Page 28 of Ebbing Tides
“Yeah,” I muttered, looking up to swing my gaze over this bit of Salem's downtown, seeing that it really was beautiful. “Neither have I.”
My eyes dropped back down to witness more of her astonishment, only to find hers on me. She smiled, and in that moment, the din of the passing cars faded to nothingness. The backdrop of the city blurred, a muddied canvas of brimstone and brown. On that sidewalk, her eyes danced from mine to my mouth and back again, and my heart thundered in my useless ears. I could've kissed her, Iwantedto kiss her, Ineededto … but much like that night twenty years ago, something was holding her back, so I, too, was held back, keeping my feet firmly beneath me instead of edging closer to hers.
I swallowed against the torrent of desperation flooding my bones and asked, “Are you hungry?”
She sucked in a tremulous breath and licked her lips—the unintentional little tease—and replied, “I didn't think I was, but … I might actually be starving.”
Without tearing my eyes from hers, for fear that she might disappear and prove that I had actually gone insane, I gestured with a weak hand. “There's a pub over here, O'Neill's. They're not great, but—”
Melanie laughed abruptly, her eyes glittering beneath the winter sunlight. “Wow, you're already selling me on this place. Please, keep going.”
I snorted. “No, no, hear me out. They're not great as a whole. Like, if you want some Irish food, this isn't where you wanna go. But they make a Guinness stew that's pretty decent—”
“Oh, thank God. It's actually very funny you say that because I woke up today thinking,You know, I could really go for a decent Guinness stew right now.”
I laughed, my shoulders bouncing with the sound as I wiped a hand over my mouth, knowing damn well I was blushing like a little kid. Humiliated, embarrassed, but it was sogood, and I couldn't remember the last time I’d felt like that. I couldn't remember the last time I’d felt good. Happy. Alive.
“Okay, let's forget the decent stew,” Melanie said as I caught my breath and ran my palm over the top of my head. “What is your favorite thing to eat here?”
I tipped my head, perusing the library of choices in my mind. “Wow, okay.”
“Like”—she held out her hands, then laid them against my chest, and, holy fuck, my heart needed a moment to remember how to beat—“if you could take meanywhereright now, where would it be?”
“Anywhere?”
She nodded as her hands—much to my disappointment—dropped back to her sides.
“Hmm … actually, if I could take youanywhere, it wouldn't be here.”
“Okay,” Melanie said, laughter in her voice and a glimmer in her eye. “So, if you could take me anywhere in theworld, where would it be?”
We began to stroll down the sidewalk again, my hands tucked deep in my pockets, if only to keep them from grabbing hers. And I thought about the greatest meal I could remember eating.
“So, I had this buddy in the Army. His name was Greg, and at our basic training graduation, his parents took us all out to this place in Columbia, near Fort Jackson.” I sighed, noticing that I'd begun walking closer to her, the sleeve of my coat brushing against hers. “They told us to get whatever we wanted, which was wild because it wasn't like these people were rich or anything. But it was about celebrating their kid and his friends, and … I dunno … that concept was crazy to me at the time, I guess. But—”
“There's a lot to unpack in that statement,” Melanie interjected, astounded.
I barked an incredulous chuckle. “Oh, you have no idea.”
She tapped her temple, glancing at me sidelong. “Storing that away for later.”
“So, anyway,” I went on, sidestepping the topic of my childhood and the tumultuous relationship with my father, “it was the fanciest restaurant I'd ever been to, and I got this filet mignon.” I held up my hands, indicating the size of that palm-sized cut of meat. “And it was the juiciest, most incredible steak I have ever eaten in my life. You could’ve cut through it with a fork”—I leaned down to brush my shoulder against hers—“which I didn't, for the record, but Icould've. Melted in my mouth.Abso-freakin'-lutely amazing. And the saddest part about it is, I couldn't tell you the name of the restaurant even if I wanted to.”
“Maybe you could call Greg and ask,” she suggested.
“Ah, I would, but …” I squeezed the back of my neck. “He was killed in Afghanistan.”
“Oh,” Melanie replied quietly, her voice fading in comparison to the passing cars.
“Yeah,” I muttered sadly, remembering my old friend and his young widow who I … “Wow.”
“Hmm?”
I looked down at Melanie to find her eyes looking back.
“When I hit that pothole, the one that put me at the shop where I met you … I had actually just come from delivering his tags to his wife. If I hadn't been there …”
My words trailed off, wonder and bewilderment shaking my head as I looked off toward a storefront, still decorated for Valentine's Day. Unable to believe that life could truly be that perfectly horrible and orchestrated.
