“What?”
“Being outside. Not in a car going somewhere, not walking into a building for a meeting. Just... outside.” He drinks the coffee, eyes on the horizon. “I used to ride out here sometimes. Park the bike at the bottom of that trail and just sit on the rocks until my head cleared.”
“When's the last time you did that?”
He thinks. “Months, maybe. Work got busy. Life got complicated.” He glances at me. “And then you happened.”
“I complicated things?”
“You clarified them.” He says it simply, like it's obvious. “I spent years building ELK, proving I could make something on my own. I thought that was enough. Then you walked into that museum and I realized I'd been missing something I didn't know I needed.”
The croissant suddenly requires all my attention. I tear off a piece, hand it to him, take a piece for myself.
“This is really good,” I say around a mouthful of pastry.
“You're deflecting.”
“I'm enjoying baked goods. There's a difference.”
He chuckles. Some of the tightness in my chest eases. I'm not ready for big declarations. Not yet. But I can sit here with him, share a croissant, watch the waves.
That's enough for now.
The wind picks up, carries the cry of gulls and the distant sound of a dog barking on the beach below. Kaiden shifts closer, his thigh pressing against mine. Warmth bleeds through the fabric.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “For knowing I needed this.”
“You were turning gray. I was worried you'd start photosynthesizing if I didn't get you into actual sunlight.”
“I don't think that's how photosynthesis works.”
“I'm a marketing person, not a scientist.”
He takes another piece of croissant.
“This is really good,” he admits.
“Told you.”
We stay until the coffee is gone, the croissant nothing but crumbs, the sun starting its slow descent toward the water. The other car leaves. The vendor packs up his cart, wheels it away with a wave. Just us. The ocean. The wind. Golden light spilling across everything.
Kai takes my hand. His fingers are warm from the coffee cup, slightly sticky from the pastry. I don't mind.
“I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he says, so quiet I almost miss it.
“What do you mean?”
“This. You. It feels too good.” He stares at our joined hands. “I'm not used to things being good without a cost.”
I think about James. About the years I spent waiting for the kindness to curdle, the charm to turn cruel. About how I learned to flinch before I was even hit.
“Maybe the cost already came,” I say. “Maybe we already paid it, and this is what's left.”
He looks at me. His eyes the color of the ocean. I’m sinking into them.
“Maybe,” he says.
The sun dips lower. The sky turns pink, then orange, then the deep purple of a bruise healing.
