Chapter Eight
We are not getting anywhere with this conversation, but every time she takes a mouthful of her food, she makes that… sound. Jesus. It’s been a while since I heard a woman make a noise like that. And definitely since I’ve heard Elle do it. I grit my teeth again, trying not to let it get to me. But fuck… She’s really enjoying that food.
I can’t really blame her. I know how good the food is here. We only provide Craig with our finest catch. That sours my mood a little. I’m not a complete asshole, though. I get why she is so against all of this. She doesn’t know how Acer changed over the years. All she knows is how he treated her after Darren and her mom were gone.
She also made a very good point about me moving to New York for six months out of a year. I couldn’t do that. I’d rather die than move to a city, especially New York. Jared’s words come back to me from earlier. You’ve got to sweet talk her .
Tapping out a nervous beat on my fork, I surreptitiously look up at her. Am I really going to do this? How far am I willing to take this to get what I want? Not just what I want. What I need, for the people who work for me, for the people of this town. I don’t have to be an asshole.
I can show her that Mystic isn’t the place she remembers, bring her around to my way of thinking, show her things can be good here. I won’t let it go too far, just enough to convince her. And if I have to sweet talk her, or flirt a little to get her to remember that, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m not setting out to hurt anyone.
“So you reconnected with Dawn?” I ask. “That must have been…”
“Awkward?” she shakes her head. “Surprisingly not. She welcomed me like I’d never been gone,” She glances away briefly, like that pains her. “I can’t believe how pregnant she is.”
“Yeah, her and Tom are churning them out.”
“I don’t really remember him that well.”
“He’s a good guy,” I nod. It’s true he is. “He works for my brother.”
“Oh, which one?”
“Jared, his construction firm.”
“I always liked Jared,” she smiles.
“Yeah, he’s the most mellow of my brothers.”
“How’s Denny doing? He must be what, twenty-two?”
“Twenty-three,” I tell her. “He’s just graduated. He’s back home for the summer before he tries to find work.” I roll my eyes. Denny is the only one out of the five of us who went to college. And the only one who has no idea what he wants to do with his life.
“God, the last time I saw him, he was what, ten?”
“Roundabout that. He’s changed. He looks like a miniature version of Lewis.”
“So a heartbreaker then,” she smiles.
She had a crush on my older brother when we were kids, before we got together, and she forgot all about the blue eyed, blonde-haired dreamboat my brother was often mistaken for. I give her a look that says I’m not pleased about that comment, and she laughs. Another sound that does something to my chest .
“Will you see Dawn before you leave?” I throw that one out there like a grenade.
“I’m sure I will,” she says, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin after setting her cutlery down. She’s finished every last morsel on her plate. As have I.
“Are you leaving tomorrow?” I hedge.
“Given the circumstances, probably not,” she sighs, taking a sip of her drink.
“How long do you think you might stay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Why do you think?”
She nods reluctantly. “Ben, I know you and I had our issues back then and things are tough right now with all of this, but I hope we can figure it out amicably and get the best result for everyone.”
I’m almost tempted to snipe again, but I hold on to that thought. I have to start as I mean to go on. “So, have you had enough?” I indicate the empty plate. “Or do you have room for dessert?”
“I’m stuffed,” she says.
“Stuffed… Too much for some ice cream at Mystic Sweets?” I raise a brow. Elle bites her lip, and my eyes immediately drop to it. I grin back at her. “Come on, you know you want a strawberry cone with chocolatey clusters.”
“Oh God, do they still make those?”
“Course they do. It’s a Mystic summer staple. Come on, today has been rough for both of us. What do you say we forget about it and regroup tomorrow? It’s a nice night, we can walk over to Main. Let me buy you one for old times’ sake. What do you say?”
It takes a while, and I think I’m going to have to turn up the charm a little more when she nods, but says we’ll split the bill and she’ll get her own ice cream. I want to argue, because it’s ingrained in me to pay, but given she’s loaded and she is one push away from backing out, I agree.
After we split the bill and say goodnight to Craig, who watches after us with a weird smirk, frown, grin on his face. I flick him my middle finger behind Elle’s back, then head out after her into the early evening light. We walk in silence for a while. It’s not far from West Main Street, but it is a really nice night. Without ever intending this, I’m actually feeling… happy?
I do start to notice people looking over though and cast a surreptitious glance at Elle. Her head is bowed as she watches where she is putting her feet.
“Fuck what anyone thinks,” I tell her.
“What?” she looks up at me, then around us. “I’m not worrying about what people think.”
“No?” I notice two women who were never really friends with us when we were in high school, but since then I’d slept with one of them. They are both eyeing Elle with disdain.
Elle brushes some errant hair back off her face from the light sea breeze. “I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t let anyone stir up shit,” I tell her genuinely.
“I can take care of myself, Ben,” she sighs as she watches the two women. “I’d just rather I didn’t have to. It’s funny how quickly people forget, though, isn’t it? Everyone here knew what it was like for me back then, but heaven forbid I leave and make a better life for myself. Because we don’t leave Mystic ,” she says it like it’s something that has been quoted to her repeatedly.
It isn’t like it’s a mantra or anything, but people do tend not to leave. It makes me feel uncomfortable thinking about it. Just because I never held any desire to leave shouldn’t mean others can be judged for it. I scowl in the women’s direction and place my hand on Elle’s lower back. She shifts slightly and looks at me.
“Be careful,” I say, as we’re about to step off the pavement to cross the street.
“Oh, right,” she stops and looks both ways before stepping off. I lower my hand and follow her, but not before noting the two bitches have backed off. We head for Mystic Sweets and a small smile graces Elle’s lips. “I can’t believe it looks exactly the same. ”
“Nothing much changes around here,” I mutter as we pass the bench that has sat outside the sweet shop for as long as I can remember. I hold the door open, and she steps inside, inhaling and closing her eyes. Another small smile tugs at her lips. It does smell pretty amazing in here. But we’re not here for chocolate.
I head over to the counter and greet Rachel with a smile. She isn’t the owner, but she’s worked here for a long time. She knows candy and chocolate and any other sweet treat like the back of her hand. She is in her early fifties, though her dark brown skin is smooth and there are only a few wisps of silver around her temples.
“Hey Rach, can we get a couple of cones please?”
“Sure thing, the usual, Ben?”
I nod and feel the moment when Elle steps up beside me, the sleeve of her sweater brushing against my bare arm.
“Oh my goodness, Elle George,” Rachel smiles. “Girl, it is so good to see you. You haven’t changed a bit. How are you doing?”
“I’m good, thanks Rachel. It’s so good to see you. Everything in here smells so good.”
“Well, that goes without saying. I have to tell you, I have read all of your books. I can’t believe that shy little girl I used to sell ice cream to for all those years could write something that would make me blush,” she exclaims. She half covers her mouth and leans over the counter. “And let me tell you, Mr. Dashiell appreciated the hell out of them, too.”
Elle laughs and my eyes are drawn to her. For a moment, she looks the way she did all those years ago, happy, carefree, without the weight of the world on her shoulders and the death of her father lingering so close. For some reason, I thought hearing people talk about her books, particularly in the way Rachel is insinuating, would have annoyed her.
“I hear that a lot,” Elle tells her.
“I bet you do. All those men must be sending you thank you gifts for getting their women so fired up and ready to go.”
“Standing here,” I hold up a hand to interrupt Rachel before she says anything else.
Rachel laughs. “I see you,” she rolls her eyes. “Chocolate lime for my man Ben here. How about you Elle, you still want your usual?”
Elle nods and goes to open her mouth, but Rachel shushes her and sets about getting our cones.
“Did you really think she’d forget?” I ask her.
“I… yeah, I did,” she says quietly. She turns away from me, but not before I see something in her eyes she really wouldn’t want me to have picked up on.
I pull out my wallet and while Rachel is handing over her cone to Elle, I pay for them both. Elle sees and frowns at me, but I just wave a hand and take my cone. “Keep the change, Rach.”
“Thank you, sweetie. Now, I don’t know how long you’re here, but don’t you leave without coming in to say goodbye. And I may have you sign a couple of books, if you don’t mind,” she says with a cheeky grin.
“Absolutely,” Elle tells her. “And thank you,” she raises the cone.
We head back outside. “Wanna walk over the draw bridge? Or we can go down Gravel Street along by the water?”
“Gravel,” she says, licking her ice cream.
“Yeah,” I clear my throat. “Okay, good.”
Elle glances at me and I turn to make sure no cars are coming again because fuck if I want her to see the look on my face right now. We cross over and head down the side street that runs alongside the Mystic River. Seeing her licking that ice cream is doing things to me that I shouldn’t be letting it.
Stick to the plan. This isn’t the most picturesque of walks along the riverbank, but as the sun is setting, the air around us is still warm. We’re eating our favorite ice cream and, just for a little while, I can forget about all the shit going on .
“So, you took over running the business recently?” she asks, bringing me back to our problem.
“About three years ago. Acer was struggling with his health, he started staying back at the office more, then he felt like he was getting in the way because he couldn’t go out on the boats.”
“That was when he… got sick?”
“None of us knew it was as serious as it was. He didn’t tell us a lot of what was going on and he didn’t go to the doctor. I was happy to help, and he’d already been teaching me a lot about running the place, not just being his manager.”
“Is Charlie still there?” she asks as we pass the First Church of Christ.
“Yeah, he’ll probably die in a fishing boat.”
She laughs a little. “He never wanted to take over?”
“Charlie?” I laugh. “God no. Not just because he wouldn’t have the first clue how to run the place, Acer never would have let him.”
“They always were like an old married couple,” she says, using the napkin Rachel gave her to wipe some melted ice cream from her hand.
“I’d say it was more like heavyweight competitors,” I say dryly, drawing a short laugh from her.
We come to a patch of grassy land, which leads to a wooden dock. It’s where the residents on the street moor their boats. Nothing fancy, mostly just small row boats. We head towards the dock because there really isn’t much else up here besides people’s houses. She leans against the wooden rail and looks across the river.
“It was colon cancer?”
I nod, finishing off the last of my cone and wiping my mouth. I pocket my napkin. “It had spread by the time he got diagnosed. He didn’t want the treatment.”
“Why?” she asks, her eyes holding an edge of disbelief .
“Because it wouldn’t have helped, and he only would have felt sicker. He didn’t want to spend the last of the time he had unable to get out of bed.”
Elle looks back out over the water, her ice cream forgotten. It has begun to melt over her hand. I reach out and take it from her. She looks at me but doesn’t do anything to take it back. I put it down on the ground. It’ll melt, and birds will come for the cone.
“You okay?” I ask her softly.
She huffs out a laugh. “Not even a little.”
Despite everything, I can’t help but want to comfort her. When a couple of tears slip down her cheeks, I say fuck it and put an arm around her shoulders. She’s stiff at first, but whatever power she’s been using to hold herself together for the last few hours finally gives up. She turns into me, and I wrap my arms around her, shushing her and gently rubbing her back as she cries.
Fuck, this isn’t how I saw this night going, and having her in my arms like this brings back a swirl of memories and emotions I never thought I’d experience again. I’d thought she’d be aloof, distant, and completely uncaring. But whether Elle wants to admit it or not, being back here is affecting her.
This is the perfect opportunity to get under her skin. And I feel like an absolute bastard for thinking that, but I need to get her to agree to Acer’s terms, no matter what.