Chapter Four #2
“And?” The painful hope in McHuge’s voice brings me back to the present.
This is what loving a job does to you: it hurts you. It’s fine for me to like being here, like the work, even get along with McHuge, but I need to not get emotionally enmeshed.
“It was late Friday afternoon in New York. I’m hoping to hear back tomorrow.”
He heaves a slow sigh. It’s very que será, será. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Just looking out for my job.”
The sound of the river fills the silence. Babe grumbles softly from where she’s settled between our tents, snapping the air like she’s chasing a pesky insect.
“Is that all, McHuge?”
“We can leave the rest until morning, if you’re tired.”
“Tired” is not the word. Even if I hadn’t shoveled, raked, and hauled since sunup, today’s emotional roller coaster would have worn me out. But.
“I don’t like leaving work undone. Let’s do it now.”
He makes a soft, pleased rumble, like he was hoping I’d say that. “Okay. Good. I was thinking we should agree on what’s going to happen between us. And what’s not.”
“Draw all the lines you want.” And I’ll draw my own in return.
“I don’t want to pretend when we’re not in public. Anything we do, we do for the guests.”
“Fine with me,” I say.
“Good.”
His obvious relief offends me. I’m not a difficult person. I only argue over things that matter.
“I’ll tell Sharon about the engagement,” he offers when I don’t speak.
“I don’t think we should tell anyone.”
A note of anxiety colors his voice. “Do you think she’d tell us not to?”
“No. She’s pretty pragmatic, and she did tell us to do literally anything. But she might want plausible deniability if this goes wrong. Tobin, too.”
It feels serious now that we’re discussing potential downsides—like keeping secrets from Tobin. And Liz. I don’t always tell her what’s going on with me if the time isn’t right, but I’ve never withheld something that could affect her family finances before.
“So only you and I will know it’s fake,” he says.
“It’s not fake . People are allowed to get married for reasons that aren’t love. Companionship, finances, tradition, kids. Businesses. Any reason they want, except maybe immigration. If the couple says it’s real, it’s real.”
“Valid,” McHuge says, somewhat reluctantly. “But it does need to look like we at least want to get married. If we bump into each other in front of the guests, we can’t sprint in opposite directions.”
“That was one time.” I was working down by the shore and didn’t realize he’d joined me. His footsteps are light and sneaky for a man of his size.
“You ran into the river to get away from me, Stellar.”
“I was startled!”
He sighs. “You wouldn’t have been so startled if your body recognized mine.”
I plaster both hands to my forehead and keep my mouth shut.
I can think of at least five ways to respond to that statement, all of them far too revealing.
“Fine. We can do chores together over the weekend. I’m sure the startle reflex will settle down after we throw some accidental elbows while raking. What else?”
“We should talk about… touching.” I feel the solar storm of his blush from here.
“Easy. We won’t be doing that.” I know the engagement was my idea, but I draw the line at making out. That’s basic preventative medicine.
“I think we have to. We supposedly had a whirlwind romance. People will expect an occasional peck on the lips, minimum.”
“A peck ? No one says peck , McHuge. Were you born a hundred years ago?” Although if he were an immortal time traveler, his Summer of Love vocabulary would make perfect sense.
His sigh sounds like he’s let his head fall back in aggravation. I really do bring out the best in him. “ I say peck. And we should peck, or people will get suspicious.”
I think of his lips, soft against mine. His eyes at close range, like a pair of chemical weapons. “No, thank you. You can… you can put your arm around me and leave it there. That’s a love thing.”
“I put my arm around a lot of people.”
“And leave it there ,” I say crossly. “I’ve seen you put your arm around Tobin for five seconds. Liz, maybe a little longer. Leaving it there for like a minute? That’s a love thing.”
Silence falls, and I realize I just told McHuge I’ve watched how long he puts his arm around people.
He clears his throat. “Last thing. We need a relationship story. People will be curious about our history.”
I’d rather not talk about my history. People claim they won’t judge you by your past, but if that were true, they’d look at your actions and keep their questions to themselves.
My past is a knife, the kind of thing you don’t hand to just anybody—as I learned the day I left Grey Tusk General, when my department chief said he guessed my apple didn’t fall far from my dad’s tree.
“You’re an improv comedy teacher. You can improvise,” I point out, very reasonably, in my opinion.
“Yes, and you and I could end up telling two different stories.”
“Couples tell separate versions of the same story all the time. That’s why they come to relationship camp.”
“Brand-new couples are not supposed to need relationship camp. We’re supposed to be—”
All over each other , my imagination supplies when he breaks off.
“So we tell them the truth. Or a version of it. You and I had a thing last year, but the timing wasn’t right. We ran into each other through mutual friends, one thing led to another, yada yada, I asked you to marry me.”
I’m worried about the drawstring bag. It could easily fall to the bottom of my backpack. I’m not 100 percent certain where it is, now that I think of it. I should make sure it’s not lost. It was only sixty dollars, but I’m not made of money.
I unzip my sleeping bag, flick on the solar lamp, and rummage in my pack. My hand finds the stiff, cheap felt bag exactly where I left it. I open it and shake my gift into my palm.
“Everything good?”
“You’re worried about believability, and I have something for that. I’m coming over. You decent?”
“What?!” Hurried rustling comes from his tent.
“You’d better not tell me you sleep in the nude, McHuge.” Although he didn’t wear anything when he was with me last year.
Get your mind out of the gutter, Byrd .
“I’m putting on a shirt, give me a minute.”
“No need to get specific.” I unzip my door and shove my feet halfway into my boots. Babe lifts her head as I cross the ground between my tent and his. It’s late, but I don’t need a flashlight; the sun never fully sets at this time of year this far north.
By the time I’m at his door, he’s got it unzipped. Behind him, the solar lantern illuminates details I’ve been careful not to notice before tonight: dark-green sleeping bag, extra long; vintage trekking backpack covered in pockets, most of them open; a shadowy pile of books in one corner.
“Are you coming in?”
“No,” I say. “We’re too tired for a slumber party. Give me your left hand.”
He holds it out, palm up. I put my hand in his and turn it over, taking the “will you marry me” handhold I was taught to use to look for veins.
I’ve held thousands of hands this way. When I’m starting an IV, I always know what to say: Nice and still now.
Relax the hand. Little poke—one, two, three, ouch! All done.
Tonight I have no idea what words to use.
Even if I were good at easy intimacy, I’d still be shocked by the first touch of his broad palm against my own hand.
Even if I weren’t avoiding his eyes, I’d still be preoccupied with the calluses below his fingers and the tiny, almost imperceptibly raised scars that tell the story of a life lived outdoors.
His skin is as warm as I remember from that night at the festival.
He smells clean, like tea and toothpaste.
I touch the ring to his left fourth finger. He startles a little at the kiss of cool steel.
“What—”
“Don’t freak out. It’s from Costco.” Damn it .
“I mean, I know our conversation this afternoon was weird. We kind of argued. A little. No one wants their engagement to be like that, no matter why you’re doing it.
So I thought we could… try again?” I don’t slide the ring on.
I’m not sure what I’m waiting for, but I’ll know it when I see it.
“You got me a ring?” He looks at the black steel band, then up at me. His face is a collection of inscrutable lines in the twilight, everything straight where it’s usually curved, still where it’s usually mobile.
“Yeah. I picked a rounded profile, so it wouldn’t catch on things. Smooth, like a river stone. It reminded me of you, I guess.” I shrug. “You want a relationship story, so… this could be ours.”
“This could be ours,” he repeats.
“Yeah. I asked you to marry me, you lost your cool—”
“Stellar.”
“You did, though,” I argue. “You know I’m right.
You went off and thought about it for a while, you came back, I gave you this ring.
And when I did, you knew we could pull it off.
Because we can pull this off, Lyle.” And if we do, I get to keep everything I’ve been afraid to lose.
No hard choices, no slow friendship fades.
He uncurls his fingers. I only have to wiggle the ring over his knuckle a little bit, then it slides home, clasping him like it’s made-to-measure.
I didn’t expect this moment to have such weight. I didn’t expect our eyes to pop and lock, and lock, and lock.
It’s too much. “Screw that sales guy who didn’t think I could eyeball the size,” I announce, sweeping the mood away like it’s good weather and I’m La Nina. “That ring is perfect.”
“Yeah,” McHuge agrees, his face carefully blank. He tugs his hand out of mine, and the moment ends.
I was right about one more thing: I lie awake for hours afterward, replaying his hand sliding away from me.