“Just as long as they’re not serial killers.” His gaze flickered to me again, and I clung to the fact he didn’t seem interested in the girl in the slightest.
The girl giggled, a sound that seemed to resonate at a frequency designed to grab attention. Her hair, a cascade of sunkissed waves, was tossed with calculated carelessness. “You don’t look like a serial killer.”
It was Adam’s turn to shrug. “Vacation wardrobe.”
“I can’t tell if you’re serious or joking,” she said.
At that time, the server returned to take our order, and while she listed the day’s specials, the girl made her way inside the restaurant.
“She was very interested,” I said after the server left us. “What was it that Noah said? You could besewing your royal oatsbefore the main course.”
He laughed. “Aside from the fact I’m here with my best friend, who I wouldn’t ditch for any girl, I’m also not interested in hooking up or vacation flings.”
“It’s too early. I get it.”
He gazed out at the beach in front of us. “It’s more than that. I’m not sure I’ll ever trust again, and it’s not just trusting someone else. It’s trusting myself.”
I squeezed his shoulder. As much as I wanted to tell him the right person was out there and all that, I didn’t want to play down his feelings. He was entitled to feel like not touching another person ever again. He was entitled to feel bitter, sad, and angry. It was all part of the healing process.
Yeah, you know all about that, don’t you, River?
The food was even better than the service, and after chatting with the server, we were given a brief tour of the kitchen. We met the chef, a local woman who’d learned to cook from her grandmother and had a no-nonsense approach to handling a kitchen. She was a hoot and made us promise to come back with Adam’s brothers and their partners.
As night draped over us, we retreated to our hotel room. Our conversation flowed easily, so despite our skin itching from the sea salt, we grabbed drinks from the mini bar and sat on the balcony.
“River, you know, today…it was good. Really good,” Adam said.
“Good days are what we’re here for, right?” He raised his can of soda, and I met it with mine.
When we finished our drinks, we took turns in the shower and settled in bed. The soft glow of the bedside lamp cast a muted light across the room, illuminating the space just enough for me to make out Adam’s silhouette.
“Remember that time you stole the keys for Lusitana from your parents so I could use the kitchen?” I asked.
Adam chuckled, the sound rich with nostalgia. “How could I forget? I was grounded for a month for pulling that stunt.”
“But that roast pork was to die for.”
“Totally worth it. I still don’t know why you didn’t become a chef.”
I smiled to myself, recalling the surge of triumph followed by the blue lights of the police coming into the kitchen because a neighbor thought the restaurant was being burgled. “I love cooking, but I think doing it for a living would take the fun out of it. Managing the restaurant allows me to have fun in the kitchen when they need me, but I also get to do other things, like working on customer experience and building relationships with long-standing customers.”
“And making sure Lusitana will still stand in place in thirty years.”
I laughed. “And that.”
As the night deepened and our anecdotes dwindled to murmurs, a silence settled between us.
“I know I've already said it, but thanks for being here, River,” Adam whispered across the dimness, his voice a tender caress against the room’s stillness.
I turned my head to meet his gaze, finding his blue eyes earnest and open, a universe of gratitude and trust within them.
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” I whispered back, even though the devil on my shoulder called me a liar.
Eventually, the exhaustion of the day caught up to me. As I teetered on the edge of sleep, my mind conjured images of our day together. Just Adam and River.
Even as my heart craved more, I felt grateful that I’d had this time with him.
With one last glance at his silhouette, barely discernible in the moonlight that filtered through the blinds, I let sleep claim me.
