Page 58 of Meet Me in the Blue

“Yes, ma’am, we did.” Carter stood tall and swept a tattooed hand through his long beard. The thick silver chain on his neck dipped beneath his dress shirt. Rough-boy-next-door-meets-business-casual. The whole look didn’t make sense but was kind of sexy all the same. “Nat and Roger are packing up a few food items, but it’s all done. It’s the least we could do.”

“He’s right. If you need anything, Mrs. Abrams, don’t hesitate to call us, or have Rook or Luka give us a ring.” Ron looked down at my sister and squeezed her tighter. “You, too, Little Abrams. Anything you need, alright?”

Nora scrunched her nose. “No one has called me Little Abrams since high school.”

Carter reached over and mussed his hand through her hair, and she swatted his arm. “And you’re still the size of a hobbit.”

“I’m not that short.” She smoothed her hair behind her ears, her face flushing crimson. “I hate you sometimes.”

The whole interaction was tripping me up. I had no idea Nora was that close to these guys.

“Little Abrams?” I asked and Nora shrugged.

“It was a thing,” she said and sat down on the other side of the sectional. “It’s not a big deal. I dated one of Carter’s friends my junior year, and it stuck, I guess.”

“Who?”

“Sarah,” Ron said and hid his laugh behind a fist.

“Cool it.” Carter rolled his eyes. “You’re such a child.”

“I feel like I’m missing something,” I said, and my mom laughed.

It was everything light and I couldn’t stop my own smile from spreading.

“Sarah was my ex,” Carter said and shook his head as Ron chuckled.

“And oh, how his ego was shattered when Nora swooped in.” Ron playfully punched his friend in the shoulder. “It was kind of a humbling moment for you, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t like Sarah that much anyway.” Carter postured and we all cracked up again.

There were smiles on everyone’s faces. The black clouds had parted as we teased Carter and Nora, and when Roger and Nat found their way back into the living room, the mood lifted even more. We all sat on the oversized sofa, Rook’s warm body pressed into mine, our hands covertly clasped, and told stories, remembered, and even though Dad wasn’t a part of all the stories, he was there in every way. Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me, my own way of keeping my dad close, but I could have sworn as the night went on, I heard his laugh a few times too.

• ••

After the night of the funeral, the next few weeks blew by. Each day that had passed had its challenges. Some days worse than others. Going through my father’s things with my mom and sister had been a lot harder than I thought it would be. His clothes had still smelled like him, a mixture of Gain detergent and Old Spice cologne. It hadn’t felt right boxing them away and sending them to Goodwill when that piece of him still lingered. But it was cathartic in some ways as well. Letting go of the thing but not the man. It wasn’t his suits or his t-shirts that held him in my heart. It was the pictures on the wall, those moments in time and the memories I carried that kept me going through the process. Healing was hard, but I’d kept myself busy with work and making sure my mom was taken care of. Between work, running errands, and keeping up with the honey-do list my father never finished, I had little time for myself, or time to wallow. Rook had been busy too. He’d had more deliveries this past month than he had in the entire history of his practice. He had attributed it to the weird lunar eclipse last year, apparently it was some type of love moon. It sounded like a bunch of nonsense to me, but I kept to that to myself. I thought it was adorable how Rook blamed the moon for everything. It was something I hadn’t known about him, something he’d picked up in college, and I sort of loved learning new things about the man I’d thought I already knew everything about.

As predicted, his parents were not surprised that we were together. They’d actually seemed relieved when we told them over dinner a few days after my dad’s funeral. Nora couldn’t stop teasing us, and as much as I’d wanted her to move in, it wasn’t ideal having her in my business all the time.

Even with her there, though, I hadn’t had a chance to sleep over at Rook’s. Nora was always in the city or visiting a friend or away on business. I suppose we all grieve in our own way, but I didn’t love leaving my mom alone in the house for too long. Rook had stayed over with me a few times. It was strange adjusting to his schedule, to the middle-of-the-night calls, but when he was there, he made the grief more bearable, made the long nights seem manageable. I wanted him there all the time, especially on those nights my mind wouldn’t stop racing. It was incredible feeling safe in his arms, having his scent on my skin. We hadn’t explored each other as much as my libido would have liked, but in truth, spending time with him, kissing him, falling asleep with the heat of our bodies pressed together, these moments were all precious to me because these were all the things I never thought I’d get to experience with him. The sex stuff could wait. I wanted to give myself to Rook in every way, but first, I needed to feel whole again. I didn’t want him to be an escape route every time I woke up from a bad dream.

“Abrams,” Mr. Burgess called through my open office door, startling me enough I almost dropped the proofs I’d been looking through. “Shoot, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay,” I said and set the pictures on my desk. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to catch you before you left. I had an idea,” he said, and made himself comfortable in the chair on the other side of my desk. “If you’re up for it.”

He rolled his mustache, a nervous habit I noticed when I started coming into the office more regularly. It usually meant I wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say. Last week he’d wanted me and Zach to do a feature on Betty Weinstock. Her family had owned the apple orchard on the outskirts of town for the last fifty years. It would have been a great story, and I would have loved shooting all those old craggy apple trees, but the lady was a hermit, and surly as fuck, and told us in no uncertain terms she wasn’t interested, and that we should get the hell off her property. I surmised that if it hadn’t been for her sons, that orchard would have gone under years ago. The story didn’t happen, and we ended up interviewing Dot about her bakery instead. I never thought a picture of a cupcake could make the front page of a newspaper.

“Why do you look so nervous?”

He shifted in his seat, avoiding my eyes as he sighed. It was more like a harrumph, his swollen belly shaking with a nervous laugh. “I’m not nervous. I’m more worried about whether or not you’re going to want to participate in something this big.”

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “Color me intrigued.”

His smile was back in full force. “What would you say about doing a feature on Reese? Another hometown hero piece.”

“Rook’s brother?”

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