Georgie, All Along (49)

“With the house all to yourself?”

I say it in a joking way, but when he looks at me, it doesn’t feel like a joke. It feels like he’s answering me, like he’s saying, Because it was all to myself. Obviously, I’m not trying to get caught misreading this man’s face again, but it’s hard not to. It’s hard not to notice the way he looks at my mouth again before his gaze travels back up to my eyes.

If I had the Sharpie, I know what I’d write now. No hesitation.

“Georgie,” he says, and this time, I don’t think it’s pity. It sounds like heat and want, like a delicious shudder up my spine.

He’s leaned so close to me.

I’m the barest inch from him before I remember it—before I remember that the reason I didn’t go home last night wasn’t only my embarrassment over kissing him. It was something else, too, and all of a sudden I’m cold and wet and messy again, and I speak before I can think better of it.

“Your father offered me a job.”

*

AT FIRST, I THINK seriously about diving back into the river. It’s the better alternative to the look on Levi’s face, which transforms from hot to cold in a split second. Back in LA, I used to lament the hipster trend of facial hair on local guys, hating the way it seemed to obscure their expressions. But with Levi, there’s no such problem. His beard communicates.

Right now, it is communicating that I have, in fact, betrayed him.

“It’s part of why I didn’t come home last night,” I say, which, ugh. I’ve always had this penchant for disclosure when I’m pressed. Probably every detention or bad grade I had in school was the result of this sort of thing. That’s my note, Mr. Zerelli. I honestly forgot all about the project, Ms. Harrison. Yes, I did cut holes in my gym uniform, Coach Wymouth, but in fairness it is because I don’t want to do gym today, or ever.

But I’m in it now, and Levi’s beard is maybe saying, You’re dead to me.

“I mean, that and the kiss!” I add, fully rambling. “Which I needed some distance from, obviously. Not as much as you, I’m sure! But the thing with the job, I knew it might make you uncomfortable, and I already felt guilty because I hadn’t even told you that I ran in to your brother and sister . . .”

Something in Levi’s eyes shifts, and the beard gets less angry looking.

“At the antiques place?” I continue, holes in my gym uniform everywhere. “They were looking for stuff for the—”

He clears his throat. He doesn’t want to hear about what they were looking for.

“Anyway, they’re having staffing issues in the restaurant at The Shoreline, especially with servers, and, you know, I used to be a waitress, so . . .”

I trail off, because wow, it is quiet out here. It’s just me and Levi and this awful, transformed tension, and Hank’s panting, and I have no idea how to finish my sentence. So I said yes, because as it turns out your family’s inn was part of that notebook project I told you about? I said yes because it was your brother who asked me first, and he’s all over that notebook, too? I said yes because I’m a mess, always a mess, and I still don’t know what I’m doing here?

Finally, he breaks the silence and, honestly, breaks my heart a little while he’s at it.

“They doing all right?” I almost don’t hear him. His voice is like the river—barely a ripple. “My brother and sister?”

I look at him for a long time. He seems braced against whatever answer I’m about to give him.

“They seem fine.” It’s the most neutral answer I can think of. I don’t want to say all the things that pinged around in my head about their closeness. I don’t want to say that they’re roommates who watch movies together. I don’t want to say, Did you know your brother’s been through a divorce? or Did you know your sister runs the day spa? What if I said any of those things and ended up breaking Levi’s heart a little, too?

He doesn’t do anything other than nod. Hank stands from his spot next to me and takes a few unsteady steps before settling in a lopsided sit between Levi’s spread legs. Levi drops a hand and strokes absently at Hank’s good ear, and goodness. Maybe it’s a brain amoeba, but I think I might cry. It’s such a familiar, automatic gesture between this man and his dog. Sweetly codependent.

“I don’t have to do it. The job.”

As soon as I say it, I’m annoyed with myself. Why should it matter how Levi feels about me taking a waitressing job? I’m one for three on my fic efforts after today’s bungled outing; I’d be ridiculous to give up the only thing that has a semblance of working out so far.

“You should do it,” he says, before I can take back my offer. “If you want, I mean. I’m sure it’s a good gig.”

Obviously, I don’t need his permission, but I don’t think he meant it that way. I think he meant it the same way he meant what he said the other night, that I should keep going with it. We lapse into strained silence again. The chill from the river is down to my bones now, and I know I smell like the stagnant Buzzard’s Neck water. It’s probably a good thing I blurted my confession to him at a critical moment; now he can have a reason other than my river stink for not kissing me.

“Georgie,” Levi says, that low ripple again, and I look toward him, hating the way the sound of it warms me automatically, hating the way it fills me up.