10. Homecoming At Tide Table #2
"Ruth." I give her a smile. The real one, not the four-second one. "The store knows you've gone AWOL?"
"The store manages." She plants herself on a stool, orders nothing, and studies me like a jar with a faded label.
"So it's true. The wedding's real, the fella's somebody, and they've dragged you three back into her orbit like the whole town didn't spend five years sweeping up after you.
" She sniffs. "You've gotten handsomer. That's just cruelty at this point. "
She’s gonna earn a second smile at this rate.
"I missed you too."
"You missed my gossip. There's a difference, and I'm too old to be flattered by boys who left." But she says it without much bite, thankfully.
I don’t want to be scolded by the entire town now that I’m officially back.
She pats my hand once on her way to not-buying anything, and that pat costs her something to give me, which I clock and don't mention.
My phone buzzes against the counter. A message from a number I don't have saved, though I know exactly who runs the front desk it came from.
Mr. Mercer. Welcome back to Honeybell Harbor.
A reminder, since I'm told you'll be working the equinox event: our guests that week value discretion above all things, and this town's reputation is not a resource to be spent on anyone's personal reconciliation.
Behave accordingly. — B. Honeywell, Salt I forgot how that used to undo me in summer.
She's softer than I remember, or maybe just softer than memory lets me have her, and for one unguarded second, I get to look at her the way I'm no longer allowed to.
My body forgets the last five years, rising to attention in the space of a breath. Her scent hits me and I feel everything she used to do to me at once.
My cock thickens, hard and urgent, while the rest of me aches with the kind of longing that finds the hollow spots and settles in.
Then the wind shifts off the water, heightening her scent ten-fold, and I have to put a hand on the stone rail to avoid that wave of dizziness that happens when you’re completely smitten for an Omega who’s aroma drives you absolutely insane — in a dangerously good way.
Sun-warm apricot. White roses. Vanilla under it, and that low amber warmth that used to mean she felt safe enough to stop hiding.
She's not wearing the neutralizer today.
She didn't know she'd run into me, and the full uncut truth of her comes across ten feet of morning air and lands in my chest like a dropped tray.
Five years I couldn't drink anything with apricot in it. Bartenders would build me something pretty and I'd smell it and hand it back. I told people I didn't care for stone fruit.
The word arrives before I can stop it, rising up my throat with a lifetime of muscle behind it, warm and easy and mine — Sweet Apricot—
I lock my teeth on it.
No. That name's in a drawer now, next to the keys.
"Amber."
I’ve clearly failed the name game because here I am using her real name when I’m supposed to go along with the professionalism we agreed upon. I await her scrutiny, my eyes locking on her as she approaches.
She stops three steps up, which leaves us almost eye to eye, and I watch the exact moment my scent reaches her, because her whole face does a thing and then undoes it; professional shutters coming down over a window that opened half an inch.
Her eyes have gone greener than they were a second ago.
That's the tell she's never been able to train. All beautiful in their green illuminating surface, dilated and fighting to hide the hurt and anger that’s surely buried in the same coat.
"You signed," she says.
No hello. Fair.
"Thursday. Four o'clock. Every page."
"Did you read it, or did you sign it the way you do everything? Fast, charming, and halfway out the door?"
There she is.
God, I've missed the edge on her.
"I read it." I keep my hands visible, both of them, loose at my sides, because there's a clause about that and because I mean it. "You want me to prove it?"
"Yes." Her chin comes up. "Actually, I do."
"No physical contact without spoken consent, and that includes a steadying hand, an elbow, a coat over a chair.
No scent-marking, held control at minimum, every room, every day.
" I keep my voice level, itemized, a man reading back an order so the kitchen knows he heard it.
"No personal conversation on the clock, and you define the clock, which is all of it.
No decision about this wedding without your written sign-off, down to the fold in a napkin.
Nothing that uses this town, that couple, or their money as leverage on you.
And—" I hold her eyes for this one, because it's the one that matters, "—no names from before.
No Sweet Apricot. It's in the appendix. Clause nineteen.
I initialed it twice, because once didn't feel like enough. "
Something crosses her face, fast, gone.
"You memorized the appendix."
"I memorized all of it."
Because it's the only love letter you'll accept from me…a list of everything I'm not allowed to do.
"It's the most important document anyone's ever handed me. Seemed rude to skim."
She adjusts her grip on the clipboard.
Taps her pen against the edge, three times, unconsciously, and I would give a year of my life to tell her I noticed she still does that.
I say nothing, though, because noticing is a thing I don't get to do out loud anymore.
"I need to say one thing," I tell her. "Not on the clock, so start the clock after. It's not a question, and it doesn't want an answer."
Her jaw sets.
"Make it quick."
"I drove the car."
The words land in the space between us and sit there, in the sea light, with the gulls going and a kid laughing somewhere down on the sand.
"I've heard a lot of versions of that day get told back to me over the years," I say. "None of it is worthy of an explanation of what happened that day. What commenced. We’re not going to stand here and dive into it, because that will lead into overtime and the clock is already ticking towards my own demise in that department.” He catches the slight hint of an uptick in the corner of her lip that she’s surely suppressing so I can suffer as I continue my piece of a confession. One of many. “I’m not going to stand here and justify what we did as right or wrong. This isn’t the place for that conversation…
though…I’ll leave it to fate to give us the opportunity for that to transpire when the timing is right, and your heart is ready for it. ”
I pause on purpose to look into her eyes, but she’s a blank slate now, which makes me nervous as fuck. It also makes it hard for me to keep my thought process rolling, which is probably why I’m standing there like a deer in headlights.