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He pauses, and it’s so abrupt that I stop too and turn his way. He’s making a face.
“Now what?”
He must realize he’s making the face, because he shifts and stammers. “I just—I—you don’t seem like you…”
I could save him, because I know exactly where this is going, but I refuse. “I don’t seem like I what, Sawyer?”
He swallows, and there’s something fascinating about watching a man like him be speechless. Those broad shoulders don’t know whether they should slump in defeat or puff up with false pride; he toes the deck boards and crosses his arms. Finally, he clears his throat and meets my gaze. “What made you want to get into writing?”
Solid deflection. “Do you mean, what made me want to get into writing romance novels? Because what could I possibly know about love?”
“No,” he says. Yes, he means.
I roll my eyes. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Around eleven, I guess?”
“Good enough.” I grab his hand and pull him toward the forward staircase. “Come on, you owe me a drink.”
The Billiard Bar is hosting Oldies Music Trivia downstairs, but upstairs it’s relatively empty, and we nestle into two cozy velvet armchairs next to a railing that overlooks the game below. Gram and Nancy have wandered to the lower level of the bar, and based on Nancy’s excited sipping of her Bloody Mary, I can tell she thinks they’re the team to beat.
Sawyer surprises me when he orders what I’m having—a cosmo with a splash of pineapple juice. Really, he’s full of surprises, because he’s almost nice, asking me about my background in writing.
“I knew your name was familiar to me, and I just couldn’t place it until I saw that book.”
“You definitely cracked that code. Are you secretly an FBI analyst or something?”
Despite my sassy, smart-ass tone, he smiles warmly. “No. I’ve just spent too much time at Nan’s house. She’s had that book out on her coffee table for a while.”
“Planting seeds, I guess. You know I met her last year, right?”
“I’d imagine it was when she met Maggie?”
“Right. At a book signing I did in New York. She actually told me about you then.”
A rush of pink shoots up his neck and into his cheeks, and he tries to hide it by taking another sip of his drink. “She did?”
“Mhmm,” I nod. “She asked me if I was single and said I’d love you.” Now it’s my turn to blush, but I don’t know which part of what I just said causes it. I hope he doesn’t ask me about either.
“What made her so sure of that?” He asks what feels like the most dangerous question possible. Asking me why his grandma is sure I’ll love him? That’s a door I prefer to leave closed, deadbolted, and barricaded.
I try to turn the focus away from the L-word and turn it back to what Nancy brought up at that event. It should be a safer conversation. “The only thing that stands out is, she thanked me for thanking teachers during the Q-and-A portion of the talk. Do you think that’s what it could be? The teaching thing?”
He scowls at his drink and turns his glass on its cocktail napkin. “Could be.”
I ask if he enjoys teaching; he grunts what I interpret is a ‘yes.’ But when I ask a few more questions—these questions I’m supposed to be asking over getting-to-know-you drinks—he shuts down.
“I’ve got a headache,” he says. “I think I’m going back to my room for a bit.”
He had seen the world: every ocean, clusters of islands, jungles and mountains and shores. Yet none of these things, not the crystalline waters of the Caribbean nor the views of rolling meadows nor the colorful pageantry of the tropical birds and flowers could compare to her beauty.
When the water shimmered white, he knew she was close.
“Shall we cast the anchor?” his first mate had asked, catching him gazing overboard. But he didn’t know how many there were below, didn’t want to risk hurting them.
“No,” he said, his callused hands braced against the railing, his eyes fixed on the water. She would appear at any moment, her body glimmering as it met the sun. And he would feel himself fall in love all over again, as he did every time he saw her.
“Captain,” the first mate said, “we have a place below, if you want to keep her close.”
