by Grace Palmer
A few long seconds passed with her hand on the handle. The door wasn’t budging, she knew that. She and Brent had installed it a few weeks ago. Brent had tested it by throwing himself at it like a linebacker making a tackle. They’d both laughed when he bounced right off. The front door was locked, too, and the metal grate was pulled down over it. So that was a no-go as well. Her cell phone was inside with the rest of her things, meaning she couldn’t call anyone for a ride, either.
With no other choices, she went to collect her bicycle. What a stupid decision that had turned out to be, too. That morning, in the only fifteen-minute window of the day where the rain had ceased, she’d decided to bike to the restaurant. The rain must be done! she had thought. Like an idiot.
Now, she was stranded a couple miles from her home on Howard Street, in the unyielding downpour. And, as she pulled the bike out from the little overhang where she’d hidden it, she realized that her tire was flat.
She laughed at that. At this point, what else was there to do besides laugh?
She kept chuckling in intermittent bursts as she turned and started pushing her bike on the long walk home. The rain, if anything, fell harder.
As she walked, she wondered. She wondered what Russell was doing right now. Was he curled up on the couch with that little blonde woman? They were probably watching a movie and cuddling. Sara wondered if the woman let Russell pick the movie. If he had, it was probably a cheesy horror film from the nineties. Russell loved those. She started to wonder what Gavin was doing, too, and then she stopped that real quick. He could do whatever he wanted. She didn’t care at all anymore. It was funny to her how much she had once cared about every single Gavin thing, and now she didn’t care even one iota. If she never saw him again, it would still be too soon.
Her mind was far from Nantucket as she pushed her bike down the street. When she rounded the corner by the fire station, she heard a voice call from just inside the open garage door.
“Oy!”
She figured that everybody was indoors with a loved one, dry and safe from the rain. The voice felt disconnected from reality. Only when the person hollered again did she realize that, whoever it was, they were talking to her.
“Oy! Chef Sara!”
She looked up in surprise. Standing framed in the opening of the fire station garage was the young guy from the fire at the inn. Joey was his name, she remembered. The rookie.
“What’re you doing out in the rain, crazy?” he called again, bewildered.
She blinked. “Walking?” she answered dumbly.
He waved her in. Shrugging, she turned and pushed her bicycle up the driveway. After so many long minutes in the rain, it honestly felt weird to be out of it again as she stepped inside.
“You are, uh, a little wet,” Joey commented wryly. He had a mirthful twinkle in his eye.
“They didn’t skimp on you when they were handing out brains, did they?” she fired back. She wondered if she sounded too bitter, but Joey just laughed.
“My parents might argue otherwise, but I’ll just pretend you were being serious. Do you want a towel?”
“Uh, yeah. A towel would be nice. Thanks.”
He handed her a thick, dry towel. Sara sponged off her hair and mopped up what she could from her arms, face, and legs. She glanced at the towel when she finished and saw that her makeup was smudged all over it.
“I must look fantastic,” she muttered to herself.
“I’ve seen worse,” Joey said.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” she said at once, mortified. She knew darn well that she looked like something the cat dragged in. Makeup running, hair soaked, clothes drenched. She had a weird, twisting feeling in her gut. It took her a moment to recognize it as the kind of embarrassment a person felt when they looked silly in front of their crush.
Did she have a crush on this handsome firefighter? That would be news to her. But as she looked at him and took in his features again—those dimples, my goodness—she realized that it didn’t seem as crazy as it might be.
What was wrong with a crush? He was nice, he was cute, he was friendly.
She could have a crush.
As long as she didn’t screw this one up, too.
39
Brent
Brent and Ally were in his apartment, lounging on the couch while a goofy Hallmark movie played on the television. Ally’s choice, not his.
He had a lot on his mind. For starters, he was still mad after his fight with Sara in the restaurant, despite several hours having passed.
But more importantly, he couldn’t stop thinking about dinner with Rose. Again and again he’d thought about it in the days since. Every idle moment—boom, there was Rose in his mind’s eye, shyly slurping a spaghetti noodle or dabbing delicately at her lips with a napkin. It shouldn’t have been notable at all. They ate a nice, normal dinner, during which they had a nice, normal conversation, and then they’d said a nice, normal goodbye.
Underneath the surface of all that, though, was an unbearable tension. He tried not to think about it. He honestly tried very, very hard. But that was proving to be impossible.
It was fully dark outside now. The rain had not yet quit. Maybe it would never quit again. Maybe this was just Nantucket today, tomorrow, and for the rest of time—torrential rain around the clock.
“Sailor boy,” Ally said, poking him with her foot. “Ahoy, sailor boy.”
“Mm?” Brent grunted.
“What’re you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
She sat up and grabbed his wrist. “Tell me.”
“Nothing. Just, uh… just a stupid fight with Sara. I’d rather forget about it.”
“Restaurant stuff?”
“Restaurant stuff,” he confirmed.
“You’re right. That is stupid.”
He laughed and pushed her off him. “Pick on someone your own size, McNeil.”
“What’s the fun in that?” she said from the other end of the couch. Then she pounced on him again.
Unfortunately for Ally, Brent had done a brief spell on the wrestling team in high school. He’d retained enough of what he learned to capably handle a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound college girl with an attitude. He made short work of her attack, flipping her over and pinning her beneath him.
“Bad move.”
“Only if you consider this losing.” She winked and bit her lip. That was awfully hard to resist. He leaned down and kissed her. She kissed him back for a moment before putting a pair of gentle hands on his chest and pushing him away, just far enough that his forehead was resting lightly on hers.
“Come with me,” she said.
“Huh?”
She rolled her eyes. “Jeez, you’re dense sometimes, Benson.”
“Come with you where?”
“Away.”
He sat back on his heels. “You mean like on your trip. At the end of the summer.”
“Well, I leave in a week, so if you consider that the end of the summer, then yeah.”
“To Asia.”
She sat up with him and took hold of his hands in hers. Her eyes were flaming bright as she looked at him excitedly. “That’s just a starting point. We can go anywhere. Throw a dart at a map and we’ll go there, I don’t care. But come with me.”
Brent wriggled one of his hands out of her grasp and pushed back the hair from his forehead. He’d let it grow long this summer, and it had become bleached blond from all the hours in the sun while out on the boat with Marshall.
“You want me to leave my family and my home behind and just go … anywhere?”
Ally’s nose wrinkled. It always did that when she was confused. “It’s not like they’re leaving, too. You can always come back. That’s the whole point of travel.”
“Yeah, but it’s not just that simple. You want me to just run off for no reason.”
“Who needs a reason?” she yelped. “It’s a huge world! You’ve never seen any of it!”
“I
’ve been around,” Brent corrected sternly.
“You’ve been to New York. Once. That hardly counts.”
“It counts.”
“Whatever, count it, don’t count it, I don’t care. But come with me.” She touched his face. “I want you to come on an adventure with me.”
“An adventure.”
“Yeah, an adventure! We could be—shoot, I dunno—eating coconuts on the beach in Bali! We could go do backflips off the Great Wall of China! Doesn’t that sound incredible? It beats the heck out of this boring old town.”
Brent’s frown deepened more with every word. Every time Ally had touched on the subject this summer, he’d more or less brushed it off. It sounded great in theory, yeah. Take off for a while. No plan, no agenda, no destination. Nowhere to be and nothing to do.
Why not do it?
He couldn’t put a finger on why not. But there was a burning No that rose inside him whenever he considered it. Like a physical chain tethering him to the island. The thought of leaving Nantucket made him actually, literally nauseous.
That was stupid. He was being dumb. Ally was right—the world was huge and beautiful and filled with things he’d never heard of before. More to the point, it was filled with things he’d never hear of if he stayed here for the rest of his life.
So just go then. That was the answer, right? Take her hand, buy the ticket, board the flight. See what happened next. Nantucket wasn’t going anywhere. He could always come home.
Go or stay, go or stay. He flip-flopped back and forth on it every day, every hour.
It felt like this was the decision point, though. Something about the way Ally was holding his hands and looking at him made him feel like this was it. Time to choose.
What if he couldn’t? Half of him wanted to go. Half of him wanted to stay. Which half was right? How could he pick between them?
He knew what this was really about, even if he hadn’t ever admitted it out loud. Not even to himself in the dead of night.
It was about Ally versus Rose. Adventure versus home. Himself versus himself. Which Brent would he be?
He didn’t know. He couldn’t know.
He couldn’t sit here forever, either. Ally was staring into his eyes, into his soul, it felt like. She needed an answer.
“I don’t know,” he said eventually with a heavy sigh. “Maybe.”
“Maybe,” she repeated. “That’s it? Maybe?”
“I can’t give you anything better than that.” He sounded defeated. He felt defeated. “I’m sorry.”
She stood up and grabbed her purse from the table.
“Where are you going?” he asked her without looking up.
“I leave in a week,” she said. “If your maybe changes to a yes before then, give me a call.” Before she left, she leaned down and took his chin gently between two fingers, tilting it up towards her. “It’s a big world, Brent Benson,” she whispered. “Come explore it with me.” She kissed him softly.
Then she left, leaving him to sit in the darkness and watch a stupid Hallmark movie as his thoughts raced around and around in endless, confusing circles.
40
Eliza
The rain, the rain, the rain. It wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t ever stop. She was going to be stuck in this godforsaken airport forever. Lord, how she hated LaGuardia. It was the devil’s airport, no question. Only the worst being ever created could dream up some place this vile in every way. The ground was gross, the ceiling was missing tiles, everyone who worked here for long enough ended up with a stink-faced expression.
Winter was crying again. This time, Eliza could neither blame nor comfort her. She wanted to cry, too. If they weren’t in full view of the public, she might’ve given into the urge. Crying wouldn’t do anything, of course. But it might make her feel at least a little bit better.
There were so many things to cry about. She could cry about what Clay had done, what he had threatened. She could cry about how cold and distant Oliver had been when he told her she was wrong for trying to keep Winter away from that megalomaniacal, drug-addicted control freak. She could cry about how she’d never share another moment with Oliver like they’d shared on stage at that first concert, when it seemed like music itself had been created just to bring the two of them closer to each other.
And she could cry about the rain.
But she didn’t do any of that. She just sat in the corner with her baby in her arms, alternating between shushing her softly and singing lullabies in a low voice, barely audible to anyone but her and her daughter. The hours ticked past. No planes came or left. People moved around anxiously, though they didn’t really come or go either, just swirled back and forth like eddies trapped up on the beach after high tide. It was like the airport was frozen in time. Quarantined from the rest of the world. No entry. No exit. No solution. No hope.
Until, finally, nearly twelve hours after she’d arrived, something hit her in the face. It was a beam of light. She looked to her left and blinked once, twice, as her eyes struggled to make sense of the scene outside. After so much rain, it was like she’d forgotten what the sun looked like. But there it was, reminding her. One lone beam of light coming out of the dark clouds like a hot knife through butter.
As she watched, the rain slowed, then stopped, as if someone had hit a switch to cut off the sky’s faucet. It felt like a weight was being lifted off her. She looked over to the check-in desk. There was a swirl of commotion amongst the employees. Renewed energy, fresh purpose.
Eliza had a feeling: it was almost time to go.
She stood up suddenly. Winter stopped crying. “Look, honey!” Eliza murmured to her baby, pointing towards the sky. “Look. It’s the sun.” She kissed Winter on the forehead and swayed back and forth, dancing to music that only they could hear. “We’re going to go home, baby. Finally.”
Sure enough, it was just a few more minutes before a cheerful voice came crackling over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are happy to announce that the grounding order for all flights out of LaGuardia Airport has been lifted. We will now resume the boarding process. Please pay attention to all overhead monitors …”
Eliza ignored the rest of the announcement as she gathered her belongings and strode with Winter towards their gate. She was maybe the tenth person in the newly formed line. The employees wasted no time in opening up the gate door and starting to scan everybody’s tickets. They would be on the plane, bound for Nantucket any minute now. Seven people left in front of her. Four. One.
“Eliza!”
She must be hallucinating. Fumes in the air, asbestos in the ceiling conspiring to make her hear things. Because she could’ve sworn that she’d just heard Oliver’s voice.
It wasn’t until he was standing right in front of her that she finally believed that it was him.
He was panting, hands on knees, and sweating profusely. It looked like he’d run a marathon through the rain. His shoes squelched. He honestly looked borderline ridiculous. Other people were staring.
“Ma’am?” asked the airline employee. She held her hand out for Eliza’s tickets.
“No, wait,” Oliver said. “Eliza, wait.”
Eliza wanted to scream in frustration. If he was going to make a scene, why couldn’t he have done it earlier in the day, when she was sitting around with nothing to do? Why wait until now, when she was literally seconds away from boarding the airplane back to Nantucket?
“I’m sorry,” she said to the employee. “I’ll get back in line in just a second.”
She stepped out, still holding Winter, and glared at Oliver. “I’m getting on this plane, Oliver,” she warned.
“Just hear me out,” he said. He was still inhaling in ragged gasps.
Eliza frowned. “Why are you breathing so hard?”
“Ran.”
“Why?”
“Had to talk to you.” He took another deep inhale and seemed to calm down a bit. He stood up straight. He looked like trash, but his eyes were as green an
d vivid as they had been on the night they met. It looked like there was emerald fire behind the irises. So much life there. So much of everything. Fear, doubt, hope, pride, humility. He was a complex man. She once thought she’d have a lifetime to explore those complexities. It turned out she was off by a wide margin.
“What do you want to say, Oliver?” she asked curtly. He’d already said his piece. Everything he needed to say had been said that night a week ago, after Clay had come and threatened her daughter. She knew where Oliver stood, and it wasn’t with her. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing left to say.
“I lied.”
That, of all things, took her by surprise. “What?”
“I lied. I said I couldn’t be Winter’s father. That’s a lie.”
Eliza held her breath. She didn’t know what to say to that. Oliver swallowed and continued. “I’m not her biological father, that’s true. But I’m a dad to that little girl. I love her. I love her mother, too. That’s you, Eliza. I’m head over heels, stupid in love with you. I always knew that, from the second I spilled a beer on you in that bar all those months ago. Which, just to reiterate, was partially on purpose. But I was scared of what it would mean to be in love with you the way I know I am now. I thought I still loved shows and performing and trying to be a rock star. And maybe I’m an idiot for taking so many days to realize the truth, but I finally came around to it, so better late than never, I guess. The truth is that I was scared of committing to a life with you, because it felt like closing the door on other things I’ve dreamed of for a long time. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you can shut those doors. Lock ’em and throw away the key, I don’t care. I want to be your man. I want to be Winter’s father. I’ll leave everything else in the world behind and never, ever look back if I can be those things to you.”
He dropped to one knee.
This couldn’t be real. This was the absolute cheesiest thing she’d ever encountered in her life. No one did this in the real world.
But it was real. She was standing in LaGuardia Airport with tears still in her eyes from one of the worst days she had ever had. And the man she loved was kneeling on the ground in front of her, holding open a box, in which sat a diamond ring.