What We Choose novel · Chapter 8 of 24
Chapter 8: Look at Me
Nash stood there with his eyes on the beer taps.
Not on me. On the taps.
"What are you doing here?" Kenna said.
"I need to talk to Dessa."
"You're talking to the Guinness."
He made himself look up, and then his eyes slid off my head again.
"Dess, can we go outside? Just us?"
"No."
He glanced at Colter, who was still standing behind my barstool.
Colter hadn't said a word. He didn't move his hand from the back of my chair.
"Okay," Nash said. "Okay. Here's the thing. People are asking questions. About the card. About my dad. He won't talk to me."
"Your dad's a smart man."
"Colter took me off the Wharf Lofts." He threw it at Colter like an accusation. "Pending review."
Colter said nothing.
"So what do you want?" I said.
He took a breath, and I watched him put on the voice he used with clients.
"The Harvest Fair's next Saturday. Bayline has a booth. Mom thinks, and I agree, that if you come with me, if people see us together, all this calms down. You don't have to forgive me. Just stand next to me for an hour."
"So the town sees the sick girl standing by her man."
"So the town stops talking."
"About you."
He didn't answer.
"Look at me," I said.
His eyes went to my chin.
"Not my chin. Look at me, Nash."
He looked at my forehead. At my ear. At the shaved red hair all over the floor around my barstool.
His throat moved.
I knew that face. I'd seen it in the consult room, when the oncologist said bilateral. I'd thought it was grief.
It was this.
"You can't, can you?" I said.
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