“So were you,” I say. “And you deserved a man even then.”
Her breath fogs. “Heroics don’t fix it.”
“I know,” I say. “But I can tell the truth about it. And I can do better now if you let me. If you don’t, I’ll still do better. You just won’t have to see it.”
We look at each other long enough for the cold to find the open edges of our clothes. The lights back onshore swing in their own breeze. Somewhere behind us, Ivy’s voice climbs a scale and rides it like a bird that finally remembered the air is hers.
Bailey breaks first, but it’s not retreat. It’s mercy. “You paid four hundred dollars for cookies,” she says, mouth curving. “You get at least one.”
“Just one?”
“Don’t be greedy.”
“Can I be specific? Chocolate chip?”
“Chaos,” she says automatically, and then blinks because she already knows the whole stupid lexicon of my life.
We start back toward the park. On the last plank before dirt, my boot slips. Reflex has me grabbing for the rail with my left hand. Her hand hits my chest at the same time—steadying me, steadying us—and stays there a beat longer than gravity requires.
The air goes loud as blood.
“Careful,” she says, not moving her hand.
“I’m trying,” I answer, not moving mine when it finds her wrist.
We stand like idiots with our bodies inventing a language we’re barely qualified to speak. Then she slides her hand away. I let her, yet she doesn’t step far.
At the gazebo, the band counts off. Ivy leans into the mic, eyes on the crowd like she’s about to make trouble and call it harmony. I stand beside Bailey in the soft spill of light and pretend the beating thing in my chest is a drum the band can hear.
“Tomorrow,” I say, surprising myself because the word sounds like a plan.
She arches a brow. “What’s tomorrow?”
“Lantern inspection,” I say. “And cookies.”
She pretends to deliberate. “Bring your own thermos.”
“Always.”
We don’t touch again. We don’t kiss. We don’t make promises with our mouths that our bodies can’t hold. We just stand there while Ivy sings something that sounds like the start of a life, and for once, I don’t mind being seen.
When the song ends, and the crowd roars, and the night leans in close, I know two things with the clean certainty rehab never gives me: I am not running. And I am not playing to the cameras that secretly film my every move.
I’m playing to the light.
Which is to say, I’m playing to her.
Chapter Five – Bailey
The day after the Harvest Bash tastes like cinnamon and consequences.
I unlock the door toA Page in Timewith one hand and balance a paper bag of Daisy’s “I Won’t Bake Again Until Noon (Lie)” pastries on my hip with the other. The porch boards are still damp from last night’s fog; the string lights I forgot to take down from the windows glow faintly in the gray. I’m not saying I left them up for ambience. I’m saying I left them up because they make the lighthouse look like it took a deep breath and remembered it was allowed to be pretty.
Inside, I flick on the lamps, and the shop wakes in warm layers—brass, wood, paper, and sea-salt air sneaking through the old casements. The espresso machine hisses as if it’s rolling its shoulders, which is rude because I’m the one who tied rope knots until my palms stung and then stood in a park pretending I didn’t notice a six-foot-something problem bidding on cookies like a man with intent.
Not a date, I remind the ceiling. A fundraiser. A basket. A rash decision made by a quarterback with generous pockets.
The ceiling, as usual, refuses to referee.
