She and Bea slip off to see if they can find some sweatshirts or blankets in Brendan’s rental car, but I hang back, watching Gertie and her girlfriend, the bickering couple from town hall, and a dozen other pairings sleepily sway on the dance floor.
I spot Shepherd in a gap in the crowd, and he gives me a sheepish smile and wave before ambling over. “Hey there,” he says.
“Hey,” I say. After an awkward moment, I begin, “I’m sorry about—” right as he’s saying, “Just wanted to say—”
He smiles again, that handsome, leading-man smile. “You go first.”
“I’m sorry if I misled you,” I say. “You’re a great guy.”
He gives another warm, albeit vaguely disappointed smile. “Just not your kind of great guy.”
“No,” I admit. “I guess not. But if you’re ever in New York and you need a tour guide—or a wingman . . .”
“I’ll look you up.” He stifles a yawn with the back of his hand. “Not used to being up this late,” he says apologetically. “I should turn in.”
Of course he’s a morning person. Life with Shepherd would be a lot of slow, romantic sex with intensely loving eye contact, followed by watching the sunrise over the valley. He will, no doubt, be part of someone’s happy ending. Maybe he belongs to someone already, in a way that can’t be explained.
For someone else, he will be easy in the best way.
As if the thought has conjured him, Charlie appears a few yards behind Shepherd, and my heart lifts, warm and reliable as Old Faithful.
Shepherd catches me looking away, a sunflower finding its light source. He follows my gaze straight to Charlie and smiles knowingly. “Have a good flight, Nora.”
“Thanks,” I say, blushing a little at my own transparency. “Take care, Shepherd.”
He walks off, pausing for a moment to talk to Charlie on his way to the edge of the town square. Smiles are exchanged, Charlie’s a bit wary but not so guarded as that day outside Goode Books. Shepherd claps him on the shoulder as he says something, and Charlie looks toward me, that geyser of affection erupting in my chest again at his faint smile.
With a few more words, they part ways, Shepherd making his way to the fringes of the crowd and Charlie coming toward me with his smile tugging wider.
“I heard you might be cold,” he says quietly. He holds out a bundled-up flannel shirt I hadn’t noticed him carrying. I glance toward where Libby and Bea have rejoined Brendan, and Libby flashes me a quick smile.
“Wow,” I say. “Word does travel fast here.”
“Once, in high school,” he says, “I went to a barber on a whim and got my head shaved. My parents knew before I got home.”
“Impressive,” I say.
“Demented.” He holds the flannel up and I turn, feeling like a delicate socialite in an old black-and-white movie as he slips it over my arms, then turns me back to him and starts buttoning it.
“Is this yours?” I ask.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “I bought it for you.” At my surprise, he laughs. “It was on your list. I got Libby one too. She screamed when I handed it to her. I thought she was going into labor.”
For a few moments, we just smile at each other. It’s the least awkward extended eye contact of my life. It feels like we’ve both signed on for the same activity, and this is it: existing, at each other.
“How do I look?” I say.
“Like a very hot woman,” he says, “in a very unimpressive shirt.”
“All I heard was hot.”
His mouth splits into, quite possibly, my favorite of his various smiles, the one that makes it look like there’s a secret tucked up in one corner of his mouth. “Do you want to dance, Stephens?”
“Do you?” I ask, surprised.
“No,” he says, “but I want to touch you, and it’s a good cover.”
I take his hand and pull him out onto the dance floor, beneath the twinkling lights, while James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind” plays like the universe just wants to tease me.
Charlie folds my hand up in his warm palm and I rest my cheek against his sweater, closing my eyes to focus on how this feels. I imprint every detail of him on my mind: the scent of BOOK and citrus, with the almost spicy note that’s all his own; the soft, fine wool and firm chest underneath it; the eager, pulpy thud of his heart; his cheek brushing my temple; the indescribable shivery feeling when he nestles his mouth into my hair and breathes me in.