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.”
He stayed quiet; it was the only thing to do.
“I never said that out loud,” she said. “I painted around it. I walked it. I wrote it in sketch margins and then scribbled over it. But I didn’t say the words. It felt like betrayal.”
“It’s not,” he said.
“I know that now,” she said. “But back then, it felt like wanting anything meant I was choosing something over her. So I chose nothing. For a long time.”
He traced a slow circle on the back of her hand with his thumb. “And now?” he asked.
“Now I’m trying to choose,” she said. “Even when it’s terrifying. The warehouse. You. Telling my parents I’m staying. Using the insurance money for something important and for my future. It feels like shouting into the universe that I want a future. That I believe I might have one. I called Charlie and told him I was staying, and he sounded excited for me. He said Bryn would be proud of me. That means everything to me.”
He exhaled. “I wonder if he even knows how much you needed to hear that,” he said. “That’s survival.”
“What about you?” she asked, turning the question back on him. “What do you usually leave out?”
He looked out at the horizon, where the water met the sky in a hazy line. “People like the neat version,” he said. “Guy goes over there, sees bad things, comes home, rides fast to keep the ghosts quiet. Wins races, gets the girl. They don’t want to hear about the nights I drank too much just to sleep, or the time I stood in my parents’ garage and thought about turning on the car and closing the door.”
Her breath hitched; her fingers tightened around his.
“I didn’t,” he whispered. “Obviously. Colby walked in, looking for a torque wrench, and saw my face. He dragged me out by the shirt and sat me on the driveway and talked sports statistics at me for an hour until whatever had me by the throat loosened. Then he made me promise I’d tell him if the dark ever got that loud again.”
“Did you?” she asked.
“Not every time,” he said. “But enough. Every time I thought about not bothering anyone with my crap, I saw his face in that moment, the way it went white, and I made myself say something.”
She blinked hard. “Thank you,” she said. “For staying.”
He smiled, small and a little crooked. “Kind of glad I did,” he said. “Otherwise, I’d have missed out on you calling me responsible in public.”
“High praise,” she said.
The boat rocked gently; a gull cried somewhere overhead. The air tasted like salt and possibility.
