Chapter 215: Reid
I take her hand and steer us down the little strip instead of to the car. I need the air; Jake needs the room to make calls; and if I’m honest, I want ten more minutes of her all to myself. The sun’s dropping—my favorite window. Her hair always kills me, but at this hour it goes feral: a river of gold and fire, every strand catching light like liquefied metal. And her eyes in this light—green turned molten—could bring a grown man to his knees. They brought me to mine weeks ago.
“We’re headed to a hole-in-the-wall Italian place,” I tell her, nodding toward the next block. “Around the corner.”
She squints up at me, teasing. “How do you even know this town? The diner’s by the motel, fine, but the lobster shack? The Greek place?”
I shrug. “It’s a few hours from Northhaven. When we started SWMRI, it wasn’t wall-to-wall boat days yet. We were buying the two houses, patching the Vigil, drowning in permits and interviews. So we drove. There are a dozen towns like this in reach.” I tip my head at the street. “I remembered a few places. And—” I glance down at her, let it land— “I know you like to eat. I looked things up before we came.”
She stops dead, eyes going wide and bright. “You did?”
“Of course.” I can’t help the way my mouth softens at her. “You’re ours. Feeding you is a pleasure.”
She blushes, looks away, then goes quiet in that way that means she’s thinking mean thoughts about herself. I tug her hand. “What’s up.”
She chews her lip. “Do I… eat too much?”
It hits like a slap. I pull her to a stop, tip her chin up with my knuckles so she has to see me. “Don’t ask that again.” Her breath hitches; I don’t look away. “No. You can—and should—eat whatever the fuck you want, whenever you want. It’s not ‘too much.’ I love watching you enjoy food. I hate when you forget. I love your body and I want you to fuel it. You never, ever wonder if you eat ‘too much’ around me.” A beat, then lighter because her eyes are glassing over: “And you know damn well Jake and I can out-eat you any day of the week. If you’re feeling self-conscious, we’ll run an eating competition and put you in your place.”
She giggles—wet at the edges, but real. “Good, because I’m starving.”
“Perfect.” I lace our fingers again and we walk. The storefronts throw long shadows; gulls heckle the harbor; she swings our joined hands once like she can’t store all the happy inside her body.
I look at her from the side—this small, impossible girl who talks to seals, falls asleep in seconds, spends her waking hours thinking about whales, worries she eats too much, and turns into wildfire under a sunset—and the email in my inbox turns even more absurd. A “suspect”? Put someone in danger and ran? No. I didn’t believe it staring at the screen; I believe it less with her hand in mine. Terror like last night isn’t a costume. You don’t fake shaking for an hour.
She glances up through her lashes, smiling like she knows I’m thinking something I don’t have words for. I hook our joined hands and tug her closer as we round the corner, drawing her into my side like that’s where she was always meant to live.
We find the little trattoria tucked off the corner—brick walls, a chalkboard scrawled with vini della casa, the air warm with tomato, basil, and butter. They seat us by the window. Menus arrive on stiff paper, entirely in Italian, which I love on sight; a place shouldn’t have to switch languages to prove it knows what it’s doing.
I’m halfway through sounding out the pastas when she tilts hers and starts reading. “Le polpette… and—” she taps the page, lips quirking “—tagliatelle al ragù. I want to try both.”
I look up, caught. “How do you understand it?”
She shrugs like it’s weather. “My mom speaks French—Canada and all—so I do too. And when you speak French, the other romance languages aren’t as hard. I learned Spanish in high school and Italian in college. I’m not great, but I can understand it.”
My mouth actually drops a little. She’s sitting there in sunset light, hair molten, calmly ordering in her fourth language like it’s no big deal. “You never fail to surprise me.”
“I promise that’s the full extent of my abilities,” she says, giggling. “Science, a few languages… oh, and I’m a great swimmer. That’s it.”
“Right,” I say, handing my menu back to the server and shaking my head. “And in a year I’ll find out you can also send a rocketship to the moon.”
I expect her to laugh. Instead she’s staring at me with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. “You’re planning to be with me in a year.”
I groan, because it isn’t even close to enough. “I’m planning to be with you for the rest of my life, if you’ll let me.”
Her eyes go so wide I think I’ve overshot—and then she launches across the small table and kisses me so hard the candle flickers. I’m smiling into it before I can stop myself.
“I’m guessing that means you’ll let me?” I murmur against her mouth.
She nods, breathless and shining. “Yes.”
The server reappears, hiding a smile, and I order the polpette and the tagliatelle she picked, plus a few more things for Jake and I and three sparkling waters to go to buy my voice a minute. When we’re alone again, she slides her hand across the table; I take it and don’t let go.
Sunset drips gold down the glass, turning her hair to fire and her eyes to sea-glass. I think of the email I refuse to believe, of Sloane who thinks paper can tell me who she is, and it feels laughable from this close. The only true thing in the room is her hand in mine and the future I just said out loud.