Come June [ h.s. ]

16

16
.

She called him the next day around noon.

He was reading on the couch, flipping through the pages with one hand, and stroking Sam's head with the other. The dog let out a small whine as Harry stood to pick up the call; he knew her number by now, since they chatted fairly often.

"Hello?"

"Hey," she chirped. "I'm going for a walk, do you want to come along?"

"You're going down to the beach?"

"Not the beach," Eileen said. "Somewhere different."

"Okay."

He grabbed a light jacket and made his way over to her house. It was another beautiful day and the sun fell warm across his skin. There is a particular "sunny day" smell, and Harry didn't quite know how to describe it, other than sweet and inviting — that smell was everywhere today, especially on her street.

He breathed it in like it would never come again.

There were even moments when he stopped in his tracks and just watched the tide rolling behind low bends in the dunes, dogs running around in their front lawns, people out walking... There was an entire world happening all around him, and he was just a small, insignificant part of it.

He spotted Eileen long before he made it to her front porch. She was laying outside, stretched out along the painted white deck with Hickory on her stomach. Her bare feet hit each other in a lazy rhythm.

Harry smiled as he approached her, almost wishing that he didn't have to interrupt. She looked peaceful this way, with the sunlight warming her bare shoulders and legs.

"Eileen?"

"Hello, Harry," she greeted, not bothering to open her eyes.

Hickory stopped nuzzling the fabric of her dress and leapt upwards. He brushed against the leather of Harry's shoes, and without thinking twice he leaned down to pet him. The cat rubbed his face into his hands and purred contentedly.

"I thought you wanted to walk."

"I do," she said. "I just didn't know how long you'd be."

"Shall I wait for you to finish your nap?"

Her gaze landed on him as he knelt beside her. The sun made her eyes look green and ethereal, like two sparkling planets.

"No." She leaned upwards and rested her weight on the backs of her palms, meeting him at eye level. "I'm ready, I just need to put my shoes on."

His face turned red as he wordlessly helped her up, feeling the soft skin of her hands. She smiled and quickly dipped inside to put something on her feet. Hickory followed after. When she came back Harry was peering into a freshly-watered basket of tulips.

"Those are pink diamonds," said Eileen. "They're a single-late type, which means they bloom towards the end of spring."

"So you know the names of every type?" Harry asked. "For all of these flowers?"

"Most of them, yes."

"That's pretty cool."

"Is it?"

"No, not really," he smirked.

She swatted his arm playfully as they descended the porch steps. The corners of her mouth lifted at the sound of his laugh.

.

They were going to a park.

Harry offered to drive instead of Eileen, which he thought was rather gentlemanly of himself. He stopped by the Castaway to pick up Sam, and together the three of them embarked 15 minutes north of town to a placid-looking series of picnic tables beneath the trees. The gravel parking lot split into different trails that wound deeper into the woods. It mustn't have been very popular when the weather was rainy, but he knew Eileen probably came then, too.