Page 63 of The Offer

“What kind of foil pack dinners did he make?”

“Clam bakes, with corn and sausage and potatoes and lemon. We always made them when we got back from our days clamming.”

“You used to go clamming? Jessica, that’s so cool.”

Jess gripped her knees tightly. “Yeah, we would go every summer. Sometimes multiple times. Just me and Dad…Dakota hated how messy and muddy it would get. But I always loved those mornings with him. We’d get up early and eat donuts on the beach and wait for the tide to get super low, then we would dig for a couple hours. We would come home reeking with buckets and buckets of clams. Mom always complained how his truck smelt like clams for weeks after, but I never minded. The smell of seafood never bothered me. It just…smelled like home.”

She paused, realizing how much she’d admitted, and felt a flash of embarrassment. There was something about Kevin that made her comfortable enough to share things, comfortable enough to let him in on those parts of herself she tried to push away or forget. Everything about her family had felt too raw with Charlie, so she never spoke about them, never admitted how much she missed them. But with Kevin, things felt…safe. He gave her space to share her thoughts and feelings, to talk through what was going on in her head without any judgment. It reminded her of what he said weeks before, about how friends liked to do things for each other without asking for anything in return.

Her eyes lingered on him, the way his mouth quirked up on his left cheek always, how his wavy hair curled around the flat-brim hat on his head. The navy sweatshirt he wore looked soft, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, the muscles in his forearms flexing slightly with each stroke of Honey’s fur.

His smile widened, letting her know he was very aware of her lingering gaze, and her cheeks flushed.

“What’s going on in that mind of yours, my dear Jessica?”

She broke her gaze and stared hard at the fire, listening to the oil sizzling in the packets, the smells of fatty sausage and onion wafting toward them. “I was thinking about your tattoo.”

“Oh yeah? What about it?”

“What it means, why you have it.”

“Does a tattoo always have to have a meaning?”

She pursed her lips. “I…guess not.”

A gust of wind rushed past them. Jess shivered, burrowing deeper into her seat, and crossed her arms tightly to her chest.

Kevin stood up, keeping Honey tucked in his arm as he opened his duffel bag on the table. He pulled out another sweatshirt and tossed it her way.

“Thank you,” she said, shimmying it on. It smelt like cinnamon and sand with a hint of metal. She wondered if he wore it while working at the shop, tinkering away at the bikes.

Kevin stepped in front of her and placed Honey on her lap. Before she could protest, he shoved a thick beanie on her head, pulling it below her ears. He patted her cheeks with an amused smile, then sat back down in his chair.

“I could have grabbed my own sweatshirt, you know,” she muttered.

“Jessica, you clearly wanted one of mine,” he jested, motioning toward the sweatshirt he was currently wearing.

Her face flushed. “That’s—that’s not true.”

He grinned and crossed a leg over his knee. “You know, for someone who’s against sharing, you’ve let me share with you. A lot.”

She grumbled to herself and ignored his comment.

They ate in a contented silence, listening to the crackling fire and the buzzing cicadas. Honey stood on Jess’s lap and attempted to nip at the fireflies floating around their camp. She felt herself drifting off in her chair, the sounds of the forest and the trees so different from rolling waves and cawing seagulls. It sounded like magic.

She felt a warm, calloused hand on hers. “Want to call it a night?”

“But what about rule number two of camp?” she murmured.

“We’ll do it another time.”

“Promise?” she whispered.

Gentle, featherlight fingers brushed the line of her jaw. “Yeah, sweetheart, I promise.”

She stepped into the tent and slipped into Kevin’s extra sleeping bag, zipping it up to the top. Honey nuzzled under her arm and curled into a ball. She dozed off to the sounds of Kevin stoking the fire, waking briefly when he crawled in next to her. She sighed at the comforting smell of cinnamon and the warmth of his body next to hers as she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Jess woke to the sound of birds chirping and the whistling of trees overhead. She blinked her eyes open and was welcomed by the sight of Kevin sprawled out next to her, one arm stretched toward her, the other curled around Honey’s belly. The pup was in her usual sleeping position; on her back, paws in the air, snoring. She must have ditched Jess at some point to cuddle with Kevin instead.