The words land harder than I expect. Like a current, dragging me under. It’s not just a tattoo. It’s a wish. And a map. A promise to find his way back, no matter the odds.
I don’t say anything. I can’t. The only sound is the water between us.
The summer night breathes around our bodies. There’s a thundering reminder in my chest that some stars aren’t meant to be constellations you trace with your eyes, or your fingertips.
Some stars are people, pulling you in, no matter how far you drift.
Even if it terrifies you.
Even if it burns.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about anchors lately,” Nolan says, randomly.
My attention snaps to him.
He doesn’t know.
Hecan’tknow.
Yet somehow he’s standing on the edge of a thought I’ve been circling around for hours.
North and Anchor.
And which direction I’m supposed to be going.
“Why?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Don’t know. Just popped into my head. It’s weird.What keeps us steady? What makes us stay in one place? I guess I’ve always thought of anchors as these heavy objects that keep you stuck. But now I’ve realized that it doesn’t weigh you down, it makes you stop drifting.”
I glance over, caught once again between fight and flight with him.
That’s what he does to me.
Every. Damn. Time.
Iknow what keeps me steady. Or at least… I used to.
It was my mom’s laugh in the kitchen. My dad’s voice reading constellations off the hood of a Jeep. It was knowing exactly who I was and what I wanted.
But then loss came for me and took all of it, pulled into waters I couldn’t chart, with no map, no anchor, and no idea if I’d ever touch steady ground again. It left me drifting. Grasping. Building stability out of ambition and iced coffee and a calendar full of color-coded deadlines.
And then Nolan Rhodes barreled into my life as a hurricane with a dimple, and suddenly, oddly, I felt steady again.
If he’s an anchor, he’s one that drags you under just as easily as he keeps you tethered. I can’t decide if I want to cut the rope or let him hold me in place.
My eyes stay pinned on his profile. The scruff on his jaw. The casual way he says these things that hit deep within my beating heart.
“You ever hear the phrase North and Anchor?”
He shakes his head slowly, eyes fixed on the stars. “No. What’s it mean?”
“My parents used to say it. It was their thing. Their compass. Find your North, and anchor yourself to it.”
He’s quiet for a moment, letting it sink in. “I like that.”
“Yeah,” I say, voice low. “Me too. I wish my compass would start pointing though. It’s been stuck for quite a while.”
He looks over at me then—reallylooks. No smirk. No smugness.
