The Tenderness of Thieves by Donna Freitas

walk.
    At first I had no direction, then I realized I’d walked so far I’d crossed into the next town. I doubled back, and soon found myself heading to the only place I wanted to be when I was hoping to forget. The beach. The smell of the ocean air, briny with salt and sea life, always calmed me. There was something about the sound the waves made, the constancy of them, their broken rhythm, that could knit me together again when I was afraid things were coming apart. Even the pungent smell on the wharf where the fishermen brought in their catch was soothing. My whole life had been spent coming down to this place with my mother and father when I was small, and on my own when I’d gotten old enough to do things by myself or with friends. It’s where I always went when I wanted to think, even in the winter. The ocean provided the sound track to some of the most important moments I could remember. The best ones.
    I passed the row of fancy bars and restaurants at the edge of town that catered to the city people that summered here, the ones who built big houses where they could have ocean views and catered parties on wide rolling lawns and park SUVs in long driveways. Where they didn’t have to interact with the locals. These were people who typically never set foot on the town beach because they paid to go the private club far enough away from the wharf that the fishing boats going out for the day and coming back would never mar their view of the sea.
    They had their own little world over here.
    I passed the Ocean Club, with its big wooden deck looking out over the water and its glittering dining room, and the Pump House next door, all glass and minimalist white, its parking lot packed with BMWs. They looked like they belonged to another place, another town where bars like Charlie O’s and O’Malley’s Pub couldn’t exist just down the road. The owners didn’t even employ locals during the summer. They hired out-of-town kids looking for a quick buck or whose parents thought it would be “good for them” to find out what it was like to work for a change. No one would tell you that outright if you applied—that they didn’t hire local kids to bus and wait tables—but everyone knew the deal and stopped applying for jobs on this strip of oceanfront long ago. There was almost an unspoken agreement between townies and the city people not to mingle, even though we all lived right next door to one another.
    I stopped in front of Christie’s, a martini bar that boasted drinks out over the ocean and quaint twinkle lights on the deck, watching as a tall, elegantly dressed woman emerged from a sleek Mercedes, handing her keys to a valet who would whisk it off to some unseen parking place. She had a white leather clutch under one arm and was dressed in a short, tight white dress and four-inch heels. Everything about her said rich and glamorous as she tottered toward the entrance.
    “Hey, it’s you.”
    The Mercedes pulled up in front of me with the valet I’d seen taking the woman’s keys in the driver’s seat. He was the same boy from the beach the other day, the one with the dog named Eric and the lacrosse stick. I was surprised to find out he had a job. He grinned at me with those perfect teeth, his crisp white short-sleeved shirt bright against his skin.
    Okay, so he was good-looking.
    I searched my brain for his name. “Miles, right?”
    “So I
did
make an impression,” he said over the soft purr of the car.
    “Are you always this cheesy?” I tried to be annoyed, but I couldn’t suppress a laugh. He was so different from the boys I was used to, so polite, all smooth lines and big winning smiles. His behavior was almost excusable. Almost.
    “Nah, I’m just confident.”
    “Oh, oh-kay.” I started on my way again.
    He gunned the engine lightly. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”
    “In some other lady’s car? No, thanks.”
    He looked at me strangely. “Don’t worry. She won’t care.”
    “Really,