stretched out on the sand in splashes of colored towels and bathing suits, some slipping through the loll of the waves, their distant shouts and laughter a haphazard melody to the ocean's hazy rhythm. The teenage boy working at the concession stand by the edge of the pier had blessed them all with a foul glare and the label "tourists" as he had passed the change from the order- one hot dog, one Coke with ice- and Joey had smiled, recognizing the scowl that had kept her company so many summer days working at the Icehouse.
But sitting here on the weatherbeaten boards with the lick of salt on her lips and summer running its fingers through her hair, she liked their song.
It sounded as if the world was a sunny snapshot with no dark edges, halted in August abandon for just a little while.
"So what's the first kind of love?" Pacey asked.
Her arms rested on the lower bar of the wooden guardrail that ran the length of the pier and she picked off a shard of white paint from the splintery stretch; she tipped her head slightly.
"A parent and a child."
Pacey held his hot dog up to her and she leaned in and took a bite, her eyes crushing closed briefly, her nose scrunching for an instant.
Joey's mouth curved up as she chewed and she offered her cup. Pacey bent his head and took a long draft from the straw.
"What about number three?"
There had always been something easy about his manner, in the way he walked, and the dance of his hands in conversations, the way they rubbed over his chest as he mulled something. He hadn't lost that.
Joey ran her tongue lightly over her lips, tasting a trace of mustard.
She could remember the anxious stab she had felt when he'd left at the end of high school, terrified that when he saw her again he might stiffen his steps and his hands would stay deep in his pockets as he spoke. And that stab again, a week ago, as she had walked up to the Icehouse under a black umbrella, wondering if the years might have worn his gaze hard.
But it was still there, in the blur of his hug as he had swung her around that night, in his sure grasp of her hand in the hospital waiting room, and here, in the low, comfortable lilt of his question.
She looked out across the white crests that laced the tide. "Number three is selfish love."
A wave crashed about the pylon below and she wriggled her toes in the cool of the spray.
Pacey draped his arms over the railing, leaning his chest against the scratch of painted wood. He was wearing only an undershirt, too warm for much else, and the thin fabric stretched across his back as he drew a thoughtful breath.
"Like keeping copies of Playboy locked up?"
The sea breeze caught her laugh, carrying it toward shore in shallow swoops as she cut her glance back to him.
"Yeah," Joey smirked, "Exactly like imprisoning porn."
He turned away from the ocean and flashed her a grin.
A strap of her red tank top had fallen from her shoulder, baring the thin strip of the old bikini she wore beneath, but she didn't care. And Pacey didn't fix it back into place with a skim of his fingers like he might've if he wasn't suddenly so aware of her next to him, with that familiar slip of her lips and the dulled sheen of sunblock on her skin.
"Have you decided when you're going to go back to New York?"
Joey paused, then shook her head. "I've still got two weeks of vacation time."
He saw her dark eyes change; not clouded, still clear, but sailing far away for a flicker. In the past week he had learned the sensation of peering over the horizon's edge too. In the hospital, at the church; it could take your breath right away.
The wayward strap crept a little further down her arm as she shrugged, her gaze returning. "My boss is stressed, but she's not pushing me to come back yet." She let her legs swing faintly, back and forth, and studied the wooden rail. "I want to stay in Capeside a bit longer."
She chipped another flake of paint from the wood with her thumb, then looked up at Pacey with a faint, lopsided smile.
"Don't ever tell Bessie I said that."
His eyes were so blue in the afternoon light. They were narrowed against the glare but she could see the glint as he regarded her for a moment and she knew how they could change to match the sky or the sea, just as endless.
I know you she whispered silently and it echoed softly down to her fingertips.
Pacey broke off, taking the last bite of the hot dog. Then he nudged her with his shoulder.
"Who woulda thought you'd be one of those sweater-knotters, vacationing in our podunk town?" he opined through the mouthful.
Joey raised a brow at the elegant display. "And who woulda thought you'd make it from the Neolithic era so well preserved?"
With a smile itching the corners of his mouth, he glanced away, out over the shore. A couple of kids were lying on their bellies at the water's edge, screeching every time a wave lapped up onto the sand, and a yellow beach ball was bobbing further out with a boy in dogged pursuit. Pacey heard the rattle of ice in Joey's drink as she took a sip; he looked at her out of the corner of his eye and an ache swept right through him.
Three days ago he had made a decision, a sort of declaration, in the kitchen of the Icehouse. And he had meant every word, regardless of how bare they had laid his heart or how good the odds were that they had all been employed by Hallmark at some point or another despite his best intentions to eschew the trite. Every word had been his, for that fleeting moment in the kitchen.
But none of it meant he couldn't miss her.
She would go back to New York- she had to- and he would hold tight to this afternoon, when she had sat beside him in the sun, her shorts bunched high on her legs, her feet drifting absently into the path of his from time to time, when they had talked about sweater-knotters, sixteen types of love, nothing at all.
Pacey watched as the kid caught up with the yellow ball in the waves below, and he grinned as it was promptly thrown at another boy's head.
He brushed the crumbs from his hands, eliciting a cranky caw from a loitering gull which darted down after them, and he hooked his thumbs over the rail, hugging it to his chest.
"Jo?" Pacey spoke quietly, just above the murmur of the surf. "I don't want to talk about big stuff." He turned to her slowly. "No confessions or dilemmas or ruminations on the plight of the world; I don't want to do that."
She was hunched endearingly, an arm laid along the wooden rail with her chin resting on it, her Coke dangling from her other hand, and she tilted her head to fix him with dark eyes.
"Good." She grinned. "Neither do I."
"No?"
"Uh uh." She continued looking at him. "You've changed, Pace."
Scratching his jaw, he held her undemanding gaze with a languid smile. "Yeah," he sighed, "I used to say 'dude' a lot more."
"Mmhmm." A wisp of a smirk. "And you also used to bug me all night, when we lay out on the deck of True Love that summer; you wanted to hear about big stuff back then."
The scent of Carolina jasmine and the feel of the warm blanket of night sky on bare skin laced her words, mixed more potent by the years.
Pacey snorted. "I didn't bug you, Josephine; I couldn't shut you up."
The ice in her cup sloshed as she elbowed him sharply.
They had sent out messages in bottles one evening, somewhere off the coast of South Carolina. She had used an empty ketchup container and in a coin toss Pacey had won the rights to the wine bottle they had managed to procure at the last port, and they had written their notes out on paper stolen from a hotel lobby. The content of the messages was supposed to be top secret but she had snuck a glance at his sheet and saw it addressed to "Dear Homeowner" and had informed him that a sweepstakes letter might be better suited to the ketchup container.
Joey let her lashes sink low for a moment as a gust of cool air ruffled her hair.
She remembered how the wine bottle had been flung petulantly overboard without a message or cork, and how, remorseful, they had both dived in after it as it began to sink, coming up with only briny cackles and recriminations.
"I never did get another boat."
At the sound of his voice, Joey looked up at him for a long moment.
"Careful Witter," she said finally with a wry quirk of her mouth, "That sounds like big stuff."
"I used small words."
"How novel for you," she remarked, her mouth dipping further, then cheerfully yelped as it earned her a kick.
"So, Potter," Pacey swung his feet contentedly, "Tell me about the other types of love."
Gulls drifted in lazy arcs overhead, squawking fitfully like grouchy and grossly untalented minstrels as Joey considered the request.
"Well, there's unrequited- that's the seventh kind."
"Bummer love," Pacey nodded.
She swirled her straw in the remaining ice of her drink. "And the eleventh is the Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner love-hate type."
Pacey cocked a brow. "And this you read in an article somewhere?"
"It was endorsed by Acme Corporation."
"The article?"
Joey slurped the last of the watery Coke and shook her head. "That type of love."
Unhooking his arms from the railing, Pacey leaned back a little with a chuckle. "Oh sure, nothing says amore like a case of dynamite."
He tipped his face up to the sky, closing his eyes as the warm sunshine washed over him. He felt Joey shift beside him and knew she was doing the same, eyes closed, her dark hair spilling down her back in loose waves the salt air had combed, the red strap still fallen from her smooth shoulder. A drowsy breeze danced across his skin.
"It's nice here." Her murmur floated, dappled in contentment.
"Mmmm." Pacey inhaled slowly. "Coppertone love."
She was smiling. He didn't open his eyes, but he could feel it. The water below slapped against the pylons, not quite breaking, and a gull nearby cried aimlessly.
"I've come here the last couple of days."
"Did you go in the water?" His voice was an easy drawl, soaked in the August afternoon.
"Nope…just sitting here like this."
He half-wondered why she had asked him to come with her today, but he let the question slide through the gaps between the wooden boards of the pier and dissolve in the shadowed sea beneath.
There had been other days, hot hands of summer leading them to this beach. They had made castles in the sand and washed away the sting of school in afternoons still marked with trailing heat and laid on towels in damp bathing suits to bask in meaningless conversation. The sun would streak Dawson's hair lighter and Jen and Andie would lament their fair complexions when they grew pink from the rays; Jack would crash through the shallow waves, and the water would leave salty tracks over Joey's tanned skin when it dried.
They had come here with Jen and Jack one unhurried Sunday in their senior year, scrunching their feet in the sand and letting the fresh air steal away their cares for a few hours.
Pacey turned his head and peeked at Joey in the sunlight.
"Did anyone try to give you a tan outline of a handprint on your stomach?"
A shimmer of smile spread over her face as she opened her eyes, the teasing timbre of his voice evoking that day. How he had been propped up on his elbow on the towel next to hers, flaunting his most persuasive grin, hand covered in sunblock, telling her it would be a serious artistic endeavor, how Jen had been sitting on the other side of him, laughing under her straw hat.
Meeting his gaze, Joey set the empty cup down and, leaning back slightly, she tugged the hem of her tank top up.
Pacey grinned. Then, without thinking, he reached out and brushed his fingers over the soft skin of her stomach that had never been marred by artistic endeavors.
There were people passing by behind them on the pier, laughter and shouts drifting up from the shore, yet his touch was somehow more intimate than all those hushed thoughts they had told each other in the dark on the deck of True Love, or any kiss with which he had ever captured her mouth. And at the same time, it was just a touch.
Joey didn't breathe.
She hadn't answered his question in the restaurant. She'd been interrupted, she'd taken plates out to the tables and the moment had slipped away without explanation. Maybe it had been a beginning, a goodbye, a kiss on the cheek, the softest slap; it hadn't mattered. He had not asked for anything.
But with the feel of her under his fingertips, Pacey wanted to throw it all away, wanted to ask her for everything. Maybe her list of sixteen loves was her way of telling him thank you and nothing more, but for that split second in the ache of warm skin, he wanted it all; the sun, the moon, and every goddamn star they had wished upon out in that ocean.
Something dark flickered across her eyes and Pacey withdrew his hand. He pushed back from the railing and got his feet.
"C'mon."
With a breath, Joey caught the stumble she felt inside. Leaving the Coke cup, she climbed to her feet too and took his outstretched hand. His fingers threaded with hers and with a smile, he pulled her after him toward the end of the pier.
The weathered boards thudded sturdy and sand-strewn beneath their bare feet as they ran along the wide stretch. The tang of the sea smacked in a delicious gust, streaming Joey's hair out behind her and loosing a grin from her lips as Pacey let go of her hand. They dodged around a woman strolling in the direction of the shore and Joey quickened her pace and then they were racing, covering the uneven sweep of wood with easy strides and breathless snatches of laughter.
A fisherman on the south side glanced over at them as they cheerfully crashed against the end railing then turned back to his line. They didn't notice him, leaning on the rail and relishing the light pounding in their chests that felt like the best of childhood, uncomplicated, exhilarating.
"So," Joey pushed her tousled hair back and looked over at Pacey, "Now what?"
He fixed her with a wicked glint. "We jump."
Dropping a glance over the rail, a dubious smile lit her face.
"What?"
"Go on," Pacey nodded toward the glittering ocean, "Get wet, Potter."
She held his gaze for a beat, the taunt there bringing a smirk to her lips. Then she arched a brow in a shrug.
"Okay."
Joey grasped the top rail and bent down, stepping one leg and then the other over the lower post until she was standing with her toes curled over the edge of the pier, the guardrail against her back, and nothing out in front but air. Holding fast to the white rail, she ignored the momentary disappearance of her stomach and looked nonchalantly back over her shoulder.
"Are you coming?"
Pacey faltered for a second, then climbed through with a grin. A gull wheeled by, screeching curiously as he straightened beside her, gripping the wooden post. He peered down at the water.
"I was kidding, Jo."
She looked at him, her eyes shining. Yeah, I know you. "No you weren't."
Pacey threw her a wide grin. "Nah."
The world had been tangled up for so long that it was strange how just a week could unravel it so simply.
They were twenty-five. They would never be fifteen again. They would never see Jen laughing under her straw hat once more. The sun would come up; the garbage would have to be taken out; Sundays would still seem too short. And all those little things that they had thought wouldn't matter anymore, they just mattered more.
With a sudden rush of fearlessness, Joey grinned back at Pacey.
Now it was the details, like the perfect amount of ice in your Coke or being close enough to someone to feel their laughter. It was clinging to the very edge of the pier and letting go with one hand, and it was pulling his mouth down to hers and tasting the salt-laced memories hidden there like they were new.
It was the way Pacey kissed her back, hot and open, claiming her mouth fervently and surrendering completely to the certainty that there was no place he would rather be than hanging precariously off the end of a pier with his one free hand slipping through her hair.
It was the way he smiled, a little unfocused, as they drew apart.
He breathed out, and his voice was husky.
"What do we do now?"
Joey stared back, her heart pounding. She gave a crooked smile.
"Jump."
And so they did.
With one last grasp of the splintery wood, they leapt out into the air together and fell, feet first, shrieking and yelling, their arms flung above their heads, down, down, and plunged deep into the cool blue water below.
They surfaced in gasping splutters, their tops floating up, their shorts dragging beneath, and for a while all they could do was tread water, trying to keep their heads above the swell as they laughed like fools under the clear sky for no real reason whatsoever. Kicking their legs, they swiped at their eyes, the delicious sting of salt and cold sea on their skin, their laughs slowly trailing into watery cackles, grins streaked indelibly across their faces.
They swam towards the shore in lazy kicks and sweeping strokes until their feet found the sandy bottom and there, grabbing each other's hand, they waded into the shallows under the pier.
The water washed about their waists and they circled each other slowly, catching their breath, trying to make sense of their thoughts. Their clothes clung to their skin in wet drapes, thin rivers dripping from their hair in steady cascades and the slats of light from above flickered as people passed over the pier.
Pacey slowed until he was just standing before her, his hands drifting in short arcs by his sides.
"So what's the sixteenth kind, Potter?"
Her hair was soaked in strands down her cheeks and as she looked straight at him, he saw her lashes were stuck together in dark sweeps with drops caught on their tips.
"You and me," she said simply.
Pacey hesitated. His hands stilled and he willed himself to ignore the hope that had surfaced without waiting for permission.
"Sounds like big stuff," he warned, hating the way the words caught in his throat, wishing they had sounded more offhand.
Joey smiled. She could feel it breaking on her mouth. She'd done this all wrong.
At the Icehouse he'd caught her by surprise and she'd screwed it up and she had sworn that she would get it right today. But maybe she had slipped off the hook anyway, somehow, in the two days she'd sat up there on the pier alone, figuring out what she would say to him.
A strap of her tank top slid off her shoulder and she smiled so broken. She hadn't said any of it right.
"But I used really little words."
Pacey smiled. Reaching out, he tugged her strap back into place and relinquished everything.
He pulled her to him and smoothed her dripping hair from her face. And then he kissed her, long and hard, as the world walked by overhead.
Stumbling against him as a wave swept past, Joey wrapped her arms around his neck and didn't mind if her feet ever found the sand again. The rough stubble of his jaw rubbed her cheek and his hands were slipping under the drifting hem of her top, so sure as they traveled over her skin to brush her sides. She didn't mind about anything much.
"Jo-" Pacey drew his mouth from hers reluctantly and her name skimmed warm across her lips- "Isn't the sixteenth the same as the eleventh?"
Joey looked up at him, at the hazy smile tracing his mouth.
"No."
She slid her legs around his waist and he held her tight. "No?"
Joey rested her forehead against his and a laugh spilled into a cry in one breath as she shook her head gently.
"The coyote never got the roadrunner."
And when he laughed, she felt it echo right through her.
