“Until lunch,” she agrees, and then remembers she owns a business. “Or until Ivy breaks in with muffins.”
“She would.”
We lie there, the ceiling fan whispering encouragement, and talk about nothing—lists for the week, the inspector’s surprisingly poetic signature, the way Rowan’s goat ate a cease notice like performance art. We don’t talk about Nashville yet. But the conversation moves toward it like a tide.
She traces the tape peeking from under my shirt. “You have the call with the GM tomorrow.”
“I do.”
“And you know what you’ll say?”
“I do,” I say, because I promised her slow and honest, and I intend to be both. “I’m not taking the mentor role because it’s cleaner for the press. I’ll take it if it’s right for me.”
“And if it’s not?”
“I walk,” I say, and feel the weight and light of it together. “I stay here more. I work the farm. I try my hand at commentating games; maybe broadcasting. I coach the high school kids if Coach Allen will let me. I read to otters with a British accent and let the internet roast me. I fix every hinge in this place twice.”
She smiles without looking at me, which means it’s the kind that belongs to herself. “I won’t let you give up something you love out of fear.”
“And I won’t keep something that only loves me when I’m useful.”
We go quiet. The wind fingers the lighthouse skin and makes the glass hum. The water hisses against the rocks like a whisper you tell yourself when you’re brave.
“I want you here,” she says, voice so soft I might be the only one who ever gets to hear it. “But not if here means small.”
“Here is not small,” I say, and kiss her knuckles for emphasis. “Here is precise. That’s harder.”
She turns her head and meets my mouth with hers like we’re signing something sacred. Then she sighs and rolls out of bed, sheet wrapped around her to preserve a shred of dignity we burned an hour ago. “We should open.”
“We did,” I murmur, not moving.
“Crew.”
“Fine.” I sit up, wince fresh, grin anyway. “I’ll make the porch respectable while you pretend to alphabetize and actually read.”
“Accurate,” she says, and kisses me once more, quick, like a tip.
Downstairs, the day resumes its small-town shape. Lila organizes a volunteer list with the quiet ferocity of a general. Ivy prints REOPENED signs that feature the otter puppet in a hard hat. Rowan replaces two loose shingles on the back addition while Dean times him and yells splits. Mrs. Winthrop returns with actual legal counsel (“He’s very handsome,” she confides, “and knows what a variance is.”). The inspector drops by “just to say we’re on the schedule,” and leaves with a lemon bar because kindness is our favorite weapon.
The GM calls earlier than expected. I take it on the side steps, looking at the water because it keeps my jaw from doing things my temper will regret.
“We want you,” he says. “But the room changed. You know that.”
“I do,” I say. “So let’s change with it.”
Pause. Papers shuffle. Someone murmurs offscreen. “You’re proposing…?”
“I come in as QB2 when needed,” I say. “Half season. I mentor Jax, not as a prop, but because he’s good and deserves someone who actually cares. I get Tuesday-Thursdays flexible so I can be in Coral Bell Cove when we have major town events—yes, I said town events—and you stop putting my personal life in your PR decks.”
He laughs like he respects me against his will. “That’s a lot of leverage for a guy with a shoulder the papers say is ‘hot garbage.’”
“Then don’t take it,” I say calmly. “But it’s the only way you get me and the town in the same season without wrecking both.”
“We can commit to a window,” he hedges. “Maybe not that wide.”
“Then commit to honesty,” I counter. “If I’m a brand to you, say it to my face. If I’m a man, treat me like one. If you want the comeback story, you get the parts that happen off the field, too.”
He sighs. “You were easier when you just threw.”
