Page 42 of Fire Island
Not Evie.
Nomo nigheanthis time around.
“Put some in the bowl, hey. We can make a salad to go with the chicken Em brought.” He handles a plump red tomato, and my mind is stuck on the loop of his mouth stuffed with one, juice running down that square jaw of his, soaking into his short beard. My heart squeezes in my chest.
Holding my composure, I pick a few of the best ones and add them to the bowl in his waiting hands. He wanders to another bed, and I hang back, watching as he trawls the aisles, stopping every now and then to add another find to the bowl. The overwhelming intensity of missing him, even though he’s right there, hits me.
“Excuse me,” I utter and flee the greenhouse.
I stalk across the grass to the shack. When I’m safe inside, I drop onto the bunk and force each breath in and out of my lungs.The thought that I may never recover what I’ve lost when it comes to this man burns, and I rub a hand over my breastbone.
Needing something else to focus on, I move to the table and open my laptop. I scan the outline of my romance novel. The one I’ve waited years to write. Now what was once a grand plan seems like something unrealistic and too hard. I don’t want to write it. I’m not in a place to sit and write happily ever afters.
Instead, I tap out notes on a story I know well. One full of grumpy sunshine, forced proximity, an age gap that makes the tension flare from the page, where the hero falls first. One with chemistry, drama and a love to die for. One I hope gets its own happily ever after.
I pray it does, because I don’t know how to exist without it.
I tap out a working title:
The Story of Callum & Evie ~Mo Ghràdh
A delicious aroma drifts through the window of the shack. My stomach grumbles. I should go to the house. I should stop procrastinating. I create stories for a living—I can pretend to be something else to this man for an hour. Surely.
I push through the door and pad toward the house, and the gravel crunches under my shoes. The cool night breeze plays with my hair around my shoulders. I’ll have to ask if it’s okay to shower upstairs, because I may be okay with the bunk and the minimalist way of life, but no running water or hot shower is where I draw the proverbial line.
Sorry, Iris.
I reach the door and it opens.
“Oh, so—I was?—”
Cal ducks out with a foil-covered plate. I’m guessing it’s for me.
So, I’m not eating in the house?
“Ah... Did you want to eat here or there?” he says, eyes darting from the shack to me.
He’s adorable when he’s flustered. A far cry from the grump I endured when I first came to Fire Island.
“Where do you want me to be?” I ask, truly wanting to know.
“You can eat with me, if you like?”
My smile widens. “I would like that.”
He nods and returns through the door.
Inside, the living room is lit up with the lamp and the kitchen light. The table is set. For two.
Like he’d been waiting and decided to come find me.
My stomach is a cluster of butterflies. My heart skips a beat. “Oh, you were waiting?”
“Not too long. Sit. Eat before it gets cold.”
I sit at the table, and he hands me the plate before moving to the kitchen. He stands by the sink, washing up.
“You ate already?” I ask.
