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“Well.” He tilted his head. “I lasted about fifteen minutes with that rule last time. I figured I’d modify it.”
“Oh yeah? What’s the new rule?”
He laughed. “There isn’t one. I’ll play it by ear and probably have a hard time all night.”
“Sounds good to me.” His hands in my hair now, we started walking up a path of dusty wooden planks that led toward the shack and its dilapidated looking stairs. “So, care to tell me about this pick?”
“It’s a place I’ve been meaning to come back to, but I never found the right time.” He smiled. “Or company.”
I blushed. “I have to admit, this is my first time in Red Hook.”
“Really? Never even came to the IKEA here to furnish your apartment?”
“My apartment came furnished because it was my grandmother’s, so no. All I had to do was take the plastic off the couches.”
Daniel laughed, his blue eyes crinkling in a way that made him look too adorable for words. “There’s always method to grandparents’ madness.”
“Exactly.”
He gazed up at the front of the shack when we reached it. Hung between two awning windows was a faded red and white lifesaver, the words “since 1968” spray painted across it in blue. “My grandpa was actually the one who introduced me to this place.” Letting me up the shaky steps first, he walked right behind me, guiding me with an attentive hand on my lower back. “It was already a weird, rickety building when I first came here twenty years ago, so I didn’t have the highest expectations.”
“But he proved you wrong?”
“No, this place was pretty terrible when I first came here,” he laughed, making me break into a big, quizzical smile. “The management had just changed and business was on the decline. But my grandpa had been coming here for awhile and he was convinced that if we ate here often enough, he’d get friendly with the new management, and once he got friendly with the new management, they’d listen to his recommendation for a great new seafood distributor.” He laughed. “That distributor was his best friend who was in need of business. And he got it.”
I raised my eyebrows, genuinely impressed. “Your grandpa sounds like a good friend to have.”
“He was. Those two were more like family though. They grew up together in Red Hook.”
“Here? Really?”
Daniel nodded. “My dad grew up here too. He ended up the first of five generations of Coles to leave Red Hook.”
“Wow.” Genuinely surprised, my eyes fluttered as we were seated. I’d for some reason imagined the Coles originating straight out of Woodhill, possibly because I knew Daniel’s father had taught before at the high school. But that was obviously not the case at all. “So your origins are in Brooklyn. Didn’t know that.” I was charmed as I played with a seashell on our picnic table. It was the same as the ones that hung in nets from the ceiling above me.
Daniel watched me with a little smile. “I wouldn’t expect you to know something like that, I don’t talk about it much.”
“I figured the ladies of Woodhill had dug up every fact about you already.” And by “ladies of Woodhill,” I mostly meant “Kelsey.”
“Well. They didn’t dig up the important ones,” he laughed as our server poured our water. “Important to me, at least,” he said just as we were interrupted with a list of specials.
I let Daniel do the ordering since he knew the menu well enough not to have to lift it once. When he finished, I eyed him curiously. “This place means a lot to you,” I said, barely able to finish my sentence before breaking into a huge smile since his own couldn’t be contained. A sweet, adorable smile on a devastatingly handsome man was, I decided, the most breathtaking combination in the world.
“Yes, I came here every summer up until recently.” Scanning the deck, Daniel leaned forward, treating my eyes to the sight of his flexing shoulders. “My dad and grandfather were really close so growing up, I visited a lot. I’d stay for weeks over the summers. It was rough back then but everyone knew my grandfather, so if I was walking next to him, I was good. More than good.”
Enchanted, a grin spread my lips as our Mason jars of cider arrived. “What did your grandfather do?” I asked, taking a sip.
“He was a dockworker. Everyone else before him too.” I watched a dimple appear on his cheek as a corner of his lip curled up. His eyes drifted from me for a moment and with a thrill, I watched a memory sparkle in his eye. “He retired right around 1960. And right before he did, he found a book written about dockworkers in Red Hook, so he picked it up despite never having read a book in his life. He was just curious to see if the details were accurate.” Daniel rubbed his chin, a finger running across his smile. “It was a play, actually. A View From The Br
idge by Arthur Miller. He read it, loved it, made my dad read it when he was only about eleven or twelve. But he was good in school and my grandfather wanted my dad to analyze it for him so he could understand the story even better, kind of see if he’d missed any details since he never really prided himself on reading comprehension.” Daniel glanced at me and shook his head with a little laugh, as if brushing off his grandfather’s self doubt. “Anyway, fast forward fifteen years, A View From The Bridge is the first book on my dad’s syllabus for junior English at Woodhill.”
“And it was on your summer reading requirements for senior English,” I recalled.
Daniel nodded, shrugging one shoulder, wearing a smile and a hint of guilt on his lips. “Summer reading because it’s not one of my favorites from Arthur Miller, but I make everyone read it for my grandfather.”
I feigned shock. “You make students read books you don’t even like.”
“No, see, I love that book with all my heart,” he said with a grin. “I just don’t like it that much.”
