Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor (Friday Harbor #1)(21)

Before the waitress left, Mark had asked if he could borrow a pen, and she had given him a ballpoint.

Maggie watched, brows lifting slightly, as Mark wrote something on a paper napkin and handed it to her.

How was your weekend?

A smile crossed her face. “We don’t really have to follow the no-talking rule,” she told him. Setting the napkin down, she stared at him while her smile faded. A short sigh escaped her, as if she’d just finished a sprint. “The answer is, I don’t know.” Making a little face, she gestured with palms turned upward, as if to indicate that the issue was hopelessly complicated. “What about yours?”

“I don’t know, either.”

The waitress arrived with the drinks, and jotted down their lunch orders. After she left, Maggie took a sip of the whiskey sour.

“You like it?” Mark asked.

She nodded at once and licked the salty tang from her lower lip, a delicate flick of her tongue that made Mark’s pulse jump in several places at once. “Tell me about your weekend,” he said.

“Saturday was the second anniversary of my husband’s death.” Maggie’s dark gaze met his over the rim of the glass. “I didn’t want to be alone. I thought about visiting his parents, but…he was the only thing we had in common, so…I went to stay with my family. I was surrounded by about a thousand people all weekend, and I was lonely. Which makes no sense.”

“No,” Mark said quietly, “I understand.”

“The second anniversary was different from the first. The first one…” Maggie shook her head and made a little gesture with her hands, a sort of sweeping-away motion. “The second one…it made me realize there are days when I forget to think about him. And that makes me feel guilty.”

“What would he say about that?”

Hesitating, Maggie smiled into her whiskey sour. And for a moment Mark experienced an appalling stab of jealousy over the man who could still elicit a smile from Maggie. “Eddie would tell me not to feel guilty,” she said. “He would try to make me laugh.”

“What was he like?”

She drank again before answering. “He was an optimist. He could tell you the bright side of just about anything. Even cancer.”

“I’m a pessimist,” Mark said. “With occasional positive lapses.”

Maggie’s smile slid into a grin. “I like pessimists. They’re always the ones who bring life jackets for the boat.” She closed her eyes. “Oh. I’m getting a buzz already.”

“That’s okay. I’ll make sure you get back to the ferry.”

Her hand had crept across the table. She let the backs of her half-curled fingers touch his, a tentative gesture that Mark didn’t know how to interpret. “I talked to my dad this weekend,” she said. “He’s never been the kind of parent who told me what to do; in fact, I probably could have done with a little more parental supervision while I was growing up. But he told me that I should go on a date with someone. A date. They don’t even call it that anymore.”

“What do they call it?”

“Going out, I guess. What do you say to Shelby when you want to spend the weekend with her?”

“I ask if I can spend the weekend with her.” Mark turned his hand upward, opening his palm. “So are you going to take your dad’s advice?”

She nodded reluctantly. “But I’ve always hated the whole process,” she said feelingly, staring into her drink. “Meeting new people, the awkwardness, the despair of being stuck with someone for an entire evening when you know within the first five minutes that he’s a dud. I wish it was like Chatroulette, and you could ‘next’ someone right away. The worst part is when you both run out of things to talk about.” Without realizing it, Maggie had started to play with his hand, absently investigating the crooks of his fingers. He felt the pleasure of her touch all along his arm, responsive chords resonating along nerve pathways.

“I can’t picture you running out of things to talk about,” Mark said.

“Oh, it happens. Especially when the person I’m talking with is too nice. A good conversation always involves a certain amount of complaining. I like to bond over mutual hatreds and petty grievances.”

“What’s your top petty grievance?”

“Calling customer service and never getting to talk to a person.”

“I hate it when waiters try to memorize your order instead of writing it down. Because they hardly ever get everything right. And even if they do, it causes me a lot of stress until the food gets to the table.”

“I hate it when people shout into their cell phones.”

“I hate the phrase ‘No pun intended.’ It’s pointless.”

“I say that sometimes.”

“Well, don’t. It annoys the hell out of me.”

Maggie grinned. Then, seeming to realize that she was toying with his hand, she flushed and pulled back. “Is Shelby nice?”

“Yes. But I tolerate it.” Mark reached for his whiskey and finished it with an efficient swallow. “My theory about meeting people,” he said, “is that it’s better not to make a really good first impression. Because it’s all downhill from there. You’re always having to live up to that first impression, which was just an illusion.”