Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

‘It's not a date so I'm not doing anything wrong,' I reminded myself as I walked quickly across Lafayette Square. ‘It's a casual hangout with a stupid handsome human who has, for reasons best known to himself, taken pity on you. Probably some kind of community service. If he even shows up. But it definitely isn't a date.'

But no matter how many times I told myself the same thing, my heart still pounded so hard I worried I might break a rib, and when I saw Wyn waiting for me underneath our tree, I was sure I heard one crack.

‘Oh,' I whispered, stumbling up the kerb. There he was, looking even more beautiful than I remembered.

‘Don't say anything weird,' I warned my brain when he waved me over. ‘Don't tell him about the wolf, don't show him how you can turn your eyelids inside out and don't tell him about the time you got so sick you puked spaghetti through your nose.' If I could manage all of that, this would be easy.

‘Well, hello, Miss Emily,' he said with a small bow, wavy hair falling into his face as he looked up at me.

‘Hi.'

Suddenly I didn't have to worry about saying the wrong thing because it was almost impossible to say anything at all. He really was the most stunning person I'd ever seen. The dark ash tones of his hair, the moss-coloured eyes that shifted with the sunlight and the inviting broad slope of his shoulders that seemed made for me to rest my head against. Wyn looked strong and tanned in a way that casually suggested he spent a lot of time outside throwing tree trunks around rather than sculpting his muscles in a gym, and his loose jeans and snug shirt fit his body in a flawlessly unstudied fashion. Every aspect of him was perfect and I wasn't the only one who thought so. Dozens of pairs of eyes peered out from behind books and sunglasses, and a lot of his admirers were a good few years older than me. Despite the fierce sting of jealousy that stabbed at my heart I couldn't really blame them – once you'd set eyes on Wyn Evans, it was almost impossible to look away.

Only he wasn't there with them, he was there with me.

But it wasn't a date.

‘Glad you could make it,' he said, completely oblivious to the thirsty looks he'd garnered from every corner of the square.

‘Same,' I squeaked, trying to block out my competition.

He flashed a smile that almost knocked me off my feet. ‘Can't think of a single thing on this earth that could have kept me away.'

Someone hadn't spent his evening tangling with an enormous wolf and it showed.

‘I hope I didn't get you into trouble with your grandmother,' he said, rubbing the back of his neck as he cast a glance back at Bell House. ‘I know how strict grandparents can be and she didn't look too pleased to make my acquaintance.'

‘It's fine.'

Complex sentences were too much of a risk, better to stick to single syllable answers until I could look directly at him without being completely dazzled.

‘Great, because I've been thinking about our tour.' Wyn stuck his hands deep into his pockets and ground the toe of his boot into the ground. ‘Savannah is a great town and there's a lot of cool stuff to see but I think it's important to start someplace good. An historical landmark of the utmost significance.'

‘Sounds good to me,' I managed to say. ‘Where are we going?'

‘It's a surprise,' he replied. ‘I think surprises are always more fun, don't you?'

‘Sometimes,' I murmured, flashing back to the night before. ‘Not always.'

‘This one will be worth it.'

He held out his arm and after a split-second of hesitation, I slid my hand through the crook of his elbow. It fit like two parts of the same puzzle and I knew I would follow him off a cliff if it meant prolonged physical contact.

‘Never in my life will I doubt a word you say,' I declared just twenty minutes later. ‘Historically significant doesn't even start to cover it. This is life changing stuff.'

Wyn touched his huge, double-scoop waffle cone ice cream to mine in a dairy-based toast before taking a rapturous lick.

‘Sure, the Telfair academy has some cool art,' he replied in his best official tour guide voice as we escaped the din of the jam-packed Leopold's Ice Cream Parlor. ‘But did they invent tutti-frutti ice cream? I think not.'

‘Put it on the historical register, give it a blue plaque, make it a UNESCO site, whatever it takes,' I said with great solemnity. ‘This place must be protected.'

Finally I had found the solution to the unbearably humid weather. Ice cream. My double scoop of chocolate chip and butter pecan wobbled ominously atop the waffle cone but I wasn't about to lose even a mouthful. It was so delicious, I could have cried.

‘We used to come down to Savannah sometimes when I was a little kid,' Wyn said, wandering happily down the street. ‘I always got the lemon custard, Gramps always got the strawberry.'

My eyes widened as I attacked my cone with surgical precision.

‘Wait, I didn't see lemon custard. That's it, as soon as we finish these, we're going back.'

‘Leopold's is over one hundred years old, it's not going anywhere,' he said laughing at my serious expression. ‘We'll get it next time.'

Next time. I felt my whole body light up with joy. He was already thinking about next time.

Soon the main street was far behind us. Wyn led the way, strolling into another leafy green square shaded by a dense canopy of oaks, and right away the temperature seemed to drop by ten degrees. Everything felt better when he was around, even the weather.

‘You said you just moved here, right?' He slowed his pace, giving me a chance to enjoy the momentary break in the heat. ‘Where did you live before? I'm guessing it wasn't in the US.'

‘I was born here in Savannah,' I replied as I ploughed through the chocolate chip and into the butter pecan. Every bite was worth the brain freeze. ‘But I've lived in a bunch of different places which explains my weird accent. Before I came here, I lived in Wales.'

‘Wales? Really?' He looked pleased when I nodded. ‘That's where my family is from. Originally, I mean, generations back. I've never been.'

‘You should go if you can, it's beautiful there,' I told him, equally as delighted by the connection. ‘The weather isn't always all that great and we lived in a pretty remote part of the country – lots of sheep, not a lot of people – but I really did love it.'

‘Sounds good to me. And for what it's worth, your accent isn't weird. I think it's kind of pretty.'

I took another chomp out of my ice cream to hide the size of my smile.

‘If you loved Wales, what brought you back to Savannah?' he asked and just like that, my smile was gone. ‘You don't have to answer if that's a difficult question,' he added when he saw my discomfort. ‘If you're an alien or a super spy, do not tell me. I do not hold up well under questioning, I would give you up right away.'

‘My dad passed away,' I said simply. Better to get it out the way now. ‘It was just me and him, my mom died when I was a baby, so I came here to live with my grandmother.'

Wyn faltered for a second before falling back into step beside me. ‘I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.'

‘Most of the time when people say that, it means they really don't want to talk about it.' I laughed lightly even though it wasn't really funny, but it was true. ‘I know it's not exactly something people like to think about.'

‘Well, if you do want to talk about it, I'm a good listener.'

His face was warm and open as he popped the last bite of his cone into his mouth and something in the air shifted between us, pulling a little tighter, binding us closer together. I did want to talk about it. I wanted to talk about it with him.

‘Whenever I would get upset about my mom, Dad would say death is only sad for the people left behind,' I began, the words coming more easily than I thought they would. ‘He always told me wherever she was, she wouldn't want us to be sad forever, so that's what I keep telling myself. Either his energy is out there somewhere, floating around in the universe, or he's someplace else with my mom. Whichever one it is, I have to keep reminding myself he wouldn't want me to be sad forever either.'

We reached a busy main road and stopped at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change.

‘That's a good way to look at things,' Wyn said. ‘Kind of beautiful.'

I was so lost, staring into his green-grey eyes, the sensation of his hand covering mine took me by surprise. I looked down as our fingers wove themselves together, then back up at him and the smile on his face knocked the air out my lungs. A beeping sound sliced through my wonder, the walk sign turned white, and with one quick squeeze of my hand, he led me across the street and safely to the other side.

‘That's how I feel today,' I admitted, struggling to focus on the subject at hand. My palm was hot and sweaty against his and walking in a straight line became a complex manoeuvre. ‘For the first couple of weeks I was a total zombie, just stayed in bed, staring at the wall. Then it started to get, not better, but bearable. Like, I could get through a day without losing it completely but who knows? Tomorrow I might want to cry for three hours straight or punch a wall, it's hard to say.'

‘Definitely don't punch a wall,' he advised with what sounded like earned wisdom. ‘It looks cooler than it feels.'

‘I think that's more of a guy thing,' I replied, laughing. ‘And let's be honest, it doesn't look that cool. You should call a meeting, let the menfolk know they're not impressing anyone with that stuff.'

Our arms swung easily between us, like holding his hand was the most natural thing in the world and I wasn't testing the limits of my twenty-four-hour antiperspirant with every step. I'd never met anyone so easy to talk to. It felt as though we'd known each other forever.

‘I can't imagine growing up in such a small family.' Wyn squinted against the midday sun and grinned. ‘No siblings, no cousins, nothing. Wow.'

‘You have siblings?'

Surely there couldn't be more than one like him.

‘One brother and four girl cousins,' he said with comically bulging eyes. ‘I grew up with the cousins, they're practically my sisters.'

‘I can't imagine growing up in such a big family,' I replied truthfully. ‘What was it like?'

‘We aren't that close these days, everyone is busy all the time.' He sounded a little regretful but not really sad. ‘The girls are all older than me. Jennifer and Susie, the twins, they both moved out last year. Susie got married in the spring. Lena is the middle kid, she moved to Canada with her girlfriend a couple of months ago and Sara, the youngest, still lives at home but she's in college all day and works evening shifts at a bar in Asheville so I never see her anymore. Her mom, my Aunt Rue, she's cool. She runs an art gallery in town. Sometimes I hang out with her there. My gramps lives with us too but he's getting older. Mostly he just reads and sleeps.'

It sounded like the dream to me.

‘What about your parents?' I asked.

He shrugged as I swallowed the last bite of my ice cream cone.

‘Busy, busy, busy. Mom is an artist, she paints mostly, practically lives at her studio. Dad is the one I see the most but that's only because he's the art teacher at my high school. He's way more popular than I am.'

I didn't believe him for a second.

‘So many artists in one family,' I remarked. ‘What about your brother, is he an artist too?'

‘Cole is whatever Cole feels like being on the day.'

He let go of my hand to push his hair out of his face, a gloomy look turning down the corners of his mouth. Cole, I suspected, was not his favourite family member.

‘Still, it must have been cool growing up with so many siblings,' I suggested, looking for a positive. ‘I always wanted a big brother or sister. Must be nice to have someone who gets you, someone who sees the world the same way you do.'

‘I'm not sure any of them see the world the same way I do,' he replied, his smile back but bittersweet. ‘But I definitely learned a lot from my cousins. Don't know a thing about sports but you can ask me anything about the Twilight movies. And I was always getting dragged into dance routines and rituals.'

‘Rituals?'

‘Lena and Sara are big on astrology,' he clarified. ‘You can always count on me to know when Mercury is in retrograde, which is a big deal if you need to buy electronics or sign some kind of contract. Or so they say.'

Soft wefts of clouds covered the blazing sun when I blinked upwards, as though I might see the planet rushing backwards across the sky.

‘I do need a new phone,' I said. ‘Is it in retrograde now?'

‘No, you're good. Time to go nuts at the Apple store.'

High on sunshine and ice cream, I reached for his hand and took it in mine. The sizzle of the sun on my skin was nothing compared to the heat that radiated through my body when he squeezed it again, warming the coldest, darkest parts of me, lighting me up from the inside out. I couldn't speak, I could barely breathe.

And I never, ever wanted to lose this feeling.