Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
LEVI
The pier hasn’t changed.
Same weathered boards and salt-crusted railing. Same view of the water stretching out toward the horizon like it’s got somewhere better to be.
I used to come here as a kid when things got too loud at home. When Mom and Dad were fighting, or when the silence after they stopped fighting was somehow worse. I’d sit at the end with my feet dangling over the water and pretend I was somewhere else.
Now I’m here because I leave for LA soon and I can’t write or think or figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life.
So I’m fishing.
The line bobs in the water. Nothing’s biting. Story of my life lately.
My phone buzzes. Diane again. I silence it without looking. She’s sent approximately nine hundred texts about the meeting, about what to wear, about what to say, about how to “position myself for maximum leverage.”
I don’t want leverage. I want to sit on this pier and catch a fish and not think about contracts or tours or the fact that I’m in love with a woman who might not be here when I get back.
The boards creak behind me.
I turn, and there she is.
Delilah’s walking toward me with two cups of coffee from Michelle’s shop, her hair loose around her shoulders, wearing jeans and a light jacket. The April sun is warm today, warmer than it should be, and she’s squinting against the glare off the water.
“Jo told me you’d be here,” she says, handing me a cup. “She said you always fish when you’re stressed.”
“Jo talks too much.”
“Jo loves you.” She settles down next to me, close enough that I can smell her shampoo. Something floral. Of course. “Catching anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Maybe the fish know something we don’t.”
I take a sip of coffee. It’s perfect, black and strong, the way I like it. She remembered.
“You didn’t have to come find me,” I say.
“I know.”
“I’m not great company right now.”
“I know that too.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “I came anyway.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a while. The water laps against the pier supports. Gulls wheel overhead but keep their distance. A family walks by on the beach, kids shrieking about something.
“This is where we had our first kiss,” she says.
“I remember.”
“You were so nervous. Your hands were shaking.”
“They were not.”
“Levi. They were shaking so bad you almost dropped your soda.”
“That was the wind.”
“There was no wind.”
I laugh despite myself. “Fine. I was terrified. You were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen and you actually wanted to talk to me and I had no idea what I was doing.”
“You figured it out.”
“Eventually.”
The memory settles between us. We were just teenagers.
Summer night. The pier lit up with string lights from some festival happening in town.
She was wearing a yellow dress and I couldn’t stop staring at her and when I finally worked up the nerve to kiss her, it was the best three seconds of my entire life.
Then I pulled back and said “sorry” and she laughed and kissed me again.
“I think about that night a lot,” I admit.
“Me too.”
“Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if...”
My line jerks hard.
“Whoa.” I grab the rod, nearly losing my coffee in the process. “Something’s on there.”
Delilah scrambles back. “What do I do?”
“Nothing. Just stay there.”
I start reeling. Whatever’s on the other end is putting up a fight. The rod bends. The line zings. This is not a small fish.
“Is it a shark?” Delilah’s voice goes up about three octaves. “Can there be sharks here?”
“It’s not a shark.”
“How do you know?”
“Because sharks don’t...” The fish breaks the surface, thrashing. “...do that.”
It’s a striper. A big one. And it is absolutely furious about its current situation.
I haul it up onto the pier, and the second it hits the boards, chaos erupts.
The fish flops violently, like someone put a motor inside it and set it to maximum rage.
“Grab it!” I yell.
“Grab it?” Delilah looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “With what? My hands?”
“Yes!”
“It’s slimy!”
“It’s a fish!”
“Exactly!” She backs up another step. “I sell flowers, Levi. Flowers. They don’t move. They don’t have opinions. They don’t...”
The fish lands directly in my tackle box, sending hooks and lures scattering across the boards.
“Oh no.” I lunge for it.
The fish dodges.
I’m not kidding. It actually dodges. Like it saw me coming and made a tactical decision.
“Did that fish just...” Delilah starts.
“Don’t say it.”
The fish thrashes toward her. She shrieks and jumps onto the bench. It changes direction and heads for the edge of the pier.
“It’s going to escape!” I dive.
I get my hands on it. It’s like trying to hold a wet, angry torpedo. The thing thrashes, and before I can adjust my grip, it smacks me directly in the face with its tail.
I hear Delilah, full-on can’t-breathe tears-streaming laughter.
“This isn’t...” The fish smacks me again. “...funny!”
“It’s so funny,” she gasps. “It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The fish makes one final bid for freedom, wiggling out of my grip and flopping toward the edge of the pier. I scramble after it, but I’m too late.
It launches itself off the edge and disappears into the water with a splash that feels distinctly triumphant.
I sit there, covered in fish slime, dignity in ruins.
Delilah is crying with laughter.
“That fish,” she wheezes, “had a personal vendetta against you.”
“It was a menace.”
“It won.”
I look down at my shirt, at the slime and the scattered tackle, at the complete disaster that is my current existence.
And I start laughing too.
We clean up the tackle together. Well, she supervises while I clean up, because she refuses to touch anything that “might have fish residue on it.”
“Fish residue,” I repeat. “That’s what you’re going with.”
“It’s a real thing.”
“It’s not a thing.”
“It’s absolutely a thing. I can smell it from here.”
She’s sitting on the bench with her knees pulled up, coffee in hand, watching me with an expression that makes my chest tight.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. I just...” She shakes her head. “I missed this.”
“Me getting assaulted by fish?”
“You making me laugh.” She takes a sip from her cup. “I forgot what it felt like. To laugh like that. To just be easy with someone.”
I close the tackle box and sit down next to her. Close. Our knees touching.
“I missed you too,” I say. “Every day since you left.”
Her smile wobbles. “Levi...”
“I know. We said we’d take it slow. I just...” I run a hand through my hair, which is probably also covered in fish slime. Great. “I need you to know before I leave, in case you’re wondering while I’m gone. I thought about you every single day.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. The water laps. The wind picks up, carrying salt and the faint smell of someone’s barbecue from down the beach.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks.
“Anything.”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of being like her.” She stares out at the water. “Your mom. The way she left. I’m afraid that’s who I am. Someone who leaves, who can’t stay even when she wants to.”
My chest clenches. “Delilah...”
“I’ve been running my whole life. From my marriage, this town, and from you.” Her voice cracks. “What if that’s just who I am? What if I can’t stop?”
I take her hand. She lets me.
“I know I don’t talk about her much, but my mom was a singer.
Not famous or anything. She sang at local bars, county fairs, stuff like that.
But she was good. Really good. And she got an opportunity.
A guy from a record label heard her sing and told her she could be a star.
All she had to do was move to LA when “I was eight.”
Delilah’s hand tightens on mine.
“She said she’d send for me, that it was temporary, that she just needed to get set up and then I’d come live with her and we’d have this amazing life together.
” I stare at the horizon. “I waited by the mailbox every day for a letter. Checked the phone every time it rang. Kept a bag packed under my bed for years.”
“Levi...”
“She never sent for me. She called sometimes and sent birthday cards. But she didn’t come back. And she never asked me to come.”
The words hang there. All the hurt I’ve carried since I was eight years old.
“I’m sorry,” Delilah whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
“The point is,” I turn to face her, “you’re nothing like her. You know how I know?”
“How?”
“Because you came back. She never did. But you did. You moved to Twin Waves. You took over your mom’s shop. You stayed.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“But you did. That’s what matters.” I lift her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles. “You’re not a runner, Delilah. You’re someone who’s been scared.”
She’s crying now. Quiet tears sliding down her cheeks.
“What if I get scared again?” she asks. “What if you go to LA and I convince myself you’re not coming back and I do something stupid?”
“Then I’ll show up anyway and remind you that I’m not going anywhere.” I cup her face in my hands, wiping tears with my thumbs. “You could run to Antarctica and I’d appear with a parka and a very confused penguin, asking what your plan was.”
She laughs. Wet and shaky, but real.
“A penguin?”
“For emotional support. They’re very soothing.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I know.” I rest my forehead against hers. “But I’m here. And I’m coming back. That’s not going to change.”
She closes her eyes.
And then she kisses me.
It’s not like that first time, nervous and fumbling and over too fast. This one is slow. Certain. The kind that says I’m starting to believe you.
When we pull apart, she’s smiling. Still uncertain. But smiling.
“Thursday,” she says.
“Thursday. But I’ll be back before you have time to miss me.”
“I already miss you.”
“That’s very romantic.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
I kiss her forehead. “Too late.”
We sit there on the pier as the sun starts to sink, her head on my shoulder, my arm around her. Neither of us says what we’re feeling. Neither of us needs to.
Not yet.
But soon. When the time is right.
For now, this is enough.