Interlude #3
He doesn’t crack a grin. Just tips his head and says, “Show me anything you want to, Red.”
I pull Merritt’s folded-up letter out of my back pocket and hand it over.
A deep laugh punches out of him at the very first line. I flush with pride on Merritt’s behalf. She would have loved that he laughed at that.
I steal glances at his mouth moving silently over the words while I finish up his cut, his fingers splaying across his jaw before he gives it a scratch. His warm, glassy stare lifts to mine just as I finish dusting him off.
“Those things she talked about. The stuff she regretted not doing?” I say to him. “I know it might sound silly . . . maybe a little pointless. But what if I wanted to do them? Maybe it would be good to try. A way for me to process while I move forward, I guess.”
The look that rises on his face is pure, hopeful delight. Determined and full of promise. “Which one should we do first?” he asks.
The bulk of my trepidation crumbles right then, giving way until my soft center is sloshing around and sending tears to my eyes.
“You’d do them with me?”
“Yes.”
I can’t help myself. I still have to ask. “Why?”
He blinks down at his lap. “Because you . . . asked?” he tries.
“I didn’t.”
“But you were going to,” he parrots. “And you mentioned being friends.”
“I’d barely puzzled this idea together just now,” I confess.
“And I do. Want to be friends, I mean. But I—I also want to understand why you’d do this for me.
All of it. Letting me live with you, too, when I’ve been nothing but lukewarm to you since .
. .” I hope he’ll let me get away with not saying it, but we have a standoff in the mirror until it’s clear he’ll wait for me to finish.
“Since college.” And something cooler than lukewarm for the last few years, especially.
Two more blinks. “Maybe I think I’ll get something out of it, too.”
An eyebrow slowly climbs toward my hairline.
“Not like that!” he amends. “What I mean is—” He lets out a curse, searching the ceiling and fussing in his seat.
“What I mean is that sometimes it feels like I lost someone, too, in my accident, as shitty and insensitive as it sounds. Sometimes it’s like I lost .
. . me.” He says it with something like self-loathing, like the words are covered in slime.
I’m decidedly alarmed by it. I can’t think of what to say.
“I think it could be good for me, too,” he adds, eyes on his feet.
I put my hands on his too-wide shoulders and squeeze twice.
Thank you, I’m trying to say, but the words stick in my knotted throat.
He moves one of his hands out from behind his cape again—something everyone but him looks dumb in, apparently—and gives my fingers a quick squeeze back. I got you, he’s saying.
“I’ll have to check, but I’m pretty sure halibut don’t start biting until June or July out of the bay,” he says. “I’m sure there are a few guys at the station who’ve used a charter they like. I can ask around.”
My head bounces a nod and knocks a tear loose. I quickly swat it away and unbutton him from the cape. “That would be . . . That’d be perfect.”
“And bread? We can get as intense as you want about it. Whatever you want to know, I’ll happily get on Fisher’s ass.”
“Most would, I think,” is my chuckled reply.
His quick frown is so severe it’s cartoonish. “That’s Sage’s future husband you’re talking about,” he says, lifting up from his seat to tower over me.
“You sure he’s not yours, jealous boy?”
He blows out a mournful sigh and shrugs a single, mountainous shoulder. “I do love getting under his skin, but”—he scrunches his nose—“too much angst for me.”
I fix him with a look and cock my head. He doesn’t fool me for a second, this man of poignant speeches and jumping to join me on my grief journey, no matter what he claims about his own motivations. It’s an interesting, surprising dichotomy, and I can’t quite get him pinned down.
I straighten abruptly. I don’t need to think about pinning Silas Byrd down in any type of way, figurative or otherwise, especially when he’s mere inches from me. All big and warm. Sharp angles and wavy, damp hair.
It’s safer to play into his shtick for now. “Yeah? You’d prefer to keep things light?”
“Of course,” he says.
I walk him to the front desk and, to Isabel’s obvious dismay, ring him out myself. I’m thankful when his tip is generous but not outlandish.
“I guess I’ll call you, then?” I say casually. “Or see you soon.” There is a treacherous heat flooding my cheeks.
“Sounds good, roomie.” He pushes out the door with a wink.
INTERLUDE
Silas: This is your room.
Silas: [pic]
Silas: You get the best view of the backyard. That madrone is one of the reasons I bought the place. I can see it from my room, too, but you’ll see it better on top of me.
Silas: Above me. On the top floor, above me.
Bea: Thank you for that clarification. . . . It is a very cool tree.
Silas: I’m picking up on some sarcasm, and I don’t appreciate it.
Bea: *sigh*
(Twenty minutes later)
Bea: It is a neat tree, Silas. Kinda looks like an old man’s gnarled hand. I’m into it.
Silas: You’re into old men?
Bea: Goodbye.
Silas: Sorry, can’t read that, I’ve misplaced my glasses.