Page 78 of Her Favorite Fumble
He chuckled and watched her pick her way back over the rocks to the main path. Then he packed away the thermos and empty tumblers and rewrapped the cushion and blankets. By the time he had it all back in the truck, Lucy was walking back toward him, though she kept stopping to take pictures with her phone.
Even though the wind was fairly wicked on the summit, they explored for a few minutes. Lucy wanted to take a selfie of them with the view spanning behind them, and Nick laughed. “Another first.”
“You’ve never taken a selfie?”
“Nope. I take pictures. Others have taken pictures of me, but I’ve never taken one of myself with my phone. Why would I?”
“I’ll show you why.”
And Nick patiently suffered through Lucy’s process of taking the perfect selfie. First there was finding just the right backdrop. The right angles. Then waiting for a family to wander out of her shot. Then making him lean into her—which he didn’t mind—and framing it just the way she wanted.
Then she realized she looked like a gnome with the hood of her sweater up and pushed it down. With her hair in the wind becoming part of the process, he wasn’t sure if they’d still be there, deleting bad selfies until the sun went down again.
But then she got one and handed him her phone to see it. When he looked at the screen and saw them laughing together, her hair blowing across their faces with the mountain behind them and the ocean beyond that, he understood the selfie thing.
“Send me that,” he told her, and she grinned.
By the time that was over, she had to pee again, but once they were in his truck, she dug through her bag until she found a stronger hair tie. “What now?”
“You got anywhere to be today?”
She shook her head, so he smiled and backed out of the parking space. He didn’t have anywhere to be, either, so they might as well see the rest of the park. Of course, once they reached the bottom of the summit road, they were back with all of the tourists who hadn’t gotten a reservation. Even though it was midweek, the weather was gorgeous, so he pulled into the slow-moving traffic.
They hit all of the tourist hot spots, and Lucy had to dig out her phone charger because she took so many photos with her phone.
“I can’t believe you’ve never come here,” she said after they’d stopped at a little picnic spot where she could explore the rocks and find shells.
He hoped she found all the treasures she’d hidden in his truck, or it was going to smell pretty bad after a few hot days.
He shrugged, letting a car pull out in front of him even though the car behind him was clearly impatient. “I think when you’re from a place, you don’t do all the tourist stuff.”
“Well, you should have. It’s the most gorgeous place I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m glad I didn’t,” he said, taking her hand and clasping their fingers over the center console. “Because I got to do it with you.”
She gave him a warm smile before being distracted by a huge sailboat out in the far distance. “It must be pretty in the fall, too.”
“Probably fewer people,” he grumbled as they crept down the road, but she just laughed and kept watching for the next thing that would take her breath away.
Nick didn’t mind sitting in traffic because Lucy was beside him. And nothing could get to him right now, because he was having the greatest day of his life.
Chapter Twenty
Why can’t we put little seasonal outfits on Cricket’s statue like Boston does for the ducklings? He could be wearing a little Red Sox hat right now!
First comment: Go Yankees!
Admin: Stop messaging me. I can’t ban a member of the group for having terrible taste in sports teams.
—Wayward Harbor Online Community
“Ishould just get in my car and go,” Lucy said, though her words were muffled because her forehead was resting on the kitchen table.
Next to her head was the phone still open to the screenshot of a social media post Taylor had sent to her with an accompanying message of eleven exclamation points.
Hey, Fairee lovers! Did you hear that Faith Lincoln and Reese Noonan are back together and ready to talk? Everybody will be watching, but my friends and I are on our way to a little seaside town in Maine for a little vacation. That’s right! We’re going to “run into” the other woman and convince her to serve up some tea! More soon!
“You don’t need to leave until you’re good and ready to go,” Gran told her, and she actually sounded a little amused, though Lucy didn’t lift her head to see if she was smiling.
