Chapter 13 #2
The food is extraordinary. The trout is perfectly cooked, crispy on the outside and tender and flaky within.
The lemon and butter brighten against the richness of the fish.
The potatoes are golden and caramelized, and the collard greens are wonderful, with just enough tang from the vinegar to cut through the richness of the bacon.
I close my eyes on the first bite of fish. I can’t help it.
“That good, huh?” Wyatt asks. I can hear a smile in his voice.
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” I say, opening my eyes. “But yes, that good.”
He grins, and I see the crinkles at the corners of his blue eyes.
We talk while we eat, the way we’ve been learning to talk, not about the bar, not about me possibly leaving in October, not about anything heavy. Just each other, small things, real things.
He tells me about growing up in Copper Creek, about fishing with his grandfather before he passed away, about getting into trouble with Boone as teenagers, about the summer he was fourteen and tried to build a canoe in his grandfather’s garage, but flooded the whole thing.
“My grandmother was so mad at me. She didn’t speak for an hour.” He shakes his head. “Then she handed me a mop and said, ‘Well, are you going to learn from this or not?’”
“That is exactly how she handled it at Dolly’s dinner when Boone knocked over the sweet tea pitcher. Same look and everything.”
“Oh, you saw the look?” Wyatt laughs.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Forty years of elementary school kids. She’s definitely perfected it.”
I tell him about the secret garden I had as a kid. About sneaking out back as a young child to dig in the dirt when my mother thought I was practicing piano. About the tomatoes that were too small and too lopsided to eat, but I was prouder than anything I had ever accomplished in etiquette school.
“I used to talk to them,” I admit.
It sounds absurd to say that out loud, but Wyatt just nods, completely serious.
“Plants respond to that. I’ve seen some scientific studies about it, and my grandmother swears by it. She talks to her roses every single morning.”
“And does it actually work?”
“Well, her roses are the best on the mountain, so I’d say yes.”
“You know, you should start a garden here,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “There’s a sunny patch on the south side of the building. It’s just sitting there doing nothing. I think it’s pretty good soil, too.”
I picture it, a garden behind The Rusty Spur, with herbs and maybe tomatoes tucked against the weathered wood of the building, the mountains rising in the background. Mine. Something that grows or doesn’t grow, with no one grading me on it.
“You know,” I say slowly, “I might actually do that.”
* * *
After dinner, Wyatt clears the table and waves off my offer to help, saying, “You’re my guest. No helping. Come on, there’s something I want to show you.”
I follow him out to the front porch, and the evening air hits me like cool water. The sun has almost set now, with just a thin line of gold along the ridge of the mountains. The sky above it is deepening from blue to indigo, and the first stars are beginning to appear.
He pulls the rocking chair into the center of the porch and sets it facing the view, then drags one of the wooden kitchen chairs beside it.
“Best seat in the house,” he says, pointing to the rocker. “Ladies first.”
I settle into the old rocking chair, and it creaks softly beneath me. It’s well-worn and perfectly balanced, far better than any brand-new rocking chair could be. Wyatt sits in the wooden chair beside me, his long legs stretched out in front of him, a mason jar of sweet tea in his hand.
And for a while, we just sit there.
The mountains darken by degrees, the last of the light bleeding out of them until they’re silhouettes against the stars. We can hear the creek murmuring somewhere below us, and the crickets have begun an evening symphony. Somewhere in the distance, an owl calls out, and another answers.
It’s the quietest I’ve ever been.
Not the forced quiet of an empty studio with too many bills or a too-big apartment, but the real quiet. The kind that doesn’t feel empty but full. Full of sound and life and the simple, steady presence of another person beside me.
“Thank you,” I say after a long while. “For cooking, for tonight, for all of it.”
He looks at me. “I enjoyed it. More than I expected, actually.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I was a little nervous,” he laughs. “I don’t do this. I haven’t done this in a long time. I wanted it to be right.”
“It was definitely right,” I say quietly. “It was exactly right.”
He holds my gaze for a moment, and that charged, electrical thing happens again between us. My breath goes shallow. I can see it in his eyes, the pull of it, the wanting. But he doesn’t lean in, and I don’t either.
Instead, he reaches over and takes my hand, lacing his fingers through mine the way he did this morning at the kitchen table. His palm is warm and rough, and his thumb traces a slow, steady circle on the back of my hand.
We sit like that for a long time, watching the stars come out over the Blue Ridge Mountains.
And it’s enough.
* * *
He drives me home through the dark with the windows down, the warm night air rushing through the truck’s cab. We don’t speak much, but it’s not an awkward silence. It’s the silence of two people comfortable enough with each other to let the quiet breathe.
When we pull into The Rusty Spur’s parking lot, he turns off the engine but doesn’t move to get out right away.
“So,” he says, turning to look at me. “Same time next week?”
“I’d like that very much.”
He nods, then gets out and walks me to the side entrance. We stand on the small porch for a moment, as we did this morning. This morning, we were setting ground rules, and now we’re standing in the aftermath of something that felt effortless.
“Good night, Eleanor,” he says softly.
“Good night, Wyatt.”
He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, gently, the way you’d want to touch something you’re careful with, and then he steps back. It’s our thing.
I watch him walk to his truck. He raises his hand in a small wave before climbing in, and I wave back.
Then I go inside, climb the stairs, and sit on the sofa in the dark.
I think about the little carved bear on his windowsill and how he caught fish himself this morning, planned a whole meal, and set the table with worn cloth napkins because that’s what you do when someone matters to you.
About how he held my hand on the porch and didn’t ask for anything more than that.
I think about how, for the first time in my life, I sat across from someone and didn’t once wonder if I was impressive enough.
I just felt seen.