“I am occasionally.”
It was nice, walking beside him back up the street to the inn. He asked about my sister, and if we were okay, without ever prodding, and I told him about our conversation. I didn’t know Alice had been hurting so terribly, and her hurting made me want to punch whoever made her hurt. But in this case, it was Dad. And me, to some extent. I knew that Alice didn’t like me leaving, but I didn’t think . . .
I just didn’t think.
“It’s okay, at least you talked,” he said gently.
“Yeah.”
Lee never escorted me home until we lived together, and even then sometimes I would duck out of his publishing functions early and take the train home alone. I always said to myself it was because I never wanted to bother him while he made connections, but the truth was I usually felt like an unwanted purse, standing quietly beside him as he talked to executive editors and poets laureate and god knows who else, feeling like an outsider even in an industry I was very much a part of.
Even if only secretly.
I wrapped my coat around myself tightly. Ben glanced over at me, frowning. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I muttered. “Just . . . exhausted.”
“This is exhausting,” he agreed softly. “All of it. Pretending to be okay while the world changes around you and leaves you behind to sit with whatever loss you found.”
It did feel exactly like that. “But you got through it, so I think I can, too.”
“I know you can. You’re braver than I could ever be. I couldn’t do what you do. Helping ghosts like me move on. You have to say goodbye so often.”
“It’s different with them—erm, you—because I get to say goodbye. The last thing I said to Dad was . . .” I hesitated, trying to remember my conversation with him. Friday felt like so long ago, and the conversation was already a blur. Had I told him I loved him? I knew I did, but I kept second-guessing it. What if I hadn’t that once?
I couldn’t remember.
I blinked the tears out of my eyes and cleared my throat. “Anyway, I appreciate your help during the card game.”
He snorted a laugh. “Well, you do suck at spades.”
“I do not!”
“Oh you absolutely do.” He cocked his head, and a curl of black hair fell across his forehead. “But you know, that’s kind of what I like about you.”
“That’s what you like about me? I thought it was my perfect breasts?”
The tips of his ears went pink, and he quickly looked away. “Yes, well, they’re not why I like you. They’re a bonus. Like a book sale. Buy two, get one free.”
I chewed on the side of my cheek, trying to hide a smile. “And that’s what I like about you.”
“My broad and very perfect chest?”
“It is very broad,” I agreed, and he laughed. It was soft and throaty, and I really liked it.
The last crisps of winter clung to the chilly evening air as a spring wind blew its way through the budding oaks and dogwood trees, and I felt the itch in my fingers to write this all down. To paint the sky in dark blues and purples and silvers and paint the sidewalk in shards of glittery glass, and wax about how it felt to walk quietly beside someone who enjoyed your company just as much as you did theirs.
I couldn’t believe that I was swooning over the bare minimum—decency.
Dana was at the counter when we came into the inn, and they smiled at me over another romance novel. This time Christina Lauren. “Evening, Florence.”
“Good night, Dana!” I greeted.