“I promised toforgive. Forgetting is highly overrated.”
“Then I’m doomed,” he said, kissing her wrist.
“You were doomed the day you met me,” she assured him.
She was right.
Cass sighed. “You two are intoxicating. Someone’s going to get hurt.”
“This isn’t anything,” Mary said, refilling her glass. “Romance is simply pretending or trying to get something from someone.”
Joe smiled. “Do you ever date, Mary? Accept some romance for yourself?”
“Once or twice. Never again.”
Tosh leaned forward. “What secrets are you hiding?”
“I have plenty of them,” she said. “None that you could handle.”
“Try me,” Tosh countered.
Mary’s eyes softened before she turned away. “You couldn’t afford the price.” She paused. “Some debts don’t get paid inmoney,” she added, so low that Harmony almost missed it. “They get paid on time.”
Zach gave a low whistle. “I’ll drink to that.”
They all did. The candles burned lower, their light painting everyone in shades of gold and shadow. Torie rested her chin on Tosh’s shoulder, whispering something that made him laugh. Cass told a story about sneaking into a casino as teenagers, and Harmony caught herself laughing, truly feeling like part of the group, her mind finally shutting down. She wanted to fully let go, but she didn’t know how. Maybe one day on the island, she’d learn.
Then Mary spoke again, voice sure. “Do you know what the problem with paradise is?”
Joe looked up. “What?”
“Everything grows too well,” she said. “Even the rot.”
The words silenced the table. The wind lifted the candle flames, stretching them tall before letting them flicker down again.
Cass reached for the bottle. “Then here’s to rot,” she said lightly. “May it make the flowers bloom.”
Everyone laughed again, but their laughter sounded softer this time, touched by an awareness that paradise always exacted a price. The mood at the table shifted subtly as they acknowledged what lingered beneath the evening’s joy.
The drive back to Avalon was subdued. The ocean glowed faintly in the moonlight, silver and secretive. Harmony’s hair smelled of salt and smoke. Her skin hummed with rum and stories she hadn’t yet written.
Headlights appeared in the rearview more than once, then vanished around curves. Once, as Mary checked her mirror, Harmony caught the brief glint of a light bar and the boxy outline of a deputy’s SUV before it backed off and disappeared into the dark.
Mary dropped everyone off in the center of town. Tosh and Torie were the last to leave, still whispering against each other’s lips.
Harmony lingered on the steps of her cottage, the night pressing close. Through the open window of Tosh’s bungalow, she saw Torie sitting on the edge of his bed, his phone glowing in her hand. Torie’s face was tight, her breath shallow—emotion gathering in her features as she scrolled, her eyes wide, then frozen. Harmony didn’t move. She simply watched, feeling the shift from carefree evening to a sudden, private tension.
Her first instinct was to look away, to give Torie privacy. Her second was to memorize the angle of Torie’s jaw, the tremble in her mouth—pain was always easiest to read in profile.
Torie’s lips parted as she let the pain show.
Harmony stepped back into the darkness. She felt a storm brewing. Jealousy could be a cold bitch. Once it started, there was no stopping it. It would be one hell of a show.
Somewhere nearby, a door shut softly, like someone else had decided they’d seen enough. From up the hill, a car door slammed. Harmony glanced toward the road, but whoever it was stayed out of sight. Voices carried faintly on the night air, then quieted, as if whoever had arrived chose to listen rather than leave.
She moved away from the cottage, the sea calling to her. The island was once again quiet, with most people inside. The tide rolled against the rocks with the same ancient rhythm, the one that made Harmony’s pulse match its beat.
For a fleeting moment, as she walked along the shore, she almost felt human again. She was warm from rum, dizzy from laughter, and full of something that might be joy. But she couldn’t fully relax—not when she could feel something in the air. There were eyes on her from somewhere high above the cliffs. It was something cold, still . . . and patient.
