23. Shelby
When I got to the inn yesterday, Diane was so happy she threw herself at me like a sweet little ball of sweetness. It was nice. She went on and on about how sorry she was about the ATV guys and how if they came back for Oysterfest, she’d only let the nicest ones stay at the inn. I almost laughed at that but managed to express my gratitude for thinking of me.
That night still sucked.
This morning, after walking to town to pick up a handful of groceries and walking out again just as quickly in case I saw someone I knew, I hunkered down in the armchair by the window in my room, and I haven’t left. I know I should get back into finding my grandmother. I got distracted with Mac and Nate and my work at the Dinghy, and I desperately want to pick up that thread again.
Except not right now. Right now, all I want to do is curl up and hide.
Instead, I text Deanie.
SHELBY: Hey, I was just checking in to see how things are going. I miss the sound of the scanner.
DEANIE: Are you okay?
SHELBY: Not really
DEANIE: Are you in immediate harm? Or dying?
SHELBY: No
DEANIE: Then I’ll call you tonight, okay? Sorry, things are an absolute shit show here as usual.
SHELBY: Okay. Everything’s fine here. Totally fine.
Did I think maybe I could secretly sneak back to Vancouver and forget this whole little episode ever happened? Maybe. Did I really want to leave Redbeard?
Absolutely not.
I toss my phone onto the bed across from where I’m sitting, maybe a little too hard. I’ve spent the past hour staring at the rain pelting the glass instead of at my book, which Lana says involves a duke doing a striptease on the back of a horse. It’s called The Duke and his Darling, but Lana says it should really be called The Duke and his Dick because it makes an appearance so frequently. I really want to read that, but I can’t focus at all.
I’m pissed at Richard, and to be honest, I’m pissed at Mac too. Because I can’t stop thinking about that kiss. The second one. And every time I do, I get this rush of hormones that makes me feel like I’ve been electrocuted.
My former roommate’s not supposed to make me feel like that.
I finally get focused on the duke and his dick, enough that I don’t even give more than a glance out the window when I hear noises. Ben’s doing some yard work in what looks like full sailor rain gear, hauling a wheelbarrow around. A vehicle pulls up at some point, but by then, I’m at the striptease scene, and damn. I expected to laugh at this book, but the duke throwing off a piece of clothing every time his darling says the word is extremely hot. They wore a lot of little items of clothing back then. The chapter ends with the duke fully naked, his dick quite literally slapping against the saddle of the horse as he gallops toward his darling, who somehow has made it across a field.
Okay, that part sounds painful.
I happen to glance outside, my temperature slightly raised.
I frown. Ben’s not alone anymore.
I stand up. I see Ben’s figure hunched over as he pushes the wheelbarrow toward a larger figure.
A hulking figure holding a giant boulder, which he lowers into the wheelbarrow as if it weighs nothing.
My stomach drops.
I know that hulking figure. I clung to that hulking figure only yesterday, while he kissed me with an intensity that felt as if he was touching every cell in my body, all at once.
Mac looks up, meeting my eye.
I tell myself to calm down. Maybe I forgot something at his place. I left in a hurry.
Or maybe he’s just here to help Ben. Maybe Diane called him over to help Ben, and Mac said yes because that’s what Mac does; he helps everyone all the time. Ceaselessly.
But when Mac lifts a hand up for me—a wave—I know none of that is true. I can see it in the way he’s holding himself. Rain pelts his face, dripping off his hair and onto his shoulders, and it looks like he doesn’t even notice. My whole body thrums so hard it aches.
He might as well have a stereo over his head.
It takes me under a minute to reach the lobby. Mac’s already inside, hat in hand, thick dark hair rumpled and too long.
“Mac,” I say, trying not to remember how it felt between my fingers. “What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to say a few things to you.”
My heart beats a staccato rhythm in my chest. “Okay. I’m here.”
Mac runs his hand through his hair. It’s wet at the ends, curling where the hat didn’t cover it. “I wanted you to know,” he says, “that I never meant to make you feel unwanted.”
I swallow, the tears that have been threatening practically pulling a knife out now.
“You said you needed space, and I want to give that to you. If that’s what you want, I understand. But I want you to know that we—me and Nate—we want you with us if you want to come home.”
My eyes flood, and I blink, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes. There’s that word again, home.
I laugh without humor as I press the tears away. “I’m sure Nate didn’t say any of that.”
“He did, actually. We talked about it. He got mad at me at dinner last night. Said I should have insisted you stay. He, uh, doesn’t know about the other stuff. What we talked about and that…well, what we did in my office.”
Heat flares in my stomach at the memory.
Mac shifts, clutching his hat in his hand, bunching and unbunching it with his big workman’s fingers.
He’s nervous. The thought that Mac is nervous around me is as astonishing now as it was the last time it happened.
“Oh,” I say softly. I’m scared to say much more.
“If you want to stay here, I hope you’ll come and visit. Even Tink…she sat outside your door last night. Glared at me like it was all my fault you weren’t home. Which, well, she’s not wrong. We miss you, Shelby. So much.”
My chest clenches as I think of the three of them. Mac, Nate, Tink. My little gang.
I meet Mac’s eyes. They’re pained, like all he wants to do is come for me.
He even takes a tentative step.
But he pauses when I pull my sleeves over my hands, folding my arms in front of me. Even though I see the sincerity in his eyes, even though I feel it in his words, my heart is trying desperately to keep itself fortified.
I chew on my lip for half a moment before opening my mouth again. “Tell me,” I whisper.
“Tell you what, sweetheart?” Mac says. “I’ll tell you anything you want to hear.”
My feet point toward him, my arms squeezed tight as if even my body wants to fling myself at him, heart be damned.
“Tell me what you miss,” I say.
He laughs softly, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. He works his jaw as he stares into the fluorescent light above him. Then he drops his eyes back to mine. “How much time do you have?”
He doesn’t wait for my response. He takes a step toward me. “I miss how you wake up and blink like a newborn squirrel before you’ve had your coffee.”
My mouth drops indignantly, even as a new tear falls.
Mac smiles. “The prettiest squirrel I ever saw,” he clarifies. He clears his throat. “I miss the messes you make when you cook. I miss seeing you and Nate kill those slimy monster guys.”
I smile, my chest squeezing tighter.
“I miss how you talk to Tink when you think no one’s watching. I miss how you laugh when you see something you love, big and open and holding nothing back. I miss how you get so damned excited when you see a camel literally anywhere, no matter how small.”
He takes another step toward me as I blink more tears away.
“I miss how you get soft and sleepy when you drink whiskey. I miss…” He swallows. “I miss how sexy you looked that time my shirt ended up in your laundry and you just decided to keep it.”
“I was going to give it back,” I whisper.
“No you weren’t.”
I laugh softly.
“I don’t want it back. Actually, I do, but just so I can smell it. You make everything smell good. Like oranges and lemons.”
He’s in front of me now. I don’t know whether he walked to me or I walked to him, but he’s here now. He must see the fear in my expression—the pain of trying to hold onto a heart that’s already tumbling down an unknowable cliff toward someone—because he halts, then shoves his hand in his pocket.
When he pulls it out, he’s grasping a stack of worn paper—little scraps, it looks like.
“I miss these,” he says.
It’s only when he unfolds one that I realize what they are.
The top one says Tink didn’t poop on her walk!
“That’s…not the one I was looking for,” he mumbles. He flips through them as my heartbeat ratchets up to the moon.
They’re the notes I left for him, from that week he worked late and we communicated in scrap-paper missives. Little mundane comments about what was going on at home while he was out.
“You kept them,” I whisper.
“Here it is,” Mac says. “‘Nate almost smiled at me today,’” he reads. “‘I bet his smile looks like yours. If either of you ever smiled together I’d eat my hat, but then I’d compare those two handsome smiles side-by-side.’”
He flips through to another one. “‘Do you like making Mac ‘n cheese because it has your name in it? Do you ever call it Me ‘n Cheese?’”
Mac chuckles softly. But when he sees the tear slipping down my cheek, he pockets the notes.
“Why did you keep those?” I whisper.
Mac catches the tear with his thumb, brushing it sideways. “Because you wrote them. They made me smile every morning,” he says. “You make me smile, Shelby, and I don’t really smile at all.”
I trap his hand in mine, closing my eyes. “It’s too good, Mac,” I whisper, pressing the side of his hand to my cheek. “You’re too good and I’m so scared. I’m not the kind of girl who gets to have it all.”
Mac cups my face in his hands. He smells of rain and the sea, woodsmoke and trees. “You are,” he says. “You know why?”
“No,” I whisper.
“Because you’re my girl.” Mac’s strong, thick fingers slide into my hair. “And my girl gets to have it all.”
He kneads behind my ears with his thumbs, his pupils widening, the tenor of his voice and touch huskier now. Deeper. “I’m crazy about you, Shelby. In case you can’t tell.”
And just like that, I no longer care if this doesn’t turn out to be real. I don’t care about anything except getting as close to Mac as humanly possible. I wrap my arms around his neck, slide my hands into his hair, and say, “I’m crazy about you, Mac.”
He tips my head back then and presses his lips to mine. The kiss is electric, shooting stars straight through my veins. My legs buckle as he pulls me against him, my whole body loses its ability to stand on its own. But Mac’s there to catch me, his arms encircling me, keeping me safe.
He deepens the kiss then, and it’s so deep, so probing, his tongue so needy as it finds mine that I feel like that poster I had on my wall when I went through that X-Files phase.
I want to believe.
Jessica wouldn’t watch that show with me; she acted like it was dorky, but I think she was scared. Well, I’m scared now too, but I don’t care. I’ll take whatever Mac has to give.
“I want to come home,” I whisper into his neck as he clutches me against him.
He tucks my head into his neck; my face in my hair; his heart beating a rhythm against my temple. “Good,” he whispers. “That’s good.”
He doesn’t let me go. I don’t know how long we stay like that, Mac holding me up. Or maybe us holding each other up. But at some point, a door clicks open, and a short intake of breath sounds behind us.
“Oh my goodness!” Diane says, frozen at the office door.
Mac and I don’t jump apart this time. It’s like we don’t want to let go again ever. I lean my forehead against his thick chest and laugh softly.
“I’m sorry, Diane,” Mac says, his voice gruff but kind. “I’ll be taking Shelby home now.”
I want to jump his bones. I want to jump his bones while I’m packing up my things. I want to jump his bones the minute we get into his truck and his hand slides over my knee in a proprietary, exploratory grasp before he even turns on the ignition.
“Goddamn,” Mac whispers, kneading my thigh like he can’t believe he’s touching me.
When I meet his eye, he looks at me with this expression that reaches in and plucks at my very heart.
“Goddamn,” he says again before gripping my jaw. His hand is so big it only takes the one. The other, he slides down my throat, his thumb at my pulse.
Then a shadow passes outside. It’s Ben, and Mac has to roll down the window to chat. I lean back on the seat, heart thudding, wondering if Ben will notice Mac’s hand back on my thigh. I don’t know why it matters. It just does. Like this is real now.
“Maybe we should have stayed at the inn,” Mac says when we pull into his driveway. “Nate’s home, and it’s a Saturday…”
I laugh, but he told me Nate’s been home alone since the morning when he went to visit his dad. Neither of us wants to abandon him all day; plus I very badly want to see Nate. He was despondent when I ran into him leaving with Lana yesterday. He even let me give him a hug.
I reach for my door handle but turn back to Mac. “Are you sure about this, Mac? I’m here for two months. That’s a long time for a houseguest.”
I expect him to roll his eyes and tell me to get out of the car, but he says, “Five weeks.”
“What?”
“Oysterfest is in five weeks. You’re going home after that, right? Some client meeting? Jurassic Client?”
“Clientzilla,” I say with a laugh. But my smile fades fast. Five weeks is hardly any time.
The engine ticks in the silent moment that follows. Reality threatens to crash in.
“What are we even doing?” I whisper. “What is this?—”
“Shelby,” Mac says softly, though he takes my hand like he needs a lifeline. “Let’s not think about any of that, okay? All I know is when I’m with you, everything else is inconsequential. It’s just you, me, and Nate against the ocean of everything else.”