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I yearn for him—Poet. It has been mere hours since I last saw him, and I feel as though the sea is pulling me farther from the shore than I ever intended to swim.
Cold water slips through my fingers.
Behind me, boots crunch on the sand. A warm hand settles on my shoulder, fingertips grazing my neck with too much intent to be Sol or anyone else.
Anyone but Poet.
I glance up in the same moment he crouches to meet me. His blue eyes lock on mine and, for the moment, at least, everything inside me falls quietly back into place.
He’s brought greens from the poly-tunnel and the potato salad he made me the first night we ate together. He’s brought himself and I am so intensely happy about that it is hard to keep my smile from splitting my face in half.
The only harder thing is not to drag him into my arms and maul him right here on this beach, but my son fixes that for me pretty quick.
Apparently wide awake, Aras arrives like a speeding bullet. Poet sees him coming and sets his wares on the sand, opening his arms with expert timing and sweeping Aras from the earth into the air.
Aras laughs and I cannot fathom if something inside me dies or comes to life. Or if I am jealous. Poet’s embrace is magical after all.
Addictive.
Safe.
If you want it to be.
I rise from the water’s edge with Poet’s produce and follow him and Aras back to the fire, aware of the curious gazes watching my…lover with my son. Watching me as Aras tries to convince Poet the stones he collected with Sol earlier are dinosaur eggs.
I take a seat on the sand next to Mal. He’s holding the same beer bottle as when I arrived and it is still full.
Poet seems to gravitate towards Jack, but he hands Mal an envelope as he passes.
Jack notices. “What’s that?”
Poet isn’t looking.
Mal answers. “Dav’s wages.”
“Why do you have them?”
Poet catches that as the wind picks up again and answers for Mal. “Sol doesn’t want them.”
Jack’s gaze flickers to where Sol and Sev are still engaged in animated debate about all the things Sol doesn’t want to understand about social media marketing. “Aye, I remember now. I think. Dav doesn’t want them either?”
“No.” Poet ruffles Aras’s hair and sets him down. “He hasn’t taken a penny off me since he started.”
Jack and I have similar feelings about Sol’s father. But Jack hides them better than me. He just nods and leans back, relaxing in the evening sun, and the conversation moves on.
Easy conversation.
It’s crossed my mind today that Poet might not come tonight because he wouldn’t want to spend his evening dissecting the speech patterns of strangers. But I was wrong, of course. It dawns on me far too late that Poet is used to family occasions, and that’s what we are—a family—and he slots in as though he’s always been here.
Next to Jack, mainly.
They talk about Folk and regenerative farming, and I sense Mal paying close attention to the Folk-themed anecdotes while Sol and Sev give them space.
I stay quiet, but I’m not bored. How can I be? I am so hooked on Poet’s quiet animation as he tells Jack about letting fields rest instead of forcing productivity, about Folk disabling the neighbour’s polluting combine when they were young. On how the two of them, he and Jack, meet in the middle, both men long accustomed to concentrating harder than the rest of us.
It is as life-affirming as they are.
Sol catches my eye from the other side of the flickering fire and I know he sees it too. I also realise I could watch Poet do just about anything for hours and hours without feeling the need to do anything else. But I have to get Aras home to Hanna. He has an early start in the morning, we both do. I peel myself from the sunbaked sand with a reluctance so fierce it makes my stomach eat itself all over again.
