Chapter 19
Diana
Hard launch. Those words are pinging around in my head as Ike drives to Cape Georgeana High School.
What was I thinking, agreeing to this? I’ve never been publicly flogged before, but I think it's about to happen, and I bet it's going to hurt. I practice my box breathing and dry my clammy palms on my jeans as Ike signals into the parking lot.
“You nervous?”
I snort. “Is it that obvious?”
He throws his truck into park and turns to face me. “Nah,” he says, the corner of his mouth hitching into a crooked grin that only adds butterflies to my already unsettled stomach. His eyes turn serious. “They’re going to love you. And if they don’t, I’ll give them five reasons to love you.”
I’m sorry, what? The dread stops churning in my stomach.
Now there’s just that swarm of butterflies bumping around in there, wondering what reasons Ike would give the people of this town.
“Like what?” My voice is too breathy. Something about being parked in the high school parking lot in Ike’s truck makes me feel fifteen years younger, like I’m having an experience I should’ve had a long time ago.
I’m nervous, giddy, and out of breath. I’m being way too obvious, but I don’t care.
None of this feels real. “What reasons?”
His crooked grin only grows when he holds up his hand, curling his fingers down one at a time and counting to five until his hand forms a fist. “Five reasons.”
He’s joking, but someone needs to tell that to the stupid butterflies in my stomach. It’s like spring break at Daytona Beach in there.
“Oh, brother.” I swat at his fist, if only for an excuse to touch his hand. I’m developing an obsession with the man’s tan, strong, veiny hands. Plus, he wears this old watch with a large dial that is just—
I sigh.
If I’m being accused of stuff either way, I might as well go all-in on the weirdo behavior, right? Something just occurred to me, though. “Ike, we’ve never talked about how we’re supposed to act in public.” Because I never planned on being in public with him.
“What’s there to talk about?” He’s already opening his door. “It’s about to start. Let’s figure this out on the way inside.”
I follow his lead, jumping down from the truck and meeting him at the tailgate.
He’s not thinking about this enough. No one in this town wants him to be with me.
They know this marriage isn’t real, but if they think I want it to be, that’s when the public flogging will start.
“Just… how am I supposed to act with you? I’m your wife, but—”
He takes my hand, silencing me. “You’re overthinking it, Di.” His grip tightens, a firm reminder. “Don’t forget I have five reasons for them to be nice to you.”
I puff out a weak laugh, and he drags me into the high school.
Inside, the walls are lined with a huge reminder that I’m not welcome here.
A mural of the school’s giant green mascot—the Cape Georgeana Kraken—looms over the empty foyer like a bad omen.
Its tentacles curl around the door that leads to the auditorium, where a few middle-aged women are taking tickets at a folding table, oblivious to the monster snarling over their heads. I shudder. What a terrible mascot.
“We’ll take two.” Ike already has his wallet out.
I nudge him, leaning in to murmur. “I can get mine.”
“What kind of date would I be if I let you buy your ticket to the youth community theater play?” He cringes at the words. “I guess the answer’s in the question, huh?” He chuckles.
“Hey, you’ve been the ideal date,” I murmur only for him. “First, you rescued me from a hairbrush disaster, and now this? Perfection.” I tighten my hand around his with a smile. I might not be totally at ease, but the man is trying, and I have to give him credit for that.
His face whips to mine, and there’s surprise in his big, brown eyes. He opens his mouth to say something, but changes his mind with a shake of his head. He leads me into the auditorium, not acknowledging the fast whispers of the women at the ticket table.
“How do you ignore it?” I whisper up to him in the darkened hallway. Someone is at a microphone welcoming everyone to the play and reminding them to turn off their cell phones.
“Ignore what?”
“The whispering. Those ladies back there.”
He turns around to see what I’m talking about, but of course by the time he does they’re the picture of innocence. Figures.
“I promise, as soon as we walked away they started talking about us.”
Ike stops, and I can barely see his face in the shadows leading into the auditorium.
“Diana.” He leans closer, and his voice is a low hum that I feel down to my toes.
Everything about this moment reactivates the spring break butterflies in my stomach.
“If they were talking about us, they were probably wondering what a woman like you is doing with a guy like me.”
I’m frozen, blinking up at Ike. “A woman like me?” I’m not sure how to take that.
He draws my hand to his chest, pulling me with it.
He’s warm and solid through his red T-shirt, and I can feel the faint thumping of his heart.
“Wicked smart. Driven. Good. And you know you’re inhumanly pretty, right?
” He releases a long exhale like that last admission cost him a lot.
“Sometimes it’s like I’m staring straight at the sun. ”
I bite my lip, fighting a smile.
“Don’t worry about what they think,” he murmurs.
Well, now I’m not. Now, all I can think about is Ike Wentworth calling me smart.
Inhumanly pretty. And other words that I can’t remember because his hand is still holding my hand against his chest, and his cologne is short-circuiting my prefrontal cortex.
I have so many new items for my Ike spreadsheet, I’ll be up half the night.
I force a lighthearted laugh. I want to believe he’s right about them. I do. Undoing a few decades of prejudice is no small task, though. “Easy for you to say. Everyone loves you. They think I’m a witch.”
He shakes his head, studying my face. “I’m so sorry, Diana,” he says on an exhale. “I know better now. You’re not a witch. A hermit maybe, and a little bit nerdy” — I shove his chest playfully — “but you’re nothing like I thought.”
Ike’s words are almost drowned out as the audience roars with applause and the lights lower.
He drags my hand away from his chest with regret in his eyes.
“I have more to say, but we need to get in there,” he says in a rush.
Before I realize what’s happening he pulls my hand to his mouth, pressing a way-too-quick kiss on the back of it.
“Later, okay?” he says against my skin, his dark eyes finding mine in the dim light.
I’m having a hard time catching my breath to form a response, but Ike doesn’t wait for one. He threads his fingers through mine and pulls me into the theater behind him.
It’s dark in here, but not dark enough. The place is packed—it’s slim pickings for Friday night entertainment in this town—and Ike would say I’m imagining things, but people are whispering.
I’m trying to pretend they aren’t. I really am.
But I’ve had nightmares exactly like this. At least I’m wearing clothes this time.
The curtain is rising when Ike finally finds his friends. There’s one open seat beside a woman and her husband who must be Boone’s parents. Unfortunately, they’re halfway down the row and don’t see us standing in the aisle.
“Psst. Louise,” Ike hisses with a wave. It takes some nudging from her seat neighbor to get her attention, then Ike mouths, “Can you scoot down one?”
I silently point out some empty seats in the back of the auditorium, not eager to make the entire row move on my behalf.
He ducks to whisper in my ear, “I told Boone to look for me right here. It’s hard to explain—”
“It’s okay.” I nod over and over. And though I’m dreading the idea, I whisper in a rush, “You sit here. I’ll sit in the back,”
“Why don’t you pipe down, New York Five?” a man’s voice grumbles somewhere behind us.
Heat floods my face, and Ike straightens. “How about you watch what you say to my wife, Kevin?” he calls into the dark.
That starts a whole round of tsks and whispers, but everyone moves down a seat to accommodate the Witch of Cape Georgeana and her beloved husband.
I follow Ike down the row, and he apologizes as he goes.
He’s met with, “It’s okay,” and, “No sweat, man.” One guy even claps him on the shoulder.
“Long day, huh? Work of the mayor is never done.”
I follow Ike’s lead. “Sorry!” I whisper over and over as I shimmy down the row behind Ike, but I only get perturbed faces and rolling eyes. I swear one woman juts her elbow into me on purpose.
What did I ever do to these people? No one hates paper straws that much. I mean, they get soggy instantly, but still. They’re paper straws. It’s not like I invented red dye 40. And you didn’t even invent them, I have to remind myself.
After what feels like miles and miles, we finally reach our seats. I slouch into my backrest with a long, relieved exhale.
Louise leans around Ike. She mouths, “Nice to meet you,” with a huge smile and a wave. She’s not at all what I expected—about my age, with a blunt, blonde bob and toothy grin.
I wave back and match her smile, relieved to have at least one ally in this room besides Ike. I settle back, unsure what to expect from a children’s play. I’ve never been to anything like this before.
Eventually a boy shuffles onto the stage in his lamppost costume, his blond hair poking out around his face hole. His big, frantic eyes search the dim auditorium. When he starts to fidget and his eyes turn watery, Ike waves and whisper-shouts, “Boone. Right here, buddy.”
Only Ike could get away with that in the middle of a play without being combatively shushed.
Boone’s smile turns huge and toothy—a mirror image of his mother’s—and he walks to the edge of the stage, waving his lamppost arms frantically like, “I’m doing it! I am killing it as a lamppost.”
“That’s good, buddy. Stay right there,” Ike whispers before Boone walks off the front of the stage in his excitement.
Boone stays rooted proudly to his spot, stoic while Lucy Pevensie and Mr. Tumnus do their thing around him. He’s the most lost-yet-earnest lamppost I’ve ever seen.
I lean into Ike. “He is adorable,” I say under my breath, turning to share a smile with my date.
Ike must feel my gaze, but his eyes are glued to his little friend. He blinks hard, clearing his throat a few times before he murmurs, “Yeah, he is.” Then more rapid blinking. Are his eyes wet? “I taught him everything he knows.”
I can’t stop the smile that takes over my face.
Ike’s elbow bumps mine on our shared arm rest, then his fingers leave a slow trail down my wrist before he finds my hand.
He ducks close, his mouth next to my ear.
“I have allergies. That’s why I’m—” he gestures to his weepy eyes.
“If I was crying, I’d admit it. Nothing wrong with it. There’s dust in the air.”
“Mmhmm,” is all I can eke out. I can hardly breathe with his voice in my ear like that.
And I learned two things just now. One, Ike’s arrogance is an act.
Mr. Everything’s armor can have no visible chinks.
And two, I have a thing for a guy with a beard who cries over his ten-year-old neighbor being on stage.
I’m not sure what I expected from this play, but it wasn’t two kids wearing either end of an Aslan costume and getting tangled in the curtain until a loud curse came out of the tail end. And I didn’t expect to fall for Ike.