There’s nothing to say to that.
Twenty-Seven
At the edge of the pool with Frank between us, Nash pulls the old harmonica out of his pocket, smiling eyes on me as he makes it wail.
I fight like hell to look unimpressed. “You’re an idiot with that thing.”
Before his next tune, he says, “I recall you being obsessed with it, once upon a time.”
I shove him in the arm mid-blow, and he teeters to the side with a laugh that makes a sound too high-pitched and unfinished to be good. That broken, happy note sends a dart to my chest. In a different life, Nash might have been the one who sits next to me and plays that same tune to make me laugh on the day my business closes its doors or my mom gets wheeled in for brain surgery.
“Tell me about your fiancé.”
“Wow,” I say with a puff of an exhale. “Zero to sixty on the subject change, huh?”
He says nothing, looking at me with a kind of half smile that tilts down a little, as if indicating where this topic lands on the sliding scale of humor.
“He’s nice,” I tell him. “And normal.”
He blows into his harmonica; I can’t not smile.
“Nice and normal, eh?” He thinks this is funny. “Good qualities in a spouse.”
I splash him with a kick of water. “I’ve raised the bar since you, clearly.”
He brings a palm to his chest in mock pain, but the smile doesn’t leave either of our faces.
“And Emma?” I ask. “What’s she like?”
“You make a lot of assumptions, Rue Conway.” He blows a long tune. As he opens and closes his palms, the muscles of his tattooed forearm flex. The playful lift of his lips, angle of his head, and squint of his eyes give away nothing. Doesn’t tell me that he goes to her place every night but sleeps in his own bed. Why he watches TV and hangs out with her kid while inviting me to breakfast. Doesn’t explain whatyou’re wrongorI know how I want to be around youmeans.
“You sucked the evidence off my finger.”
He brings the harmonica to his lips then pulls it away without playing it. “I did, didn’t I?”
At his grin, I shove him again.
“Either way, nice, normal people are good people,” I defend.
Frank snorts a sigh and his eyelids open halfway before slamming back closed.
“They are,” Nash agrees. “But you ever notice they feel like placeholders?”
“For?”
“The ones we really want.” A slow-to-grow smile curves his lips. “Who drive us crazy and make us wait too damn long for them.”
“Crazy’s complicated,” I retort, drawing circles in the water with my feet.
“Is it?”
“It is.” I look at him sideways, dancing between the meanings of what we’re saying. “And unpredictable. Makes it hard to know where you stand with people like that.” Our eyes bounce in synchronicity. “If they can be happy with you.”
Nash sets his harmonica down and leans over Frank until his face is close enough to mine it makes me think about all the things I’m trying not to think about.
He plants one palm on the concrete behind me as the other grips the curved ledge of the pool between my legs.
I do not move.
