Great Big Beautiful Life(90)

A strange realization to have in this specific moment, but I guess wisdom doesn’t have to choose when to foist itself on a person.

“I promise,” I whisper, his expression melting into something more raw, more vulnerable than before, his hand featherlight in my hair. “I love touching you. I love kissing you. I love hanging out with you. I love this.”

He reaches for my face, draws me up the length of his body to kiss me sweetly, and I oblige, kiss him back until we’re both writhing, until I can’t bear going any longer without making him come. When I crawl back down him, his hips lift, letting me draw him into my mouth again. Bring him to the edge. Break him open, the same way he breaks me open. The sound he makes is something I know I’ll play back to myself later tonight while I’m lying awake, aching for more of him.

His whole body.

His whole heart, a little voice adds. I push it aside.

Stay in the present.

When we’ve finished, when he’s drifted back into himself and pulled me up to lie against his chest, I murmur, “Tell me something no one knows about you,” and he’s quiet and still for so long I start to wonder if I’ve crossed a line.

Then he tips his chin down to his clavicle to meet my eyes and says simply, “I’m in love with you.”

I feel my lips part. Once I’ve absorbed it, I rush to reply, but he very lightly sets his fingertips against my mouth. “I don’t want you to say anything now,” he murmurs.

“Anything at all?” I whisper.

The corners of his mouth twitch. “Anything about that. Not until after.”

I nod agreement, even as it feels like the words are climbing up my windpipe. “After.”

He kisses me once. “Should we watch something?”

I blink back the rising tears and reach toward the coffee table for the remote. Almost Famous is on. I don’t hear a word of it. My mind is an endless loop of I’m in love with you too.

After more than three decades on this planet, all it took was a few weeks and the right person to entirely rearrange my composition.





27




On Friday, I take a nature trail that runs along the creek. I think of it as a run to clear my head, but since I stopped at Little Croissant beforehand and am also incredibly unathletic, it’s really more of a mosey or an amble.

A productive one though.

I decide to pitch structuring the book like a call-and-response. The rumors in the gossip rags of the time, followed by Margaret’s confirmation or rebuttal.

When I’ve finished the walk, I drive over to the enclave and wander the colorful gift shops, picking out small presents for Bianca, Cillian, and Priya—tiny hand-painted wooden turtles—along with a postcard to send Audrey, since anything larger than that will just be something she has to find a way to store or send home.

Afterward, I cross the drive to get an iced decaf and take up my post in the garden patio beneath Little Croissant’s raised platform. Other than a couple in yoga gear and a teenage Bible study, I have the place to myself and a fully charged laptop.

I’m more focused than I’ve been all week. The hours fly by, and it’s nearly four p.m. when a jolly “Well, hey there, stranger!” jolts me out of work mode.

I blink against the sunlight until a gap-toothed smile resolves in front of me, along with a bulbous nose and a bucket hat.

“Cecil! Hi!” I rise to hug him on instinct, despite having absolutely never hugged this man before.

He takes it in stride, hugs me back like we’re the oldest friends in the world. “How you been? Missed you at my half birthday.”

“Oh, sorry about that.” I drop into my seat and wave for him to join me.

He does. “No, no worries. Honestly, I hear I had a bit too much to drink and did the Macarena on the bar, so it’s probably for the best you weren’t there.”

“Now you’re really making me wish I’d stayed.”

His wispy brows flick up. “So you stopped by?”

“Yeah, we were there for a while, but then something came up.”

“We?”

My cheeks heat. “Oh, my friend Hayden. I guess you met him?”

He snaps his fingers. “The other writer!”

“Right,” I say.

“So he missed the bar-top dancing too?” he asks hopefully.

I laugh. “He did. Although I think anyone reading about that would only be more excited about Little Crescent.”

“Oh, no.” He waves a hand. “Not the four p.m. dinner crowd. Most of them know better. I’m lucky I made it through the night without breaking my new hip. Now tell me, Alice: How are you finding our little island?”

“It’s great,” I say honestly.

“You did okay with the storm?” he says.

“That sprinkle the other night?” I say.

He guffaws, slapping the table as he lumbers to his feet. “Knew I liked you. Hey, if you see your friend Hayden, tell him I found that picture we were talking about.”

“Picture?” I say.

“An old photograph,” Cecil says. “He and I got to talking, and I told him about how I used to have hair down to my waist in the seventies. He wanted to see the proof.” He stops and laughs gruffly to himself. “I’m sure he was just humoring an old man, but…”