AUGUST 23, 2015
I PUT MY CAR IN park as a cloud of dust swarmed in behind me, swallowing my Volkswagen bus whole. It was an old green and white bus I bought straight out of high school. I fell in love with the shape and the idea of all the memories made back when peace, love, and happiness were the mantra.
When the dust cleared, I found myself staring at a hole-in-the-wall diner on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere while the sun played hide and seek between the clouds. For the past week, I’d passed by this place on the way to the small house I rented along the shore, feeling a strange pull to visit.
I never ignored intuition.
There wasn’t much to the outside. A weathered wooden sign nailed to the front read: Ellie’s Dockside. Beige paneling in dire need of a good scrubbing wrapped around the building. A string of lights half-hung from the gutters that had probably been there since the first Christmas they were strung.
But there was this amazing sculpture made from welded metal by the front door of a dog… maybe a bulldog… sniffing at a man’s feet sitting on a bench by the front door.
I reached for my camera and snapped a picture. It was an addiction of mine, stealing and collecting moments and memories. I was a visual person, desperate and hungry for life to feed me all it had to offer. I could build a new world through pictures, one where beauty was found in the simplest of things.
Grabbing my messenger bag, I hopped out, the gravel grinding beneath my boots. There was no sign of a storm in the sky. Like a bad breakup, Mother Nature had a way of moving on as if nothing ever happened, even when she left destruction in her wake.
I walked through the front doors, noting there was barely a soul inside, but the scent of home cooking lured me further in. Grease. Poultry. Spices…
I froze.
Bear Man was sitting at the bar, hunched over at the far end of the room, his grizzly reflection blurred in the window. His hair was pulled into a bun atop the crown of his head. We’d spoken but a few words to each other. Not nearly enough to make an impact, yet there I stood, heart and lungs sputtering like they’d forgotten how to work. Like I hadn’t ran into someone I was attracted to before and been able to take control of the situation.
But this time was different. He was somehow different.
And I had absolutely no idea why.
He raised his head. For a moment, I thought he recognized me. It was obvious in the sharp-edged awareness stabbing through his eyes. The way his gaze refused to move away from mine. My hand rebelled against my mind’s orders and lifted, offering a small wave. Why didn’t I take that extra five minutes to brush my hair this morning? I thought when I dropped my hand and waited.
His shoulders stiffened, but his hand never lifted in return. He went back to reading the newspaper in front of him. Acted as if he didn’t see me, when I knew he had.
Shocking.
Screw you too, Bear Man, I thought, rolling my eyes.
Engaging with men who had sad eyes and tough demeanors was dangerous. They felt this need to put on a front. To act like they were indifferent despite the intrigue that was there. I’d seen it one too many times. Call it my Achilles heel. It was exactly why I left the last town after filming was over. Why I continued to leave every town after hooking up with someone.
I had a three-month rule. Date, and then when it got serious, move on.
Men were dangerous. Untrustworthy. Impermanent.
My father was proof of that.
A young man lifted his head from the table he was wiping down, a smile warming the lines in his face as soft notes of music played in the background. “Don’t mind him. He’s allergic to civility,” he said, his eyes playing over me.
“Lucas…” Bear Man growled in warning, his voice grisly and deep. He didn’t turn when he said this. Just kept looming over the bar sidled against the wall of windows overlooking a lake. Was he the boss? He had to be. He had that prickish air about him. A sort of managerial vibe that shouted haughtiness. I dated my fair share of men that were in charge. Producers. Directors. They were all dicks. All thought a title over their name made up for what they lacked in bed.
Lucas rolled his eyes. Lifting his hands like claws, he mimicked a bear growling. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought Bear Man had a stick shoved up his ass.
The thought made me snicker.
“Sit anywhere you like,” Lucas said. “I mean, I might have to make some arrangements with the others in here.” He turned and gestured to the empty building. “But I’m sure we can fit you in.”
“How about there?” I pointed to a table for two next to the front window. The sun streamed in at a glorious angle, bathing the small, worn-down table in golden light.
“There works. I’m Lucas.”
I smiled, gripping the strap straddling my shoulder. “Hartley.”
Lucas had an easy air about him. His skin was bronzed, his golden head of hair shaggy and stiff, probably from salt water… a standard I’d noticed often with Floridians near the beach. I couldn’t mistake the scent of the ocean coming from him… a mixture of salt and coconut suntan lotion. He wore cargo shorts, a white T-shirt, and flip-flops… something I was still getting used to commonly seeing around there.
“Would you like anything to drink, Hartley?” Lucas asked.
“An iced tea would be good.”
“Be out in a flash.”
Lucas disappeared through the double doors. I noticed Bear Man was sitting straighter, his hard eyes stealing small glances of my reflection in the window as I moved past the booths to the table for two.
I let him watch. Put an extra sway to my hips just to take back ownership of his earlier shutdown. Eat it up, buttercup.
After sitting, I pulled out my laptop, aligning it in ritualistic fashion. Square with the table. Opened at a perfect forty-five-degree angle. Those were things I had control over. Things I could rely on being.
“One iced tea for you, madam,” Lucas said, setting it down.
I moved it back an inch, so it was flush with my laptop.
“And here is our menu,” Lucas continued, handing it to me. It was a laminated piece of cardstock that appeared handmade. “Our special today is a pan-seared flounder over a bed of arugula, topped with a spicy aioli, but I like to suggest the codfish and chips. Ours is unlike any you’ve ever tasted.”
I made a face.
His eyebrows dipped. “Not into fish?” The left side of his mouth lifted into a smirk. He had nice teeth. “If you flip the menu, there is a section dedicated to poultry on the back.”
I felt the burn of someone watching me along the side of my face. It was Bear Man. He was using the window to study me. I glanced at the appetizers, since I wasn’t super hungry. I’d just devoured a small bag of Oreos I packed this morning.
“Can I get an order of potato skins, please?”
“Sure thing.” Lucas turned and headed back through the double doors.
“Hudson,” a woman shouted from the back. I turned in the direction of the voice, barely making out a tuft of silvery hair bobbing from behind the round window on the swinging door to the kitchen.
With a groan, Bear Man picked up his coffee and headed to the back, keeping his eyes trained forward.
Hudson, I thought, like the river.
He was larger than I initially noted. As tall as the doorframe and just as thick, too. Muscles rippled beneath his white shirt and dark blue jeans as he took large, hulking steps, face pressed in a natural grimace.
Was he always like that? So overbearing and brooding?
Turning my attention back to my laptop, I started going through my emails to find my next job offer. I wanted to be a part of something different the next time around. Film a piece that opened people’s eyes to common misconceptions.
Subject: Film Editor Needed for Piece on a 50yo’s Body-Building Journey
Delete.
Subject: Shooting a Piece on Life as an Addict. Need Editor.
Been there. Done that. Delete.
Heightened voices rose from somewhere in the kitchen. I lifted my head when I heard a low, guttural growl. Assuming it was Bear Man, I closed my laptop, curiosity picking at me once again. If there was a chance I could discover why he had such a cloud hanging over his head, I had to take it.
I stood. Tiptoed forward, trying to peer through the serving window without being noticed.
“She won’t bite,” I heard the elderly woman say. “She’s just a woman, and it would do you some good to have no choice but to talk to someone. Especially someone of the opposite sex.”
She was giving him a run for his money. I already liked her.
“Martha—” Hudson said, his voice dipped in octaves of aggravation.
“Don’t Martha me,” she bit back, a lioness swatting at her cub. I inched forward, stopping in front of the door as I tried to get a good look at the woman who reminded me so much of my nona. “It’s been nearly a year since you rid yourself of that awful woman. It’s time for you to dip your feet back into the pool. You’re too young and handsome to be single. Now get out there before she leaves.”
This was the part where my curiosity bit me in the ass. Or rather, shoved me on my ass.
With one hard push, Hudson came barreling through the double doors… only I was in the way. Trying to rush back to my table, I turned when the door caught the back of me.
Down I went.
I landed on my side, catching myself with my elbow. Hudson cursed behind me. When I twisted to sit up, he was rubbing his head. From the bright red horizontal line across his forehead and the glaring look he threw over his shoulder, I deduced he had collided with the frame. He grimaced when he noticed Martha shooing him forward with a brisk wave of her hands.
I was about to get to my feet when he turned around and saw me on the ground. For a moment, he stood stone-still, eyebrows pressed together in a menacing furrow.
“I have a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I laughed, but the sound was offbeat and kind of delirious. Embarrassment painted my skin in bright shades of red.
“How did you—are you all right?” He offered a hand to help me up while holding a basket of bread. Gone was his rough demeanor, replaced by concern. Rocky and rough, yet serene and calm… Hudson. I liked the softness his features took when his guard was down. The round shape of worry circling the golden rings around his pupils.
I took his hand. Rough and marred with calluses. But that wasn’t what I noticed first. It was how my skin seemed to ignite, like a tripwire set off, the sparks traveling through my veins until they filled my heart, bursting like fireworks.
I retracted. Insta-love wasn’t my thing.
“Yeah,” I managed, discreetly brushing my hands against my shorts. I shouldn’t have listened to that heady beating of my heart, but I had a weakness for men with rough edges and soft eyes and he was charging past the barricade I’d placed. I marked the acute details of his face. The faint lines in the corners of his eyes, probably from squinting in the sun too much.
And then there were those baby blues. Something familiar and slightly terrifying swam inside them, sort of like staring at a white water rapid, wanting to dive in but knowing I’d be swept under in a heartbeat.
Nona said a man would come into my life one day and replace everything I thought I knew about love. He’d erase the hurt left behind from my dad. Teach me that not all men were monsters, and would take every romantic cliché and multiply them by a thousand. The palms sweating, knees weak, skin-tingling kind of clichés I’d only read about.
I never believed her. Not until that moment.
“I’m just going to go… sit.” Backtracking to the table, I tripped over my feet in the process. I caught myself before I fell as a burst of nervous giggles shot from my mouth.
Jesus, what in the hell was wrong with me?
Nona never said I’d be good at luring ‘said’ man in.
Once I sat, he stalked over to the table, which only took a few strides, his shoulders stiff. I tried to clear a portion of the surface for him to set the bread bowl down when the hard ping of a spoon clattered against the ground. My stomach tightened when I realized what had happened. He knelt to grab the spoon just as I did. Our fingers collided, both of us pulling back immediately as if we’d been shocked.
Nona’s words circled inside my mind. Her many superstitions she taught me growing up.
I wasn’t sure if I was speaking to him, or more to myself, but the words clawed their way up my throat and leapt off my lips in a freefall. “A dropped spoon is a sign that you’re in the presence of your next lover.”
I gazed into his eyes as we both hovered near the spoon, and found myself drowning in a deep abyss of blue. So much pain. Too much heartache. And then they were closed-off and cold, like an ice storm settling in. That… that was what it must have felt like to be swept under by a current. That dangerous, suffocating, whirling feeling.
Don’t like him. Please don’t like him. He’ll ruin you.
He cleared his throat and hardened his gaze. “Complimentary bread.” His words were clipped and devoid of emotion as he sat the bread down. I moved the basket so it lined up between my tea and laptop. It formed the tip to my trifecta of objects. Good luck.
A second ticked by. Still, he didn’t leave.
I reached for a piece of bread and started picking pieces off, shoving them in my mouth as I watched him from the corner of my eye. Why was he still standing there? What the hell did he want? I finished the first piece of bread in three bites, but then stopped when I compulsively reached for another. It was a bad habit of mine.
I groaned. “You’re hovering.”
“I’m not.”
I eyed him, grimacing. “Then what do you call it? The last I checked, when someone stands overtop someone else, not saying anything, that’s called hovering.”
His eyebrows dipped. A professional scowler. “I’m sorry, I…” His stance shifted, face changing. He seemed so lost and unsure, wearing the same cornered look most men wore when confronted by a woman with confidence.
It was his lucky day, because I decided to go easy on him.
I stuck my hand out. “I’m Hartley.”
He regarded it for a moment, inspecting every inch as if it were a snake waiting to bite. I didn’t have typical hands. My nails were kept painted in dark shades. Tattooed words spiraled around my wrist.
I went to pull away, but then he grasped my hand firmly. “Hudson,” he finally said, his gaze slightly brighter, as if a sliver of a curtain had peeled back, allowing some of his light to shine through.
“Like the river,” I noted, intrigued.
He nodded and looked away, avoiding my eyes.
I was right. Bear Man was shy.
I liked that.
His eyes slid over my body without a sliver of reaction on his face, and I couldn’t help but feel unnerved as color pulsed behind my cheeks. I was good at reading people’s faces. Their reactions. But his poker game was strong.
“What you did for the little girl the other day… it was impressive.”
I paused, watching his features, which were still stoic and hard, as if his face had been carved from marble.
“You probably don’t remember,” I said, laughing to cover up my nerves “I was the one you handed her to so you could find her mom. I just… I don’t want to think about what would have happened to her had you not reacted so quickly.”
There was a long pause before he said, “I remembered you the moment you walked in.”
He was zero to one hundred. Eight more words said in a tone wrapped in layers of meaning. The flush of my skin deepened under the intensity of his unwavering gaze.
He cleared his throat again, and then took a step back, blinking himself out of the moment. “Your food should be ready. I’ll go check. Can I get you anything else?”
Your number? I wanted to say. “No,” I said instead.
I was out of my mind for finding him interesting. He was brutish and obviously damaged… but that was what pulled me in. It always did.
A minute later, I smiled as the double doors swung open, only to have that smile wiped clean from my face.
“Your potato skins, my lady,” Lucas said as he sat the plate down on a spot I’d cleared.
I inched back to see past him, searching for any sign of Hudson.
“He owns this place,” Lucas said when he registered my action. “He’s not a big talker. At least not since I’ve known him, which has only been for about a year now. I’ve asked him at least ten times to the parties I throw, and he always declines. Reclusive, that one.”
My heart deflated a little, which shocked me. I was so sure there was something there with Hudson. A chemistry that couldn’t be ignored, even though he didn’t seem the type to indulge.
“But…” Lucas leaned in closer. “I think he’s said more to you than I’ve heard him say in months. He usually comes in, does his job, and then leaves. A creature of habit, if you will. You must be special.”
It was foolish to indulge, but that made me smile.
I peered through the back window, catching sight of Hudson hurling a large rope over his shoulder before carrying it out to the edge of the docks. I scared him off. Plain and simple. Like a domesticated animal that’d been left in the wild for too long, he wasn’t used to human interaction anymore. Or maybe he wasn’t interested in the spark we both so clearly felt. Just like I shouldn’t have been.
I shook my head. No. I wouldn’t go there. I didn’t vacate to Florida to tangle myself up in another man. Not even if they were deliciously sexy.
I’d stay strong.
But the superstitions never lie. The spoon dropped.
One thing was for sure, though. If Hudson was my intended lover… we could only hide for so long before fate had her way.