She tucked her tongue against her cheek, like she wasn’t exactly sure how to ask whatever it was she wanted to know. “Do you ever miss it?”
I frowned slightly. “Miss what?”
She glanced out the window, squinting at the stretch of blue beyond the trees. “The fast life. Being an untethered bachelor. Meeting whoever you want.”
I stared at her as she barreled on. “It’s just that I don’t really see you go out—on dates or otherwise. You could be doing something big, something exciting, and instead you’re ... here. Making me bacon.”
There was no bite in her words. Just quiet curiosity. Maybe even a little surprise that I’d chosen to spend my time with an incredible woman like her rather than waste my nights on someone whose name I wouldn’t remember in the morning. It was almost as though she couldn’t quite believe someone like me had landed here, in her kitchen, without trying to run.
“At first I thought I’d hate it in Star Harbor,” I admitted. “But I wanted to get to know my brother, so I stuck it out.” I chuckled and dragged a hand across the back of my neck. “There’s just something about this place—the people, the ghost story, they get their hooks in you and don’t let go.”
I let that hang in the air, unsaid things tugging into a knot in my chest.
“But here”—I reached for her hand, brushing my thumb across her knuckles—“it feels like more than just Brody tying me to Star Harbor.”
Selene stared at me, her expression unreadable. Then she slowly turned her hand, palm to palm, letting our fingers slot together. A breeze moved through the screen door, lifting the hem of the dish towel hanging from the oven handle.
The whole world felt quiet at that moment.
Not empty.
Just . . . waiting.
We endedup on the floor.
Not in a tangled, half-naked kind of way—but the kind that came from too many pages spread across the table and nowhere else to set them. Selene had pulled out a box of old ledgers and archival files after breakfast, mentioning the need to spend time catching up on a few restoration projects while Winnie was away.
We sat cross-legged in a patch of sun on the worn rug in her living room, knees brushing, shoulders bumping as we flipped through delicate, century-old pages and penciled notes. A playlist played softly in the background—old-school crooners again, like a private joke we were still crafting. My back was against the couch. Her foot was tucked under my thigh.
She held what looked like a diary across both knees, one hand gliding carefully along the margin of a faded page. Her fingers paused over a line written in cursive so soft it almost disappeared into the yellowing paper.
“She wrote this,” Selene murmured, voice reverent. “Listen: ‘The sea was calm tonight. I pressed a flower in the pages for him. I wonder if he will ever know.’”
She looked up at me, eyes wide, luminous. “Can you imagine being so full of hope it spills onto the page like that? A pressed flower? A whole ocean between you and someone you might never see again?”
I didn’t have an answer.
Not one I could say without telling her that I was beginning to understand that kind of hope. That I was starting to feel it bloom, quietly, when she looked at me like this. Like maybe I was good enough to not fuck this up.
She turned the page slowly, careful not to tear the edge.
“She wrote notes all through this. Tiny details—weather, visitors, little asides about which neighbor was stealing sugar from the pantry.” Selene smiled faintly.
“You really love the work you do, don’t you?” I asked, studying her face as she turned another page.
Her eyes met mine. “It was a time when women kept records of things no one else thought to write down. They weren’t just wives or daughters. They were historians. They mattered.”
I studied the pages most people would deem trash. Selene coveted each scrap of paper like it was her duty to not allow their words to be lost in time. I couldn’t recall loving anything with such delicate reverence as Selene loved old words.
Her delicate voice broke my wandering train of thought. “You’re not what I expected,” she said quietly, not looking at me.
That caught me off guard. “No?”
She shook her head, still reading. “I thought maybe you were just playing house. Like this was a sabbatical or a soft landing after something harder.”
I tilted my head, unsure whether to be offended or flattered. “And now?” I asked.
Selene finally glanced at me. Her expression softened. “Now I think you might be dangerous.”
