“Umm …” I swear I only blink, but that brief motion feels like it’s about a thousand years long as my mind scours through every item on the menu I have memorized, landing on the only word I can seem to summon. “Meat.”
“Meat …?”
“Ball.” The guy’s head tilts. My throat strains around a desiccated swallow. “Ballmeat. I mean, meat … ball. Meatball sub. Footlong. Ish.”
Our gazes both drop to the tinfoil in my hand. It’s barely four inches long and maybe two inches wide at best. When our eyes connect, I can’t help but cringe. Though he gives me a polite smile, something about it is pitying. “I might try something else,” he says.
“Maybe the turkey,” I say as Maddison passes a sandwich over the glass case to the customer in front of me. The sandwich is fucking enormous, barely contained by the wax paper wrapped around it. It’s maybe three times the size of the tinfoil I shift behind the bag that rests against my hip. Why the fuck did I lie about that? I guess I’m not about to say, “Oh, it’s some dickhead’s mangled tibia,” but still. I could have done better than that, right? I blame this guy. It’s his eyes. Those unusual green eyes with that rare seam of brown, colors that seem to spark to life when he’s amused. Just like they’re doing now.
The man’s grin is teasing. “Not the ballmeat. Got it.”
I snort. Literally.
And then I die. Not literally, but I wish.
The man chuckles as though my piggish chortle was fucking adorable. I turn away just long enough to stuff the change in the tip jar and Bryce’s bone back into my bag. I swear my skin is on fire. Sweat itches along my spine. But when I meet his eyes once more, the man just grins. Leans back a little. Surveys my face, warmth radiant in his eyes. “So, what drink do you recommend to go with my not-ballmeat sandwich?” he says as he moves closer to me and surveys the chalkboard above the counter.
“I should probably say something about tea bagging, to really round out my mortification.”
The guy bites down on a grin, glancing down his shoulder at me. “Tea bagging is really staying on brand with the balls. Kudos.”
“I’m nothing if not consistent.”
Maddison reaches across the glass counter to pass me my coffee. I take it, and when I peek up at the man next to me, I find him watching the motion of my hand, his brow furrowed, his smile fading as though this moment is about to end too quickly. Maybe he feels the same tug in his chest that I’m feeling, and he doesn’t want that thread to snap.
I should turn away. Get out of here. Leave this tourist guy behind. It’s not like I need to flirt disastrously with some random man who’s probably only here for a few days at most. That’s not my way, no matter how much I sometimes long for a connection that I’m not even sure I’m ready to make. I should leave. Continue on my walk past the lighthouse where I like to stand on the cliff and look out at the sea. Toss Bryce’s mangled bone into the ocean where it will sink beneath the surface, never to be seen again, just another memory claimed by black water.
But before I can convince myself to move, his hand is on my sleeve. Such a gentle touch. Only a whisper of heat and pressure. And as simple as it might be, that touch sets off a current in my skin. It steals my breath. Quickens my pulse and warms my belly and crashes through my thoughts, wiping them clean. Just a heartbeat ago, I was clinging to every argument I could think of to leave. And now they’re simply … gone.
“I’d ask if I could buy you a coffee, but it looks like you’re all set,” he says as he nods down to the to-go cup in my hand. That teasing light is back in his eyes. “But if you want company while you eat some balls, I’d love to join you.”
Heat infuses my cheeks. His eyes seem to brighten. I should say no. I know it. But instead I say, “Okay.”
“Okay.” His focus lingers on me for a moment as though he needs to be sure I’ll stay, and then he lifts his hand away, turning to face Maddison. “I’ll take a turkey sandwich to go, please, and an Earl Grey tea with two tea bags.”
A grin sneaks onto my lips and I shake my head. When I look up at my companion, his expression is a mirror of mine.
There’s something addictive about holding his attention. I forgot how fun it was to let my guard down a little. Suddenly, I find myself wanting to say something witty, or cute. Poke fun at him maybe. Like, “Turkey and tea? You sound like trouble.” No, my God, that’s fucking awful. At this rate, I probably can’t trust that anything worthwhile will come out of my mouth.
So what if I just smile a certain way instead? Hold on to those green eyes of his that break away from mine to watch my fingers fold a lock of hair behind my ear? I thought I’d forgotten how to do this. How to flirt with a man. I thought I’d shut all that away years ago. I might be only a few months shy of twenty-nine, but I thought I’d buried those skills a long time ago. I thought they’d died the day I did.
The next patron in line steps between us to order, shattering the hum in the air that crackles like a spell. My new friend moves to the pickup counter as Maddison puts his order together, and though I leave his side to put cream and sugar in my coffee at the little stand along the wall, I can feel him watching me. But I don’t return to his side when I’m done.
Instead, I pretend to observe the people around me who chat about potholes and shipwrecks and gossip from town, or museums and ghost tours and plays at the Carnage theater. But really, I’m stealing glances at him. I notice details, because that’s what I’ve trained myself to do. Like the wear on his hiking boots, the leather scuffed, the soles caked with a thin layer of dried mud as though he spends most of his time on his feet. I catalog the lighter streaks in his hair. The tattoo that wraps around one forearm, an ouroboros. The scar that follows the curve of his elbow, disappearing beneath his rolled-up sleeve. I notice the way he tilts his head from side to side, loosening some hidden tension lodged between his bones. I especially notice the way he scans the other patrons with a cold and clinical detachment, but his focus always returns to me. And every time it does, he smiles. He seems observant, but remote. It’s as though his charm is a well he can draw from when he chooses. But the rest of the time? He’s stoic, like that well is hidden in a faraway landscape. A place he keeps carefully guarded.
Maybe that should scare me. But it only adds to the gravitational force that beckons me closer.
When he has his sandwich and drink in hand, he joins me to add a splash of milk to his tea. With a sweep of his gaze around the small café, he looks at me with a crease between his brows. “Busy place. There’s nowhere to sit.”
I shrug, though my nonchalance feels forced. “Typical for the Bean, even early in the tourist season. But we can walk, if you like?”
I’m not sure why those words just exited my mouth. I barely manage to stop short of offering to show this guy around downtown. I’m not that kind of person anymore, one who puts herself out there to strangers so easily. I used to be. And then, one beautiful, innocuous August day, it cost me more than I ever thought possible.
But there’s something about this man that seems so different from the other tourists who pass through Carnage, people I only pay attention to long enough to assess as a threat to my town. Something about him is almost familiar. Maybe it’s in the way he seems removed from the rest of the busy café as he gives the room one last assessing look. Maybe it’s the way he appraises the coffee shop as though searching for threats that gives me reassurance. Or maybe it’s in the way his expression clears when his attention returns to me and he smiles. “I’d like that,” he says, and for a blink of time, a single heartbeat, the world around us disappears.
