10. Something Chosen
Chapter ten
Something Chosen
Wade knocked on the back door at six-thirty with a brown paper bag in one hand and a slightly precarious stack of white cardboard containers balanced against his chest with the other.
Lila opened the door and looked at the stack.
“How many people are you expecting?”
“I wasn’t sure what you wanted,” he said. “So I got several things.”
She stepped back to let him inside.
“What kind of things?”
“I got dumplings you like.”
“Well, now I can’t criticize any of your decisions.”
“I was hoping you’d see it that way.”
He carried everything to the kitchen counter and started unloading containers while she grabbed plates from the cabinet. Within minutes the kitchen smelled like garlic, ginger, and hot takeout.
She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until then.
“Sit,” Wade said.
“You don’t know where anything is.”
“I know where the plates are. I know where the forks are.” He paused. “Where are the forks?”
“Second drawer.”
He found them, and she sat at the table while he unpacked lo mein, dumplings, rice, and something dotted with fiery red pepper slices.
The back door stood open behind them, evening air moving through the kitchen while the Gulf shifted quietly beyond the yard.
After a few minutes Wade pointed at one of the containers with his chopsticks.
“You were right about the dumplings.”
“I usually am.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s true often enough.”
He smiled and reached for another one.
“Danny called me today,” he said, before taking a bite of the dumpling.
“About what?”
“The Marlowe house. He wanted to know if you’d said anything to me about it.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing, but he said you drove past and took pictures.” Wade took another bite. “Which he said he knew because he drove past you driving past.”
Lila stared at him. He shrugged.
“Small town,” he said, as if that explained everything. Which she supposed it did.
Wade leaned back slightly in his chair.
“So are you going to do it?”
She considered the question.
“I don’t know yet.”
“You took pictures.”
“I take pictures of a lot of things.”
He gave her the look she’d started recognizing over the last few months. The one where he wasn’t going to argue with her but also clearly wasn’t buying whatever she was trying to sell him.
Lila ignored it on principle.
After dinner she washed and Wade dried, which had become its own kind of routine, and when the dishes were done, they stood at the back door looking at the path.
“You want to walk down?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
The crushed bark softened their footsteps as they moved down the path. The sea grape had grown back on the left side and she made a note to trim it. Near the bottom the path widened slightly before opening onto sand and the water stretching into the horizon.
The beach was mostly empty now. A couple sat farther down near the shoreline, and a teenager skimmed a fishing line out over the water from the pier. Waves rolled in steadily, flattening into thin sheets across the wet sand before slipping back out again.
After a while Wade said, “I don’t want to do the thing where we don’t talk about this.”
Lila looked toward the water. “What do you want to say about it?”
Wade was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “That I’m glad you came back. That I know it wasn’t about me and I don’t need it to have been.”
He paused.
“That I’d like to see where this goes. If you would.”
Lila looked at him then. At the steadiness of him.
“I would,” she said.
The words settled quietly between them.
Then, because this was still Lila, she added, “But I’m not sure I’m very good at this.”
“You’re better than you think.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
A corner of his mouth moved.
“No,” he said. “But I’d like to find out.”
She laughed softly at that, looking back toward the water before he could see too much on her face.
Neither of them pretended this would be simple. Both of them chose it anyway.
They kept walking after that, sometimes talking, sometimes not. At some point Wade’s hand found hers naturally enough that it took her a second to realize he was holding it.
By the time they walked back up the path, the sky had shifted into the soft blue-gray that came just before dark.
Wade followed her onto the screened porch instead of heading for his truck, and a few minutes later they were sitting side by side listening to the palms move in the breeze while the Gulf disappeared into evening beyond the yard.
“The otters are back at the north boat ramp,” Wade said.
Lila looked over. “Again?”
“Apparently one of them chased a fisherman onto the dock.”
“That feels dramatic.”
“I respect the commitment.”
She laughed.
By the time he finally stood to leave, the sky had gone fully dark beyond the porch screens.
Lila walked him to the front door. Wade stepped out onto the porch, then stopped and turned back toward her.
For a second neither of them said anything.
Then he kissed her.
Briefly. Warmly. Like something chosen instead of rushed toward.
When he pulled back, his hand brushed once against her arm.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
He headed down the steps toward his truck while Lila stood in the doorway watching the headlights disappear down the street. Then she closed the door behind her and went back into the kitchen.
The house was quiet. The only light came from above the sink, casting a soft glow through the room. Lila stood there for a moment with her hands resting lightly against the edge of the counter.
She was happy.
The realization caught her slightly off guard.
A quiet laugh escaped before she could stop it, and she shook her head at herself, smiling alone in the kitchen.
Then she turned off the light and went to bed.