Helen turned back and eyed Duncan. “How much does she know about you?”
“Nothing!” Duncan shouted. “And keep it that way!”
“I wouldn’t say nothing,” I said. “But he does keep to himself.” Plus, I didn’t add, I was still trying to get him fired, washable paint or no.
“Yeah,” Helen said. “We’ve been worried about that. Maybe you and I should go get coffee.”
“No! No getting coffee!” Duncan shouted, breaking free from Jake at last and launching himself up into a run toward Helen, looking dead set on tackling her. She held still as he came at her and then, at the last second, she darted away like a matador.
So Duncan wound up tackling me, instead.
He was covered in sand, and when we landed, there was another spray of it. I squeezed my eyes closed, and in the background, I heard Jake say, “Did Duncan just tackle somebody?”
“Yes,” Helen answered. “His work colleague.”
Then Jake said, “That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
I opened my eyes, and there was Duncan, backlit by the sky, looking straight down at me. “You okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said.
We hesitated there for a second, the wind fluttering the hair over his forehead, and I felt suddenly so elated that I didn’t have to be mad at him anymore. Or, at least, not as mad.
“Close your eyes,” Duncan said then.
“Why?” I said, but I closed them. For one crazy second, I thought he might be about to kiss me—there in front of his family, and God, and the whole Gulf of Mexico.
But the next thing I felt wasn’t his mouth on mine—it was the tips of his fingers, brushing sand off my cheekbone. “Keep ’em tight,” he said.
I squeezed them tighter.
“Not that tight.”
I tried to relax.
“Man, you got sand all over the place.”
“Um,” I said, eyes still closed. “You got sand all over the place.”
“True enough.” Then he was quiet as he brushed my hairline, my forehead, my chin, and my ears. The softness of it was a stark contrast from getting tackled, I’ll say that. At one point, Chuck Norris tried to come over and lick us, but Helen snapped his leash on pretty quick and walked him over to Jake to hold.
Then, Duncan paused. After I hadn’t felt his touch for a few seconds, I opened my eyes.
He was looking at me, like there was something he wanted to say.
Finally, his eyes crinkled in a wry way, and he said, in a faux-scold, “Be more careful next time.”
“You be more careful.”
That’s when Duncan looked up and saw his sister and brother-in-law watching us intently. “Sorry about that,” he said then. “I was aiming for my sister.” And at the word “sister,” he launched himself up and went chasing her off down the beach.
I sat up. Was I fine? I took an inventory.
Fine enough, I decided.
I stood up to brush myself off and noticed that Jake had put his aviators back on and was doing the same. I walked a little closer to him. “They have a love-hate thing,” Jake said, still brushing. “In a good way. Most of the time.”
The girls took off running after their mom and uncle, and then Chuck Norris, wrenching the leash out of Jake’s hand, took off after them like a blur.
“He’s chasing them?” Jake asked.
“Do you want me to go after him?” I asked.
“Nah.”
I watched him run, his gray fur undulating with each leap. “Chuck Norris is the worst security dog in the world.”
“That makes sense,” Jake said. “He failed out of training school for ‘overexuberance.’”
“That sounds about right.”
“Duncan was sure he could fix him,” Jake said.
“He hasn’t managed it yet,” I said.
Jake went on, bending over to shake sand out of his hair. “It’s good for him, though. We tried to get him to move home to Evanston after everything, but he wanted to come here.”
But I’d stopped listening to what he was saying—distracted instead by the way he was saying it. I turned to stare at Jake. “Can you say something else?”
“Like what?”
“Anything. Pledge of Allegiance? Recite a poem?”
“Um. Sure?”
“Because,” I said, “your voice sounds so familiar to me.” Then I said, “The more you talk, the more I keep thinking I recognize it.”
“Oh,” Jake said, stamping sand off his shoes now. “Then you probably want me to say something like, ‘Hey, friends and neighbors—and welcome to yet another hour of the Everything’s Invisible podcast.’”
Oh, my God.
I felt a thrill of recognition like a flutter. I did recognize that voice.