“Next time, if you’re brave enough to jump alone, I’ll get pictures.”
Something tingled along my spine at the idea that he treated the fact that there would be a next time as a certainty. “I may need a little more hand-holding first.” He held out his hand across the table, and I started to laugh. “Not to eat pizza!”
He withdrew his hand but was smiling. “The offer stands.”
My phone vibrated on the table, and Joe’s did a moment later. I looked down. A text from my grandmother. WAU. “She does not know how to text,” I muttered.
Joe held his phone up to me, displaying the same message. “Does this mean anything to you?”
I said it didn’t, pressing the button to call her and holding the phone to my ear. “You should be back by now,” was her greeting. “If you’re stuck on that island, I swear to God—”
“Grandma, we’re having lunch. At the café. By the Inn.”
“Good. You need to be ready by four.”
“I know.” I hesitated. “What did your text mean?”
“What text?”
“The one you sent to me and Joe. WAU?”
“Where are you?”
“I told you. We’re at the pizza place.” Her memory really wasn’t what it once was.
“Yes, you said that.”
“But what did the text mean?”
“It meant ‘Where are you?’”
I put a hand on top of my head. “You can’t just make up random acronyms and expect people to understand them.”
“You do it.”
“I use the ones everyone knows.”
“Everyone knows that one. You ask Joe. He knows it.”
“I—okay. I’ll be home soon to shower.”
“Tell Joe he’s a good boy for not getting stuck, unlike your mothers.”
I hung up and turned to Joe. “You’re a good boy for not getting us stuck like our mothers. And the text meant ‘Where are you?’”
He nodded. “Everyone knows that one.” I smacked his arm with the back of my hand.
“I swear, if you act like you knew that to her . . .”
“You two should have a TV show. You could make millions.”
“I’d tear my hair out in the process.”
“You could afford a wig.”
“I’d lose it diving off the island.”
“True. I like your real hair better anyway.” He reached out and touched the end of my ponytail, still damp from the ocean.
“I should get back.” I stood up too quickly, bumping my thighs against the table. He rose too, and I hated myself for being so awkward. He clearly liked me. I definitely liked him. Why couldn’t I do this? “We’re still going whale hunting tomorrow?”
He looked at me strangely, then laughed. “Whale watching. We’re not hunting an endangered species, you weirdo.”
“Potato, potahto,” I said, but even a faux pas with him felt comfortable, like he was laughing with me instead of at me. “You’ll let me know what time?”
“I’ll text you. Just don’t show up with a harpoon.”
I grinned. “I make no promises.”
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to look back as I walked away.
I was showered and dressed nicely, with blow-dried hair and makeup applied per my grandmother’s insistence by four sharp.
At which time I went to check on her, only to find she was still in a robe and putting on makeup at a small vanity table.
“I thought you said four?”
“I didn’t. I said four thirty.”
I took a deep breath. There was no point in arguing with her. I sat on the bed and watched as she applied eyeliner, sighed heavily, then wiped it off with cold cream and tried again. “Can I help?”
I expected to be rebuffed, but she held the pencil out to me without a word. She closed her eyes, and I bent, pulling gently at the corner of her wrinkled lid to get a straight line, then did the other eye. She turned to the mirror and moved her face from side to side, examining my work. There would be no punches pulled if it didn’t meet her standards.
“How do you make your eyebrows look like that?” she asked eventually, examining me in the mirror. “I have almost none left.”
I looked at her face. She wasn’t wrong. “Let me get my brow kit.”
She held up her pencil. “I have this.”
I looked at it and shook my head. “We’ll use my kit.” I went and grabbed it from the upstairs bathroom, then drew on brows for her as naturally as I could. They were too dark for her hair, which had been my color when she was young, then had been gradually dyed a sandy blonde rather than allowed to go gray. But she preened in front of the mirror, admiring them.