Page 53 of If Not for My Baby
But then I see it. Or him, rather. The rough-looking kid—a tattooed teenager with a shaved head and tweaky eyes—watching me from around the corner. The look he gives mesends my stomach roiling. I cross my legs and wish I had not paired Indy’s stilettos with some country music star’s checked boxers.
I cut my eyes sidelong to Tom. Over and over, I’ve showed him how uninterested in his affection I am, and over and over he’s shown up for me regardless.
“I didn’t see him,” I say on a breath.
“I’ll walk you back over.”
Despite the low feeling in my chest and the pounding in my head, my legs carry me to the car as quickly as my high-heel-induced blisters will allow. The engine roars to life and we take off back toward Portland.
Eighteen
I know we’re nearing Maine becausethe road’s no longer lined with luminous trees and white butterflies but instead the vast, sparkling summer sea. Idyllic Cape Cod–style houses that remind me of Stephen King books dot the hills to our left and the rocky shore flecked with seaweed and toddlers clutching sandy shovels sprawls to our right.
A bucolic seaside town. And in the distance—a towering whitewashed lighthouse, perched on a ragged cliff.
“Isn’t that something?” I utter, before I even realize I’m saying it.
But Tom’s eyes are fastened to the same postcard-perfect sight. The pine trees on the hill, the seagulls circling. “You ever seen one before?”
I shake my head. “Don’t have much of a need for them in landlocked Cherry Grove.”
Tom nods his head and I think it’s to the wistful song warbling out of the radio, until he takes an unexpectedright turn off the freeway and up the hill toward the lookout point.
I lurch forward before the remnants of my hangover assault my cranium a second later. “What are you doing? We have a show to make.”
Tom makes a show of sucking in a lungful of fresh sea air. “It’s not every day you get a view like that of the Atlantic. It’ll only take a minute.”
I am stripped of words—unable to do anything but watch as we rise over the coastline with the dreamy, harmonious chorus and the crash of the steady waves lapping at the shore below like sleepy inhales. In and out. In and out.
When we pull up to the lighthouse, Tom doesn’t even roll up the windows or close the top of the Thunderbird. He only turns the car off and circles around it to open my door for me.
“Come on, Hangover Spice,” he jokes, eyes on my impossibly high heels, wind dancing in his angelic curls. He offers me his hand. “Let’s get you some sea air.”
Taking his palm in mine, I waddle through the tall grass and come to a stop before the enormous, looming tower. I wonder what it must be like to see the world from such a panoramic view. What that must put into perspective. My eyes sweep the surrounding grassland—the scrubby bushes and empty picnic tables. A keeper’s house, red-roofed and cheerful, sits nearby, a little sign on the door offering tours and homemade blueberry jam.
Tom lets me go as soon as we’re standing still, and I realize he was only holding my hand so that I didn’t topple backonto my elbow—or anything else—walking in my heels on this thick grass. The thought hurts my chest. I have come to crave the feeling of my small hand wrapped in his large, calloused one. I’d trade this entire view for one more minute of that simple closeness.
“We have one same as this in Kerry,” he says quietly. I can hardly hear him over the waves and the wind. “On Valentia Island. Used to be a seventeenth-century fort.”
“A good spot for your post-date walk along the sea.” It’s an effort to pull my eyes from the view, but I turn my gaze up to Tom and watch as he stares at my mouth with such bare longing I find I can hardly breathe.A chaste kiss while the waves crash,that’s what he’d said came next. And here we are, a wide, endless stretch of harbor blue rushing into foamy whitecaps down below, lighthouse lantern hanging overhead, barn doors red and bright before us…As perfect a moment as any I can think of to be kissed by Tom Halloran. I gaze at his mouth in silent plea.
But all he does is clear his throat and divert his churning green eyes back to the car. “Shall we?”
I nod, disappointment cresting inside me like the waves beyond. And nobody’s fault but my own. Tom guides me gently back to the car and I try to soak up every second that our skin is touching. Try to memorize every vein and freckle on the back of his hand.
To my surprise, the ache that hits the hardest is that our one-on-one road trip is nearly over. I’d rather stay up here on this rocky outcropping and ask Tom to tell me more about seventeenth-century forts than rejoin the tour, kissing or not.
All I want is to spend more time with him. I had a chance at exactly that, and I let it go.
—
Thirty minutes later, Tom’s put the car’s roof back up and turned the music off, and the afternoon sun has slipped behind some thicker trees. We’ve left the seaside behind, freeway curving us back through dense woods and past wide, empty pastures. The weak AC in the car has left my skin sticky against the leather interior. Whatever had begun to right itself inside my chest earlier in our trip has gone skewed and sharp again. My head hurts and I miss home.
“Thank you,” I tell him, staring out the window. Green and brown and asphalt gray swish by in a dizzying blur.
When I turn to face him, Tom’s face is calm, but the working of his jaw tells me he’s more concerned by my somber tone than he’s letting on. “For what?”
“Showing me the lighthouse. The Advil. Having my back at the gas station.” My eyes find my hands. “Taking care of me last night.”
