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“Oh, no. Just checking the time...” I swiped the screen. “Still early.”
I saw a notification pop up from Gerda. Just a simple ice cream emoji and a smiley. I bit back my own smile. I’d reply to her later.
“What do you want to do?”
Push Tour Guide Barbie into the water? Although her implants were probably a floatation device.
“I’m good.”
“I mean for dinner.”
Honestly, food was the last thing on my mind.
“I don’t really wanna do the restaurant thing.” If I had to share Lucas all day tomorrow with her, I really wasn’t willing to do that again tonight. I had a feeling the way my luck was, she’d be right in front of us the moment we walked into a restaurant somewhere. I looked around the space. “Just pick something up on the way home. I’ve had too much of people for today.”
He nodded his agreement. “Okay. I thought we could have gone back to the Italian café…”
“Nice idea, but I’m just not in the mood right now.”
“The sandwich shop is close to where we parked. We can stop off there?”
“Great. Give me the car keys, and I’ll go there while you get the food.”
“You don’t want to find a bench and stretch out for a while? People-watch? See the tree?”
I shook my head quickly. “We have our own beach to sit and relax on…and our own tree…I’m drained.”
“Okay.” He fished the keys out of his pocket, and I watched for that piece of paper, which wasn’t there.
I held my hand out, and he set the keys in my palm.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Just maybe too much sun, heat...not used to this,” I lied. Or maybe it was a half truth. I certainly wasn’t used to these feelings...or admitting to them.
“Me, either.” He cracked a smile. “All right, let’s go.”
14
Lucas
I grabbed some combos from the sub shop, and we went home. Abbie was quiet, playing with her hair as I drove back. Maybe something from the food market wasn’t agreeing with her, or too much sun. Some of the food at the market had definitely been a little more out there than we were used to…iguana, for example. But I’d tried a bit of everything…
I knew she hadn’t been too excited when we hadn’t been able to get the same table during the workshop. But the woman beside her had seemed nice, a sweet little woman. I’d felt awful when her ice cream cone had gotten ruined when she’d tripped. She’d explained she’d just had hip surgery that summer and was getting used to walking without her cane. I’d bought her a large cone and made sure she was okay before I’d left.
Abbie and I headed into the house, and I turned the air conditioning on high, cooling down the interior even more. As the day seemed to get even hotter as the afternoon wore on, I started to wonder if we wouldn’t get our first storm of the trip if the heat kept up.
I put the food out on the kitchen counter while she pulled off her cross-body purse and set it on the counter, taking a seat across from me.
I glanced at the tree in the corner, still untouched. “Why don’t we do the tree tonight?”
She lifted her head up, a small smile playing on her face. “Really?”
She sounded excited. The tiredness that had been in her voice earlier had seemingly vanished with that one magic word—tree.
“Really. I know where the ornaments are.”
“I’m in. Let me grab a shower first, then we’ll do the tree.”
