Page 141 of Forever Dark
Arnold pointed the beer at them.“That’s hurtful.”
“Tell Selena what you said you wanted to do with your life last week,” Connor replied.
Selena waited.Arnold hesitated.
“I thought it would be cool to own an antiques shop.”
Selena laughed.
Connor said, “See!He changes his mind like the wind.”Connor put his hand on Arnold’s shoulder with affection.“How about you stick around here with your old sheriff?”
Arnold smiled.“I’ll think about it.”
They drank.
The beer was cheap and bitter and exactly right for the hour.
Selena tipped her head back and looked up once more.The stars had sharpened even more since she first stepped outside.The dark seemed larger now.More honest.She finished the can slowly, feeling the coolness slide through her and settle where the adrenaline had burned all day.
When it was empty, she lowered it and looked from Arnold to Connor.
“It’s been a pleasure.”
Arnold snorted.“That’s a very FBI way to say goodbye after all this.”
“Parting is such sweet sorrow, then.”
Arnold held out his hand anyway.
Selena shook it.Arnold’s grip was earnest and firm, still carrying some of that young-deputy energy no amount of death or paperwork had beaten out of him yet.
“Try not to leave all this too soon, Arnold,” she said.“I mean, who would look after Connor?”
“No promises.”
Connor stepped closer then.
For a second Selena expected another handshake, and he did take her hand, warm and solid in his.But before she could fully register it, he leaned in and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
The contact was brief.
Still, it landed harder than a longer one might have.
When he pulled back, his expression gave away almost nothing except tired fondness and something else she did not trust herself to examine too closely.
“Don’t leave it so long next time,” he said.
Selena swallowed once before answering.
“I mean not to.”A rueful smile touched her mouth.“I never even saw my sister.”
Connor laughed softly.“Yeah, Diane won’t let you get away with that!”
“No,” Selena said.“Probably not.”
For a moment she stood there looking at him, at the tape on his temple, the beer in his hand, the sheriff’s department rising plain and square behind him.So much of her life had moved away from this place.Yet all at once it no longer felt as easy to imagine leaving it again.
Then the moment had to end, because that was what moments did.
