I snort a laugh, tucking my pen away.
“You’re a good friend, Meg,” she says. And then she reaches out her arm and pulls me into a hug.
For a second, my twinge becomes a full-fledged ache of sadness, thinking of Sibby—how we haven’t been such good friends to each other lately, and how much I still miss her.
But Lark’s hug is a comfort, a hope, like a lot of things I have in my life these days. I squeeze her back.
“Okay,” she says, when we pull away. “You’re going to meet your beau, yes?”
“Yes,” I say, my face heating. “He works late, so we’re going to have a quick dinner break.”
“Ugh,” Lark says genially. “You two.”
I smile, my face flushing, liking the sound of that particular number.
Hoping I can keep counting on it.
I meet Reid at South Street Seaport, the same place he once ducked away to find a set of letters to photograph for me to tell me about his day. This time of year, when the whole city is thick with tourists, it’s probably more crowded than it was on that long-ago evening. It’s been a gorgeous day, too—not too warm, a breeze off the water, and the sun is still out—so there’s probably a higher-than-average turnout of city dwellers here, too.
That long-ago evening and what Reid spelled out to me that night—TENSE—makes me expect to find him in the same state, especially given the crowds, but I’m pleasantly surprised to find that he’s not. When he finds me at our agreed-upon spot along one of the piers, he’s got his white shirtsleeves rolled up, his tie shoved messily in his pocket, and he leans down to give me a soft kiss on the mouth before pulling back and looking over my maxi dress.
“Cute,” he says, setting his forefinger to one of the tiny peaches patterned across it, but really he’s looking at the expanse of skin—my shoulders, my chest—revealed by its thin straps.
“Good day?” I say, as we head toward a taqueria nearby. Reid doesn’t seem to notice the clumps of people who occasionally get in our way; he moves us deftly through them, our hands linked together. I try to suppress the kind of stirring optimism I seem to call up whenever I see Reid act this comfortable, unbothered way somewhere in the city. I look for signs in everything—signs he’s starting to do more than tolerate it, signs that he thinks of it as a possible home.
“Busy,” he says mildly. “Still a lot to do.”
“That sucks,” I say, but he only shrugs.
“It may not be much longer until I can—well, until I finish up.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” he says, looking down at me as we get into a long line. He clears his throat. “I think—well, they’re bringing in some new people. That ought to take some of the load off.”
“Money people or math people?”
Heswoonshes. “Too soon to tell, I guess.” He opens his mouth to say something else, then closes it. “How’d it go with Lark?” he finally asks, when he speaks again.
He’s done this a lot lately, these not-subtle shifts away from saying too much about this project he’s on, the one he’s trying so hard to finish up. It’d bother me, maybe, under any other circumstance, but I think Reid is trying, as best he can, to protect me. To not get my hopes up about this, about his future plans. About whether he’ll be able to stay.
So I indulge him, hoping for the best. I tell him about the planner and about the new plan for her to come see my rehearsal pitch tomorrow. He looks full of regret when I tell him Lachelle invited him along, but I promise I’ll do the whole thing for him another time. We order food and find a spot outside to enjoy it, Reid still managing to eat with a napkin draped tidily over his lap, as though the breeze that keeps blowing mine away doesn’t even bother trying it with him. He shows me a picture on his phone that came through earlier, his brother Owen and his young daughter Rae at a Brownie event, and I make him, not for the first time, remind me about the names of all his nieces and nephews.
When we’re finished, he pitches our trash and comes back to sit beside me, draping an arm along the back of the bench, his hand tucking under the messy length of my haphazard ponytail to rest on the nape of my neck. He makes a low hum of disapproval when he squeezes there, and maybe it’s wrong, out here in the open air, but I hear it as if it’s a bedroom sound.
“Meg,” he says, his voice stern. Bedroom stern. “You need to stretch more.”
A common refrain these last few weeks, when he finds me hunched over my sketches. I purse my lips and reach a hand out, stroking my thumb under the soft, darkened skin beneath one of his eyes.
“You need to sleep more,” I say. I like this, how this is—it’s a realyou twomoment, two people taking care of each other, counting on each other.
He lowers his hand a couple of inches, presses his fingers into some of the tightest muscles. I wish I could say I made a bedroom sound in response, but my grunt of pleasure-pain probably sounds more like I’m changing a tire.
He chuckles.
“Finish early tonight,” I say. “I’ll let you give me a massage. I’ll give you one back.”
He looks over at me, his mouth crooking. “It’s tempting,” he says. But then he looks away from me, out into the crowd of people milling around. “I do have to go back, though.”
