Page 108 of Oh, Puck!
I snatch the poster from him and slap it against the next post. "That's it? No follow-up? No elaboration? I've gotten longer responses from Biscuit."
"What can I say?" he rolls his shoulders and smirks into the wind. "Biscuit's a better communicator than me. I thought we'd established this."
"Declan."
He exhales, long and slow, and when I glance up at him, some of the grump has drained out of his face. What's left underneath is the thing I've learned to recognize as the tired, careful look of a man carrying more than he'll admit.
"I'm not sure yet," he says quietly. "That's the honest answer."
"Okay."
He drags a hand through his hair, pushing that stubborn front piece back into place.
"There's all this shit going on with my mom," he says. "The divorce, the missed calls, Zoey and me trying to hold the whole thing together because apparently that's still our job, twenty years later. Beck still doesn't know the truth, but I'm not sure what Zoey's told Mason. And I don't—" He shakes his head and pauses, buying some time to think. "I don't want to add another headline to your week. You've got enough riding on this. I don't think we need to rush anything."
I nod slowly, even though something in my chest deflates at the wordrush.
"You've got something amazing going on here, Josie. The party, the game. I don't want to be the thing that blows it up. Not when you're counting on it, too."
And damn him, because that's actually sweet, and I came into this conversation prepared for classic withdrawal, not tenderness.
"Have you answered your dad's calls yet?" I ask.
He gives me a blank stare. "Have you called your mom?"
We stare at each other over the stack of posters.
Neither of us answers, because neither of us has to. The silence does it for us.
"We're really good at this," I say finally, grinning.
"Oh, world class."
"They should study us."
"They should put us on one of your posters." He gestures at the lamppost. "The Beachside Bears: Emotionally Unavailable Since Day One."
A laugh bursts out of me, and just like that, the tension between us breaks.
Declan grins down at me and bumps my shoulder with his. Which, given the size difference, nearly sends me into a trash can, but we somehow keep walking, stapling posters to every surface that'll hold one.
We move from the lamp posts to a shop window beside a community board that we cover from top to bottom too. The candy shop owner comes out and asks for two extras to put by the register, and as we hand them to him, a pack of teenagers stops to take photos of one.
I hear one of them say"dude, free carousel rides"with genuine excitement.
When they roll away on their skateboards, Declan looks at me and winks.
It's working. I can feel it, the buzz building all around town like the moment before a storm.
Maybe Declan is right? Maybe it is better to wait?
"Alright. A few more at the entrance to the pier, and it must be my shout for coffee at Goldie's," I say, smiling.
"About damn time," Declan grunts.
We're maybe fifty feet from the pier entrance when a guy with a camera strung around his neck peels off from the railing and beelines straight for us.
"Hey! Sorry—hey! You're Declan Morrison, right?"
