Page 48 of Through the Water

It was a decision I’d come to regret.

Mashed potatoes clung to the side of her mouth, but she carried on as if it didn’t bother her. “You remember Arthur, don’t you? I pointed him out earlier. Such a looker. So, as I was saying, there we were…”

For someone who’d only been at True North for a week, Helen had wasted no time in making enemies. There was Georgia, the boyfriend stealer, Ida, the card shark, and Sue, the sister she’d never seen eye to eye with. I could have filled the pages of my notebook with the names of people who’d wronged her.

A pat on the hand brought me back to the conversation. “You are such a good listener. Youths today are just the worst. Noses stuck to glass screens—never interacting with anyone around them. They’ve become obsessed with capturing the perfect moment that they end up missing it. My granddaughter, April, doesn’t even know how to have an actual conversation. You ask her a question, and she just grunts in response. It’s like visiting with a damn caveman.”

I raised a brow, but Helen was already off to the next topic. “There’s no hope for the future. It’s just going to be a bunch of precious snowflakes, glued to their buzzing boxes while the world goes to hell. You know what we need? More churches. The youths need to be involved in planting churches all over. That’s how you fix the world—”

“Hello ladies, is this seat taken?”

My mouth curved into a relieved smile as I lifted my eyes to Killian’s, secretly pleased when his icy blue stare warmed as it moved across my face.

He was wearing a gray t-shirt with two bats crossed into an x. A baseball was superimposed over them, along with the logo for the Houston Hurricanes.

I only knew about the baseball team because it had been Ashlynn’s dream to see a sporting event when she turned eighteen. She hadn’t attended a game, but thanks to Matt, she’d come home with a small Hurricanes towel hidden among her belongings.

After her death, I’d smuggled it into my room to join the other secret treasures beneath my bed. Everything else was either sold off or burned, making it the only piece of her I had left.

“Oh, my—h-hello,” Helen stammered, before lifting her hand. “It’s you!”

Her reaction was… unexpected, to say the least.

Given her dislike of almost everything, I’d been positive she was going to find fault with him.

His expression dimmed somewhat as he extended a hand. “Killian. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She snatched it with both of hers like it was the last drumstick at a cookout, tilting her head toward the empty chair between us. “Helen. Please, sit down.”

He lowered himself onto the chair before turning to me with a smirk. “Hi, I’m Killian. I don’t believe I ever got your name.”

I slipped my hand into his, struck by the same weird, floaty feeling I got when I rode an elevator. My body might have been sitting perfectly still, but my stomach was in free fall.

“Ari,” I breathed, clinging to him like a lifeline. His palms were rough and callused against mine. I considered what he did for a living to have earned them. Was it physical labor, the kind that left him sweaty at the end of every day? My cheeks warmed as I imagined how he’d look without a shirt on.

He cocked his head, and I inhaled sharply, before realizing it wasn’t because he’d read my mind.

I’d whispered my name.

Just as I was beginning to think it was lost to me forever, my voice had returned.

“Ari,” Killian repeated softly, his voice filled with reverence. There was something right in hearing my name on his lips, like ending a prayer with amen.

“I think she might be deaf and dumb. I’ve been sitting here doing most of the talking, and she hasn’t had the decency to chime in even once,” Helen interjected with a shake of her head.

My nose crinkled at her brittle assessment of my character. Perhaps I was a little quieter than most, but it should have been apparent to everyone at the table I was neither deaf nor dumb.

“So, Killian,” she simpered, dismissing me from the conversation. “That’s a unique name. What does it mean?”

I lowered my head, jolting when his fingertips brushed over my knuckles. When I lifted my eyes, he gave me an encouraging nod and mouthed, chin up, before reaching for his fork.

My skin blazed from the heat of his touch. I folded my hands in my lap, confident I was never going to recover from the loss.

“It means church,” he answered, keeping his gaze on me like the answer was solely mine. Helen waited for him to elaborate further before moving on to the drama surrounding True North.

Church.

My heart hammered against my ribs, sending more than just blood rushing through my veins as I studied his face. The nest of birds residing in my lower belly stirred, awakening something fierce within me. It was accompanied by the oddest feeling that I knew him from somewhere.

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