My phone buzzing in my hand scares the bejeezus out of me. It’s James: I’m blue in places where the sun don’t shine.
Me: That’s your fault, not mine.
James: Still on for dinner tonight?
Me: Why? You’re getting cold feet?
James: You wish. Triton’s Oysters 7 P.M.
I’m waiting for James to come clean of his own volition, but at this point I might be waiting for a long time.
Triton’s Oysters is on Salem Street in the North End. After spending the whole day training staff and finding any excuse to be near James at the restaurant, I’m surprised seeing him walk up the street to meet me makes me jittery. First date jittery.
He presses his lips to my cheek and opens the door.
Triton’s has about ten tables and a long bar with twenty stools. The lighting is low and fills the small place with an intimate warmth that shakes off the unseasonable cold. There’s a section at the front of the bar designated only for raw food. Oysters, clams, crab legs. There’s a small tank with two lobsters, and I have a feeling that those aren’t for sale because of their unusual large size.
“Hey you.” The hostess kisses James on both cheeks. Her dimples make her look younger than she probably is. “Long time no see.”
James smiles that room-brightening smile. He places a hand on my lower back and puts enough pressure on it that I have to take a step forward. “This is Lucky Pierce, and she’s here to try the second-best chowder in town. Lucky, this is Adelle.”
I hold out my hand and she takes it.
“Don’t let Marco hear you say that,” Adelle says. I can only think that she’s referring to the chef or the owner. “Table or bar?”
“Bar is great,” he says.
She sets two menus in front of us and leaves us alone. James introduces me to the guy manning the raw bar, Wilson, who’s been fishing with his dad since he was eight. I call him a “raw bartender” and he busts out laughing.
“What do you like?” James asks.
The questions shouldn’t surprise me but for some reason it does. No one has asked me this for a long time. I don’t think I’ve even asked myself that in a while. I fill the silence with a long “Uhhhh” and fiddle with the lens of my camera. I zoom in on the amazing display of oysters that are ready to be shucked. Wilson’s hands are red from the ice and the cold metal he uses to pry the little suckers open. I know squat about oysters, other than I don’t consider them real food. They’re like salty, perfect morsels of the sea and I can eat dozens and dozens of them without feeling full.
I even take a snapshot of the menu. Each corner has a beautiful nautical symbol. It’s these touches that make a place special.
“How’s the lobster roll here?” Though since almost every table around us is half way through a lobster roll, I’m guessing it’s a big seller.
“Mouthwatering.” The corners of his eyes crinkle. So this is what a happy James looks like.
“Wait,” I ask. “How do you even know about this place?”
Even though it’s on a busy street where the Freedom Trail is the biggest attraction, the outside isn’t exactly a loud attention-calling pub. If I walked past it, I wouldn’t have noticed the gold sea god etched on the glass window unless I had been searching for it.
He scratches the back of his neck. “Well, I worked here a few years back. I was a line cook, but Marco took a liking to me. Showed me how to make a mean bisque. Which I perfected, of course.”
A crowd of tourists walk in, which makes him budge his seat closer to me. My leg is sandwiched between his. His knees squeezes my thigh and that sets all of my senses on fire.
“What can I get for you guys?” Wilson asks, cleaning his hands on a dry towel.
“I’ll have the lobster roll,” I say happily.
“Excellent choice. Bun or lettuce?”
James rolls his eyes.
Wilson shrugs. “What? People are lettuce crazy. They all want food that’s wicked good but has zero calories, and I hate to break it to you but that just don’t exist.”
“Load me up with carbs,” I tell him. “And a side of drawn butter.”
“Atta girl,” Wilson barks. “What’re you doing with this bum, anyway? You’re way too pretty for this mess.”
I take my glass of rosé and James takes his Boston lager, and we busy our lips with long drags of alcohol to avoid Wilson’s saucy wiggling eyebrows. It doesn’t stop James from giving a playful squeeze to the leg trapped between his. All of this—the restaurant, the warmth of it, the wine, the salty brine of seafood—it gives my heart a giant tug that aches in ways it hasn’t ached in so long. It’s like a rusty machine that I’m trying to crank to get it to start up again.
“Let me get two dozen oysters. Six Kumamoto, six blue point, six cowboys, and six surprise me.” Then he looks at me. “Have you ever tried giant crab claws?”
“How giant?” I ask, not even hiding the flirtation from my voice.
James flashes that smile that makes my stomach drop right through me. “Pretty giant.”
Wilson laughs at us and takes our order. There’s more wine for me. James cuts himself off at the one beer. Every inch of my skin is tingling. I take a chance and place my hand on James’s knee. He twitches briefly, but doesn’t move my hand away.
“Thanks for bringing me here.”
He shrugs like it’s not a big deal. “Food’s good.”
“Even though you’re not on the line anymore?”
He holds his beer out in the air and salutes the mouth to the kitchen. “Damn straight.”
“Where did you work before this?”
He licks his front teeth with his tongue and looks up like he’s looking at a visual calendar in his mind. “A few places.”
“How about before culinary school?”
He scratches his head, leans in to me. “Mostly pubs.”
His short answers are so frustrating. “You said you went overseas?”
His puts his arm on the back of my chair and leans in to me. “I went to Italy with Nunzio when we were 21. It was amazing. His family makes their own wine. I guess every family makes their own wine over there. It was sweet like juice that gets you hammered.”
“So you were
actually
able to drink it?”
He ignores my jab. “It’s like everything there revolves around cooking. The family gardens in the morning so they have vegetables for the season. They make their own pasta that would feed the whole country. Everything is so fresh and clean. It’s a different life. It’s simple and pure. I loved it. I probably gained fifteen pounds in my first month there.”
I lean into him and wonder—is James Hughes the kind of guy who would be okay with a simple life? Most people don’t go on TV for simple lives. They don’t get hooked up with celebrity chefs to live a nice quiet life in Boston.
“It sounds perfect. I’ve never been outside the country.”
He looks genuinely surprised. His mouth is open but he doesn’t speak.
“What do you want to ask me, James?”
He sets his beer down on the bar and rubs his thigh until he reaches where my hand is on his knee. My entire hand looks tiny in his. I can’t remember a time when a touch this small made my heart race like I was seconds away from a heart attack.
“Don’t get mad,” he says. “But you really don’t get help from Stella? I mean, you could have seen the world and back by now.”
“On her alimony? Pass.” I shake my head and take a sip from my glass. “Why is that hard to believe? I really don’t. After my dad died, my mom remarried in a second.” I snap my finger to emphasize my point. “Before I had a chance to really get used to that fact she got divorced. Husband #2 was the only smart one. He had a prenup. We moved back to Boston for him. Before that, up until I was thirteen we lived in this tiny place in Westchester. Husband #3 fell madly in love with her. No prenup. He was a chef in L.A. and had ins with T.V. people. He thought Stella had a face that needed to be seen.”
“So do you,” he tells me.
“I didn’t make the wedding to Husband #4. Didn’t even get to meet him.” My laugh is bitter. “Obviously, it ended in divorce because how else is it supposed to end, you know?”
A wave of hurt crosses his features. “I hope you don’t always think that’s true.”
I have to breathe really hard to push down the well I just opened. “Jesus, when did I become such a downer?”
And how did I end up spilling my guts when my objective was to get James to spill his? My phone rings and Bradley’s face comes on the screen. I ignore the call and shove the phone in my back pocket.
James looks uncomfortable. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you sure you’re not with that guy?”
“If I were do you think I’d be shoving my tongue down your throat?” I ask, a little louder than deemed polite for such a small place. I guess Bradley and I are attached at the hip when I’m in town.
James squeezes my thigh. “Okay. He’s no good for you.”
He’s the first person who has ever said that. “And you are?”
“Nope. But at least I’ll admit it.”
I take a sip of my wine. Liquid courage. “What about you? Any recent exes stalking your Facebook?”
“Just one. She’s a little…crazy. Which is why I don’t have a Facebook. Do we really want to talk about exes?”
I answer him with a kiss that leaves him stunned and the hostess red in the face.
“Well,” he rubs his thumb across the top of my hand. “Here comes something that’s going to make you the happiest girl. If only until all the food is gone.”
The runners bring out my lobster roll and James’s stuffed flounder in a creamy sauce that begs to be licked. Wilson makes room for our tower of oysters. I grab the tiny fork. When James holds it, he looks like a giant holding a pitchfork. He clinks his with mine. “Cheers.”
“Oh, before I forget,” I say, trying for casual but ending with awkward. “Felicity needs a final head count for the tasting. You know, if you want to invite your family.”
James chews on an oyster for what feels like hours. “They won’t be coming.”
“I already told you about my fucked up family. You think you can top that?”
“Let’s just say I can top it through the stratosphere.” His eyes turn sad. I squeeze his hand. “Now I’m the downer. Eat, before I finish them all for myself.”
We eat the oysters like they’re our last meal. I don’t even care that some of the tables look at us like we’re savages. He’s a budding handsome chef dipping bread in drawn butter and licking his fingers like a five year old with a melting popsicle.
“I wish I could have lobster for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
“I wish I could have lobster for dessert,” I say. “How about we add chocolate covered lobster to the menu?”
“Leave the cooking to me.” James leans in to my. He kisses the corner of my lips. “Can’t waste good lobster.”
I wish I would rub food on him so I can kiss it off as well. “Well, I never claimed to have table manners. My debut was a travesty.”
“Shut up, you were one of those debutant girls?” His touch lingers on my arms. I realize that since we sat down, he hasn’t stopped touching me. My knee, my thigh, my arms, my face. It’s a constant touch that make me more drunk than any of this wine.
I close my eyes and dip the last morsels of lobster in the clear, yellow, butter. “So was Stella. My dad was a business man with the heart of a hippie.”
“Really? I couldn’t tell,
Lucky
.”
I roll my eyes. “It was a strange match, but it worked. I’d like to think that was when my mom was the happiest. Like she actually loved us and didn’t care about all this shit.”
He reaches out and touches the end of my ponytail. I follow his muscular arm all the way to his eyes. Oh, oh, oh, this is so dangerous. Like Belle’s cocktails. It’s so pretty and delicious, and when you don’t expect it,
boom
, you’re professing you love to everyone around you.
“What about your folks?”
“My folks were the same for a while,” he whispers, looking off to the side to hide his brilliant eyes from me.
“What happened?”
He licks the salt from his lips and looks at me as if he’s actually surprised that he’s telling me the truth. “My Ma and Pa were high school sweethearts. Technically my Pa was a high school dropout, but my Ma married him right after her graduation. I’m talking the day after. He put her through a two-year college for secretary work. The neighborhood was pretty rough back then. You walk down the block I grew up now days and there’s a fucking Starbucks everywhere you look. When my Ma—”
He shuts his eyes and I can feel him count the seconds until the memory goes away. “When she died, well, after that my dad fell apart. There are few things worse than a man who’s lost the love of his life. One of those things is a man that can’t look at everything he has left and try to make the best of it.”
“You mean you and your brother?”
“And my sister.”
For a moment, we’re quiet. I know we grew up in different places. Maybe if we had been in the same high school we might not have been friends. But somehow, despite it all, we have similar pains and as he stares into my eyes and the warmth of it spreads through me, I know he feels the same way.
“Come on,” he says, reaching for his wallet.
Wilson sees him and makes a face. “Get the fuck atta here. Put that thing away or you’ll poke someone’s eye out.”
“Stop,” James shakes his head.
“If you leave money down here, I’ll fucking burn it, bro. For real. I got you. You can make it up to us at the opening of that fancy new place ya got.”
“Good man,” I say, shaking his hand, not even caring that it smells like oysters.
We find his bike and I shiver in the chilly wet night. It’s the kind of weather that keeps threatening to storm, but all we get is muggy drizzle. I rub my arms to get rid of the goosebumps.
“Here.” James holds out his jacket for me to slip into. I let myself fall into the warm softness of beaten leather and the smell of him for the second time this week—sunshine and sea spray. It’s five times my size, but I want to wear it every day. That’s when I realize I
must
be drunk
.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask, sliding on to the back of his Fatboy and wrapping my arms around his chest and holding on to something I’ve never experienced before.
He revs the engine and knocks the kickstand back. The initial bounce makes me yelp as I secure my hands around his hard body. He turns for a second and catches my eye. “Are you ready for dessert?”