“We’ll get used to each other again,” Eddie says, voice soft like he’s testing the sentence before letting it land.
“And will I get to choose how they remember me?”I ask.The question feels naked in the air.
“You could make a board,” Eddie offers, fingers steepling as if plans and images can hold a life.“Photos, song lyrics, things you want people to remember you by.”
“I’ll write a song,” Barret says before I can blink.His voice is quieter than I’ve ever heard—less bravado, more bone.“A stupid, awful love song if you want.Or something that sounds like you.”
He rises slowly, like a man moving through syrup, and then sits beside me.
Close.
Close enough that the heat from his thigh brushes mine.
He doesn’t crowd me.Barret’s hand finds the blanket at my feet for a heartbeat, then slides up, fingers ghosting over the edge of my hand until he cups it.
“Can I—” he begins, voice low, and stops as if afraid the next word might break what we both need.“Can I kiss you?”he asks, slow and careful, asking permission like it’s holy and dangerous all at once.
There’s an ache in me that answers before my mouth can make sense of it.I tilt my chin, a small, near-invisible yes.His thumb traces the cut at my knuckle—the memory of a stupid fall last month—and the tenderness of that small attention makes something unclench in my chest.He leans in, and the world contracts down to the line of his face, the brush of his breath, the scent of smoke and lemon and a life I am not ready to give up yet.
His lips find mine like returning home after being lost.The kiss is not tentative.It’s worship disguised as hunger.He presses there, then deeper, as if he’s trying to memorize the shape of me with a mouth that’s been starving for truth.The sound he makes—half-curse, half-plea—vibrates against me, and I taste metal and honey and something that feels like regret and relief braided together.
I answer with everything I have.My hands thread through his hair, tangling in the dark strands, and his other palm slides down my spine, warm and sure—the motion itself a promise:I’m here.He kisses me like he’s mapping the parts of me he wants to save and the parts he already knows he can’t fix.It’s brutal and tender in the same breath.
When he pulls back for air, our foreheads rest together.His lashes are dark against my skin, his breath ragged.“If later exists,” he whispers, voice raw.“I want to remember this.”
“Me too,” I confess, and the truth tastes like sin and salvation.
Eddie clears his throat like a professional stepping back into his role.“We’ll call Kit tomorrow morning.”
I want to ask Eddie if he wants to kiss me too, to make this not just mine and Barret’s but ours.The question sits at the edge of my words.His fingers find mine and curl around them, warm and patient.His eyes hold mine with something fierce and quiet, and in the press of his palm, there’s an answer that isn’t given to my lips but means as much:Later, when we’re both ready.
Barret’s hand tightens at my hip.The room tilts, full of promises we haven’t yet spoken but soon ...once we’re all ready, if we’re ever ready.
ChapterTwenty-One
NATIONAL BROADSHEET
Fiancée of Manhattan Financier Missing Near Montauk; Coast Guard Launches Search
By Lydia Maren, Staff Writer
MONTAUK, N.Y.— Authorities on Saturday began an air-and-sea search for Cleo Wilder, 30, reported missing near the bluffs east of Ditch Plains.The U.S.Coast Guard Station Montauk and Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau are coordinating efforts amid stiff swell and patchy fog.
Wilder, engaged to New York investor Dorian Thoreau, 32, was last believed to be visiting a private residence in the East End.Officials declined to speculate.“We are methodical and we are early,” a Coast Guard petty officer said.
A spokesperson for Thoreau asked for privacy: “The families are focused on aiding authorities.”
AP WIRE—
Search Underway Off Long Island for Missing Woman, 30
By Noah Jensen
MONTAUK, N.Y.(AP) — The Coast Guard and Suffolk County police have launched a search near Montauk Point after a woman identified as Cleo Wilder was reported missing.Boaters in Block Island Sound are asked to report any sightings of personal effects.
NEW YORK LEDGER
Thoreau Pleads for Information: ‘Please Help Bring Cleo Home’
