Chapter 28 Easton
EASTON
We heat up the leftover pizza for dinner that night. Hawk’s friend Aiden texts while we’re eating to say he’s looking forward to meeting me. I haven’t decided how or if I’ll reply when Elijah’s phone rings.
“Betty?” he demands as he picks up, his worried gaze darting to mine. “What’s up?”
I can only hear the hysteria in her response, which is met by Elijah’s calm, focused reply. “Everything is going to be fine. Wait right there. We’re on the way.”
He sets the phone down and runs both hands through his hair. “They apparently went to see some country band playing at the pavilion. Betty went to the bathroom and now she can’t find them. She’s waiting for us in front of the post office.”
My shoulders drop in relief. I was positive there was going to be a medical emergency, one I’d be incapable of handling.
I raise a brow. “You know what’s actually happened, yes?”
He grabs his keys and nods me toward the stairs. “No, Easton. What has actually happened?”
“Your grandmother is cock blocking Betty,” I tell him, slipping on flip-flops before I start down the stairs. “She pulled Paul off somewhere alone and now she’s telling him how long she’s been without a man’s touch.”
He rolls his eyes as he opens the passenger door for me. “I’m just relieved you didn’t suggest anal was involved.”
“She’s probably keeping that in her back pocket,” I reply. “You don’t want to play your best cards upfront.”
We hop in the car and turn right onto 30A. We aren’t far away, but traffic slows to a crawl as we approach. Even pedestrians are moving faster than we are.
“Why don’t I hop out and let Betty know we’re here?” I suggest.
“Just stay in the car,” he demands. “We’re three blocks from the pavilion and I don’t want to lose you too.”
We sit for two more minutes. I picture Betty giving up on us, being sad, wandering one direction or another. I open the door while the car is still rolling forward and leap out.
“We’ll wait for you!” I shout, ignoring his angry bark. I jog down the sidewalk, which is packed with families and roaming bands of teens eating ice cream, fighting a smile.
This—me jumping out of a moving car, running down a street in shorts and flip-flops—reminds me of happier times, back when I was young and my brothers would dare me to jump from some junker they’d hotwired and probably weren’t old enough to drive.
I guess it’s not supposed to be a good memory and I guess they were sort of assholes for involving me, but all I remember is the yip of joy in my chest when I managed to land on my feet or do a cool action-movie roll into the grass.
Elijah was barely going five miles an hour, so it’s nowhere near the same. But that wild delight remains in my chest as I run anyway, like an old friend I’d forgotten I enjoyed.
In only a minute, Seaside comes into focus, a fairy-tale version of a small town. There are lights strung from the low-hanging tree branches, Airstreams selling food, and hundreds of people milling around while a country band plays in the pavilion just beyond them.
It makes me think, oddly enough, of a beachy, American version of the holiday market where Hawk proposed to Kelsey.
The coats and boots have been replaced by T-shirts and crop tops and flip-flops, the hot cocoa has been replaced by margaritas, but everyone is just happy to be here, to roam outdoors on a humid August night.
I’m happy for those reasons too, though I really do need to find Betty before I allow myself to enjoy it.
She is, as promised, standing in front of the post office. She hugs me but doesn’t seem nearly as upset as I’d anticipated. “Where’s Elijah?” she asks.
“He’s parking the car,” I tell her. “Traffic was nuts.”
I scan the fields and the dance floor just beneath the band. “Betty,” I say with a slightly exasperated laugh, pointing to a group of chairs nearby, “they’re right there.”
She shrugs. “Oh, wonderful. You wait for Elijah, then come join us!”
I pick up my phone as she walks off.
Betty has been reunited with the rest of the throuple.
ELIJAH
That joke will never amuse me, no matter how many times you make it. Wait there. I’m walking over.
I should tell him just to take me back to the house, but...I don’t want to. I’ll probably never get to La Magie de Noel, but this feels like enough for me.
God, what if Thomas had come to the wedding? I’d have missed all of this.
Even if he and I had been the ones to take this road trip, there’s not a chance he’d have considered going out to see some no-name country band.
He wouldn’t even have gone out for ice cream, and he’d have quietly fretted as we drove here about how the lack of black-out shades might fuck up his perfect sleep score.
Elijah comes around the corner, his hands in his pockets, his mouth curving into a smile when he sees me. The sight of him, like this, would by far be the biggest loss.
“What’s a pretty girl like you doing outside a place like this?”
I grin at him. “I feel like I’m supposed to come up with a sexier answer than chasing down my friend’s grandma.”
“You’re supposed to say you were looking for a big old cowboy.” He has a twang when he says those words, big ole cowboy. I hate how adorable it is.
“I don’t think that would be you. Do you even own a hat?”
His asymmetrical smile goes peak-lopsided. “No, but if you said you were looking for a big old cowboy, I’d go buy one.”
“Fine. I’m looking for a big old cowboy.”
He pretends to walk away. “Stay there. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve found a twenty-four-hour hat store.”
Are we flirting? I guess we are, and I guess that this delighted thing inside me sort of likes it. Whatever it is that’s led us here...I’m glad it has.
“So what do we do now?” I ask.
“About the hat?”
I laugh. “About your grandmother. Do we trust them on their own?”
“Of course not.” His hand falls to the small of my back, leading me down the sidewalk. “I say we get a beer or ice cream, and then we join everyone down there and line dance.”
I have no deep love of country music. I don’t know any line dances.
I don’t even like beer under normal circumstances.
But I can’t think of anything I want more than to stand under the lights with Elijah, drinking a cold beer out of a long-neck bottle, waiting for him to pull me onto the dance floor.
Maybe adulthood isn’t innately unhappy. Maybe I just chose the wrong version of it.
As we walk to the Airstreams, my gaze goes to every storefront. The bookstore is still open, and even a passing glance reveals that it’s the sort that’s overstuffed with books, one of those places where you’d inevitably walk out with more than your suitcase can hold.
“I approve of this town,” I decree.
“You’re judging an entire city based on its bookstore?”
I shrug. “Is there a better metric?”
He neither agrees nor disagrees, but instead places his hand on my back to move me along. We’ve barely made it two stores down before I’m stopping again, my gaze lingering on this loose dress with spaghetti straps in one of the windows.
“You should get it,” he says.
I hitch a shoulder. “Where am I ever going to wear a dress like that?”
“You could’ve worn it tonight. You could wear it to the rehearsal dinner.”
“Boho isn’t my style anymore,” I tell him, moving past it. “No one will respect me at work if I start dressing all girly.”
I’ve fought so hard to be deemed professional and adult, to put my Walsh-ish-ness firmly in the past, but I lost a little of myself in the process. My degrees make me feel successful. But that spark, that wildness inside me, is what actually makes me feel good.
Was it necessary to choose between them? Is there not some middle path where I can get a little of both?
We get beer, and find a table on the opposite side of the pavilion, away from his grandmother.
I take a long pull from my bottle. I’d forgotten how good that first sip of beer tastes.
The next time a line dance starts up, I join everyone on the floor, while Elijah watches.
I meet his eye as I flounder and the way he is smiling makes my stomach flutter.
I’m in running shorts and flip-flops, not wearing a stitch of makeup, my hair twisted atop my head in a messy bun, and I’ve never felt more adored.
No wonder I fell for him. No wonder I can’t seem to stop it from happening again now.
We finish our first beers and then get second ones. Paul, Betty, and Mrs. Cabot leave, but neither of us suggests leaving with them.
A slow song begins. My gaze darts to his, and after a moment he rises and extends a hand.
I accept and he pulls me to the floor. I start to dance with him the way you would with a colleague—one hand politely on his shoulder, the other clasped with his to the side—but he snatches me against him, so that my face is pressed to his sternum.
He smells like soap and fabric softener.
He feels like home. Thomas is never going to feel this way.
I don’t want my head pressed to Thomas’s chest. I don’t want it anywhere but precisely where it is at this moment.
When the song ends, I start to back away and the lines of his throat tighten. He holds me in place for a moment before he finally lets me go.
“I guess we ought to get home,” he says.
I nod, though I don’t really want to.
We’re quiet on the way back. The streets are mostly clear, now that it’s past all the kids’ bedtimes.
This would be a good place to bring a family, and Thomas will never want to, but Elijah would.
He’d walk down to that pavilion on a summer night with a kid on his shoulders, holding his wife’s hand, and there would be no one alive happier than she is.
Fuck. It’s true, but what good are these thoughts I’m having? All I’m doing is shitting on the future available to me while pining for the one that is not.
I blame Elijah. I blame him for flirting, for looking at me as if I’m special to him, for holding me close while we dance.