Page 223 of What We Bury

“You’re a man of many words tonight, Knox.”

“Got a few saved up. Waiting for the right moment.”

She smiles and picks up the menu. I already know what I’m getting. I’ve been here before, on surveillance or killing time between shifts at the club. The fish tacos are good. The lobster roll is better. But I’ve never sat across from someone while I ate here. Never wanted to.

We order. She gets the shrimp basket. I get the lobster roll. She steals one of my fries like it’s her God-given right, and I let her because it is.

“Can I ask you something?” she says, dragging the stolen fry through my tartar sauce.

“Mm.”

“How are you so calm right now? Knowing what’s happening tonight?”

“Because it’s handled,” I say, giving her my honest answer. “The plan is good. The team is good. They don’t need me to getit done. My job tonight is you. If I’m thinking about the gym, I’m not doing my job.”

“Kitten duty.”

“Fury duty,” I correct.

She grins. “Right. Fury.” She eats the fry and takes another. “Do you worry about them?”

“I trust them.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

She’s right. It’s not. “I trust them to do the job,” I say. “And I trust that if something goes wrong, they’ll handle it. Worrying doesn’t change the outcome. It just takes me out of this.” I gesture between us.

“Out of our date,” she says, testing the word.

“Yes.Ourdate.”

She reaches across the table and places her hand on mine. My hand is twice the size of hers. Her fingers barely reach my knuckles. She traces the ridges of my scarred knuckles, the thick veins across the back, the calluses on my palm.

“I like your hands,” she says.

“They’re too big.”

“That’s what I like about them.”

We eat. She tells me about her day—a customer who paid for a meal entirely in quarters, Danny’s ongoing crusade to get her to try his experimental chili recipe, the kid who came in with his mom and left his stuffed rabbit under the booth and Sage chased out the door to return it.

I listen. Her voice is a gift.

She finishes her shrimp and leans back, satisfied, if a little sleepy. The sun has dipped below the water line and the sky is going from gold to violet.

“Walk?” I ask.

“Walk.”

We leave the restaurant and take the boardwalk south, toward the quieter end where the shops give way to dunes and sea grass. She loops her arm through mine again, pressing close, and the warmth of her against my side is something I want to memorize.

“Knox?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for tonight. For taking me on a date. I didn’t know I needed it.”

“Why?”