Chapter Text
The drive down from Atlanta to South Carolina always felt longer than it really was. Damien Haas leaned back in the passenger seat of his mom’s SUV, earbuds loosely hanging from one ear as the low rumble of the tires against the highway buzzed beneath them. The windows were rolled down to let in the sticky warmth of early June. Salt was still far away, but the air was already heavier here, tinged with summer.
It was their tradition. They all lived close together in Georgia, but every year since before Damien could even form a memory, his mom and her best friend Deb had packed up their kids and driven to the same stretch of coast. A weatherworn but sturdy beach house waited for them just outside Charleston, white paint peeling in spots, porch swing creaking when you leaned too far, and that ever-present smell of brine and sunscreen.
The dads weren’t really part of it. Damien’s father had passed away when he was young. Young enough that the grief was something his mom carried more vividly than he did. He remembered flashes: a voice deeper than anyone else’s in the house, hands that smelled faintly of sawdust. Mostly, he remembered the quiet after.
Shayne Topp shared the same experience, having lost his dad at just a year old before Aunt Debbie married her second husband, Ray Giarratana, or Mr. G, as Damien always called him.
The Giarratana kids’ dad never came around during the summers. He had his own reasons for not doing so and Damien respected them. So it was the moms who made the rules, who lugged the coolers, who enforced sunscreen and who, laughingly, poured each other wine at the end of the day once the kids had worn themselves out.
And, well, Damien and Shayne were almost inseparable. The same age, the same appetite for stupid dares and running barefoot into the tide until their legs ached. It was easy. Comfortable.
Angela was different.
She was younger, a tag-along in Shayne’s eyes, the little sister he had to guard because Mr. G said so. Damien kind of gets it. If he had a stepdad as awesome as Mr. G, he would do anything he said too. But part of him knows Shayne really loves Angela and preferred running along the coast with his sister than having her wander around the town on her own.
Damien had never minded Angela’s presence. She was curious, imaginative, funny in her own oddly sharp way. As they got older, he noticed things. The way she worked twice as hard to keep up with them, the way she studied the games they played until she got good enough to beat them, the way her laughter sometimes came late, like she was waiting for permission.
And Angela had the best laugh, he can’t help himself from cracking jokes just to hear it from her.
By fourteen, Damien had realized with a sort of reluctant panic that he liked her. More than a little. That year, she was twelve and he told no one about how he felt for Aunt Debbie’s youngest. Not Shayne, not his mom, not Angela herself. Especially not Angela. He kept it layered over with jokes and big-brother energy until no one could tell the difference.
Now, at seventeen, with high school finally behind him and a yawning future that he hadn’t quite sorted out, he wasn’t sure how he’d manage this trip. Not when every summer she seemed to change — taller, sharper, funnier — pulling further and further away from the little kid with grass-stained knees and tantrums about losing board games. It was getting harder and harder to keep his crush contained.
Was it even just a crush at this point? Because Damien couldn’t tell the difference anymore. It felt a lot more than that. But putting a name to the feelings felt grander than the humble beach house could handle.
His mom, Marilyn, hummed along with the radio as the trees thinned and they’re met with clouds.
When they finally pulled up to the beach house, the place looked exactly the same. White siding, blue shutters, wooden steps leading to a wide porch that creaked under their feet. Damien lugged their bags inside, dropping them in their usual rooms. His room was on the second floor, between the rooms Angela and Shayne usually took, window facing the dunes, while his mom’s is on the first near the kitchen.
He was halfway through setting up when he heard tires crunching gravel outside.
“Sounds like Deb and the kids,” Marilyn called from the kitchen.
Damien jogged down the steps two at a time, heart inexplicably racing. He swung open the front door just as the Giarratanas pulled up. Deb climbed out of the driver’s seat with her usual energy, calling a greeting before heading for the trunk. Shayne unfolded himself from the backseat, hair already windblown.
And then —
Angela stepped out.
Same Angela. But not.
Her hair was held back with little silver star clips, catching the sunlight. Makeup subtle but impossible not to notice highlighted the line of her cheekbones. She was fifteen now, and in that sudden, jarring second Damien felt like the world tilted.
He panicked. So, naturally, he grinned too wide, barreled down the steps, and swept her into a hug.
“Bug!” he exclaimed, lifting her off the ground as if nothing had changed. As if his pulse wasn’t hammering in his ears. He spun her once, twice, her laughter ringing out before he set her back down on the porch.
The nickname slipped out like muscle memory. Bug. From the summers when they were little.
—
They were 6 and 8 then, playing at one of the local kids’ back gardens, when a ladybug landed on Angela’s forehead. She threw an absolute fit trying to get the insect to fly away.
“Get it off! Get it off!” Angela shrieked, swatting at her own face in an attempt to get the ladybug off. The ladybug just kept running around, travelling to her cheeks then hid behind the stars in her hair.
Damien didn’t like that she was accidentally hurting herself, so he stopped her and plucked the ladybug from her head. “Hey, hey it’s okay. It won’t hurt you. Look,” he said, showing the red and black insect that still hadn’t flown away.”
“Whoa, what is that?”
“You’ve never seen a ladybug before?”
“Ladybug,” she said with a pout, as if thinking if she has seen something like it before. “Not really.”
“Ohh, it’s super cool. They’re actually good luck in some cultures.”
Angela looks at the ladybug and the red and black-spotted dress she was wearing. “That looks like me. Can I be a ladybug? Daddy says I’m still too young to be called a lady.”
“You can be a bug. Though I think ladybugs aren’t really bugs…hmmm. Bug works too?” Damien shrugged.
Angela nodded. “Bug works too.”
—
The nickname stuck. Now, saying it again, the word tasted different. Nostalgia, warmth, a dangerous kind of sweetness.
Angela squealed when he picked her up, arms flailing before she clutched at his shoulders to keep steady. Her cheeks burned pink, though she’d never admit it was from more than just the spin. She tried to play it off with a shove to his chest once her feet touched the wood again.
“Damien! You can’t just—” she started, but her voice cracked on the laugh that followed.
“You’re still small enough to toss around,” he teased, forcing levity into his tone.
She rolled her eyes, smoothing her shorts with quick, nervous hands. “I’m not that small.”
Damien pretended not to hear when his mom whispered to Aunt Debbie, “When did she start wearing makeup?” Then in a lower voice, “She’s gorgeous!”