“There’s evidence.” But his hands were sliding my underwear down and his mouth found mine again. I stopped arguingbecause his fingers were between my thighs, sure and knowing, circling my clit with a focused patience that buckled my spine. I braced my hands on the counter edge and let my head fall back.
He watched me. That was the thing about Beau—he watched. Not showing off, not putting on a show. Paying attention the way he read a current or a tide chart, adjusting to every shift. His thumb pressed firm and two fingers slid inside me, curling, and the orgasm built fast and warm, gathering from everywhere at once.
“Right there—fuck—”
He held the rhythm. I came on his hand with the morning sun on my face, gasping, my heels digging into the small of his back. He kissed my temple while I shuddered through it, his fingers easing, gentle.
“Good?” The word was low enough to feel in my ribs.
“Get your shorts off.”
He did. I pulled him close, guided his cock inside me, and we both exhaled together, a sound that had nothing urgent in it. He moved inside me slowly, deeply, his forehead against mine, his hands steady on my hips. Light poured through the windows. The creek hummed beneath the floorboards. I wrapped my arms around his neck and matched his rhythm, and it felt like the first morning of a life I’d chosen, every part of it, and I wanted every one that came after.
I came again, quieter, a rolling wave that pulled through my whole body—and he followed, his breath catching, my name on his lips, his arms tight around me as he pressed deep and held.
We stayed there. Breathing. His chin on my shoulder, my legs still around him, the granite not designed for this but working out fine regardless.
“Your grits are cold,” he said.
“Worth it.” I slid off the counter, stole his spatula, and hip-checked him toward the stool. “Sit. I’ll make the next batch.”
His laugh sank into me. He kissed my hair and went to find his shorts while I reheated the grits and tossed the shrimp back in the cast iron.
THE CHANNEL 16 PINGcame while we were finishing breakfast.
Beau picked up his phone, read the message, and his mouth did that thing where he was trying not to smile and failing.
“Cal says the federal team confirmed your excavation funding. Full grant. Rhea’s already filed the university consortium paperwork.” He looked at me. “Your name, Marley. Lead researcher. It’s done.”
My spoon stopped halfway to my mouth.
I’d spent years chasing this. Underfunded, discredited, working from a boat most people had written off as a joke. And now my name was on a federal excavation grant for the most significant Civil War maritime discovery in a decade. The news had arrived via a group chat named after a marine radio frequency, delivered by a man in cargo shorts over a breakfast we’d had to make twice.
“Vik’s already texted four times,” Beau added, scrolling. “He wants to know if he can publish a preliminary analysis. He says, and I quote, ‘The customs ledger alone warrants a monograph.’ Three exclamation points.”
I laughed. It came out bright and startled, and it kept going. Because Vik was Vik, and this was my life now—a maritime historian who texted in exclamation points, a retired shrimper who’d fed us intel over biscuits, a security team that had stood between me and rifles. A whole town that had let me cling until I wasn’t clinging anymore.
“Tell Vik yes,” I said. “And tell him to credit his own archival work this time. I’m not letting him bury his contribution in a footnote.”
Beau typed the response. Looked up. “Captain Sunday says congratulations, and also that the shrimp off the south point are running early this year if you want to know.”
“I do want to know.”
“I figured.”
He set the phone down and leaned back across from me, arms folded, watching me with an expression I’d been seeing more of lately. Quiet, steady. He looked like a man who’d figured out what he wanted and had no plans to move.
I love you.
It surfaced without permission. Not a crash—a turning, whole and irreversible, the way the tide shifts when you’re not watching. It pressed against my ribs and filled my throat and sat there, enormous and undeniable, while I held a spoonful of shrimp and grits and my hair fell across my eyes.
“I love you.”
I heard myself say it. Out loud. Right at him. While holding a spoon.
The words landed in the kitchen between us and I couldn’t take them back and I didn’t want to. My stomach dropped and my face went hot and I set it down because my hands had started trembling, but I held his eyes because I’d meant it and I was done running from the things I meant.
He didn’t speak. For one terrible, endless second, he just looked at me. Then he crossed the kitchen in two steps, took my face in his hands, and kissed me with a certainty that went straight through me—steady, deep, reshaping everything it touched.
