“Don’t bid on anything that your brother baked,” I advise, pocketing the envelope like a talisman. “It’s mostly hubris and possibly fireworks.”
“I’ll save my wallet, then,” he says, then takes a deep breath. “You going?”
“I live in a lighthouse,” I say. “They can’t hold an event without me approving the lighting.”
He laughs. The laugh lodges under my breastbone. “See you there, Bailey.”
“See you,” I say, and it is not a vow, but it might be a map.
He goes. The bell hushes shut, the room inhales, and the pigeon, for once, looks satisfied.
I flip the porch light on and stand in it a second too long, like a moth who’s tired of pretending she isn’t drawn to heat. The bay slicks itself with stars. Somewhere far out on the water, a buoy clangs, and the sound threads the silence like a needle through cotton.
I touch the knot-burn on my palm—small, stinging, real—and decide I can live with a little heat.
I lock up, climb to bed, and fall asleep to the sense that the lighthouse doesn’t creak anymore. It settles. Houses remember the hands that tend them. Today, the house has ours.
And that’s either the best or the most dangerous thing I have done in years.
Chapter Four – Crew
The farm wakes up mean and pretty, same as always.
Dawn smears orange streaks across the pastures, and the barn smells like hay and rust and a childhood I keep trying to pick up without breaking. I’m in the gym corner of the old barn before the sun clears the pecans, band looped around the fence post, shoulder whining like it filed a complaint overnight.
“Easy,” Marcus says, stepping in to adjust my elbow. “Mobility first, heroics never.”
“You say that like you’ve met me,” I grunt.
“I keep hoping repetition will work where common sense has failed.”
I snort and keep moving. The band pulls, and I breathe. The joint remembers we’re doing this for the long haul, not the highlight reel. Sweat stings my eyes. Somewhere outside, Mom hums to her hens.
When we finish, Marcus jots notes and gives me the look he gives right before he says something I don’t want to hear.
“What?”
“Rest this afternoon,” he says. “And by rest, I meanrest.No acrobatics. No lifting hay bales to prove a point.”
I lift my good shoulder. “What about lifting my mouth into a smile at a town function against my will?”
“That’s cardio.”
“Great. Consider me compliant.”
He cracks a rare smile. “Harvest Bash?”
“Apparently, I’m pie-adjacent.” I grab a towel. “The committee thinks ‘community engagement’ will remind folks I’m a person and not a cautionary tale.”
“Are you bringing the person you keep not talking about?”
I stare him down. He lifts both hands like a cop in a sitcom and walks away whistling.
By the time I hit the kitchen, passing my brother, Rowan, and my brother-in-law, Dean, along the way, Lila’s at the table with three to-do lists, and Mom’s filling Tupperware dishes like the county might run out of food.
“There he is,” Lila says. “The reluctant celebrity.”
“Don’t say celebrity,” I say, opening the fridge.
