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Chapter 4
BECK
I am hungrier for Delia's presence than I am for seafood, even the Floating Folly's delicious brown-butter trout.
She looks so beautiful in her casual dress that I'm amazed people don't simply fall to their feet as she passes by them. She glows. She shines. She holds my gaze like a magnet.
She's my girl. And I'm hers, straight up.
It's fun looking at the menu with her. She's intrigued by angels on horseback, whereas I've eaten them every time I've been to the Folly--the classic oysters wrapped in bacon and spritzed with lemon juice. "Ooh," she says, pursing those delicious lips, "let's get those."
I don't mention that oysters are considered an aphrodisiac. (As if I need one, with her across the table.)
We chat a little about our backgrounds until the angels arrive, and then I'm entranced by her reaction to them. Her eyes widen, her lips part, and I actually get hard in my pants watching her enjoy the oysters.
Yeah, that's pretty caveman too. But hey.
She asks what it was like growing up here, with my family, and I tell her how my parents are still crazy about each other. How both my brothers met their wives at school and got married as soon as they could, so now I'm uncle to five terrific kids between the ages of 10 and 2. I ask about her childhood, and she says she gets along great with her mom and sister. That she loves her two nieces and her nephew.
"What about your dad?" I ask, sensing something painful in the way she never mentions him.
She shrugs, looking down. "He and my mom broke up like four times when I was a kid, and they finally divorced when I was twelve. I know my dad loved Gillian and me, but he was always chasing an adrenaline rush. Grass was always greener in somebody else's yard, right? Mom was his second wife, and he left his first wife for her. Then he got married at least twice after Mom, and now he's single again." She shrugs again, shredding the roll on her bread plate. "He was an okay dad. He was just bad at being married."
"You're still in touch?"
She looks up at me. "Occasionally. All told, he has seven children with four different women, so I think Gill and me were just...I don't know, afterthoughts."
"That would hurt," I observe out loud. I can't imagine how I'd feel if my dad had ditched me for girl action on the side. Especially if I was a girl and identified with my mother.
"I think that was why I dated Thomas," she muses softly. "My former fiancé. It was because he was safe. I knew he wouldn't ditch me, or anybody, for something 'fresh.'" She looks into my eyes. "I finally realized I just couldn't face a safe marriage. I mean, I don't want an unsafe marriage like my mother's. I don't really want romance," she adds in a rush.
"No, I get it. You want to be all-in. You want security, but you want passion too."
"Yes," she says, not taking her eyes off mine. "Exactly."
I know she would have both with me. I just don't know if she thinks I'm passionate enough.
We're quiet while the waiter brings my brown-butter trout with smashed red potatoes and green beans amandine, and her crab cakes with Greek salad. I try to lighten the mood. "This is my favorite dish at the Folly. They don't always have fresh lake trout, but every time I'm here and it's on the menu, I get it. Want a bite?"
"It looks delicious," she says, and the color has come back to her face. "Here, let's trade bites." She cuts a bite of her crab cake, then puts it on my plate. I cut her a bite of trout, making sure there are no bones in it, and then hold the fork for her. Her eyes meet mine over the utensil, while I watch her eat what I gave her.
It is, hands down, the sexiest moment I've ever had in a restaurant, and that includes the time that my high school girlfriend put her hand on my crotch under the table on prom night. I'm stiff and aching now.
We finish our meals, trading bites occasionally, and I swear all the blood has left my head to migrate south. I can barely manage to pay attention to what she's telling me about her novelist career, which impresses the hell out of me and intimidates me at the same time.
"It's a living," she says. "I'm never going to make the big bucks like, say, James Patterson or Nora Roberts, but that's okay. It's decent."
"And you could do it anywhere," I point out, because I'm having ideas. Ideas about getting Delia to move here.
She makes an equivocal face. "Maybe. There's a lot of buzz in the literature world that goes on in New York, for example, but that's within a couple hours of travel from Philly. It's not like living here in the literal boonies."
I laugh. "We just had a big project go through and extend broadband to 85% of our households. It was a combination of big and local government funds with some businesses chipping in, and unless you live way up on the ridge, good wifi is available to most people here."
"Really," she says, looking intrigued.
"Really." I'm ready to entice her further with how great this little corner of the North Carolina mountains is, but she changes the subject. "I don't suppose you've ever had any sexy clients proposition you, have you?"
My face flames hot. "Once. I was nineteen, still working for another company...and if you ever mention this to anybody, I'll have to track you down and silence you one way or another."
