“It looks like a uterus,” he replies, annoyed. I chuckle, thinking about the painting. He’s not wrong. There is a definite anatomical feel to the work, which only makes the situation funnier. He’d painted it when he was thirteen, and given thatwe were thirteen together, I can say with conviction that he had no idea what a uterus looked like.
“Your new work looks different.” Ewan’s eyes snap up to mine, and his lips part on a soft gasp. A very low burn sparks in my stomach, like hearing those noises while looking at his face is somehow pornographic. There’s nothing sexual about this conversation, yet here I am, getting turned on. Embarrassed, I turn away under the pretense of looking out the back door. I should go for a swim in the ocean, cool down a little bit.
“You’ve seen my work?” he asks. I frown, hearing the incredulity and not understanding it. Of course I’ve seen it. Iownsome of it.
“Yeah. I’m signed up to your newsletter.”
He bursts out laughing, fingers curled over the edge of the counter and shoulders shaking. Feeling it fizz up in my chest like champagne bubbles, I laugh along with him, even as I’m unsure what precisely is so funny. Who even cares when the result is this: Ewan’s eyes scrunched up, lips parted, and smile wide.
“What?” I ask eventually, the word rounded by the laughter still curling around it. Ewan presses a finger into the corner of his eye, body still vibrating gently, even though he’s no longer making noise.
“Sorry, that was just…funny. Me having a newsletter and you being signed up for it. What do I send in these newsletters?” he asks, letting another slightly manic giggle sneak out when I give him a disbelieving look.
“You sent them!”
“Oh dear.” He groans, pressing both hands to his eyes as though trying to block me out. I smile at him unseen, happy that we’re interacting the way we used to. None of this apologizing and awkwardness and embarrassment. Just us. Ewan and Shiloh, the way we always were and always were meant to be.
Eventually, he says, “My PA does all that. I don’t have a lot to do with the administration side of things.”
“You have a PA?” I ask, surprised by this. After a second, I concede, “Sort of like having a sternman, I guess.”
“Sort of.” Ewan teeters his hand back and forth in a so-so motion. “Daniel is business-minded, whereas I’m…not. It helps to not have to worry about booking galleries or shows or anything and just to focus on painting. We sort of work together, but not the way you’re thinking. Not the way you and…”
He trails off, frowning as he realizes he doesn’t know my sternmen’s names. Disappointment, bitter and acidic, burns in my throat. I’ve mentioned Nils and Oliver multiple times in my emails—is it really too much to ask that he remembers their names? It’s even more disheartening to know that Nils is one of them. It’s a four-letter name, for fuck’s sake. We went to school with the man.
“Nils Lee and Oliver Martin,” I fill in gruffly, pushing down my frustration. It’s time I stop holding Ewan to the standards he met when we were kids. We’re both adults, and that time has passed.
“Really?” he asks, perking up. “I didn’t realize Nils knew?—”
“He learned.” I cut him off firmly.
Nilsdidn’tknow what he was doing when I hired him. Ishouldn’t have hired him, and most people around town weren’t shy in telling me that. But me taking over the boat and Dad working toward retirement happened close enough to Ewan leaving that the wound was still raw. I’d been horribly lonely, and everything had felt like too much. Too hopeless. Nils had approached me, stuttering through an offer to help on the boat. I’d agreed right there on the spot, which was probably one of the worst business decisions I’d ever made. Luckily for me, it also ended up being one of the best.
“Sure,” Ewan agrees, that odd timidity creeping back into his voice once more.
“How’s California?” I ask in an effort to move the conversation away from all the information he already learned—and apparently didn’t retain—by reading my emails.
“Fine.” He twitches his shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “Busy. It’s not what I?—”
Instead of finishing the sentence, he drops his eyes down to the last bit of his sandwich. I do the same, eating with him in silence and trying to keep my own eyes from straying. I can’t decide if I like him being here or not. I’m introverted enough that my favorite part of living here is the seclusion it offers. Nobody “just stops by” when you live far enough off the beaten path for it to be a nuisance. Even Roy doesn’t drop by unannounced, although that might have more to do with him feeling unwelcome than anything else.
My cheeks burn the way they do sometimes on the boat, raw from the wind and sea spray. Thinking of Roy while looking at Ewan isn’t a good idea. Dryden Roy blew into town longafter Ewan was gone, and that held a lot of appeal to me in the beginning. He was new and fresh in a way that meant he couldn’t look at me with pity the way so many other people did around town. I wonder what Ewan made of that email I sent him, after Roy and I started this casual thing between us.
Maybe he didn’t care, I realize sadly. Which, given how many knots I’d tied myself in over admitting my feelings to him as a teenager, is a pretty stupid thing to be sad about. At first, I hadn’t recognized it. I wasn’t interested in dating as a teenager; I had never had a crush before. I loved Ewan as a friend, and that felt right to me. But it also felt right to admire the lines of his back and the curl of his eyelashes. It felt right to touch and hug him and have thoughts about kissing him. I was long past the age most kids experienced their first crush when I realized thatEwanwas my first crush.
I thought about it often—breaching our friendship to reach for a relationship. Surely something that felt so right couldn’t be felt only by me? Sometimes I’d be so close to doing it I could taste the words on my tongue, but I always swallowed them back. I felt very acutely that the worst thing that could happen would be him not only turning me down, but also severing that friendship. Seventeen-year-old me had lost a hell of a lot of sleep, tossing and turning and worrying about the horror that would be having to lose the love I’d always taken for granted.
In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Ewan left, and I lost both my friend and the imaginary partner I’d hoped he could become. At my lowest points, I’d sometimes wonder if telling him how I felt might have convinced him to stay. I always hated myself afterthe thought occurred. Love isn’t meant to be a weapon used to coerce, and I have no right to expect anything more from Ewan than he’s able to give me.
Feeling like I’m walking myself straight into a downward spiral, I clear my throat and ask, “So, how long are you in town?”
Ewan’s pretty eyes meet mine over the counter. They’re cautious again, that disconcerting reticence once more peeking out. I feel a surge of protectiveness for him. It’s like we’ve done a role reversal from how we were as boys—me more confident now than I was back then, and him less so.
“I’m not sure,” he admits carefully. “Few months, at least.”
A few months. Something else floods my system at that, and I have to look away from him. A few months of what? More conversations like this one, stilted and awkward? Or a few months of something I shouldn’t even be thinking about, let alone considering. A few months means a finite amount of time, and I would do well to remember that. He’s here now, but he’ll be gone again.
“Well, you’ll have to come out on the boat with us sometime,” I offer, searching for something that’s both familiar and will ensure he’ll be spending at least some of his time with me. I’m pathetic.
