When it recedes, I slump back against the wall, knees weak. Wyn rises and gathers me into him so that my chin rests on his shoulder. The hot water pours down us as he leaves a string of kisses down my throat.
“Thank you,” I say through the dreamy haze.
His smile blooms against my neck. “So polite.” He sways me gently back and forth beneath the water. “The others are waiting.”
“I’m not feeling polite anymore.” I tip my chin back to meet his eyes. “They can wait.”
“The air horn will start going any minute now,” he says.
“Waiting never killed anyone,” I say.
“I don’t know,” Wyn says. “I’ve felt pretty close to death this week.”
“Good point,” I say. “Waiting can be dangerous. We probably shouldn’t.”
His laugh melts into another groan. “Later. Let me buy you dinner first.”
“I’m a modern woman, Wyn,” I say. “I’ll buy you dinner. I mean, if I can afford your dinner now that you’re fancy.”
“You get me a gas station hot dog, Harriet Kilpatrick,” he says, kissing the corner of my mouth, “and I’ll give you the best night of your life.”
I close my eyes, try to hold the moment still. It’s already slipping away. One more day.
30
REAL LIFE
Friday
WHILE MOST OF the Lobster Fest festivities are on the other side of town, the overflow has wound up here, at the salt-coated picnic tables on the graying Lobster Wharf, where coveralled lobstermen zigzag among the docked boats, the warehouse, and the walk-up stands.
Even after we’ve put in our orders, we’re waiting awhile until a table opens up near the band at the dock’s back corner. We slide onto the benches, and Wyn holds my thigh under the table. I set my hand over the top of his, trying to memorize this feeling.
Baskets of fries and crisp hot dog buns overflowing with fluffy lobster, heavily seasoned onion rings and fried haddock so soft that the plastic forks slice through it like it’s melting butter. Corn on the cob and tragic side salads loaded with red onion and sliced radish, and blueberry lemonade in red plastic diner cups.
“I’m going to go see how much the bar will charge me to add vodka to this,” Kimmy says, starting to rise.
“You might want to hold off on that,” Sabrina says, with a cryptic smile. I look to Parth, who gives a my-lips-are-sealed shrug.
With a delighted yet suspicious gleam in her eye, Kimmy sinks back onto her bench.
Wyn’s mouth drifts across my earlobe. It takes me a second to actually interpret what he’s saying through the barrage of fragmented memories from earlier: “You think she’s Postmatesing magic mushrooms to the table?”
I turn toward him, the ends of our noses almost touching. The globe lights strung overhead make his eyes glitter. “That or she’s taking us straight from here to a space camp zero-gravity chamber,” I say.
His hand creeps higher as he leans in. I turn to hear his whispered reply, but instead his lips meet the skin beneath my ear, a slow, soft kiss that makes me shiver closer.
Sabrina crumples a napkin as she stands. “Who’s ready for the next phase of the night?”
“Space camp, here we come,” I say.
* * *
? ? ?
WE FOLLOW THE residential street along the water. Even from here, we can hear the music coming from the festival on the far side of the harbor, along with the wharf band, like the two shores are opposite ends of a dueling piano bar.
Sabrina leads us down the long, skinny footbridge across the water, the sound of Patty Griffin’s “Long Ride Home” cross-fading into “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.”
“Where are we going?” Cleo asks.
“To fulfill a long-term goal,” Sabrina calls over her shoulder, picking up the pace. There’s an electricity in the air, a feeling of possibility.
Maybe it’s emanating from Wyn and me. Maybe every time our hands link, or he tugs me into his side or pulls me to a stop and presses me back against the guardrail for a kiss while the others keep walking, we let a little more charge into the air.
“Keep up,” Parth calls back to us.
Wyn brushes his lips against mine once more. “We’ll have time later,” he says.
Not enough, I think with a pang. How can I exorcise all this trapped, combustible love in one day? How can I stockpile pieces of him in the next twenty-four hours and then let him go, like he needs? Like he deserves.
I force myself to nod, and we catch up with the others.
The harbor sits in a basin, the waterfront lined with restaurants and docks, while the rest of the town rises up along curving and crisscrossing streets, wild and verdant gardens spilling over the sidewalk, tiny ferns dotting the lawns of the salt-weathered bed-and-breakfasts.
We make our way up one of these streets, past the dark windows of the Fudge & Taffy Factory and Skippy’s Popcorn, with its hundred different flavors on display behind glass. They’ll be open later for the weekend, but everything is already shuttered tonight.
Past the Warm Cup, we turn up a quiet side street. Easy Lane. It takes me a second to place why it’s familiar: I saw this street mentioned on the itinerary. Tomorrow morning, pre-wedding, Sabrina had scheduled personalized surprises for each of us, and the address for mine was 123 Easy Lane. Which I’d noted, specifically because naming a street Easy Lane instead of Easy Street struck me as a purposefully missed opportunity.
At the end of the first block of Easy Lane, Sabrina turns us down another street. Only two buildings are still aglow: a sprawling hotel and pub called the Hound & Thistle, and a black-trimmed storefront with off-white sans serif letters across its window reading TEMPEST TATTOO.
Sabrina stops and spins back to us, arms thrown out to her sides. “So,” she says, “what do you think?”
“Sab!” Kimmy says, pouncing on her. “You’re getting a tattoo?”
“Close,” she says. “We’re getting tattoos.”
No one reacts, apart from the strained smile Parth flashes and the twitch of Wyn’s fingers against mine. Kimmy’s gaze darts to Cleo, her grin flagging at Cleo’s stunned expression.
“We’ve talked about it forever,” Sabrina goes on, “and this is the perfect time. To commemorate our last trip to the cottage and the last ten years of friendship. Something that will always connect us.”
My stomach sinks, even as my heart feels like a crazed bird fighting its way up through my windpipe.
It’s one thing to accept that I might always be a little bit in love with Wyn Connor. It’s another to put a permanent reminder of that on my body. Before I’ve come close to finding a way out of this, Cleo says, “I don’t think so, Sab.”
You’d think the shocked silence might’ve prepared her for this, but Sabrina looks genuinely flabbergasted. “What do you mean you don’t think so?”
Cleo shrugs. “I don’t think we should get matching tattoos tonight.” Kimmy touches her arm, some unspoken sentiment passing between them.
Sabrina laughs. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to,” Cleo says. “And looking around, I’m not sure anyone else does either.”