62

“How about a walk on the beach?” Marcus asked, needing a change.

“Love to,” she said.

They stepped out onto a long wooden walkway leading to the dunes.

“North or south?” he asked as they kicked off their shoes and dug their feet in the now-cooling sand.

“You pick,” Annie insisted.

“All right then—let’s go north,” Marcus concluded. “Maybe we’ll find those wild horses.”

Basking in the moonlight and determined to keep the world at bay, they talked about nothing and about everything. Annie asked him how he had developed such a love for Russian literature. Marcus asked her how she had developed such a love for English poetry. She asked him about his favorite places to snowboard in the Rockies. He asked her favorite places to water-ski in South Carolina. She asked him what kind of lunch box he had in elementary school (metal, from The Empire Strikes Back). He asked her what it was like to see scenes of Forrest Gump being filmed in Port Royal, the town where her parents had first met.

What kind of playlists did she have on her iPhone?

How many American states and foreign countries had he visited?

Their conversation never felt awkward, never forced, never hit a lull. They had known each other for nearly twenty years, and the occasional silence—be it to savor the natural beauty of the ocean and dunes or to ruminate on each other’s stories or to sidestep the ubiquitous crabs—did not bother or threaten them. Somehow, over the past three days, they’d been transported far from their fears, and neither wanted this escape to end.

“Annie, can I ask you something personal?” Marcus asked as they continued to stroll, not another soul to be seen.

“Should I be worried?”

“No, no. Don’t answer if you don’t want, but well, I’m just curious.”

“Ask away,” she said, gently splashing the water with her feet. “I’ve lived in Washington long enough to say, ‘No comment, next question.’”

Marcus couldn’t help but laugh.

“Fair enough. I guess I was just wondering how come you never got married. I mean, you’re smart and you’re beautiful, and I can’t figure out how it is that I get to be here with you, enjoying every moment of your company, when you should’ve been taken off the market long ago. I know that’s a terrible question, and I really shouldn’t ask it, but I just can’t get my head around how that’s possible.”

Annie winced. “You weren’t kidding,” she said. “That was personal.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was going to come up at some point, but it’s just, you know, a little tough to talk about.”

“Then forget I asked,” Marcus said. “You don’t have to tell me—really. Not now. Not ever.”

“Ever?”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“Well, eventually I’d have to, right?” she said. “If there’s any future for us, I’d need to come clean on all that, wouldn’t I?”

“It’s early yet,” Marcus demurred.

“Is it?” she asked. “Didn’t you tell me the other day that the only reason you’d ever date someone was to see if God meant for you to be married?”

Marcus nodded, a bit sheepishly.

“I was grateful for that,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m scared to be honest with you, Marcus, but I definitely want you to be honest with me.”

“Why would you be scared?”

“It’s not you that scares me.”

“Then what?”

“It’s me that scares me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m not used to being—you know—open, vulnerable, honest, with a guy, anyway. It’s never gone well for me.”

Marcus stayed quiet and they kept walking.

“You just said it’s early yet in our relationship, but that’s not really true, is it?” she asked. “We’ve known each other a long, long time. And we know a lot about each other, don’t we?”

“We do,” Marcus said.

“And I agree with you,” Annie continued. “I don’t want to goof around. I’m not interested in just casually seeing each other. Life’s too short. But that means that either this is all going to fall apart quickly, or this thing could go from zero to sixty in 2.2 seconds.”

“It could.”

“I don’t usually go off-grid with guys that I’m interested in. Or correspond with their mothers. Or invite them to spend a weekend at a beach house I haven’t laid eyes on in a decade. That’s not me. That’s not how I roll. And with you, I’m in real danger here.”

“Danger?”

“Yeah, in danger of getting hurt pretty badly if things don’t work out,” she confessed. “And don’t get me wrong. I don’t know any more than you do what God wants from us, if he wants us to be together. But . . .”

“But . . . ?”

“But it’s nice to think about.”