Chapter 29 #2
The waitress arrived, two waters already sweating on the tray. “What can I get y’all?”
“Raw oysters to start,” I said, “and the hushpuppies. Then the crab boil for two. And—” I looked at him. “This is a shrimp town.”
“Do your worst,” he said, and the waitress grinned like we’d passed the test.
“Y’all want local beer? Or sweet tea?”
“One of each,” I said.
The hushpuppies hit the table—hot, corn-sweet, the outside just this side of aggressive. Ethan broke one open, watched the steam escape, and looked at me like he was reconsidering living his entire life far from a fryer. “What is this sorcery?” he asked around a mouthful.
“Boring heroics of the kitchen,” I said. “We’ll make it a plank in the platform.”
“You’re going to feed the city into submission.”
“That’s the backup plan, if the drains won’t behave.”
I doctored his first oyster—lemon, a bruised hit of horseradish, a fringe of mignonette—and held the shell while he tipped and learned.
He swallowed, blinked at the brine, and then smiled in a way that hit like the first clean breeze after a long heat.
“That tastes like everything outside your door.”
“It does,” I said, pleased he understood the point of oysters, which is not taste but place.
Reporters orbited. A couple of phones came out. One of the crew from a station I grew up with lifted a hand from across the deck in a gesture that asked and didn’t assume. I shook my head just once. He dropped his hand and ordered another beer. Good man.
“New normal,” Ethan said.
“New normal,” I echoed. “We get to decide what parts of it feel like us. We wave when we want. We go home when we want. We never let them watch you kiss my shoulder unless we intend to set the city on fire.”
“Please don’t set the city on fire,” he said. “We have enough problems with the water.”
“The fire department needs something to do,” I said, and he snorted into his tea.
The boil arrived in a pan so proud it should have had its own chair—crab legs like red commas, shrimp pink, corn and potatoes.
I tied the ridiculous bib around his neck while he gave me a look that said “really?” and also “fine.” I taught him the crack-and-pull and the twist-and-suck, and when he got cocky I stole the biggest claw and cracked it for myself just to keep him honest.
Halfway through, a little boy with earnest ears and the posture of a man on a mission approached. “’Scuse me,” he said to Ethan, dead serious. “Are you the horse guy?”
Ethan swallowed, wiped his hands, and turned in his chair so he was the boy’s size. “I am sometimes,” he said. “You ride?”
“No, sir,” the boy said. “My mama says I’m too little and also too expensive.”
“That seems right,” Ethan said, gravely. He glanced at the boy’s mother, who looked mortified and hopeful in equal parts. “What’s your name?”
“Ty.”
“Well, Ty,” Ethan said, “next time you see a horse, keep your fingers flat when you feed him, stand at his shoulder where he can see you, and tell him what you’re going to do before you do it. Works on a lot of things. Even people.”
Ty nodded like someone had just knighted him. “Yes, sir,” he said, then added to me in a rush, “I’m glad you didn’t die,” and bolted back to his fries.
The table next to us pretended not to sniffle. I pretended not to, too.
We finished slow. The waitress brought a slice of lemon icebox pie on the house, and I said, “We can’t accept,” and then I tipped the price of the pie times four and left a note that said thank you for feeding us like normal people.
We walked the boardwalk after—the planks damp, the string lights stubborn in the mist. Boats knocked gently. Ethan put his arm around my shoulders, and I slid my hand under his shirt at his back because I could. Because I had almost not had this.
“Tell me about Holly Hill,” he said into my hair.
I nodded.
“Granddaddy’s porch faces a live oak that looks like it could pick up the house and carry it if it got bored. The lake’s close enough to smell when the sun’s been on it. He keeps a short list of men he’ll let fix things. You’re not on it yet.”
“I’ll apply,” he said.
“Dad’s studio is cramped and perfect,” I went on.
“Paint on everything. Coffee cups from a decade. He wears the same shirt every day and it’s a different shirt.
He’ll pretend he doesn’t care about meeting you.
He does. He always wanted a son who could throw a saddle and catch a fish in the same afternoon. ”
“I can do both,” he said mildly.
“I know,” I said. “But he’ll want you to know that he could once.”
“I’ll let him,” he said simply.
We leaned on the rail and let the night lean back. A camera peeped around a piling and then peeped away when I gave it my best schoolteacher eyebrow. We weren’t hiding. We just weren’t performing. That felt like a boundary we could keep.
“You almost died,” he said after a moment, not a question.
“I didn’t,” I said. “I almost forgot to live. Different.”
He made the sound men make when they are trying not to step wrong in a dark room. “I’m going to be very annoying about keeping you alive.”
“Good,” I said. “I need annoying. I intend to be very annoying about letting Flapjack be your therapist and saying out loud when you want to take a walk instead of a fight.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Deal.”
“Deal,” I said. “Also, I want to learn to shoot. Better than the basics I got at camp. Not because I want a gun on me. Because I want to understand the things you know.”
“I’ll teach you,” he said. “Somewhere safe, with a very boring lecture first.”
“I love boring,” I said, and he laughed like I’d told him a dirty joke.
We wandered back to the lot like normal people. The night had the polite hush Charleston puts on when it knows it’s being watched. He opened my door and I slid in, turned my face to the window, and watched the boardwalk recede.
At a red light on Coleman, I caught our reflection in the glass of a dark shop—his profile carved out of shadow and harbor light, my braid a dark rope over my shoulder, the two of us looking like we belonged to the same story. It hit me so hard my throat went hot with it.
“What?” he asked, catching the shift without taking his eyes off the road.
“Just grateful,” I said. “For this. For you. For the ability to taste lemon pie and not think about my eulogy.”
He reached across the console without looking and found my knee, squeezed once. “Me, too.”
At home, the cameras were still across the street, but they seemed tired in a nice way. We climbed the stairs, our steps syncing the way they had the first day he walked beside me like he’d been practicing in another life.
Inside, we kicked shoes into their corner.
I pulled my dress over my head and his hands found the small of my back just because.
We got in bed and faced each other and didn’t talk for a long time, because sometimes the best proof you’ve found the right person is that you can be quiet without worrying it means something bad.
Maybelle hopped up a minute later, all offended grace and soft paws, circled twice, and settled between us like a tiny, furry chaperone. Ethan scratched behind her ear, and she purred so loud it felt like a promise.
“Forward only,” I said into the dark.
“Only,” he said, and tucked my hand under his jaw.
Sleep came easy, the rare kind that didn’t have a soundtrack of sirens. The rain had finally run out of things to say.
In the morning, there would be headlines and calendars, policy and pushback, donors and drains, plans and planes. Tonight there was us, breathing in the same room, already building a life we loved.