Hands at Ten and Two, Eyes to Yourself
Sadie
Some muscle memories never die, no matter how deep you bury them.
The moment Dawson fell into step beside me on the way to his truck, my traitorous brain served up the highlight reel, his hands at my waist, that ridiculous grin, the way he used to swing me around like I weighed nothing and make me laugh so hard I’d snort. I actually used to snort. God help me.
He opened the passenger door for me, and I stepped up.
The second I put on my seatbelt, nerves began popping like kernels of corn in hot grease.
I was going to be alone with Dawson, really, truly alone with him for the first time in twelve years.
We went from spending every day together, basically from sunrise to hours after sunset, not leaving each other’s side, to cold turkey.
No contact. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. It was jarring to say the least, mildly traumatic to say the worst.
The truck dipped to the left when he climbed into the driver’s side and shut the door.
“I was actually wondering—”
“If we could go to Buddy’s place before the hospital,” Dawson finished, glancing at me sidelong, a practiced efficiency in the way he checked the mirrors and pulled out.
I stared at him, momentarily stunned that he still had the ability to do that, to read my mind. “Yes, please.”
The grin that spread on his face—rare, unguarded—made my chest feel like it was being rung like a bell.
I took the opportunity of him staring straight, concentrating on the road, to study him.
He was broader than he’d been twelve years earlier, his jaw square and unshaven, the tendons in his forearm standing out as he turned the wheel.
In high school he had been uniformly gorgeous, but now he was sexier, older, built for heavier burdens.
For a fleeting second, I hated him for it.
“I need to grab a few things for him,” I tried to clear my mind of all things Dawson. “His books, mainly. He’s convinced he needs to work while he’s in there.”
He moved his arm to the back of the bench, and his knuckles grazed my shoulder. I felt it—a jolt, involuntary, a muscle memory of teenage desire that I had spent the last decade waiting to happen with someone else, but it never did.
I turned to look out the passenger window, pressing my lips together, hyper-aware of the truck’s interior closing around me—old leather, earth, soap, and the faintest trace of his cologne, the same as always, all of it arranged with the same precise, maddening Lockhart efficiency.
New truck. Same Dawson. Same everything.
Which meant I was in serious trouble, because the last time I’d sat in this exact passenger seat, I’d been stupid enough to think I was exactly where I was supposed to be and I’d be there forever.
And I feared, some part of me still held those beliefs to be true.
We drove in silence on backroads we’d driven hundreds of times before along the edge of Valentine Bay, the morning shrouded in a shifting mist that made the town look like a faded photograph.
Memories came flooding back of times we’d shared downtown on the pier, at the drive-in theater where we snuck in after closing and nearly got mauled by a raccoon, on the beach watching shooting stars.
We passed the row of waterfront rentals where the twelve-year-old versions of ourselves once TP’d and almost got arrested.
A little further on, the road curved past the marina where we built a bonfire out of driftwood and Dawson gave me my promise ring on my sixteenth birthday.
Every landmark felt like a wound, and the truck’s tires rolled right over them, one after another.
I tried not to watch his hands too closely on the wheel, but each turnoff or swerve onto a gravel road lit up some dormant circuit in me.
I’d always loved his hands. They were so large, so strong, so manly, even as a preteen.
Those hands were now man-hands, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how good they would feel on my body.
In an attempt to bring myself back to the present, I stared out the window. I watched as we drove past the boardwalk and was forced to march through a landfill of memories. I was bracing for it, but that only seemed to amplify the effect.
My phone vibrated. I glanced down and saw it was Peter. There was no way I was going to speak to him right now. I silenced it.
“You can take that if you need to,” Dawson mentioned offhandedly, but I could hear the tension in his voice.
“No, it’s fine.” I put the phone away.
“What’s it like—” I started to ask
“How is it being—” he spoke at the same time.
We looked over at each other and started laughing. It was something that we always used to do. We would be quiet for so long, and then both start talking at the exact same second. It was the strangest phenomenon I’d never experienced with anyone else.
He grinned. “Go ahead.”
“I was just going to ask what it’s like having Deacon in your life, not just as an abstract concept.”
Dawson had always taken so much pride in being the oldest brother, and even though he still was technically the oldest Lockhart, I wondered if it bothered him at all.
“It’s good, I guess. I’m just really happy for my mom.”
I nodded. I’d figured that would be his take. When I’d known him, he always put other people’s feelings before his own.
“Do you get to see him much?” I asked.
He nodded. “He’s been coming up pretty regularly with his family. They’re actually going to be spending some time over the summer because Deacon’s business headquarters is in Seattle, and Blake is going to intern.”
I nodded, wishing I had more to say. I couldn’t think of anything. My mind was blank. Well, not blank. I did have thoughts, and unfortunately, apparently, no filter.
“I thought you would have had kids by now.” I wasn’t sure why I said it. Maybe I shouldn’t have, maybe it wasn’t my place to.
His jaw tensed as his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. I saw the whites of his knuckles. I instantly regretted making the comment and wished I could take it back.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said—”
“No, that’s okay, yeah, life hasn’t really turned out…how I thought.”
“Right.” Part of me wanted to ask why. Why hadn’t it turned out how he thought?
All he talked about when we were together was having a family.
At the time, truth be told, it freaked me out a little because I was never sure I even wanted one and even at thirteen, fourteen years old he knew he wanted to be a dad.
He was so sure of everything. He was so sure about us.
About us getting married. About us working on his family’s farm together.
About us starting our own family and having three kids, our first by our mid-twenties.
About the house we would live in. The house was the only thing I’d been one hundred percent on board about.
It was the one piece of the life puzzle that I’d bought into wholeheartedly, with zero reservations.
From the time I could remember, driving around Cupid’s Cove, I’d always loved the white farmhouse with the black trim and wraparound porch.
I nicknamed it Seashell Cottage because I always found the best seashells on the beach that was essentially its backyard.
The house was my contribution to our dream life, the rest all mapped out by Dawson before we could even legally drive.
So the fact that we were thirty and Dawson was not only single, he was childless, shocked me.
Dawson’s phone was open on the dash, and notifications rattled through, but he ignored them: a missed call from Gio, a text from Angie, a calendar alert about an upcoming farm expo.
He seemed determined to be present, or at least to perform the gesture of presence for my benefit.
I found myself wanting to ask him—really ask—how he was, if he ever thought about that night, if he did think about it, what he thought.
“Do you ever miss it?”
I glanced over at him. My heart pounded wildly. Was he asking if I missed him, missed us?
“Valentine Bay?” he clarified.
“Oh, um, yeah…” I swallowed and looked out the window at the pines going by. “But sometimes it’s like missing a place that never existed. Or like missing yourself when you were a different person.”
My phone vibrated again with a call. It was Peter. Again. I sent him to voicemail.
“You sure you don’t need to get that?” Dawson questioned.
“I’m sure.” Peter was one more call away from being blocked.
I appreciated the fact that he wanted to have a conversation with me, but blowing up my phone to make it happen was not the mature way to go about it.
I’d messaged him the night before that I was going to be out of town for a while and that although I’d enjoyed our time together, I didn’t see us going anywhere so I thought it would be best if we ended our romantic relationship.
He called within seconds of me pressing send.
He tried to talk me out of my decision, claiming he’d just been too busy to put in the time our “relationship” deserved.
I explained to him it had nothing to do with time investment he’d put into our relationship.
I gave him the classic, “It’s not you it’s me,” but in this case it was very true.
Since last night, he’d called and/or texted a half dozen times.
I pressed my forehead to the cold glass, wanting to feel something to focus my attention on. The ocean was a slate gray, whipped into peaks by the wind. It was beautiful and completely indifferent to us.
We pulled off onto the old North Bluff Road, and as we crested the rise, I saw Buddy’s house for the first time since I left twelve years ago.
In memory, it was a storybook place: the two bedroom, two bath classic farmhouse with a wraparound porch, blue trim, and a riot of potted geraniums. The reality was jarring.