Four
Yvette
I have Ditra on speaker as I get ready for tonight. My first date with Ward . The new moon tonight is my reminder of new beginnings and taking chances. Not only as I get ready for this night and whatever it may bring, but also as Ditra and I remember Papa Donovan together.
He was a gifted songwriter, with a widespread insatiable fanbase, and we reminisce about some of his old songs and shows. It’s amazing to look back at it all—the man had a hell of a career.
I’m starting on my eyeliner, which takes the longest, when Ditra’s voice turns somber. “Yv, we’re going to spread his ashes in the ocean in Florida. Did you know his first song he wrote when he was fourteen was about a sunrise over the beach?”
“Yeah. I remember him telling me, sunrays on salted waves are a kind of magic . He’d like that.”
“I think so too. Also, I memorialized all of his online profiles. You should see the fan tributes.”
“I have.” I smile. “They’re so moving.”
“You should come,” Ditra tells me.
“To Florida?” A knock at the door announces Ward’s arrival. “He’s here.”
“Oh! Are you ready?”
“Not quite…” I take a step back from the vanity mirror at my half-done makeup—eyeliner only on one eye. He’s a bit early. I have no choice but to just answer like this and make him wait.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ditra says, full of confidence. “You’re gorgeous always. Go!”
“Bye, Sweets.”
“Have fun.”
I hang up with Ditra, feeling such a mix of nostalgia, despondence, and nervous excitement.
I answer the front door with my hand cupped over my non-made-up eye.
Ward looks so handsome it should be illegal. His arm tattoos I never get to see under his uniform are on full display in his short-sleeved button-down. That beguiling smirk on his face makes me weak in the knees. He’s holding a potted succulent, a crassula moonglow, which he hands over to me and I take it with my free hand. “I love it, thank you!”
“Your eye okay?” he asks, concerned.
“Oh, yes.” I lower my other hand so he can see. “I’m just not quite ready. Come in.” I hold the door open wider and he steps inside. “Feel free to look around or just sit or, whatever! I won’t be long!” I scurry back down the hallway.
“Hey, no rush. They don’t take reservations anyhow. We’re on our own schedule.”
“Okay great!” I shout from my bedroom. There is one empty spot on my windowsill for the moonglow, perfect size, and I set it down. It’s so little and charming! The succulent looks happy there, home. At my vanity mirror, I can still see it in the reflection behind me.
I can hear Ward poking around my house, touching things. Who knows what treasures he is going to find. His heavy footsteps are never going to sneak up on anyone, that’s for sure. The old wood floorboards of this house don’t help with the sound, which is why I have rugs all over the place. Plus I just love rugs.
“You have an altar?” he calls out. “Hold up. Is this an actual wand, like a magic wand?”
I stifle a laugh. “Are you snooping?”
“Absolutely.” He pauses, probably riffling through more of my space. Normally I might feel tense about that, but I’m not sure why, I don’t mind him looking. “You don’t fly on this broom, do you?”
“Actually, I clean the house with it!” Of negative energies as well as the dirt, but I don’t tell him that part.
“What’s this…sage? Tarot cards…” he mumbles. “Never heard of that game. What’s this big-ass knife for? Looks like a crescent moon? Jesus.”
“That’s going to require a longer conversation to explain!” I holler.
“You’ve got some really weird shit in here, Spark.” I hear him gruffly laugh. I slap on some lip oil and grab my purse.
“So, where are we going?” I ask, stepping out, ready finally.
“Wow,” Ward’s breath comes out thick in an almost growl, his eyes slowly scoping me from head to toe to head again. His languid assessment is making my heart do flips that would be the envy of an Olympic gymnast.
“Have you ever tried Omakase?” he asks, throwing me for a bit of a surprise. Knowing Ward, well kind of knowing Ward, I thought we’d go axe-throwing or maybe do a panic room after burgers and beer. Sushi ?
“No, but I’ve heard of it.” I smile big with renewed delight. “Sounds amazing. I love sushi.”
“It’s a whole experience…and a lot of food. I hope you’re hungry.”
I nod, the smile permanently adhered to my cheeks. “I can eat.”
~ * ~
Poor Ward.
He has brought me into the most magical dimension of culinary rapture, and I am here for it. There are about ten couples seated before an itamae—the head chef—and his two assistant sushi chefs, who are delivering us with bite after bite of creative, beautiful, outrageously scrumptious sushi and sashimi.
This isn’t a meal. It isn’t even a presentation. This is immersive . I could not be more engaged in every word the itamae is telling us about their craft. The notes of flavors. The origins of the fishees. The cooking technique. There is something so gratifying and awe-inspiring about people who have a real mastery at what they do.
My mouth, brain, stomach, and soul are alight with pleasure.
Even my hands are happy, as the itamae and assistant chefs place the individually crafted pieces right into our palm. We hold the food as we listen, and then all eat together once the chefs are finished explaining. Both feeling and tasting the texture. It’s a raw, nearly spiritual experience.
I don’t think I’ve said a peep to Ward besides “mmmm” and “Oh my God” and “wow, did you know that, isn’t that interesting ?” to which he replied in kind, “mmmm” and “I know right” and “no, yeah, wow.”
Real deep connection happening here.
There are fifteen courses. Fifteen . They are little courses though, one, two, sometimes three bites each. By the end, I’m not full. I am utterly ful filled .
“How did you know I would love that?” I turn to Ward, letting out a soft, delighted sigh. There are no prices on the menu—Omakase means chef’s choice , all seasonal selections, and it was so elegant and informed—so I can only imagine this cost him a fortune.
Or am I supposed to be splitting this with him? I don’t date, really. I’m not on the apps. Randos slide into my DMs from time to time, but I’m just not interested. I have all that I need to take care of my… needs . I simply am happy with my little life. But Ward stirs something in me. Without any effort, I’m drawn to him.
“Lucky guess?” Ward says. “Actually Emrys suggested it. He’s the foodie on our crew. Makes some mean steak and chicken fajitas. His chili is just mean, though,” Ward grumbles that last bit.
“Emrys?” I ask.
“One of the firefighters on my shift.”
“Do you like the guys you work with?” I ask, starting off slow.
“They are a bunch of jackasses,” he answers, chuckling, “but they’re good guys. Always up for anything, even it means putting their life on the line.”
I swallow thickly. “Do you put your life on the line…a lot?”
“Honestly, no. We do a good bit of putzing around the fire station. Sure we train, we clean, we cook our meals, work out. We run calls. It’s mostly straightforward stuff, elderly ladies falling at the retirement home, stomachaches at three a.m. waking us the fuck up.” He shakes his head.
“But you have to be ready always…just in case,” I say softly.
“Exactly.” Ward nods, then reaches for his little cup of hot sake and knocks it back, and I echo his movement. Just that tiny bit of sake warms my throat and stomach and makes my face feel happy. “You doin’ okay,” Ward says, looking more deeply at me, “with…everything?”
I know he means Ditra’s dad. “Yeah. No.” I shrug. “Ditra told me today, actually right before you picked me up, they’re going to spread his ashes in the ocean.”
“They?”
“Ditra, her three sisters, and their mom.”
“Are you going?” Ward asks.
“No. Ditra invited me, but I won’t feel right. It’s their family time.”
Ward refills our sake cups from our shared carafe, pointing his toward me before taking a sip. “It sounds like that includes you.”
“I know I’d be welcome. I know it wouldn’t be odd if I wasn’t there, though. So that kind of lets me know I’m not truly as much their family as blood sisters are.”
“Spark…” Ward says, his tone becoming soft and earnest, “…of all the things I’ve ever heard you say or seen you do, that sounds the craziest.” He ticks his finger at me.
I can’t help but smile, but it’s less than full. “It does, doesn’t it,” I agree, and then I confess, “I don’t want to go.”
“ There it is.”
I lift my sake cup to my lips and blow gently before I sip it. The meal is finished, but the chefs stick around to clean up and talk to the guests. The chatter from around the table picks up a little, enough to drown us out but not so much we can’t hear each other. This feels like a private conversation, and Ward feels safe.
“He was my dad,” I tell Ward. “Maybe not biological, but in every other sense. He looked after me. He listened. He was always there for me, even when he had to be everywhere else. He was some kind of magic, Ward.” My throat tightens around a sob, and for a moment I put my attention right on that spot, feeling the constriction, the heat. The whole entire hurt.
Ward drapes his big honkin’ arm around me, and immediately, the weight of his arm is all I can feel. It’s heavy, and for no reason at all, so settling. “Where was your biological dad?”
“He left when my mom got pregnant with me. She didn’t know, but he was married, with a whole other family. He told her she could do what she wanted, but that he couldn’t stay and help raise me. He gave her some money and vanished, back into his real life I guess. When I was twelve, my mom got sick.”
“Oh, Spark. Damn.”
“Ditra’s family had already been like a second family to me. But after Mom died, I was fourteen then, they took me in. They weren’t like my godparents or anything, not officially, but there was no one else—no other family members on my mom’s side, and I don’t know the first thing about my dad, nor want to. I never even wanted to know his name.”
Ward’s warm hand scopes up and down my arm, soothingly, sending chills up to my neck and down into the veins of my wrist. “You were never curious?” he wonders.
“I mean, curious, but not enough to ask. I knew I never wanted that energy. Some people feel like they need to know where they came from, their roots. I get that. But I just don’t feel like there’s a space in me that needs that—there is nothing empty or missing that needs to feel more whole. I’m good with just here and now. I am entirely me without knowing him.”
Ward is quiet for a long moment, the strokes up and down my arm slowing down, then quickening, then becoming languid again. He’s thinking. He’s thinking hard. Finally, he looks right into my eyes, and a broad, handsome grin spreads on his face. “Can I be like you when I grow up?”
That warms my cheeks right up, even more than the sake did.
“Seriously, Spark. You’re somethin’ else,” Ward adds.
“You are.” I shake my head, feeling a little embarrassed, but at the same time, free. There are so few people I can tell things to. Real things. No one ever asks.
Except Ward. Ward asks all the things—and then after I answer, he asks more. It’s strange, it’s weird. “I’m curious though, Yv… With that kind of childhood, how’d you get to be so good with kids?”
“You think I’m good with kids?”
“I saw you with Laney. How you look at her, how you talk to her, like she’s a full person already.”
“She loves you the mostest though.” I give a playful eyeroll and lean into his side for a quick little shove, but his arm instantly cinches me there, annihilating my insides with all kinds of feelings. His woodsy cologne and confident hold and the way my body fits snugly into the grooves of his.
Being silly, Ward flexes the bicep of his other arm. “I’m big and strong, that’s why.”
“All the girlies love that,” I manage to tease, practically flirting as I’m dying inside of the onslaught of warm fuzzy feels. He chuckles, but then I say seriously, “She knows you’re a safe place. It’s really sweet.”
He loosens his hold enough to gaze down into my face without it being an awkward smooshed position. This is oddly comfortable; unexplainably easy. “You love her. I mean like, you have a connection.” Ward says it like there’s a question after. How , or why .
I straighten up a little and clear my throat. “When I was little, like really young, I went so deep into myself, it was like an escape where I just explored my mind and my heart, my being. For years. So now in some ways, I still have that little girl I was, with me. I still know her. I still am her.”
Ward blinks a couple of times, then goes into a headshake. Releasing a slow breath, his eyes go to the chefs, the guests, the walls, the who-knows-what for about ten seconds, and then they find mine. “Sometimes you say things that sound a little crazy, but then actually make sense when you think about it. That’s…really beautiful, Yvette. I’m jealous?”
“Well, thank you, I think.” I smile at him. “What about you, Lieutenant ? What’s your story?”
Once again his gaze goes rogue, dropping onto the randomest things. I’m starting to realize it’s what happens when his thoughts are also going rogue. A waiter comes by, reminding me we had a waiter at the very beginning, who took our drink order and made themself scarce for the rest of the evening—though our drinks always remained full.
Magic . Life is so, so full of magic, if you just notice.
Before he can say what’s all brewing in his mind, our bill is delivered into Ward’s palm and he must have already had his card ready because it’s then whisked away from our table in the blink of an eye.
“I can split it with you,” I offer, ridiculously. My shop and channel do well, I get by, but even half of this bill could be equal to next month’s rent for all I know.
“Absolutely not,” Ward says sternly.
“Oh, okay. Well thank you, I’ll at least get the tip…” I reach into my purse to fish out some cash, and Ward’s big paw hand comes down around the sides of my purse, hand in there and all.
“No.” He releases, and I slide my hand out. “You’re not paying one cent of this meal or the next one or the one after that.” There isn’t a hint of humor nor flirtation on his face or in his tone. Only adamance.
“The next one?”
Now there’s that grin. I’m seriously liking how I’m able to inspire it to appear. “Yes, Spark. And the one after that .”
I cross my arms and fire him a look that’s part playful, part challenge. “You were going to tell me your story, tell me about you?”
“I like what you said. I’m good with just here and now.”
“Really, nothing at all about your past, growing up?”
The adamance returns, but this time, with a touch of solemness. “Not today, Spark.”
It’s not like me to really want to know, but I do. I excruciatingly do. I want to know every speck of his past, and his present. I want to know Ward like I know me. From the inside out.
This is our first date, I have to remind myself. Something inside him is so locked up, I’m not going to hammer it out in a single dinner. It will take time, patience.
A touch of sorcery.
“I have something for you.” I reach into my purse once again, peering up at Ward through my eyelashes. I turn away from him, so the purse is out of reach. “For my fingers’ sake,” I half joke.
“What is it?”
I close my fingers around the crystal and hold my hand out toward him. “Open.”
Ward turns over my hand so it’s palm up and slowly peels open my fingers one by one like he’s unwrapping a present. He’s such a good sport, playing along.
“Aw, Spark.” His face is caught between a frown and a smile as he peers at the large, blackish-blue crystal. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Worry…” I repeat. “H-how do you know what this is for?”
“It’s hematite, right? For protection from negative energy…for grounding. You talked about it.”
My heart swoops. “You watched my videos?”
“ Oh yeah . Got a whole shit-ton of hell for it, too.” He smirks. “Worth it.”
“My goodness, seriously? Ward…I’m so flattered.”
His arms reach out and he draws me toward him, planting a soft kiss to my forehead. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I think that I do.”
“How about I just keep it with me always.”
“That will make me feel much better,” I murmur.
“Good.”
At the end of our date, Ward walks me up to my front door. “Do you want to come in for some tea?” I offer. “Wait—”
Lifting up on tiptoe, I reach my fingers around the back of his neck and pull, pressing my lips to his. His lips are like plump, plush heaters. So warm and inviting I could smear more kisses on him right here, right now. Harnessing all of my self-control, well almost, I break away smiling. Ward’s blinking rapidly like I just startled him witless.
“Okay, yes, come in.”
“You had to kiss me first?” He stares at me funny.
“If the kiss isn’t good, nothing else will be!” I say, reasonably.
Ward laughs. “I thought I was coming in for tea?”
I shrug as I spin toward the door, key at the ready. “If that’s what you kids are calling it these days.”
“Kids? I’m older than you.”
“No, Ward. You’re not.”
I know he doesn’t know what I mean by that, and he doesn’t have to.