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I finished my jog and headed back to the room to shower and clean up. Pearl was on her bed with her little reading glasses and paperback when I came out of the shower. I grinned at her. “What is that book, anyway?” I asked.
She lifted the cover for me to see. It featured some macho looking guy glaring out at me. “It’s a romance novel. This one is about a Duke and Duchess. I love that kind of stuff.”
“The woman who swears off men, but loves reading romance books,” I mused. “Odd combination, don’t you think?”
She gave me a sour look. “Just because I don’t want to put myself out there again, it doesn’t mean it’s not fun to read about other people doing it. I watched a rock climbing documentary once about a guy who climbs without ropes. It was exciting, but I would never do it.”
“Fair points. I concede.”
She smirked. “I like that you can admit you’re wrong. Eric never did.”
She hardly ever talked about him, so I felt my interest perk up. “Yeah? Well, I’m definitely wrong at times.” For some reason, my dumb brain decided to remind me how I had handled the last few days with Pearl. I’d had several chances to take this fragile thing between us to the next phase and I’d continually passed them up. Why? Because I thought I knew what was best. Maybe I’d been wrong, but I was continuing to double down on that decision, even if it felt wrong in my chest.
“Admitting that makes you more of a man,” she said, smiling as she got up and out from under the blankets. She had on a casual outfit of a jean jacket over a dress with leggings beneath. She stepped into a pair of fuzzy boots and spread her arms when she noticed me looking at her. “Do I look okay?” she asked.
“Always,” I said.
A little red crept into her cheeks. She gave a shy smile and did a tiny little curtsey. “Why, thank you.”
I disappeared to shower and clean up, got dressed, and found Pearl back with her novel and her reading glasses again.
I gestured toward the door. “Shall we?” I asked. “We’ve got a bonfire to catch. And I’ve got to meet your family.”
Pearl took a deep breath. “Don’t remind me.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll do most of the talking, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “And, um, Dean? If they ask you any kind of weird questions about yourself or our relationship, maybe let me answer? I’ve kind of spun a few stories here and there, so it’d be safer if you let me answer, since you won’t know what you’re walking into.”
“Just like the work dinners with the Pollards in Asheville. No problem.”
By the time we left the little Ashford Inn and walked down mainstreet, the sun had already set behind the mountains. There wasn’t much in the way of light pollution all the way out in Fairhope, so the stars were bright and silver. They reminded me how much I was missing when I looked up at night in Manhattan. Actually, I wasn’t sure I ever really looked up in the city. Everything moved too fast for me to stop and look around, and even if I did look up, what would I see? A foggy haze of polluted air? Go long enough without a reason to look up at the stars and you’ll forget they’re even shining. It made me wonder what else I was missing because of my life in Manhattan.
I let myself slow down and take it in while we walked. I had a beautiful girl strolling beside me and a night of socializing ahead of me. There was fresh air, miles of sky and rolling hills all around, and the faint smell of woodsmoke drifting to us. Once we’d walked a few minutes, I could hear the growing din of laughter and conversation coming from the town center where the bonfire was roaring.
We came upon a scene of maybe a hundred people all moving around a large, open town center surrounded by shops and businesses. A few still had their lights on, including a bakery with a long table set up in front. As far as I could tell, the baked goods set out were free, along with the drinks people were helping themselves to. Kids were playing by a little foot bridge that went across the stream running through the center of town. The adults were mostly sitting or standing near the fire, their faces lit by intermittent flashes of orange light. The sound of running river water and the occasional pop from the logs in the fire punctuated it all.
“This is amazing,” Pearl said. I don’t know if she realized it, but she’d taken my hand in hers again. Or maybe she was just taking my advice from earlier and trying to look more natural.
