“Aidan,” Emma says. “Maybe not right now.”
Olson is not crying. His eyes are wet and his lip is trembling, but he's holding it together with thestubborn resolve of a boy who refused to believe in venom five minutes ago and is now dealing with the consequences.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
“Only a lot.”
“Vinegar will help. The lifeguard will fix you up.”
He looks at me—the face of a kid in pain, trusting a grumpy man to tell him it's going to be okay.
“You're going to be fine,” I say. And I mean it with more behind it than the words carry, and not enough courage to say the rest.
The lifeguard comes with vinegar and a first aid kit. Olson hisses when the vinegar hits but holds still. Mitch stands beside his brother—quiet twin solidarity.
I step back. The fixing is handled.
Emma is a few feet away, texting Lottie. Her hair is windblown and her cheeks are still pink and she's biting her lower lip.
We almost kissed. On a beach. In broad daylight. With wet hair and sand in my ears. The least romantic almost-kiss in history, and I would give everything I own to go back thirty seconds and finish it.
The lifeguard gives Olson a popsicle. Mitchgets one too, because you can't give one twin a thing without the other. Aidan gets one because Aidan simply walks up and holds out his hand with the quiet confidence of a boy who has never doubted that the universe will provide.
“I should get him home,” Emma says. “Lottie's going to want to see his hand.”
“The swelling will go down in a few hours. Keep it clean. Cool compress tonight.”
“Thank you. For knowing what to do.”
“I've been on the water my whole life. You learn what helps.”
A pause. Two people standing in the wreckage of a moment that almost happened.
“Paul—”
“We should?—”
Both stop. Both start. Neither finishes.
“You first,” she says.
I should say the real thing. The thing that honors the fact that for the first time in ten years, I leaned toward a person instead of away.
“You should put aloe on Olson's hand before bed,” I say. “It'll help with the sting.”
That's what I say. Aftercare instructions. Instead of telling this womanshe's the first person who has made me want to lean in since my wife died, I tell her about aloe vera.
Spencer men. A gift to romance.
Her face shifts—not disappointment exactly, but patience. She has figured out that the man in front of her only knows how to say what he means in the dark, through navigation lights and dock repairs and showing up before dawn.
“Aloe,” she says. “Got it.”
“I'll see you at the marina,” she says. Gentle. Not pushing. Not retreating. Just there. The way she's been since she docked that houseboat ten feet from my bow and ruined my silence and my routine and my conviction that I was fine alone.
“Yeah. See you there.”
She gathers the boys. Olson's hand is wrapped in gauze. Mitch is carrying the shovels. Aidan is walking backward, still narrating nematocyst mechanics to the open air and a seagull that seems moderately interested.
