Page 53 of Mourner for Hire

FORTY-THREE

DOMINIC

“Finally taking her out,” Eli declares while his wife rifles through my closet to find me something decent to wear tonight.

I glare at him while Joelle examines my button-up.

“Blue is not your color.” She shakes her head. “How on earth are you going to make it as a doctor if you look terrible in blue?”

“He does not,” Eli says, though he isn’t really paying attention, just mindlessly scrolling on his phone from the sofa in the corner of the apartment.

“I don’t know why you’re acting so nervous. You already slept with her,” he bites in.

Joelle holds an offended hand to her chest. “Just because you sleep with someone doesn’t mean you can’t make a good impression. Honestly, you should take notes, honey. Effort is a requirement of every relationship.” She tosses a green shirt at me. “Try this.”

Eli’s gaze catches the stack of mail on the end table. “What’s this?”

I withhold a breath. “Something I’m not ready for.”

“No, this,” he says, holding out another manila envelope. My name is written in black ink, but seeing as there’s no address, it must have been dropped off directly. Chelsey probably was the recipient.

Curious, I tear it open and find another smaller manila envelope inside with a letter paperclipped to the outside.

When the cottage is done, open this.

And trust me, honey. Please.

Mom

The tide of a thousand oceans roars in my ears.

I drop it like a bomb back on the coffee table. “Well, that’s something else I’m not ready for.”

Eli studies the envelope and starts laughing. Not in a this is funny way, but in a I can’t believe your mom kind of way.

“What is it?” Joelle moves closer and reads the letter, tears immediately filling her lash line. “God, I miss her.”

“Yeah, me, too.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “But the cottage isn’t ready, so I’m not ready to open that either.”

“What about the other envelope?”

“One thing at a time.” I pull down the green shirt and hold out my hands. “How do I look?”

Joelle grimaces. “Just wear a black shirt, I think.”

Vada’s face brightens as she looks out at the parking lot of surreys next to the boardwalk, each one adorned with a striped canopy, some yellow and white, others blue and white, all shading candy red surreys.

Her smile is the perfect distraction from the letters sitting in my apartment.

“Better than horses?” I ask, and she squeezes my arm.

“Easy, tiger. Nothing quite beats riding horses, but I’ve wanted to ride one of these since I arrived here.”

“Really? Why haven’t you? ”

“They only have two or four seaters, and I don’t have very many friends… thanks to you.”

Her remark is sly as I slide my driver’s license over to the teenager working the rental station. He slips it in a drawer, and we sign the liability waivers.

“All right, have you ridden one of these before?” he asks.

“No,” I answer, just as Vada says, “Yes.”

She jerks her attention toward me. “You haven’t? Why not? It’s only a quick walk from the beach cottage or a two-minute drive from the bar.”

I shrug. “I haven’t had someone to do it with, I guess.”

She eyes me curiously.

“I mean, I asked Eli, and he told me no because he was riding with his wife and she’s not into throuples.”

She laughs—I could get lost in the sound.

“Anyway…” the teenager cuts in. “Here’s your brake.

It just pulls up. Unlatch it and pull it down to release it.

Um…” He scratches the back of his sunburned neck while his gaze scans the surrey to determine what else he needs to tell us.

“Oh, only this side steers, so you just have to decide who’s driving. ”

Vada looks at me, smiling.

“You drive,” I say.

“Really?” she asks rather enthusiastically, and it makes me wonder what assholes she’s dated before to make this a surprise.

“Really. Fuck the patriarchy, Vada.”

A light breath of a laugh falls out of her.

I wonder how I let my own grief and hatred turn her into something else.

I also regret wasting time hating her. Or at least trying to.

Vada is a gem. Vada is a dream. Vada is sunshine in the dead of winter.

A light breeze when the humidity is suffocating. A spark in the middle of darkness.

I wish I allowed myself to see it sooner. Or rather, I wish I allowed myself to admit I saw it a year ago sooner.

“Be careful with your dress,” the teenager says as we take our places on the bike seats. We both glance down at the fabric of the hem of the yellow dress brushes the chains of the surrey. “I’d hate to cut you out of this.”

She lets out an uncomfortable laugh.

“You can just hike it up a bit.”

Her eyes dart in my direction, and it would seem there’s something she wants to say but doesn’t know how.

“Here. Let me help.” I hop off my seat and walk around the front of the surrey.

“All right. Have fun. Don’t crash!” the teenager hollers and walks away.

I kneel before her, taking hold of the fabric in my hands to tie it up and make it a few inches shorter to solve the problem. Her knees clench together.

“Be careful,” she whispers.

“It won’t ruin your dress,” I reason, wadding the fabric.

“I’m not wearing—I mean, I am. But they’re just—” She clears her throat, and my eyes turn up to her.

Oh. I grin, and heat rushes through me.

“All it would take is a gust of wind for me to flash the Robinsons over there having a picnic on the rocks, you know?”

She offers a shy smile and scrunches her nose—she is worried she’s toeing the line of being flirtatious and inappropriate.

“I just wanted to be honest. I already have a bad reputation.”

“Right,” I say, gently wrapping the fabric around my wrist and knotting the hem just above her knee. I can’t help but notice my fingertips tremble, and the way the pink returns to her cheeks lets me know she noticed, too. I rub my thumb over her knee as I stand. “Then drive carefully.”

A small laugh escapes her as I move around to my side of the surrey and take my seat. “Buckle up, Dominic.”

Vada in no way wanted to cruise along the boardwalk slowly. She’s peddling so fast, it’s to the point my own feet are just along for the ride on my peddles. The salty breeze whips through her hair, and a smile illuminates her face.

“Easy there, tiger. You don’t want to run anyone over,” I tease .

She smirks at me and rings the bell. The joggers and walkers turn their heads to see us flying down like a runaway train.

I’m not sure I’ve ever used jubilant in a sentence but that is the only way to describe her laughter.

And her smile is straight up jolly. She radiates the joy of Santa Claus after he swooped out of the last chimney on Christmas morning.

The surrey rattles, and laughter bubbles out of me—yes, bubbles. I don’t think I’ve experienced this kind of elation, and I don’t think there is any other way to describe it. Bubbly. Giddy. Fluttery. She makes my chest hurt so good.

“Move, peasants!” she yells, laughter encasing her battle cries.

We’re flying down the boardwalk. We’re laughing until we’re red-faced. It’s a slap-stick silly feeling that I haven’t felt since I was young and the world made sense because everyone I loved was still alive.

And then, the surrey hiccups, and the pedals tighten. I glance behind us, certain we hit a rock or stick or a…

“Oh, shit,” I say, staring at the yellow fabric of her dress in the middle of the boardwalk.

I turn back to Vada. Her cheeks are flushed, and her bright green eyes are wide with surprise—no hints of embarrassment, just complete shock.

“Everything is fine!”

Without thinking, I tear off my shirt, buttons scattering along the ground and tumbling down the sandy boardwalk.

I throw the shirt at her, and it lands on her face as I jump off the surrey.

Only my foot is stuck on the pedal, making me trip and somersault to the ripped skirt.

It isn’t until the soft fabric is in my hands that I realize Vada is laughing.

I step to her, huffing and puffing, holding out the skirt as an offering.

“What are you doing?” she practically cries or laughs. Sometimes, there’s a very fine line between the two actions.

I take in the reality of the situation. The bottom half of her dress is torn off, and the remaining skirt is split up to her hip bone—not entirely inappropriate, but also, maybe more leg than she’d like to show.

My pants are sandy, and my shoulder is scraped from somersaulting down the boardwalk.

My knuckle is also bleeding. I fist the fabric tighter and hold it up before her on bended knee.

“I’m defending your honor!” I say in my best regency impression, and she tosses her head back and laughs again.

She doesn’t take the fabric so I stand and whip it out in front of me like it’s a fitted sheet I’m about to attempt to fold. She wipes the tears from under her eyes.

“That was quite the tuck-and-roll.”

“Are you impressed?”

“Yes. I think you gave me whiplash with that reaction.”

“Well…” I begin, but I’m unsure of how far to take this. “I thought you might be embarrassed, naked on the boardwalk, and wouldn’t want to make a scene?—”

“Oh, heaven forbid.”

Her mischievous smile makes me step closer and drape the remains of her skirt on her.

“I panicked,” I say, bracing the back of her seat and the front of the surrey.

“You panicked,” she agrees, looking up at me with her pretty eyes practically glowing in the evening sun.

Then it returns. That shy, unsure demeanor I’ve only ever seen in glimpses.

It’s subtle. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear and runs her teeth along her bottom lip.

It’s strange how it happens. Vada is a bull and a dove, a thunderstorm and a summer day.

She is all things at once, and I can’t help but be drawn to her.

I lower my face down to hers, our lips barely grazing and the scent of her perfume pulling me deeper under her spell. My hand cradles her face, and my fingers dip into her brown hair. “I’m going to kiss you.”