Tom snorts, his papers on the same page it’s been on the whole time.
“She ran into me this morning with Gunner. Who looks as good as ever.” The way Caleb stares at me while he tells this tidbit to Mari makes me feel like he’s not talking about my dog at all.
Which is a sign that dinner is a completely terrible idea that I cannot be trusted with.
“You really don’t need to feed me dinner.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mari tells me, wrestling my coffee cup out of my hands. To refill it, ostensibly, but it feels rude all the same. “You’ll take him the toffee and cold brew and you get a dinner out of it. Seems fair to me.”
I sigh, outmaneuvered.
“Besides,” Rose says, “It’s Posey’s turn to cook tonight, and from what she put on the counter this morning, it looks like her famous tuna casserole.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I close up the shop,” I tell Caleb quickly.
I’d do just about anything to avoid Posey’s tuna casserole.
Including having dinner with the man I used to be in love with.
Five
Idon’t bother going home to change.
Sure, there’s a bit of sugar clinging to the hem of my dress, and I smell like toffee and chocolate, but neither of those things are capital B bad. I could certainly smell worse than like I’ve been making and selling and packaging candy all day.
Gunner’s tongue lolls out, and he’s straining at the leash I really only use to make the rest of Silverlight Shore at ease about the fact my dog never seems to get older or need a leash.
Appearances are everything when you’re trying to hide who you are at your core.
I nod at Daphne, the owner of our local flower shop, Petal and Brine, and she gives me a small, tired smile as she flips her sign from open to closed. Gunner barks at her and receives a full-fledged grin in response.
My dog’s tail goes wild with delight.
Gunner looks back at me with a look that plainly says he thinks I’m being a turd, and I sigh loudly.
Gunner loves people.
And he loves Caleb. He always has.
It’s next to impossible not to love Caleb.
He’s steady, warm —realin a way that most people wish they could be. Real in a way I wake up wishing I were. That doesn’t mean he’s right for me.
He doesn’t even know about my magic.
I cradle my chest with one arm, the leash in the other, an aching sort of emptiness hollowing me out from the inside.
Sometimes I feel so tired of hiding myself behind sugar and the niceties required of small-town living, of hiding the parts of me that are the most magical.
That way is all risk though; all risk and no reward.
Gulls cry overhead, a flock of dark outlines in the purple-reddish sky. Gunner’s nails tapping along the sidewalk becoming increasingly sandy as we make our way back to the Reach and Watchmere Light.
The sea salt air tonight is humid, lingering summer still in the air, though winter chill will ride it soon. I tug at the light cotton cardigan I threw over my dress, as if to ward against that still imaginary cold.
It’s a beautiful night for a walk, and it doesn’t match my lingering melancholy at all.
There’s no reason to worry about seeing Caleb, I tell myself. We haven’t been together in a decade. He’s moved on. I’ve stayed here, but he won’t, and maybe dinner tonight won’t be anything but two old friends catching up.
