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He nods. “Yeah.”
“In my hometown. At my house.”
“Yeah,” he says again and frowns. The beard is gone, and his hair is shorter and neat around the edges. He looks achingly familiar and also like a handsome stranger. “I can come back another time. Or never, if you’d prefer.”
“No, don’t leave.”
“Okay,” he says and smiles again.
Ziggy pads toward this strange new man, outside of a house he’s rarely at, and sniffs at Phillip’s loafer-clad feet. Slowly, his tail starts to wag.
“You have a dog?” Phillip bends down to pet him, running a big hand down Ziggy’s back.
“No,” I say.
The world feels off-kilter. Like it has permanently shifted beneath my feet, and I can’t find my footing.
I just stare at him.
Phillip chuckles. “Right. You stole this one, then?”
“No. It’s my best friend.”
“The dog?”
“No, sorry, I mean it’s my best friend’s dog. He’s staying the night with me because my friend’s in labor.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Damn.”
“Yeah. It’s a lot,” I say. “And your card just arrived. Your postcard, I mean. Just today.”
“Wow.” He runs a hand over his jaw, contemplating that. There’s something contained about him and cautious. It mirrors exactly what I feel.
“Did you get mine?” I ask. My mouth feels dry.
“Yeah, about three weeks ago.”
“Oh.”
“I liked it,” he says. “You told me you’d be my guide in Pinecrest… if I ever needed one.”
“Yeah. I did.” Then I shake my head, feeling absurd. Ziggy is sniffing at my rose bushes, my best friend is in labor, and here’s Phillip, standing right in front of me. “I’m confused.”
“By what?”
“You,” I say. “This. The postcard, you showing up here… all of it.”
His smile disappears. “I see. If you want me to go, I will. It’s no problem.”
“No, stay. It’s just, after we said goodbye in Barbados, I actually turned the cab around.”
His eyes widen. “You did?”
“Yeah. I went to your bungalow, and I was going to give you my number and tell you that I wanted to keep in touch. Somehow. But you were on the phone.”
His eyebrows have drawn together, and there’s a little furrow right between them, like he’s thinking back. “Yeah, that’s right.”
I take a deep breath. “Thing is, now I’m wondering if I was crazy. Because you’rehere.You’re at my front door, and you wrote all that nice stuff in your card—”
