24
Gideon sat nervouslyat the picnic table of The Barking Crab. It was one of Boston’s oldest seafood establishments, and at least it was early enough in the spring that it wasn’t beset by the locust that were the seasonal tourists.
To say that he clashed with the décor was to put it mildly. The Barking Crab seemed to pride itself on how washed-out, faded, broken-down, and rat-infested it was. Not a single surface wasn’t covered in chipped, sun-bleached paint, or had enough splinters to make you wonder if the picnic table benches weren’t going to collapse under normal use.
But the food was incredibly good, and Marguerite never was one for pointless elegance. And so, he stared in half-hearted disgust at his bottle of beer and waited. He had arrived early, too anxious not to, and had made sure their seat was the best one in the house. It had only taken a few hundred dollars and some patience to get it. No murder involved.
He smirked. Marguerite would be so proud.
His heart cinched painfully. He knew she would be here soon to join him—if she didn’t stand him up, but that didn’t seem to be her style—but still…he missed her. The past year had both oozed and sped by at the same time.
That was what heartbreak did. Sometimes he would find he had spent hours simply sitting in a chair and staring at a wall, thinking. Remembering. Regretting.
Mostly regretting.
When there was movement at his side, he jolted out of his thoughts, looking up at the young woman who approached him. For a split second, he barely recognized her. He had lived for centuries with the ghost of the woman who came toward him. She had been sallow, shadowed, haunted and forlorn. He had thought her resplendent, only because he didn’t know any better.
The woman who came toward him, however, to stop at his side with a shy and lopsided smile, was something else entirely. She was breathtaking. Her eyes shone brightly, there were no bags beneath them. She wore a low-cut black blouse tucked into dark green pants. A bright silver necklace hung around her neck, emblazoned with a delicate skull caught in twisting vines and lace. She wore a long, black jacket, and a black purse with a Colonial American winged death’s head stamped on it in white ink was slung casually over her shoulder. Her long hair flowed around her in well-kept curls. The offensive orange was gone and was now replaced with a deep green that matched her eyes.
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
He stood so fast he nearly knocked over his terrible beer, and he had to scramble to catch it before it spilled.
The woman he had known had indeed been a ghost.
And this woman was a so very, very much more than that. And far more than he expected.
And to be frank, he did not quite know what to do with himself.
Turning back to her, he cleared his throat and attempted to regain his dignity, but she was already laughing at him. Not in cruelty, but in amusement. In…fondness.
He could not allow himself to hope. He could not. And yet, like the terrible poison that it was, it sank into his veins in an instant.
This is already going terribly.
* * *
Maggie almost feltbad for the poor bastard. He had already tripped over himself in the four seconds she had been in his presence. “Hi.”
“I—ah—” Smoothing one hand over his tie, he gestured to the table with the other. “Would you care to join me?”
“Nah, I figured I’d sit on the other side of the restaurant, and we could just awkwardly stare at each other all night.” She moved to sit on the other side of the picnic table, placing her bag down on the ground as she did. She tipped it over on its side, letting Algernon skitter out. She scratched him on the head. “Don’t get into too much trouble, and don’t let them push you around.”
He let out a squeak and took off to the fence that surrounded the outdoor patio, squirming under the slats of wood and toward the harbor. She smiled. It was still a little chilly, but the restaurant had heaters set out nearby. It was going to be a nice night.
Well, the weather was going to be nice, anyway.
The rest still remained to be seen.
Gideon took his seat across from her again, silver eyes flicking between hers as if he didn’t believe what he was seeing.
“What?” She arched an eyebrow quizzically. “Did I smudge my makeup?”
“No, no. You look…good. That’s all.” And now he looked embarrassed.
She smiled. “I’m a whole person now. I don’t think I’ve been that way for a long, long time. Maybe not even since I was really alive, back when I was a kid.”
“You were twenty.”