You’re allowed to want the quiet kind of win.
P.S. The cat is pretending to be impartial but he slept on your pillow for three minutes and then judged me for noticing.
I laugh. I cry. Both are small, and both are mine.
My phone buzzes.
Laramie: So?
Me: They want me pliable. I’m not. 7am. He’ll try to hug me for a camera or gut me for a quote.
Laramie: Good. Don’t sign. Don’t smile. I’ll be in the lot. Bring your spine.
Me: It’s packed.
Laramie: Proud of you. Also, sleep.
I drop the phone, lie down on the bedspread that smells like bleach and a thousand men wondering who they are when they’re not being clapped for. I close my eyes and try to hear the lighthouse beam even from here—the slow, stubborn sweep of home sounding out the dark.
Sleep comes in two-minute plays. Every time I wake, the room is the same, and I’m a little less afraid.
At 5:26, I give up pretending. I shower, dress in the jeans and stubbornness, and leave the tie on the dresser like a relic of a version of me I don’t love anymore. The sun is bleeding into the edge of the city when I hit the sidewalk. I can almost taste salt that isn’t here.
At 5:58, I step into the lobby.
At 5:59, I see them—Harris by the elevator, crisp as a threat; David beside him with a face that looks like it has said too many almost-apologies; a glass door that leads to a day that will try to make me invisible.
At 6:00, I square my shoulders and walk like gravity remembers who’s in charge, and for once, it isn’t the room.
And then—because the universe loves drama and I’m trying not to—my phone buzzes in my back pocket. I ignore it.It buzzes again. And again. The receptionist glances up. Harris’s eyes sharpen. David checks his watch like time could be trained.
On instinct, I pull the phone out. One text. Unknown number. A photo of the lantern room window shot from the bay at night, our silhouettes faint where brick meets glass.
Unknown:Beautiful view. would hate for anything to block it. 8 a.m. broadcast—don’t be late.
I look up, and Harris smiles like he didn’t just try to set the sky on fire with a match he can’t hold.
“Shall we?” he says.
I put the phone face down on the counter and tell my pulse to stop sprinting. If they want me afraid, they can watch me breathe instead.
“After you,” I say, and walk toward the elevator like a man who finally learned you can be terrified and still refuse to run.
Chapter Twenty-one – Bailey
The shop smells like paper and rain, the kind of scent that usually calms me, but today it feels like a weight pressing into my ribs. The storm outside finally broke overnight, and the lighthouse hums with it—low, constant, like a pulse I can’t match.
I’ve already wiped down the counter twice, restacked the front display, and alphabetized the new shipment of romances that came in this morning. Normally, I’d lose myself in it—spines lined like soldiers, covers gleaming under the soft light—but every time I touch one, I think of his hands instead.
He texted last night before bed:
Crew:Made it to Nashville. Don’t let Dean near the power tools.
I read it five times. Typed a dozen replies. Sent one.
Me: We’re fine. Miss you already.
And then—nothing.
