Chapter 7 #2
“Generous,” he said, and fell into step again like it had been decided at birth that wherever I moved, he’d match.
Had it?
We reached a block where the storefronts gave way to rowhouses with ironwork pretty enough to be jewelry.
I stopped by a grate clogged with anemone-like oak threads and bent without thinking, pushing my sleeves up.
The clip in my hair held the top back, but the lower half fell forward like a curtain, catching the light.
I felt his gaze slide over it and tried to pretend my scalp didn’t go sensitive just because he looked.
“Hold this?” I asked, shoving my flyers toward him. Our fingers touched. Not a big deal. Tell that to my pulse.
He held the stack in one hand like it weighed nothing and stood sentinel while I scooped muck with the other. My knees brushed brick.
A neighbor poked his head out to say thanks. I told him to text me when it rained, and he promised to bring us popsicles if we were still out. I rolled my eyes. Ethan watched the exchange like a man cataloging a new species of bird.
When I stood, he handed the flyers back. His knuckles grazed mine once—could’ve been an accident, wasn’t—and the charge slid up my arm into my chest like it knew the route home.
“What do you do for fun, Natalie?” he asked, a question that should have been ordinary yet landed like a hand on the small of my back.
“Define fun,” I said, buying time because the first three images that flashed—me naked, a toy, disappointment—were not fit for sidewalks or sanity.
His eyes warmed, maybe because he heard the pause. “I’m new,” he said, slow, coaxing. “I need a local guide.”
“I read,” I said. “I walk. I argue with my cat. I make my business partner and his wife come to art crawls. Sometimes I sit on the Battery and remember we live on the edge of a thing that doesn’t care about us.”
“That last part sounds like fun,” he said with a chuckle.
“I’m a delight,” I said solemnly.
“I can tell.” The way he said it made the joke thread taut.
“What about you?” I asked. “Besides horses and breaking ordinance.”
He looked at the water like it might grant him an answer he could share. “Quiet. Work. Moving something heavy until it stops arguing.” He let a beat pass. “Sometimes, I cook.”
“Cook,” I repeated, surprisingly undone by the picture that offered. “What?”
“Stews,” he said. “Things you can leave on a stove and trust. Bread sometimes.”
A cloud edged the sun and for a second the heat eased. A wind came thin from the harbor, threads of salt stitching the air. The first smell, way out past the jetties, of rain getting itself together.
A man from a gallery popped out as if he’d been listening from behind the glass. “Natalie! Blessings on you. We moved the trucks.”
“Tell your neighbors,” I called back.
“And tell your granddaddy he owes me a cigar!” he added cheerfully before disappearing without waiting for an answer.
Ethan’s brows ticked the smallest fraction. “He keeps … coming up,” he said.
“He’s a habit,” I said, and finally let myself give him the shape of it. “He was mayor a long time. People loved him. Still do. He thinks I hung the moon, just not where men can see it.”
Ethan’s gaze came back to me, steady. “And you?”
“I hung my own,” I said, lighter than it felt. “In a different sky.”
He nodded like that made sense.
We stopped under an awning.
“Okay,” I said, because if I didn’t redirect my mouth, it was going to confess that I had imagined his hand on the back of my neck and the weight of him in a way that would embarrass us both.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. If the first band hits this afternoon, I’m going to send out an update.
Move your vehicle to high ground. Don’t park on Lockwood.
Don’t park in any garage labeled ‘convenient.’ If you get stuck somewhere—”
“I won’t,” he said.
“If,” I said, stubborn just to hear how the word sounded in me. “If. Call a tow. Not a hero move.”
“Okay,” he said again, and Jesus, the way that word felt when he said it made me want to lean against the cool brick and close my eyes.
I didn’t. I took a breath too shallow to be useful and said the most dangerous sentence I’d said all weekend. “Do you want me to text you? When it starts.”
He stood very still, which made the heat of him feel like it took up more space, not less. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
“Okay,” I said, and pulled my phone out before I could chicken out and make a big speech about municipal responsibility to disguise the fact that I wanted him. “Give me your number.”
He gave it, slow. I typed, hands surprisingly steady, then hovered over send like a teenager, furious and delighted with myself. The message was practical because I’m me: Hi. It’s Natalie. I’ll ping you when the bands arrive.
His pocket buzzed. He didn’t look. His eyes stayed on my mouth like he could read the next thing I was afraid to say.
“And if you wanted to …” I heard my voice and decided to keep going.
“If you wanted to see what a city does when it pretends it isn’t about to get wet …
there’s a coffee spot a block over. In a few hours.
If it holds off. I could give you the ten-cent tour.
Of drains.” A breath. “And maybe not-drains.”
The smallest breath of a smile. “A date,” he said, like he was tasting whether it fit his mouth.
“A walk,” I amended, lying and we both knew it. “For research.”
“For research,” he agreed, generous enough to let me have the cover I’d built. “What time?”
“Three,” I said, because saying now would have been indecent. “At The Rise. If it’s not raining. If it is, I’ll text you where the water goes and we’ll watch it instead.”
“Okay,” he said, softer now, like the word had found a different part of him to come from. “Three.”
I nodded and stepped back before I climbed him like a bad decision in broad daylight. “Move your vehicle,” I said, pointing south like I was deputizing him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I turned before I could grin so hard my face split, and started walking, the drumbeat of the forecast under my feet, the text thread open on my screen like permission. I didn’t look back.
I felt him, anyway.