He signed the waiver on the clipboard, trying not to dwell on the words assumption of risk. The Marine in him cataloged wind speed, wave height, and the placement of nearby buoys; the part of him that had grown up spending summers at the lake remembered the feel of a boat under his hands and relaxed a notch.
Footsteps approached on the wooden planks. He turned; Bree walked toward him, hair pulled back in a low knot, sunglasses perched on her nose, a light sweater over her T-shirt. She carried a small canvas bag and her sketchbook.
“You look like a brochure,” he said.
She snorted. “If this ends with me falling in, I’m demanding a refund,” she said. “And I’m not paying extra for trauma.”
“I’ve got you,” he said.
“I know,” she replied.
He helped her into the boat, steadying her with his hands on her waist. The brief press of her body against his, the trust in the way she stepped down without looking, made something warm expand in his chest.
He untied the lines, pushed them off from the dock, and eased the throttle forward. The little boat responded smoothly, carving a path through the gentle chop.
They passed the harbor entrance slowly, idling near the breakwater while he got a feel for the engine. Gulls wheeled overhead; a larger fishing boat chugged by, its wake rolling under them.
“Okay?” he asked.
Bree sat on the padded bench beside him, one hand resting on the rail, the other shading her eyes. “More than okay,” she said. “This is… beautiful.”
Copper Moon spread out around them in a curve of shoreline; the boardwalk, the old lighthouse, the distant sparkle of the Cup banner still hanging near the civic center. From the water, the town looked both smaller and more solid, like a model someone had built with unusual care.
“Where to?” he asked.
“You’re the local now,” she said. “Show me your favorite view.”
He thought for a moment, then angled the bow south, toward a quieter stretch of coast. After a few minutes, the boardwalk noise faded; low cliffs took over, dotted with scrub pine and patches of wild grass. A narrow strip of sand appeared, tucked between two rocky outcrops.
He cut the engine and let them drift.
“This is where I come when the track noise gets too loud in my head, and there are too many people on the beach.”
She looked around, taking in the curve of the cove, the way the light hit the water. “You come out here alone?” she asked.
“Most of the time,” he said. “Sometimes Brian tags along and complains about the lack of burgers.”
She smiled. “I can see why you like it,” she said. “It feels… tucked away.”
“Protected,” he said.
He dropped the small anchor; the rope pulled taut, the boat settling into a gentle sway.
Bree took off her sunglasses and set them beside her. Her eyes were very green in the reflected light. “So,” she said. “What do people do on normal dates again? I feel like I skipped a chapter.”
“We sit,” he said. “We talk. Maybe we kiss, if the mood strikes. We do not have to make any decisions about mortgages or security systems for at least an hour.”
She let out a breath that sounded like relief. “That sounds perfect,” she said.
He leaned back, draping one arm along the back of the seat. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone,” he said. “No pressure.”
She laughed softly. “That’s low pressure to you?”
“Fine,” he said. “Tell me something you usually leave out when you tell your story.”
She looked down at the water for a long moment, watching the ripples.
“When Bryn died,” she said slowly, “everyone kept telling me to take my time, to not rush into anything. ‘Grief has no timeline,’ they said. So I did what they told me; I froze. I stopped everything. I took the safe jobs, the small pieces, the commissions that did not require me to feel anything. I kept my apartment like a shrine of Bryn’s things because I thought moving on meant leaving her behind. We didn’t live together, obviously, but I kept all the little things we’d picked up at festivals, art shows, and sister days.” She swallowed. “Little secret? Part of me was angry. At her. For dying and leaving me there to deal with life without her.”
