Page 60 of Tourist Season
I can’t trust my voice to form words, not when my heart is crumpling in my chest like crushed flowers. I don’t tell him thatSam is closing in. Or that keeping my identity buried might be a lost cause. I don’t whisper about all the worries that are piling up around me in a suffocating embrace. I just place my hand on his. Lean into the warmth of his palm. With a nod, I reaffirm what I promised to do four years ago.
Arthur gives me a weak smile and then refocuses his attention on the couple ahead. “You’re a good girl, Harper. Even though you put my keys in the dishwasher.”
A breath of a laugh escapes my lips as I sneak a finger beneath my damp lashes. “Are you sure you didn’t—”
“I am absolutely confident I would never put keys in a dishwasher, if that’s what you were about to insinuate.” Arthur’s brows lower when the woman three rows ahead laughs too loudly at something the man says. “I’m looking forward to your topiaries. Perhaps you should start with a beaver.”
“I don’t know shit about topiaries.”
“You’ll learn. I have faith in you.”
“Please don’t.”
Arthur ignores my protests as the couple continues to talk and laugh, his aggravation deepening with every moment of their existence. Though I try to pull his attention away, he seems happily steeped in his irritation, and maybe a little worn out by the emotion of our conversation. So I let us slip into companionable silence. Before long, Nolan returns with a box of popcorn in one hand and two cocktails balanced in the other.
“One Orbit-uary,” he says, passing me the drink with a flummoxed expression. “This place is fucking bizarre.”
“That’s what’s so great about Carnage. It’s unapologetically weird,” I say. Nolan seems to ruminate on that as I take the popcorn from him under the guise of making it easier for him to getsettled next to me, but when he reaches for it, I hold it beyond his reach. “Where’s yours?” I ask with faux innocence. “You didn’t forget it at the counter … did you?”
The flat glare he gives me tastes better than the sweet cocktail I take a sip of. His eyes drop to my lips and darken. I can feel the hunger in him that has nothing to do with sugar and salt. A lick of heat coils deep in my belly. I’m flirting with him. And it’s working.
Hold on a second …
I’m flirting withhim.
And it’s—
“Have you had dinner?” he asks. It looks as though it takes effort for him to peel his focus away from my mouth. I shake my head. He reaches over and wraps his warm palm around my forearm and reels it in until the box is resting on my lap. “We’ll get dinner after.”
My brows hike. My heart is flip-flopping in my chest like a fish drowning on air. “Don’t we have work to do?”
Nolan just shrugs. He keeps his attention on the stage as the lights lower and a hush descends across the crowd, but I still feel the pull of his thoughts, as though he wants to meet my eyes but denies himself the indulgence. “We need to eat,” he finally says.
Right. It’s just eating. Normal human biological stuff. It’s not as though it’s a date or anything. We haven’t even really gotten past the whole McMillan thing from the other day, despite my apology last night. A bit of empathetic hand-holding and some popcorn doesn’t fix a murder-induced argument. Probably.
I’m not sure my heart gets the message. It reminds me of its existence with every thunderous beat. It only gets worse as the show nears the end and Lukas’s Beast is shot by Gaston in a sprayof blood, falling onto a crash pad just behind the set. Belle gets her revenge by bodychecking Gaston into a fire, and in a halo of pyrotechnics, the dramatic climax moves swiftly to a happy ending. I’m barely invested in the song-and-dance finale, despite the juggling act of severed limbs, not with Nolan taking up so much of my thoughts. With the final bow from the cast, I help Arthur out of his seat for the standing ovation, looping his arm through mine so I can keep him steady. When I look up at Nolan, he’s watching me as though he doesn’t quite know who he’s looking at.
People start filing out of their seats. I move to pull Arthur with me as I start following Nolan down the row, but Arthur twists free of my arm and sits back down. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Waiting here for Lukas,” he replies, settling his cane against the empty seat on his other side. He keeps his eyes on the stage. “Go to dinner with the tourist man.”
When I hesitate, he waves me off. I’ve been dismissed, but not without the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Nolan waits at the end of the row when he realizes I’m not right behind him, and that perplexed expression is there again, as though I’ve defied some kind of expectation and he doesn’t know what to make of me.
There’s still no sign of Sam among the crowd as we pass through the foyer, nor on the street as we head outside, where a warm evening breeze envelops us with a faint scent of the sea. Many of the attendees make their way toward the Buoy and Beacon Pub for theBeauty and the Beast–inspired karaoke and half-price drinks. Others head toward Main Street or the shoreline where the fancier bistros and restaurants will be open late. But Nolan and I move as though caught in our own slipstream, drawn to somewhere darker and quieter in the opposite direction of the crowd,ambling slowly away from the voices and laughter and the glow of the ornate Victorian lamps that line the street. Nolan stays close to my side, and though he doesn’t touch me, the heat of his presence warms my skin like a phantom caress.
“Are you going to tell me what got you rattled on your failed trip for popcorn?” Nolan asks, looking down his shoulder at me.
I let out a long, slow breath as I tamp down the urge to scan our surroundings with obvious panic. “It was Sam.”
“You saw him?”
“I more than saw him. I talked to him.”
A flicker of unease passes over Nolan’s face, a muscle fluttering in his clenched jaw. “About Arthur?”
I shrug, pressing my nails into my palm to keep myself from biting my bottom lip. “About me.”
“Aboutyou,” he repeats, his voice incredulous. Fury cascades from him in thick waves. “Why? What did he want?”
