Page 31 of Love Always

The moment he lets go, I’m almost breathless. It’s like when he grabbed my shoulders on the beach. Electric.

When Cory wanders too far ahead, Mateus uses his cell phone flashlight. Little crabs scurry in between the black, slick rocks and Cory spends a lot of time looking for them. When we get to what he calls the whale bones, he stops and orders Mateus to look at the fossils in the cement-like clay around the bedrock on the left-hand wall.

“It’s a whale,” says Cory, his brow furrowed.

I mouth “seal” as Mateus leans down to take a look.

“You think one day you’ll search for dinosaurs?”

Cory’s head snaps up. “I do that now,” he says, and returns his gaze to the narrow pattern of bones in a V shape.

“Nothing’s changed,” he suddenly announces and then springs up and starts walking towards the surf again.

“He’s sure busy.” Mateus smiles and slips the travel mug in a pocket.

“Always.”

As we come back out onto the beach, he trips slightly, and I instinctively throw an arm up to catch him and then hate myself when he sees what I’ve done. His face is set, not angry, but it is clear he doesn’t need my help and certainly not any sympathy.

“You don’t need to do that,” he says. Then he softens and there’s a hint of a grin. “It won’t just fall off.”

“Okay.”

“It’s just a leg.” He just keeps talking. “A fake leg, but it’s a part of me. I trip and get off balance like anyone else.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks. Oh, I have to change the subject, I am so embarrassed. “What’s Colleen mixed up in? I don’t know her well at all.”

“We’re not sure, but—”

“‘We’re?”

“Jackson is the one who ID’d her. She slipped one of those packages to a target—a kid with a drug problem.”

“Oh yeah. I heard Bryce and Jackson talking about him. A rich kid whose parents are keeping an eye on him.”

“If it were my kid, I’d tie him to a bed and not let him out of my sight for the next five years.”

If Mateus was irritated a few seconds ago he’s downright angry now. His voice is low and gravelly. He’s wounded and I don’t know why. On an impulse I reach for his hand. Instead of pulling away, he grips mine and puts it in his coat pocket. I hold my breath. We walk along, the waves curling, crashing, turning into white froth, lapping the shore and then receding. Cory runs ahead again, leaping, throwing bits of seaweed into the ocean, tossing his head back and laughing.

Mateus’s hand is warm and my hand feels so small in his. The way he took mine, so sweet and fervent even in a moment of anger, as if he needed me to steady him in a way that had nothing to do with balancing on two legs.

We walk like this for a couple of minutes and I say nothing. I am so happy right now I could almost weep. Thick, gray clouds roil from over the mountains and spread above the sea and I am walking with a kind man with my hand in his pocket and my son happy and content and safe just a few yards in front of me. I am determined to make this a memory. I close my eyes and feel the warmth of my hand in his.

As we near the end Mateus slips my hand out of his pocket. “Sorry,” he says. “My sister died of a drug overdose. We were living together at the time, both kids, and I found her.” He shakes his head. “Couldn’t save her.”

I don’t know what to say, but I don’t think he wants me to say anything.

He rubs his forehead. “The idea that someone would give someone else drugs, knowing they can kill … I don’t understand it.”

I want to kiss him right here in the sand. I want to lace my hands behind his neck lean my hips against his and tip my face to his, maybe slip a hand under that jacket have it snake up his belly to a nipple and stroke it. His mouth, both firm and soft, is perfect. His eyes, dark chocolate brown, are perfect. I just want him.

But I do none of these things.

“Promise me,” he says, staring at the sea, the breeze lifting a lick of black-brown hair and blowing it back from his forehead, “if that creepy professor texts you again, you’ll call me immediately. Day or night. He has no business doing that.”

I swallow and nod, afraid to speak, afraid he would find something in my voice that might lead him on. The last thing I want is to be a burden and I am a big package with lots of baggage.

“So, we’re good?” he says with a smile. I can tell he’s worried he’s coming across as bossy. The last thing you do is tell a mom what to do. But there’s something comforting, something lovely about being protected that I can’t quite put a word to—I’m not put off, if anything, I feel cherished. Is that the word?