Page 44 of Beachfront Pages

"I came here for a book."

"You came here for the company. You've been coming for the company for weeks." He said it gently. "I'm not complaining."

She laughed, almost. Another tear dropped. She pressed the back of her wrist hard against her face.

Marty reached under the counter. He came up with a box of tissues, the cheap kind, half-crushed, the box he probably kept down there for dusty book sneezes. He set it next to her elbow. "There."

Fiona pulled a tissue out and dried her eyes. The tears kept coming and she grabbed another tissue. He stood there patiently, not staring, just being there for her.

"Okay," she finally said.

"Okay." He nodded.

"I'm not going to do that again."

"You might. I'll keep the tissues handy."

"You're not going to ask me about it?"

"Not unless you want me to." He leaned a hip against the counter. "People asked me a lot of questions, that first year. Kind ones. Every single one made it worse. So no. I'm not going to ask you anything."

She turned the cup in her hands and looked at him, grateful that he was here. That he wasn't pushing or questioning. "Drake used to say I lived more in my head than in the room," she said. "He wasn't entirely wrong."

"Living in your head's not a crime. I built a whole shop out of mine." Marty shrugged and his lips curved into a small smile.

She looked at him, but didn't tell him the rest. She didn't say it was finalized, signed, done. She didn't say Drake had found someone present, someone who was there, the way he'd said she never was. She didn't tell him she'd been performing the word fine so long she'd half started to believe her own show.

That would keep. But the one truth was out now. She'd said it out loud. She felt brave, which was ridiculous, wasn't it? She felt like she could face reality now.

Their conversation drifted again. To simpler topics. Emily's show coming up at the gallery. The fact that Bryan had actually put a new item on the menu at the Sandpiper.

The rain thinned while they talked. By the time the worst of it had moved off down the coast, the street outside was shining with the first rays of sun breaking through.

"It's letting up," she said.

"It is." He didn't tell her to stay. He didn't tell her to go.

She stood. "Marty."

"Mm."

She wanted to thank him and couldn't think how to do it without making it a bigger thing than he'd let it be. So she just said, "Thank you for the tissues."

His laugh lines deepened. "Anytime, Fiona."

The rain had washed the porch clean by the time she got back to Sea Glass Cottage. Fiona had barely stepped inside and dropped her things when her phone lit up on the desk.

Rachel. She picked it up.

"Well," Rachel said. "On the second ring. That's progress."

She smiled. "I guess it is."

"Things going okay?" A nice, friendly lead-in to something.

"They are. Surprisingly so."

"Great. That's great. But…" A short pause and Fiona could picture Rachel trying hard to choose the right words. "I need an answer. There's no more time left. The publisher's asking again. I can't keep telling them soon. And I need something to give them, Fiona."