It takesfifteen minutes to dig Paul out, mostly because the boys keep refilling the hole every time progress is made. When he finally stands, sand cascading off him, he looks like he's been through a war. His hair defies gravity. The scallop shell crown is still perched on top, and he either hasn't noticed or has decided that removing it would only draw attention.
He brushes himself off with methodical patience.
“You let them bury you,” I say.
He watches the boys, who have abandoned the hole and are running toward the water in a pack, yelling about the kraken following them to sea. Their legs are tan and sandy and their voices carry across the beach.
“Aidan said it would take five minutes.”
“Aidan says a lot of things.”
“He said dragons are the most important part of any sand fortress and that without a dragon the structural narrative falls apart.”
“The structural narrative.”
“I'm quoting directly.”
“He's never had—” Paul stops. Starts again. “Dawson wasn't like that. Even at that age. After Holly—” Another stop. He picks up the scallop shell from where it's fallen. Turns it over in his hands. “I forgot what that's like. Kids that loud. That sure about everything.”
My throat aches. Because I hear what he's not saying. Dawson was quiet because his mother died and his father went quiet and nobody remembered to be loud again.
“Aidan has never met a silence he didn't want to fill,” I say.
“That's not a bad quality.”
“Tell that to his teachers.”
A real smile. Not the almost-smile, not the corner twitch. An actual, genuine Paul Spencer smile that transforms his entire face and makes my heart do an ill-advised acrobatic move.
It lasts maybe two seconds. Thenhe catches himself, and the smile retreats behind the jaw and the crossed arms.
But I saw it.
“You have sand in your eyebrows,” I tell him, because if I say what I'm actually thinking I will embarrass both of us.
“I have sand in my soul.”
“That's the most dramatic thing you've ever said.”
“Being buried alive by children changes a man.”
The boys are knee-deep in the surf now, jumping waves and screaming. Everything is loud and messy and alive the way childhood is supposed to be—salty and full of imaginary monsters that can be defeated with shovels and bravery.
Paul is standing next to me. Not close—two feet of respectable, neighborly distance. But he's not leaving. He's not walking to his truck or finding an excuse to be elsewhere. He's just standing on the beach, covered in sand, watching three kids fight the ocean. And when he thinks I'm not looking, the smile comes back.
I'm always looking. That's my whole problem.
“I should thank you,” I say. “For the running light.”
He goes still. Not frozen—more the way water goes flat right before the tide turns.
“It was a safety issue,” he says.
“I know. You told me about twelve times before you fixed it yourself.” I keep my eyes on the water. “Thank you for making sure nobody hits me in the dark.”
Silence. The good kind—full instead of empty.
“You're welcome,” he says. Then, so quietly I almost miss it over the waves: “I couldn't sleep knowing it was out.”
