“You got a thing close by?”
By thing, I assume he means a profile or small business highlight. I do not, and I don’t especially want to get into my recent issues out here on the street. I certainly don’t want to get into them with Beckett, of all people. He already thinks my job is stupid, and I don’t want him thinking I came here as an elaborate excuse to see him.
I didn’t.
I shake my head and rub my hands over the outsides of my arms, wishing I packed a jacket that was a little bit thicker. I forgot March on the East Coast is just starting to creep out of winter, the mornings and evenings carrying a whisper of it still. I pull my thin wool coat a little tighter around me and rock back on my heels. Beckett’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything, the box in his hand creaking in protest at the way he’s gripping it.
“You need help with your bags?”
“What?”
“Your bags,” he says again, nodding towards the bed and breakfast. “You need help bringing them in?”
“Oh, no. Um,” if Jenny is watching right now, she is getting a master class in awkward and uncomfortable interactions. I hitch my thumb over my shoulder. “Jenny is full for the night. Apparently there is a kite festival down at the beach.”
Beckett’s brow furrows into a heavy line of confusion. “Kite festival? They have festivals for kites?”
I snicker. I thought the exact same thing. “Yeah, apparently.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“What?”
He heaves another deep breath to the sky, his exhale a cloud of white that the wind carries away. I am exhausting him.
“Are you gonna stay down by the beach?” Inglewild is about a twenty-five minute drive from the coast, a long stretch of highway between here and there. More farmland, some outlet shopping, and a custard stand that I’ve had several recurring dreams about.
“I was—” I cannot tell him I planned on sleeping in my car in the alley behind the cafe. I look for an alternative, appropriate explanation of my plan. A plan which does not exist. “I was going to figure something out.”
He considers me quietly. I still can’t get over how different he is here compared to the man I met in Maine. He had been loose and comfortable, quiet but charming. His smiles had been easy and frequent. Here, now, standing a perfect three feet apart on the sidewalk, the streetlights and the moon paint him in shadows. He seems stiff—frozen and uncomfortable. He’s got a frown on every line of his face from the set of his eyebrows to the downward tilt of his full lips.
I wonder how much of that is my fault.
“You don’t have a plan.”
My chin falls to my chest and I keep my gaze on his boots. He’s got a bit of mud clinging to one, right at the toe. I think of him out in the fields, hat on backwards and sleeves rolled to his elbows. It loosens something inside of me and lets me be a little honest. I press out a sigh.
“This trip wasn’t … planned. I came here on a whim. Josie, my assistant, she asked me the last place I was happy and, I don’t know.” I shrug, feeling silly and small, out here on the street with a man who probably never gave me a second thought.
“It was here,” he offers.
It’s not a question. I blink up at him and my shoulders slip from my ears when I see the way his face has softened, a lightness to those sea glass eyes of his that I haven’t seen since there was a bottle of tequila on the table.
“It was here,” I confirm.
His lips tilt up at the corner. Just the slightest bit. I wouldn’t have noticed if we weren’t standing directly below a streetlight. I cock my head at the change in his expression, immediately curious.
“What’s that look for?”
He shakes his head and switches his box of shortbread cookies to his right hand. “Nothing, just something my dad said tonight.” He holds his hand out, palm up. “C’mon.”
I stare at his hand like he uncurled his fingers and revealed a tiny baby cobra in there. “C’mon, what?”
He jerks his head behind him and I can barely make out the bed of his truck parked at the corner. “I have three extra bedrooms. You can crash in one until you figure out what you’re doing.”
That seems like a … monumentally bad idea. The last time I was here, we could barely look at each other. I think the longest amount of time we spent together—just the two of us—was that morning at the bakehouse where he told that stupid joke about the strawberry fields. We didn’t talk much beyond that. He commented on the weather. I asked him some questions about the trees. He considered me quietly while he slowly ate his zucchini bread, flipping his fork around and offering me a bite, nudging the plate across the table with the back of his hand.
That was probably twenty minutes of peaceful coexistence. I’m not sure shacking up for the immediate future is good for either of us.
“I don’t know,” I shift on my feet and curl into myself further when the wind picks up again. Beckett’s frown deepens. “Won’t that be awkward?”
“Doesn’t have to be,” he mutters. “It’s a big cabin. And we’re both mature adults.”
I raise both eyebrows at him, remembering how he showed up at this same bed and breakfast a couple of months ago and basically accused me of being a flake with a stupid job. He flinches and scrubs his hand against the back of his head. “At least I think we can both be mature adults,” he amends.
I huff a laugh through my nose, but make no move to take his hand. After another moment of indecision, he pulls it back, curling those long fingers back around the edges of the box. The cardboard gives slightly under his grip, like it's barely hanging on. That poor box.
“We could start over if you want,” he offers. He swallows, and I watch as frustration tightens everything on his face—the strain in his sharp jaw, the tilt of his lips. He really is handsome, even when he’s making a face at me like someone stuck a lemon in his mouth. “We could—if you wanted, we could pretend this is the first time we’re meeting.”
“And you’re inviting me back to your house on an isolated stretch of farmland? Okay, serial killer.”
A smile twitches at his lips. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Not to mention I’m not sure I could forget Beckett if I tried. There’s no pretending between us, not anymore.