Page 39 of Enemies to Lobsters
I follow his lead, jumping down from the truck and meeting him at the tailgate. He’s not thinking about this enough. No one in this town wants him to be with me. They know this marriage isn’t real, but if they think I want it to be, that’s when the public flogging will start. “Just… how am I supposed to act with you? I’m your wife, but—”
He takes my hand, silencing me. “You’re overthinking it, Di.” His grip tightens, a firm reminder. “Don’t forget I have five reasons for them to be nice to you.”
I puff out a weak laugh, and he drags me into the high school. Inside, the walls are lined with a huge reminder that I’m not welcome here. A mural of the school’s giant green mascot—the Cape Georgeana Kraken—looms over the empty foyer like abad omen. Its tentacles curl around the door that leads to the auditorium, where a few middle-aged women are taking tickets at a folding table, oblivious to the monster snarling over their heads. I shudder. What a terrible mascot.
“We’ll take two.” Ike already has his wallet out.
I nudge him, leaning in to murmur. “I can get mine.”
“What kind of date would I be if I let you buy your ticket to the youth community theater play?” He cringes at the words. “I guess the answer’s in the question, huh?” He chuckles.
“Hey, you’ve been the ideal date,” I murmur only for him. “First, you rescued me from a hairbrush disaster, and now this? Perfection.” I tighten my hand around his with a smile. I might not be totally at ease, but the man is trying, and I have to give him credit for that.
His face whips to mine, and there’s surprise in his big, brown eyes. He opens his mouth to say something, but changes his mind with a shake of his head. He leads me into the auditorium, not acknowledging the fast whispers of the women at the ticket table.
“How do you ignore it?” I whisper up to him in the darkened hallway. Someone is at a microphone welcoming everyone to the play and reminding them to turn off their cell phones.
“Ignore what?”
“The whispering. Those ladies back there.”
He turns around to see what I’m talking about, but of course by the time he does they’re the picture of innocence. Figures.
“I promise, as soon as we walked away they started talking about us.”
Ike stops, and I can barely see his face in the shadows leading into the auditorium. “Diana.” He leans closer, and his voice is a low hum that I feel down to my toes. Everything about this moment reactivates the spring break butterflies in my stomach.“If they were talking about us, they were probably wondering what a woman like you is doing with a guy like me.”
I’m frozen, blinking up at Ike. “A woman like me?” I’m not sure how to take that.
He draws my hand to his chest, pulling me with it. He’s warm and solid through his red T-shirt, and I can feel the faint thumping of his heart. “Wicked smart. Driven. Good. And you know you’re inhumanly pretty, right?” He releases a long exhale like that last admission cost him a lot. “Sometimes it’s like I’m staring straight at the sun.”
I bite my lip, fighting a smile.
“Don’t worry about what they think,” he murmurs.
Well, now I’m not.Now, all I can think about is Ike Wentworth calling me smart. Inhumanly pretty. And other words that I can’t remember because his hand is still holding my hand against his chest, and his cologne is short-circuiting my prefrontal cortex. I have so many new items for my Ike spreadsheet, I’ll be up half the night.
I force a lighthearted laugh. I want to believe he’s right about them. I do. Undoing a few decades of prejudice is no small task, though. “Easy for you to say. Everyone loves you. They think I’m a witch.”
He shakes his head, studying my face. “I’m so sorry, Diana,” he says on an exhale. “I know better now. You’re not a witch. A hermit maybe, and a little bit nerdy” — I shove his chest playfully — “but you’re nothing like I thought.”
Ike’s words are almost drowned out as the audience roars with applause and the lights lower. He drags my hand away from his chest with regret in his eyes. “I have more to say, but we need to get in there,” he says in a rush. Before I realize what’s happening he pulls my hand to his mouth, pressing a way-too-quick kiss on the back of it. “Later, okay?” he says against my skin, his dark eyes finding mine in the dim light.
I’m having a hard time catching my breath to form a response, but Ike doesn’t wait for one. He threads his fingers through mine and pulls me into the theater behind him.
It’s dark in here, but not dark enough. The place is packed—it’s slim pickings for Friday night entertainment in this town—and Ike would say I’m imagining things, but people are whispering. I’m trying to pretend they aren’t. I really am. But I’ve had nightmares exactly like this. At least I’m wearing clothes this time.
The curtain is rising when Ike finally finds his friends. There’s one open seat beside a woman and her husband who must be Boone’s parents. Unfortunately, they’re halfway down the row and don’t see us standing in the aisle.
“Psst. Louise,” Ike hisses with a wave. It takes some nudging from her seat neighbor to get her attention, then Ike mouths, “Can you scoot down one?”
I silently point out some empty seats in the back of the auditorium, not eager to make the entire row move on my behalf.
He ducks to whisper in my ear, “I told Boone to look for me right here. It’s hard to explain—”
“It’s okay.” I nod over and over. And though I’m dreading the idea, I whisper in a rush, “You sit here. I’ll sit in the back,”
“Why don’t you pipe down, New York Five?” a man’s voice grumbles somewhere behind us.
