“Aye, but a happy unmarried fool is better than a miserable married one.”
I laugh, and he lifts his glass toward me again and we both drink, candlelight in our eyes, warmth in our bellies.
“You were sure, then, about your wife?” I ask.
He nods. “Sure as that storm is pure Baltic an’ will drench ye to the bone if ye step outside.” His accent grows thicker the more he drinks, and I smile, liking the sound of it. He smiles too, at the memory of her, most likely. “She was a kind woman who became like a frightful storm when her temper rose.” His eyes flash to me, and I wonder what he would say about me if ever asked: that I was often clumsy in the kitchen, asked dumb questions that any sturdy woman in his time ought to know, and generally had no idea how to behave around a herd of sheep.
“Being away from him…” I say, my words a little muddied, a little loose. “I know I don’t want to lose him.”
Clay makes a sound from the back of his throat, lifts an eyebrow.
“What?” I press.
“It’s easy to love someone from afar. It’s the loving them when they’re right in front of ye that’s hard. The everyday. The harshnessof life. If ye can still love him during all that, then ye know what you have will last.”
We stare at each other and a lump gathers in my throat, a fist in my chest. Or maybe it’s the weight of his eyes. The burden of his words.
Not because they hurt, but because I know they’re true.
I’m afraid, terrified, that what James and I have… won’t last.
What if the hope I’ve felt is just a story I’ve told myself? A fiction about how things will be different once I get back home. What if the story starts to slip through my fingers, and I no longer know what to believe, what to trust?
“Do you think I’ll ever get off this island?” I ask softly, before taking another drink.
“If yer lucky, this storm’ll blow us south, an’ we’ll run aground on one of those soft, sandy beaches with the sagging palms.”
I breathe, then take another sip.
“A year past, I blew ashore onto an island. A couple lads fishing on the beach said it was called Guadeloupe. Picked some fruit from the trees, before the tide took me back out.”
“The Caribbean.” I grin, sinking back into the chair, the glass against my lips. “I could use a piña colada right now. The scent of coconut sunscreen, and a trashy book.”
He lifts an eyebrow at me.
“If only this were a cruise ship.” I finish the last of my drink, and the alcohol swims inside me now, making my cheeks flush, heat roaring through me, and I shrug off the oversized sweater, letting it drape across the chair so I’m wearing only the white cotton camisole I’ve been sleeping in each night—another item that belonged to his wife. The clothes he lets me wear. His eyes seem to fall to my shoulders, my throat, my skin exposed in the candlelight. I push myself up from the chair, needing to move my limbs, feeling too trapped by the chair. Too trapped by all our words and what-ifs. “I wish you had a record…” My thoughts get stuck on my tongue. “A record player.” I crave the steady,soothing sound of music. I miss Netflix and podcasts and the drone of voices that are not mine or Clay’s. I long for a distraction, for the endless dark hole of the internet, for anything other than the monotony of these days that seem to go on without end. I hadn’t realized it until now—I had been so caught up in the chores of each repeating day—but now I see how on edge I’ve been. How much I’ve missed the real world.
I wobble into the living room. I close my eyes and twirl in a circle, imagining a radio playing the week’s top hits. I let myself sway a little, and when I open my eyes, Clay is standing in the kitchen doorway, watching me with a tiny, careful smile. And a thought fills my mind: James has never looked at me like that. With a faraway question in his eyes. Like I am something he needs to unravel.
And truthfully, my heart has never raced when his eyes fell on my flesh.
I steady myself, exhaling. “What?” I ask. “You’ve never seen a drunk girl dance?”
He smiles wider and shakes his head.
“It happens all the time in my world. Spring break, New Year’s Eve, twenty-first birthday parties.”
“Aye, I’ve seen a drunk lass dance before,” he clarifies. “I’ve just never seen you drunk before.”
I laugh, turn in a circle, then, without bidding, my legs carry me toward Clay, my arms reaching out. I pull him all the way into the living room, where I fold my arms around his shoulders, like I’m leading him onto a dance floor without music or lights or another living soul.
“Ellie—” he starts to say.
“Can you hear it?” I cut him off. “The scratch of the record player, the music echoing through the speakers like wind through a screen door.” I smile, eyelids fluttering, losing myself in the imagined moment, resting my head against his shoulder. Reluctantly he places his hands around my waist, softly, careful, like I might break, and we move in time with the silent music, listening to the storm beat against the house.
The motion of our steps soothes me, calms the alcohol in my bloodstream, and I feel his hands against the small of my back, pulling me a little closer. When was the last time he touched a woman like this? Too long. Years. He touches me now like he’s holding me up, keeping me from falling. A man who is calloused by the sea, but softened by it too. Unshakable. Both steel and linen. And when I lift my head, his gaze flicks to me, watching me like he’s caught somewhere in the past and the present.
I pull myself back, my head spinning, being so close to this man who smells of salt and clover and afternoon sun on skin, whose hands feel so good against me that it frightens me.
