Page 59 of Here & There

I think about the boy on the school bus today. Should I tell Mac? I have the strong sense he doesn’t know Nate’s getting bullied.

“Your dad swore like a sailor,” Cal says to Nate helpfully. “Makes sense since you both come from a long line of sailors.”

“Is that true?” I ask.

Mac makes a low grumble of affirmation. “Dad was the first one in that line to ever wear a tie.”

“When he became mayor?” I ask, as if I don’t know the whole story already. I’m not good at playing coy, though; I confess immediately. “I saw the articles at the coffee shop.”

Mac picks up the tongs to grab some salad. Even though he’s been absent for the past few days, my study of his micro expressions has picked right back up again. When he glances at me next, I know he’s assessing how much I know.

For a moment, there’s a long pause filled only with the clinking of cutlery.

Then Mac says, “You read them all?” he asks. His expression remains stoic. But those eyes—God, those eyes—they’re fixed on me, swirling with something that vacillates between hope and pain. My heart feels like it cracks as I take in the vulnerability in those ocean-deep eyes.

“Yes,” I say honestly. I hold his gaze even as my pulse flutters, this time with nerves. I don’t want him to shut down around me. I want him to know that I don’t pity him or revere him for saving all those people. That I’m here, acknowledging that it’s just a part of him, that’s all.

Maybe he sees it—that I know something of what he felt.

After a moment, he looks down. But I watch his Adam’s apple bob; the slight pulse of muscle at his cheek as he picks his burger up with his left hand, his right hand flat on the tabletop.

Before I know what I’m doing, I slide my hand over on the wood. My pinky brushes against his.

He looks over at me as if I’ve stepped right into his personal space, which I guess I have. But I know how much I yearned for human touch when I didn’t get it.

I don’t do anything else. I fully expect him to move his hand away.

Instead, to my shock, he hooks his two smaller fingers over mine. Not the whole hand, just the pinky and ring finger in a gentle squeeze. The connection lasts a breathtaking few seconds, and in that time, the whole world seems to stop. It’s a thank-you; an acknowledgment of my knowing his pain.

Then he lets go. But as he pulls away, the length of his forearm brushes against mine, and this touch—it’s not comfort. It’s the heat of that fire roaring up against me. My skin explodes in gooseflesh.

Mac doesn’t even blink.

Can no one else pick up on the crackling heat over here?

“You know your grandfather was a fisherman,” Mac tells Nate.

“So he quit when he became the mayor?” Nate asks.

“He did. But in a town as small as Redbeard,” Mac says, “being a mayor’s only a part-time job. You keep up with whatever you already do and do the mayoring on the side. But being on the boats meant he’d be out of town too much to do his job, so he switched careers when I was twelve. He always loved to read, so he started a book distribution company. My mother was so happy, she threw a party when he came home from his last trip to sea.”

My heart squeezes at the mention of Mac’s mother. I’ve never heard him talk about her before.

“How’d he end up running for mayor in the first place?” I ask, wanting more but not wanting to ask directly.

“Cannery shut down,” Mac says. “And I think he wanted to stay home for Mom but needed a reason.”

That squeeze pulls tighter.

“Never did get the cannery back up and running,” Cal says. “But he found a way to fix everything else up in this town.”

“Your dad sounds amazing,” I say. I mean it. “A man who cared for his wife and family enough to end a career he’d been born into, who loved books,andwho saved the town?”

“He is,” Mac says. He gives me the faintest hint of a smile, and my stomach flips.

I’m sexually repressed. That has to be it. Richard and I hadn’t spent the night together in at least a month before… The thought of Richard douses the flames roaring up my body, at least somewhat. He shouldn’t factor into any of my feelings anymore.

I sit up straight. “Diane mentioned he’s in a care home now,” I say, keeping my voice light and all appendages far away from Mac.

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