Chapter 2 #4
It’s sort of baked into him in all his travels.
Least, that’s my theory.
“You’re late,” I announce, far less enthusiastic than I really am, as I rise off my stool to give him a hug.
“That painful without me, huh?”
“You have no idea.”
“Who’s to blame this time?” he says as he gives me a squeeze.
“Me, actually. I’d tell you all about it, but I don’t think I could live through reliving it.”
He’s a foot taller than I am, and suddenly I’m swallowed up in denim and his signature hay bale scent, and when my feet are
lifted off the floor, a few sighs of envious ladies escape in the distance.
Here’s the thing about us.
I’ve never texted Nash outside of a work-related context.
I’ve never been to his apartment.
I’ve never suggested we casually get together “as friends” ever.
He, likewise.
But during the work hours I’m free.
I’m allowed to laugh at his jokes.
I’m allowed to stand by his side on the street and discuss in low and humorous tones exactly what I think about Jackie and Crystal elbowing
their way to get into the taxi first. I’m allowed to confide in him and appreciate him and all the ways we have each other’s
backs while on duty.
He’s just . . . my person.
My work person.
And up until six weeks ago, that was all he was allowed to be.
There. That’s how I’d describe us.
Nash is my nine-to-five person who lights up my nine-to-five life in a way that makes me feel that all the joy of work would
be sucked out of my life without him.
Simple, and exceedingly platonic.
When he has finally let go and takes a seat beside me, I’m out of breath again, but for entirely different reasons.
Wordlessly, the bartender holds up a chilled mug in one hand and plain beer in the other. Nash taps the beer and he slides
it over.
“Today was . . . not the best travel day,” I say, feeling more grounded in Nash’s presence than I have in weeks.
This is what I needed, I realize, taking a steady sip of my rhubarb and rose.
Not the salt air.
Not the bubbly waves.
I needed this right here.
That poor (I mean, but we can only pity him so much, can’t we?) man with the boom box went through it for nothing.
“Neena didn’t make you listen to ‘Desperado’ again, did she? I told you, Pip. You don’t have to listen to it—”
“I know,” I say. “But she plays it through her phone—”
“You gotta stand up to her—”
“She thinks it’s bonding.”
“What part of ‘Desperado’ is bonding? No part of that song speaks to group travel. I don’t know why she clings to it. How
many times was it this time?”
“I lost count after thirty-seven.”
He whistles.
“And that marked hour one. I told you,” I say, then pull the drink to my lips, “it was a long day.”
My phone dings with an incoming text followed three seconds later by ringing. Nash and I both lean in to see who it’s from.
That, I think, might sum up Nash and me.
We are both unapologetically nosy about other people’s calls—and don’t mind.
We press speakerphone when we answer.
It’s more like a secret third party on every call.
Neena’s text is simple.
SOS.
Her name is also the one on the banner as it rings.
“How long have you been on board?” Nash whispers.
“Thirty minutes.”
“Is that a new record?”
“Hardly,” I say, then pick up the call. “Hi, Neena. Where are you?”
And as I commence working her through the twists and turns that would get her to the top deck, Nash makes small talk with the women who have been perched on the pool chairs, listening in.
Then he does something that stops me mid-sentence.
He takes off his hat.
Hooks it on his knee as one drops a hat on a hook by the door, one boot resting on the bottom rung of my stool.
And for a blink of an eye, he is rolling his shoulders and shaking out the glinting blond-brown locks of his shaggy (in a
very nice way) hair, and I see as he rubs the back of his suntanned neck a look in his composure of one who is bone-weary.
Of one who has just returned from a distant war to the squishy armchair of his living room, the one he’d dreamed of through
all those cold and scary nights far abroad.
He’s listening to one of the women drone on, nodding. Contented.
That’s what he looks like.
Bone-weary but contented.
Like this is just where he wants to be.
Too.
A warmth blossoms in my chest and I quell it.
I listen as Neena somehow gets herself onto the wrong elevator and ends up in some underwater dining room. All the while,
I’m remarkably aware of Nash’s knee so casually touching mine.
How long have we been friends now?
Coming up on four years? And yet it feels like a lifetime.
Nash catches me looking at his knee and we lock eyes momentarily.
He clears his throat and pulls his knee back to his chair side.
I swallow my pride, forcing myself not to take it personally.
Silly, really. We are professionals.
“Oh, I see some coattails,” Neena says. “I’m going to grab on and not let go until he takes me up. Yoo-hoo!”
The line goes dead.
Moments after I break off, Nash picks up his beer and, after some polite niceties, the crowd of women drifts away, leaving
us alone again.
He swivels my way.
“So,” I say, “where was it to this time?”
“Buhl, Idaho. Down a tiny valley near Snake Ridge Canyon.”
“Snake Ridge Canyon,” I repeat with a suggestive lift of my brow. “Sounds charming.”
I know the place.
I looked it up when he told me he might be going offline again a few months back, heading out beneath the wild sky to clear
his head for book research and just general living. He juggles the states up quite a bit, but they all have some similarities:
out west. Places either hot enough to melt butter or so cold you get frostbite (he’s had it—twice). Humidity that you could
slice through with a knife.
He brings his boots and his hat and jumps on a random horse with two saddlebags of canned beans and jerky and a tin coffee
can and water and a notebook and his trusty computer and—let’s hope—a toothbrush.
Sleeps on the ground with his hat over his head—just like in his books.
Drinks coffee that looks a lot like mudwater—just like in his books.
Pops into town to charge up his laptop every few days and grab a few more cans of beans.
Does nothing but muse in silence for days on end—and write his books.
He usually comes back with a half-written novel or, if not half, at least a quarter and a plan.
Every author has his method for inspiration, I guess.
“I thought you were going for four weeks this time.”
“I went eight.”
“You never go eight.”
“This was a trip I needed eight. I had to . . .”—he pauses and his eyes jog away for a moment—“get away from it all for a
bit. Get some perspective.”
“About what?”
Nash hesitates.
Shakes his head.
“Just people. Work. Life. To remember my place.”
He’s shutting down over it. I can see it plainly in the shift of his body as he turns and takes a swig of his beer.
Well. I understand. If there’s one thing, one tiny little takeaway I’ve had drilled into my brain over the past six weeks,
it’s that I will never pry again. People can be well-meaning, but if I have to say, “I’m fine, and you?” while piecing my
face into a perfectly effortless smile for their daily inquisition one more time, I just might throw a boom box into the ocean.
I shift the subject, keeping my tone light.
“Get bit by anything interesting?”
“Found a rattler in my boot one morning.”
I make a face. It’s revolting. His hobbies are revolting. “The number of times you’ve discovered living creatures in your shoes is really concerning, Nash. Have you ever, oh, I don’t
know, considered rolled-up towels in them or something?”
“No room in the saddlebags.”
“You have shirts.”
“I have shirt,” he corrects.
“You don’t even carry an extra shirt?”
“If it gets dirty, you just take it off. Clean it. Put it back on again. Keeps things simple.”
I laugh, picturing the twenty-two shirts sitting in my drawers in my room below at this very moment.
“Plus, a little threat of snake in your boots keeps you on your toes. You gotta have some adventure.”
“Hey now,” I say, putting up a hand. “I put three packets of sugar in my coffee at the airport this morning instead of two.”
His brows rise amicably. “That so?”
“Darn tootin’. So. Any full moons? Any of those famous write-all-night-under-the-pale-moon-twenty-thousand-word spells of
yours?”
“Couple. The stars were . . .”—he pauses, that little smile on his face he gets when he’s conversing about something he likes—“you
would’ve loved it, Pip. The whole sky was covered in them.”
“You know, from what I read, the night skies out here are going to be pretty worthwhile too. And,” I say, raising a finger over this very noteworthy bonus, “rattler free.”
“I did hear something about that. It was your tactic to get me on this floating prison, after all,” he says, and we pass a
mutual grin.
In a moment of weakness, I did send him twenty separate text pictures of star-swept skies on cruise liners to sway him to
go on this trip. And at least three articles on tonight’s meteor shower.
I had to do some heavy-duty pleading for him to come.
For some reason, Nash in particular was resistant, unlike everybody else, who jumped when I said the words “book sales” and
“free buffet.”
And for Jackie, when I mentioned the sheet thread count.
And Gordon, with the magic show entertainment.
“How close are you to finishing up this book?” I ask, ever secretly amazed by how quickly Nash can throw out books.
“I’m close to the end of this one,” Nash says, rubbing a hand up and down his stubbled chin. “A little bit stuck, though.
I keep hammering on the page, but it never seems to make anything of itself.”
“Case of the yips? No such thing with Nash Eyre.”
“There’s a first for everything, and I’m certainly living it.”
“Even with a hiatus of snakes in the boots and rocks for pillows and everything?”
“Even with the snake,” he says with a shake of his head. “I might just find one of those chairs and try to make an end to
it tonight beneath that meteor shower of yours.”
“I’ll join you,” I say cheerily.