She moves into the space between us, thigh pressing fully against mine now. The warmth of her seeps through denim and muscle, straight into bone.
“I don’t want to rush it,” she says, eyes searching mine. “But I also don’t want to pretend I don’t want you.”
My breath leaves in a rush. “Then don’t.”
Her hand finds my wrist, fingers sliding down to my palm like she’s tracing all the times we almost held hands and didn’t. She laces our fingers together, squeezing gently.
The storm rattles the windows. The lighthouse beam sweeps. Somewhere in town, a transformer pops, and the lights flicker once.
We don’t move.
“I’m scared,” she says suddenly, voice barely above a whisper.
I squeeze her hand. “Of what?”
She takes a shaky breath. “Of losing you again. Of… getting this wrong. Of giving you all my pages and finding out you only wanted the highlight reel.”
I swallow hard. “Bailey,” I say, my voice rough. “I’ve already seen the messy chapters. I was there for some of them, remember?”
Her laugh is watery. “You caused a couple.”
“Yeah.” The word tastes like regret and hope. “And I’ve spent a long time trying to figure out how to be worthy of a second read.”
She stares at me for a long moment, like she’s weighing something big and breakable in her hands.
Then she shifts closer, swinging a leg over my lap in one smooth, hesitant motion, settling down so she’s straddling me.
My hands fly to her hips on instinct, fingers flexing against the denim. My brain short-circuits.
“Bailey,” I rasp.
“I’m choosing,” she says, eyes steady on mine. “I get to do that, remember?”
“Yeah,” I manage. “You do.”
She cups my face again, thumbs brushing my cheekbones. “Then let me.”
Her mouth finds mine, slow and deliberate, and this time there’s no tentative edge. No testing. Just the quiet, fierce certainty of a decision made and remade.
I kiss her back, pouring all the words I don’t trust myself to say into the press of my lips, the angle of my jaw, the way my hands tighten on her waist like she’s the only solid thing in a world that keeps shifting.
Her fingers slide into my hair, tugging gently, and a sound escapes my chest I wouldn’t recognize on a replay. She swallows it with a soft, desperate noise of her own.
The storm rages outside. Up here, the world narrows to the couch, the heat of her thighs bracketing my hips, and the taste of chocolate and peppermint on her tongue.
She breaks the kiss first, breathing hard, forehead resting against mine. “Crew,” she whispers. “I want—”
She doesn’t finish, but I know. I know because it’s the same want that’s been sitting in my chest like a live wire every time I’ve looked at her for years.
My pulse pounds in my ears. “If we go there,” I say hoarsely, “I’m not going to be able to… pretend this is casual. That it’s just a storm thing.”
“I don’t want casual,” she says immediately. “If I wanted casual, I’d be at the bar making bad decisions with tourists who mispronounce ‘Coral Bell Cove.’”
“Fair.” My smile is thin, shaky. “You deserve better than my version of bad decisions anyway.”
Her hands slide down my neck to my shoulders, fingers splaying over my chest like she’s memorizing the shape of me. “I deserve someone who shows up,” she says. “Who doesn’t run the second things get messy. Who lets me be messy.”
“I’m right here,” I say.
