Dolly All the Time(11)

“Yes, son.” I stop walking, and he does too. “Hopefully he’ll be delivering your shrimp a lot this summer. Kid on a bike, Red Sox cap.”

“Thank God, not the Yankees.” If this isn’t a joke, it’s joke-adjacent. And possibly at his own expense. This softens me toward him just a tiny bit.

“Yeah,” I say. We look at each other for a beat. I try to imagine what kind of woman walks away from a guy like this. Wide-set chocolate-brown eyes and full lips, even when pressed into a firm line like they are now. Just looking at him I can remember the delicious way he smells, and I’m annoyed all over again. “And no, I’m not married. See you later, Stewart.”

I turn to go and he says, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I’m walking home.”

“Perfect.”

“You are not walking me home,” I say. My home is currently a dangerously raw nerve with a pantsless man on the lawn. I don’t want him anywhere near it. I let out a breath and we face off, me in my dad’s fleece and Stewart Whitfield in a six-hundred-dollar shirt.

“So you have two jobs? The fish house and the call center? Both part-time?”

“What is this?” I ask. “Why are you talking to me and asking questions?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s three inches too close to me, more than enough to trigger that weird current in my chest. It’s hard to tell if I’m allergic to him or drawn to him, but there are definitely magnets at play. He’s just standing there, his gaze steady, like he’s prepared to wait forever for my response. I would never want to be in a negotiation or a poker game with him.

“You can walk me to the end of this block,” I say, and start walking. I quickly learn that silence is his favorite power play. I take step after step, the silence building between us until I can’t take it anymore. He might as well have me in a windowless room under a single hot lightbulb. “I’m part-time at the fish house, just this summer, to help out my dad. But I’m a full-time kindergarten teacher in Boston and a part-time Uber driver when my son’s not around or asleep. The call center is only sporadic, but always at the worst time.”

“That’s a lot,” he says. “I thought I worked hard.”

“Well, there’s no accounting for the idle rich,” I say, and give him a sideways smile so it seems like I’m kidding. He smiles back and it’s the opposite of an easy smile. It’s as if he’s trying his smile out for the first time in a while and it hurts. This strikes me as odd because if I was Stewart Whitfield, I’d be smiling all the time.

“Stop for a second,” he says, and pulls out his phone. He holds it up to me. “You didn’t see this?”

It’s Page Six of the New York Post again, but there’s a photo of me sitting on the pavement, holding a lug wrench, and Stewart bent over, both of us looking up at the camera. The headline reads: Power Hour—Whitfield Teaches Gal Pal to Change a Tire.

What the. Teaches me? I scroll down to the paragraph about how the recently jilted tycoon had already moved on to a new relationship before his fiancée started canoodling with a Yankee. “What the hell is this?” I ask.

“This is what I’m here to talk to you about.” He takes a breath. “Dolly, I have a big job.”

“Wow, newsflash,” I say. My sarcasm flusters him, but he composes himself and goes on.

“I have a lot on the line. For me. For my family. My image is, for a variety of reasons, a bit shaky.”

“Because of the Yankee?”

“That, and lower-than-expected numbers on a few projects. The Post sent this photo to my assistant last night for comment, because they thought it was what it actually was.”

“You not knowing how to do anything for yourself.” I’m being rude, I know. But I don’t appreciate the amped-up way he makes my body feel. And I’m having a hard time feeling compassionate about a millionaire’s business woes when my family’s house could be condemned.

He lets out a huff. “I know how to do things.”

“Scramble eggs?”

“Well, no.” He crosses his arms over his chest and treats me to that rugged profile again.

“I stand by my statement.”

“This was actually my sister Busy’s idea, to use the photo to make it look like I had a girlfriend, like I was already leaving the relationship. With Audrey.”

“So you’d look like you’re as big a jerk as your fiancée.”

“It’s better than looking weak,” he says. “This is an exceptionally bad time for me to look weak.”

“Are you asking me not to call Page Six and tell them that of course I know how to change a tire?” If my dad saw this, he would laugh his head off. Even Patsy knows how to change a tire.

“Yes, that’s what I’m asking. And I’m sorry that this makes you look bad. And is dishonest.” He’s earnest. He truly looks like he needs my help.

“It’s fine,” I say. “Literally no one I know reads the New York Post. But I do need to get going.”

“Stewart! Is this her?” A woman in her sixties in a caftan has her hand on Stewart’s arm.

“Clara, hello,” he says. His demeanor has gone from distraught to even, like he’s just zipped himself up. This is the beauty of manners, I think. Knowing how to behave when you don’t really know how to behave. “This is Dolly,” he says.