Chapter 25 #2
The moka pot starts hissing, steam erupting from it, signaling that it’s done percolating the espresso, and Caleb motions for me to stay seated while he gets up again.
“You can’t keep joking about that,” I say. At the same time, my brain is screaming that we could get used to this.
“I’m not joking,” he says. “Would you say yes if I asked you to marry me?”
“Caleb,” I tell him, then I stop, really thinking about it. It’s been too fast, for sure.
“What’s your plan with work?” I ask him, which is probably too harsh of a subject change, but is something I need to know. And I need a break from this ‘let’s jump into marriage’ discussion.
Caleb takes out the milk, fills up the frother, silent as we listen to the quiet mechanical whir. Somewhere outside, Gunner barks, and Caleb turns off the stove, the moka pot finally ceasing boiling as he removes it from the heat.
“I called them yesterday, when we were downtown,” Caleb says easily.
“They’ve agreed to let me stay here as my new…
sort of base of operations. I’ll probably have to travel back and forth and maybe a few nights there further south, but they’re fine with me working remote, and they really liked the plan that I have for Watchmere Light. ”
“The plan you have for Watchmere Light?” I repeat.
I don’t know why that’s the part of this my brain is stuck on. The man is saying that he’s working remote, he’s staying in Silverlight Shore, and all I can ask about is the plan for Watchmere Light.
I guess because I’m a complete idiot who refuses to examine her emotions, but here we are.
He gives me an amused look from being set up into my cup.
“My plan for Watchmere Light,” he agrees.
Caleb just keeps working on making my latte, not expanding at all.
“Are you going to stay living here?” I push, nudging some casserole around on my plate. I might be a coward for not making eye contact, but it is what it is.
“Well, the plan is still to automate Watchmere Light,” he says.
“It doesn’t need a keeper anymore, and the state stopped paying a stipend to my uncle a few years ago, it turns out, so no, I probably won’t be living here.
And I’ll probably go ahead and move all of my uncle’s personal effects out of the house like I had planned, although—” he trails off, concentrating on pouring an even amount of espresso in each cup.
“Okay. Well, we can do that maybe while we get ready for the ritual.”
“Sure,” he says. “Four hands are better than just two, right?” He adds the milk into the cup with the espresso, stirring. He tops it off with a bit of the foam from the frother, an expert twist of his wrist, and I give him a long, narrow-eyed look.
“What?” he says. “I’ve made a latte before. You’re gonna love this foam heart,” he says with a sly grin.
He sets it in front of me, and I burst out laughing because the foam is an indistinct blob.
“I love it,” I tell him. “You were right.”
It’s perfect, and I take a sip, and it’s delicious, just the way I like it. Sweet, but not too sweet, a hint of pistachio giving the entire latte a nutty flavor that pairs perfectly well with the espresso and milk.
“It’s really good. Thank you, Caleb. Seriously. This has been… wonderful.”
“And it’s just day one of me convincing you to spend your life with me.”
I shake my head, laughing, and sip the latte. How the hell else do I respond to that?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
“I like the look on your face when you drink it. Reminds me of when you made — last night,” he says simply, headed back over to the stove to finish making himself a latte.
“The kind you like?” I ask as he pours fresh milk into the frother.
“I’m easy,” he says.
“No kidding,” I say.
He snorts a laugh as I giggle to myself, pleased that my joke landed.
“Traditional latte,” he says. “Little bit of hazelnut and a little bit of vanilla. Classic.”
“You didn’t try the pistachio?”
“I’d rather taste it on your lips,” he says with a grin.
“That pays for it.”
We both laugh — well, I giggle, and Caleb chuckles, and it’s… wonderful.
“Tell me more about Watchmere,” I finally say after another bite and another sip. I break off a small piece of the bread, dabbing a little bit of jam on it.
“I’ll add Watchmere into the historic lighthouse tour,” he says matter-of-factly.
“That way we can get some state money to help fix it up, automate the light, and bring some more tourism to Silverlight Shore in the off-season. Lighthouse tour runs October through November, and we can partner with all kinds of shops and cafés downtown.”
He drops it like it’s not a bombshell, and I stare at him, open-mouthed, before I realize the piece of toast is about to fall straight back onto my plate. I quickly snap my jaw shut and just keep staring at him, wide-eyed.
“I take it that you like the idea,” he says, smearing some jam on his own toast. He looks altogether too pleased with himself, but I can’t blame him for it.
I swallow. “We’ve been trying to get Watchmere Light on the historic lighthouse tour for years, but your uncle would never agree to it happening, I know it’s because he lived — didn’t want people walking all over where he lives, but now he—”
“I know,” Caleb says agreeably, but a little hurt crosses his face before I have time to reel the words back in.
“That was callous of me,” I offer apologetically, closing my eyes and shaking my head. “I didn’t mean for it to come off like that. It’s just—”
“It’s nothing against the old man. I don’t blame him for it, but now we can make a change, and it will be good for Silverlight Shore.”
“It will be great for Silverlight Shore,” I enthuse, wrapping my hand around his.
“We can run festivals on the weekends in time with the lighthouse tours to bring business to the inns. I can run some sort of special lighthouse candy-shaped confection during it. We can have food trucks come on the weekends — oh my gosh, the bed-and-breakfast can do something really fun too.”
I’m tapping off ideas on my fingers as I go.
“So I take it you like the idea?” Caleb says slowly, both hands cupping his latte. He sets it down slowly, eyebrows raised over the top, eyes gazing into mine.
“I love it.”
“So you love me,” he says casually.
“Absolutely,” I say too quickly, and then I realize what he asked.
“Perfect,” he says with a laugh. “It’s okay, you can admit it, Ivy. You love me. You’ve always loved me. When are you going to marry me?”
“Back to that already?” I say, rolling my eyes. I put my feet back on his, scooching my toes, cold through the socks, up into his calf.
“I can feel how icy they are,” he says.
“You love it,” I tell him.
“I think I should probably start a fire. Yeah,” he says. “I can’t have you getting frostbite. Wouldn’t do for the bride-to-be. Talk about cold feet.”
“Caleb,” I protest. “Just because I’m staying here the next five days doesn’t mean that we should just go straight into marriage.”
“What if that’s what I want?” Caleb’s voice is hushed. Sincere.
“We can’t do that,” I repeat, raking my hands through my hair. My hearts beathing too fast. “We spent too much time apart. We need time to get to know each other again. I think we should be normal for a while, date, and then maybe move in together, and then see what happens.”
“Is that really what you want?” He sounds slightly frustrated, and I pause, realizing he’s completely serious about this whole marriage thing.
I lean forward, pushing the flowers out of the way so I can focus fully on him. “Caleb, yeah. I think that we should take longer than, like, two weeks to get to know each other again.”
“If that’s what you want, I’ll do it for you,” Caleb says, “but if you’re thinking I’m going to change my mind, you’d be wrong.”
I sit back in my chair, scooting my feet even further up his shins and feeling a little wicked glee when he grimaces at the coldness of my feet.
“Let’s get past the ritual, and we’ll see how you feel after that.”
A chill goes down my spine that has nothing to do with how cold my toes are, and has everything to do with the fact that the ritual is looming over us. It wouldn’t be the first time it ruined my life.
“Hey,” Caleb says, and he wraps his fingers around mine.
I take another bite of egg and cheese casserole, unwilling to meet his eyes because I know what else I’d see — sympathy.
The man still knows me better than almost anyone, and he might be right about the fact that we don’t need time to get to know each other again. We’ve changed, sure, of course we have, grown up now, full adults with full careers and a shared history, but no — some part of my core, he always has.
“You can’t blame yourself for what your parents chose to do. I don’t want you to beat yourself up about it.”
“I don’t. I’m not.” My voice cracks on the word.
“You do,” he says knowingly, settling back in his seat, taking another long drink of his latte. “You’re so worried you’re going to scare me off.”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to. We both know it’s true.
Instead, I finish my breakfast and slowly sip the latte, letting the warmth of the cup warm my fingers.
Caleb gets up and starts stoking the fireplace under the TV, a tiny potbelly relic from the past, heavy cast iron design. I know from experience it will heat the entire lighthouse without a whole lot of work.
“They’ll like that on the tour,” I say, fully aware I’m changing the subject, and Caleb lets me, which is one of the reasons it would be so easy to love him again.
He knows when to push, and he knows when to stop, and we settle so easily into our old rhythm that us being together seems as inevitable as the phases of the moon or the rising of the tide.